Bohemian bachelors

[mightymads]

Men and women sometimes experience certain difficulties in understanding each other even now, when we are raised side by side since kindergarten and learn to communicate with the opposite sex from an early age. In the 19th century segregation by gender and class reached its peak. Men and women were raised in their own homosocial circles, especially middle and upper classes. Even in servants’ quarters men’s and women’s parts were strictly segregated and located as far as possible from each other. Both sexes had to adhere to the social roles ascribed to them. A man was to provide while a woman to look after the household and not to bother her husband with domestic aspects. In this context the emotional and communicative gap between men and women is unsurprising. Since they lived virtually in different worlds which had few points of contact, it seems quite predictable that stronger emotional and intellectual bonds were formed between individuals of the same sex.

( Read more... )