This just sounds like the author thinks masculinity is all negative things.
Anyone who thinks Trump is a representation of masculinity is not someone who’s opinion on the matter I care for.
I feel like the point is rather that instead of redefining masculinity into something more positive, we should rather deconstruct gender norms in general. Because regardless of masculinity being something “positive” or “negative”, it is still an expectation for people to live up to. And eventually people will fail to live up to them. That’s why I would say it is preferable to deconstuct gender as a whole, rather than redefining it.
If the goal of the article is to promote agenderism, it goes about it poorly. From the tagline of
It’s perfectly fine to be a “feminine” man. Young men do not need a vision of “positive masculinity.”
Before leading into countless criticisms based purely on a far-right view of masculinity. It takes a rather hostile approach to many people’s identities and falsely attributes a perspective onto it that not everyone shares.
While it would be interesting to live in a world without gender, it’s a very radical change. It would be more prudent to achieve the shorter timeframe goal of eliminating that harmful right wing conceptualisation in the meanwhile.
Not to mention the morality, as we would effectively be erasing people’s experiences, as for many people they do identify as somewhere on a gender spectrum.
Is it okay to say that’s wrong, and they shouldn’t? I don’t know, I can see the merit, but I can also see the oppression in dictating how others live and identify.
There’s also a bit of a colonial attitude issue, can we say tell other cultures (ex. Indigenous) to stop their traditions around gender such as coming of age ceremonies?
While it would be interesting to live in a world without gender, it’s a very radical change.
I don’t think that is necessary. What we should do is to detach gender from any form of judgement or expectation. There is this feminist, liberal idea of how a modern man should be like, act like, feel like - but at the end of the day it is still maintaining the concept that men have some sort of role to fulfill. That it is what bothers me about gender expectations: you are supposed to be in a certain way just because of the sex you were born with/the gender you appear to be. And no matter how you want to (re)define it, you’re always going to have people who won’t feel comfortable in these categories.
There’s also a bit of a colonial attitude issue, can we say tell other cultures (ex. Indigenous) to stop their traditions around gender such as coming of age ceremonies?
What exactly is the colonial attitude supposed to be? This discussion seems to focus on western ideas around gender?
Anyone who thinks Trump is a representation of masculinity is not someone who’s opinion on the matter I care for.
While this is a fine personal metric, I think it ignores the growing social power of the strong man right and the related manosphere subcultures.
It’s unrelated, they are not masculinity.
Just because you don’t think so doesn’t mean those things haven’t had influence on the cultural perception of it.
I understand the desire to separate yourself from those things as an individual. And I don’t know what method will work, but simply telling people the “manosphere” just doesn’t count isn’t going to change anyone’s minds.
Saying manosphere bs represents masculinity is like saying TERFs represent feminism.
They’re minority extreme angles on a topic, to the point we give them different names so we know what’s being spoken about because they are not the baseline.
That may be the case but it is not a rebuttal to my point.
Those things have had an influence on the perception of masculinity. And yes, TERFs have had an influence on the perception of feminism. And simply saying they don’t count isn’t an effective way of countering that influence.
That makes as much sense as saying trans, non-binary people only need to have a satisfying, meaningful life without a vision of masculinity, femininity, or gender Identity.
you left out the “positive” in your analogy:
trans, non-binary people only need to have a satisfying, meaningful life without a vision of positive masculinity, femininity, or gender Identity
Of course it makes sense to have a concept of these things, but the point is that it is not helpful to define these things with positive or negative values, but rather to look consider these things independent from one another.
No. Gender Identity isn’t zero sum. Things can be positive without other things being negative.
no matter how positively you define a gender role, it will negatively impact those who struggle with conforming to said roles. So I say it is preferable to define masculinity (or gender in general) without any value judgement.
I hate gender roles and assigning anything to them. But everybody deserves a positive view of the traits and ideals they identify with and everybody deserves positive examples of how to express/demonstrate the traits and ideals they identify with.
Noticing more smells and colors and flavors and sounds and being able to listen to more complicated music are all skills that we gain over our life. Identifying and identifying with traits you have or aspire to is almost certainly the same, and even if it isn’t I have no place to say that someone else shouldn’t think about themselves primarily as being a reproductive male (which may be devastating if that’s not something they can do), and since that is a common way to see oneself, due to the importance of reproduction or due to culture or due to some aesthetic like which flavors go together, then people identifying with masculinity deserve positive views of it, and positive examples of how to express it.
Only if you broadcast your list of gender “check boxes”, and come down on others to follow them.
Everyone is free to pursue whatever makes them feel happy and whole, so long as that collection of traits does not direct impact other’s lives.
Like if my chosen trait is “responsibility and physical fitness”, that has no inherent impact on anyone else.
Everyone should be encouraged or coached to pursue what’s right for them, not what’s right for someone else.
This guy is so close but got stuck jerking off his own intellectualism half way.
As a rule masculinity and femininity are both a collection of traits. Usually defined something like this:
Masculinity is assertiveness, confidence and maybe something like independence.
Femininity is Emotional intelligence, Empathy and maybe something like team-coordination.
Now I view these groups like the hormones testosterone and estrogen. You need both to function. But the ratio between them defines whether you appear masculine or feminine.
You need to be capable of displaying both groups.
However, currently one side demonizes masculine traits, while the other side calls feminine traits gay.
The Author is close to the truth, in the sense that the traits he describes as good masculine traits shouldn’t be exclusive to men. But he looses the plot by tying the traits directly and exclusively to the genders. This is illustrated by calling Margaret Thatcher an honorary man instead of a masculine woman.
Because of this he concludes, that everyone should have all traits regardless of group. This is correct but looses the significance of these groups, both in terms of role models and sexuality.
He accurately points out the issues and ridiculousness of current masculinity gurus but misses why they are appealing. The need for guidance amongst young men is evident.
But let’s leave aside all discussion of what makes someone a real “man” and just aspire to become decent human beings.
This quote betrays a general misunderstanding of what the issue is. Becoming a decent human is not a problem. The issue is becoming a (good) man. Society has gone far in expanding women’s possibilities, but the traditional roles for men have not really been changed, so they don’t fit into this new environment. This leads to a lot of confusion, to where we have cis men struggling to perform their gender and looking for help.
Now Tate and company offer some form of help. Its terrible, but it speaks to the problem, while Mr. Robinson pretends like the problem doesn’t exist and just tells young man to become good humans.
Its often interesting to view gender issues through the trans lens. In this case I would argue that the Author would approach a trans man, who is asking how to be a man very differently.
In my opinion this article is part of the problem driving more men to become Tate-stans and misogynists.
TL;DR: Everyone should display all traits, but the ratio is significant to determine overall appearance.
The existence of stereotypes like tomboy show that there is a link between traits and gender, but on an individual basis the ratio of traits can swap. And that’s also cool.
Also the author is an ideolog ignoring the problem he writes about.
There is no rule set down in stone for what men have to be like and what women have to be like. I do think there are rules for what people generally ought to be like, and I admire those who display what I consider to be the universal virtues. It’s true that many young men lead lives of quiet desperation. But I don’t see how masculinity has anything to do with the solution to that.
I get the general point that gender roles should be overcome etc, but we’re definitely not gonna be able to change anything by ignoring the fact that they exist and influence us on a daily basis.
I’m not a very “masculine” man, I guess. I like flowers, and I wear purple. I sip lattes and my hair is longer than average. I have a trace of a British accent, which makes me sound prissy. I do lift weights at the gym most days, but it certainly hasn’t turned me into the Hulk. When I’m sad, I cry, and when I am delighted, I laugh. I am tender toward animals. Does it add up to being “unmanly”?
If you substitute for black coffee, I fulfill just about all of this criteria.
Based on my limited understanding of what masculinity is supposed to be, he beats me at it.
So he admits to not understanding masculinity, not engaging with it, then stating that it is pointless. Methinks he is threatened by masculinity and thus he tries to claim it is unnecessary or automatically and necessarily harmful on its face. The “essence” of the sexes — masculinity and feminity — have been commercialized, commodified, pulled out by the roots and dipped in a disinfectant solution. I can see this in how every reference to his understanding is hinged on pop stars and movie figures.
What is masculinity? It’s a hard term to define because the basic sense of it is so general. How do you describe sight? How do you describe feeling confident? It’s not exactly easy to define the sweeping, largest-scale aspects of our lives. I think that masculinity is not set in stone but there are some general, atavistic elements of it that are mostly universal to all men who have those traits, borne necessarily of living in a dangerous world and needing to protect kith and kin:
- Disagreeableness (sometimes decisions must be made without a discussion, life or death, etc)
- Lowered inhibition (willingness to go out and take risks for higher gain)
- Ability to withstand troublesome situations/pain (one only needs to look to the conditions that construction and other trades workers endure, traditionally masculine jobs)
Women historically often encapsulated the reversal or mirror of many of these traits:
- Agreeableness (physically smaller and weaker women tend to be safer in numbers and when working together)
- Higher inhibition (risk taking = higher chance of death = less chance children survive or are born)
- More apt to improving on a rough environment instead of just dealing with it (healthier, happier home, etc)
It isn’t to say that I don’t believe that these traits cross over between the sexes, of course they do, and someone can embody many of these traits and be masculine or feminine.
But people have an essence about them. The reader himself states that he considers himself to be more feminine. I think that it is healthy and normal to recognize one’s essence in this manner, and to strive to live in comport with their basic feeling of self. I lived a very feminized life for years and was unhappy with myself. Upon taking on some more masculine traits, I found strength and austerity that I lacked before.
I think the traits you list are a bit too abstract. When people list traits they strive for, they are usually derived from yours.
Yours might factually fit the data, but men don’t aim to be disagreeable, they aim to be independent or confident. Same with women and being empathetic and social.
The problem is that everyone needs all those traits. This is where the author fails by saying the groups are pointless.
I think the ratio of how pronounced the traits are is what makes masculinity and femininity.
It seems like the author cannot reconcile that positive masculinity cannot simultaneously mean to be a good person who has a satisfying, meaningful life.
Sounds like the author thinks we need to change our culture’s definition of “masculine.” I agree.
I think the author is saying more like: “A positive, specific masculinity may not exist at all”
He may be. I think he’s wrong, but he’s entitled to his opinion.
Or at least that the effort required to construct one is maybe a misguided use of our resources.
It already exists, we don’t need to “construct” it?
I wholeheartedly agree. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a “good masculinity” in the same way there isn’t any “good femininity”. Gender roles don’t need to be redefined, they should be overcome.
Gender roles don’t need to be redefined, they should be overcome.
It’s fascinating to me how people blurt statements like this out and then just move on like that settles the issue.
Like we’re not living in a gendered world and will continue do so for every single day of our lives.
Even if you think that gender should be abolished as the ultimate goal you have to acknowledge that, in the mean time, boys and young men have to navigate a world that is not blind to gender. And if they are looking for guidance on how to do that and you’re just sticking your head in the sand, they will get their answers from people who give them what they’re looking for. Even if those answers are terrible.
Gender is merely an aspect of identity, and expressing your identity in a positive way should not be discouraged
of course it shouldn’t! but the problems arise when it becomes some sort of pressure to conform to. A man likes working out, look jacked and have a well combed beard? If he’s happy in his body, that is awesome! doesn’t mean we should make a role model out of him and encourage others to be like that to. Because a man who wears dresses, knits and is a huge nerd about make-up is equally worthy of feeling happy about himself. If we make any kind of masculinity more ‘positive’ than the other, we run into problems
