I've been reading a lot of threads lately about "men's wandering eyes"... and I wanted to get some guys' opinions on the matter. (ladies, chime in as well if you like!).
I was always under the impression that it's what is in the man's head that matters; not whether or not he noticed a pretty girl. But I want to hear, what is really going on in your heads? Do women sometimes misinterpret your gazes? Are they really gazes at all? Or are these women right?
Well! Big 'our culture' problem and probably NOT the problem you think it is.
A) All people look at other people. You can't help it, it is part of the mammal section of your brain.
B) Many of our women (and I could argue several reasons why ... no one knows) hold our men to an unrealistic and unmeetable standard of behavior in this matter. There is no way the guys could, even in theory, meet the standard of behavior being demanded of us by some women.
C) Staring is a lot more than looking and it is a problem. Why some people --
NOT ONLY MALE PEOPLE!-- stare is a thing we do not understand.
D) Some people dress to be stared at AND get insulted when they are stared at.
E) Our men, for reasons unknown, do not complain about their womenfolk staring at guys.
F) Women stare more during ovulation and the days leading up to ovulation.
G) Men stare more when they are young.
So? What does it mean?
I don't know, or at least, I don't know much of it.
We cannot get away from the very real problem that some of our women are demanding a standard of behavior which
cannot be met and applying that standard in a very sexist way to the men and not the women. Why? I don't know ... I can guess.
My guess is:
- it is a side effect of the efforts we've made over the last forty years to improve the legal rights of women AND
- of our refusal to fight sexism dumped onto males AND
- men's habit of not complaining about women who stare.
These things are quite true and thus MAY be the reason we have a problem in this area of society.
So, for men who do stare, it is a combination of hormones, bad behavior, bad habits and not thinking the thing through. This should, reasonably, be exactly the same as the women who stare. Sadly, due to our severe sexism against men problem, it is not seen as the same.