Middle-aged men, still fully engaged in their professional activity, say that they don’t have time for these things, that once the working day is over, they just want to relax and do nothing which requires intellectual effort.
Both men and women work most of the day. Then, sometimes after a little beer with their colleagues, they go home and that’s where the second day begins for the majority of the population: everything to do with children, or elderly parents, domestic care and a thousand things we do. not expected and this must be resolved immediately. There is not much free time left for oneself and the little that remains is usually spent playing sports, watching movies, playing video games, watching football or another sport and, to a lesser extent, to read.
Until then, men and women are equal, although they have on average almost two hours of additional free time per day which they can devote to their personal affairs, and not to the service of the family or of the community to which they belong.
Even though women have less time, there is a phenomenon that, at least for me, catches my attention.
Have you ever belonged to or attended a book club? They’re women at a ratio of 9 to 1 (and sometimes that one doesn’t exist either). Conferences in museums on artistic themes, generally organized by the association Les Amis du Musée? Women, in a ratio of 7 or 8 to 3 or 2. Yoga classes? Almost only women. Dance? Pottery? Watercolor? In Austria, even though it is an extremely musical country, choirs still struggle to find enough male voices. Amateur theater groups are almost all predominantly female.
The absence of men in any activity that can be considered cultural, which serves to train beyond what is useful for the profession that each person exercises, is striking. Because yes, even if men are still professionally active, they take foreign language courses, computer courses or anything that can help them improve and progress in their career with the consequence of an increase in salary and hierarchy. . However, later, when they retire, unlike women who, having more time, sign up for everything they could not do when they were working, men disappear.
I wonder where the men over sixty-five are? There can’t be that much football for that to be the answer. What are they doing with their lives? How do they spend their time? Are they no longer interested in learning something new, progressing, doing things they’ve never tried, meeting new people in a new environment?
Young men, who also do not participate in these types of cultural activities, go to the gym in their free time because this stupid narcissistic-exhibitionist society we have established demands that men have muscles ( that they’re not going to use for anything except for taking pictures and looking in the mirror) and it doesn’t happen overnight, it takes a lot of time and effort. They go out for a drink, flirt, to a concert, sometimes to the cinema, they play with the console… but, once outside of school, they seem to consider that they have already learned enough and that anything that smacks of culture sounds boring to them.
Middle-aged men, still fully engaged in their professional activity, say that they don’t have time for these things, that once the working day is over, they just want to relax and do nothing which requires intellectual effort. Some people do sports – for their health, and for their figure, if they are more stylish – then television and bed.
The men who are already retired constitute the great mystery. Many help take care of their grandchildren (but the grandchildren are already with their parents from seven or eight in the afternoon, when cultural activities begin), some go out for a walk (the morning, when the weather is nice, or after eating), others go fishing (from time to time), but what do they do when the women get together to discuss a novel, or go to the presentation of a book, or at a conference on Bernini, or? to a craft class, pencil portraits or cooking class? Don’t they want to know more? Have they only defined themselves, throughout their lives, through their profession, their work, and, now that they are no longer practicing, they enter into a depression which distances them from everything that could make them happy in a different activity? ? Don’t they realize that learning new skills stimulates the brain and makes us reach old age with a younger, more flexible mind? Are you too lazy to go out when it’s dark?
We hear more and more complaints that women are invading everything, that they are everywhere, that they are occupying more and more relevant and better paid positions, that men are losing out… That’s the kind of complaints that come from bad information, because those. those who protest do not realize that the wage gap between men and women, the glass ceiling, the lack of fairness in the distribution of responsibilities and powers continue to exist. However, it is true that there are more and more women who are prepared and who continue to learn, who train in a wide variety of disciplines, who like to learn, who do not think that they already know everything and that cultural activities are nonsense for the unemployed. people. .
Let me clarify that I am not talking about all men or all women. I know full well that there are women who are tired of gossip shows and gossip magazines, and men who attend lecture series and enroll in college to pursue the career they want. have always wanted and could not study due to life circumstances. I also know that there are people who prefer to learn and train alone at home, with what the Internet offers, which is a lot. What I’m talking about is this trend that I observe and that I have commented on several times with my friends in the cultural programming community of various cities. Everyone complains about the same thing: there are few audiences and what there is is mostly female. We discussed why this might happen, what could be offered to men – of all ages – to make cultural programming engaging and interesting, and the only thing that seems to work (and not always) is that the person who proposes the conference or gives the floor the workshop is very “media”, it is on TV, it is famous. It can be a hook to fill a room. The subject itself seems to matter much less if the person who is going to speak about it is not generally known, because it does not matter whether he is an absolute specialist on the subject and wonderfully appreciated in his specialty. If your name doesn’t ring a bell, there’s nothing you can do. The usual ladies will go, those who go to all the lectures throughout the course and, eventually, they will “force” their husbands to accompany them. Only the men, who came of their own free will, will be only a few.
How did we arrive at a situation where learning is no longer desirable, where there are no more “cultural circles” where, week after week, all kinds of subjects are discussed so that the public can opens up areas that were not even familiar to him? with, nor a “cinema forum” where you could compare your opinions on the film you have just seen with those of other spectators and go home full of ideas that would never have occurred to you? Before, men and women worked at least as much as today (some even had two or three jobs to be able to provide for the family; they did not have devices to lighten the burden of domestic tasks) and yet they went to the smallest ones there were because they were hungry to learn, to improve.
Now we have so many that apparently we suffer from a lack of culture and just want to be left alone. Or could it be that the American “have fun” wave has finally arrived here, given that the shows still have a large audience. Or that a certain type of man cannot get used to women being the majority everywhere and prefers to stay at home.
