A Note to Men

A Note to Men
3/29/09
~Remrie Arrie

Note: I am a American so this information is variable and/or not relevant/accurate to other nations, but will likely hold pretty accurate to most western cultures. (U.S, Canada, Australia, etc)

Despite living as a girl now, having spent the first 20 years of my life as a guy having studied social gender, stereotypes, trends, history and several other things in my mid to late teens I would like to offer a word of encouragement, give you some tips, provide a unique prospective, and hopefully you’ll walk away with at least one thing new you’ve learned.

From my Own Prospective
When growing up as a guy I was taught that some how in some way I was more ‘privileged’ than others, especially as a white male; that somehow like some prince to a throne I was guaranteed to have more success and opportunities than women, other ethnicities. But what I observed in my feelings, in how I was treated by others, by what was expected of me, all I knew though is that I was miserable; both in being transgender having not been born female, and by being subject to the social expectations and stereotypes of a male.

When I went into the history of the genders through society I observed trends, changes in thinking, behavior, commonalities and more. I learned all this stuff on my own free time between 16 & 19 because I wanted to know how gender applied to me and what was expected of me and why on a individual, social, professional, and mental level.

And in doing so I observed one thing, the idea that men somehow have it better than women is not supported in any way in the modern era; total hypocrisy. But it goes without saying just like everyone else there are prejudice guys too.

On a Historical Level
Now I’m not a history major, but it doesn’t take a scholar to see that yes. At one time men did have it better, particularly the white men. Virtually all of the world leaders, virtually all of the richest people in the world, virtually all of the most free individuals. And to this day on a dominant level that is still true for a long list of reasons. But what isn’t happening anymore that was happening in history is that men are not being treated like they are great, in the past yes they were treated as greater than females, but now days many men grow up with the daughters of the family being encouraged and supported more than the son as if it’s expected by default that he will be fine on his own and doesn’t need help, shouldn’t ask for help, and shouldn’t receive it.

But it also goes without saying that no-one is better than the other, by default we are all equal, human, nothing more nothing less.

On a present level the situation has been flipped nearly 180*. Now days men are not enrolling in schools, a resent report on black males show predominantly black schools are 2/3 female, and that many of the men who enroll never graduate.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29933480

On a social level
I’ll be the first to say and defend the statement that men do not get fair treatment in life on a social level, at work, in school, at home, etc. The vocabulary of modern society isn’t supportive of men with common every day terms people don’t think about. Many are degrading, but it’s also not like women don’t have their share; they do.

On a social level the lack of freedom of expression is not high on the priority list of men. The only way to look good on a ‘masculine’ level is mostly limited to suits and ties with minor variations of colors and/or details. This one was a particular pet peeve of mine when I watched girls in schools wear pants and skirts but I saw news reports of boys being punished/suspended from school for wearing a skirt. We all have our own level of expression we all wish to express, but it’s hard to promote that side of us when we’re expected to wear baggy, plain, drab clothing that isn’t flattering of our individual unique identity. A good example of this is any store you go to, for example if you go into Wal-Mart, typically the girls clothing section Vs the boys is twice the size of the boys. In the women clothing section Vs the men’s it’s typically two to three times the size of the men’s section. Granted you’ll see lots of pink but it goes without saying the colors and styles in everything vary substantially greater than our T-shirts, button up T-shirts, hoodies, sweatshirts, and tank tops.

In education and school as a whole the same holds true for the most part to the most degree but conversely on many levels males and females are equal, though through aggressive feminist movements to highlight the problems of females despite their level of equality or dominance over males men are typically overlooked because the resources for guys just aren’t available when it comes to emotional problems, abuse, child support, anxieties, college funds, etc.

I read this entire page and felt it was worth noting. The article is by Judith Kleinfeld
http://www.judithkleinfeld.com/ar_studentperformance.html

For example on a ethnic level Vs gender, in Southern CA 50% of the population his Hispanic, the rest is divided between whites, blacks, Asians, etc… Yet there is such an influence in the idea that the Hispanics are the minorities and when individuals who look Hispanic go to the hospital or schools and get all these grants and programs shoved in their face they go “Oh I’m not Hispanic” and the entire stack of beneficial services to meet their needs is all taken away. This was the case for one individual I knew in a community college near Los Angeles.

On a Media Level
On a media level the social through the use of advertisements, activism, political agendas, televised drama and all around stereotypes the differences in gender are dramatized.

Now I don’t mean to favor strictly males when I say this but in the media men are not treated kindly. Australian commercial of a ski resort depicted a guy being tied to a tennis net pole and having a girl shoot tennis balls at his crotch with a tennis ball launcher. Conversely if you tied the girl to the pole and shot balls at her crotch it would never air. I dare anyone to test that. In another commercial that aired in both Australia and America a guy is sitting on the beach and for whatever reason a girl takes a variety of objects represented as a penis and proceeds to make statements as such by cracking a stick in half bitterly, biting and smashing food and other object and all of this is obvious psychological warfare on the female part to cause psychological distress. You wouldn’t see a guy making such jesters by carrying two large melons and oogling over them in front of a small woman with small/no breasts and yet a commercial was taken off the air of a guy who turned a hart drawn in the sand and turned it into a pair of breasts.

My personal most hated is a commercial by J.C Penney if I remember correctly, but it was a spoof off of Irving Berlin’s song “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better” and it featured a guy and a girl. The guy wearing a great pair of pants and a woman who was jealous of them she wanted them, so they do this whole big dance and song about her wanting his pants and she ends up physically taking them off of him and wearing them herself with the big declaration at the end of the song ‘YES I CAAAAAN!!!!’. That was my personal pet peeve because you won’t see commercials of a guy stripping a girl to her underwear for the sake of wearing her skirt.

On a Reality Level
But it goes without saying, in reality it doesn’t matter who is superior, and perfect gender equality is impossible to achieve, but also we must be more responsible on a individual level not to fall into the victimized or dominance mind frame that you or others are greater than or lesser than you or other individuals. To express bitterness and favoritism for one thing over the other creates the bias that fuels hate and distrust; and without becoming too anal we do have to realize that yes those commercials as noted above are funny, they’re well made and being able to laugh at ourselves and others is a basic human behavior; and so is being self conscious and in turn feeling hurt.

But we have to be able to take what we dish out and on the male level there needs to be a strong sense of honesty, integrity, character, loyalty, flexibility, cooperative, supportive, and encouraging behaviors in both ourselves and in those around us. If you can master your heart for better or worst, you can master your brain and life with ease for better or for worst. If you master your heart, brain and life for the better of yourself and those around you, your power of influence over yourself and others will become substantially greater. And if you do so you have the responsibility to benefit positive peers around you and be a positive peer for others. Lets face it, men make awesome heroes both in real life and in fiction. You own it to yourself, and you owe it to others, if not for anybody you know personally then at the very least you owe it to me to be the positive influence for others that I do my best to be for you and others.

Model Behavior that you get From Others
“Be the change you want to see” as Gandhi puts it or “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” If you want help from others be of help to others. Do not expect others to blindly come to your aid; luck only goes so far on its own. But you can create your own luck by creating luck for others; their luck in turns comes back to you.

The best way to learn is to teach others what you have learned. Even by simple newsletters, articles such as these and announcements, even if nobody reads a thing I type by physically putting it back out there into the universe I am reinforcing it within myself. And as more and more people benefit from what I do, I will in turn benefit from what they do. Word of mouth is powerful and travels fast. Good things can come out of their mouth or bad things. The problem with criminal behavior is there’s so much bad stuff traveling around word of mouth everyone has to keep their mouth shut, oppress others, and fear anything getting out to cops.

To best spark the growth and development in your life you have to first change your environment by putting yourself in the environment that best supports what you want to do. If you want to be a life guard on the beaches of the Florida Keys you better move out of the Rocky Mountains and/or get that education you need and work experience.

If you want to graduate school you better be hanging out with people who are actually in school. And it helps to move close to one.

If you want more opportunities you have to either get creative with what is available to you or if you feel there is not enough then move to a location where you have a better chance of hitting it big.

If you want to be a teacher you have to first learn the subject then start teaching others even before you go to school to do so. Being a teacher is about taking action, not having a degree and working in a school. We all teach each other every day every time we interact at all times of the day.

If you want anything in life you have to stop doing what isn’t helping you, and start doing what you know will, and you have to help others in a way that will also help you, even if it doesn’t seem to have an immediate benefit. For instance I am creating the Success Folder without any guarantee that anyone will benefit from anything from it, but the simple act of creating this resource creates one more thing out there to help people, and by physically typing out all this information myself I am reinforcing what I have learned and what I believe in.

Realize that success doesn’t come at a cost, and that other things don’t come at the cost of success. For example from “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki

Poor Dad: “The reason I am not rich is because I have you kids”
(Whether by meaning he prefers to have his kids than to be rich or that his kids are the reason he cannot be rich he is accepting the idea that one has to be sacrificed for the other)

Rich Dad: “The reason I MUST be rich is because I have you kids”
(For the reason that he has a responsibility he feels he has the moral obligation to ensure their future by having the cake and eating it too in order to feed his kids and secure all of their futures)

Success only comes with three requirements:
You must take action. You only have today, you’ve never seen tomorrow, and yesterday is forever gone. You either start now today, or later on today even if you’re turning 80 years old today.
You must help others if you are to be helped by others. And you can’t do it without help
You must exhibit positive affirmations in the present tense (I -am-, I -do-, I -see-, I -now-, I -know-). Past tense do not work that is why people who always say ‘I will’ seldom ever do while people who say “I’m already working on it” are already making progress while the other is due to make progress subject to what they feel is appropriate timing (To get out of school, for the weather to improve, to move, to change jobs, etc.) Using positive visual reminders helps to reinforce the affirmations you use, helps keep your conscious and subconscious mind focused on your goals. My entire apartment and computer is covered in motivational posters and pictures cut out of vacation magazines of where I am going to live and when and what I am going to be doing much of which I already am doing.


Get to where you want to be by taking action, help others along the way, and use positive affirmation by knowing, understanding, and believing that ‘Anything the mind can conceive and believe it can (and will) achieve.’

The world isn't either a man’s world or a woman’s world, anyone who believes that is a caveman who has some evolving to do, this is a world of individuals who cooperatively work together to support each other's existence knowing you cannot have one without the other so you might as well work to make each other successful to ensure success.

Seek Help
It goes without saying that as a man you need every bit as much help and deserve every bit as much help as any other woman for any and all reasons under the sun. Without help from others and being of help to others you ensure your own failure. The hardest thing for me was, and many guys is to express the humility needed to take down our pride and say “I need your help, can you help me?” Everyone is afraid of asking for help, but this is something that is especially challenging for men and it needs to be overcome. If your lost without a GPS or road map pull over and ask for help, you need to do the same thing down the road of life. Back seat drivers don’t help either, drop their butts off and keep going before they get you lost even more.

And like with any international trip or expedition you need a guide to help you out through life in where you want to go. In business, education, spirituality, society, and your personal life, you cannot reach your full potential without asking help. It does take humility to seek it, but every man I’ve seen who’ve sought help has had more pride in themselves as an individual than any other I’ve ever seen. The men who don’t are still locked in a childish mentality that they were taught growing up to do it themselves, to be ‘the man’, D.I.Y do-it-yourself, etc.

Seek help, ask for direction, ask for other people’s input, ask for their sincerity, ask for coaches, ask for special attention. Go as far as you need to go to have your needs met. 2 nights ago before writing this I had to fight with myself to summon up the strength to ask for my best friend to pet me as I laid beside her sad and depressed. After about a few minutes I managed to just do it and she was willing to do something so simple yet would be humiliating for most people on many levels, yet it was infinitely beneficial in pulling me out of my mood.

Just an F.Y.I, asking for help takes practice. You want a challenge? Ask people to help you change genders, ask people to accept you as a girl. That’s a challenge. But it all comes in steps so don’t worry. Start with asking for simple things and work your way up gradually over time.