Manly Behavior

[shiner]

In most non western cultures it is common and accepted for men to scream and yell at their wife and children. Everytime something goes wrong the prototypical man's first reaction is to yell, placing blame on whoever is around him. He is thus respected for being THE MAN. Armenian men are champions at this.

 

In Western cultures the above behavior is a sign of weakness. If you are THE MAN you are supposed to handle everything and not let anything get to you. You are supposed to be "cool" under all circumstances, and should a problem arise you are supposed to handle it with tact. If you can't handle it you are expected to at least put up with it and not create a scene as a result of your inability.

 

The second group makes the first group look like a bunch of overgrown momma's boys.

 

Have any of you noticed this sociological phenomenon? What do you think?

[Harut]

The second group makes the first group look like a bunch of overgrown momma's boys.

well, depends how you look at it. one might say, the first group makes the second group look like a bunch of p*****s.

 

btw, i think the yelling comes not from the inability to maintain the control, but from the fact that it is easier to maintain the control that way than use logical arguments, negotiation techniques, and other Western "crap".

[hyebruin]

yelling just means that you're OUT OF CONTROL!!! period!!

it is the ultimate sign of weakness!!!if you react to EVERYTHING around you, you might scare some people, but that does not imply that you have it together,a nd ultimately shows lack of power...it's just stretching your vocal cords to their limits!! <_<

[Harut]

yelling just means that you're OUT OF CONTROL!!!

excactlly, and it's meant to bring back that lost control.

[THOTH]

Agree 100% Bruin...though I must say - having kids (boys!) really makes it tough...I don't scream per se...but sometimes its tough not too...and yeah - I do yell at them on occasion/frequently...seems like when/if I don't I sometimes can't get through to them - not just my seriousness/concern...but for them to realize that I'm even saying anything to them at all...LOL

 

I never yell at my wife BTW (maybe sanp at her...once or twise a year at most...and only when really pushed...) - she does most all the yelling (at me!) LOL - sad ...but to some degree true....not to bad though...

[Azat]

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS CRAP HERE BTAC?

 

I NEVER yell at my wife and kids. Oh wait I don't have a wife a kids. Okay no more joking.

 

I guess I must be westernized because I think people who have to yell to get the point across are fools and are out of control.

[Sasun]

In Western cultures the above behavior is a sign of weakness.

Also a sign of sickness. It is recommeded to consult a psychiatrist when anger gets out of hand (anger management I guess).

 

As for typical Armenian men, if they don't get angry it is usually seen as a sign of indecisiveness and weakness. A lot of women in Armenia (traditional or not so traditional ones) like it when a man gets angry and yells. Of course all within limits (and the limits vary from person to person), I mean when there is a cause to be angry. Some Armenian women also appreciate when their man yells and swaers heavily. (This reminds me a Russian saying, if a man doesn't beat up his woman then he doesn't love her).

[Harut]

Sasun

have you seen "Yerb Galis E September@"?

[Sasun]

Sasun

have you seen "Yerb Galis E September@"?

Ayo ayo, long time ago.

[-=VAHE=-]

Well said by Harut and Sasun

 

Screaming, Yelling and crying can be very useful tools to get what you want and not using them might put you to a disadvantage lol

[MosJan]

Yelling and crying ? at the same time ??? or do i start yelling first then crying ? or haw do we do this.

[Accelerated]

Interesting article I just read, some relevance to the topic:

 

Pain of the modern male eunuch

 

Attacks on the male identity in a post-feminist world have eroded men's sense of self-worth, writes Miranda Devine.

 

At the state funeral for former Labor senator Don Willesee in Perth this week, he was lauded as a "great and humble Australian leader". This singling out of his humility as a virtue, in the eulogy by the former Labor leader, Kim Beazley, was a striking reminder of a characteristic whose desirability has all but disappeared.

 

By all accounts Willesee, who was foreign minister in the Whitlam government and who died last week at 87, was a man to look up to. But where once it was the mark of an accomplished and powerful man to behave in a humble, self-effacing way, today humility is just for weaklings and losers. Winners are supposed to shove their superiority in your face.

 

We have taken to heart the joke Winston Churchill once told against a political enemy that he was "a humble man, with much to be humble about".

 

In a world where self-esteem rules and where being top dog or, at least, believing you are top dog, is everything, the last characteristic parents want to instil in their children is humility.

 

And yet in Willesee's day humility was one sign of a man's strength and self-knowledge, a noble characteristic which tempered his power, but enhanced his masculinity. Today it is but one example of a raft of manly virtues which have been devalued and scorned in an era in which the very concept of masculinity is under attack, to be replaced by attributes alien to the average man.

 

For instance, what is the average man to make of ads for hair-removal treatments in which a woman recoils from the embrace of a hairy-chested man in the before shot and, in the after shot, when he is hairless, she can't keep her hands off him?

 

Then there was the recent launch of two men's fashion magazines, Men's Style and the new GQ, along with the Herald's Good Living fashion magazine for men last week. All were jam-packed with cosmetic and toiletry ads and featured male models who looked positively girlish, hairless, hollow-cheeked, full-lipped, with a wispy long-haired languidness that used to be the province of the younger sister in a Jane Austen novel. The new masculine metrosexual ideal seems to be imposing the same tyranny of lookism on men which women have long endured.

 

Along with the changing roles of men in a post-feminist world, comes a new condition identified by British psychotherapists as the "Atlas syndrome", in which men crack under the strain of juggling a new role as superdad and perfect husband with the traditional role as breadwinner.

 

We have even had science get in on the man-attack, with news last month from Oxford University that the Y chromosome, the piece of DNA that differentiates men from women is set for extinction. In a new book, Adam's Curse, Oxford genetics professor Bryan Sykes claims the Y chromosome is disintegrating and the future for humanity is women reproducing themselves by genetic manipulation.

 

If advertising and popular culture is a reflection of reality, then ads which depict men as incompetent flakes are cause for concern. There is the ad showing a bumbling man bamboozled by a bra. There are the Baileys ads with men as the butt of the joke, incapable of doing laundry without shrinking it. The overall effect is of female empowerment at the expense of men.

 

"There are some very negative images of men at the present time," Terry Melvin, manager of the counselling service Men's Line Australia, said yesterday. "They are indicators of some important cultural shifts happening around men and masculinity."

 

As men have been encouraged to become more active fathers, conflict arises with women who may feel men are encroaching on their realm. "There is a challenge for women to let go of some of their control as homemakers and mothers. There is a grinding of the two templates of the man's and woman's world, each wanting to redefine who they are," says Melvin.

 

He says research into "gender role strain" has identified the internal psychological conflict experienced by men "when the reality of who they are hits up against the image of what a man is, the optimal masculinity".

 

Melvin says men find it more difficult than women to cope with divorce and separation, with separated men nine times more likely to commit suicide than women. The break-ups are more commonly instigated by women, which Melvin attributes to women's "changing expectations of men and intimacy".

 

Of the 30,000 calls the Men's Line has received in its two years of operation, 80 per cent are about family and relationship problems, with at least two calls a day from men who are suicidal. It is the only counselling hotline dedicated to men in the country, and Melvin says: "We are run off our feet." Sadly, there was a big increase in calls from distressed men on Father's Day.

 

Fights over access to their children only deepen men's despair. Lindsay Claxton, a psychotherapist who runs men's counselling groups in Melbourne, said yesterday at least one in 10 men he sees feels he has been discriminated against by the Family Court. In a speech to counsellors last year he said men are getting negative messages from the court that their "value as fathers consists mainly in the provision of money which can just as easily be done in absentia as at home".

 

Anger at broken relationships, coupled with a masculine ideal they have no hope of meeting and an epidemic of man-bashing in popular culture, leads to challenged self-worth at best for men. At its extreme it can lead to the kind of tragic murder-suicide we witnessed in Sydney this week, as the most vulnerable pay the price and men who are supposed to be protectors become the enemy. It is as C.S Lewis once wrote, as if we are making "men without chests".

 

"We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst," he wrote in The Abolition of Man. "We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful."

[Stormig]

Not a man, but like Thoth says some people need to be shouted at to know they're being talked to. Take my brother - because he's such a degenerate piece of teenage garbage, he doesn't listen what his family (that includes me) tells him to do (or not do), not with his life but things that concern us altogether, say. On one occasion, my parents were away to shop and there was something he was doing which I told him not to. He didn't listen to me. I told him the second time. Again he didn't listen. I told him the third time. Nada. Then I woke up the neighbourhood in an uproar and my grandmother rushed in, "What's happening with these children???" My brother was calling me all sorts of names and asking me why I was shouting and I was blasting away with the same words, until he stopped what he was doing and I promptly shut up. Sometimes people leave no choice. Haven't had much occasion where I had to do that outside family (hey, what do I care?), except when not left alone and being pestered as a tourist.

[Alexx]

As for typical Armenian men, if they don't get angry it is usually seen as a sign of indecisiveness and weakness. A lot of women in Armenia (traditional or not so traditional ones) like it when a man gets angry and yells. Of course all within limits (and the limits vary from person to person), I mean when there is a cause to be angry. Some Armenian women also appreciate when their man yells and swaers heavily. (This reminds me a Russian saying, if a man doesn't beat up his woman then he doesn't love her).

You must be joking! I am an Armenian woman and even though young, still a traditional one in many ways. Here is my take on it. If a man or a woman for that matter yells at me, I WILL ignore him/her. There are more acceptable ways to express anger/frustration. If the yelling is unintentional, that person better apologize. I think no self respecting woman would like to be yelled at. Only those who don't know any better might like it. Those who get attention from their spouses only when they're yelling and cussing at them perhaps and any attention than none maybe is preferable to them. Those who delude themselves into thinking that all men do that and therefore come to expect it. Those who have been brainwashed all their lives that men somehow are superior than them and therefore they must obey them no matter what.

[Sasun]

What I meant is not like a lot of Armenian women enjoy being yelled at constantly. What I mean is, if a man doesn't yell at all the woman has less esteem for him. And there is usually a reason for that. Suppose a woman is trying to control the husband and tell him all kinds of things, perhaps angrily. The husband keeps silent or maybe tries to excuse himself with a lower tone. Now, that is not a typical Armenian scenario. A typical Armenian woman will have less respect for him and will treat him even worse. That's not good, IMO. It is better to yell at the woman and keep her in limits

[Sasun]

There are more acceptable ways to express anger/frustration.

 

How else could one express anger/frustration? Well, there are different ways of yelling. Other than that, what else could one do to express anger ? Maybe crying ? LOL

[Sasun]

Those who have been brainwashed all their lives that men somehow are superior than them and therefore they must obey them no matter what.

 

You are traditional, didn't you know that men are superior ? :) ok, ok, just kidding....

[Alexx]

What I meant is not like a lot of Armenian women enjoy being yelled at constantly. What I mean is, if a man doesn't yell at all the woman has less esteem for him. And there is usually a reason for that. Suppose a woman is trying to control the husband and tell him all kinds of things, perhaps angrily. The husband keeps silent or maybe tries to excuse himself with a lower tone. Now, that is not a typical Armenian scenario. A typical Armenian woman will have less respect for him and will treat him even worse.

In a HEALTHY relationship, neither the wife or the husband should be trying to control the other. I don't think a man needs to yell to maintain his manhood and place in the family.

[Alexx]

It is better to yell at the woman and keep her in limits

And what would those be? "You won't get yelled at as long as you do as I say, perhaps?"

[Alexx]

How else could one express anger/frustration? Well, there are different ways of yelling. Other than that, what else could one do to express anger ? Maybe crying ? LOL

Oh, I think one can remove himself/herself from the unpleasant situation and return when ready to deal with it rationally. Taking the time to explain what makes one angry/frustrated without assigning any guilt/blame to the other person and clarifying one's expectations of the other person in that situation would be the next step. Expressing anger through yelling is a temporary solution to the problem at best. Most of the time yelling will get the person on the receiving end of it defensive and result in more conflict.

[-=VAHE=-]

Ahhh you guys are crack heads who freaking criticizes yelling. There is nothing wrong with yelling.

[Sasun]

Alexx, I see what you mean, and I appreciate what you are saying. Anger is a really bad thing and is really unhealthy. I just remembered one ancient saying: things that are written on the stone last forever, things that are written on the water do not last a second. Anger should remain in our mind as long as the writing remains on the water.

 

This is easier to say than do, we ordinary human beings are not nearly as strong as to totally get rid of anger. In fact, the way to get rid of anger is to find its cause and get rid of the cause. This is a whole different philosophical and religious topic, and it seems that it is also a major part in psychology.

My point is, once you are angry, it is too late to solve the cause of anger. Ordinary human beings ( that is nearly 100%) do not have the capacity not to get angry if they are driven to anger. So what to do? I am afraid what you are suggesting is not practical, most people would not do it. Rationality very often doesn't stay with us once we are angry. It is just easier to yell and discharge anger, then life goes back to normal (or what we call normal). I am not talking about pathological cases. And yes, I agree that this is a temporary solution. But it is easier than get angry, not to express it, quietly leave the room, then come back and discuss it

[shiner]

What I wrote in my original post is being proven to me on a daily basis. For the first time ever I lost my wallet today. Unfortunately I had to tell my dad because I had one of his deposit receipts in there since I made a deposit for him earlier.

 

In true fashion he started creating a big scene. Why did you lose it, how, you are so irresponsible, what are we gonna do right now, oh my god, you should of done this, you should of done that, etc. All this for a lost wallet!! (after I had already gone to the bank and cancelled everything).

 

And this is only the begining. This is gonna be the subject of discussion for a whole week now. It's already a pain to get another license because the lines are long at the DMV. He keeps overdramatizing this instead of minimizing the problem.

 

Ironically if I had told my mom everything would have gone smoothly. But I didn't on purpose. It's time he learns how to handle himself. Enough of this overgrown momma's boy crap. Enough backwards immigrant thinking. Among Americans he would be considered weak for not even being able to handle the agony of ... lol ... a lost wallet.

 

And most Armenians (and other immigrants) are like this. I aspire to be a completely different type of man (which by default I am).