Questions for Men about Man-Making

Question 8. Learning About Women

How did you learn (directly or indirectly) about how to have relationships with the women in your life? Who taught you how to treat women... how to love, argue, romance, do money with, take care of, commit to or "love em and leave em?"

• Did you learn by watching your mom and dad, other relatives, TV, movies, or the neighbors?
• Did you get any direct lessons... "a man always..." from anyone? Did the older boys tell or show you what to do?
• Name an important lesson, the teacher and the value of the lesson, for better or worse, as you've progressed toward manhood.

(Return to all the Questions for Men)

ANDRE - 62: I have come to the personal conclusion that, for all their care and nurturing, women aren't really able to truly understand men and boys. That should come as no surprise. Women are aghast that we men would ever think that we understand women...

I worry a great deal about boys living with single moms. For all the great work they do, these moms still can't possibly understand what boys go through in the process of becoming a man.

Single moms should find male mentors for their boys. Programs like Big Brothers, or "special friends" attached to many social service agencies, provide men who are willing and able to provide safe mentoring for boys.

I have been deeply influenced by Michael Gurian's views, tempered slightly by William Pollock's, on boys' needs..

GARY - 51: Sadly, one of the earliest messages I learned about being a man when arguing with a woman was to "let it go in one ear and out the other." When in conflict with women, men sit and take it, waiting for the storm to pass.

Shawn - 19: I am a 19 year old "boy". Later I will explain why "boy" is quoted. At the age of 4, my father left my family and moved across the country. My family being low income as they were, could never imagine sending me to him for visitation. My father and I have kept in touch, faintly over the years (phone). So, it was my mother, Sister, Aunt, Grandma and myself.

For the past 15 years I have been mostly raised by women. My mother, told me all of the horrible things of "men", how stupid they were and inconsiderate; in her everlasting hope that "you will be different". Forever I have thought this was some sort of gift, if men WERE so horrible then I was blessed to be raised by mostly women?? Right?!?

Then I become a young teen and my family pulled the old "youre the man, you mow the grass!" Routine. Well ok, now I am supposed to be the man, like every other man, but still different. I can handle that. Mid-teens came along and I started a relationship (with a young lady), despite the fact that I was frozen solid with fear of being "typical".

Eventually, with time and patience, I overcame the fears and settled into a more masculine role. However, it is not complete. This is why I say I am a "Boy". I have always known that when the time came to venture and travel to my Pseudo-father, and discover who I am through knowing him, I would undoubtedly have an undeniable urge to do so. That time is now. I know that deep within myself is a pure energy of being who I am, a man. I can feel it. My father is my only connection to my last name, both of his parents are deceased and I have no aunts or uncles on his side.

If it takes my traveling across the world to draw out my manhood I will do so, to know myself, to know my role and to know my destiny.

Michael - 48: I learned about how to treat women from a variety of sources. First, dad taught me to treat a woman with respect... pull out their chair, open their door, stand up when they sat at the table. I observed how he treated my mom if she was dressed up and they were going out, and he did all this stuff. But if it was "everyday", he didn't. Also, sometimes after a couple of brandys, he didn't do any of it.

My dad also taught me that women were not as smart with his comments like "woman driver" and making fun of my mom if she didn't get what he was saying. At the same time, he taught me to put your tail between your legs and shut up if they were angry and don't even think of fighting back because you will lose.

I also learned about women from my karate instructor who asked me "are you getting any?" When I told him about my girlfriend. I told him "She's not that kind of girl," and he said, "My friend, they are ALL that kind of girl."

The 60's and 70's taught me, ala James Bond and movies, that women were objects of desire and lust. I remember one study showed that men who watched James Bond movies were a lot less likely to have satisfying relationships.

It took a lot of maturing to reframe and unlearn/relearn my approach to women. Today, my faith in Jesus Christ has made the biggest change for me in my thinking. I follow His word more closely now and feel alive and very healthy about how I view women. It's so pure and loving now. TOTAL transformation.

ALAN - 62 - Australia: As a boy, I was extremely confused about other people. I though all men had to be sort of rough exterior, muscular, un-chatty, disciplinarian people like my dad. If they weren't, then they were not fully men. Women were either doting and smothering like my mum - people who I was afraid to be honest with, because I didn't want to hurt them...; or vicious and dominating like my sister; or teasing and making fun of me.

I knew absolutely nothing about sex. And I knew equally nothing about what one had to do to become a man - except work in the fields growing crops, like my dad did. Where babies came from I did not know, until my late teens. How they were made, or what one did to make them be made, again I no idea.

Socially, boys were "to be seen and not heard." Without girlfriends, and without a closely-knit group of boys to hang around with, I was from an early age a loner. It was easier to be alone, than try to join a group for play and be pushed out in tears.

Conversation, any more than the basic question-and-reply, short-lived variety, was not something I experienced much before my early 40s.Sports, fooling around, getting into trouble, chatting up girls, trying sex, dating - these presumably are the transitional male things. I did none of these. The good times of warmth and intimacy that I have just occasionally experienced with males help to convince me that I am not a "normal" man.

Now, as a 62 year old gay man, I look on men who have been fathers as more masculine than I am. However, I have survived, haven't I? So maybe there is something male about me which is to be honored. And now, more and more, I yearn to be a father to a young man. Yet will society ever entrust me to that role?

Phil-59: I learned to relate to women through my relationship with my mother; and through what my father modeled and advised.My father always said to be polite to women, open the door for them, be a gentlemen. He also said tonever rush sex and always be sure they have an orgasm.

My mother was a strong woman who createdher own businesscareer when it was unpopular for women to work. I have always been attracted to strong women. Growing up I learned to take care of my mother's feelings. As an adult I take care of the feelings of the primary woman in my life, not as much now as I used to. I have painfully learned not to give myself away for the sake of someone else.

Anger was not expressed in my family. My parents never argued. The tension would build up between them, my mother would shut down the more the tension grew, my father would finally blow with rage. I remember seeing a frying pan sail across the living room once and bounce off a wall. My father would leave for several weeks or months, then my parents would make up and he would move back home. As an adult I followed in my mother's footsteps, emotionally shutting down the worse the tensionbecame in my marriage. It took a divorcecoupled withyearsoftherapy and personal growthin order for me to fullyunderstand my own anger, and how to express "healthy" anger.

Because of the deepness of my emotional relationship with my mother, I have never wanted to be with a woman who was emotionally shallow. This has made it impossible for me to seek or enjoysex (with a prostitute or a one night stand,for example), because I desire an emotional connection to go withmy sexual experience.

Because I had a weak and absent father I struggle with how to have friendships with men, because most men, in my experience,don't want to hear or express deep feelings, it seems to make them uncomfortable. I have the capacity to go deep into my feelings, and I have learned to regulate how deep I go depending on who I am with.And sometimes I fight with myself over saying anything at all because I don't want to blow the friendship.

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