In response to last week’s posts on Virginia Woolf, which begin here, Melissa, who is the mother of nine children, writes:

Years ago in college I had to read Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and also in the same course Elizabeth Spellman’s Inessential Woman. Spellman’s thesis was that since we can speak of expressions of womanhood as being different in different times and places, the modern, Western ideas of what being a woman is are not essential characteristics. According to Spellman, when we say that women lack womanly qualities, and suggest that they then fail to be women, we are making a false argument since these traits are inconsistent over time and space, and therefore accidental. Instinctively I felt it was wrong, but could not suggest that in class. I needed this “Philosophy of Race, Sex, and Gender” course to graduate.

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A man’s voice, especially a baritone or a bass, seems to emanate from a barrel. It is deeper and more resonant than a woman’s and represents one of the most striking differences between male and female. Women have favored deep-voiced men over the course of eons, ensuring survival of this sexual trait. There is no question about this: The male voice projects more authority than a woman’s. But, does this vocal difference matter in everyday life?

I say it does. It matters not just in relations between the sexes, but to family life as well. Together with the feminine sound, it creates an aural environment that is complete. Children who grow up without men in their homes miss what Lydia Sherman calls the “sound of reassurance.”  

The male voice also matters in politics and leadership. A woman cannot project the same commanding tone when she speaks. A woman’s voice rarely inspires fear. It is never thunderous. A female platoon commander needs to work hard to keep from sounding shrill. Sound matters.

Lydia, of Home Living, writes:

We are caring for a 95-year-old woman named “Nanny” who is my son-in-law’s grandmother. During this time I noticed something interesting. She becomes quite anxious if her grandson (almost 40) is not sitting beside or talking to her. I wondered if the sound of a man’s voice is very comforting to her. I talk to my own father, and when I hear his voice, it is like the world settles down for me. There is something very, very important in a man’s voice.

It is not good that children are raised only around women, and not around the male voice. I was thinking more and more about that male voice and how important it is.  I felt it while watching the movie, The Bostonians. The main male character was almost the only male voice of any importance, and when he spoke, the words were never trivial.  I know such a man in his 80’s. His conversation is never trite. His words are loaded. He never speaks without imparting a truth. His voice is deep.  My son-in-law’s voice is deep, and almost grave. Yet, he sings in a tenor voice.

President Teddy Roosevelt had a high-pitched voice when speaking, and yet he was “rough and ready,” and very masculine. But generally the man’s voice is so different from a woman’s. There is nothing like a Daddy’s voice, even if he is a distant person (as many of them seemed in the old days). It is a sound of reassurance. 

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The town where I live is festooned with green ribbons. They are tied to trees in the shopping district, to streetlights, to parking meters and to signs. What does all this festivity signify? Ovarian cancer. The ribbons are part of a campaign to make us more sensitive to this terrible disease. They are the green counterpart to the familiar pink ribbons of breast cancer campaigns.

Cancer is evil. Everyone should contribute to the worthy battle against it. But, if we are going to express our concern for this grave matter with sentimental displays of ribbons, why not ribbons for all cancer?  If we must select one, let it be a childhood cancer.

These ribbons depress me. They depress me not simply because cancer kills. They are a sickly-sweet reminder of the boastful conceit of women. Power makes women selfish.

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A male reader writes:

I would just like to ask you a very simple question, what do you consider the main masculine attributes and the main feminine attributes to be?

Laura writes:

That’s not a simple question! But even complicated questions can have simple answers.

Two years ago, I took a tour of a prestigious liberal arts college and the co-ed leading the tour mentioned that a specific dormitory was assigned to students who declare themselves to be the opposite sex. That’s how plastic masculinity and femininity have become. The truth is a woman can no more become a man than a dog can become a cat, or an apple tree can swim in a pond. Many people today believe that each person is potentially either masculine or feminine, or both, and that ideally a harmonious balance can be achieved, a state of inner androgyny.

Let’s start with the premise that masculinity and femininity are engraved in the structure of the person.  They are both physical and psychic, no more interchangeable than our personalities. We are not androgynous at our core, but are born one or the other according to our anatomy and can never transcend our masculine or feminine natures. We arrive at self-realization not by overcoming our inborn nature, but by honoring and understanding it. There’s always some compelling bit of truth to the view of universal androgyny. Every masculine trait can occur in some degree in a woman, and vice versa.

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In response to the previous post, Karen Wilson from England argues that men are portrayed as effeminate and spineless in Western advertising not only to ingratiate and butter up female consumers. The image is real.

Karen writes:

I think men in ads are often portrayed as weak, partly as deliberate propaganda, but partly because that is in fact what many of them are.  We may wish to deny this because it does not suit our perceptions of our culture and history.  However civilisations are built, maintained and defended by strong men and destroyed by weak men.

The Western male is often a weak species. In short there is no serious and significant group of strong males who challenge the existing status quo. There is no group of strong males who are ready and organised to start a revolution and reclaim their country. It is as though they all assume automatic poodle position.

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