Читать книгу Secrets About Men Every Woman Should Know - Barbara Angelis De - Страница 15

“It’s a boy!” the doctor announces, and from that moment on, this tiny male person is treated differently from the baby girl in the next delivery room. Consider these facts, compiled from a variety of research studies.

Parents of newborn male babies tend to describe their sons as firmer, larger, more alert, stronger, and hardier. Parents of newborn female babies describe their daughters as adorable, softer, smaller, prettier, and more delicate. The parents actually believe their child exhibits these characteristics, even though according to the hospital reports, there is usually little or no difference between the two groups of infants.

Parents tend to place more demands on little boys than on little girls, expecting them to be more responsible and take more risks.

Parents push boys rather than girls to be independent. They offer less comfort to sons than to daughters when the child is frightened or injured, and they give boys greater freedom at an earlier age than they do girls.

Parents encourage boys to control their emotions, and girls to express theirs. Boys are taught that it isn’t manly to feel strong emotions, not only those emotions considered “weak” such as fear or sadness, but even passion, need, and intense love. In his book Male Sexuality, Dr. Bernie Zilbergeld describes how boys are trained to view showing their feelings:

(They) learn early that only a narrow range of emotion is permitted … aggressiveness, competitiveness, anger, … and the feelings associated with being in control. As we grow older, sexual feelings are added to the list. weakness, confusion, fear, vulnerability, tenderness, compassion and sensuality are allowed only to girls and women. A boy who exhibits any such traits is likely to be made fun of and called a sissy or a girl (and what could be more devastating?).

These days many new parents attempt to avoid stereotyping their children based on gender. But most of the adult men you and I are having relationships with are victims of this early-childhood conditioning.