Having spent too many years trying to be a PC male, I can certainly appreciate the
effort it takes them to seem that way. But I suspect that many of them will tire of it, and
discover that the old cliches were not entirely fiction, and revert. As many of my
generation did, including, to some extent, myself.
Boy, can I relate to that comment. I, too, worked for years at being the perfect PC male. Sensitive, caring, non-sexist, etc. I still believe in the principles of sexual equality, and having two daughters I am outraged at some of the treatment they receive from societal institutions which assume they are less compent or less deserving of academic attention than boys.
OTOH, you are completly right that our grandparents, and their parents, and on back, even if they didn't have PhDs in feminist studies or other PC topics, were not dummies, but understood a lot about society and what made good people, and created societies which were in many ways (but certainly not in all ways) better environments than our own for personal development and living happy, fulfilling, positive, and creative lives.
I think society is starting to realize that we threw out too much grandparental wisdom, and that we need to identify and restore some of the positive values that they had. Sort of the same way in which modern medicine is realizing it should take a hard look at herbal medicines and native treatments that in the zeal for Western science this century we dismissed out of hand as primitive and barbaric. Or like the proponents of new math realizing that, hey, we were wrong. |
