author: Marion Galy-Ramounot
translation: GoogleTranslate/doxa-louise
(Excerpts from) an interview with ESTHER PEREL, New York sexologist and
couples therapy consellor
"I do think that women's lives will not change fundamentally until men have had the opportunity to change too. The world is concerned about the power of men and what they do with it, but in reality it is not their power that must be attacked but their fear of helplessness. You know, the word "loser" does not exist in the feminine. A woman is not afraid to say "I am not a woman". She is not afraid to lose her identity, because she has her period, because she has children ... But a man, he has only his penis, and he lives under its rule, in the fear of not being a man if the latter does not work as he wishes. So he does everything he can to be powerful and virile everywhere. And this entails the negation of his emotions.
"Until 5 or 6 years old, a boy is no different than a girl. He retains contact with his vulnerability, he knows how to decode his emotional environment, he knows how to respond in a direct emotional way, he is in contact with his emotions and the emotions of others. And then something happens between 6 and 7 years old at school. There, in a very unconscious way, he realizes that this is not what is expected of him. He begins to integrate the code of masculinity. He understands that to be a man you have to be strong, not show your fear, especially not be afraid, not be vulnerable, you have to play even when it hurts, you have to be self-sufficient. I believe that this false autonomy, this fear of dependence, puts him on a trajectory in which the construction of masculinity is established on the rejection of the feminine.
"In the 1980s, men were talking about the absence of the father. Today, they speak on the contrary of the presence of the father, of the one they want to be. One of the big changes in masculinity is fatherhood. The man of today is no longer just there to be the disciplinarian or to bring back the money at home. He too can be an emotional entity. The roles are redefined. And it especially upsets the woman, who has always believed that she was the number one parent, the number one expert, that she had no public power but all the private power. Today, this same woman claims public power but is not always ready to give up private power. She wants her man to be more vulnerable, but not too much. Because if he himself is afraid of crumbling, if the tears begin to flow, she too will be afraid that he will collapse. And if he collapses, she'll tell herself that he's becoming a child, and children she already haves! "
There are many men who would be better parents at home than their wives.
"We are not equal. We are not the same. The goal is not that we become so. A very stupid example: there are many more men who would be better parents in the home than their wives. But are these women ready to say: "I see him as a man if he stays home"? This is the hypocrisy of women. Today, they are quite willing to say that they do not want to raise their children, that this is not where they shine. They agree to see each other differently, but they are not yet ready to see the man differently. And neither is he! The patriarchal model is not dead, far from it. There is even some resurgence of this model. Historically, whenever men see their lives become more precarious, and they have less certainty about their role, or they feel that their authority and their power are threatened, very often this is accompanied by a rise of fascism. An authoritarian system in which men find themselves because they are told clearly what is right, what is not right, what is right or not right to do. Authoritarianism is always linked to a loss of authority by men. With emerging leaders such as - Erdogan, Putin, Trump ...
"I think #MeToo put the finger on one of the oldest exchange markets we've ever known. Historically, men have had access to youth and sexuality through their power and wealth. Women have gained access to power and public status through their youth and sexuality. Everyone drew on his resources to negotiate what he would not otherwise have had access to. It's a double market, an old market. But #MeToo says: women do not want this exchange anymore, they do not want to play with the rules imposed by the men or women of previous generations. And that's where I think #MeToo is talking more about a gap between women than a gap between men and women. What women of my age have accepted as normal, as the price to pay, 25-year-old women will never let men do again. #MeToo is less a question of gender than a question of generation, and of how power relations are negotiated.
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