Facts You Should Understand on Your Western Value: Achievement (Masculinity)
In masculine cultures all over the world children are taught to admire the strong and ambitious. Popular fictional heroes (many of them created by Hollywood) are “Batman” or “Rambo” or “The Terminator” – whether you were raised in London or Chicago or Toronto or Sydney.
In your Western culture, your teachers most likely praised the best students for their academic performance in public, and gave out awards for achievement. Both male and female students learned to be competitive that way, and that the best way to succeed was to be visible and verbal to stand out from the crowd. By the time a child from your culture finishes primary school, he or she has learned that it is a horrible thing to fail.
In the West, for the most part, boys and girls are raised to deal with their emotions differently, too. Boys are raised NOT to cry. Boys are raised to “fight back” if they are attacked. Such behavior as crying or avoiding a fight are serious enough to earn a Western boy some severe mocking – they mark him as “a sissy” or “a weakling,” or worse — and such a boy is not respected.
Girls in the West, on the other hand, are raised to express their “tender” feelings – it’s okay to cry. But they are raised to suppress their aggression and are not expected to “fight back” or “stand up for themselves” when attacked. At the same time, they are competitive – competitive over the attention of boys, competitive over clothing, over good grades in school, and competitive about being “popular.”
When it comes to the workplace, that same competitive spirit is encouraged in your culture. You are expected to stand up for yourself, argue your position, and compete for promotions – and to be verbal and visible about it all. Promotions, earnings, and “perks” are awarded to those who are the most competitive and achievement-oriented. And business is seen as a “game” where there are winners and losers.
And in some Western cultures – maybe even yours –people who can argue loudly and passionately are admired, whether it’s in the living room, at a business meeting, or in a public restaurant. Some may even consider arguing a sport – after raising voices, pounding tables, and hurling insults at each other, the “opponents” declare a winner, slap each other on the back and go out for a beer as if nothing happened!
In terms of how its governments function, more masculine countries spend a large part of their budget to ensure they can “win” any conflict, with more money going to weapons and arms than to social programs like health care or education. It’s as if the whole purpose of national government is to win – at any cost. (Just look at how viciously the political parties in your home country attack each other, for example!)
Your Western culture tends to value the idea of “Living to Work.” To be productive. To accomplish something. And to do so in a louder, more public way. It’s not a bad thing – it’s just a more “masculine” way of viewing the world.
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