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.
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.