Gendered Lives Chapter 9- Gendered Close Relationships

This chapter discusses the differences in gendered close relationships. There are two models that show the differences in masculine and feminine orientation to close relationships. The first model is the male deficit model. This model works under the assumption that personal and emotional conversations are the basis of intimacy, which makes males less skilled in creating and maintaining personal relationships. This model is something that I completely disagree with.

First, I do not agree with the generalization of men due to the fact that some men are comfortable with self disclosure. Being able to express emotions should not be an indicator as to how well a male or a female is able to make and maintain close relationships. Second, should emotional sensitivity be the main indicator of the ability of maintaining personal relationships. I do agree that most relationships do depend on the ability to disclose personal information but males are as capable of such things as women are.

The second model is the alternate paths model. This model differs from the male deficit model by offering that there are alternative yet equal paths to closeness. The first major difference is that it believes that masculinity does not mean that there is an absence of feelings.  The second difference is that it believes that males do experience closeness but in a different way. This model I agree with because it shows that there are different routes to the same approach. This model is more accepting and does not make one gender's ways of communicating and interacting the "right" way of doing so.

The next section discussed the gendered styles of friendship. The first style of friendship is feminine friendship which is defined by closeness in dialogue. The feminine friendship style is a way in which females become friends with others. This style shows that women often share emotional and personal feelings in order to build and enrich friendships. This is a common conception in our society. We are all socialized to see women as emotional beings who talk and must share their feelings in order to become close with someone. 

The next style of friendship is masculine friendship which is characterized by closeness by doing. This friendship style makes doing things a priority over communicating things. Males tend to forma  camaraderie with other males through different activities, usually sports. I can relate to this part but I do not necessarily believe this to be a fact. Many of my best friends have been made through sports. I do feel that I will more likely befriend a person through an activity because it shows that this other person shares a common interest with me. I do feel that it is fair to say that most men do this because I only feel this way because I am an athlete and I have a deep passion for sports and activities.

Overall I was not thrilled with this chapter. I felt that the reasoning behind some of the theories were skewed and biased. Males are seen as this emotionless creatures and females as creatures full of emotion who are incapable of breaking out of cultural molds. I feel that we should be looking at this socialization as an issue that we all are unconscious of and we should take more time to think about how we view other sexes.