booklandish said:

“Woman: An Intimate Geography
By Natalie Angier
Soft, 2000 ed., 398 pp.

Ordinary Heroes: A Future for Men
By Michael Hardiman
Soft, 2000 ed., 238 pp.

Knowing Woman and Ordinary Hero

I read with excitement every page of Woman: An Intimate Geography by Natalie Angier. I tasted every exhilarating fact it presents. I ventured to even put forward my theories on many whys such as why I menstruate, why are my breasts protruding, and why my clitoris evolved this way. And in the end, I am drinking in my own cup of theories and up to this day have not yet recovered from hang-over which state I relish much.
Ordinary Heroes, on the other hand, gave me a fresh approach about Men. Every page gave me raw pieces of evidence that opened my appetite for more. As I advanced, I devoured and savored everything it served about men and how they become the society’s stereotype. And in the end, I am caught in the state of craving for more.
I was gender-sensitized, and I decided to share a serving of both treats to others.
I chose to have two; one cannot be complete without the other. As a woman, I cannot engross myself with studying my self without studying men. I and the man are intertwined, and are nature’s gift to each other. I am unlike Aristotle who said that a woman is an unfinished man, a statement which is caused, of course, by his utter ignorance about women.
The Woman opened up my senses. While I saw and felt my naked body, and tasted and smelled my vagina, I heard the apoptosis, the onomatopoeia is a-POP-tosis, in my body. That is an innate cell program which, as I grow up, cleanly destroys the eggs which I have millions as a fetus, and would barely leave anything during my menopause. Why is this so? Angier ventures: Perhaps eggs are like neurons, which also are not replenished in adulthood: they know too much. Eggs must plan the party. Sperms only need to show up – wearing top hat and tails, of course.
Angier writes scientific details beautifully, so that she captures the essence of scientific details, and wittily, so that she attracts her non-scientist readers’ interest. She wonderfully metamorphosed her ideas on “Female” chromosomes and whether the female body is a passive construct (here, of course, Aristotle is dead), the evolution of clitoris, the mass hysteria on losing the uterus, the story of breast and of breastmilk, the make-up of the ovary as well as the hormones.
Also, Angier explores the nexus between estrogen and desire, testosterone and women as well as the female aggression and need to make a muscle, and scientific nature of love, a human bondage.
Reading Woman, and reading Angier at that, made me spin with delight embracing that I am human, I am human. But she does not make me forget that I am an animal, too. She transports me from pertinent scientific studies on birds, rats, and monkeys to the bounty of literature, mythology and arts. But after reading the book one thought stood out: With much braggadocio on human development, it is surprising that we do not know much about women, why is clitoris evolved that way or why are breasts protruding or simply why menstruate.
The book answers them all in various delightful ways.
Knowing Ordinary Hero
Meanwhile, Ordinary Heroes: A Future for Men written by Michael Hardiman made me understand man and men in our society. Hardiman made me see that the stereotyped Hercules is as damaged as the stereotyped Cinderella. As I open the table of contents, he proposed that I should look at men first by reading, “The formative influences in becoming a man.” So I did.
He advances that the man today is a product of a process called natural selection which refers to the principle that if some characteristics have an advantage for the survival of an animal then it is more likely to be carried on into the next generation.
He also said that biological differences are insubstantial in explaining the radical differences that seem to exist between men and women when it comes to the issue of psychological and mental functioning. Hardiman, as well as feminists, maintains that men and women are very alike but are taught, by their social environment, to be different. He furthers that the fundamental differences between the sexes, if not understood by both men and women, can lead to all kinds of difficulties in communication, as well as high levels of relationship breakdown.
Ordinary Heroes dissects man in its next chapter. Here, I am acquainted with men with impoverished relationships with women, men with inadequate fatherhood skills, an men who are imbalanced as a result of men’s dysfunctional relationship with their selves, men’s isolation from other men, and men’s dysfunctional relationship to work. These may appear to be a psychology treatise but mind you, Hardiman makes his book as simple as reading a primer for puberty.
Importantly, Hardiman proposes proactive strategies towards healthy masculinity as a conclusion. First, men should get ready for change, then care for their soul, and have purpose in life. Further, he expresses the importance of deepening friendship, understanding intimacy and sexuality, and rebuilding fatherhood.
I am swayed by Hardiman. He closed his books by telling one of the abiding images in the arguments about gender: the glass ceiling. He noted, and noted it well, “When we think of male influence in the world we have been encouraged to come to grips with this invisible partition that separates the male elite from the rest of the world. Yes, there is a male elite, those who swagger with their brandy and cigars above the glass ceiling, comparing the size of their respective bank accounts, cars, houses and all the other trappings of success, the symbolic laurels and accolades of the victors. They wield their power with confidence and arrogance and hope to God that they don’t slip.
“If, however, we can look up through the glass ceiling we can also look down to the glass cellar. There we see the millions of dead and maimed young warriors of this civilised millenium. Alongside them are them are disenfranchised men who lived and live half-lives, filled with undiagnosed despair, failures in their open eyes, and shamed by the world, getting sick and dying early. The criminal connive and violate, and get what they can from their forays up from the cellar to the world where the vast majority of men live.
“Between the glass ceiling and the glass cellar live the men who are the ordinary heroes. Men who are decent, hardworking, compassionate and concerned. Those who want their children to be safe and well, to thrive and be happy, those who stop to help the stranded motorist, who protect those they love to the point of death.
“ Many are now struggling to come to terms with new definitions of how to be a good man. Most have the heart to do so, they just need to find the way. I hope this book is of some use in that most challenging and fulfilling of tasks.”
I believe the book is.
”

posted Monday, August 13 2007