The self-esteem of western women is founded on physical being (body mass index, youth, beauty). This creates a tricky emphasis on image, but the internalized locus of self-worth saves lives. Western men are very different. In externalizing the source of their self-esteem, they surrender all emotional independence. (Conquest requires two parties, after all.) A man cannot feel like a man without a partner, corporation, team. Manhood is a game played on the terrain of opposites. It thus follows that male sense of self disintegrates when the Other is absent.
Antonella Gambotto-Burke, The Eclipse: A Memoir of Suicide
body-image, boys, center, centre, conquest, femininity, gender, gender-roles, gender-stereotypes, girls, inward-focus, masculinity, men, self-esteem, sense-of-self, women