Gender Stereotypes and Confidence

Posted on 3 June, 2013 by Gary Wood

Confidence & Media Myths

Our concept of what it means to be confident is sometimes distorted by gender stereotypes. Confidence is often seen as a masculine type trait. This is partly because we confuse confidence with bravado. Some self-help gurus don’t help this assumption. Often the proof that someone has gained confidence is the ability to engage in daredevil stunts. However, stunts such as walking on hot coals or bungee jumping have more to with recklessness than confidence. Reality TV shows are also all about contestants putting on a show. Being brash and ‘making an entrance’ is often equated with confidence. Nothing could be further from the truth.

True, inner confidence

True, inner confidence is more about being comfortable in your own skin. It’s a lot quieter than the over-the-top displays we associate with the traditional ‘blokey’ stereotype. In fact, confidence begins from a position of relaxation. It’s rooted in quietness. The traditional female stereotype is associated with nurturing. This is another aspect of confidence. Truly confident people put others at ease. If someone’s ‘confident display’ makes other people feel uncomfortable or intimidates then it isn’t true confidence.

True confidence is the mark of a well-rounded human being

The masculine stereotype could be characterized as ‘assertive’ and the traditional female stereotype as ‘nurturing’. So true confidence is a blend of these two qualities. If you develop your ability to relax and your skills at putting others at ease, these provide the perfect platform for assertiveness. If you’re stressed and angry and just think about yourself then the result is aggression. True confidence is the mark of a balanced, well-rounded human being. It’s positively contagious, so pass it on.

Links:

Other coaching and confidence blog posts from Gary Wood
Other posts on gender stereotypes
Other posts on relaxation
Life Coaching and Confidence Building with Gary Wood (in Birmingham and Edinburgh)
Books by Gary Wood – Amazon Store (USA)
Books by Gary Wood – Amazon Store (UK)

Pic: Ad for confidence and self-esteem coaching with Dr Gary Wood

Never Mind. . . the Great Procrustean Binary Gender Swindle

Posted on 4 October, 2012 by Gary Wood

After publishing my Gender & the Social Construction of the Sewing Machine post, I checked the things automatically linked to it by WordPress and found a fascinating and brave post. I was going to add a comment of support, but the comments had been turned off. Not long after the whole blog disappeared. The writer, a trans woman, had a lot of thought-provoking things to say about binary gender. Unfortunately the blog had been subject to a lot of abuse, surprisingly from other trans people. I found a draft of this post languishing in the nether regions of my blog and decided to finish it off. I have lost contact with the blogger, so if you read this, please drop me a line.

Many people, trans and otherwise, criticise the binary model of gender. It used to irritate me no end at university when students designed experimental studies and just threw in ‘gender differences’ without justification. This underlying assumption that men and women do everything differently was rarely challenged in our psychology department. I began to disparagingly refer to such gender differences as ‘counting shirts and blouses’. I took great delight in challenging fellow PhD students looking at gender differences. My own PhD was on gender stereotypes and intolerance of ambiguity. Knowing full well what the answer would be I’d ask ‘Are you taking a social constructionist view of gender?’ On one occasion, one student became very animated as he karate-chopped the air shouting ‘No!Men and women! MEN AND WOMEN!” This tale was retold often in later lectures and tutorials, and much to the delight of one of my colleagues Dr Petra Boynton.

Some of the key influences on my early research were Martine Rothblatt and Kate Bornstein (both trans writers) and Mark Simpson, the writer who coined the term metrosexual. As an undergraduate I’d quoted from a Simpson piece in Deadline magazine (in 1994) with the provocative title ‘Coming Over All Queer’. It raised a few eyebrows in our rather conservative degree programme. These writers more than any helped me to the conclusion not that there was more than binary but perhaps more importantly, we don’t necessarily have to put a label on it.

I’m a natal male and I spent my formative years in a state of gender confusion as I described in Gender & the Social Construction of the Sewing Machine. Much of the ‘confusion’ caused me distress but I came to I interpret it and my lack of conformity as something special whereas no I realize that it was quite ordinary and quite common. We are all gender deviants because ‘true gender’ does not exist. Bornstein is on record as saying that she might not have made the transition from male to female had she known at the time that there were other options. This was also what the trans blogger was saying.

At a certain point in our cognitive development we achieve gender constancy. This is the certainty that boys become men and girls become women. Up until then, it’s quite ordinary to assume that people can swap back and forth between genders. The milestone is on average around five to seven years. So we can’t count as reliable evidence, any early childhood memories of gender identity confusion or discomfort. It happens to us all.

Confusion surrounding gender is exacerbated because the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are so often interchanged, when they are not the same thing at all. Sex is the biological designation based on physiology, whereas gender is the social interpretation of sex. Gender is not natural. Further problems occur because we deny any other options but binary gender. However, if we examine the biological evidence, there is not a neat divide between the sexes, there are definite shades of grey. This greyness is intensified when we consider the social interpretation of gender. Do all men have the same gender? Do all women have the same gender? Don’t factors such as age, ethnicity, education, upbringing, socio-economic class, sexuality all colour our gender to varying degrees?

We all have the right to feel comfortable in our own ‘gendered’ skin, but the chances of being able to do this are limited simply because we have limited options. It’s not gender democracy if you only get to vote for two parties in the same system. Maybe the reason why I shelved this heretical piece was that I couldn’t figure out a way to word it without sounding like a homophobe, transphobe orbiphobe. In truth, I am a binariphobe. I think the rights of people transcend socially constructed boundaries. I don’t believe in homosexuality or bisexuality or heterosexuality. Fundamentally because I don’t recognize the either-or imperative. Biology has not produced a dichotomy. We did that. Reproductive differences and genital shape do not make a gender. Real life is much more complicated than (karate chops air) ‘Men and Women. MEN AND WOMEN!’

The trans blogger made the point that many trans people decry binary gender because they were born into the wrong one. It’s a challenge to suggest that maybe they weren’t. Maybe the gender you got was your unique gender. Many people have made the choice not to succumb to the Procrustean system and inhabit a gender place in the ‘grey area’ (or ‘Technicolor area’). Some people have become their own immaculate conception. Their gender, sexuality and physiology do not line up according to the black-and-white rule. They have made a decision to occupy the middle-ground, which is, after all, where we all are anyway. I think it’s more important to respect and value people’s spot on the gender continuum rather than fight for a system that limits diversity and our options.

After completing Kate Bornstein’s gender quiz in My Gender Workbook, I was thrilled with my designation of gender freak. Throughout the quiz I was dreading the prospect of being ‘normal. It’s a shame that the trans blogger was ‘persuaded off’ the blogosphere by a few people who see it as their ‘god-given’ right to police binary gender boundaries. It’s a great fear that if we let go of labels we will all disappear. Without gender binary divisions the concept of transgender would be less meaningful. Making a transition from one state to its polar opposite reinforces binary gender as much as it challenges it. Again the same applies to sexuality. We can only swing both ways if there are only two ways. Sometimes we fight for something that’s at the root of the oppression.

I recognize that I am still more traditionally gendered than I would like to be. I’m still working on it. There are still options open to the ‘other side’ that I would like to enjoy. However the barrier has much more to do with social convention than it does with the shape of my genitals.

LInks:

Kate Bornstein’s Memoir: Queer and Pleasant Danger

Poem: Anatomy of Doubt

Gender & the Social Construction of the Sewing Machine

PsyCentral Top Ten from 2009

Posted on 1 January, 2010 by Gary Wood

Here are the top ten PsyCentral posts from 2009:

Sex and Gender are NOT the Same Thing! All Gender is a Drag!

Posted on 10 September, 2009 by Gary Wood

One of the things to emerge from the Caster Semenya controversy (in the 2009 World Championships) is the misconception that the terms sex and gender mean the same thing. They do not. Numerous sources, including ones that should know better, have been waffling on about ‘gender tests’ when what they actually mean is biological sex tests. Sex as a categorization is a biological designation. It refers to the physiological characteristics that differentiate males and females.

Gender is the social interpretation of biological sex. It refers to socially constructed roles in the form of behaviours, activities and other social attributes that any particular culture or society considers appropriate for women and men. So, “male” and “female” are sex categories, while “masculine” and “feminine” are gender categories. Now there are also wide gender variations with any culture. For instance, do rugby players have the same gender as librarians, stamp collectors and ballet dancers? They may do, they may not, but that doesn’t necessarily have any bearing on their biological sex. Within any population there will be an enormous range from ultra ‘feminine’ woman, to the ‘averagely’ feminine woman, to ‘neutral’ looking/acting women, to slightly ‘butch’ women to overtly masculine women. The same applies to men and gender.

The idea that we could gender test athletic competitors is quite ludicrous. If an individual behaves in a way that does not support the gender stereotype, so what? The basic test for gender is what a person perceives themselves to be! Mostly we use the clumsy black and white categories but the way we live our lives betrays the inadequacy of the labels.

Equally ludicrous is the notion that gender can be divided into simplistic binary categories. Numerous factors influence gender identity such as race, class, culture and so on. Oscar Wilde once commented that football is a game for ‘rough girls not delicate boys’. It’s possible to be male and not sporty and still be masculine. It’s possible for a female to like football and still be feminine. Modern gender theorists now talk about femininities and masculinities rather than as monolithic constructs. No two people have identical genders as no two people have identical views of the world. They may be very similar but never identical. Aspects of sex will not vary substantially between different human societies, while aspects of gender may vary greatly.

Gender may be normal (i.e. ‘the norm’) but it’s never natural. It’s what society expects but not necessarily what nature ‘intended’. We have to work hard to reduce the ambiguity between men and women. All gender is a form of drag. There’s no such thing as a ‘natural looking women or men’. Nature always gets a helping hand. Femininity is ‘perfected’ by the addition of make-up, waxing, plucking, hair-styles and clothes and codes of appropriate ‘lady-like’ behaviour. Show me a female Hollywood film star with hairy arm pits and I’ll show you several front page tabloid pictures expressing dismay and disgust that ‘she’s just letting the side down’. Just watch young men affecting a swagger of a walk and the posturing that they’ve seen from rappers, action heroes and their peers. Gender is all an act. It’s a game and you have to play by the rules.

So why do newspapers continue to write about ‘gender’ tests. Well it’s just that ‘sex tests’ sounds ambiguous too. It could refer to the act of sex or the biological status. The solution to this dilemma appears to be to hijack the word ‘gender’ and distort its meaning. Ultimately it’s sloppy journalism that only serves to add confusion. There is no amount of saliva, urine, blood or any other bodily secretion that can be tested to determine gender. We can test for biological sex and infer how a person is likely to behave in a given culture if they ‘play by the rules’, but there is no biological test for gender.

If you liked this post on gender you might like this: Gender Stereotypes and Confidence and see also links below. Also please consider using the ‘like’ button below and share this post with others in your network.

Links:

Let’s Blame It On Our Hormones!

Posted on 13 July, 2009 by Gary Wood

It’s often argues that hormones make men and women behave in radically different ways. It’s interesting that it’s part of the male gender stereotype that men sulk and this is blamed on their ‘male hormones’. By contrast, the female gender stereotype is that women ‘give the silent treatment’ and this is blamed on ‘female hormones’. Now don’t you think that these seem pretty similar outcomes for radically different hormones?

Fortunately, for us, our hormones don’t know they are supposed to be boys and girls. They just get on and do their jobs. Men and women have the same hormones. Women have testosterone and men have also have progesterone and oestrogens. In fact the old label of progesterone’ as a ‘female hormone’ actually got in the way of research into the hormone and its implication for the health of both women and men.

Links:

Myth Busting Human Sexual Anatomy Quiz

Posted on 3 July, 2009 by Gary Wood

We have many taken-for-granted assumptions about the biology of men and women. So, I offer this, provocative, human anatomy quiz. It’s aimed at unpacking the assumptions we make when telling stories around sex and gender.

The Questions:

True or false? Women are biologically the weaker sex.
True or false? Men have male hormones and women have female hormones.
True or false? Women have testosterone.
True or false? The anus has an erotic capacity for both men and women.
True or false? The anus has an erotic capacity irrespective of sexual orientation.
True or false? The correct name for the female genitals is the vagina.
True or false? A clitoris is like a tiny penis.
True or false? The clitoris is the only organ in the human body with the sole function of sexual pleasure.
True or false? The ovaries and the testes are formed from the same embryonic tissue.
True or false? Biologically, the ‘default’ value of humans is female.
True or false? Women are incomplete men.
True or false? Men and women are so different that they may as well be from different planets.

The Answers:

For a fuller discussion of sex and gender see my book The Psychology of Gender (For US click, For UK click ). In the meantime, here are the answers:

False. Men are biologically the weaker sex (on account of the Y chromosome which means it doesn’t protect the male so well from hereditary diseases)
False. Men and women have the same hormones; it is only the relative levels that differ. Furthermore, men differ from other men and women differ from other women in terms of hormone levels.
True. Women have testosterone. Men also have progesterone and oestrogens.
True. The anus has an erotic capacity for both men and women. As the genitals and the anus share much of the same musculature and nerve endings, it is often difficult to tell where an impulse originates.
True. The anus has an erotic capacity irrespective of sexual orientation (gay, straight, bi or indifferent).
False. The vagina is the birth canal; the collective term for the female genitals is ‘vulva’.
False. A penis is an enlarged clitoris. See also answer 8.
True. The clitoris is the only organ in the human body with the sole function of sexual pleasure.
True. The ovaries and the testes are formed from the same embryonic tissue.
True. Biologically, the ‘default’ value of humans is female. That is why the penis is an enlarged clitoris and also why men have nipples.
False. More accurately, men are women who made a bit of a detour (in the earlier stages of development)
False. From biological evidence, the similarities between men and women are greater than the differences.

Book Cover: The Psychology of Gender by Dr Gary Wood

The Psychology of Gender looks at our biology, history and culture to consider the impact of gender roles and stereotypes, and addresses the ‘dilemmas’ we have regarding gender in a post-modern world. (For US click, For UK click ).

So where does this take us?

Well, in the direction of a twelve point personal research plan to check out the answers and then consider how these facts impact on our social interpretation of biological sex, that is our gender roles (and our attitudes to sexuality).

[Material adapted from Sex, Lies and Stereotypes, by Gary Wood]

Updated: 29 May 2019

Links:

Gender, Cave People & an Apology for Psychology

Posted on 23 June, 2009 by Gary Wood

If I have to hear another ‘it’s a throwback to cave people’ explanation to explain gender social roles, I’ll scream. In fact I do! Much to the dismay of people sitting in the same room. It’s all the worse when it comes from people who should know better. I mean, we expect it from stand-up comedians but here’s an example of a psychologist who should really know better even though s/he is speaking outside of her/his field of expertise (and appears to make a habit of it). The subject is computer games and gender.

Computer games are ideally suited to men we are informed because. . . wait for it. . .

‘[B]ack when they were cavemen, men had to focus on the animal they were trying to kill. If they were distracted by anything from a woman to their own emotions, they’d miss the target. The real appeal for men is escapism though, because they’re not as evolved to deal with emotions which is why they like games more than us’.

(It’s not clear whether the venerable ‘expert’ means that men like computer games more than they like women, or more than women like computer games. However it is clear that the use of the word ‘us’ clearly shows that the person is not speaking as a psychologist but is giving a personal opinion as a ‘not-man’)

It gets ‘better’. . .

‘Competition is important to men because it let’s them work out who’s “the best”, an instinct going back to the days when they had to prove to the cavewoman that they’d be superior providers for them’.

So where is the evidence for these sagely insights? Now I’m not aware that this particular expert has done any research whatsoever on why people enjoy computer games. The person in question doesn’t look quite old enough to be from Palaeolithic times, so it can’t be from personal experience. As for the evidence of gender roles in cave people, this largely arose from the views of a once male-dominated archaeology who often made the cardinal error of using modern-day Western living as a lens by which to view historical and cultural data. It wasn’t until the 1960s when female archaeologists had the opportunity to question the orthodox, androcentric view that an alternative view began to emerge. The meat content of cave people is most likely exaggerated. Some sources suggest that it was about 80% gathering (vegetarian), so those archaeological spear-like, in some instances, could just as well be scraping and digging implements. Meat was more likely a ‘special occasion’ thing which is why it appeared as paintings on cave walls. Meat consumption increased with agriculture. Plenty of sources now agree that there weren’t the super-defined gender roles of the 1950s. It’s certainly ridiculous to assume that ‘cave people’ society was based on lots of little semi-detached caves containing nuclear families with mummy sitting at home making apple sauce on the off chance that daddy comes home with a pig. It makes no sense! The societies were probably more cooperative and egalitarian with everyone ‘mucking in’.

The case for gender differences is massively overstated in popular sources (and a few academic ones). When gender differences are scrutinised in meta-analyses, taking into account confounding factors what invariably results are no differences or relatively small (statistically significant) differences. Although these are often reported as ‘significant’ in popular sources there is often a basic misunderstanding of what the word ‘significant’ means in the context of research. It means that it passes a statistical test. However, this does not necessarily translate into a real-world significance. Furthermore, the differences that do occur can be diminished or eradicated by training. This suggests strongly that even these small gender differences are determined by social factors. Overall, the body of research on gender demonstrates that there is a greater difference within each gender than between them. It also shows that the similarities between the genders are far greater than their differences.

Whenever, ‘experts’ resort to the ‘cave person’ analogy, this is a substitute for considering the evidence. It’s a smokescreen. It taps into a commonly held myth and therefore, on the surface, appears to ring true. Now we expect the host of ‘fakexperts‘ to resort to ‘cavepeople’ analogies because many of them may well not be expert at interpreting research data or know where to find evidence-based resources. However, for the seemingly respectable psychologist, there really is no excuse for this kind of slap-dash, ‘say-the-first-thing-that-pops-into-your-head’ kind of laziness. So the next time you hear cave people and gender used, uncritically, in the same sentence, question the credentials and the motives of the speaker (or writer). The same goes for the ‘Mars-Venus’ analogy. It’s just another smokescreen.

More often than not, the appearance of psychologists in the media are missed opportunities to communicate evidence-based psychology. Invariably, what we have is not even an apology for psychology but bull-shit based psychobabble and ‘gossipology’. So often the definition of a ‘celebrity’ psychologist is ‘someone who should know better’. We certainly deserve better!

Recommended Books on Gender:

Links:

Flirting & the ‘Golden’ Age of Gender

Posted on 17 June, 2009 by Gary Wood

In examining flirting tips from the various main stream pop-psychology books on body language I’m struck by the prevalence of gender stereotypes and the absence of the acknowledgement that not everyone is heterosexual and not everyone wants to have children. Surely flirting need not depend on these.

Many tips involve ‘men making themselves more masculine to attract ‘delicate’ women’ and ‘women making themselves more ‘delicate’ to attract ‘big strong, rugged, men’. This all presupposes that we all want the same thing. Some women like ‘skinny’ men who wear glasses and hate football. Some men, small in stature, like full-bodied, amply curvaceous women. Some, delicate, petite, perfectly made-up women, may prefer women in sensible shoes to a hunk in football boots. Some rough and tough, deep voiced, sporty men don’t necessarily fancy women at all. Yes I know it’s all very obvious, so why the hell don’t the pop-psychology books acknowledge it? One reason is that the classic body language books are from ‘the golden age of gender’ when the world was a very different place and, sadly, gender stereotypes do sell.

Different people are attracted to different things and gender roles have moved on enormously since the 1950s. So telling every women to become like a 1950s housewife or a screen siren from the golden age of Hollywood is hardly like to work for all. Telling every man that he needs to ‘butch-up’ and take up forestry is hardly like to work either, unless of course you know someone who’s into that sort of thing.

Flirting is about having fun. Flirting is about putting yourself across in a ‘good light’. It’s not about aping outdated stereotypes and it’s open to all! So the best advice I can give is:

Relax
Be yourself but be your best
Smile and have fun
Avoid any flirting tips that get you to act out a stereotype unless that’s what you are really into.

Links (to other ‘gender-based’ posts):

An “Alpha Male’s” Right to Reply

Posted on 9 June, 2009 by Gary Wood

Sometimes a comment on a post cannot be allowed to nestle in the nether regions of a blog but deserves due prominence. So, when a certain Mr John Doe, fronted up and called me a wimp, I knew I had to be man enough to let his voice be heard. . . or at least be read! So, Mr John Doe, self-proclaimed alpha male. . . this is for you fella!

Who’s yer daddy?

The post that so offended Mr Doe, was The Great ‘Typical Alpha Male’ Delusion in which I criticized lazy journalists spouting the usual meaningless psychobabble. The journalist described President Obama, during his visit to Britain, as ‘the typical alpha male, laid back and relaxed’. I pointed out that if we look to the animal kingdom, where we have ‘borrowed’ the term ‘alpha male’, we find that they are anything but laid-back and relaxed! Now admittedly I went on to denigrate anyone who describes himself as an alpha male, as ‘a thoroughly unpleasant bloke who doesn’t have enough friends to tell him that his people skills stink’. I also added that they are usually ‘dickheads or bullies or both’. Now okay, I may have gone a bit far, but is that any reason to call me a wimp? It really hurt my feelings!

It distresses me to print the full assault but I’m powerless to resist the sheer force of this self-proclaimed alpha male’s argument. Here goes and while you read it, I’ll be lying down in a darkened room with a wet flannel over my eyes:

John Doe replies:

Hello,
As an alpha male who leads people and shags beautiful women, let me assure you we are quite relaxed (and confident)…your take on obama demonstrates an incredible lack of understanding which must result in extraordinary jealousy of people like myself
Good day…wimp!

I know it’s shocking, so please feel free to report it for mature content but let’s do a little, point-by-point analysis anyway:

Would an alpha male (by Mr Doe’s definition) have bothered to post a comment?
Would an alpha make have bothered to set up a ‘john doe’ email address and post under the name ‘John Doe’, unless of course that is his real name? Surely, John Buck or John Stag would be more appropriate?
Would an alpha male be scouring blogs for references to alpha males?
‘Leading people’ is not necessarily a positive thing. It’s how you lead them and where you lead them that counts. The Pied Piper led people too, or was that rats, I forget?
Does ‘shagging beautiful women’ prove alpha male status? Well alpha males in the animal kingdom aren’t too fussy. They will even mount other males. So if you are a true alpha male, is there something you want to tell us, Mr Doe?
The phrase ‘shagging beautiful women’ surely is exactly the kind of chauvinism that proves the point that men who call themselves self-proclaimed alpha males aren’t the nicest of chaps, as I pointed out in my previous post.
So by stating ‘we are relaxed’, Mr Doe has either decided to speak for all of the other self-proclaimed alpha males on the planet, which seems a tad forward of him, surely they can speak for themselves or perhaps Mr Doe thinks he is more than one person.
Would a confident and relaxed person bother to reply in an aggressive manner? Confident people put others at ease. I don’t see any evidence here that Mr Doe has the ability to do this, unless of course, he is confusing confidence with aggression (i.e. over-compensating, usually for low self-esteem).
He complains about my take on Barack Obama, but at least I bothered to use a capital letter for his name. Ah! That’ll be typing with one hand then! Or if you’re too “butch” to hit the caps lock, well that is a worry.
I described President Obama as having the ‘best of our human qualities of compassion, understanding, leadership and the ability to listen to other viewpoints without seeking to crush them’. How does this demonstrate a lack of understanding? I didn’t criticise Mr Obama, I simply stated that, thankfully, he is nothing like ‘self-proclaimed alpha males’ or ‘alpha males from the animal kingdom’.
Apparently this lack of understanding leads to ‘extraordinary jealousy‘. Well this demonstrates a lack of understanding because I think Mr Doe actually means ‘envy‘ not jealousy. To date, I have not met a self-proclaimed alpha male who provokes envy in me (or jealousy). Like everyone else, I view them with pity and contempt.
Uses the phrase ‘people like myself’, shouldn’t that be ‘people like me’?
Mr Doe then uses what I assume is the standard, but hardly relaxed or confident, alpha male complimentary close of ‘Good day. . . wimp!’. Yes, that show’s true leadership. . . let’s all follow John Doe! No! Not even on Twitter.
Finally, why the ellipsis (…)? What’s missing Mr Doe? Possibly the words ” I am really a self-deluded, cowardly”. Just a suggestion.

Following on from this brief discourse analysis, although Mr Doe may not be representative of the population of men with ‘self-proclaimed’ alpha male status, I do thank him for providing such a wonderfully rich datum which I suggest provides tentative support for my original assertions. People who boldly proclaim to be ‘alpha males’ are really nothing of the sort.

P.s. Quite what this says about me that I bothered to dignify his comment with a response, I don’t know.

Read the post: The Great ‘Typical Alpha Male’ Delusion

The Great ‘Typical Alpha Male’ Delusion

Posted on 4 April, 2009 by Gary Wood

Commenting on Barack Obama‘s trip to the UK, it was interesting to hear a journalist refer to the President Obama as ‘the typical alpha male, laid back and relaxed’ which is exactly not what an alpha male is supposed to be!

The alpha male (in animal groupings) usually has to fight off aggressively his ‘young-buck’ challengers so that he can continue to shag anything that moves. Er. . . I’m not sure that this President would be too pleased with that assessment. Also, imagine the alpha male in an animal grouping saying to the young aggressive contenders ‘Chill out! Relax’ before getting his head or antlers torn off.

Mr Obama may well be the most powerful man on the planet, politically, but thankfully he possess none of the typical alpha male qualities. When we use the term ‘alpha male’ to refer to ‘powerful men’ we are more or less saying they are ‘bastards’ in the symbolic sense of the word. When men refer to themselves as ‘the alpha male’ they are usually dickheads or bullies or both! Being the ‘alpha male’ is never a compliment! It usually refers to a thoroughly unpleasant bloke who doesn’t have enough friends to tell him that his people skills stink!

So please, just let go of this same-old tired ‘alpha male gender stereotype BS’ that we heard too many times before. Instead, let’s focus on the best of our human qualities of compassion, understanding, leadership and the ability to listen to other viewpoints without seeking to crush them. . . just as Mr Obama seems to be doing in the early stages of his presidency. We need models of exemplary human behaviour to aspire to, not lazy-ass ‘stock phrases’ from journalists who don’t appear to know their ‘alpha males’ from their elbows!