The Connection Between Love and Work

By Khothatso Kolobe

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Photo by Gerry Roarty on Unsplash
Photo by Gerry Roarty on Unsplash

Before the hay day of feminism, there was a high likelihood of boys being shown ropes to find crowning in work, either at home or at school. The intelligent logic has dumbed down to the gospel that money provides fulfilment and it is attained through work. The definition of work has expanded to questionable means of getting money such as committing crimes and not getting caught, gambling, as well as getting a rich partner, sugar daddy or mommy as they call them.

Nowadays there is a guarantee that working men across all classes will experience a period of unemployment. The antifeminist patriarchal sympathizers use the aforementioned fact as a scapegoat.

The first is that legions of men used to be satisfied with being workhorses doing meaningless labour to carry out their provider role and that the protest of feminists on gender equality at work has given life to male vexation.

Susan Faludi in her titanic journalistic treatise, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man, chronicles the reality that some males, especially older men, felt that changes in the valuation and nature of work, as well as competition with women for jobs, robbed them of their pride of being providers, creating what she terms a “masculinity crisis.” A hogwash crisis as we will prove shortly.

The second is that women entering the workforce, becoming independent of men as sole providers, have debilitated the well being of men in patriarchal culture. This one is by no means genuine either, it screams of men being power hungry control freaks, which is not that far off the bullseye.

The errancy of the first is that bountiful sociological studies of men done well ahead of the feminist movement were symptomatic to men already pointing out grave discontent and depression about the nature and meaning of work in their lives.

The second one is amiss to boot because an assemblage of men in patriarchal culture presuppose that their capacity to provide for themselves and their families is a measure of their manhood, yet time and again, they do not use their resources to assist others.

To authenticate this shortcoming in men, feminist theorists have brought the public’s attention to the truth that the behavior of men who make money but deny payment of child support or alimony, or their peers who head households yet squander their salaries on individual pleasures, challenges the patriarchal assertion that men are enthusiastic to be caretakers and providers. Some of our fathers took too long to return from the mines and too many months without sending money.

There is very infinitesimal research that records the extent to which depression about the nature of work creates violent men in their domestic lives. Rather than documenting something that important, patriarchy offers obsession with sex and pornography. These two are patronized to soothe men latently while they perform jobs that are tedious, boring, and ofttimes dehumanizing, jobs where their health and well being are at risk.

Observing what work does for women, it appears that it brings them more harm than good. Patriarchy still dictates that men get the lion’s share of both jobs and wages. In an event whereby a woman makes more than her man, the man uses a variety of tactics to subdue her. It could be demanding sexual favours, withholding sex or even confiscating her paycheck and using it as he desires so that he feels like the boss.

Hooks has uncovered that working class and middle income women, after years of staying at home, have found that working outside the home bolstered their self esteem and gave them a different perspective on relationships. They start to place more demands on male spouses and lovers for emotional engagement.

The majority of women work extended hours and come home to a second shift of doing household chores. This is unfair. Both men and women return from work exhausted and should share both household chores and emotional care giving responsibilities. Sexist gender roles must be thrown out of the window for good.

Multitudes of men use work as the place where they can bolt from the self, from emotional awareness, where they can lose themselves in their emotional numbness paradise. They are threatened by unemployment because they will have time to fill, the one greatest thing that men in patriarchal culture do not want.

Victor Seidler voiced his fear of downtime in Rediscovering Masculinity, “I have learned how hard it is to give myself time, even an hour for myself a day. There are always things I am supposed to be doing. A feeling of panic and anxiety emerges at the very thought of spending more time with myself.”

Seidler admits that men never really take time to know themselves better because it threatens the control which is attributed to masculinity. The result is men feeling trapped, yet men continuously remake the trap for themselves.

Workplace competition with other men complicates emotional expression and taking time alone. Men do any other fun thing except sharing their feelings, they adhere to the patriarchal manhood code of denying relatedness.

This is regardless of male workers such as Kenneth Blanchard, the author of the One Minute Manager and coauthor of The Power of Ethical Management, divulging the wisdom that relational skills should be cultivated by men to enhance the nature of work and working relations, most work environments remain as places where emotional engagement between workers, specifically a boss and a subordinate, is decreed bad for business.

To illuminate the connection between love and work, let us investigate cases of men who had to make difficult choices in relation to love and work. Gail Sheey’s Understanding Men’s Passages contains such autobiographical accounts by men wrestling with the knowledge that the work they do is promoting intense depression and unhappiness. Caught between the devil and the deep sea.

Lee May recalls, “I was faced with two hard choices. One, stay in the job I was doing and choke, strangle, psychologically, or quit and face the possibility that we would crumble financially.” He went a step further to describe circumstances in his home: “Our household was an unhappy place. But had I stayed at the old jobs, my happiness would have pervaded our relationship.” May eventually left his unhappy job to do work that improved his self awareness and self actualization. Such jobs better.

The overarching point is that we have to do what we love earlier in life. To follow our hearts. This effort may often involve conflict with controlling parents, spouses and partners, but that is no excuse not to honour your inner self by doing something that fills you with long lasting joy and fulfilment.

It is worth noting that Hooks gathers examples of movies that perpetuate enslaving patriarchal notions. Next time when you sit in front of your screen, beware of movies and programs that subliminally keep you cuffed up to patriarchy at the expense of your well being.

We will be looking into feminist manhood next, the book on our table is The Will to Change by Bell Hooks.

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Khothatso Kolobe
Khothatso is a creative willing to do and be anyone and anything to make a positive impact. His creative history is available on Facebook and Instagram (@artzoniac). He's a multi dimensional being accomplishing universal good.