Caring about men and boys. This episode explores polarised ideas about men and women are embedded in mainstream Western culture. It is based on a chapter in the Palgrave Macmillan, Handbook of Male Psychology and Mental Health in which the authors, Seager and Barry, put forward their new psychological theory, ‘gamma bias’ which proposes that cognitive distortions involving exaggeration and minimisation , which are more favourable to women and less favourable to men are operating in our culture. And of course there’s the ‘Good Guy of the Week’.
Caring about men and boys. This episode explores polarised ideas about men and women are embedded in mainstream Western culture. It is based on a chapter in the Palgrave Macmillan, Handbook of Male Psychology and Mental Health in which the authors, Seager and Barry, put forward their new psychological theory, ‘gamma bias’ which proposes that cognitive distortions involving exaggeration and minimisation , which are more favourable to women and less favourable to men are operating in our culture. And of course there’s the ‘Good Guy of the Week’.
Women Good, Men Bad: Exploring the Cognitive Distortions Around Gender
This episode is based on a very interesting chapter in the Macmillan Palgrave, Handbook of Male Psychology and Mental Health; the chapter is written by doctors, Martin Seager and John Barry; it is entitled, ‘Cognitive Distortion in thinking about Gender issues: Gamma Bias and the Gender Distortion Matrix’.
Just a word about Barry’s interest in male psychology, was planted, as he puts it, in the mid 1990’s, during an undergraduate seminar which focussed heavily on the theories of female depression, but swiftly glossed over the subject of high male suicide rates; he remembers a flippant remark being made, that explained away the higher number of male suicide cases, a remark which raised some giggles - the remark was, “men construct more lethal methods because they are better at DIY’. After what Barry describes as this ‘cognitive distortion’ that involved the minimisation of the incidence and importance of male suicide, to the point of near-invisibility, and the light-hearted banter that followed, the discussion moved on.
At that time, and even up to the present day, he has noted little curiosity in educators and psychologists about the fatal issue of male suicide; and he was very sad to hear that same DIY explanation as recently as 2016, and sad too that the throw away remark still raised laughter from the audience.
In their chapter, Seager and Barry explore their new theory, ‘gamma bias’. Gamma bias builds on the existing concepts of alpha bias which is the cognitive distortion of exaggerating gender differences and beta bias which is the cognitive distortion of minimising gender differences.
Just to define ‘cognitive distortions’ quickly, they are - habitual ways of thinking that are often inaccurate and negatively biased; Aaron Beck identified six different types of cognitive distortions in his research with depressed clients in the 1960’s; more contemporary psychology researchers have identified at least ten of them.
Back to Seager and Barry’s theory of Gamma bias; they propose that these two opposite distortions, alpha and beta bias, can operate simultaneously.
Seager & Barry argue firstly, that cognitive distortions, in the form of an exaggeration of the negative aspects of men and masculinity, are embedded in the mainstream culture; whilst at the same time, a minimisation of the positive aspects of men and masculinity are also embedded. Secondly, they argue that this phenomenon could be having a significantly harmful impact on the psychological health of boys and men, on the profession of psychology, and on our society as a whole.
Gamma bias encompasses four possible judgments about gender: that a gender is doing good or doing harm and that a gender is receiving good or receiving harm. Doing good is termed ‘celebration’, doing harm - ‘perpetration’; receiving good is termed ‘privilege’, receiving harm - ‘victimhood’.
Gamma bias theory predicts that within mainstream western cultures, masculinity is more often associated with being the perpetrator or the privileged one and less associated with being the celebrated or victimised one.
On the other hand, within Gamma bias theory, femininity, is more often associated with being the celebrated one or the victim, and less associated with being the perpetrator or the privileged one.
Another way of expressing this is to say
• men are more harmful than helpful
· women are more helpful than harmful
· men are more privileged than disadvantaged
· women are more disadvantaged than privileged
In this episode I have time to look at only one of these cognitive distortions; I have chosen to look at ‘doing good’, which Seager and Barry have termed, ‘celebration’. Let’s look now at how women’s being and achievements are magnified and celebrated and how men’s being and achievements are minimised and not celebrated.
OK so,
· we celebrate women publicly, for their gender alone; just being a woman carries esteem. They are celebrated in the archetypal realms of beauty, fashion, sexuality and motherhood. We don’t tend to celebrate men collectively for their gender alone, only for particular achievements of individual men
· the United Nations dedicates four days each year to women
- International Women’s Day
- International Day of Women and Girls in Science
- International Day of Rural Women and
- International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
In contrast, the United Nations has no special day to celebrate men. Since 2010, International Men’s Day has been celebrated on November 19th, but it’s not recognised by the United Nations.
· The Royal Society, has a mission statement that claims them to be ‘the scientific academy in the UK, dedicated to promoting excellence in science for the benefit of humanity’; The Royal Society, along with other institutions worldwide participate in what they call a ‘Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon. This is an initiative to raise the profile of female scientists by adding their names and their achievements to Wikipedia; there is no male equivalent for celebrating men’s scientific achievements.
· Let’s look at suffrage now. In the UK, women’s lack of suffrage was rightly highly unjust; however, what is less known about, and less spoken about is men’s lack of suffrage in the same historical period. Prior to the Representation of the People Act in 1918, 66% of men had the vote. After this act was introduced, the rest of the UK male population, the 44% of them, got the vote.
· this episode was recorded a few days after Remembrance day, the public recognition of which was cancelled here in the UK; it seems especially respectful and poignant to mention under those circumstances, that these men likely got their vote in 1918 because so many of them, around 700,000, had sacrificed their lives during WW1 so that the rest of us may live in peace. At the same time, in 1918 two-thirds of the total population of women over the age of 30, who met a property qualification also got the vote in the UK. It’s obviously unfair that not all women got the vote at that time but it needs to be said, it was 10 years later, some may say ‘only 10 years later’, that because of the Equal Franchise Act of 1928 the rest of the UK female population, all women over 21, were able to vote and women achieved the same voting rights as men.
· Finally, the careers and achievements of women in the sciences, politics, business and education are all actively celebrated as a gender issue in a way that men’s achievements in these domains are not.
Now we’ll look at some more ways in which males could be celebrated but are not.
· Their heroism within the military and the emergency services is often remarked upon in the news, however, the almost exclusively male gender of the heroes is not referred to or marked in any way. Their individual brave deeds are acknowledged but not their masculine gender. An example of this was the rescue of Thai boys from a Thailand cave by male divers in 2018. This rescue was celebrated, but their gender was not mentioned as it surely would have been if they had been women, neither was it marked as an example of positive masculinity. In the news reports the men were described in a range of gender-neutral terms such as ‘rescuers’, ‘a mix of international divers’ and ‘dozens of divers’.
· Now let’s look at the good old Titanic; 80% of male passengers drowned, and 75% of female passengers were saved; so, most men drowned, and most women were saved. Yet this famous story is never celebrated as a story of positive masculinity. In fact, an article in The National Post on the 100th anniversary of the Titanic sinking, managed to damn the men who died and damn the men who survived. Those who survived were damned for putting their own lives before those of women and children; those who died were damned for having a code of conduct, that of putting ‘women and children first’, which suggested that females were a more precious and vulnerable sex with no self-determination. Further, the article told us, the men who died apparently got to die a quick death while women were left to struggle alone. Not a happy situation for women of course, but hardly one to blame the dead men for.
· Let’s look now at working class sacrifice; Seager and Barry argue, and I agree, that the entire infrastructure and security of the UK and other nations were built and maintained almost exclusively by working class men. Further, and I have discussed these issues in a couple of previous episodes but no apology for mentioning them again; men do all the dirty, dangerous and heavy jobs in all societies and 96% of deaths at work are male deaths. Men get little recognition or thanks for this, their gender is not celebrated, and actually, Seager and Barry tell us, a male builder is more likely to be scorned as a wolf whistler than celebrated as a DIY hero.
· Neither is fatherhood and male child-care celebrated; on the contrary, the public’s attitude towards men as childcare givers is one of suspicion and negativity in many ways.
· Finally, and depressingly, male sexuality is also seen as source of harm, of threat, abuse and coercion. The joy and positivity of male sexuality is rarely celebrated today; I think it’s high time for an honest and affirming dialogue about masculinity in general, and an honest and affirming dialogue about male sexuality in particular.
That’s all on this topic for now; there’s plenty more to say in future episodes.
The gender distortion matrix – expresses situations where our perceptions of men and women are magnified or minimised.
| GOOD | HARM
DO (active mode) | FEMALE male (celebration) | MALE female(perpetration)
RECEIVE (passive mode) | MALE female (privilege) | FEMALE male (victimhood)
Good guy of the week
Well!!! Cornwall was mightily blown about for a couple of days this past week! On day two of the storm, I was in my office upstairs; as I worked, I could see the tops of my pampas grass and my palm tree were being madly blown about, bending this way and that wildly but I was oblivious to another event that was occurring just below my line of sight.
I’d finished work at the end of that stormy day and was just settling down with my cosy clothes, a log fire and a glass of wine when I heard a knock at my front door (errr…the bell’s not working presently…I have checked the battery); it was dark…I asked “who is it? a man’s voice said “a neighbour”. I opened the door to find a man who I recognised but to whom I’d only really said ‘hello’ in passing before. He asked me if I knew that part of my garden fence had blown down. Because of the limited view from my office window, I had been blissfully unaware of this damage. For a moment, my heart sank, and the whole thing felt like a catastrophe; but it was only for a moment because in the same sentence my neighbour said “don’t worry about it, I’ll fix it tomorrow; whatever the weather. I’ve got some wood, I’ll get it sorted”. I said, “oh thank you, that’s fantastic, please let me pay you”. He said ‘no!’ it won’t take long, I’m just being a good neighbour”. And true to his word, the very next day, in not the best of weather, he blumming well did it! I did pop him some money over for a drink, but I actually can’t thank him enough! What a fantastic man!