Our humble roots are in hunting and gathering, and we need to re-program ourselves to respond to our rapid adoption of technology and automation. Linked is the relationship between women and men. The Marriage Concept is broken.
People, sure, I hear the outcry. But let me explain. I don’t mean romance, love, passion, devotion or companionship nor do I mean to discredit happy couples or spot-on matched soul mate relationships. Those are amazing and adorable states of mind. Everyone including the writer loves the experience. No, I am referring to a dictation of social norms and in my opinion redundant expectations wrapped into the traditional marriage “contract” established over the last centuries. Some words spring to mind I am just blurting out here: Dysfunctional, inadequate and struggling to adapt.
“Marriage is a long-term happiness plan for men.“
Emile Durkheim
It is high time to account for the changing role of women in society and to put our brain skates on to align our understanding and shape actively what lies ahead of us. So to walk you through my thoughts, let me recap the state of play:
What caught my eye in the first place was a remark of Emile Durkheim, a French sociologist of the 19th century, who coined an interesting metaphor about marriage which he saw as a “long-term happiness plan for men” voicing his doubt that he wasn’t actually sure what was in it for women.
An interesting question as marriage in previous social definitions meant subordination of women to men’s superior being. Church ordered sexual fulfilment lifelong. For men, that was. And taking things further: In case you got tired of your spouse, you had as man the possibility of indulging in sexual encounters as you pleased. As long as you could afford it. Known throughout history and literature as the “mistress” phenomenon. Not really a thing when you were the wifie trapped at home with the kids without any financial means, let alone a bank account or liberty of movement.
Women in previous centuries were taking care of the offspring and providing their husbands with freedom of mind and mental backing so men could explore, shape and conquer the world. Women in many cases though were the masterminds, drivers for success and co-shapers of things to be, they just never got credit for it.
“I don’t want to marry him, I want to be him.”
Unnamed TV-series woman
For now, here’s “une question”, please just imagine a French accent: What’s the long-term happiness plan for women then? I don’t know the answer and will need to explore this subject another time. Truth of the matter is though that over centuries, women’s role in society was reduced to being a good wife and mother while men would be entrepreneurs, dare devils, adventurers, scientists, playboys, connoisseurs, husbands and fathers. Man, you name it, there’s no end to the list of achievements. If you have a moment, close your eyes and let’s recall most of the movies or series on old-school-TV, Netflix or Amazon. The goal of the girl is usually to find the guy and get married to him. End of story.
The only intelligent TV-series I once saw was when a leading lady commented when asked about her strategy to “catch” the leading-CEO-Business-Man she so openly admired. Her remarkable response was: “Oh, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to marry him, I want to be him.”
In the end, she got the recognition for her sophisticated and witty ideas expanding the business venture being made co-owner AND married him (he was really handsome, too). Bravo, well played, unnamed TV-series woman.
So let’s move away from those centuries’ long brain amputated role models. They don’t work any longer. What I want to explore is the systematic change or shall we say a rather long overdue correction of wo*men’s roles in an evolving society context and the resulting consequences on our social set up:
Changing Roles. New Power. Shifted Responsibilities. Updated Relationships. A Different Social Framework.
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To cast the net of our analysis a bit wider, let’s look further back into our social beginnings: Wo*men were once roaming freely in the wild, hunting and gathering. The main goals were food, shelter and procreation. All very day-to-day and no future-looking planning thingies. Why would you? Disease, death, a hunt gone wrong were on the daily agenda. It was only slowly that designed agricultural achievements led to settled life.
And this is, I think, where the original trouble started. Maybe women were never used to having the lads around every day, maybe it somehow interfered with women’s way of organising and ensuring survival of the community as framework for the hunting days. Anyway, coupled with biological -shall we say- handicaps, the ladies already had their hands full with being constantly pregnant.
Compromising as women usually are so that social peace is ensured, I imagine they went: “Yeah, alright then, men, you do the provision breadwinning part and I’ll be carrying the child and giving birth, hence really executing the procreation bit, taking care of the household, organising the kids, the elderly parents, relatives and community, fulfilling your sexual expectations and no worries, of course, I’ll also take no credit for it, you are the guiding light so I help you to build up self-confidence enabling you to protect our offspring.”
Change of perspectives has created new generations of playful women.
Women are practical creatures, aren’t they? Women think like: Here’s the objective. This is what I have to do for it. Let’s go. Doesn’t matter if I am having fun while I am (over-) doing it.
Fast forward some centuries, it then turned out that guys took the complete mickey out of this cooperative approach women offered. Formalised and enforced by new-fangled institutions like Confucianism, Judaism, Islam or Christian Church, it emerged somehow that the established thinking was that women are inferior and should be treated as such.
So this charade went on for a while until women got organised over the realisation and supported by the technological progress of the world (which women had co-shaped) that men took advantage of the modus operandi. There was no need to be the male protector through mainly physical efforts anymore. A slowly and hard-fought established legal framework of states and governments had in theory created the concept of negotiation instead of just executing crude force for an argument.
And there was contraception. Finally. A new massive step for women to level the playing field and navigate the pleasures of recreational sex in a self-determined way without mutilating their bodies or interrupting their lives through unwanted pregnancy.
This progress and change of perspectives has created new generations of playful women. And I feel the fundamental question society (meaning us all) has to ask themselves: How are we then replacing the care structure women so far had occupied as -let’s say it out loud- domestic unpaid slaves caring for children, elderly parents or parents-in-law or the needing community around them?
No one in her*his right mind is willing to give up privileges one thinks s*he is entitled to.
In my opinion, it can only be solved through a shift of balance in responsibilities supported by technology. I think that the rise of automation and advancement of the world into a virtual and soft skills’ success realm has provided women an unprecedented space of freedom and chance of equality. A state that didn’t just come upon women undeservedly.
Women suffered, hustled, they worked for it. So did men. It’s just that men got the reward and recognition throughout centuries, women didn’t. That’s bluntly speaking the imbalance and the force of driving angry discussions.
Men don’t want to give up their status, their privilege, their power. Who in their right mind would, excuse me? No one wants to give up privileges, independent of how small they are. Look at me: I lamented for weeks when I had to give up my British Airways Gold Status and being downgraded to inferior Bronze Status … well, sure, I mean, I didn’t do the miles, yeah, good for my carbon footprint, Greta would be proud of me, but… Jeez, what has the world come to for Sandra not being welcomed in the Airport Lounges of this world anymore?
Precisely to my point. No one in her*his right mind is willing to give up privileges one thinks s*he is entitled to. Someone, something, some circumstance will MAKE you give it up. It’s a forced negotiation of terms.
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And this is exactly what has happened: Women knocking on the door of sharing power. How’s that going? It has its own dynamics. There’s apparently this joke going around the net – kudos to Margarete Stokowski in her book “untenrum frei” loosely translated as “liberated below the belt”:
Women: “Dear men, hello, how are you? Please give us 50% of the power over this world.”
Men: “No, not gonna happen.”
Women: “Damn, give us the fucking 50% we are entitled to.”
Men: “How rude! Ask again nicely.”
Question is what do you do with 50% of the power of this world? Most women I feel so far would rather reject it if they don’t immediately have an answer at hand. And BOOM! There it is. That’s the so far curated and tenaciously socially preserved difference between men and women.
Women do not dare to assume. Maybe so far they couldn’t afford the risk? They wanted, it appears, to be 150% sure before prescribing a remedy. Men, it seems, just went with the flow assuming it’s going to work out somehow. Yet, the world has changed and we need to adapt. And, don’t get me wrong: We like an opportunistic and not-overthinking-it approach, it is a good and valuable way of thinking. Having said this, such a happy-go-lucky behaviour pattern is designed to work in tandem and only reaches its full potential in combination with considerate and focused execution power.
The point I am trying to make here is: None of those behavioural traits in isolation are superior, hence neither are their bearers. It’s an interplay of behaviour habits formed over centuries. And it is ripe for disruption.
“Most men of my generation are relentless pleasure seekers and successful pleasure finders.”
It is intriguing to watch how most men are relentless pleasure seekers, well versed pleasure demanders and successful pleasure finders. A skill trained and perfected through centuries. Good for them!
Most women of my and previous generations in contrast have been brought up to organise and provide pleasure. It’s no wonder that at the brink, at the changing point, lots is written in particular in business forums that it’s delicate and difficult to hit “balance“ for women to demand and serenely pursue power, the famous seat at the table. But, hey, hello, how would you know the game if you haven’t written the rules? Or not even sure that those “rules” are what you were longing for in the first place?
As I have experienced such business situations first hand, it’s crystal clear to me that you don’t act by gut as you’re not trained. It’s a far more exhausting and self-questioning exercise for most women than for most men who act by gut. It’s like sports. If you don’t know the constantly trained body movements, like for example in tennis, you are focusing on getting the form right but you do not focus on winning. You cannot enjoy as you are too self-aware and you’re in a world of KPIs (sorry, business language, meaning Key Performance Indicators) that haven’t been set by you but rather by your male counterparts. So partly you’re training yourself to compete in a world that isn’t even what you would have wanted in the first place?! Crazy to begin with, isn’t it?
“Hang on, this also means we cannot raise children the way we are used to.”
So if women’s cultural upbringing so far has been too centered around men’s happiness, it seems women need to explore their own mechanisms of happiness. And, hang on, this also means we cannot raise children the way we are used to. If marriage with the prime caretaker of mothers and women isn’t sustainable any more, and women will not and want not to provide this domestic “family glue” factor any more, then how are we raising children and who is the responsible care taker of bringing them up: The state? Designated foster parents? Grandparents? Still couples? Single fathers or mothers? Friends sharing responsibility for a child? A committed group of otherwise unrelated people? Nominated guardians-slash-coaches? Community Nannies*Mannies?
How do we move forward and advance as modern, equal, automised, leisure seeking, manual labour freed and religion independent society, yet still providing enough support for the next generation?
Why don’t we expand the idea of “Co-Living” to a broader society demographics?
There are several concepts I am fond of. I like the social potential of Co-Living or Co-Housing. Current Co-Living offerings mean that a bunch of unrelated millennials live together in a serviced apartment or even bigger complex, mostly in an urban surrounding, and share communal spaces. Images of student accommodation, youth hostel or flat share spring to mind. Yet, difference is they are renting a room in a house as a service from a professional Co-Living Landlord. And while sharing communal spaces might make economic sense, Co-Living focuses on building community by sharing space as a conceptual programme.
Why don’t we expand this rather new-fangled idea of “Co-Living” to a broader society demographics? A lot we can learn and benefit from a multi-generational set up. Millennials and Gen Z need mentoring, coaching for their entrepreneurial business ideas and life in general, while Gen X and “Baby Boomers” have plenty of those experiences to share in a meaningful way and would make excellent mentors and business coaches. Concepts of age are fluid and such are the ideas of existence and happiness. Worth while learning from each other, I believe.
Beyond Co-Living or Co-Housing concepts where multiple generations are present and support each other, how about tax benefits for companies supporting their employees working for a day or more for a family or older people? How about tax credits for volunteers helping families with child education as temp grand parent or aunt*uncle or big sister*brother? How about systematic support from mature sponsors for a youngster in his career choices and subsequent tactics to proceed in life?
“We need to rethink our standing to each other as fierce individuals in newly defined communities of interest.”
It seems pretty clear to me that we need to be on the case of re-evaluating our meaning and standing to each other as fierce individuals in newly defined communities of interest. The solution will most probably be a mix of joined forces.
Now, we cannot change how individualistic we have become nor the comforting ways we are used to in modern society. Neither do we want to! We have embraced this lifestyle of physical and social mobility. And those amazing privileges, they were given to us. This is what our ancestors have hustled for and wanted us to take advantage of. So let’s account for that.
“Sometimes we only know in hindsight what was limiting us and what was holding us back.”
And how do we manage to get people interested in such concepts? In my opinion, it always starts with incentives: A less lonely life. A more meaningful way of existing. Adventures and diversity in leading your life. A financially beneficial option for businesses or individuals for doing the right thing. A more exciting or less restrictive way of living. Sometimes we only know in hindsight what was limiting us and what was holding us back, so let’s explore any direction.
“There’s no script to follow, the whole thing is uncharted territory.”
I feel we also need to re-write the chapter of “success”. For all of us, both for women in an incredible new world of opportunities and for men not needing to be stressed out as the primary breadwinner any more, let me just point this out: Guys, there’s no script to follow, the whole thing is uncharted territory, we don’t have any role models, we have to make this one up as we go and negotiate our own terms of co-existence and co-success.
As I am writing this I am thinking: Look at the woman in me, not heading for world domination – though I am confident we have the capabilities and could go for it – but truly believing in a diverse approach. It’s far more interesting.
Ha! Maybe the same mistake we made before. Do women ever learn?
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