I also see traditional masculinity being less of an influence.
In my generation (Generation X) and younger, girls grew up with "Girl Power" "Girls can do anything!", Punky Brewster, Riot Grrls, Geraldine Ferrarro being the first woman vice presidential candidate, and Hillary Clinton. Boys on the other hand are discouraged from being boys. It's sort of like girls/women can be Everything, and boys are just sort of reduced to being emasculated figures who can't grow up to be either women or men. Women don't even need men to get pregnant, anymore. They can go to the sperm bank. The choice of whether a father is in the life of their baby is the woman's, not the man's. However, a man who wants a baby and wants to raise that baby pretty much still needs a wife and if there's a divorce, he has to fight like hell.
In my generation it seems like more girls grow up to wear the power suit while a lot of guys remain in a psychosexual state of perpetual boyhood.
Some of these "nice guys" try to approach women like a female friend approaches a woman. It does not work any more than women being "one of the guys" gets women dates.
These guys also don't tend to be very guy-identified.
Last edited by fascinoma; 04-04-2008 at 11:13 PM.
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