WaPo Opinion: Men are lost. Here’s a map out of the wilderness.
July 10, 2023 8:10 AM Subscribe
Past models of masculinity feel unreachable or socially unacceptable; new ones have yet to crystallize. What are men for in the modern world? What do they look like? Where do they fit? These are social questions but also ones with major political ramifications. Whatever self-definition men settle on will have an enormous impact on society. Yet many people, like Taylor, hesitate to be the one to try to outline a new standard of manliness. Who are they to set the rules?
Only one group seems to have no such doubts about offering men a plan. (WaPo gift article)
What is masculinity or manliness is the wrong question. A better question would be why? As in "why do we even need an externally defined identity to tell us if we're masculine, and why should it even be a goal to begin with?"
It's worthwhile to ask "how can I be a good person" but we'd do well to stop trying to tell people "because your body has these parts, you should behave like this."
I think about my own upbringing and my father's efforts to ensure that I was "manly" enough. Some of the things he passed on were good, but still from a "men are the stronger gender" framing which wasn't good. Some were outright harmful / toxic, and have taken decades to unlearn.
We'd be infinitely better off focusing on how we can all be better people and members of society, and to Hell with the idea that there are two buckets of behavior to choose from and deviating from them makes you lesser.
posted by jzb at 8:31 AM on July 10, 2023 [152 favorites]
It's worthwhile to ask "how can I be a good person" but we'd do well to stop trying to tell people "because your body has these parts, you should behave like this."
I think about my own upbringing and my father's efforts to ensure that I was "manly" enough. Some of the things he passed on were good, but still from a "men are the stronger gender" framing which wasn't good. Some were outright harmful / toxic, and have taken decades to unlearn.
We'd be infinitely better off focusing on how we can all be better people and members of society, and to Hell with the idea that there are two buckets of behavior to choose from and deviating from them makes you lesser.
posted by jzb at 8:31 AM on July 10, 2023 [152 favorites]
I think the exploration was good, but some of the proposed solutions/visions for a new masculinity seem a bit like traditionalist stalking horses.
posted by sagc at 8:32 AM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by sagc at 8:32 AM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
Thank you for sharing this. This is a (necessarily) long article, so here's my attempt at pulling some key quotes, which I hope will inspire people to read the whole thing:
Worrying about the state of our men is an American tradition. But today’s problems are real and well documented. ... women are surging ahead in school and in the workplace .... Men now receive about 74 bachelor’s degrees for every 100 awarded to women...
...while the past 50 years have been revolutionary for women ... there hasn’t been a corresponding conversation about what role men should play in a changing world ... men still dominate leadership positions in government and corporations... But millions of men lack access to that kind of power and success.
If young men are looking for direction, these [right-wing] influencers give them a clear script to follow... The rules aren’t particularly unique: get fit, pick up a skill, talk to women instead of watching porn all day. But if instruction is lacking elsewhere, even basic tips feel like a revelation.
...the approach of these male models is both particular and aspirational. They find ways to celebrate aspects of the male experience — from physical strength to competitiveness to sex as a motivator — that other parts of modern society have either derided as “toxic” or attempted to explain aren’t specific to men at all. ..Much of the content in the online men’s space is misogyny... Decent advice becomes an on-ramp to darker viewpoints.
To the extent that any vision of “nontoxic” masculinity is proposed, it ends up sounding more like stereotypical femininity than anything else: Guys should learn to be more sensitive, quiet and socially apt, seemingly overnight. It’s the equivalent of “learn to code!” as a solution for those struggling to adjust to a new economy: simultaneously hectoring, dismissive and jejune.
I’m convinced that men are in a crisis. And I strongly suspect that ending it will require a positive vision of what masculinity entails that is particular — that is, neither neutral nor interchangeable with femininity. ...
“As soon as you start articulating virtues, advantages, good things about being male … then you’ve just dialed up the risk factor of the conversation,” he said. “But ... without it, there’s a vacuum. And along comes Andrew Tate to make Jordan Peterson look like a cuddly old uncle.”
The essentialist view — that it’s in men’s nature to be brave, stoic and in charge while women remain docile, nurturing and submissive — would be dire news for social equality.... Biology isn’t destiny... But ... most people don’t actually want a completely androgynous society. ...
We can find ways to work with the distinctive traits and powerful stories that already exist — risk-taking, strength, self-mastery, protecting, providing, procreating. ...we can attempt to make them pro-social — to help not just men but also women, and to support the common good.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:32 AM on July 10, 2023 [16 favorites]
Worrying about the state of our men is an American tradition. But today’s problems are real and well documented. ... women are surging ahead in school and in the workplace .... Men now receive about 74 bachelor’s degrees for every 100 awarded to women...
...while the past 50 years have been revolutionary for women ... there hasn’t been a corresponding conversation about what role men should play in a changing world ... men still dominate leadership positions in government and corporations... But millions of men lack access to that kind of power and success.
If young men are looking for direction, these [right-wing] influencers give them a clear script to follow... The rules aren’t particularly unique: get fit, pick up a skill, talk to women instead of watching porn all day. But if instruction is lacking elsewhere, even basic tips feel like a revelation.
...the approach of these male models is both particular and aspirational. They find ways to celebrate aspects of the male experience — from physical strength to competitiveness to sex as a motivator — that other parts of modern society have either derided as “toxic” or attempted to explain aren’t specific to men at all. ..Much of the content in the online men’s space is misogyny... Decent advice becomes an on-ramp to darker viewpoints.
To the extent that any vision of “nontoxic” masculinity is proposed, it ends up sounding more like stereotypical femininity than anything else: Guys should learn to be more sensitive, quiet and socially apt, seemingly overnight. It’s the equivalent of “learn to code!” as a solution for those struggling to adjust to a new economy: simultaneously hectoring, dismissive and jejune.
I’m convinced that men are in a crisis. And I strongly suspect that ending it will require a positive vision of what masculinity entails that is particular — that is, neither neutral nor interchangeable with femininity. ...
“As soon as you start articulating virtues, advantages, good things about being male … then you’ve just dialed up the risk factor of the conversation,” he said. “But ... without it, there’s a vacuum. And along comes Andrew Tate to make Jordan Peterson look like a cuddly old uncle.”
The essentialist view — that it’s in men’s nature to be brave, stoic and in charge while women remain docile, nurturing and submissive — would be dire news for social equality.... Biology isn’t destiny... But ... most people don’t actually want a completely androgynous society. ...
We can find ways to work with the distinctive traits and powerful stories that already exist — risk-taking, strength, self-mastery, protecting, providing, procreating. ...we can attempt to make them pro-social — to help not just men but also women, and to support the common good.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:32 AM on July 10, 2023 [16 favorites]
To expand, I think this is a good but flawed article. For all its length, it doesn't really get beyond interviewing people who want to just re-enforce strength as valuable - to get laid, or to protect all those weak people around you (Galloway, Reeves) - and laying out a vision of masculinity which is basically "traditional masculinity, but not too much - too far in either direction, and you'll fail at your goals".
through years on Metafilter, I've honestly arrived at the conclusion that the solution to masculinity was self-abnegation as far as possible; it's also made me very wary of any sort of attempt to re-definite masculinity based on positive virtues, as that has all sorts of implications for people who a) have those virtues and b) aren't men.
posted by sagc at 8:32 AM on July 10, 2023 [16 favorites]
through years on Metafilter, I've honestly arrived at the conclusion that the solution to masculinity was self-abnegation as far as possible; it's also made me very wary of any sort of attempt to re-definite masculinity based on positive virtues, as that has all sorts of implications for people who a) have those virtues and b) aren't men.
posted by sagc at 8:32 AM on July 10, 2023 [16 favorites]
I'm sorry, but these sorts of pieces are feeling rather...trite. The simple reality that the article avoids is that privilege does not mean you cannot suffer - that you can still benefit from structural privilege while struggling in other areas. And Jordan Peterson and his ilk aren't doing anything revolutionary - they are literally running the same playbook that cults like Scientology have been since time immemorial.
Masculinity is in "crisis" in large part because people are (with good reason) working to disassemble male structural privilege, and as the canard says, to the privileged, equality feels like oppression.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:34 AM on July 10, 2023 [92 favorites]
Masculinity is in "crisis" in large part because people are (with good reason) working to disassemble male structural privilege, and as the canard says, to the privileged, equality feels like oppression.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:34 AM on July 10, 2023 [92 favorites]
Mildly-interesting in light of Caitlin Moran’s article (and book) but veers into many - too many - subjects to deliver a formal essay where really, Caitlin did it better.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/01/caitlin-moran-whats-gone-wrong-for-men-and-the-thing-that-can-fix-them
posted by bookbook at 8:38 AM on July 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/01/caitlin-moran-whats-gone-wrong-for-men-and-the-thing-that-can-fix-them
posted by bookbook at 8:38 AM on July 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
As a het-cis male, I don't see that 'masculinity' as a category or set of attributes has any value whatsoever. What's in crisis is some males' sense of self, which, sucks for them and for us when they decide to become nazis, but other than that I don't see it as something that needs some sort of societal definition or fix. Just institute some strong anti-nazi policies and let the rest sort itself out.
posted by signal at 8:43 AM on July 10, 2023 [41 favorites]
posted by signal at 8:43 AM on July 10, 2023 [41 favorites]
It's so insidious how advice from these self-styled "masculinity gurus" mixes hateful things with genuinely good advice like exercise, going outside, and cleaning your space. (Which is good advice for everyone and should not be tied to "masculinity" anyway). This way their adherents can feel a real benefit, start feeling better from following the advice and begin to believe there is some merit to the toxic ideas too.
posted by Mayhembob at 8:44 AM on July 10, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by Mayhembob at 8:44 AM on July 10, 2023 [13 favorites]
From the article:
And while the past 50 years have been revolutionary for women — the feminist movement championed their power, and an entire academic discipline emerged to theorize about gender and excavate women’s history — there hasn’t been a corresponding conversation about what role men should play in a changing world.
If...if memory serves, feminism did also discuss this too - largely by reinforcing the idea that "you know, the fact that your gender shouldn't dictate your societal roles also goes for men".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:44 AM on July 10, 2023 [84 favorites]
And while the past 50 years have been revolutionary for women — the feminist movement championed their power, and an entire academic discipline emerged to theorize about gender and excavate women’s history — there hasn’t been a corresponding conversation about what role men should play in a changing world.
If...if memory serves, feminism did also discuss this too - largely by reinforcing the idea that "you know, the fact that your gender shouldn't dictate your societal roles also goes for men".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:44 AM on July 10, 2023 [84 favorites]
EmpressCallipygos: "feminism did also discuss this too - largely by reinforcing the idea that "you know, the fact that your gender shouldn't dictate your societal roles also goes for men"."
This. I consider myself a (bad) feminist not just out of empathy for women, but also out of dislike for the role I'm supposed to take on as a man.
posted by signal at 8:47 AM on July 10, 2023 [22 favorites]
This. I consider myself a (bad) feminist not just out of empathy for women, but also out of dislike for the role I'm supposed to take on as a man.
posted by signal at 8:47 AM on July 10, 2023 [22 favorites]
It's so insidious how advice from these self-styled "masculinity gurus" mixes hateful things with genuinely good advice like exercise, going outside, and cleaning your space.
Again, this is literally Cult Playbook 101 - bring people in crisis into the fold by building rapport through life advice and support, gaining trust that is then used to push cult beliefs.
Peterson is a lot less impressive when you realize he's just a cult leader with post-secondary education.
If...if memory serves, feminism did also discuss this too - largely by reinforcing the idea that "you know, the fact that your gender shouldn't dictate your societal roles also goes for men".
In addition (and as I've said in other threads), it is not (nor should it be) the job of feminism to discuss the male experience.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:51 AM on July 10, 2023 [11 favorites]
Again, this is literally Cult Playbook 101 - bring people in crisis into the fold by building rapport through life advice and support, gaining trust that is then used to push cult beliefs.
Peterson is a lot less impressive when you realize he's just a cult leader with post-secondary education.
If...if memory serves, feminism did also discuss this too - largely by reinforcing the idea that "you know, the fact that your gender shouldn't dictate your societal roles also goes for men".
In addition (and as I've said in other threads), it is not (nor should it be) the job of feminism to discuss the male experience.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:51 AM on July 10, 2023 [11 favorites]
This is definitely something I've seen & questioned in myself over the span of my life, with no good answer.
• In high school I was drawn to Art of Manliness (before the Christian traditionalism bits started bleeding through), as I liked the idea of "Ok, there's a path to a 'good manliness' that discards the toxic elements but still tries to learn from lessons of the past". Eventually the problems of that became too much to ignore.
• In 2015 as Crone Island spun up I was interested in the Hug Life spinoff, same sort of hope. That didn't have the same downfall, more just the 2016-onward fragmenting of online spaces & difficulties maintaining community momentum that hit a lot of places.
In between & along the way, I started getting increasingly stuck on that question. "What could a 'good manliness' look like?" And I stopped being able to answer it the more I looked.
• Is there some virtue that only men can have or that is only virtuous in men? Surely not, as I couldn't say that something'd be specially non-virtuous in women.
• Are there skills that are special to men/only men should practice? I mean, there's stuff around avoiding coming off as a threat, but so much of that is more tied to bodies & social norms. And there's knowing what society expects of you... but is that really all there is?
• Is there really anything 'essential' or distillable I could come up with that defines 'masculinity'? Maybe, but not by me.
So yeah. I was really interested in the question, both for myself and out of a similar interest as the article has that "the only people answering this question men want to ask are the right-wing, and that can't be good". But in the process of trying to come up with an answer I became increasingly alienated from concepts of gender altogether and started trying on 'He/They' at work & other online spaces where it's safe.
At some point I remember hearing someone describe gender identity as also having *intensity*, as well as directionality. i.e. some people feel very strongly who they are, & who they aren't. Those people seem best equipped to say "this is what it is I feel that draws me to this". I hope so at least, because it doesn't seem like it can be me.
posted by CrystalDave at 8:51 AM on July 10, 2023 [40 favorites]
• In high school I was drawn to Art of Manliness (before the Christian traditionalism bits started bleeding through), as I liked the idea of "Ok, there's a path to a 'good manliness' that discards the toxic elements but still tries to learn from lessons of the past". Eventually the problems of that became too much to ignore.
• In 2015 as Crone Island spun up I was interested in the Hug Life spinoff, same sort of hope. That didn't have the same downfall, more just the 2016-onward fragmenting of online spaces & difficulties maintaining community momentum that hit a lot of places.
In between & along the way, I started getting increasingly stuck on that question. "What could a 'good manliness' look like?" And I stopped being able to answer it the more I looked.
• Is there some virtue that only men can have or that is only virtuous in men? Surely not, as I couldn't say that something'd be specially non-virtuous in women.
• Are there skills that are special to men/only men should practice? I mean, there's stuff around avoiding coming off as a threat, but so much of that is more tied to bodies & social norms. And there's knowing what society expects of you... but is that really all there is?
• Is there really anything 'essential' or distillable I could come up with that defines 'masculinity'? Maybe, but not by me.
So yeah. I was really interested in the question, both for myself and out of a similar interest as the article has that "the only people answering this question men want to ask are the right-wing, and that can't be good". But in the process of trying to come up with an answer I became increasingly alienated from concepts of gender altogether and started trying on 'He/They' at work & other online spaces where it's safe.
At some point I remember hearing someone describe gender identity as also having *intensity*, as well as directionality. i.e. some people feel very strongly who they are, & who they aren't. Those people seem best equipped to say "this is what it is I feel that draws me to this". I hope so at least, because it doesn't seem like it can be me.
posted by CrystalDave at 8:51 AM on July 10, 2023 [40 favorites]
who even has the time to worry about this stuff? my greatest takeaway from being a newish father is that being a "man", or whatever, is mostly just about trying to survive each day.
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 8:53 AM on July 10, 2023 [23 favorites]
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 8:53 AM on July 10, 2023 [23 favorites]
Oh my god. There "hasn't been a conversation"? The conversation has been inescapable in American pop culture for at least the last decade.
posted by potrzebie at 8:55 AM on July 10, 2023 [57 favorites]
posted by potrzebie at 8:55 AM on July 10, 2023 [57 favorites]
Echoing many of the responses so far - my turning point was when I stopped trying to be a man and started being myself.
It is criminal how much credit I get for keeping my five-month-old in his ergobaby and just walking around the city.
As a rich white dude raised in a highly gender-neutral household it has been a real trip to see how differently other people treat me - I’ve seen everything from obvious favoritism to active distrust. I feel fortunate that I do not feel this type of bias in how I think about myself.
posted by web5.0 at 8:55 AM on July 10, 2023 [13 favorites]
It is criminal how much credit I get for keeping my five-month-old in his ergobaby and just walking around the city.
As a rich white dude raised in a highly gender-neutral household it has been a real trip to see how differently other people treat me - I’ve seen everything from obvious favoritism to active distrust. I feel fortunate that I do not feel this type of bias in how I think about myself.
posted by web5.0 at 8:55 AM on July 10, 2023 [13 favorites]
Thanks Empress Callipygos! I'm trying to figure out why this type of stuff strikes such a weird note for me, and I think you hit it on the head.
posted by heyitsgogi at 8:56 AM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by heyitsgogi at 8:56 AM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
And while the past 50 years have been revolutionary for women — the feminist movement championed their power, and an entire academic discipline emerged to theorize about gender and excavate women’s history — there hasn’t been a corresponding conversation about what role men should play in a changing world.
This is very ill-informed. Just as an example, the journal Men and Masculinities has been publishing quarterly since 1998. That's 25 years.
In addition (and as I've said in other threads), it is not (nor should it be) the job of feminism to discuss the male experience.
I don't know that it's the job of a man to say what feminism's job should be. In any case, feminist and gender studies scholars have been writing about men and masculinities for decades.
posted by jedicus at 8:57 AM on July 10, 2023 [29 favorites]
This is very ill-informed. Just as an example, the journal Men and Masculinities has been publishing quarterly since 1998. That's 25 years.
In addition (and as I've said in other threads), it is not (nor should it be) the job of feminism to discuss the male experience.
I don't know that it's the job of a man to say what feminism's job should be. In any case, feminist and gender studies scholars have been writing about men and masculinities for decades.
posted by jedicus at 8:57 AM on July 10, 2023 [29 favorites]
Men usually posture themselves to avoid being bullied by other insecure men* in the working world they can't afford to escape. Attracting women is usually acknowledged as a money thing, which means that manners are nice if you can afford them. I wonder about the influence of thirty years of coverage about the Taliban, carrying assault rifles, guarding women as livestock, growing beards, very little facial expression, looking like a mean Jesus. I see those expressions and beards everywhere now, men obsessed with assault rifles. I don't see it as a coincidence, and it doesn't require a sensible end game, it just presents itself as the male who is taken very seriously in the world. As for culturally redefining ideal maleness, this is wishfully remembering a time when the Marlboro man was on billboards.
*physically abused by parents usually
posted by Brian B. at 8:58 AM on July 10, 2023 [11 favorites]
*physically abused by parents usually
posted by Brian B. at 8:58 AM on July 10, 2023 [11 favorites]
i (almost) unironically would take the marlboro man in a second over what constitutes masculinity today (in the jordan peterson etc strain) lol
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 9:05 AM on July 10, 2023 [13 favorites]
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 9:05 AM on July 10, 2023 [13 favorites]
I though it was a fairly good article as an intro for those with no awareness of the topic, but could have gone back a little further even in this format.
Like into Iron John and the mythopoetic mens movement as an earlier adumbration, the existence of masculinity studies such as in Theorizing Masculinities (1994), cultural phenomena like Al Bundy vs. Dan Connor in the 80s into the 90's kitsch masculinity of the The Man Show and Big Damn Book of Sheer Manliness etc., then into todays tacticool and rustic/survialist marketing; which takes itself much more seriously despite having some ironic hipster trappings.
There's also a lot more to say about 'tradlife' influencers and that whole subculture; aside from the extreme figure of Andrew Tate, who is facing prosecution for rape and sex trafficking in Romania, and probably should have been explained a little more if mentioned at all—including in his relationship with the very popular manchild streamer Aidan Ross, which is a bizarre microcosm of this whole situation. Another exemplar might be the descent of the Wranglerstar channel into full-blown trad life libertarian conspiracism. Or the whole genre of 'black pilled' youtube video essays going back to gamer gate, the memes involved (notably, of the wojak variety, n.b. some offensive stuff here), etc.
On the more positive side, Healthy Gamer GG is the YT presence of "Dr. K" (Alok Kanojia) which tries to engage directly with these issues (and withdrawal into video games, porn, incel culture etc). The audience isn't entirely male, but skews heavily as Dr. K acknowledges. (It also promotes his on-line life coaching services, but so it goes on YT.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:06 AM on July 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
Like into Iron John and the mythopoetic mens movement as an earlier adumbration, the existence of masculinity studies such as in Theorizing Masculinities (1994), cultural phenomena like Al Bundy vs. Dan Connor in the 80s into the 90's kitsch masculinity of the The Man Show and Big Damn Book of Sheer Manliness etc., then into todays tacticool and rustic/survialist marketing; which takes itself much more seriously despite having some ironic hipster trappings.
There's also a lot more to say about 'tradlife' influencers and that whole subculture; aside from the extreme figure of Andrew Tate, who is facing prosecution for rape and sex trafficking in Romania, and probably should have been explained a little more if mentioned at all—including in his relationship with the very popular manchild streamer Aidan Ross, which is a bizarre microcosm of this whole situation. Another exemplar might be the descent of the Wranglerstar channel into full-blown trad life libertarian conspiracism. Or the whole genre of 'black pilled' youtube video essays going back to gamer gate, the memes involved (notably, of the wojak variety, n.b. some offensive stuff here), etc.
On the more positive side, Healthy Gamer GG is the YT presence of "Dr. K" (Alok Kanojia) which tries to engage directly with these issues (and withdrawal into video games, porn, incel culture etc). The audience isn't entirely male, but skews heavily as Dr. K acknowledges. (It also promotes his on-line life coaching services, but so it goes on YT.)
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:06 AM on July 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
As a black person I'm used to fathers being used as a catch-all answer to every social problem, no matter how ill-suited. Why are they suddenly incapable of doing this pretty obvious thing to the point where mainstream culture cries out at least every year?
posted by Selena777 at 9:12 AM on July 10, 2023 [18 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 9:12 AM on July 10, 2023 [18 favorites]
I wonder if we* all just need to start listening to more Leonard Cohen.
* we being men. I grew up with a mom who listened to a lot of Leonard Cohen, so I just came to assume that's how it worked in all households.
posted by philip-random at 9:14 AM on July 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
* we being men. I grew up with a mom who listened to a lot of Leonard Cohen, so I just came to assume that's how it worked in all households.
posted by philip-random at 9:14 AM on July 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
"it is not (nor should it be) the job of feminism to discuss the male experience."
I disagree. It is absolutely necessary (not just appropriate) for feminist men to discuss the male experience.
posted by oddman at 9:17 AM on July 10, 2023 [32 favorites]
I disagree. It is absolutely necessary (not just appropriate) for feminist men to discuss the male experience.
posted by oddman at 9:17 AM on July 10, 2023 [32 favorites]
I've never been the most masculine of men so I may be missing something crucial, but I never saw "how to be masculine" as stuff for every man and no women, or "how to be feminine" as stuff for every woman and no men. More, I saw it as "if I take advice from the masculinity book it has a 30% chance of being helpful to me, while if I take advice from the femininity book it will only have a 20% chance of helping me".
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 9:19 AM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Easy problem of consciousness at 9:19 AM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
It's probably also worth noting that Nick Offerman can be who he is now specifically because of the parodic masculinity he played up as Ron Swanson on Parks and Rec.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:21 AM on July 10, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:21 AM on July 10, 2023 [12 favorites]
Thanks for sharing this. As an Gen-X het-cis dad who came into it rather late (10 and 13 year old boys) it is something I ponder/struggle with. I myself have never been in the Manly Man camp (more in the Nerdly Man what likes Musicals and Tears Up Easily But Tries to Hide It Because It Is Embarrassing camp).
As such I've been keeping an eye on the alt-right PUA, Incel, alt-right malarky for a while (since GamerGate) and trying to guide my boyos around and through it. It feels like it is everywhere and is insidious. One of them is more in his head and online than other and some of the points in articles like this have come up like male suicide, body image issues, deep male friendships, etc. Usually with the talking points that feel right out of their playbook...."Feminism is causing this!" So we've had some discussions. I think I've mostly got thinking more deeply about how power and patriarchy have been keeping everyone in boxes and how someone else's gain is not your loss etc.
HOWEVER. As someone who certainly does NOT have it figured out...who had some of the aspects mentioned in articles like these (no close friends outside of family, uncomfortable with talking about my problems)...and am trying to recognize my OWN boxes I still am in. Unlearning things and growth is a challenge (I know this comes as no surprise). I worry about helping my kids navigate their path. Articles like this (and comments from the community to push back) give me a lot to reflect on.
posted by Wink Ricketts at 9:28 AM on July 10, 2023 [32 favorites]
As such I've been keeping an eye on the alt-right PUA, Incel, alt-right malarky for a while (since GamerGate) and trying to guide my boyos around and through it. It feels like it is everywhere and is insidious. One of them is more in his head and online than other and some of the points in articles like this have come up like male suicide, body image issues, deep male friendships, etc. Usually with the talking points that feel right out of their playbook...."Feminism is causing this!" So we've had some discussions. I think I've mostly got thinking more deeply about how power and patriarchy have been keeping everyone in boxes and how someone else's gain is not your loss etc.
HOWEVER. As someone who certainly does NOT have it figured out...who had some of the aspects mentioned in articles like these (no close friends outside of family, uncomfortable with talking about my problems)...and am trying to recognize my OWN boxes I still am in. Unlearning things and growth is a challenge (I know this comes as no surprise). I worry about helping my kids navigate their path. Articles like this (and comments from the community to push back) give me a lot to reflect on.
posted by Wink Ricketts at 9:28 AM on July 10, 2023 [32 favorites]
Iron John and the mythopoetic mens movement as an earlier adumbration
Oh GOD I totally forgot about that book and that movement, that was EVERYWHERE in the 90s.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:33 AM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
Oh GOD I totally forgot about that book and that movement, that was EVERYWHERE in the 90s.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:33 AM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
I think we have not grappled with the role of hormones and drive as it has shaped our mainstream social mores, structures and rules that have been built to service the "needs" of a particular male sex drive and a particular male interest in dominance and power above the needs of community and individual to survive and thrive. We all like to think that we are in control of our drives but the rules of society suggest otherwise. In our current day situation (in America) of trying to control the reproductive choices of women which is real and happening and dystopian and yet we don't grapple with why this is necessary and who is driving this and why. Subjugation of women as a class serves men as a class. This is outside of race which double serves white males as a class by keeping non-white men and women (especially women) in greater subjugation to power and dominence and, for women, sexual dominance as well. Comfort women were a thing for various military campaigns throughout history because the powers-that-be, men, viewed them as a necessary need in order to control their troops and keep them from defecting or turning to each other for sexual satisfaction. I consider myself a strident feminist from youth and consider myself married to a man who is an amazing partner and father to a daughter and feminist and on the good side of the fight and yet, I find that in my personal life, these social structures and rules and intent to subjugate are there whether we want them or not. And during the pandemic, I felt it acutely! For all the rhetoric of "choice feminism" which I have always been disdainful and distrustful of, when it came to the pandemic, I felt forced and bound into the role of stay at home mother with no choices. Husband was forced and bound to worker bee at home who ignores his family in favor of keeping up appearances with work and his role as worker for other men. And that fucking sucked. But it sucked more for me than for him and I felt the power of the structure as the lower class person despite all my education and upbringing that was built to counter that. So, sure, it's a crisis for men but it's still more a crisis for women and it's not enough a crisis for capitalism and it's not enough of a crisis for the men in charge.
posted by amanda at 9:34 AM on July 10, 2023 [22 favorites]
posted by amanda at 9:34 AM on July 10, 2023 [22 favorites]
The way the author frames the dating pool as a problem for men because women are getting out and living their lives when they realize it’s hopeless, drove in the bias for me. It’s hopeless for women too, but they’re not going on shooting sprees or doxxing traditionalist groups or following Jordan Peterson.
Also, feminists have long analyzed/talked about masculinity, it’s just that men don’t listen.
posted by vim876 at 9:35 AM on July 10, 2023 [54 favorites]
Also, feminists have long analyzed/talked about masculinity, it’s just that men don’t listen.
posted by vim876 at 9:35 AM on July 10, 2023 [54 favorites]
Masculinity and femininity are things that dissolve as soon as you actually try to define them. I am so tired of these hand-wringing articles! Be a good person and express your gender as a personal thing; the two are not necessarily related.
If you feel you are a man, then you are. But whether you are courageous, nurturing, strong, or gentle has nothing to do with that. At all.
Thankfully, guidance about being a good person is abundant in human literature. You do not need it to be gender-flavored. You can just apply it to yourself and become a worthwhile human being and stop agonizing over whether you fit a given gender definition that random people hold.
You have nothing to lose but your chains.
posted by emjaybee at 9:42 AM on July 10, 2023 [46 favorites]
If you feel you are a man, then you are. But whether you are courageous, nurturing, strong, or gentle has nothing to do with that. At all.
Thankfully, guidance about being a good person is abundant in human literature. You do not need it to be gender-flavored. You can just apply it to yourself and become a worthwhile human being and stop agonizing over whether you fit a given gender definition that random people hold.
You have nothing to lose but your chains.
posted by emjaybee at 9:42 AM on July 10, 2023 [46 favorites]
Hard agree, vim876.
My partner is very sympathetic when I talk about why I am so frustrated with where we have landed with [waves hands] EVERYTHING. But he distances himself from talking about the ways that he, too, is subjugated by this system. Because the system has very carefully heroized everything that he does...so that he doesn't feel subjugated and will keep supporting the power structure such that it is even though it sickens the entire planet. Women are only heroized for literally dying for our children. We are disbelieved in everything unless we die of it.
posted by amanda at 9:42 AM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
My partner is very sympathetic when I talk about why I am so frustrated with where we have landed with [waves hands] EVERYTHING. But he distances himself from talking about the ways that he, too, is subjugated by this system. Because the system has very carefully heroized everything that he does...so that he doesn't feel subjugated and will keep supporting the power structure such that it is even though it sickens the entire planet. Women are only heroized for literally dying for our children. We are disbelieved in everything unless we die of it.
posted by amanda at 9:42 AM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
the boys over at Know Your Enemy talked a bit about this recently and noted something that I agree with wholeheartedly as a fairly cis-presenting dude - that most of the male identified types who were the most comfortable with their gender presentation were the ones who had queer friends. there's a cornerstone in queer culture that is rooted in validation and joy around identity and presentation and that's what people who tack onto the discourse of what is/isn't masculine desperately need
because the root issue isn't what masculinity is or isn't - the root issue is a hegemonic, patriarchal society from which institutions and positions of power exist that reify masculinity and thus masculinity ends up still sought after, needing definition
the Right speaks to it because they love their strict, traditionalist roles. the Left, at least the progressive Left, doesn't speak to it because fuck normalizing that shit. the fact that young men go through this phase of wanting to adopt to tradition isn't an issue with the Left's strategic plank, it's a longstanding issue with our society and the whole point of organizing against it is to imagine entirely other ways of being that doesn't rely on bounded, circumscribed sets of very limited behaviors, masculine or not
for a person engaging in toxic masculinity, the solution isn't a less anti-social masculinity because that's the same kind of worship of set of prescribed irrational behaviors and norms that someone else thought up for you. for a person engaging in toxic masculinity, you need to talk about first principles of empathy, joy, community, love, and grace, and with each approach to these first principles unique and bespoke to that person's lived experiences and environment
there is no correct way of being, no 'good' masculinity - there's just you and everyone else and how much suffering you want to alleviate in this fucked up world of ours
posted by paimapi at 9:50 AM on July 10, 2023 [27 favorites]
because the root issue isn't what masculinity is or isn't - the root issue is a hegemonic, patriarchal society from which institutions and positions of power exist that reify masculinity and thus masculinity ends up still sought after, needing definition
the Right speaks to it because they love their strict, traditionalist roles. the Left, at least the progressive Left, doesn't speak to it because fuck normalizing that shit. the fact that young men go through this phase of wanting to adopt to tradition isn't an issue with the Left's strategic plank, it's a longstanding issue with our society and the whole point of organizing against it is to imagine entirely other ways of being that doesn't rely on bounded, circumscribed sets of very limited behaviors, masculine or not
for a person engaging in toxic masculinity, the solution isn't a less anti-social masculinity because that's the same kind of worship of set of prescribed irrational behaviors and norms that someone else thought up for you. for a person engaging in toxic masculinity, you need to talk about first principles of empathy, joy, community, love, and grace, and with each approach to these first principles unique and bespoke to that person's lived experiences and environment
there is no correct way of being, no 'good' masculinity - there's just you and everyone else and how much suffering you want to alleviate in this fucked up world of ours
posted by paimapi at 9:50 AM on July 10, 2023 [27 favorites]
'A better question would be why? As in "why do we even need an externally defined identity to tell us if we're masculine, and why should it even be a goal to begin with?"'
This is definitely a much more interesting question to me. I have a friend who has an ongoing struggle that I work at being a good friend around. He periodically wants to talk about how hard it is to be a white, cis, straight man without a role model. And on the one hand, I very much understand that desire to see yourself represented in the world but on the other hand, as a white, cis, queer woman, I don't have a superabundance of role models I relate to and I hear from lots of folks who are navigating the world with even fewer. So there's a part of me in these conversations that's sympathetic and a part of me that's like "but why does it have to be a white, cis, straight man who you're looking to to lead a good life?" Mostly I land on the side of acknowledging the feeling of difficulty and isolation, because I know that's true and real, but I wonder sometimes if I'm doing him a disservice by not questioning the premises more.
posted by EvaDestruction at 9:53 AM on July 10, 2023 [19 favorites]
This is definitely a much more interesting question to me. I have a friend who has an ongoing struggle that I work at being a good friend around. He periodically wants to talk about how hard it is to be a white, cis, straight man without a role model. And on the one hand, I very much understand that desire to see yourself represented in the world but on the other hand, as a white, cis, queer woman, I don't have a superabundance of role models I relate to and I hear from lots of folks who are navigating the world with even fewer. So there's a part of me in these conversations that's sympathetic and a part of me that's like "but why does it have to be a white, cis, straight man who you're looking to to lead a good life?" Mostly I land on the side of acknowledging the feeling of difficulty and isolation, because I know that's true and real, but I wonder sometimes if I'm doing him a disservice by not questioning the premises more.
posted by EvaDestruction at 9:53 AM on July 10, 2023 [19 favorites]
And, sorry, I'm on a roll... but I think the real problem for men is realizing that the blind heroism of the male identity is complete and utter bullshit designed to keep you coming back for more abuse. The system will use your male body and drives to crush others in service of their own needs. I'm a military brat as well and grew up in a system of heroism to war masculinity. I feel in my heart both sides of this coin - it's part of what made me even more disgusted by the former president - he disrespected the military at every turn. As did Bush. And the fact that many men (and white women) support that disrespect is the real crisis of masculinity. Trump showed how hollow all that heroism worship is, he showed how the power structures are there to puff you up while secretly shitting on you. And enough people really gravitated to that - at least he was willing to publicly shit on you! The only way through this is for men to align with their best interests which are community, the planet and the most vulnerable among us. The power structures are sitting on a melting iceberg and trying to get you to get under it and paddle. They'll give you women if you'll give them power.
posted by amanda at 9:54 AM on July 10, 2023 [18 favorites]
posted by amanda at 9:54 AM on July 10, 2023 [18 favorites]
Arguably Peterson is just doing more of the mythopoetic stuff, after long enough of a pause for people to forget about it. He has a more 'Classical' focus, in line with the rest of his alt-right views. (As with the vaporwave Bronze Age stuff mentioned in the article.) He represent himself a Jungian, I think, though other Jungians would probably insist he gets it all wrong. Either way he relies heavily on myth as allegory in the mode of Campbell. In the earlier incarnation a lot of it was more directly a form of white-shamanism or otherwise appropriating cultural traditions to construct some kind of revivalist masculinity in a way that would not go unremarked now. Though you saw some echo of it in Tucker Carlson's weird thing.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:55 AM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:55 AM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote about this recently. I'm a father of two teenage boys, struggling to help them grown into "good" men, so I read a lot of this stuff -- and Lord knows there's a lot of it. I found Kareem's piece to be more thoughtful, and more specifically helpful, than most of what I've seen, even if it probably seems fairly obvious to most MeFites. For example:
posted by The Bellman at 9:58 AM on July 10, 2023 [46 favorites]
-Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Young Men Are In Crisis Mode
Many young men look to someone to lead them, to offer sage advice to lift them out of their despair. Sadly, many of those who they have turned to are hollow men, emotional and intellectual voids more eager to monetize their followers’ despair than to help them.
...
Young people need adults that they can look up to as role models. We must display the values that we want them to embrace as adults: honesty, integrity, critical thinking, compassion, and commitment to community. We don’t want to regress to the lone-wolf macho maniacs of the past, which demanded silent suffering, violent responses to slighted pride, and a need to solve all problems.
posted by The Bellman at 9:58 AM on July 10, 2023 [46 favorites]
I read this article with interest and was sad that it didn't really come to any conclusions. I'm a 51 year old man. I have a 20 year old son. It was interesting to read that the author and her friends definitely felt more attracted to men who fell into stereotypes of strength rather than nurturing. I've struggled with how to be a decent person and a decent man, and like many of the voices above, mostly decided that what works for me is to mostly ignore masculinity, or if anything to work at being bad at being a traditional man. I cook and knit and cry.
But without getting gender essentialist, I think we can admit that our hormones influence our behavior. I would love to talk more with transmasc folks who have found testosterone freeing and transformative, and what positive aspects it has brought to their lives. Because I certainly have a lot things I resent about the way it makes me feel (even while not craving its loss). It can be hard to differentiate what is biological and what is social. Is the ability to bullshit and come up with a plausible story rather than say "I don't know" from some hormonal confidence boost or from social training? Or is it both/and?
A man very close to me and close to my heart was emotionally and sexually abused by a female partner. His views on masculinity are different from mine, and it upsets him when I call out a lot of masculinity as toxic. And I agree with the article, that there ought to be some way to build a non-toxic masculinity or we do a disservice to people growing up.
Oddly enough, one of the best examples I think I've seen of non-toxic masculinity is the manga-based Netflix anime, Gokushufudo: The Way of the Househusband. Tatsu, the main character, is a former yakuza who now wears an apron and throws himself all-in on everything from vacuuming the apartment to food shopping to haiku contests. I feel a kinship with that kind of expression of strength and intensity, stripped of violence and anger, and applied to useful and creative things that may or may not match traditional gender expression.
There's so much more to say, think about, and unpack here. It's the work of lifetimes.
posted by rikschell at 10:04 AM on July 10, 2023 [26 favorites]
But without getting gender essentialist, I think we can admit that our hormones influence our behavior. I would love to talk more with transmasc folks who have found testosterone freeing and transformative, and what positive aspects it has brought to their lives. Because I certainly have a lot things I resent about the way it makes me feel (even while not craving its loss). It can be hard to differentiate what is biological and what is social. Is the ability to bullshit and come up with a plausible story rather than say "I don't know" from some hormonal confidence boost or from social training? Or is it both/and?
A man very close to me and close to my heart was emotionally and sexually abused by a female partner. His views on masculinity are different from mine, and it upsets him when I call out a lot of masculinity as toxic. And I agree with the article, that there ought to be some way to build a non-toxic masculinity or we do a disservice to people growing up.
Oddly enough, one of the best examples I think I've seen of non-toxic masculinity is the manga-based Netflix anime, Gokushufudo: The Way of the Househusband. Tatsu, the main character, is a former yakuza who now wears an apron and throws himself all-in on everything from vacuuming the apartment to food shopping to haiku contests. I feel a kinship with that kind of expression of strength and intensity, stripped of violence and anger, and applied to useful and creative things that may or may not match traditional gender expression.
There's so much more to say, think about, and unpack here. It's the work of lifetimes.
posted by rikschell at 10:04 AM on July 10, 2023 [26 favorites]
That piece by Kareem is good, and it's funny that he brings up Elon Musk in that just yesterday Musk tweeted that 'Zuck is a cuck' and challenged him to a literal dick measuring contest. After the previous challenge to a mixed martial arts bout.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:07 AM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:07 AM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
Those people seem best equipped to say "this is what it is I feel that draws me to this".
I wish, in that maybe my transness would then be easier to "justify" to cis people. But there is no explanation for my gender beyond (I can only imagine) some sort of obscure hormonal fuckup in my early fetal life. Maleness is not something I am drawn to, but something that just is.
I'm aware this isn't how it works for everyone, but for me, gender is a. 100% irrational and b. not tied to gender roles or expression at all. Asking why I am the way I am is like asking, "What is red?" Why do I "feel" like a man? Red. Why did changing my genital setup change my life? Red. Why am I unconcerned with masculinity, yet certain I am male? Red, red, red.
Men who don't know I'm trans will comment that I am amazingly secure in my masculinity, and essentially ask, "How?" They seem to mean: how did you escape whatever it is that is corroding me? And I think the only reason is, I was not socialized to consider masculinity important. (Well, vis-a-vis myself. Not in general.) The second it becomes important, things seem to rapidly go to hell. Male socialization is a process of creating insecurity in others in order to claim false security for oneself, the "successful" results of which we then hold up as "masculinity." In some atavistic biological sense, I can understand why this dynamic may have emerged, but you know, I'd like to think we can do better than acting like mandrills. For a gender that likes to value "independence," though, there is this deep-rooted fear of exile and rejection in men that seems utterly boundless, and it's like a zombie parasite in the way it controls men's expression.
The way men abuse and reject and police each other, on a lifelong basis, typically starting with their fathers (but rapidly made up for among peers if not), is the reason that they collectively feel so lost and unhappy and victimized. But it would be too painful to acknowledge the betrayals and manipulation inherent to "manhood." So this sensed truth gets re-expressed as misogyny, and as accusations of women trying to control, reject, and undermine men.
Rather than call out the game as bullshit, it feels much, much, MUCH safer to men to pretend that they are playing the game well. Until that broadly changes, I won't be holding my breath for psychological relief for men as a class.
posted by desert outpost at 10:08 AM on July 10, 2023 [67 favorites]
I wish, in that maybe my transness would then be easier to "justify" to cis people. But there is no explanation for my gender beyond (I can only imagine) some sort of obscure hormonal fuckup in my early fetal life. Maleness is not something I am drawn to, but something that just is.
I'm aware this isn't how it works for everyone, but for me, gender is a. 100% irrational and b. not tied to gender roles or expression at all. Asking why I am the way I am is like asking, "What is red?" Why do I "feel" like a man? Red. Why did changing my genital setup change my life? Red. Why am I unconcerned with masculinity, yet certain I am male? Red, red, red.
Men who don't know I'm trans will comment that I am amazingly secure in my masculinity, and essentially ask, "How?" They seem to mean: how did you escape whatever it is that is corroding me? And I think the only reason is, I was not socialized to consider masculinity important. (Well, vis-a-vis myself. Not in general.) The second it becomes important, things seem to rapidly go to hell. Male socialization is a process of creating insecurity in others in order to claim false security for oneself, the "successful" results of which we then hold up as "masculinity." In some atavistic biological sense, I can understand why this dynamic may have emerged, but you know, I'd like to think we can do better than acting like mandrills. For a gender that likes to value "independence," though, there is this deep-rooted fear of exile and rejection in men that seems utterly boundless, and it's like a zombie parasite in the way it controls men's expression.
The way men abuse and reject and police each other, on a lifelong basis, typically starting with their fathers (but rapidly made up for among peers if not), is the reason that they collectively feel so lost and unhappy and victimized. But it would be too painful to acknowledge the betrayals and manipulation inherent to "manhood." So this sensed truth gets re-expressed as misogyny, and as accusations of women trying to control, reject, and undermine men.
Rather than call out the game as bullshit, it feels much, much, MUCH safer to men to pretend that they are playing the game well. Until that broadly changes, I won't be holding my breath for psychological relief for men as a class.
posted by desert outpost at 10:08 AM on July 10, 2023 [67 favorites]
It is a problem of a privileged gender, that there are so many ways of being a man, that there's a political problem, that no one "Man" represents men as well as reactionaries can. This leaves the young ones, who are all emotion and no wisdom, vulnerable to con men.
And so, this "what is a man" problem seems to always become a game of reacting to / subverting the aesthetics of the reactionaries at any given moment
Kind of like we're always going to need anti-fascists, we re always going to need feminist men to take the piss out of reactionary chauvinists and reactionary 'manhood'
But, just as there can be no kings, there cannot be a perfect "man" to always lead the vulnerable boys away from hateful calumny. Manhood has to constantly be re defined and reclaimed.
posted by eustatic at 10:09 AM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
And so, this "what is a man" problem seems to always become a game of reacting to / subverting the aesthetics of the reactionaries at any given moment
Kind of like we're always going to need anti-fascists, we re always going to need feminist men to take the piss out of reactionary chauvinists and reactionary 'manhood'
But, just as there can be no kings, there cannot be a perfect "man" to always lead the vulnerable boys away from hateful calumny. Manhood has to constantly be re defined and reclaimed.
posted by eustatic at 10:09 AM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
Ctrl+F 'algorithm' - 0 results hmmm
Youtubers won't save your friends from the Manosphere
Connecting the Manosphere
Though he does offer a playlist if you're up for the content: Manosphere Deprogramming
posted by Pachylad at 10:11 AM on July 10, 2023 [45 favorites]
This is something that I've said jn the past that I've backed away from. The left hasn't "ceded" ground in this conversation we've been rendered invisible by algorithms. There are countless left leaning or just clearly more healthy creators out there talking about masculinity- FD Signifier
They don't galvanize negative engagement like a fresh and fit or Andrew Tate. Good people have not given up on men and boys we just can't reach them cause youtube, tik tok, and Twitter (and by proxy regular people) won't let that content get an audience.
Just off the top if my head me, Noah Samsen, @HealthyGamerGG, @macabstory, @MarquiseDavon,
@foreignman242, @mrjasonowilson, @SalariTV have made content around these issues, but if you understand algorithms you understand that we aren't in the same eco systems
Our content is in its own silo and their content is in a different silo and unless you sit your friend, son, nephew, cousin, etc down to watch there's little chance they will see anything we make. The algorithm won't mix streams
Further, I am skeptical of the true value of "debunk" content for actually making a difference at the individual level We help contribute to an environment that makes manosphere nonsense less normalized, but we won't save your loved one from the rabbit hole with a 45-90 min video
Tldr- boys get sucked into the manosphere due to various vulnerabilities, they get out of the manosphere with social support and help from loved ones, not youtube videos.
Youtubers won't save your friends from the Manosphere
Connecting the Manosphere
Though he does offer a playlist if you're up for the content: Manosphere Deprogramming
posted by Pachylad at 10:11 AM on July 10, 2023 [45 favorites]
As a cis and mostly-het guy who was never masculine in the traditional sense, I think this essay is mostly wrong-headed. But, I do think there is one way that men are disadvantaged in the early 21st century, and that's the lack of a general, non-prescriptive empowerment narrative that is like the feminist one. There is no "boy power" that has the buoying effect that "girl power" does, and maybe we could use something like that. But the rest is mostly horseshit.
posted by anhedonic at 10:18 AM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by anhedonic at 10:18 AM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
But without getting gender essentialist, I think we can admit that our hormones influence our behavior. I would love to talk more with transmasc folks who have found testosterone freeing and transformative, and what positive aspects it has brought to their lives.
I mean, the main thing is just that it changed my body, and keeps it changed. That's really it. I did also just feel "righter," but I think that's a subjective thing about pursuing self-fulfillment more than it is the magic of testosterone, or some woo-woo stuff about matching the right fuel to the engine.
Beyond that, it's really hard to distinguish between what testosterone actually does as a hormone, and what its physical effects lead to, socially. Am I bolder, more at ease, and more confident because I'm being myself? Because it's easier to be heard as a man, and harder to be judged? Is there something about testosterone itself leading me to give less fucks? Any or all of the above...?
The only things I can say for sure about testosterone, other than objective body stuff, is: it inhibits crying (a welcome change, for me, but YMMV), and it increases sex drive (mine was quite high beforehand, in terms of the average woman, but it's significantly higher now. I enjoy it. Maybe if I had been born male, I would find it more annoying, but as someone who bought a ticket for this particular cruise, I'm happily along for the ride).
I also suspect it has worsened my ADHD and specifically my impulsivity, but I'm less sure on that one. Not a great change, if so, but all things have tradeoffs.
posted by desert outpost at 10:21 AM on July 10, 2023 [18 favorites]
I mean, the main thing is just that it changed my body, and keeps it changed. That's really it. I did also just feel "righter," but I think that's a subjective thing about pursuing self-fulfillment more than it is the magic of testosterone, or some woo-woo stuff about matching the right fuel to the engine.
Beyond that, it's really hard to distinguish between what testosterone actually does as a hormone, and what its physical effects lead to, socially. Am I bolder, more at ease, and more confident because I'm being myself? Because it's easier to be heard as a man, and harder to be judged? Is there something about testosterone itself leading me to give less fucks? Any or all of the above...?
The only things I can say for sure about testosterone, other than objective body stuff, is: it inhibits crying (a welcome change, for me, but YMMV), and it increases sex drive (mine was quite high beforehand, in terms of the average woman, but it's significantly higher now. I enjoy it. Maybe if I had been born male, I would find it more annoying, but as someone who bought a ticket for this particular cruise, I'm happily along for the ride).
I also suspect it has worsened my ADHD and specifically my impulsivity, but I'm less sure on that one. Not a great change, if so, but all things have tradeoffs.
posted by desert outpost at 10:21 AM on July 10, 2023 [18 favorites]
Geeze. These kind of guys need to learn to be comfortable in their own skin and stop worrying about whether or not they are "manly". What a stupid waste of time and energy.
posted by fimbulvetr at 10:24 AM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by fimbulvetr at 10:24 AM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
lack of a general, non-prescriptive empowerment narrative that is like the feminist one
I think a lot of this exists in literature. for me, reading a lot of Vonnegut with his essays and novels centering the secular humanist perspective was powerful leading to me reading things like Chekhov, Heller, Solzhenitsyn, etc
but how do you easily market a digestible, romantic notion of humanism? I don't think the modern corporate advertising driven mindset allows for this extended engagement outside of longer Youtube videos from which there are, as illustrated above, really great creators like FD Signifier and the rest of breadtube
everywhere else, like Twitter, reddit, Tiktok, IG, Facebook - it's a world of one-upsmanship, pithy responses, seconds long engagements flitting back and forth, existing just to cram as many ads as possible in a short span of time. it's a world of short-term memory, immediate benefits, and a place where nuance and empathy is unable to really be explored
posted by paimapi at 10:27 AM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
I think a lot of this exists in literature. for me, reading a lot of Vonnegut with his essays and novels centering the secular humanist perspective was powerful leading to me reading things like Chekhov, Heller, Solzhenitsyn, etc
but how do you easily market a digestible, romantic notion of humanism? I don't think the modern corporate advertising driven mindset allows for this extended engagement outside of longer Youtube videos from which there are, as illustrated above, really great creators like FD Signifier and the rest of breadtube
everywhere else, like Twitter, reddit, Tiktok, IG, Facebook - it's a world of one-upsmanship, pithy responses, seconds long engagements flitting back and forth, existing just to cram as many ads as possible in a short span of time. it's a world of short-term memory, immediate benefits, and a place where nuance and empathy is unable to really be explored
posted by paimapi at 10:27 AM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
Ah, yes, the easy prescription to just "get comfortable in [my] own skin and stop worrying about whether or not [I] am "manly"". OK! Excuse me while I leave a) my body and b) the rest of the world, where... people have opinions on my masculinity, and it affects everything from how I interact with strangers to my most intimate relationships.
posted by sagc at 10:36 AM on July 10, 2023 [39 favorites]
posted by sagc at 10:36 AM on July 10, 2023 [39 favorites]
Not to mention thanks for calling people concerned about this sort of thing stupid? Leaving it unexamined seems to have worked extremely poorly, too.
posted by sagc at 10:37 AM on July 10, 2023 [24 favorites]
posted by sagc at 10:37 AM on July 10, 2023 [24 favorites]
Leonard Cohen is not a role model. Leonard Cohen was forever teetering on the balance of wanting to fuck everything that moved, and feeling guilty about fucking everything that moved because of his religion. And he made a living singing about it. This is not a place of honour. There is no deed commemorated here.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:38 AM on July 10, 2023 [15 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:38 AM on July 10, 2023 [15 favorites]
Some of the sense of "lostness" has to come from the fact that traditional gender roles were "easy". Ok, I have a clear set of rules I need to follow and they may cause me pain, but I'm just doing what's right even if it hurts.
A good number of people don't seem to do well or feel comfortable with "define it yourself". Hence the continuous love affair with "strongman leaders".
Plus it's damn attractive to be told "the problem with your life isn't your fault"
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:40 AM on July 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
A good number of people don't seem to do well or feel comfortable with "define it yourself". Hence the continuous love affair with "strongman leaders".
Plus it's damn attractive to be told "the problem with your life isn't your fault"
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:40 AM on July 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
I'll try to write up something more extensive later, but having written and deleted a bunch of stuff, I'll say this for now:
I'm skeptical that many of the replies to this post came from folks who actually read the article. There's a lot of pretty clear explanation of the problem that we (I'm a cis man) face, and I'm in complete alignment with the thesis, even though I personally find Pedersen, Tate, Rogan, et al to be repugnant. Yes, feminism has a lot to say about masculinity and how patriarchy is shitty for men - but that really is not part of the mainstream conversation. Yes, "listen to feminists more" is probably part of the solution, but that's not happening for mainstream America. The vast majority of boys and young men are socialized in a world where gender is a core part of the identity they are handed. "Why do we need masculinity?" I don't know if we need it but we have it and if you think you can argue a randomly selected 18 year old American man out of caring about that part of his existence and identity, good fucking luck, but I'm pretty skeptical that you can just erase the problem by saying "we should be less gendered" out loud three times through a megaphone.
It's a real problem, and the shitty misogyinistic right wing has a really, really clear and heartfelt and empathetic answer to the problem. There is no clear, heartfelt, empathetic answer from other factions in culture that I like more. I don't like that. It's also the world I live in.
You don't fix problems by insisting they're not problems, or by handwaving "well actually this particular non-mainstream social movement, in some of its offshoots, has in fact attempted to address this in specific ways" like that's a fucking practical helpful guide for 99.99% of actual young men who have no path of access to an empathetic, practical, specific set of guidance on how to think about their identity from a feminist or progressive standpoint. It just doesn't exist. The bad guys have a handbook and pamphlets, and the good guys have sixteen versions of academic jargon and infighting and some "yes all men" instagram glurge. Is that actually true? of course not. But that's sure as fuck what most of the young men and boys in my life actually see and have access to.
Ah, yes, the easy prescription to just "get comfortable in [my] own skin and stop worrying about whether or not [I] am "manly"". OK! Excuse me while I leave a) my body and b) the rest of the world, where... people have opinions on my masculinity, and it affects everything from how I interact with strangers to my most intimate relationships.
Honestly, I could have deleted all of the above and just said "this" to what sagc wrote.
posted by Tomorrowful at 10:42 AM on July 10, 2023 [65 favorites]
I'm skeptical that many of the replies to this post came from folks who actually read the article. There's a lot of pretty clear explanation of the problem that we (I'm a cis man) face, and I'm in complete alignment with the thesis, even though I personally find Pedersen, Tate, Rogan, et al to be repugnant. Yes, feminism has a lot to say about masculinity and how patriarchy is shitty for men - but that really is not part of the mainstream conversation. Yes, "listen to feminists more" is probably part of the solution, but that's not happening for mainstream America. The vast majority of boys and young men are socialized in a world where gender is a core part of the identity they are handed. "Why do we need masculinity?" I don't know if we need it but we have it and if you think you can argue a randomly selected 18 year old American man out of caring about that part of his existence and identity, good fucking luck, but I'm pretty skeptical that you can just erase the problem by saying "we should be less gendered" out loud three times through a megaphone.
It's a real problem, and the shitty misogyinistic right wing has a really, really clear and heartfelt and empathetic answer to the problem. There is no clear, heartfelt, empathetic answer from other factions in culture that I like more. I don't like that. It's also the world I live in.
You don't fix problems by insisting they're not problems, or by handwaving "well actually this particular non-mainstream social movement, in some of its offshoots, has in fact attempted to address this in specific ways" like that's a fucking practical helpful guide for 99.99% of actual young men who have no path of access to an empathetic, practical, specific set of guidance on how to think about their identity from a feminist or progressive standpoint. It just doesn't exist. The bad guys have a handbook and pamphlets, and the good guys have sixteen versions of academic jargon and infighting and some "yes all men" instagram glurge. Is that actually true? of course not. But that's sure as fuck what most of the young men and boys in my life actually see and have access to.
Ah, yes, the easy prescription to just "get comfortable in [my] own skin and stop worrying about whether or not [I] am "manly"". OK! Excuse me while I leave a) my body and b) the rest of the world, where... people have opinions on my masculinity, and it affects everything from how I interact with strangers to my most intimate relationships.
Honestly, I could have deleted all of the above and just said "this" to what sagc wrote.
posted by Tomorrowful at 10:42 AM on July 10, 2023 [65 favorites]
It would be great if the left would take some of this to heart. Young, vulnerable, alienated men turn to the alt-right because they find welcome and reassurance there. As the author points out, Jordan Peterson's life advice is pretty basic: stand up straight, work hard, make your bed, etc. Wouldn't it be great to have a guru who could give them those same messages and then lead them down a progressive path? A lot of leftist discourse writes these guys off as incurable rather than trying to reach them. That's a mistake.
Similarly, I think the Democrats would do well to do more performative patriotisim. There's a certain subset of the population that really just wants to wave flags around and yell "WOOOOOOO!", and the Dems have ceded that territory to the GOP. I'm not being snarky - I really believe Democrats should do more flag waving.
Take BAP’s laughable yet weirdly compelling depiction of the masculine ideal, attractive in part because of its transgressiveness: “Imagine a Mitt Romney, but different … a Romney who was actually capable of acting like he looks.” This Übermensch is a modern-day Alcibiades, as one admiring reviewer of BAP’s “Bronze Age Mindset” puts it: “a piratical man of adventure who attempts to engineer a coup in the United States, sleeps with Vladimir Putin’s wife, and then dies fighting the U.S. empire alongside wild tribesmen in Afghanistan.”
Mitt Romney fan fiction!!
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 10:43 AM on July 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
Similarly, I think the Democrats would do well to do more performative patriotisim. There's a certain subset of the population that really just wants to wave flags around and yell "WOOOOOOO!", and the Dems have ceded that territory to the GOP. I'm not being snarky - I really believe Democrats should do more flag waving.
Take BAP’s laughable yet weirdly compelling depiction of the masculine ideal, attractive in part because of its transgressiveness: “Imagine a Mitt Romney, but different … a Romney who was actually capable of acting like he looks.” This Übermensch is a modern-day Alcibiades, as one admiring reviewer of BAP’s “Bronze Age Mindset” puts it: “a piratical man of adventure who attempts to engineer a coup in the United States, sleeps with Vladimir Putin’s wife, and then dies fighting the U.S. empire alongside wild tribesmen in Afghanistan.”
Mitt Romney fan fiction!!
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 10:43 AM on July 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
Rather than call out the game as bullshit, it feels much, much, MUCH safer to men to pretend that they are playing the game well.
To me, gender is only fun as a form of play, and even then not one I want to engage with all or even most of the time. If I were designing human culture from scratch, "masculinity" and "femininity" would not exist, or would exist only in non-gendered voluntary modes of self-expression. But...I think we need to be honest that one cannot simply opt out of the game. If it were possible, how many women would have succeeded at it by now? It's not a matter of individual choices only, because your choices are read against a broader context, and sometimes the people deciphering your choices have power over you. And even within the realm of male privilege there can be consequences for making the "wrong" choices, as I'm sure any gay man or trans/nonbinary AMAB person could tell you. In some ways, men born into today's society are in a more ethically--though not practically!!!--perilous situation, in that most of the choices available to them are so harmful to others. But a nuanced discussion of how to resist the expectations of masculinity and minimize the harm you inflict on the world while still navigating the structures of a patriarchal society is not one I think we can have on social media, because, well, it is nuanced. It has to be thought out and lived through, step by step, generation by generation, and from the women's side I can confidently say: this shit is hard. It's a lot easier for predators like Peterson and Tate.
(But so often the undertone of articles like this is: we can't find a way to dismantle masculinity that still lets men feel superior somehow, as is their right, and so naturally they're going to go ultratoxic. No thanks.)
posted by praemunire at 10:45 AM on July 10, 2023 [15 favorites]
To me, gender is only fun as a form of play, and even then not one I want to engage with all or even most of the time. If I were designing human culture from scratch, "masculinity" and "femininity" would not exist, or would exist only in non-gendered voluntary modes of self-expression. But...I think we need to be honest that one cannot simply opt out of the game. If it were possible, how many women would have succeeded at it by now? It's not a matter of individual choices only, because your choices are read against a broader context, and sometimes the people deciphering your choices have power over you. And even within the realm of male privilege there can be consequences for making the "wrong" choices, as I'm sure any gay man or trans/nonbinary AMAB person could tell you. In some ways, men born into today's society are in a more ethically--though not practically!!!--perilous situation, in that most of the choices available to them are so harmful to others. But a nuanced discussion of how to resist the expectations of masculinity and minimize the harm you inflict on the world while still navigating the structures of a patriarchal society is not one I think we can have on social media, because, well, it is nuanced. It has to be thought out and lived through, step by step, generation by generation, and from the women's side I can confidently say: this shit is hard. It's a lot easier for predators like Peterson and Tate.
(But so often the undertone of articles like this is: we can't find a way to dismantle masculinity that still lets men feel superior somehow, as is their right, and so naturally they're going to go ultratoxic. No thanks.)
posted by praemunire at 10:45 AM on July 10, 2023 [15 favorites]
If you want a peak into the algorithmic hall of mirrors of reacting to content (by which a lot of younger people—not just 'kids'—do find a lot of their entertainment), here's Hasanabi [Hasan Piker] reacting to a Vice 'debate' on masculinity, and reacting to Noah Samsen reacting to youtube shorts. Reacts on reacts to reacts are a common format for this whole discussion on the socials. Yes, people really do watch hours and hours of this stuff and argue about it in Discords and in comment threads.
There's also the whole Joe Rogan Show phenomenon. Rogan is a former MMA fighter with a hugely popular online show with an aesthetic that is more openly evocative of the old Man Show vibe than most. You may recall from his lunacy during the pandemic with regard to vaccination and alternative treatments. Alex Jones is not entirely unrelated to all this, either.
Specifically with regard to young black men, the popularity of youtube shows and podcasts promoting patriarchal or straight up homophobic, transphobic and misogynistic views is a real concern, but I'm not really comfortable sketching it out. The Fresh & Fit Show is probably the most visible example but there are lots and lots of imitators. The usual thing is to have TikTok and/or OnlyFans content creators on and then applaud or berate them for their choices depending whether they're doing tradlife or sugaring/porn/etc; which the guests put up with for the exposure.
Here's FD Signifier on Connecting the Mansophere, Dissecting the Manosphere, Understanding the Black Manosphere, lots of other good stuff on his channel.
Geeze. These kind of guys need to learn to be comfortable in their own skin and stop worrying about whether or not they are "manly"
What a bunch of angsty wusses. We had bigger problems in my time. Man up. Be confident! Big dick energy! Amirite?
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:48 AM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
There's also the whole Joe Rogan Show phenomenon. Rogan is a former MMA fighter with a hugely popular online show with an aesthetic that is more openly evocative of the old Man Show vibe than most. You may recall from his lunacy during the pandemic with regard to vaccination and alternative treatments. Alex Jones is not entirely unrelated to all this, either.
Specifically with regard to young black men, the popularity of youtube shows and podcasts promoting patriarchal or straight up homophobic, transphobic and misogynistic views is a real concern, but I'm not really comfortable sketching it out. The Fresh & Fit Show is probably the most visible example but there are lots and lots of imitators. The usual thing is to have TikTok and/or OnlyFans content creators on and then applaud or berate them for their choices depending whether they're doing tradlife or sugaring/porn/etc; which the guests put up with for the exposure.
Here's FD Signifier on Connecting the Mansophere, Dissecting the Manosphere, Understanding the Black Manosphere, lots of other good stuff on his channel.
Geeze. These kind of guys need to learn to be comfortable in their own skin and stop worrying about whether or not they are "manly"
What a bunch of angsty wusses. We had bigger problems in my time. Man up. Be confident! Big dick energy! Amirite?
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:48 AM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
From above: "These kind of guys need to learn to be comfortable in their own skin and stop worrying about whether or not they are 'manly'."
From the article: "it’s surprisingly acceptable for those on the left to victim-blame men who are struggling themselves."
Yes, in an ideal world, every boy and man would be comfortable in his own form of masculinity, respect women, and do everything else you want them to do. And if you want to shrug and leave them to Tate if they choose not to follow your path, OK. But I agree with the article that it would be valuable for the rest of us to try to figure out an effective way to best direct common male attitudes in a pro-social direction.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:51 AM on July 10, 2023 [21 favorites]
From the article: "it’s surprisingly acceptable for those on the left to victim-blame men who are struggling themselves."
Yes, in an ideal world, every boy and man would be comfortable in his own form of masculinity, respect women, and do everything else you want them to do. And if you want to shrug and leave them to Tate if they choose not to follow your path, OK. But I agree with the article that it would be valuable for the rest of us to try to figure out an effective way to best direct common male attitudes in a pro-social direction.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:51 AM on July 10, 2023 [21 favorites]
Echoing many of the responses so far - my turning point was when I stopped trying to be a man and started being myself.
What could be manlier than refusing to conform to societal expectations about what it means to be a man. Whatever I do is manly, because I'm a man and I'm the one doing it.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 10:57 AM on July 10, 2023 [16 favorites]
What could be manlier than refusing to conform to societal expectations about what it means to be a man. Whatever I do is manly, because I'm a man and I'm the one doing it.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 10:57 AM on July 10, 2023 [16 favorites]
the Dems have ceded that territory to the GOP.
Communications wise, maybe. But making Junteenth a federal holiday that, commemorating the day when the US Army rolled into Texas and declared "all slaves are free." Was pretty great
posted by eustatic at 10:58 AM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
Communications wise, maybe. But making Junteenth a federal holiday that, commemorating the day when the US Army rolled into Texas and declared "all slaves are free." Was pretty great
posted by eustatic at 10:58 AM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
These kind of guys need to learn to be comfortable in their own skin and stop worrying about whether or not they are "manly"
so I was once a teenager whose father hung onto immigrant Chinese patriarchal roles like that of stoicism under pain, not expressing emotions, not expressing love, learning to help yourself, and severe (ie abusive amounts of) corporal discipline
as a fucked up teenager, the voices that spoke to my experience of having a deep yearning desire to be acknowledged and validated by my abuser were those similarly very masculine presenting 'men' who, in my tiny world, were so helpful and kind, illustrating for me a guide to a kind of presentation that would earn me the respect of my father (or, in other's cases, their friends, their coach, their family at large, etc)
American History X was a story that really spoke to me many years further out. you know, it's not super fun identifying with a Neo-Nazi lol. but a young man, fucked up, lost in society seeking validation from a surrogate father figure because love wasn't to be found anywhere else - now that's a story repeated throughout time in the Holden Caufields and Will Huntings of the world
there's not an easy 'why don't they just get more confidence' answer to this. you can't tell someone in the throes of depression that they should just 'think more positively.' for me, the thing that was my clarion call were the authors who could write a story about someone so utterly despicable and hated by society, like that of Howard W. Campbell Jr. in Vonnegut's Mother Night, and find some way to empathize with them, their human condition that I, myself, could think 'oh... if we can humanize them, then why not me?'
there's a practice in cognitive behavioral therapy where you imagine your adult self as a bystander to those memories you have of your younger self. would you act so cruelly? would you treat another person, a child even, like how you were treated?
if you want an 'easy cure-all' for toxic masculinity, it's therapy. it's learning how to love yourself in a way that you weren't loved by your caretakers
it's like with supplements, clean eating, all the other snake oil being sold that'll fix your unnamed, unrecognized anxiety, your depression, your feeling of emptiness and pain. it's why people join cults - someone speaks to that pain, really gets you, really just identifies where you are, and instead of teaching you how to help yourself, they sell you a cure or tell you that the way to safety and sanity is an abdication of your agency to them
masculinity, how to act on it, how to be it, that's a cure all for something that it won't cure and will only exacerbate. and those who have even the smallest inkling of ethics know better than to sell it and preach it, to proffer it as an easy solution
posted by paimapi at 10:58 AM on July 10, 2023 [12 favorites]
so I was once a teenager whose father hung onto immigrant Chinese patriarchal roles like that of stoicism under pain, not expressing emotions, not expressing love, learning to help yourself, and severe (ie abusive amounts of) corporal discipline
as a fucked up teenager, the voices that spoke to my experience of having a deep yearning desire to be acknowledged and validated by my abuser were those similarly very masculine presenting 'men' who, in my tiny world, were so helpful and kind, illustrating for me a guide to a kind of presentation that would earn me the respect of my father (or, in other's cases, their friends, their coach, their family at large, etc)
American History X was a story that really spoke to me many years further out. you know, it's not super fun identifying with a Neo-Nazi lol. but a young man, fucked up, lost in society seeking validation from a surrogate father figure because love wasn't to be found anywhere else - now that's a story repeated throughout time in the Holden Caufields and Will Huntings of the world
there's not an easy 'why don't they just get more confidence' answer to this. you can't tell someone in the throes of depression that they should just 'think more positively.' for me, the thing that was my clarion call were the authors who could write a story about someone so utterly despicable and hated by society, like that of Howard W. Campbell Jr. in Vonnegut's Mother Night, and find some way to empathize with them, their human condition that I, myself, could think 'oh... if we can humanize them, then why not me?'
there's a practice in cognitive behavioral therapy where you imagine your adult self as a bystander to those memories you have of your younger self. would you act so cruelly? would you treat another person, a child even, like how you were treated?
if you want an 'easy cure-all' for toxic masculinity, it's therapy. it's learning how to love yourself in a way that you weren't loved by your caretakers
it's like with supplements, clean eating, all the other snake oil being sold that'll fix your unnamed, unrecognized anxiety, your depression, your feeling of emptiness and pain. it's why people join cults - someone speaks to that pain, really gets you, really just identifies where you are, and instead of teaching you how to help yourself, they sell you a cure or tell you that the way to safety and sanity is an abdication of your agency to them
masculinity, how to act on it, how to be it, that's a cure all for something that it won't cure and will only exacerbate. and those who have even the smallest inkling of ethics know better than to sell it and preach it, to proffer it as an easy solution
posted by paimapi at 10:58 AM on July 10, 2023 [12 favorites]
This Übermensch is a modern-day Alcibiades, as one admiring reviewer of BAP’s “Bronze Age Mindset” puts it: “a piratical man of adventure who attempts to engineer a coup in the United States, sleeps with Vladimir Putin’s wife, and then dies fighting the U.S. empire alongside wild tribesmen in Afghanistan.”
Mitt Romney fan fiction!!
Except that they took out the gay.
posted by praemunire at 11:03 AM on July 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
Mitt Romney fan fiction!!
Except that they took out the gay.
posted by praemunire at 11:03 AM on July 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
I wish one of these journalism outlets would stop doing the same pieces about the “neglected” people they’ve been obsessively focused on (white rural people in diners, hyper-masculine guys who feel sad) and do something more interesting about how we neglect the increasingly common experiences of complex gender and sex we’re all having.
Or maybe it’s just me? I’m a cis women who doesn’t present feminity conventionally (my adult kid says I dress like a fifth grade boy). I have a non-binary kid. The very feminine-presenting woman sitting next to me has a daughter in law who used to be her son in law, and she doesn’t understand why the DIL’s parents have rejected their child. In the meeting we were attending there were all people all along the gender continuum and the orientation continuum as well as some very (apparently) conventional folks. In some parts of the country two of the men in the room are supposed to be using the women’s bathroom and vice versa for some of the women.That’s the world I live in. That world is so neglected in the articles I read.
posted by Peach at 11:03 AM on July 10, 2023 [24 favorites]
Or maybe it’s just me? I’m a cis women who doesn’t present feminity conventionally (my adult kid says I dress like a fifth grade boy). I have a non-binary kid. The very feminine-presenting woman sitting next to me has a daughter in law who used to be her son in law, and she doesn’t understand why the DIL’s parents have rejected their child. In the meeting we were attending there were all people all along the gender continuum and the orientation continuum as well as some very (apparently) conventional folks. In some parts of the country two of the men in the room are supposed to be using the women’s bathroom and vice versa for some of the women.That’s the world I live in. That world is so neglected in the articles I read.
posted by Peach at 11:03 AM on July 10, 2023 [24 favorites]
Also, if people like Phyllis Schlafly are and were of concern to (all of) feminism, then as debased a form of media as all this may seem, people like Classically Abby (Ben Shapiro's sister, reaction by Strange Aeons), and recently Just Pearly Things (courtesy of Chad Chad) are perhaps of concern too, given their growing followings.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:07 AM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:07 AM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
the Dems have ceded that territory to the GOP.
But - how do you recapture that territory when just asking the question seems to presuppose some essential difference between men and women that I fundamentally don't believe in? I cannot find any way to ask "how should a man be?" that doesn't ultimately just collapse into "how should a person be?" and I am suspicious of anyone trying to draw that distinction.
It feels like people are hoping to find some role model who is successful at manliness while also being liberated from it, and I think for a lot of people that's one of those things where you can't necessarily have your cake and eat it too. (And can we circle back to the fact that patriarchy is a pyramid scheme, and the nature of the system means that the number of winners is very small, and the structure is meant to keep the losers trying harder and harder to preserve a system that doesn't even benefit them.)
posted by Jeanne at 11:13 AM on July 10, 2023 [31 favorites]
But - how do you recapture that territory when just asking the question seems to presuppose some essential difference between men and women that I fundamentally don't believe in? I cannot find any way to ask "how should a man be?" that doesn't ultimately just collapse into "how should a person be?" and I am suspicious of anyone trying to draw that distinction.
It feels like people are hoping to find some role model who is successful at manliness while also being liberated from it, and I think for a lot of people that's one of those things where you can't necessarily have your cake and eat it too. (And can we circle back to the fact that patriarchy is a pyramid scheme, and the nature of the system means that the number of winners is very small, and the structure is meant to keep the losers trying harder and harder to preserve a system that doesn't even benefit them.)
posted by Jeanne at 11:13 AM on July 10, 2023 [31 favorites]
Metafilter: “woke” (and, presumably, clothed)
posted by joannemerriam at 11:14 AM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by joannemerriam at 11:14 AM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
I don't have masc role models, all the rich and powerful people of the world are [expletive unfairly used, so deleted, this bunch lack the warmth, depth and delight] ... people are inadequate for modelling the kind of man I want to be, and I choose not to exploit people for my own gain.
Don't put it on us to have lost our way for lack of role models.
...most of these features are scaffolded by biology — all are associated with testosterone, the male sex hormone.
Ooh, essential testosterone, the "stupid choices" hormone. It was, I hope, this Andrew Huberman chat where they dosed up the middle-beta chimp with testosterone expecting him to fight for dominance, but instead he made all the risky and dangerous choices.
So lads, ladies and all of us, that's what androgenic hormones are good for: cheating on other people's spouses and climbing mountains because they're there.
That's not going to work out, so "be caring not daring."
posted by k3ninho at 11:27 AM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Don't put it on us to have lost our way for lack of role models.
...most of these features are scaffolded by biology — all are associated with testosterone, the male sex hormone.
Ooh, essential testosterone, the "stupid choices" hormone. It was, I hope, this Andrew Huberman chat where they dosed up the middle-beta chimp with testosterone expecting him to fight for dominance, but instead he made all the risky and dangerous choices.
So lads, ladies and all of us, that's what androgenic hormones are good for: cheating on other people's spouses and climbing mountains because they're there.
That's not going to work out, so "be caring not daring."
posted by k3ninho at 11:27 AM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Men are preeminently the performers of violence. Can you even think of a mass shooter who was a woman?
And violence and the threat of violence have turned out to be remarkably effective at removing women from positions of power they may have achieved even in the developed world; I’ve seen a number of articles claiming that threats of violence played a crucial role in Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's decision to resign; Nancy Pelosi might well still be the leader of House Democrats except for the violent attack on her husband which was actually aimed at her; and former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan chose not to run for reelection because of death threats, and there are many other possible examples.
Right now, the fate of Europe is being decided by a clash of violent men on battlefields, and the futures of the Middle East and most of Asia are in the hands of men who have shown a willingness to use any means to maintain and extend their power.
Every major city in the US is in a very real sense under the control of a gang of heavily armed men whose use of violence can barely be restrained by law or convention.
Masculinity is inextricably interwoven with violence, and I don’t see how we will be able to redefine it without also changing the way we use violence to shape our societies at every level.
posted by jamjam at 11:31 AM on July 10, 2023 [15 favorites]
And violence and the threat of violence have turned out to be remarkably effective at removing women from positions of power they may have achieved even in the developed world; I’ve seen a number of articles claiming that threats of violence played a crucial role in Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's decision to resign; Nancy Pelosi might well still be the leader of House Democrats except for the violent attack on her husband which was actually aimed at her; and former Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan chose not to run for reelection because of death threats, and there are many other possible examples.
Right now, the fate of Europe is being decided by a clash of violent men on battlefields, and the futures of the Middle East and most of Asia are in the hands of men who have shown a willingness to use any means to maintain and extend their power.
Every major city in the US is in a very real sense under the control of a gang of heavily armed men whose use of violence can barely be restrained by law or convention.
Masculinity is inextricably interwoven with violence, and I don’t see how we will be able to redefine it without also changing the way we use violence to shape our societies at every level.
posted by jamjam at 11:31 AM on July 10, 2023 [15 favorites]
Is understanding/defining masculinity the same as getting over feeling unloved by your masculine parent? I can see the connection but it's not really about masculinity, it's about the abusive parenting that's enabled/taught/demanded by patriarchy.
I have men in my life that I love who carry similar wounds. But what helped them was seeking therapy and friends and a good purpose for their lives, none of which required building a new masculinity. Mostly they see their feelings on that topic as part of their baggage and try to find a good balance. They don't necessarily dress or present differently than they would, but they do start to let go of thinking those things are very meaningful. At least that's what they tell me.
Of course they have and continue to deal with other people despising or disapproving of their choices, but that's something everyone who is insufficiently "manly" or "womanly" has to deal with. It sucks.
As far as How Do We Help Young Men, well: love them. Mentor them. Educate them. At least the ones in your life. You can also be an example to them.
In terms of all young men, access to mental health care would do a lot. There's no easy answer or easy way through. Just doing what you can where you can.
In terms of why do we keep having this discussion, well it mines a rich vein of anxiety and trauma, while simultaneously obscuring the issue by insisting we need defined gender roles. But we don't.
posted by emjaybee at 11:32 AM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
I have men in my life that I love who carry similar wounds. But what helped them was seeking therapy and friends and a good purpose for their lives, none of which required building a new masculinity. Mostly they see their feelings on that topic as part of their baggage and try to find a good balance. They don't necessarily dress or present differently than they would, but they do start to let go of thinking those things are very meaningful. At least that's what they tell me.
Of course they have and continue to deal with other people despising or disapproving of their choices, but that's something everyone who is insufficiently "manly" or "womanly" has to deal with. It sucks.
As far as How Do We Help Young Men, well: love them. Mentor them. Educate them. At least the ones in your life. You can also be an example to them.
In terms of all young men, access to mental health care would do a lot. There's no easy answer or easy way through. Just doing what you can where you can.
In terms of why do we keep having this discussion, well it mines a rich vein of anxiety and trauma, while simultaneously obscuring the issue by insisting we need defined gender roles. But we don't.
posted by emjaybee at 11:32 AM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
I cannot find any way to ask "how should a man be?" that doesn't ultimately just collapse into "how should a person be?" and I am suspicious of anyone trying to draw that distinction.
So I am asking sincerely: why is it the worst thing to start with the "how should a man be" that apparently, a lot of young men are saying out loud that they crave, and then letting the distinction collapse as it inevitably must?
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:41 AM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
So I am asking sincerely: why is it the worst thing to start with the "how should a man be" that apparently, a lot of young men are saying out loud that they crave, and then letting the distinction collapse as it inevitably must?
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 11:41 AM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
From the Caitlin Moran essay linked above
Which is why the difference between where women and men currently are in “talking about their problems” is vast. Women are newly fascinated with being absolutely, viscerally honest about all the problems to do with being a woman: Schumer will do 10 minutes on her vagina “smelling like a small farmyard animal”, while Lily Allen will perform under balloons that read “Lily Allen has a baggy pussy”. Women just do not give a shit these days, in the best way possible. Breaking a taboo, or being visceral, is now a very viable career path that inspires both relief and love from your fans.posted by spamandkimchi at 11:43 AM on July 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
But can you imagine a male comedian talking about a funky-smelling penis? Or a male pop star admitting to having a small, or average-sized, penis? It seems incredible to me that, as yet, there is not one famous man in the world who has admitted to having a small, or even average-sized, penis: even though 68% of men’s cocks are between three or four inches, on the flop.
...
In this climate, then, how is a teenage boy to think if he has a resolutely average penis? Or one that looks like any of the characters from Mario Kart? While his sister will be having conversations about how “proud” she is of her “magic” vagina – honestly, you cannot move for “My amazing fanny” chat on the bus these days – there are literally no joyful, affirming conversations going on, where older male comedians/writers/pop stars are encouraging teenage boys to feel proud of their penises.
I’m aware that even though I’ve explained why that is both damaging, and unfair, that sentence still looks … a lot. Possibly mad. But then, talking about how incredible your minge is seemed equally unthinkable and mad in, say, 1997, so we know these things can change.
How can we make a world where boys find a new space and language to talk about their bodies in the same, joyful, honest, affirming way? Because the existence of dick pics alone tells us: young men do want to start a conversation about their penises. It’s just, so far, this is the best idea they’ve come up with (granted, it is a bad idea).
Oh! And this too (from Moran):
Men do not have an equivalent of... the “dancing girl” emoji, or “Watch my girl go!”, that women get when they post something brave, honest and bold about her life. And this is one of the major stumbling blocks men need to address if they want to enjoy the kind of change and liberation that they seem, at root, to be jealous of in modern women.posted by spamandkimchi at 11:46 AM on July 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
I suggest this lack of public support is down to the still dolorous fear of homophobia: boys supporting other boys with the wild love that girls give each other risks a “Do you fancy him, then?” or, sadly, “You bender”.
Unexpectedly, one of the biggest problems for straight men is homophobia. You can’t form an effective brotherhood if a large section of the cohort won’t share a political bunkbed with its gay brothers.
Being honest, breaking taboos, starting conversations, organising campaigns, forming alliances and supporting each other. These are the basic feminist tools women have used to improve their lives immeasurably in the last hundred years.
But can you imagine a male comedian talking about a funky-smelling penis? Or a male pop star admitting to having a small, or average-sized, penis? It seems incredible to me that, as yet, there is not one famous man in the world who has admitted to having a small, or even average-sized, penis: even though 68% of men’s cocks are between three or four inches, on the flop.
Stand up comedy has been willing to joke about having a weird or small dick for a while now. Ironically perhaps, these days the place you go for this kind of humor are outlets like Chapo and Cumtown. The dirtbag left, after all.
Men do not have an equivalent of... the “dancing girl” emoji, or “Watch my girl go!”, that women get when they post something brave, honest and bold about her life. And this is one of the major stumbling blocks men need to address if they want to enjoy the kind of change and liberation that they seem, at root, to be jealous of in modern women.
Yes they do, it's the chad emoji or meme. De rigueur in twitch chat and other channels. Went from serious to ironic to just parlance.
Maybe ask men what we do and say, this stuff is a moving target.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:49 AM on July 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
Stand up comedy has been willing to joke about having a weird or small dick for a while now. Ironically perhaps, these days the place you go for this kind of humor are outlets like Chapo and Cumtown. The dirtbag left, after all.
Men do not have an equivalent of... the “dancing girl” emoji, or “Watch my girl go!”, that women get when they post something brave, honest and bold about her life. And this is one of the major stumbling blocks men need to address if they want to enjoy the kind of change and liberation that they seem, at root, to be jealous of in modern women.
Yes they do, it's the chad emoji or meme. De rigueur in twitch chat and other channels. Went from serious to ironic to just parlance.
Maybe ask men what we do and say, this stuff is a moving target.
posted by snuffleupagus at 11:49 AM on July 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
I can understand the struggle to figure out how to be a man, because it's an identity that some people have that feels like their primary identity, so it is one they are going to develop in order to lead an examined life.
If I am a Canadian, as an important part of my identity, I can probably figure out how to be a good Canadian by doing things to make Canada a better country. Or if Poet is a particular part of my identity, then I can work on that identity by writing poetry and reading poetry and figuring out where mine stands compared to theirs and why.
But if my identity is that I am a Man, it's not as easy to figure out what I should do to deserve that identity. Being a man as an identity is first broader, and then more nebulous, than Poet or Canadian; and then it's loaded down with masses of gate keeping and historical baggage, some of which is poisonous. Of course some of the historical baggage I carry as a Canadian is poisonous too - look what we did to our First Nations, and look how we have supported and still support bad laws and bad military decisions. But the identity of a Man is one that is particularly fraught because it almost always defined in a way that comes from competitive standing. It looks really silly to be competitively Canadian. I'm not going to find a host of other people to dispute with me who is the better Canadian unless I look really hard. But if I am exploring what it means to be a man there will be a tsunami of people telling me that I am not as good as the other men. The identity of a man is especially fraught because it is so frequently bonded with a need for recognition.
To make it particularly difficult to use as an identity, for many people the identity of a man begins with the binary that a man is not a woman. So if women are strong, therefore men cannot be strong, and if men are strong, therefore women cannot strong - they don't know how to share any traits with the Other. You are never going to get a definition for men that works if the definition is based on not being a women. There will always be evidence that makes the definition fail and you will always end up with internal conflict and uncertainty as a result. Are you strong enough to be a man, or are you just a poseur?
Being a Man is absolutely not a difficult identity if you can get away from binary and competitive thinking. If you can't you will never solve the identity problems that result. Thinking in simplistic binaries is really seductive if you are trying to get recognition, as recognition requires competing with other people who are seeking recognition. Once you are performing competitive masculinity, it is so easy to slide into fallacies that start with, "I am better than women/gay men/libtards/anyone without my background/identity because...." But you can never satisfactorily answer continue the part of the statement that comes after the word because.
When I was growing up I often heard the simple statement that boys are stronger than girls, and men are stronger than women. The strongest woman in the world can deadlift 306 kg (675 lbs). So if men are stronger than women, any man who can't deadlift 675 lbs is not a real man... I can only guess what percentage of men are not real men by that definition! No matter how you define men in relationship to women, or gay men, or anyone else, you'll be able to find an outlier in the Other group that promptly defines every man that you've ever met as not being a man.
You're never going to get a consensus on what it means to be masculine or to be a man. And I think that may be where the identity problems that men have now are coming from. There have been times when it was relatively possible for many men to get some recognition in their community. You might not be the richest guy, or the guy that more women wanted to marry, or the strongest guy or the best fighter or any of that stuff, but for many men they could get positive feedback: You are a good worker. You are a good craftsman. You are a good provider. You are good with your fists, etc. Your community acknowledged it. At that point you could have an identity as a man and not end up having to question it.
But at this point, it is very hard for most people to get that kind of approval and positive feedback. Their bosses are ready to lay them off at the drop of a hat and undercut their feelings of competence by undervaluing them. Their parents are tactfully not berating them for struggling to stay employed. "It's not your fault, Dear, not in this economic climate," is no way to show someone you value them and admire them. But how are you going to build up the ego of your deadbeat son who lives in your basement, when he has diminishing economic prospects? Even if you do say, "You're strong, you're noble, you're reliable, you have clean habits, you're tough, you're resilent..." How is that going to stack up against his boss telling him he's cut back to only 21 hours of work this week, and leaving him coming back to you saying he's short on groceries again? He's not going to be feeling manly.
But the semi-mythical time I mention about when it was relatively possible for many men to get recognition in their community is not a universal in the past. In 1971 there was a sitcom that opened with the main character and his wife singing a duet which included the lines "Girls were girls and men were men. Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again..." Yet in the Depression in the 1930's a lot of guys were in the same economic circumstances as they are now. Huge numbers of men who were supposed to be breadwinners had to abandon their families and go on the tramp to look for any work at all just to keep themselves fed. What era has not asked, "Why are men struggling to be men?"
So this isn't an unusual era. Generalizations about the past are a dead end. You can find a lot of historical references to men struggling with the identity of a man. Rudyard Kipling wrote the poem If around 1895. There's another example of the gatekeeping of the masculine identity which, of course, almost all men would immediately fall short of. I don't think recent generations are struggling with their identity as men because of feminism. Feminism is recent so that becomes something obvious to blame.
It's fascinating that Jordan Peterson is held to be a thought leader and mentor for masculine identity, when Jordan Peterson suffers from crippling anxiety and inflexibility. Those things, of course, do not make anyone less of a man. But the manosphere considers men to be mentally strong compared to women, and considers anxiety to be a feminine trait. How do they square that with Jordon Peterson's struggles? Well, because it is anxiety making them struggle in their search for a masculine identity, they keep identifying with what he says about masculinity, while giving him the same pass on his being a developing human being that they need themselves. After all an aspirational definition of masculinity is to overcome your struggles with anxiety, so they can still say he is walking the walk and talking the talk. Yet overcoming your struggles with anxiety has nothing to do with masculinity. It's also an aspirational definition of being human.
posted by Jane the Brown at 12:03 PM on July 10, 2023 [12 favorites]
If I am a Canadian, as an important part of my identity, I can probably figure out how to be a good Canadian by doing things to make Canada a better country. Or if Poet is a particular part of my identity, then I can work on that identity by writing poetry and reading poetry and figuring out where mine stands compared to theirs and why.
But if my identity is that I am a Man, it's not as easy to figure out what I should do to deserve that identity. Being a man as an identity is first broader, and then more nebulous, than Poet or Canadian; and then it's loaded down with masses of gate keeping and historical baggage, some of which is poisonous. Of course some of the historical baggage I carry as a Canadian is poisonous too - look what we did to our First Nations, and look how we have supported and still support bad laws and bad military decisions. But the identity of a Man is one that is particularly fraught because it almost always defined in a way that comes from competitive standing. It looks really silly to be competitively Canadian. I'm not going to find a host of other people to dispute with me who is the better Canadian unless I look really hard. But if I am exploring what it means to be a man there will be a tsunami of people telling me that I am not as good as the other men. The identity of a man is especially fraught because it is so frequently bonded with a need for recognition.
To make it particularly difficult to use as an identity, for many people the identity of a man begins with the binary that a man is not a woman. So if women are strong, therefore men cannot be strong, and if men are strong, therefore women cannot strong - they don't know how to share any traits with the Other. You are never going to get a definition for men that works if the definition is based on not being a women. There will always be evidence that makes the definition fail and you will always end up with internal conflict and uncertainty as a result. Are you strong enough to be a man, or are you just a poseur?
Being a Man is absolutely not a difficult identity if you can get away from binary and competitive thinking. If you can't you will never solve the identity problems that result. Thinking in simplistic binaries is really seductive if you are trying to get recognition, as recognition requires competing with other people who are seeking recognition. Once you are performing competitive masculinity, it is so easy to slide into fallacies that start with, "I am better than women/gay men/libtards/anyone without my background/identity because...." But you can never satisfactorily answer continue the part of the statement that comes after the word because.
When I was growing up I often heard the simple statement that boys are stronger than girls, and men are stronger than women. The strongest woman in the world can deadlift 306 kg (675 lbs). So if men are stronger than women, any man who can't deadlift 675 lbs is not a real man... I can only guess what percentage of men are not real men by that definition! No matter how you define men in relationship to women, or gay men, or anyone else, you'll be able to find an outlier in the Other group that promptly defines every man that you've ever met as not being a man.
You're never going to get a consensus on what it means to be masculine or to be a man. And I think that may be where the identity problems that men have now are coming from. There have been times when it was relatively possible for many men to get some recognition in their community. You might not be the richest guy, or the guy that more women wanted to marry, or the strongest guy or the best fighter or any of that stuff, but for many men they could get positive feedback: You are a good worker. You are a good craftsman. You are a good provider. You are good with your fists, etc. Your community acknowledged it. At that point you could have an identity as a man and not end up having to question it.
But at this point, it is very hard for most people to get that kind of approval and positive feedback. Their bosses are ready to lay them off at the drop of a hat and undercut their feelings of competence by undervaluing them. Their parents are tactfully not berating them for struggling to stay employed. "It's not your fault, Dear, not in this economic climate," is no way to show someone you value them and admire them. But how are you going to build up the ego of your deadbeat son who lives in your basement, when he has diminishing economic prospects? Even if you do say, "You're strong, you're noble, you're reliable, you have clean habits, you're tough, you're resilent..." How is that going to stack up against his boss telling him he's cut back to only 21 hours of work this week, and leaving him coming back to you saying he's short on groceries again? He's not going to be feeling manly.
But the semi-mythical time I mention about when it was relatively possible for many men to get recognition in their community is not a universal in the past. In 1971 there was a sitcom that opened with the main character and his wife singing a duet which included the lines "Girls were girls and men were men. Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again..." Yet in the Depression in the 1930's a lot of guys were in the same economic circumstances as they are now. Huge numbers of men who were supposed to be breadwinners had to abandon their families and go on the tramp to look for any work at all just to keep themselves fed. What era has not asked, "Why are men struggling to be men?"
So this isn't an unusual era. Generalizations about the past are a dead end. You can find a lot of historical references to men struggling with the identity of a man. Rudyard Kipling wrote the poem If around 1895. There's another example of the gatekeeping of the masculine identity which, of course, almost all men would immediately fall short of. I don't think recent generations are struggling with their identity as men because of feminism. Feminism is recent so that becomes something obvious to blame.
It's fascinating that Jordan Peterson is held to be a thought leader and mentor for masculine identity, when Jordan Peterson suffers from crippling anxiety and inflexibility. Those things, of course, do not make anyone less of a man. But the manosphere considers men to be mentally strong compared to women, and considers anxiety to be a feminine trait. How do they square that with Jordon Peterson's struggles? Well, because it is anxiety making them struggle in their search for a masculine identity, they keep identifying with what he says about masculinity, while giving him the same pass on his being a developing human being that they need themselves. After all an aspirational definition of masculinity is to overcome your struggles with anxiety, so they can still say he is walking the walk and talking the talk. Yet overcoming your struggles with anxiety has nothing to do with masculinity. It's also an aspirational definition of being human.
posted by Jane the Brown at 12:03 PM on July 10, 2023 [12 favorites]
I have men in my life that I love who carry similar wounds. But what helped them was seeking therapy and friends and a good purpose for their lives, none of which required building a new masculinity.
....Could we not perhaps promote the notion of "Seek Therapy if you need it, find and keep friends, and find a purpose for your life" as the New Masculinity that so many people seem to crave?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:04 PM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
....Could we not perhaps promote the notion of "Seek Therapy if you need it, find and keep friends, and find a purpose for your life" as the New Masculinity that so many people seem to crave?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:04 PM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
honestly, you cannot move for “My amazing fanny” chat on the bus these days
Gracious. The bus around here is pretty quiet, except for the one guy who likes to chat about the weather and his job at Goodwill.
All I know is this: when somebody is breaking their heart for something, wanting it with every fiber of their being, it is absolutely useless to say "don't want that, it's stupid."
The thing about that "Bronze Age" bullshit is that, just as a student of archaeology, I can think of about six kinds of gender experience in the actual Bronze Age that would make them weep. (Do they know that Egyptian men were expected to "menstruate" because there were so many parasites in the Nile water? No, they do not.)
jamjam: I can think of at least two, one of which was the Christian school shooter in Tennessee. I agree with your larger point, but people will try to undermine it in that way.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:05 PM on July 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
Gracious. The bus around here is pretty quiet, except for the one guy who likes to chat about the weather and his job at Goodwill.
All I know is this: when somebody is breaking their heart for something, wanting it with every fiber of their being, it is absolutely useless to say "don't want that, it's stupid."
The thing about that "Bronze Age" bullshit is that, just as a student of archaeology, I can think of about six kinds of gender experience in the actual Bronze Age that would make them weep. (Do they know that Egyptian men were expected to "menstruate" because there were so many parasites in the Nile water? No, they do not.)
jamjam: I can think of at least two, one of which was the Christian school shooter in Tennessee. I agree with your larger point, but people will try to undermine it in that way.
posted by Countess Elena at 12:05 PM on July 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
“The Crisis of Masculinity | Philosophy Instrumentals Ep.30” [12:09]—Artin Salimi, Jan 19, 2023
posted by ob1quixote at 12:10 PM on July 10, 2023
posted by ob1quixote at 12:10 PM on July 10, 2023
....Could we not perhaps promote the notion of "Seek Therapy if you need it, find and keep friends, and find a purpose for your life" as the New Masculinity that so many people seem to crave?
It doesn't really add anything to basic personhood. Which, yes. Still, the idea of a positive masculinity in touch with itself has to mean something more. Is there nothing more to being a woman than that? Why aren't all trans people just enby?
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:10 PM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
It doesn't really add anything to basic personhood. Which, yes. Still, the idea of a positive masculinity in touch with itself has to mean something more. Is there nothing more to being a woman than that? Why aren't all trans people just enby?
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:10 PM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
Caitlin Moran seems wholly unaware of… most of comedy and culture. Self-deprecating jokes have been at the core of the comedy scene for literal decades.
Also, women finding success by “breaking a taboo, or being visceral” is very much a minority; there’s a reason it’s Lily Allen and not Taylor Swift or Beyoncé.
posted by Molten Berle at 12:11 PM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
Also, women finding success by “breaking a taboo, or being visceral” is very much a minority; there’s a reason it’s Lily Allen and not Taylor Swift or Beyoncé.
posted by Molten Berle at 12:11 PM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
"The bullied become bullies" is something I've thought for a while, and if you find yourself bullying, you need to help yourself by going to therapy and talking to yourself about it.
A whole stack of intergenerational bullies does need something more to become ... but it's simple things like your enjoyment of any g-d thing not being less because someone shames you about it. You deserve this boundaries and to feel safe within those boundaries, right?
posted by k3ninho at 12:22 PM on July 10, 2023
A whole stack of intergenerational bullies does need something more to become ... but it's simple things like your enjoyment of any g-d thing not being less because someone shames you about it. You deserve this boundaries and to feel safe within those boundaries, right?
posted by k3ninho at 12:22 PM on July 10, 2023
Still, the idea of a positive masculinity in touch with itself has to mean something more.
Why?
Is there nothing more to being a woman than that?
Does there need to be?
Why aren't all trans people just enby?
I think everyone deserves the right to decide for themselves how they should present genderwise, no?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:22 PM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
Why?
Is there nothing more to being a woman than that?
Does there need to be?
Why aren't all trans people just enby?
I think everyone deserves the right to decide for themselves how they should present genderwise, no?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:22 PM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
Yeah, if there’s any safe place for bemoaning one’s male shortcomings it’s in standup comedy.
I do agree that women are more vocally and directly angry. Trump cracked open the forbidden box and let us all know that there was a huge population slavering to put women back in their place - available arm candy to do all the homebound dirty work. We in the US had the opportunity to elect the most competent and highly trained public servant that has ever run and “we” chose differently using our flawed electoral system that was designed to work just like it worked - to push white patriarchal nonsense to the top of the trash heap.
posted by amanda at 12:23 PM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
I do agree that women are more vocally and directly angry. Trump cracked open the forbidden box and let us all know that there was a huge population slavering to put women back in their place - available arm candy to do all the homebound dirty work. We in the US had the opportunity to elect the most competent and highly trained public servant that has ever run and “we” chose differently using our flawed electoral system that was designed to work just like it worked - to push white patriarchal nonsense to the top of the trash heap.
posted by amanda at 12:23 PM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
I think everyone deserves the right to decide for themselves how they should present genderwise, no?
Yes, of course. The point was exactly that, for some people there does need to be something more.
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:28 PM on July 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
Yes, of course. The point was exactly that, for some people there does need to be something more.
posted by snuffleupagus at 12:28 PM on July 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
Susan Faludi did this essay better nearly 25 years ago in book form with Stiffed: https://www.motherjones.com/media/1999/09/susan-faludi-mother-jones-interview/
>”That is it. Full stop. Real men protect other people.”
>”The responsibility to make sure that, either way, she gets home safely.”
>”they don’t want to have sex with those [more feminine] guys”
Oh ffs. No. Just don’t. Stop. I’d rather live in a world without war than a world with “real men” always fighting to see who will be the better protector. I’d rather live in a world that is de facto safe for women than one where the men must escort the women. This view of what certain people should be is obviously heteronormative but, even more importantly, it is also ableist. A man is defined by the things he can do for the weaker ones? If you can’t do then you’re not a man? If we need a solution for vulnerable men experiencing suicides and deaths of despair, then “you’re not good enough as you are. Be a better protector instead” ain’t it.
Who is fighting the good fight? The tip of the spear for this wave of the anti-Patriarchy is the gender queer, the NB, the gender trenders, drag queens, drag kings and trans. Also in the vanguard are all LGBTQ, and poignantly ace and pan who have no stakes in this fight of dividing men and women. This “what is a man?” or “what is a woman?” stuff is 20th century bean plating. The future is people being accepted for whatever they are, wherever on any spectrum they are for whatever amount of time or trial they care to be it. Birth assignations be damned.
(Not to mention how the author’s continuous implication of video games as an empty, troublesome hobby is such a 1990s mindset shibboleth)
As a middle aged cis het man in nearly all the privilege categories but who still feels the deep sting of the social constructions that still hurt me, the queer reframing of sexuality and gender is deconstructing and disempowering those harmful constructions for all of us.
It is awful that the world is the unaccepting way that it is and it is no one’s job to help the privileged such as myself, but it is also an incidental kindness and a virtue to do so. I wish I could help more, but this is all to say that trans people are my ally as surely as I am their’s.
This all is also not to say that we should ignore the crisis needs of boys and men. But the skills to be taught there are skills that are needed for everyone: emotional regulation, active listening, being a trauma informed ally, resilience, self-advocacy, finding help, finding mentors, self-care, mindfulness and gratitude practice. This list is all things we repress or ignore in institutionalized public education.
posted by Skwirl at 12:29 PM on July 10, 2023 [25 favorites]
>”That is it. Full stop. Real men protect other people.”
>”The responsibility to make sure that, either way, she gets home safely.”
>”they don’t want to have sex with those [more feminine] guys”
Oh ffs. No. Just don’t. Stop. I’d rather live in a world without war than a world with “real men” always fighting to see who will be the better protector. I’d rather live in a world that is de facto safe for women than one where the men must escort the women. This view of what certain people should be is obviously heteronormative but, even more importantly, it is also ableist. A man is defined by the things he can do for the weaker ones? If you can’t do then you’re not a man? If we need a solution for vulnerable men experiencing suicides and deaths of despair, then “you’re not good enough as you are. Be a better protector instead” ain’t it.
Who is fighting the good fight? The tip of the spear for this wave of the anti-Patriarchy is the gender queer, the NB, the gender trenders, drag queens, drag kings and trans. Also in the vanguard are all LGBTQ, and poignantly ace and pan who have no stakes in this fight of dividing men and women. This “what is a man?” or “what is a woman?” stuff is 20th century bean plating. The future is people being accepted for whatever they are, wherever on any spectrum they are for whatever amount of time or trial they care to be it. Birth assignations be damned.
(Not to mention how the author’s continuous implication of video games as an empty, troublesome hobby is such a 1990s mindset shibboleth)
As a middle aged cis het man in nearly all the privilege categories but who still feels the deep sting of the social constructions that still hurt me, the queer reframing of sexuality and gender is deconstructing and disempowering those harmful constructions for all of us.
It is awful that the world is the unaccepting way that it is and it is no one’s job to help the privileged such as myself, but it is also an incidental kindness and a virtue to do so. I wish I could help more, but this is all to say that trans people are my ally as surely as I am their’s.
This all is also not to say that we should ignore the crisis needs of boys and men. But the skills to be taught there are skills that are needed for everyone: emotional regulation, active listening, being a trauma informed ally, resilience, self-advocacy, finding help, finding mentors, self-care, mindfulness and gratitude practice. This list is all things we repress or ignore in institutionalized public education.
posted by Skwirl at 12:29 PM on July 10, 2023 [25 favorites]
"He periodically wants to talk about how hard it is to be a white, cis, straight man without a role model."
Oh, this is easy. Fred Rogers. I say that a little tongue-in-cheek, but I realized a few years ago that if I asked myself "What Would Mr. Rogers Do?" or "would I feel bad if Mr. Rogers knew I did this?" that I arrive at a good answer most of the time. At least, when I've applied that framework I have yet to look back on a decision and say "I regret what I did there." And I can think of any number of times that I wish I had applied it.
Seriously, I wish I'd hit on that 30 years ago. I don't mean in the superficial G-rated way of being like Fred Rogers, but the general philosophy and behaviors.
posted by jzb at 12:29 PM on July 10, 2023 [33 favorites]
Oh, this is easy. Fred Rogers. I say that a little tongue-in-cheek, but I realized a few years ago that if I asked myself "What Would Mr. Rogers Do?" or "would I feel bad if Mr. Rogers knew I did this?" that I arrive at a good answer most of the time. At least, when I've applied that framework I have yet to look back on a decision and say "I regret what I did there." And I can think of any number of times that I wish I had applied it.
Seriously, I wish I'd hit on that 30 years ago. I don't mean in the superficial G-rated way of being like Fred Rogers, but the general philosophy and behaviors.
posted by jzb at 12:29 PM on July 10, 2023 [33 favorites]
That's a lovely suggestion, jzb, and not wrong, but not quite right for what he's looking for. I think there's an element here that drewbage1847 noted: A good number of people don't seem to do well or feel comfortable with "define it yourself". I think he's done well actually, all things considered, but would just be happier with someone(s) whose life looks like what he wants his to look like in fairly specific terms.
posted by EvaDestruction at 1:12 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by EvaDestruction at 1:12 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Hmmm. Checking back in on the conversation, my overly-glib comment above has been somewhat eviscerated.
I'm old enough that most of my male role-models growing up were born in the 1910s to 1940s, many of them WWII vets and most of them now gone. For the most part, they never got worked up about something being manly or not, but what they did expect is that you would do whatever was needed to be done and expected you to help out without griping about it. If the help that was needed was hanging laundry or helping in the kitchen, you did it. They taught me stereotypical male skills (car repair, construction, plumbing, carpentry, roofing, felling trees and splitting wood, all sorts of farm work, hunting, fishing, etc.) but the one thing that stuck with me was that they never had limits to what a man should do. One of my grandfathers (a rocket scientist who collected orchids and had a hobby making jewelry) taught me how to darn socks because he learned how to do that in the marines. My other grandfather (a carpenter and factory worker who loved gardening and collected weird clown figurines and went to mass every morning) insisted I should know how to cook, clean, sew, garden, and do laundry because everyone should know how to do everything. What there wasn't was any shame at doing things that weren't stereotypically manly.
Anyways, maybe as a result of male role models who never worried about it, I never really worried about what was or was not manly. Maybe it was because I didn't have access to the internet, so never had cause or reason to question it. I've certainly now reached an age where I no longer care what people think of me. But then again I come from a long line of weirdos who just danced to their own tune. I certainly see how this type of thought seeps into the headspace of young males now from online media. I have two teenage sons (who thankfully follow in the family tradition of being generally happy weirdos), but they talk about it with us because it is part of their social experience. They worry about friends who get sucked into toxic stuff on the internet.
Anyways, sorry for the glib comment. It would be nice if everyone could be comfortable in their own skin instead of feeling like they had to worry what was or wasn't "manly". And I do think it is unfortunate that people spend time and energy worrying about such things instead of being able to enjoy life as who they are.
posted by fimbulvetr at 1:17 PM on July 10, 2023 [12 favorites]
I'm old enough that most of my male role-models growing up were born in the 1910s to 1940s, many of them WWII vets and most of them now gone. For the most part, they never got worked up about something being manly or not, but what they did expect is that you would do whatever was needed to be done and expected you to help out without griping about it. If the help that was needed was hanging laundry or helping in the kitchen, you did it. They taught me stereotypical male skills (car repair, construction, plumbing, carpentry, roofing, felling trees and splitting wood, all sorts of farm work, hunting, fishing, etc.) but the one thing that stuck with me was that they never had limits to what a man should do. One of my grandfathers (a rocket scientist who collected orchids and had a hobby making jewelry) taught me how to darn socks because he learned how to do that in the marines. My other grandfather (a carpenter and factory worker who loved gardening and collected weird clown figurines and went to mass every morning) insisted I should know how to cook, clean, sew, garden, and do laundry because everyone should know how to do everything. What there wasn't was any shame at doing things that weren't stereotypically manly.
Anyways, maybe as a result of male role models who never worried about it, I never really worried about what was or was not manly. Maybe it was because I didn't have access to the internet, so never had cause or reason to question it. I've certainly now reached an age where I no longer care what people think of me. But then again I come from a long line of weirdos who just danced to their own tune. I certainly see how this type of thought seeps into the headspace of young males now from online media. I have two teenage sons (who thankfully follow in the family tradition of being generally happy weirdos), but they talk about it with us because it is part of their social experience. They worry about friends who get sucked into toxic stuff on the internet.
Anyways, sorry for the glib comment. It would be nice if everyone could be comfortable in their own skin instead of feeling like they had to worry what was or wasn't "manly". And I do think it is unfortunate that people spend time and energy worrying about such things instead of being able to enjoy life as who they are.
posted by fimbulvetr at 1:17 PM on July 10, 2023 [12 favorites]
I wish one of these journalism outlets would stop doing the same pieces about the “neglected” people they’ve been obsessively focused on (white rural people in diners, hyper-masculine guys who feel sad) and do something more interesting about how we neglect the increasingly common experiences of complex gender and sex we’re all having.
My first thought is if these guys *truly* are learning the "art of being manly" from Jordan Petersen et al and they are a sizable group of the male population and Peterson's advice includes "clean up after yourself" and "be more fit", then where are the actual results?
Also the actual statistics show that white males do to trail white females in college attendance, but the real disparity is in hispanics and blacks, not so much whites. Where's the black Jordan Peterson? Does these guys advice cross race barriers? Seems like it would not...
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:18 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
My first thought is if these guys *truly* are learning the "art of being manly" from Jordan Petersen et al and they are a sizable group of the male population and Peterson's advice includes "clean up after yourself" and "be more fit", then where are the actual results?
Also the actual statistics show that white males do to trail white females in college attendance, but the real disparity is in hispanics and blacks, not so much whites. Where's the black Jordan Peterson? Does these guys advice cross race barriers? Seems like it would not...
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:18 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
I rarely post on here, but this opinion piece is so terrible that it's lured me into the swamp of discourse. This isn't anywhere near a leftist or progressive perspective of gender—this is old conservatism (in this author's case, specifically Christian) wrapped the guise of liberal pandering in reaction to—as others have pointed out—terrible online content algorithms putting toxic media in front of young people.
The "map" here is a reinforcement of traditional gender roles (i.e. "protector, provider, even procreator") under a newly skinned cultural movement that is essentially, "What if Jordan Peterson but with less Nazis?" There are constant remarks about the importance of hormones in regard to gendered sex drive without any scientific qualifications, a note about the economic crisis of non-college graduates without any insight into the dismantling of workers' rights or collective bargaining, and ultimately—as many others have pointed out—the argument seems to be to get young men to be better at playing a rigged game that we should all quit instead.
But it was this sentence that really sent me over: "But despite a push by some advocates to make everything from bathrooms to birthing gender-neutral, most people don’t actually want a completely androgynous society."
Get bent. Seriously. What a callous, awful remark. We want gender neutral bathrooms and equal access to health care for our collective safety, not because we're trying to establish some sort of sexless society.
posted by fearingamerican at 1:23 PM on July 10, 2023 [39 favorites]
The "map" here is a reinforcement of traditional gender roles (i.e. "protector, provider, even procreator") under a newly skinned cultural movement that is essentially, "What if Jordan Peterson but with less Nazis?" There are constant remarks about the importance of hormones in regard to gendered sex drive without any scientific qualifications, a note about the economic crisis of non-college graduates without any insight into the dismantling of workers' rights or collective bargaining, and ultimately—as many others have pointed out—the argument seems to be to get young men to be better at playing a rigged game that we should all quit instead.
But it was this sentence that really sent me over: "But despite a push by some advocates to make everything from bathrooms to birthing gender-neutral, most people don’t actually want a completely androgynous society."
Get bent. Seriously. What a callous, awful remark. We want gender neutral bathrooms and equal access to health care for our collective safety, not because we're trying to establish some sort of sexless society.
posted by fearingamerican at 1:23 PM on July 10, 2023 [39 favorites]
I think most male malaise could be cured by Good Jobs at Good Wages, a slogan that I wish was closer to the center of leftist discourse.
posted by ducky l'orange at 1:32 PM on July 10, 2023 [18 favorites]
posted by ducky l'orange at 1:32 PM on July 10, 2023 [18 favorites]
My first thought is if these guys *truly* are learning the "art of being manly" from Jordan Petersen et al and they are a sizable group of the male population and Peterson's advice includes "clean up after yourself" and "be more fit", then where are the actual results?
What are you trying to imply here? That Jordan Petersen isn't really all that influential because there aren't more men who clean up after themselves and who exercise? That seems a bit specious.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:35 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
What are you trying to imply here? That Jordan Petersen isn't really all that influential because there aren't more men who clean up after themselves and who exercise? That seems a bit specious.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 1:35 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm not being snarky - I really believe Democrats should do more flag waving.
What with all the grayscale thin-blue-line versions of the stars and stripes around, seeing the actual red-white-and-blue makes me feel downright patriotic. I suppose it also didn't hurt that Chris Evans seemed like a better-than-average dude during the time that he was the face of Captain America.
My idealized America where everyone is welcome and protected by the rule of law is no less imaginary than than the MAGA fantasy.
posted by straight at 1:39 PM on July 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
What with all the grayscale thin-blue-line versions of the stars and stripes around, seeing the actual red-white-and-blue makes me feel downright patriotic. I suppose it also didn't hurt that Chris Evans seemed like a better-than-average dude during the time that he was the face of Captain America.
My idealized America where everyone is welcome and protected by the rule of law is no less imaginary than than the MAGA fantasy.
posted by straight at 1:39 PM on July 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
I think most male malaise could be cured by Good Jobs at Good Wages, a slogan that I wish was closer to the center of leftist discourse.
Yes. And affordable housing.
I mean, since long before most of us were alive, the advice to men who didn't fit in in their conservative communities has been "move to the city." And it worked for a lot of us! Like, therapy is great, but if where you are has rigid gender roles and you don't fit them, which often does go hand-in-hand with a lack of economic opportunity, you're still gonna have a problem.
But moving where the jobs, and wide ranges of accepted masculine behavior, are feels harder with each generation.
posted by smelendez at 1:41 PM on July 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
Yes. And affordable housing.
I mean, since long before most of us were alive, the advice to men who didn't fit in in their conservative communities has been "move to the city." And it worked for a lot of us! Like, therapy is great, but if where you are has rigid gender roles and you don't fit them, which often does go hand-in-hand with a lack of economic opportunity, you're still gonna have a problem.
But moving where the jobs, and wide ranges of accepted masculine behavior, are feels harder with each generation.
posted by smelendez at 1:41 PM on July 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
Male socialization is a process of creating insecurity in others in order to claim false security for oneself, the "successful" results of which we then hold up as "masculinity."
Yes this.
I think most male malaise could be cured by Good Jobs at Good Wages, a slogan that I wish was closer to the center of leftist discourse.
Ultimately that insecurity is in the service of rich people creating a class of dudes willing to do violence to protect their riches. And it's very closely tied to the economic insecurity that creates workers without the power to demand Good Jobs at Good Wages.
It's all a con to convince men that if they behave like dogs someday they can be the top dog (with apologies to actual doggies who are good doggies).
posted by straight at 1:47 PM on July 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
Yes this.
I think most male malaise could be cured by Good Jobs at Good Wages, a slogan that I wish was closer to the center of leftist discourse.
Ultimately that insecurity is in the service of rich people creating a class of dudes willing to do violence to protect their riches. And it's very closely tied to the economic insecurity that creates workers without the power to demand Good Jobs at Good Wages.
It's all a con to convince men that if they behave like dogs someday they can be the top dog (with apologies to actual doggies who are good doggies).
posted by straight at 1:47 PM on July 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
I’m finding a lot of comments here using “the left” interchangeably with centrist neoliberals— Democrats, New Labour, etc. Agreed that those groups are pretty terrible at defining, shaping, protecting, harnessing masculinity for the better.
I’d posit that the actual left is a lot better at this, where the vision of an ideal world is based around cooperation and mutualism, so the tenets of “traditional” masculinity that we’re talking about here (seeking power, enriching oneself in resources/mates/social stature at the expense of others) are taboo.
(Yes, yes, there are still misogynists and predators among leftists, but unlike conservatism and neoliberalism, misogyny and predation is antithetical to the ethos of the left! “Brocialists” or whatever get a lot more mainstream airtime than they’re due, proportionally.)
Neoliberal men AND women still equate this zero-sum power/wealth drive with “traditional” masculinity; for them, the link between power-seeking / wealth-seeking and masculinity is a bad thing but the drive itself is not.
That’s my experience anyway. It’s much easier to have these conversations with leftists where masculinity itself is not a source of shame because it’s rooted in a drive for a fair society. Gender differences exist but are facets of class struggle.
tl;dr: the problem isn’t men/masculinity, it’s capitalism (only a slightly ironic summary)
posted by supercres at 1:49 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
I’d posit that the actual left is a lot better at this, where the vision of an ideal world is based around cooperation and mutualism, so the tenets of “traditional” masculinity that we’re talking about here (seeking power, enriching oneself in resources/mates/social stature at the expense of others) are taboo.
(Yes, yes, there are still misogynists and predators among leftists, but unlike conservatism and neoliberalism, misogyny and predation is antithetical to the ethos of the left! “Brocialists” or whatever get a lot more mainstream airtime than they’re due, proportionally.)
Neoliberal men AND women still equate this zero-sum power/wealth drive with “traditional” masculinity; for them, the link between power-seeking / wealth-seeking and masculinity is a bad thing but the drive itself is not.
That’s my experience anyway. It’s much easier to have these conversations with leftists where masculinity itself is not a source of shame because it’s rooted in a drive for a fair society. Gender differences exist but are facets of class struggle.
tl;dr: the problem isn’t men/masculinity, it’s capitalism (only a slightly ironic summary)
posted by supercres at 1:49 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
(Yes, yes, there are still misogynists and predators among leftists, but unlike conservatism and neoliberalism, misogyny and predation is antithetical to the ethos of the left! “Brocialists” or whatever get a lot more mainstream airtime than they’re due, proportionally.)
Sorry, but no, the left does not get to No True Scotsman out of misogyny.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:52 PM on July 10, 2023 [15 favorites]
Sorry, but no, the left does not get to No True Scotsman out of misogyny.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:52 PM on July 10, 2023 [15 favorites]
No they don’t, and you’re right to say so, that was a bad parenthesis. I was hoping more to talk about why the neoliberal worldview, in contrast, in my experience, is so bad at addressing the issue of masculinity, but didn’t want to let bad-actor individuals off the hook.
A better tldr is probably that neolibs have to defend power and class structure but have to contort themselves to say women get an equal shot at being the boot
posted by supercres at 1:58 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
A better tldr is probably that neolibs have to defend power and class structure but have to contort themselves to say women get an equal shot at being the boot
posted by supercres at 1:58 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Yes, of course. The point was exactly that, for some people there does need to be something more.
I can't speak for all trans people or all women, but for me, my gender is prior to any societal discussion of what is a good woman or positive femininity. It is just who I am. The fact that I could still act in ways that make a good woman while being a man doesn't change that I am not a man. Is there even a definition of a good woman that is not just a good person who happens to be a woman? (I mean, certainly there are, but they are tied to the same regressive views of gender that are creating these problems for men.)
To put it another way, feminism, as a movement providing ideals of what women can/should be, has been accused of making women more "manly". And it is true that it has promoted as women's virtues things that would have been considered men's virtues previously. And the result of that is not making it meaningless to be a woman but instead creating more space for women to be themselves and to support other women in being themselves. Of course this is not perfect, because people are not perfect, but it is at least movement in a better direction.
So it seems like the question is whether there can be something similar for men.
posted by eruonna at 1:59 PM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
I can't speak for all trans people or all women, but for me, my gender is prior to any societal discussion of what is a good woman or positive femininity. It is just who I am. The fact that I could still act in ways that make a good woman while being a man doesn't change that I am not a man. Is there even a definition of a good woman that is not just a good person who happens to be a woman? (I mean, certainly there are, but they are tied to the same regressive views of gender that are creating these problems for men.)
To put it another way, feminism, as a movement providing ideals of what women can/should be, has been accused of making women more "manly". And it is true that it has promoted as women's virtues things that would have been considered men's virtues previously. And the result of that is not making it meaningless to be a woman but instead creating more space for women to be themselves and to support other women in being themselves. Of course this is not perfect, because people are not perfect, but it is at least movement in a better direction.
So it seems like the question is whether there can be something similar for men.
posted by eruonna at 1:59 PM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
I don't mean in the superficial G-rated way of being like Fred Rogers
I wouldn't underestimate the importance of the superficial. I can spot a young man who's watched a lot of Andrew Tate by their mannerisms and affect. Those symptoms of the disease give a hint about the cure.
Role models provide proof of possibility: "I am a man, and he is a man, and it was possible for him to be like that, so it's possible for me to be like that." Role models are aspirational, and powerful role models seem very far out of reach to someone who lacks self confidence. However, it's easy to start with the superficial. Mr. Rogers' serene indifference to triggers of shame seems pretty distant from who I am now, but it's within my power to take off my outside clothes and put on my inside clothes when I come home. I can treat my home as special by respecting its boundary and myself as special by thinking I deserve to look good even when I am alone. Imitating the superficial, consciously or unconsciously, can be a first step toward adopting the values. Imitating the superficial is raising a flag: this is the sort of man I want to be.
If the ideosyncratic habits of Mr. Rogers seem absurd, think on the habits you do have and who you inherited them from. I suspect there's a pretty strong correlation between the people who shaped your habits and the people who shaped your character.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:01 PM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
I wouldn't underestimate the importance of the superficial. I can spot a young man who's watched a lot of Andrew Tate by their mannerisms and affect. Those symptoms of the disease give a hint about the cure.
Role models provide proof of possibility: "I am a man, and he is a man, and it was possible for him to be like that, so it's possible for me to be like that." Role models are aspirational, and powerful role models seem very far out of reach to someone who lacks self confidence. However, it's easy to start with the superficial. Mr. Rogers' serene indifference to triggers of shame seems pretty distant from who I am now, but it's within my power to take off my outside clothes and put on my inside clothes when I come home. I can treat my home as special by respecting its boundary and myself as special by thinking I deserve to look good even when I am alone. Imitating the superficial, consciously or unconsciously, can be a first step toward adopting the values. Imitating the superficial is raising a flag: this is the sort of man I want to be.
If the ideosyncratic habits of Mr. Rogers seem absurd, think on the habits you do have and who you inherited them from. I suspect there's a pretty strong correlation between the people who shaped your habits and the people who shaped your character.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 2:01 PM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
"Imitating the superficial is raising a flag: this is the sort of man I want to be."
Sure. I'm not knocking anything about Mr. Rogers' way of speaking, dressing, or G-rated-ness in general. Just meant that I don't try to emulate those myself. I wouldn't, for example, hesitate to get another tattoo or wear a Dead Kennedys t-shirt, and I have a beard, etc.
I also, truth being told, tend to pepper my speech with a fair number of swears and colorful expressions in the company of friends. It's been many years, but I used to frequent showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show and gleefully yell and throw toast, etc... which I just can't see Mr. Rogers doing, but also I wouldn't be me if I tried to walk, talk, and dress like Fred Rogers.
None of which align with Fred Rogers' presentation - but I hope are also not incompatible with his more core teachings.
However, I'm imagining a scenario where I suddenly do aim for that and imagining my family and friends' reactions is giving me great amusement...
posted by jzb at 2:16 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Sure. I'm not knocking anything about Mr. Rogers' way of speaking, dressing, or G-rated-ness in general. Just meant that I don't try to emulate those myself. I wouldn't, for example, hesitate to get another tattoo or wear a Dead Kennedys t-shirt, and I have a beard, etc.
I also, truth being told, tend to pepper my speech with a fair number of swears and colorful expressions in the company of friends. It's been many years, but I used to frequent showings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show and gleefully yell and throw toast, etc... which I just can't see Mr. Rogers doing, but also I wouldn't be me if I tried to walk, talk, and dress like Fred Rogers.
None of which align with Fred Rogers' presentation - but I hope are also not incompatible with his more core teachings.
However, I'm imagining a scenario where I suddenly do aim for that and imagining my family and friends' reactions is giving me great amusement...
posted by jzb at 2:16 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Good Jobs at Good Wages
I'm afraid that to many, many men acculturated in the present environment, these won't mean much unless they can buy control over one or more women and the license to commit violence against people further away from whiteness than you are.
Let us keep in mind who the actual Trump demo is.
posted by praemunire at 2:17 PM on July 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
I'm afraid that to many, many men acculturated in the present environment, these won't mean much unless they can buy control over one or more women and the license to commit violence against people further away from whiteness than you are.
Let us keep in mind who the actual Trump demo is.
posted by praemunire at 2:17 PM on July 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
I’m sure I’ve said this before (and the article touches on it in a way) but the thing about gender norms is, as a male-identified person, other people - and I definitely don’t just mean other men - still often expect you to adhere to traditionally masculine standards of behavior. It’s not so stark, nor do I believe it so immutable, as the exaggerated version the “red pill” people are selling but there’s certainly some truth to the idea that there’s a gap between well-intentioned, progressive messages about how you ought to act and the way society rewards you for acting. Which presents something of a Catch-22 as far as actually changing things.
posted by atoxyl at 2:19 PM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 2:19 PM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
Role models provide proof of possibility: "I am a man, and he is a man, and it was possible for him to be like that, so it's possible for me to be like that."
in my experience, role model discussions have a wonderful tendency to get weirdly incisive. As a for instance, one from not too long ago had myself and two other male friends (all in our sixties) reflecting on who our role models (as opposed to our heroes) really were through our early/mid teens. In the end we concluded that the typical 1970s suburban male of our cohort was somehow fusing (confusing?) simultaneous cues from Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Ziggy Stardust era David Bowie and maybe the Monty Python crowd ... yet somehow we fumbled through to something approaching a functional halfway progressive maturity.
The music was good and there were plenty of laughs.
posted by philip-random at 2:24 PM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
in my experience, role model discussions have a wonderful tendency to get weirdly incisive. As a for instance, one from not too long ago had myself and two other male friends (all in our sixties) reflecting on who our role models (as opposed to our heroes) really were through our early/mid teens. In the end we concluded that the typical 1970s suburban male of our cohort was somehow fusing (confusing?) simultaneous cues from Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds, Ziggy Stardust era David Bowie and maybe the Monty Python crowd ... yet somehow we fumbled through to something approaching a functional halfway progressive maturity.
The music was good and there were plenty of laughs.
posted by philip-random at 2:24 PM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
Thanks for posting this article. One of the interesting things I've noticed in my little corner of the world is the number of women just Quietly Not Participating in misogyny or rigid gender roles and expectations. For example, five years ago it was quite common for the governing board meetings of my non-profit to be derailed by one of the two men in the room. Now, they get a turn to speak and a vote like everybody else, and if they get outvoted, well that's just too bad, they can try to get more support next time. There were no big arguments or announcements, but the old deference has evaporated into thin air. Now it seems odd that it ever existed.
I hope that men get to the same point with the toxic masculinity that causes them so much harm. However, one of the things I'm Quietly Not Participating in is taking responsibility for men (as a class) and their lives to the point that it derails me from the many other issues that need attention. When it comes to the individual men I know and love, I encourage and support them in being good people, the same way I do with all genders. I can't help but believe that's the only way forward, but it could be a very bumpy journey.
posted by rpfields at 2:27 PM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
I hope that men get to the same point with the toxic masculinity that causes them so much harm. However, one of the things I'm Quietly Not Participating in is taking responsibility for men (as a class) and their lives to the point that it derails me from the many other issues that need attention. When it comes to the individual men I know and love, I encourage and support them in being good people, the same way I do with all genders. I can't help but believe that's the only way forward, but it could be a very bumpy journey.
posted by rpfields at 2:27 PM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
I suppose a fair response to the point in my previous comment would be to compare to the history of feminism and say - women were (and are) punished for defying gender roles, yet have been able to continue to struggle for change regardless. Maybe part of what I’m really getting at is that, as much as we can talk about Toxic Masculinity harming men, exactly what men would be fighting for in the long term by collaborating in dismantling it still feels more abstract than the “the right to vote” or “the right to have a credit card” or “safety from sexual violence.”
posted by atoxyl at 2:32 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by atoxyl at 2:32 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
the mr rogers analogy to me is interesting because the dude was super religious, and I think definitely was going for a core message (although never explicitly mentioned) of lefty christian - like he believed that his show was his ministry, he was imparting the values of love / jesus, etc. etc.
contrast this with the strain of conservative christianity that is based on hierarchical power structures within gender lines - and I think your example of him being a good example of an alternative role model is particularly apt.
posted by web5.0 at 2:35 PM on July 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
contrast this with the strain of conservative christianity that is based on hierarchical power structures within gender lines - and I think your example of him being a good example of an alternative role model is particularly apt.
posted by web5.0 at 2:35 PM on July 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
I'm afraid that to many, many men acculturated in the present environment, these won't mean much unless they can buy control over one or more women and the license to commit violence against people further away from whiteness than you are.
Is this a "and that's why good jobs at good wages are just one part of my three part plan" argument or a "no, it's hopeless, they're all monsters and we cannot help them" argument?
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:40 PM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
Is this a "and that's why good jobs at good wages are just one part of my three part plan" argument or a "no, it's hopeless, they're all monsters and we cannot help them" argument?
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 2:40 PM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
the mr rogers analogy to me is interesting because the dude was super religious, and I think definitely was going for a core message (although never explicitly mentioned) of lefty christian - like he believed that his show was his ministry, he was imparting the values of love / jesus, etc. etc.
Striving for a lefty Christianity and striving for a positive masculinity feel like similar projects, in a way - in either case one could argue that the legacy belief system is superfluous, or even an impediment, but on the other hand maybe it’s easier to build on something people already believe in.
posted by atoxyl at 2:43 PM on July 10, 2023 [11 favorites]
Striving for a lefty Christianity and striving for a positive masculinity feel like similar projects, in a way - in either case one could argue that the legacy belief system is superfluous, or even an impediment, but on the other hand maybe it’s easier to build on something people already believe in.
posted by atoxyl at 2:43 PM on July 10, 2023 [11 favorites]
MetaFilter: Bad Jobs for Men Only Because Otherwise They'll Buy Women Probably
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 2:48 PM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 2:48 PM on July 10, 2023 [8 favorites]
I personally believe every man should be seen as equally representative of manhood, just as all women are by definition examples of womanhood.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 2:49 PM on July 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by Chrysopoeia at 2:49 PM on July 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
breaking 9 years of blue silence because i find this topic super interesting. as a transfem-enby who has stepped away from a "Man" gender expression, i've put a lot of consideration into which aspects of traditional masculinity i want to bring with me, and which parts i'm happier leaving behind. i feel like i can sort of look at it from both sides now.
contrapoints's Men really nails the "what about men?" question - what about men?? (men, men, men etc).
masculinity isn't going anywhere. even if all restrictive gender roles are abolished, the majority of folks are still going to identify as cis-het. as long as there are men who like being big and strong, and potential mates who find that sexually attractive, manly men aren't going away.
what is going away is the absolute necessity of having big strong men around to protect against other big strong men (or bears or wolves or whatever), to chop down trees and build shelter, etc. that stuff isn't crucial in a world with heavy machinery and rules against slaughtering a neighboring tribe and stealing their women. the sooner we can all get over seeing a tall man with a booming voice as instant leadership material, the better.
if what we're seeing is women getting the "feet of our brethren from off our necks", that's *great news*.
posted by sharktopus at 2:50 PM on July 10, 2023 [12 favorites]
contrapoints's Men really nails the "what about men?" question - what about men?? (men, men, men etc).
masculinity isn't going anywhere. even if all restrictive gender roles are abolished, the majority of folks are still going to identify as cis-het. as long as there are men who like being big and strong, and potential mates who find that sexually attractive, manly men aren't going away.
what is going away is the absolute necessity of having big strong men around to protect against other big strong men (or bears or wolves or whatever), to chop down trees and build shelter, etc. that stuff isn't crucial in a world with heavy machinery and rules against slaughtering a neighboring tribe and stealing their women. the sooner we can all get over seeing a tall man with a booming voice as instant leadership material, the better.
if what we're seeing is women getting the "feet of our brethren from off our necks", that's *great news*.
posted by sharktopus at 2:50 PM on July 10, 2023 [12 favorites]
I quite liked the article, and this discussion. I'm a mid-forties, cis, straight guy who would have identified as genderqueer in high school if I'd known the term, because of how critical I was of masculinity and my sartorial ways of showing that.
I'm definitely in the camp of the American Psychological Association: “traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful.” The guidelines suggest that “there is a particular constellation of standards that have held sway over large segments of the population, including: anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence,” and that these standards are damaging to mental and physical health." The subject of healthy masculinity is very dear to me, and I think an important and underdiscussed one for society.
I'm surprised Michael Kimmel wasn't cited in the article or yet in the comments. Not only has he chronicled some of what she covers in Angry White Men but his Tedtalk covers among other things. the "Real Man vs. Good Man" thought experiment he plays that starts to chart a good course towards establishing a pro-social, positive masculinity. I highly encourage him as an alternative to what the Right is doing for charting a course for masculinity in the 21st century.
Nor was The Mask You Live in mentioned. I think this should be essential viewing for men, people who date men, parents of boys.... Really defines the problem of the narrow and problematic box masculinity offers very well.
Also, Alain de Botton on How to be a Man video essay that sums it up in "cool man" (invunerable, powerful, independent) vs "warm man" (vulnerable, empathetic, growth mindset).
And, bell hooks The Will to Change is feminism addressing masculinity at its best, IMO. Though I'd love other recommendations!
posted by obsoletefuture at 3:15 PM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm definitely in the camp of the American Psychological Association: “traditional masculinity — marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression — is, on the whole, harmful.” The guidelines suggest that “there is a particular constellation of standards that have held sway over large segments of the population, including: anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence,” and that these standards are damaging to mental and physical health." The subject of healthy masculinity is very dear to me, and I think an important and underdiscussed one for society.
I'm surprised Michael Kimmel wasn't cited in the article or yet in the comments. Not only has he chronicled some of what she covers in Angry White Men but his Tedtalk covers among other things. the "Real Man vs. Good Man" thought experiment he plays that starts to chart a good course towards establishing a pro-social, positive masculinity. I highly encourage him as an alternative to what the Right is doing for charting a course for masculinity in the 21st century.
Nor was The Mask You Live in mentioned. I think this should be essential viewing for men, people who date men, parents of boys.... Really defines the problem of the narrow and problematic box masculinity offers very well.
Also, Alain de Botton on How to be a Man video essay that sums it up in "cool man" (invunerable, powerful, independent) vs "warm man" (vulnerable, empathetic, growth mindset).
And, bell hooks The Will to Change is feminism addressing masculinity at its best, IMO. Though I'd love other recommendations!
posted by obsoletefuture at 3:15 PM on July 10, 2023 [3 favorites]
He periodically wants to talk about how hard it is to be a white, cis, straight man without a role model.
I'm sorry, are there not white cis straight male celebrities or publicly recognized figures anymore? 'Cause that is not the world I see when I look out my window.
Even taking for granted the idea that to adopt a role model they need to match you on all these personal axes, it's not like we've stopped admitting white cis straight men to public life. There's more representation from other groups now than there used to be, yes (and that is a good thing even if not yet progressed as far as necessary), but there are still plenty of white cis straight men out there who exemplify desirable traits and behaviors --- enough of them to give you a good wide range of different lives to emulate depending on your own ambitions.
posted by jackbishop at 3:37 PM on July 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
I'm sorry, are there not white cis straight male celebrities or publicly recognized figures anymore? 'Cause that is not the world I see when I look out my window.
Even taking for granted the idea that to adopt a role model they need to match you on all these personal axes, it's not like we've stopped admitting white cis straight men to public life. There's more representation from other groups now than there used to be, yes (and that is a good thing even if not yet progressed as far as necessary), but there are still plenty of white cis straight men out there who exemplify desirable traits and behaviors --- enough of them to give you a good wide range of different lives to emulate depending on your own ambitions.
posted by jackbishop at 3:37 PM on July 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
This is a beautiful and useful essay. Thanks for sharing it.
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 3:44 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 3:44 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
oh I also recommend the podcast Scene on Radio Season 3, MEN (tho Season 2, Seeing White, is even more amazing). While it touches on a lot of things, episode 10 "The Juggernaut" gets into something quite relevant to this conversation, that Caitlin Moran also brings up in her article: the crushing weight of peer homophobic comments and reactions when a boy acts too compassionate or otherwise "feminine."
My strong hope is that, with the queer-positivity, normalcy and acceptance (to say nothing of the embrace of compassion and empathy) in my kid's (lefty-bubble) school, he'll not encounter that, or be able to laugh it off easily. But it's definitely an important part of the gauntlet most boys.
posted by obsoletefuture at 3:50 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
My strong hope is that, with the queer-positivity, normalcy and acceptance (to say nothing of the embrace of compassion and empathy) in my kid's (lefty-bubble) school, he'll not encounter that, or be able to laugh it off easily. But it's definitely an important part of the gauntlet most boys.
posted by obsoletefuture at 3:50 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Where's the black Jordan Peterson?
Here is great video on that subject.
posted by St. Sorryass at 4:16 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Here is great video on that subject.
posted by St. Sorryass at 4:16 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Where's the black Jordan Peterson? Does these guys advice cross race barriers?
There’s a whole genre of figures who kind of fit that niche. I don’t know how much they cross over to white guys, though.
posted by atoxyl at 4:29 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
There’s a whole genre of figures who kind of fit that niche. I don’t know how much they cross over to white guys, though.
posted by atoxyl at 4:29 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm sorry, are there not white cis straight male celebrities or publicly recognized figures anymore? 'Cause that is not the world I see when I look out my window.
It’s hard to know what to say when someone makes a claim about this. Maybe they’re full of shit (likely) and maybe they’re actually having a hard time.
I know the quality of representation matters a lot, as does perceived relevance. And who your peers are.
posted by ducky l'orange at 4:37 PM on July 10, 2023
It’s hard to know what to say when someone makes a claim about this. Maybe they’re full of shit (likely) and maybe they’re actually having a hard time.
I know the quality of representation matters a lot, as does perceived relevance. And who your peers are.
posted by ducky l'orange at 4:37 PM on July 10, 2023
The YouTube algorithm used to offer my (non-black minority) boyfriend this kind of garbage and it will offer Peterson and Kevin Samuels. Because I thought there was no crossover yet, I complained about feeling like I wouldn't have to deal with the latter.
posted by Selena777 at 4:41 PM on July 10, 2023
posted by Selena777 at 4:41 PM on July 10, 2023
Similarly, I think the Democrats would do well to do more performative patriotisim. There's a certain subset of the population that really just wants to wave flags around and yell "WOOOOOOO!", and the Dems have ceded that territory to the GOP. I'm not being snarky - I really believe Democrats should do more flag waving.
I'd say the average Democratic politician does lots of this stuff. They show up at July 4th, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day events, have their photos taken in front of the flag, issue rah-rah-USA proclamations and make patriotic speeches, etc.
The left, for whom that stuff is all pure cringe, not so much. But actual Dems, absolutely. Not that they get any credit for it.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 5:08 PM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
I'd say the average Democratic politician does lots of this stuff. They show up at July 4th, Memorial Day, and Veterans Day events, have their photos taken in front of the flag, issue rah-rah-USA proclamations and make patriotic speeches, etc.
The left, for whom that stuff is all pure cringe, not so much. But actual Dems, absolutely. Not that they get any credit for it.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 5:08 PM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
So lads, ladies and all of us, that's what androgenic hormones are good for: cheating on other people's spouses and climbing mountains because they're there.
That's not going to work out, so "be caring not daring."
"Testosterone is bad" is... certainly a take.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 5:12 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
That's not going to work out, so "be caring not daring."
"Testosterone is bad" is... certainly a take.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 5:12 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Couple of thoughts.
On the hormone stuff, I have been really enjoying Robert Sapolsky's Behavior. An important point he makes is that test tends to enhance competitiveness -- but how that manifests is culturally determined. In a culture where generosity is valued, folks with that extra test will be competing to be the most generous (and taking risks to be the person who is most generous). Most of our folk beliefs about what testosterone does are actually just our cultural stereotypes about how men should behave and what we should aspire to. This also jibes with what my trans-masc friend has told me about his experience, not having been socialised as a man in childhood.
Otherwise: manhood in our culture is a fragile category that needs constant defence, mostly by fencing off things men are not supposed to be. For me the problem isn't so much what's fenced off (although it IS a problem) but the fragility and the policing. If it weren't so important to be conformant -- so important you can get the shit beaten out of you from an early age -- what we are supposed to conform to wouldn't matter so much either. I am less interested in definitions of manhood and masculinity than I am in the drive to BE A MAN.
In my mind this is closely coupled with patriarchy and maintaining hierarchy. We want to be men to maintain our place, and confusion about how to be a man in this crazy modern world where women can do anything now (that was sarcasm to be clear) is actually worry about keeping our categories clear so we can still put ourselves above others through performing conformance.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:19 PM on July 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
On the hormone stuff, I have been really enjoying Robert Sapolsky's Behavior. An important point he makes is that test tends to enhance competitiveness -- but how that manifests is culturally determined. In a culture where generosity is valued, folks with that extra test will be competing to be the most generous (and taking risks to be the person who is most generous). Most of our folk beliefs about what testosterone does are actually just our cultural stereotypes about how men should behave and what we should aspire to. This also jibes with what my trans-masc friend has told me about his experience, not having been socialised as a man in childhood.
Otherwise: manhood in our culture is a fragile category that needs constant defence, mostly by fencing off things men are not supposed to be. For me the problem isn't so much what's fenced off (although it IS a problem) but the fragility and the policing. If it weren't so important to be conformant -- so important you can get the shit beaten out of you from an early age -- what we are supposed to conform to wouldn't matter so much either. I am less interested in definitions of manhood and masculinity than I am in the drive to BE A MAN.
In my mind this is closely coupled with patriarchy and maintaining hierarchy. We want to be men to maintain our place, and confusion about how to be a man in this crazy modern world where women can do anything now (that was sarcasm to be clear) is actually worry about keeping our categories clear so we can still put ourselves above others through performing conformance.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:19 PM on July 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
And a PS to that: one of the crimes of the non-conformant is undermining faith in the system and that's why the policing is vicious. So I guess in conclusion, dismantling the system is as important as broadening out or changing what conforming looks like.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:24 PM on July 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:24 PM on July 10, 2023 [4 favorites]
Role models provide proof of possibility: "I am a man, and he is a man, and it was possible for him to be like that, so it's possible for me to be like that." Role models are aspirational, and powerful role models seem very far out of reach to someone who lacks self confidence.
Yes. I think this is ultimately so much more important than arguments over abstract definitions of masculinity.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 5:32 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Yes. I think this is ultimately so much more important than arguments over abstract definitions of masculinity.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 5:32 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Role models are ideal, but most high school grads at risk are sent to military boot camps to learn aggression and toughness. Most of the media role models are rich and famous, setting a reality trap. I wouldn't rule out the power of a mature but unrelated female to hang around with for young adult man training.
posted by Brian B. at 6:00 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Brian B. at 6:00 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'd like to also just add to the "positive but still traditionally masculine role model" discussion by pointing out that Bruce Springsteen is one of the most comically hypermacho musicians in a genre overstuffed with macho bullshit, but who also talks openly about his depression, writes songs whose protagonists survive by building various kinds of healthy relationships, and was, well, basically spooned by Clarence Clemons at least semi-regularly during shows. Apparently that's deliberate; from early on he recognized that he had a large young, and especially young male, audience, and he wanted to build a persona that could exude a more positive kind of manly energy.posted by Pachylad at 6:36 PM on July 10, 2023 [12 favorites]
I'm grateful that I came of age before the internet, before Peterson, before YouTube, because goddamn, I would have been sucked right into some of this shit. I look back and see in teenage me the same frustrations voiced by people choosing to call themselves incels. It was dumb, but I couldn't see that, and I'm lucky as hell that I managed to outgrow much of it, and I have a lot of people to thank for doing work I had no right to ask for in pulling me out of that place.
I don't know how I managed it, or where my deep and abiding distaste/distrust of people who claim to have answers comes from. When I see stuff from Peterson, or kickboxing sex trafficking guy, it instantly brings in a heavy wall of skepticism.
I can handle advice from an expert in a field that requires specialized knowledge. If I'm trying to change a tire, I'm going to listen to a car mechanic. If I want to learn about programming, I'll gladly take advice from someone with experience in that area. Any time, though, that someone tries to act like an expert in how to be, everything in me rebels against the idea. I'm a guy. I am, by existing, existing as a guy. Can I be better as a person? Hell yes I can. Could I be better at adopting arbitrary rules of what guys are supposed to be? I mean, yeah, I could. But I'm also doing just fine at guying, thank you.
The thing is, when a mechanic teaches me how to change a carburetor, they are teaching me a learnable skill. When someone tries to teach me that my way of existing isn't sufficient, that I should try to emulate them, they are trying to sell me something, or convince me of their worldview, and that my view and existence are wrong, and, well, fuck you, you fucking huckster, peddle your shit elsewhere.
I can only say this now, when I'm old enough that I just don't really care. I know, though, had Jordan Peterson gotten to teenage Ghidorah, a guy with no strong, or at least not utterly toxic male role models, I probably would've eaten all that right up. I am terrified for young people, all of them. Each and every group has people who've built media empires on exploiting the natural insecurity we all suffer, with agendas behind every piece of so called advice, all of it not even a click away, just wait until the end of the video you're watching, and the algorithm will serve up poison designed to make you hate who you are, in the service of turning into what the poisoner finds acceptable. The thing is, when we actually look at any of these snake-oil merchants, we can quickly see just how damaged they are, and how their damage informs their worldview, but kids aren't great at closing the app and doing any kind of checking on who it is that was just talking to them, and what kind of agendas they are closely tied to.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:38 PM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
I don't know how I managed it, or where my deep and abiding distaste/distrust of people who claim to have answers comes from. When I see stuff from Peterson, or kickboxing sex trafficking guy, it instantly brings in a heavy wall of skepticism.
I can handle advice from an expert in a field that requires specialized knowledge. If I'm trying to change a tire, I'm going to listen to a car mechanic. If I want to learn about programming, I'll gladly take advice from someone with experience in that area. Any time, though, that someone tries to act like an expert in how to be, everything in me rebels against the idea. I'm a guy. I am, by existing, existing as a guy. Can I be better as a person? Hell yes I can. Could I be better at adopting arbitrary rules of what guys are supposed to be? I mean, yeah, I could. But I'm also doing just fine at guying, thank you.
The thing is, when a mechanic teaches me how to change a carburetor, they are teaching me a learnable skill. When someone tries to teach me that my way of existing isn't sufficient, that I should try to emulate them, they are trying to sell me something, or convince me of their worldview, and that my view and existence are wrong, and, well, fuck you, you fucking huckster, peddle your shit elsewhere.
I can only say this now, when I'm old enough that I just don't really care. I know, though, had Jordan Peterson gotten to teenage Ghidorah, a guy with no strong, or at least not utterly toxic male role models, I probably would've eaten all that right up. I am terrified for young people, all of them. Each and every group has people who've built media empires on exploiting the natural insecurity we all suffer, with agendas behind every piece of so called advice, all of it not even a click away, just wait until the end of the video you're watching, and the algorithm will serve up poison designed to make you hate who you are, in the service of turning into what the poisoner finds acceptable. The thing is, when we actually look at any of these snake-oil merchants, we can quickly see just how damaged they are, and how their damage informs their worldview, but kids aren't great at closing the app and doing any kind of checking on who it is that was just talking to them, and what kind of agendas they are closely tied to.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:38 PM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
The way men abuse and reject and police each other, on a lifelong basis, typically starting with their fathers (but rapidly made up for among peers if not), is the reason that they collectively feel so lost and unhappy and victimized.
Yes yes so much this. Fear of other men's opinions and ridicule and violence is the driver of so much of what turns masculinity into toxic masculinity. You can feel it radiating off of men who find it incredibly important that everyone knows how manly they are. That's the sad reality behind so much of trad masculine culture, how much of it is just fear and the shame of being afraid. Fear of what looks like pretty stupid shit from the outside, largely just fear of other guys being catty to you.
I think the biggest help to me in my life as far as navigating how I live my life as a cis het man is spending more time with people who don't play the bullshit coercive games that a lot of men do about masculinity. Most of my friends have always been women since highschool, and the men I'm close to are not bullies. I am lucky enough to have a work and family life where I'm not confronted with the pressure from men who care too much about conforming to a certain version of masculinity. But when I am forced into circumstances of being around the kind of guy who cares so damn much about being a certain type of man it's a stark reminder of just how much pressure that can be when it's coming from all directions like it had been at times when I was growing up, when I felt I did have to be a certain kind of man. It's relentless, and it only takes a small peer group to make you feel like you are being policed and should just conform. It's a damn powerful and warping thing. I've been an angry young man and a shitty Nice Guy douchebag and it took time to find my way to something better but so much of it was rooted in that pressure, when you're too young to navigate that pressure with no model of what it looks like to escape it. It's such a relief to be able to express yourself more free from that (I say more free because as a culture it's too baked in to fully escape, and it's not a switch you can flip either, I still struggle with some of it and I'm sure I will my whole life, though hopefully it's less each day). And I don't have anything approaching an answer to how to create a healthier expression of masculinity but definitely part of it has to involve breaking that cycle, somehow. Like part of a healthier masculinity is refusing to take part in perpetuating any one vision of masculinity. Maybe part of being the thing is being unafraid to let go of the thing.
I will say there's also a fun transitional period where you're still an angry young shit but you're getting better about unlearning some of the conditioning and you realize that it's very fun and easy to find an outlet for that by pissing off insecure manly men by expressing yourself in nontraditional ways, so maybe that's enticing to some young men looking for something to grasp. It's not healthy but it's catnip when you're still sort of halfway out of the cycle and just learning what's out there but you're still kind of a jerk and hey, at least it's directed at better targets. But it is weirdly an expression of masculinity by expressing more femininity and those kinds of paradoxes open cracks to let more ideas in.
Another thing that helped me a huge amount in being comfortable in my expressions of masculinity (and expressing all the parts of me that don't read as masculine, which we've all got) is queer, trans and feminine voices sharing queer, trans and feminine experiences. You can only let so many stories of people struggling in a world that tries to push them to express their gender and sexuality in a certain way and the joy of finding ways to express themselves in the face of that bounce off your thick head before it finally clicks and you go ohhhhhh
posted by jason_steakums at 6:39 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
Yes yes so much this. Fear of other men's opinions and ridicule and violence is the driver of so much of what turns masculinity into toxic masculinity. You can feel it radiating off of men who find it incredibly important that everyone knows how manly they are. That's the sad reality behind so much of trad masculine culture, how much of it is just fear and the shame of being afraid. Fear of what looks like pretty stupid shit from the outside, largely just fear of other guys being catty to you.
I think the biggest help to me in my life as far as navigating how I live my life as a cis het man is spending more time with people who don't play the bullshit coercive games that a lot of men do about masculinity. Most of my friends have always been women since highschool, and the men I'm close to are not bullies. I am lucky enough to have a work and family life where I'm not confronted with the pressure from men who care too much about conforming to a certain version of masculinity. But when I am forced into circumstances of being around the kind of guy who cares so damn much about being a certain type of man it's a stark reminder of just how much pressure that can be when it's coming from all directions like it had been at times when I was growing up, when I felt I did have to be a certain kind of man. It's relentless, and it only takes a small peer group to make you feel like you are being policed and should just conform. It's a damn powerful and warping thing. I've been an angry young man and a shitty Nice Guy douchebag and it took time to find my way to something better but so much of it was rooted in that pressure, when you're too young to navigate that pressure with no model of what it looks like to escape it. It's such a relief to be able to express yourself more free from that (I say more free because as a culture it's too baked in to fully escape, and it's not a switch you can flip either, I still struggle with some of it and I'm sure I will my whole life, though hopefully it's less each day). And I don't have anything approaching an answer to how to create a healthier expression of masculinity but definitely part of it has to involve breaking that cycle, somehow. Like part of a healthier masculinity is refusing to take part in perpetuating any one vision of masculinity. Maybe part of being the thing is being unafraid to let go of the thing.
I will say there's also a fun transitional period where you're still an angry young shit but you're getting better about unlearning some of the conditioning and you realize that it's very fun and easy to find an outlet for that by pissing off insecure manly men by expressing yourself in nontraditional ways, so maybe that's enticing to some young men looking for something to grasp. It's not healthy but it's catnip when you're still sort of halfway out of the cycle and just learning what's out there but you're still kind of a jerk and hey, at least it's directed at better targets. But it is weirdly an expression of masculinity by expressing more femininity and those kinds of paradoxes open cracks to let more ideas in.
Another thing that helped me a huge amount in being comfortable in my expressions of masculinity (and expressing all the parts of me that don't read as masculine, which we've all got) is queer, trans and feminine voices sharing queer, trans and feminine experiences. You can only let so many stories of people struggling in a world that tries to push them to express their gender and sexuality in a certain way and the joy of finding ways to express themselves in the face of that bounce off your thick head before it finally clicks and you go ohhhhhh
posted by jason_steakums at 6:39 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
“I mean, there are certain attributes around masculinity that we should embrace. Men think about sex more than women. Use that as motivation to be successful and meet women. Men are more impulsive. Men will run out into a field and get shot up to think they’re saving their buddies.”
He was careful to point out that he doesn’t believe that women wouldn’t do as much but that the distributions are different.
“Where I think this conversation has come off the tracks is where being a man is essentially trying to ignore all masculinity and act more like a woman. And even some women who say that — they don’t want to have sex with those guys. They may believe they’re right, and think it’s a good narrative, but they don’t want to partner with them.”
I, a heterosexual woman, cringed in recognition.
In my humble opinion this cuts to the heart of the matter, at least when it comes to heterosexual cis-gendered men. But before addresing that, I should say that masculinity probably is constantly in crisis. I think a lot of these young men who long for times when woman were subservient, who imagine they'd get the wife of their dreams if societial conventions or economics forced woman to marry them, would probably end up shot to pieces or hacked to death on a battlefield, which is what seemed to happen to surpluss men prior to the "Pax Atomica". And, if one survived (and your side won), there was no gurantee you'd arrive home to a society laboring to make room for you like the white men who returned victorious to the Anglo powers after WW2. Sometimes it worked out that way, I guess, but sometimes it didn't.
As for the rest, the bolded is important, but somewhat maddening to parse during these discussions. If traits like "aggressiveness" or "sex drive" were measured, I'd bet my life that the cis-male mean would be larger than the cis-female mean. However, I wouldn't bet a cent that every single male in the distribution measured higher on those traits than every single female; the distributions overlap. So, for every statement one could make about "men" and "woman" and how they relate to one another in heterosexual relationships, there are always going to be exceptions, and, considering there are over 7 billion humans on the planet, those exceptions are going to be numberous in absolute terms if not as a percentage of the population.
Still, the advice that one guy gives to his sons seems sound to me. On average, confidence, ambition, at least one indicator of physical strength, a willngness to initiate romantic relationships, and the emotional intelligence/grace/control/ethics neccessary to take "no" for answer are important qualities for a heterosexual cis-gendered man to have if that man wants to lead a happy life and integrate well with others.
That doesn't mean cis-gendered woman never initiate romantic relationships and never are stronger/more ambitions/more agressives than their male partners, its just that .... the probabilities are what they are.
And, quite frankly, it seems like men in some ways are more willing to violate certain "norms" related to those traits in dating than woman are. Again, speaking in terms the "average" cis male and female; of course there are exceptions.
Honestly, although I grew up in the 90's, which were hardly a utopia of enlighted gender views, I never felt more pressure to conform to a masculine role then when it came time to learn how to date. Again though, that doesn't mean I never was approached, and, to be fair, being the approachee required skills that my social conditioning perhaps didn't prepare me for ...
posted by eagles123 at 7:18 PM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
He was careful to point out that he doesn’t believe that women wouldn’t do as much but that the distributions are different.
“Where I think this conversation has come off the tracks is where being a man is essentially trying to ignore all masculinity and act more like a woman. And even some women who say that — they don’t want to have sex with those guys. They may believe they’re right, and think it’s a good narrative, but they don’t want to partner with them.”
I, a heterosexual woman, cringed in recognition.
In my humble opinion this cuts to the heart of the matter, at least when it comes to heterosexual cis-gendered men. But before addresing that, I should say that masculinity probably is constantly in crisis. I think a lot of these young men who long for times when woman were subservient, who imagine they'd get the wife of their dreams if societial conventions or economics forced woman to marry them, would probably end up shot to pieces or hacked to death on a battlefield, which is what seemed to happen to surpluss men prior to the "Pax Atomica". And, if one survived (and your side won), there was no gurantee you'd arrive home to a society laboring to make room for you like the white men who returned victorious to the Anglo powers after WW2. Sometimes it worked out that way, I guess, but sometimes it didn't.
As for the rest, the bolded is important, but somewhat maddening to parse during these discussions. If traits like "aggressiveness" or "sex drive" were measured, I'd bet my life that the cis-male mean would be larger than the cis-female mean. However, I wouldn't bet a cent that every single male in the distribution measured higher on those traits than every single female; the distributions overlap. So, for every statement one could make about "men" and "woman" and how they relate to one another in heterosexual relationships, there are always going to be exceptions, and, considering there are over 7 billion humans on the planet, those exceptions are going to be numberous in absolute terms if not as a percentage of the population.
Still, the advice that one guy gives to his sons seems sound to me. On average, confidence, ambition, at least one indicator of physical strength, a willngness to initiate romantic relationships, and the emotional intelligence/grace/control/ethics neccessary to take "no" for answer are important qualities for a heterosexual cis-gendered man to have if that man wants to lead a happy life and integrate well with others.
That doesn't mean cis-gendered woman never initiate romantic relationships and never are stronger/more ambitions/more agressives than their male partners, its just that .... the probabilities are what they are.
And, quite frankly, it seems like men in some ways are more willing to violate certain "norms" related to those traits in dating than woman are. Again, speaking in terms the "average" cis male and female; of course there are exceptions.
Honestly, although I grew up in the 90's, which were hardly a utopia of enlighted gender views, I never felt more pressure to conform to a masculine role then when it came time to learn how to date. Again though, that doesn't mean I never was approached, and, to be fair, being the approachee required skills that my social conditioning perhaps didn't prepare me for ...
posted by eagles123 at 7:18 PM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
Those men should be smashing capitalism.
posted by Reyturner at 7:19 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Reyturner at 7:19 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
I do want to quibble with the idea that the right has a monopoly on having an outlet for guys yearning to express more vanilla masculinity though, I think it's pretty common by now to come across more masculine coded lefty spaces online and that's growing as a common version of the vanilla masculine guy. There's a whole spectrum there from the Chapo crowd to blue collar manly man union guys well versed in leftist philosophies. I think the distinction is more that it's a more organic growth in the leftier spaces vs a concerted recruitment effort using manipulative tactics known to be popular and effective on the right.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:47 PM on July 10, 2023
posted by jason_steakums at 7:47 PM on July 10, 2023
Is this a "and that's why good jobs at good wages are just one part of my three part plan" argument or a "no, it's hopeless, they're all monsters and we cannot help them" argument?
More of a "this beautiful and highly desirable Lamborghini will not enable us to reach the lost realm of Atlantis" sort of argument. It's astounding to me how fragile the masculinity displayed by many rich men has turned out to be. Christ, can you imagine having Elon Musk's money and giving a shit what anyone thought, much less catturd? Yet there he is, pissing in the pool daily in the hopes that it will make the other boys like him. And if everyone has good jobs at good wages, then how can men distinguish themselves as "providers?"
posted by praemunire at 7:51 PM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
More of a "this beautiful and highly desirable Lamborghini will not enable us to reach the lost realm of Atlantis" sort of argument. It's astounding to me how fragile the masculinity displayed by many rich men has turned out to be. Christ, can you imagine having Elon Musk's money and giving a shit what anyone thought, much less catturd? Yet there he is, pissing in the pool daily in the hopes that it will make the other boys like him. And if everyone has good jobs at good wages, then how can men distinguish themselves as "providers?"
posted by praemunire at 7:51 PM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
I'm a 40 year old cis-het white guy, and I have found this kind of article completely perplexing my whole life. Admittedly, I had excellent role models, and what was emphasized to me as...not so much masculinity as adulthood was, "You have a personal responsibility to shape the world in your reach in a just way." Such as stories of my grandfather, when some of the whites in the shipyard he ran said they wouldn't work there if blacks continued to, declaring that unacceptable and firing them.
You want a reading list for masculinity? Watch Mr. Rogers, read Kipling's 'If', and read Rawles.
> Guys should learn to be more sensitive, quiet and socially apt
Yes, obviously. That's why schools are starting to teach social emotional learning as an emphasized skill, because the kids weren't getting it elsewhere. If guys were causing way more traffic accidents because the average level of driving ability among men was abysmally low, we'd be talking about failures in driver training.
posted by madhadron at 8:23 PM on July 10, 2023
You want a reading list for masculinity? Watch Mr. Rogers, read Kipling's 'If', and read Rawles.
> Guys should learn to be more sensitive, quiet and socially apt
Yes, obviously. That's why schools are starting to teach social emotional learning as an emphasized skill, because the kids weren't getting it elsewhere. If guys were causing way more traffic accidents because the average level of driving ability among men was abysmally low, we'd be talking about failures in driver training.
posted by madhadron at 8:23 PM on July 10, 2023
I wouldn't rule out the power of a mature but unrelated female to hang around with for young adult man training.
Sure, and I don't rule it out either. There are all kinds of good role models for being human.
But there's something to be said for role models who embody specific kinds of representation. It's an idea that's unquestioned in progressive circles when it comes to other kinds of people. And I'd say it's as important for boys and men as it is for anyone.
There's a particular kind of response to this kind of suggestion I've encountered -- to the effect of, "Men already have more privilege than anyone. Why are they complaining about being deprived?"
To which I'd offer two replies.
First: Boys and men are exactly as entitled to good role models that share their maleness as everyone else is entitled to role models that share key aspects of their identities -- no more, but also no less.
Second: Better male role models for boys and men aren't just for men's benefit -- they're for the benefit of society at large. The social cost of their having bad male role models is certainly evident.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:34 PM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
Sure, and I don't rule it out either. There are all kinds of good role models for being human.
But there's something to be said for role models who embody specific kinds of representation. It's an idea that's unquestioned in progressive circles when it comes to other kinds of people. And I'd say it's as important for boys and men as it is for anyone.
There's a particular kind of response to this kind of suggestion I've encountered -- to the effect of, "Men already have more privilege than anyone. Why are they complaining about being deprived?"
To which I'd offer two replies.
First: Boys and men are exactly as entitled to good role models that share their maleness as everyone else is entitled to role models that share key aspects of their identities -- no more, but also no less.
Second: Better male role models for boys and men aren't just for men's benefit -- they're for the benefit of society at large. The social cost of their having bad male role models is certainly evident.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:34 PM on July 10, 2023 [7 favorites]
Something the article doesn't really touch on that I am curious about is how angry and aggressive mainstream media aimed at men has gotten. Like if you look at 20th century mainstream sports team logos, t-shirts, magazines, or books aimed at men, they generally don't have anything near the current level of aggression they do today. I mean, even 20 years ago pro wrestling and games like Grand Theft Auto were violent, yes, but they were also just really campy. Guys like Howard Stern and Jimmy Kimmel could be misogynist, for sure, but they didn't have this undercurrent of anger.
Lots of stuff for men was just cartoonish, including literal shirts with Bugs Bunny, and obviously there were violent movies and video games aimed at men, but it wasn't like today where you walk into a beachfront t-shirt shop and half the merchandise is referencing road rage or fantasies of violent self defense. I mean, it wouldn't have been remotely acceptable in most of the US to go around in a t-shirt saying "COME AND TAKE IT" with a picture of a gun.
Like, it's not just that a lot of men are struggling and finding right wing guys on YouTube or whatever, it's that anger is really replacing humor as a driving force in men's culture.
posted by smelendez at 8:50 PM on July 10, 2023 [14 favorites]
Lots of stuff for men was just cartoonish, including literal shirts with Bugs Bunny, and obviously there were violent movies and video games aimed at men, but it wasn't like today where you walk into a beachfront t-shirt shop and half the merchandise is referencing road rage or fantasies of violent self defense. I mean, it wouldn't have been remotely acceptable in most of the US to go around in a t-shirt saying "COME AND TAKE IT" with a picture of a gun.
Like, it's not just that a lot of men are struggling and finding right wing guys on YouTube or whatever, it's that anger is really replacing humor as a driving force in men's culture.
posted by smelendez at 8:50 PM on July 10, 2023 [14 favorites]
And if everyone has good jobs at good wages, then how can men distinguish themselves as "providers?"
I think that upward wage pressure helps relieve some of the acute issues addressed in the article, like reduced marriageability and poorer life outcomes for men. I understand that for many in this thread, those issues aren’t as important as reforming masculinity itself, but as policy goals they’re much more tangible.
posted by ducky l'orange at 8:55 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
I think that upward wage pressure helps relieve some of the acute issues addressed in the article, like reduced marriageability and poorer life outcomes for men. I understand that for many in this thread, those issues aren’t as important as reforming masculinity itself, but as policy goals they’re much more tangible.
posted by ducky l'orange at 8:55 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
I asked a friend to solve the question of what it means to be a good man that isn't just "be a good person."
Paraphrasing her answer: both men and women should want to be good people, but because they start from different places, they will need to focus on different things in order to get there.
posted by one for the books at 9:06 PM on July 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
Paraphrasing her answer: both men and women should want to be good people, but because they start from different places, they will need to focus on different things in order to get there.
posted by one for the books at 9:06 PM on July 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
As a cishet (mostly stay-at-home-) dad of a boy, I think about this a lot. Children (lets say 3-10 years) aren't really the focus of this article or the discussion here, but I have felt there to be a lack of progressive male role models for kids that age. My younger daughter has her modern Disney princesses like Elsa and Moana that generally embody more progressive, feminist values (while still being problematic in some ways), while I don't really see anything similar for boys. Yes, there's no reason why boys can't take female characters as role models (and my boy actually does like Elsa a lot), but its not exactly the same.
And right now he's reaching the age where he's more into Minecraft and watching streamers, and I'm worried about the kind of content he might end up getting exposed to. My only hope really is that the close relationship I have with him right now will continue, and I can help guide him through the shit he's going to see online.
So... as other people have already mentioned upthread, comments that dismiss men's worries and fears aren't really helpful. And you know, the men who are saying "I need help" are putting themselves into a position of vulnerability, as opposed to ignoring their feelings, which is what we're telling them they should do, right? It's sad if the only answers to their pleas come from toxic places.
posted by destrius at 9:25 PM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
And right now he's reaching the age where he's more into Minecraft and watching streamers, and I'm worried about the kind of content he might end up getting exposed to. My only hope really is that the close relationship I have with him right now will continue, and I can help guide him through the shit he's going to see online.
So... as other people have already mentioned upthread, comments that dismiss men's worries and fears aren't really helpful. And you know, the men who are saying "I need help" are putting themselves into a position of vulnerability, as opposed to ignoring their feelings, which is what we're telling them they should do, right? It's sad if the only answers to their pleas come from toxic places.
posted by destrius at 9:25 PM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
So a Youtube channel I've gotten very fond of is called Cinema Therapy (I promise this is relevant). It's a channel started by a couple of friends who were college roommates and bonded over a love of movies. One went into filmmaking and the other became a therapist. Their channel analyzes movies from a human relations and mental health perspective, so it's about things like "How FINDING NEMO is a classic illustration of over-attached parenting" or "how GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES deals with PTSD and trauma" or "How Disney's TANGLED illustrates gaslighting" or whatever.
I just rewatched their video about RRR, and - they actually make a case that it's a good illustration of supportive male friendships and positive masculinity. Yeah, they're also losing their minds about a whole lot of the other film's details, but the positive masculinity is something they rave about.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:34 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
I just rewatched their video about RRR, and - they actually make a case that it's a good illustration of supportive male friendships and positive masculinity. Yeah, they're also losing their minds about a whole lot of the other film's details, but the positive masculinity is something they rave about.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:34 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Also, I think some of the conversation here has been conflating being "a man" with being "masculine". I'm not very well versed in gender studies (most of what I've learnt has come from MeFi really), but I believe this should be true: masculinity is a social/cultural form of expression that can be decoupled from a person's gender identity. Both people identifying as men and women can desire to express masculinity, or feminity, and probably a mix of the two.
I'm reminded of toms and dees (which I first learned about from Naomi Wu); expressing yourself in a hyper-femme or hyper-masc fashion is something very important for some people. And there's nothing wrong with that. So, there are boys who very much want to express themselves in a masculine fashion, but they can't see any example of what that means, besides the toxic versions from people like Andrew Tate.
I'm interested in what bears have to say on this topic too, as a subculture focused on a certain expression of masculinity. It seems like for them, there is a clear concept of what "masc" means, and how to express it, and yet it is in a form that is healthy.
posted by destrius at 9:47 PM on July 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
I'm reminded of toms and dees (which I first learned about from Naomi Wu); expressing yourself in a hyper-femme or hyper-masc fashion is something very important for some people. And there's nothing wrong with that. So, there are boys who very much want to express themselves in a masculine fashion, but they can't see any example of what that means, besides the toxic versions from people like Andrew Tate.
I'm interested in what bears have to say on this topic too, as a subculture focused on a certain expression of masculinity. It seems like for them, there is a clear concept of what "masc" means, and how to express it, and yet it is in a form that is healthy.
posted by destrius at 9:47 PM on July 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
I think that upward wage pressure helps relieve some of the acute issues addressed in the article, like reduced marriageability and poorer life outcomes for men.
I'm none too sure about the former, because, as gender relations are currently constituted, so much of "marriageability" is actually "female economic dependence on men." Without a decent job, it's hard for a man to form a household; with a decent job, a woman doesn't have to subject herself to a man who just wants...a subject.
posted by praemunire at 10:06 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm none too sure about the former, because, as gender relations are currently constituted, so much of "marriageability" is actually "female economic dependence on men." Without a decent job, it's hard for a man to form a household; with a decent job, a woman doesn't have to subject herself to a man who just wants...a subject.
posted by praemunire at 10:06 PM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
> To the extent that any vision of “nontoxic” masculinity is proposed, it ends up sounding more like stereotypical femininity than anything else: Guys should learn to be more sensitive, quiet and socially apt
Isn't this something to embrace...?
If we look to the women's movement as a model for how gender ideology can be defeated and remade: how did we get all the way here from 100 years ago? From rigid traditional femininity ruling over most women, to now, when every woman is exactly as feminine as she wants to be, and also femininity is whatever she says it is? I'll tell you how: we got here by going through a long phase of rejecting femininity wholesale. There was at least a good 50 or 60 years in there where women tried hard to be more like men (while paradoxically insisting that women could be as masculine as we pleased, there's nothing unfeminine about that). We made it cool to throw away femininity with both hands and become masculine instead. We reached for manliness in our aesthetic, in our life choices, in our aspirations. We embraced masculinity (while calling it a valid form of femininity) as our only hope of liberation from the confines of the old femininity. We got through this stage successfully, so now we've all been able to reclaim actual femininity for ourselves in its new much more amorphous form: no meaning but what we say it means.
So can someone tell me what is soooo tragic about telling boys and men to embrace femininity as their way to get started remaking masculinity? Boys SHOULD try be more girly and less masculine! Let sons grow up terrified of being trapped the way their dads are trapped, and work hard at emulating their moms as their only hope of escaping dad's fate. Men need to start seeing womanhood as aspirational. Let smart young male executives wear bras stuffed with toilet paper under their suits the way women wore shoulder pads. If men are concerned about marriageability, let them take a leaf out of women's book and start wearing makeup and batting their eyelashes and pumping up women's egos to secure romantic interest. I'm not saying always, I'm saying often, maybe, or at least half the time. Let's see our Governor's husband quit his job and proudly host a weekly needlework circle for his male friends at the Governor's mansion... and let this not only cause the heads of conservatives to explode, but also make him into an inspiration for a whole generation of boys and young men who want to grow up to be just like him. Let all these men who embrace femininity proclaim that being just like a woman is a pretty cool way to be a man, actually, and acting like a woman makes him no less of a man. Duh.
Only by going through this long stage of rejecting traditional masculinity and aspiring to femininity can we hope for men fifty or sixty years from now to reclaim masculinity for themselves, free of its current toxicity and rigidity, and make it whatever they want it to be - something they are proud of, joyfully. Women have shown us exactly how gender roles can be remade, why isn't that model good enough for men to follow? Because "eww, girly"?
posted by MiraK at 10:22 PM on July 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
Isn't this something to embrace...?
If we look to the women's movement as a model for how gender ideology can be defeated and remade: how did we get all the way here from 100 years ago? From rigid traditional femininity ruling over most women, to now, when every woman is exactly as feminine as she wants to be, and also femininity is whatever she says it is? I'll tell you how: we got here by going through a long phase of rejecting femininity wholesale. There was at least a good 50 or 60 years in there where women tried hard to be more like men (while paradoxically insisting that women could be as masculine as we pleased, there's nothing unfeminine about that). We made it cool to throw away femininity with both hands and become masculine instead. We reached for manliness in our aesthetic, in our life choices, in our aspirations. We embraced masculinity (while calling it a valid form of femininity) as our only hope of liberation from the confines of the old femininity. We got through this stage successfully, so now we've all been able to reclaim actual femininity for ourselves in its new much more amorphous form: no meaning but what we say it means.
So can someone tell me what is soooo tragic about telling boys and men to embrace femininity as their way to get started remaking masculinity? Boys SHOULD try be more girly and less masculine! Let sons grow up terrified of being trapped the way their dads are trapped, and work hard at emulating their moms as their only hope of escaping dad's fate. Men need to start seeing womanhood as aspirational. Let smart young male executives wear bras stuffed with toilet paper under their suits the way women wore shoulder pads. If men are concerned about marriageability, let them take a leaf out of women's book and start wearing makeup and batting their eyelashes and pumping up women's egos to secure romantic interest. I'm not saying always, I'm saying often, maybe, or at least half the time. Let's see our Governor's husband quit his job and proudly host a weekly needlework circle for his male friends at the Governor's mansion... and let this not only cause the heads of conservatives to explode, but also make him into an inspiration for a whole generation of boys and young men who want to grow up to be just like him. Let all these men who embrace femininity proclaim that being just like a woman is a pretty cool way to be a man, actually, and acting like a woman makes him no less of a man. Duh.
Only by going through this long stage of rejecting traditional masculinity and aspiring to femininity can we hope for men fifty or sixty years from now to reclaim masculinity for themselves, free of its current toxicity and rigidity, and make it whatever they want it to be - something they are proud of, joyfully. Women have shown us exactly how gender roles can be remade, why isn't that model good enough for men to follow? Because "eww, girly"?
posted by MiraK at 10:22 PM on July 10, 2023 [9 favorites]
You want a reading list for masculinity? Watch Mr. Rogers, read Kipling's 'If'
Michael Caine reads Kipling's If
posted by philip-random at 10:28 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Michael Caine reads Kipling's If
posted by philip-random at 10:28 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
The truest definition of masculinity is "people whose clothing comes with real pockets off the rack."
50 years from now when men have remade masculinity into whatever they want it to be, IMO *this* is the one symbolic remnant of traditional masculinity they should hold on to... the way women hold on to skirts and sundresses as acceptable formal wear in the summer. One nice gendered thing to keep as a fun reminder of the bad old times.
posted by MiraK at 10:33 PM on July 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
50 years from now when men have remade masculinity into whatever they want it to be, IMO *this* is the one symbolic remnant of traditional masculinity they should hold on to... the way women hold on to skirts and sundresses as acceptable formal wear in the summer. One nice gendered thing to keep as a fun reminder of the bad old times.
posted by MiraK at 10:33 PM on July 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
MiraK, it's actually quite funny you say that...
I spent my teen years in a rough all-boys school, and just like a shooter game where the only way to interact with your environment is through the barrel of your gun, the main thing I knew how to do was to destroy. I knew how to attack someone, get under their skin, find their vulnerability. If I ever helped or defended someone, it was only by attacking and destroying their enemy for them.
And then after my teens the next few years was a reaction to that. I was certain I was never meant to be a boy. So I mostly hung out with girls, who said they had never been with a boy that seemed so much like a girl, and I thought that was a great compliment. Various girls approached me and wanted me as their boyfriend, and I accepted willingly, almost a decade before I actually understood what attraction actually meant. It's like reading about the sensation of eating ice cream, then eating it for first time 10 years later. It is like growing up rich - money is an abstract concept, it's points in a game, it's a means of control, but it doesn't mean anything if you aren't playing the game in the first place. For a period of time we played dress up, tight jeans to show off my thigh gap, women's jackets to show off my waist, tight shirts, narrow pointed shoes. I wrote romance stories, made art, and did all these silly things, we played guitar and sang in the park at midnight, shared a bottles of wine and talked all through the night. But even that was a phase that I moved past as I entered a different social group.
I've spoken at youth camp, been asked to mentor young adults. The usual soft skill things, drama triangle, personality differences, negotiation, narratives. Outwardly, I'm successful enough, married, good relationships with my former partners, reasonably high paying job, owning several properties. I can't say I know a single thing about teaching masculinity, though. It's all context driven, we seek validation from our peers. When my peers were toxic, then to gain their acceptance I was toxic too. A role model says that you want to embrace values X Y and Z even if your peers don't, and that is an extremely hard sell when doing that means you face exclusion. The easiest solution is to change your environment if you can. You know the saying, most people are the average of the 5 closest friends they have. It's true for me. But forcibly changing young people's environment doesn't usually work either (see the Stolen Generation, Australia).
Could a role model be strong enough to overpower peer conditioning? The church certainly hoped a Bible figure would do it (fat chance, and I practically grew up in a church). At one point I identified the most with Ender, from Ender's Game, which, from my first paragraph, you'd be able to tell, and in hindsight was far from the healthiest role model, lol. And I'm far from the only one who was drawn to him. Maybe it really is the dreamers and writers who shape society. I'm just one small part of Card's legacy. I'd like to write, or have someone else write, an epic best seller turned movie series about a man who embraces a kind of positive masculinity, that's not like Ender, not like James Bond, not like Jason Bourne, or Batman, or John Wick. To be fair, media aimed at children tend to have better male role models, particularly in animated works.
My gut reaction to being asked about masculinity, or "how to be a successful man" is that it is weirdly similar to questions around race from where I'm from - how to be a good Malay, how to be a good Chinese, how to be a good Indian. Viewed from outside that culture, this question makes no sense. But inside that culture, it absolutely does make sense - you, your family and peers might ask - Am I Malay enough? Is what I'm doing too Chinese?
posted by xdvesper at 3:38 AM on July 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
I spent my teen years in a rough all-boys school, and just like a shooter game where the only way to interact with your environment is through the barrel of your gun, the main thing I knew how to do was to destroy. I knew how to attack someone, get under their skin, find their vulnerability. If I ever helped or defended someone, it was only by attacking and destroying their enemy for them.
And then after my teens the next few years was a reaction to that. I was certain I was never meant to be a boy. So I mostly hung out with girls, who said they had never been with a boy that seemed so much like a girl, and I thought that was a great compliment. Various girls approached me and wanted me as their boyfriend, and I accepted willingly, almost a decade before I actually understood what attraction actually meant. It's like reading about the sensation of eating ice cream, then eating it for first time 10 years later. It is like growing up rich - money is an abstract concept, it's points in a game, it's a means of control, but it doesn't mean anything if you aren't playing the game in the first place. For a period of time we played dress up, tight jeans to show off my thigh gap, women's jackets to show off my waist, tight shirts, narrow pointed shoes. I wrote romance stories, made art, and did all these silly things, we played guitar and sang in the park at midnight, shared a bottles of wine and talked all through the night. But even that was a phase that I moved past as I entered a different social group.
I've spoken at youth camp, been asked to mentor young adults. The usual soft skill things, drama triangle, personality differences, negotiation, narratives. Outwardly, I'm successful enough, married, good relationships with my former partners, reasonably high paying job, owning several properties. I can't say I know a single thing about teaching masculinity, though. It's all context driven, we seek validation from our peers. When my peers were toxic, then to gain their acceptance I was toxic too. A role model says that you want to embrace values X Y and Z even if your peers don't, and that is an extremely hard sell when doing that means you face exclusion. The easiest solution is to change your environment if you can. You know the saying, most people are the average of the 5 closest friends they have. It's true for me. But forcibly changing young people's environment doesn't usually work either (see the Stolen Generation, Australia).
Could a role model be strong enough to overpower peer conditioning? The church certainly hoped a Bible figure would do it (fat chance, and I practically grew up in a church). At one point I identified the most with Ender, from Ender's Game, which, from my first paragraph, you'd be able to tell, and in hindsight was far from the healthiest role model, lol. And I'm far from the only one who was drawn to him. Maybe it really is the dreamers and writers who shape society. I'm just one small part of Card's legacy. I'd like to write, or have someone else write, an epic best seller turned movie series about a man who embraces a kind of positive masculinity, that's not like Ender, not like James Bond, not like Jason Bourne, or Batman, or John Wick. To be fair, media aimed at children tend to have better male role models, particularly in animated works.
My gut reaction to being asked about masculinity, or "how to be a successful man" is that it is weirdly similar to questions around race from where I'm from - how to be a good Malay, how to be a good Chinese, how to be a good Indian. Viewed from outside that culture, this question makes no sense. But inside that culture, it absolutely does make sense - you, your family and peers might ask - Am I Malay enough? Is what I'm doing too Chinese?
posted by xdvesper at 3:38 AM on July 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
Hey, young men! You want a role model who’s masculine, sexy, and nontoxic? Levar Burton.
posted by vim876 at 5:58 AM on July 11, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by vim876 at 5:58 AM on July 11, 2023 [12 favorites]
My younger daughter has her modern Disney princesses like Elsa and Moana that generally embody more progressive, feminist values (while still being problematic in some ways), while I don't really see anything similar for boys.
Two cartoons for kids that have fantastic examples of nontoxic male role models (and story arcs of getting over various toxicities) are Steven Universe and Avatar: The Last Airbender.
posted by slappy_pinchbottom at 6:10 AM on July 11, 2023 [10 favorites]
Two cartoons for kids that have fantastic examples of nontoxic male role models (and story arcs of getting over various toxicities) are Steven Universe and Avatar: The Last Airbender.
posted by slappy_pinchbottom at 6:10 AM on July 11, 2023 [10 favorites]
> My younger daughter has her modern Disney princesses like Elsa and Moana that generally embody more progressive, feminist values (while still being problematic in some ways), while I don't really see anything similar for boys.
Why can't your boys have Elsa and Anna for a role model? Girls seem to have no trouble being inspired by male characters, why can't boys be allowed to adopt female role models?
(And there is absolutely no dearth of positive male characters either, come on! Are we supposed to pretend that men and male characters are marginalized in our media? That Disney and Pixar and DreamWorks have nothing to offer in the way of male characters worth emulating? Puhleeze.)
posted by MiraK at 6:18 AM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
Why can't your boys have Elsa and Anna for a role model? Girls seem to have no trouble being inspired by male characters, why can't boys be allowed to adopt female role models?
(And there is absolutely no dearth of positive male characters either, come on! Are we supposed to pretend that men and male characters are marginalized in our media? That Disney and Pixar and DreamWorks have nothing to offer in the way of male characters worth emulating? Puhleeze.)
posted by MiraK at 6:18 AM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
I recently found out that my teenage therapist was a member of NARTH - a pro-conversion-therapy group - and that puts some of the things that happened there into a sharp, sharp contrast. She was hired for me by my parents who were "concerned" about my "mental state" and "inability to function", which I can only think at the time they meant "You're not as much of a man as we want you to be".
The 1980s had deeply weird ideas of masculinity, with it being the age of the Terminator, and Rocky, and Crockett and Tubbs, and in the meantime, my favorite movies were silly science fiction stories, including one where the hero is a quicky robot (Short Circuit if you must know), and that wasn't good enough for them. They wanted someone who was 50s Manly and instead damaged me in a lot of ways.
It took thirty years to unwind enough of it to really be myself.
"What makes a man a man?" is a stupid question. "What makes a person a good human?" is the one more should be asking themselves, but there's too many with one kind of blinder or another on to go for the meta question.
(Looking at the evangelicals...)
posted by mephron at 6:47 AM on July 11, 2023
The 1980s had deeply weird ideas of masculinity, with it being the age of the Terminator, and Rocky, and Crockett and Tubbs, and in the meantime, my favorite movies were silly science fiction stories, including one where the hero is a quicky robot (Short Circuit if you must know), and that wasn't good enough for them. They wanted someone who was 50s Manly and instead damaged me in a lot of ways.
It took thirty years to unwind enough of it to really be myself.
"What makes a man a man?" is a stupid question. "What makes a person a good human?" is the one more should be asking themselves, but there's too many with one kind of blinder or another on to go for the meta question.
(Looking at the evangelicals...)
posted by mephron at 6:47 AM on July 11, 2023
The 1980s had deeply weird ideas of masculinity, with it being the age of the Terminator, and Rocky
It's endlessly fascinating to me in retrospect just how much this was about putting the male gaze on male bodies in a way that felt socially acceptable. Peak Schwarzenegger and Stallone very much feel like male sex symbols specifically for men who identify as straight to enjoy without admitting it or even necessarily realizing it.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:17 AM on July 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
It's endlessly fascinating to me in retrospect just how much this was about putting the male gaze on male bodies in a way that felt socially acceptable. Peak Schwarzenegger and Stallone very much feel like male sex symbols specifically for men who identify as straight to enjoy without admitting it or even necessarily realizing it.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:17 AM on July 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
Most interesting to see how this topic lands here on MF.
I thought the article was on the whole pretty good, except for the suggestion that we need a new (or any) 'script'. But yes, lacking a role model (father, older brother, uncle, teacher, coach, scouts) is certainly a factor for many boys.
There have been a lot of changes/upheavals since I was a child, that have still not quite healed or settled into a new normal. There are new ecological, economic and political pressures (and crises), often exploited for political or other gain, and the new media landscape inundates us with reminders of these problems and conflicts daily. As a consequence, I think today's young people are faced with greater uncertainty over their safety and security, and especially their future. "Lost" young men is, to me, another symptom of this higher level of widespread anxiety.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:21 AM on July 11, 2023
I thought the article was on the whole pretty good, except for the suggestion that we need a new (or any) 'script'. But yes, lacking a role model (father, older brother, uncle, teacher, coach, scouts) is certainly a factor for many boys.
There have been a lot of changes/upheavals since I was a child, that have still not quite healed or settled into a new normal. There are new ecological, economic and political pressures (and crises), often exploited for political or other gain, and the new media landscape inundates us with reminders of these problems and conflicts daily. As a consequence, I think today's young people are faced with greater uncertainty over their safety and security, and especially their future. "Lost" young men is, to me, another symptom of this higher level of widespread anxiety.
posted by Artful Codger at 7:21 AM on July 11, 2023
Really interesting discussion. MiraK, I appreciate your perspective. A few things said upthread that resonated me: a) embracing a queer philosophy of self acceptance is super helpful for straight men, b) masculinity becomes toxic when it feels like an obligation, c) gender works best when it feels like play, d) the male role models we see are often hollow, underdeveloped people.
I moved from the Deep South to nyc in my early 20s. I was already unusually liberal and queer for a straight man, and in New York I tried to embrace the philosophy of rejecting masculinity and behaving feminine. It made me hate myself & did make me unattractive to women. Gender is the social meaning of sex: daily experience made it clear that I will always be perceived and treated as a man. My attempts to downplay that only caused confusion and dissonance on both sides.
Into my 30s, I accepted that I really am a man and I really am heterosexual. That is, adopting a masculine role feels good both for me and for the people I interact with. But I also embrace a queer identity and I am under no obligation to behave in a masculine way (whatever that means) to anyone who tries to police my masculinity. The goal for all of us is to maximize our ability to live in community and help other people BECAUSE we are also maximizing our ability to honestly express ourselves.
I get that this is touchy, but I think it’s true that straight men are struggling to find a positive self image & place in society. A total embrace of femininity is not the right home for many people. The fear that people have is completely fair - I’m shocked and appalled by the shit straight men do in polite company, not to mention real violence in private. But those are hollow, underdeveloped people, too, and behaving badly isn’t making them happy. There is a path toward positive male expression, but it’s obfuscated by bad advice. So I empathize with men who are still trying to find it. We can all grow together and eventually become the wind <3.
posted by Buckt at 7:24 AM on July 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
I moved from the Deep South to nyc in my early 20s. I was already unusually liberal and queer for a straight man, and in New York I tried to embrace the philosophy of rejecting masculinity and behaving feminine. It made me hate myself & did make me unattractive to women. Gender is the social meaning of sex: daily experience made it clear that I will always be perceived and treated as a man. My attempts to downplay that only caused confusion and dissonance on both sides.
Into my 30s, I accepted that I really am a man and I really am heterosexual. That is, adopting a masculine role feels good both for me and for the people I interact with. But I also embrace a queer identity and I am under no obligation to behave in a masculine way (whatever that means) to anyone who tries to police my masculinity. The goal for all of us is to maximize our ability to live in community and help other people BECAUSE we are also maximizing our ability to honestly express ourselves.
I get that this is touchy, but I think it’s true that straight men are struggling to find a positive self image & place in society. A total embrace of femininity is not the right home for many people. The fear that people have is completely fair - I’m shocked and appalled by the shit straight men do in polite company, not to mention real violence in private. But those are hollow, underdeveloped people, too, and behaving badly isn’t making them happy. There is a path toward positive male expression, but it’s obfuscated by bad advice. So I empathize with men who are still trying to find it. We can all grow together and eventually become the wind <3.
posted by Buckt at 7:24 AM on July 11, 2023 [6 favorites]
Like, it's not just that a lot of men are struggling and finding right wing guys on YouTube or whatever, it's that anger is really replacing humor as a driving force in men's culture.
The Proud Boys wouldn't have been acceptable in their current (or, recent) form either. 9-11 happened, then the actual wars came home and fused with the culture wars. Once again I am linking to you the About Face comic from 2019. Subtitled "Death and surrender to power in the clothing of men."
I would also recommend Joseph Geller's Rationalizing Brutality: The Cultural Legacy of the Headshot. (And Geller's work generally.)
With the talk of role models and what not; though I haven't seen actual data it's widely commented that most school age kids today say they want to be Youtubers or influencers of some other kind.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:26 AM on July 11, 2023 [4 favorites]
The Proud Boys wouldn't have been acceptable in their current (or, recent) form either. 9-11 happened, then the actual wars came home and fused with the culture wars. Once again I am linking to you the About Face comic from 2019. Subtitled "Death and surrender to power in the clothing of men."
I would also recommend Joseph Geller's Rationalizing Brutality: The Cultural Legacy of the Headshot. (And Geller's work generally.)
With the talk of role models and what not; though I haven't seen actual data it's widely commented that most school age kids today say they want to be Youtubers or influencers of some other kind.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:26 AM on July 11, 2023 [4 favorites]
The implication being that a parasocial attachment to Andrew Tate or Aidan Ross or Fresh and Fit or even Mr. Beast is hard to overcome by telling young people that masculinity isn't real and just do whatever. Something else or someone else has to affirmatively take the place of the toxicity for those who feel the need for that aspect of identity.
Consider the Sneako/MoistCritikal saga. Charlie (Moist) ultimately 'won' by brandishing an AR-15 and calling Sneako a literal cuck. And he's coming from the tolerant, non-phobic side.
Also, if you'd like to make your own head explode, here's the charming and sensible Jarvis Johnson looking at how white trad culture manages to do appropriation even within the frame of this kind of oppression (the Whatever show as a rip of Fresh and Fit): TikTok's Worst Podcast.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:37 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
Consider the Sneako/MoistCritikal saga. Charlie (Moist) ultimately 'won' by brandishing an AR-15 and calling Sneako a literal cuck. And he's coming from the tolerant, non-phobic side.
Also, if you'd like to make your own head explode, here's the charming and sensible Jarvis Johnson looking at how white trad culture manages to do appropriation even within the frame of this kind of oppression (the Whatever show as a rip of Fresh and Fit): TikTok's Worst Podcast.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:37 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
What snuffleupagus said. Any pop culture examination of the topic that doesn't discuss the influence of Iron John is missing a huge piece; that book was enormous and the men who read it fathered the guys becoming dads now. And while we're on that 80s/90s origins tip, what did and did not happen following the Million Man March.
posted by Ardnamurchan at 7:59 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Ardnamurchan at 7:59 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
Why can't your boys have Elsa and Anna for a role model? Girls seem to have no trouble being inspired by male characters, why can't boys be allowed to adopt female role models?
He does, like I mentioned in my comment. He's as into Frozen as his sister is, and when we went to watch the Frozen musical this year, they both happily wore these ultra-glittery organza capes with snowflakes on them.
But while his sister is pretending to be Elsa, he is "the king"*. Because he knows that Elsa is a girl, and he's a boy, so he can't be Elsa. And his sister tells him that too. And although we tell both of them that its okay for boys to pretend to be girls and vice versa, that's what they still settle with whenever they play.
And while we were at the musical, we could hear hushed whispers from other kids: "look that boy is wearing a cape!" "why is that boy dressed up?" Fortunately my boy tends to be somewhat oblivious to other people, being mostly caught up in his own inner world, so I don't think that affected him much. But clearly, that's what the cultural environment he is growing up in thinks of him liking Elsa and Frozen.
So I guess the answer to your question is because society tells boys that they can't, and an 8-year old boy is not always going to be comfortable going against that social pressure. He knows he's going to get bullied if he tells other kids in school that he likes Frozen. It sucks, but change takes time, a lot more time than it takes a kid to grow up. (We also live in an Asian culture that is somewhat more conservative than the West.)
And to link this back to the original topic, I guess that's why its important to have more masculine role models to push things forward, guys who present themselves in a masculine manner, but who can also say "hey its okay for guys to like princesses and unicorns and wear a dress!" Why do they need to be masculine? I feel like the message will be better received if they are, because of reasons that probably boil down to patriarchy and homophobia. Bad reasons, but maybe that's where you need to begin to change things.
* They've never specified who exactly this king is, just that Elsa is the queen and there is also a king. Stop asking so many questions, papa!
posted by destrius at 8:00 AM on July 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
He does, like I mentioned in my comment. He's as into Frozen as his sister is, and when we went to watch the Frozen musical this year, they both happily wore these ultra-glittery organza capes with snowflakes on them.
But while his sister is pretending to be Elsa, he is "the king"*. Because he knows that Elsa is a girl, and he's a boy, so he can't be Elsa. And his sister tells him that too. And although we tell both of them that its okay for boys to pretend to be girls and vice versa, that's what they still settle with whenever they play.
And while we were at the musical, we could hear hushed whispers from other kids: "look that boy is wearing a cape!" "why is that boy dressed up?" Fortunately my boy tends to be somewhat oblivious to other people, being mostly caught up in his own inner world, so I don't think that affected him much. But clearly, that's what the cultural environment he is growing up in thinks of him liking Elsa and Frozen.
So I guess the answer to your question is because society tells boys that they can't, and an 8-year old boy is not always going to be comfortable going against that social pressure. He knows he's going to get bullied if he tells other kids in school that he likes Frozen. It sucks, but change takes time, a lot more time than it takes a kid to grow up. (We also live in an Asian culture that is somewhat more conservative than the West.)
And to link this back to the original topic, I guess that's why its important to have more masculine role models to push things forward, guys who present themselves in a masculine manner, but who can also say "hey its okay for guys to like princesses and unicorns and wear a dress!" Why do they need to be masculine? I feel like the message will be better received if they are, because of reasons that probably boil down to patriarchy and homophobia. Bad reasons, but maybe that's where you need to begin to change things.
* They've never specified who exactly this king is, just that Elsa is the queen and there is also a king. Stop asking so many questions, papa!
posted by destrius at 8:00 AM on July 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
And while we're on that 80s/90s origins tip
Oh god now I remember the promise keepers and purity rings and I threw up in my mouth a little
More of a "this beautiful and highly desirable Lamborghini will not enable us to reach the lost realm of Atlantis" sort of argument.
OceanGate has entered the chat
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:02 AM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
Oh god now I remember the promise keepers and purity rings and I threw up in my mouth a little
More of a "this beautiful and highly desirable Lamborghini will not enable us to reach the lost realm of Atlantis" sort of argument.
OceanGate has entered the chat
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:02 AM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
Why can't your boys have Elsa and Anna for a role model?
Anna would be a great role model - she's take charge, brave, and practical. Elsa on the other hand is whiny, rude, and mostly terrible in both movies.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:14 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
Anna would be a great role model - she's take charge, brave, and practical. Elsa on the other hand is whiny, rude, and mostly terrible in both movies.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:14 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
So I guess the answer to your question is because society tells boys that they can't, and an 8-year old boy is not always going to be comfortable going against that social pressure.
Oh of course, I wasn't trying to blame your son in this scenario. My questions weren't rhetorical. The answer to "why can't your son pretend to be Elsa?" is "because there is no popular men's movement which is out there screaming for men to start being more like women in order to be liberated." Queer masculinities may be the closest thing we have in our world to such a movement - but heterosexism holds men back from that too.
posted by MiraK at 8:17 AM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Oh of course, I wasn't trying to blame your son in this scenario. My questions weren't rhetorical. The answer to "why can't your son pretend to be Elsa?" is "because there is no popular men's movement which is out there screaming for men to start being more like women in order to be liberated." Queer masculinities may be the closest thing we have in our world to such a movement - but heterosexism holds men back from that too.
posted by MiraK at 8:17 AM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
(And there is absolutely no dearth of positive male characters either, come on! Are we supposed to pretend that men and male characters are marginalized in our media? That Disney and Pixar and DreamWorks have nothing to offer in the way of male characters worth emulating? Puhleeze.)
Not at all, but at least from my limited perspective, there don't seem to be many popular male characters that exhibit progressive (lets say, feminist) traits. Off the top of my head, popular media for younger boys would be Paw Patrol, Pokemon, maybe Octonauts, and then Transformers and the various Marvel Superheroes. At the most, they're pretty neutral, and I think Iron Man definitely borders on toxic masculinity.
I've been thinking of introducing my kid to Avatar (thanks for the reminder, slappy_pinchbottom!), but I'm pretty sure its unknown to most of his friends. Which of course matters, because kids are going to want to be into things their friends are into.
Like with my daughter, she got into Frozen because her friends in preschool were going on about it all the time. And it was great for us, because with zero effort on our part, her favourite cartoon character is a strong badass woman who comes into power by rejecting societal expectations and being herself. What's the equivalent for boys?
I kind of have this dream that Frozen 3 is going to be a story about the twin sons of Anna and Kristoff, who both have magical powers, and go on some journey to seek out their old aunt to restore balance or some shit. And along the way they will cry a lot, hug a lot, and express real deep emotions to each other.
posted by destrius at 8:25 AM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Not at all, but at least from my limited perspective, there don't seem to be many popular male characters that exhibit progressive (lets say, feminist) traits. Off the top of my head, popular media for younger boys would be Paw Patrol, Pokemon, maybe Octonauts, and then Transformers and the various Marvel Superheroes. At the most, they're pretty neutral, and I think Iron Man definitely borders on toxic masculinity.
I've been thinking of introducing my kid to Avatar (thanks for the reminder, slappy_pinchbottom!), but I'm pretty sure its unknown to most of his friends. Which of course matters, because kids are going to want to be into things their friends are into.
Like with my daughter, she got into Frozen because her friends in preschool were going on about it all the time. And it was great for us, because with zero effort on our part, her favourite cartoon character is a strong badass woman who comes into power by rejecting societal expectations and being herself. What's the equivalent for boys?
I kind of have this dream that Frozen 3 is going to be a story about the twin sons of Anna and Kristoff, who both have magical powers, and go on some journey to seek out their old aunt to restore balance or some shit. And along the way they will cry a lot, hug a lot, and express real deep emotions to each other.
posted by destrius at 8:25 AM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
If you centre aspiring to femininity in your identity, and then realize that you can't ever live up to those ideals either, where does that leave you? I already know that my body, for example, is deeply unfeminine and should strive to be smaller in the world - and I still feel oafish and gross just by existing in public sometimes. It defines masculinity as trying to get away from something that a lot of people can't get away from.
It also falls victim to exact same problem of essentializing femininity - once you start to examine it, you just arrive at distinct generically positive traits.
posted by sagc at 8:27 AM on July 11, 2023 [5 favorites]
It also falls victim to exact same problem of essentializing femininity - once you start to examine it, you just arrive at distinct generically positive traits.
posted by sagc at 8:27 AM on July 11, 2023 [5 favorites]
Any pop culture examination of the topic that doesn't discuss the influence of Iron John is missing a huge piece; that book was enormous and the men who read it fathered the guys becoming dads now.
That book was a big surprise hit, and if younger folks don’t know about it as a phenomenon, they might be interested. The word “essentialism” appears nowhere in the book, but it argues for a benign essentialism that treats gender as a kind of sacred mystery, kind of like 1970’s earth-goddess feminism, and is meant to help men be happier, kinder and more capable in their lives by embracing their/our difference in a generous way. It was absolutely not right-wing at all, though it was implicitly critical of some aspects of late-80’s feminism.
I’m personally ambivalent about it, but I also thought a lot of the knee-jerk criticism it generated said more about the critics than the work. Short version: the critics hated that the book didn’t observe their frameworks and their jargon, and didn’t critique gender roles their way. Sound familiar?
posted by ducky l'orange at 8:40 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
That book was a big surprise hit, and if younger folks don’t know about it as a phenomenon, they might be interested. The word “essentialism” appears nowhere in the book, but it argues for a benign essentialism that treats gender as a kind of sacred mystery, kind of like 1970’s earth-goddess feminism, and is meant to help men be happier, kinder and more capable in their lives by embracing their/our difference in a generous way. It was absolutely not right-wing at all, though it was implicitly critical of some aspects of late-80’s feminism.
I’m personally ambivalent about it, but I also thought a lot of the knee-jerk criticism it generated said more about the critics than the work. Short version: the critics hated that the book didn’t observe their frameworks and their jargon, and didn’t critique gender roles their way. Sound familiar?
posted by ducky l'orange at 8:40 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
(Also, it was’t a work of critical theory: it was a popular work of parables and impressionistic essays).
posted by ducky l'orange at 8:43 AM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by ducky l'orange at 8:43 AM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Critics also hated that it wound up with a bunch of white dudes in an Ojai sweatlodge singing Crosby Stills Nash And Young (along with some Sioux catchphrases); a thing that I experienced in my high school 'mysteries' program run by guys like that. Helped along by plenty of Castaneda and etc.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:50 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:50 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
> If you centre aspiring to femininity in your identity, and then realize that you can't ever live up to those ideals either, where does that leave you?
The same place women were during the second wave feminism, maybe? Getting mocked by conservatives as unmasculine for burning their neckties, perhaps, and looking forward to a coming decade or two of padded bras under their executive suits - something that's the equivalent of shoulder pads women used to wear in the '80s and '90s. Trying to square the reality of one's body with the changing societal norms of gender is a NORMAL struggle to expect during this process.
It's progress, not perfection. It's absolutely survivable because it is better than status quo. At present, men are barely at a first wave, just now shedding their corsets.
posted by MiraK at 9:29 AM on July 11, 2023 [4 favorites]
The same place women were during the second wave feminism, maybe? Getting mocked by conservatives as unmasculine for burning their neckties, perhaps, and looking forward to a coming decade or two of padded bras under their executive suits - something that's the equivalent of shoulder pads women used to wear in the '80s and '90s. Trying to square the reality of one's body with the changing societal norms of gender is a NORMAL struggle to expect during this process.
It's progress, not perfection. It's absolutely survivable because it is better than status quo. At present, men are barely at a first wave, just now shedding their corsets.
posted by MiraK at 9:29 AM on July 11, 2023 [4 favorites]
I am a male parent of only daughters. We have entirely changed how we raise girls, and entirely for the better, since I was a kid in the years around 1980. There were so many resources and so much support for my raising girls to be outspoken, achievement-oriented, not consumed by the beauty myth, etc., that it was a piece of cake, frankly.
But—and this is anecdata but I've got a fuckload of it—we haven't done a got-damned thing about how we raise boys. You can like six things: war, sports, cars, dinosaurs, video games and cartoonish gross-out humor. And only those six things. If you don't like any one of those six things, or you like something else, you're No Longer A Boy, and the other boys *and their and your parents* will absolutely rip you to shreds. So now, my oldest (15, going on 36) is saucy, confident, high-achieving, ambitious and not a Pretty Girl (though she is in fact quite pretty) or catty or a pick-me... and the boys in her classes are just as dumb and awful as those same boys were when I was her age in 1983. The contrast is truly vivid. Every class is a dozen girls doing the work because they're preparing for college, and a dozen boys shouting and throwing things at each other—and now, they're quoting Andrew Fucking Tate at her.
I blame the parents, *and* society. The oligarchy and their fascist supporters WANT nothing but Dumb Violent Boys, and the parents generally won't do a thing to combat this. The many, many Boy Moms (they're the ones doing the capitalization, there) are the absolute worst, but the dads aren't really helping, either. Had I sons, I'd be tearing my hair out in despair.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 9:53 AM on July 11, 2023 [17 favorites]
But—and this is anecdata but I've got a fuckload of it—we haven't done a got-damned thing about how we raise boys. You can like six things: war, sports, cars, dinosaurs, video games and cartoonish gross-out humor. And only those six things. If you don't like any one of those six things, or you like something else, you're No Longer A Boy, and the other boys *and their and your parents* will absolutely rip you to shreds. So now, my oldest (15, going on 36) is saucy, confident, high-achieving, ambitious and not a Pretty Girl (though she is in fact quite pretty) or catty or a pick-me... and the boys in her classes are just as dumb and awful as those same boys were when I was her age in 1983. The contrast is truly vivid. Every class is a dozen girls doing the work because they're preparing for college, and a dozen boys shouting and throwing things at each other—and now, they're quoting Andrew Fucking Tate at her.
I blame the parents, *and* society. The oligarchy and their fascist supporters WANT nothing but Dumb Violent Boys, and the parents generally won't do a thing to combat this. The many, many Boy Moms (they're the ones doing the capitalization, there) are the absolute worst, but the dads aren't really helping, either. Had I sons, I'd be tearing my hair out in despair.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 9:53 AM on July 11, 2023 [17 favorites]
Critics also hated that it wound up with a bunch of white dudes in an Ojai sweatlodge singing Crosby Stills Nash And Young
Seems goofy but harmless compared to manosphere shit.
posted by ducky l'orange at 9:59 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
Seems goofy but harmless compared to manosphere shit.
posted by ducky l'orange at 9:59 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
Any pop culture examination of the topic that doesn't discuss the influence of Iron John is missing a huge piece; that book was enormous and
excuse me while I tumble off into a rant for a bit ...
maybe it's an age thing (I was about thirty when Iron John showed up), but in my experience this is entirely not the case. That is, I had NO peers who paid Iron John or Robert Bly any attention. Or if they did, they weren't talking about it. I was aware of it but only from an angle of bemusement. It seemed absurd, the antithesis of what I considered cool*. Grown men running around in the woods banging drums and whatnot. It all just felt so foolish; similar in may respects to the "search for one's inner child" that was going on around the same time. Or as one friend put it, "if you're thirty-five years old and you've lost touch with who you were when you were ten, please get the fuck out of my way, because my kid knows exactly what he wants and it's got nothing to do with stopping all the fun and games and demanding I go looking for him in the forest -- he's already right here, riding shotgun."
* and when I say cool, I linked to Kipling's IF above: that's still the best definition I know.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
And so on.
And back to Iron John being an absolute non-player in my personal evolution (and as far as I know, in that of my male peers). It just did NOT appeal. When we disappeared into the woods, it wasn't to strip down to loin clothes and bang drums, it was to drop acid and drag a honking loud ghetto blaster to the top of a remote mountain and maybe play Stravinsky's Firebird Suite or some King Crimson or that Orb album about going beyond the ultraworld ... or maybe just some easy Brian Eno if that's what it felt like the gods wanted. And we didn't have a no girls rule. What would be the point in that? Anybody who wanted to go high go deep was welcome ...
What's my point?
I don't know. Just pushing back on the revisionism inherent in positioning Iron John as somehow pivotal. I imagine its roots were very similar to the weird adventures we were exploring -- getting high, getting away from the normal world and all of its strictures. But flipping it all into some kind of organized movement (a commodity even) -- fuck that shit. Talk about getting something completely wrong.
Which maybe gets close to what, for me, is a gender independent working definition of maturity. If you're of legal adult age and you're still waiting for the prevailing ideology to indicate where (and how) to fix your focus, you're not there. If you need your adventures "organized" by anyone (or thing) be it guru, church, boss, corporation, coach, parent, family, spouse even ... you're not there.
Stop conforming to external pressure. Easy to say ...
posted by philip-random at 10:12 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
excuse me while I tumble off into a rant for a bit ...
maybe it's an age thing (I was about thirty when Iron John showed up), but in my experience this is entirely not the case. That is, I had NO peers who paid Iron John or Robert Bly any attention. Or if they did, they weren't talking about it. I was aware of it but only from an angle of bemusement. It seemed absurd, the antithesis of what I considered cool*. Grown men running around in the woods banging drums and whatnot. It all just felt so foolish; similar in may respects to the "search for one's inner child" that was going on around the same time. Or as one friend put it, "if you're thirty-five years old and you've lost touch with who you were when you were ten, please get the fuck out of my way, because my kid knows exactly what he wants and it's got nothing to do with stopping all the fun and games and demanding I go looking for him in the forest -- he's already right here, riding shotgun."
* and when I say cool, I linked to Kipling's IF above: that's still the best definition I know.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
And so on.
And back to Iron John being an absolute non-player in my personal evolution (and as far as I know, in that of my male peers). It just did NOT appeal. When we disappeared into the woods, it wasn't to strip down to loin clothes and bang drums, it was to drop acid and drag a honking loud ghetto blaster to the top of a remote mountain and maybe play Stravinsky's Firebird Suite or some King Crimson or that Orb album about going beyond the ultraworld ... or maybe just some easy Brian Eno if that's what it felt like the gods wanted. And we didn't have a no girls rule. What would be the point in that? Anybody who wanted to go high go deep was welcome ...
What's my point?
I don't know. Just pushing back on the revisionism inherent in positioning Iron John as somehow pivotal. I imagine its roots were very similar to the weird adventures we were exploring -- getting high, getting away from the normal world and all of its strictures. But flipping it all into some kind of organized movement (a commodity even) -- fuck that shit. Talk about getting something completely wrong.
Which maybe gets close to what, for me, is a gender independent working definition of maturity. If you're of legal adult age and you're still waiting for the prevailing ideology to indicate where (and how) to fix your focus, you're not there. If you need your adventures "organized" by anyone (or thing) be it guru, church, boss, corporation, coach, parent, family, spouse even ... you're not there.
Stop conforming to external pressure. Easy to say ...
posted by philip-random at 10:12 AM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
Earlier this year there was a trend on TikTok titled simply "Black Men Frolicking". It was exactly what it describes and wonderfully joyous.
Males in general and probably western males in particular could use more of that. A will celebration of life and being alive for the joy as opposed to joy and pleasure coming from dominating anyone or anything else.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:17 AM on July 11, 2023 [13 favorites]
Males in general and probably western males in particular could use more of that. A will celebration of life and being alive for the joy as opposed to joy and pleasure coming from dominating anyone or anything else.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:17 AM on July 11, 2023 [13 favorites]
We have entirely changed how we raise girls, and entirely for the better, since I was a kid in the years around 1980. There were so many resources and so much support for my raising girls to be outspoken, achievement-oriented, not consumed by the beauty myth, etc., that it was a piece of cake, frankly.
But—and this is anecdata but I've got a fuckload of it—we haven't done a got-damned thing about how we raise boys.
This. It's been remarked upon sadly by many a feminist writer and parent. It's definitely reinforced in cultural artifacts: Target kids aisle girlswear is all empowering and/or prosocial and boyswear is all dinosaurs, videogames and competiveness. I'm the dad of a 3rd grade boy but definitely see this dynamic starting. Parents of older kids I'm friends with remark on the giant disparity in maturity between boys and girls in their classes. And like you say, when we try to raise compassionate boys or encourage our sons to retain their childhood love of pink and rainbows, their peers are likely to tear them apart. The concerned parents in my liberal bubble school are doing what we can about it, but I know that's not the way it's working across society.
I'm not tearing my hair out in despair, yet. But as a boy dad, I'm definitely anxious and scrambling for ways to counteract all of this.
posted by obsoletefuture at 10:20 AM on July 11, 2023 [7 favorites]
But—and this is anecdata but I've got a fuckload of it—we haven't done a got-damned thing about how we raise boys.
This. It's been remarked upon sadly by many a feminist writer and parent. It's definitely reinforced in cultural artifacts: Target kids aisle girlswear is all empowering and/or prosocial and boyswear is all dinosaurs, videogames and competiveness. I'm the dad of a 3rd grade boy but definitely see this dynamic starting. Parents of older kids I'm friends with remark on the giant disparity in maturity between boys and girls in their classes. And like you say, when we try to raise compassionate boys or encourage our sons to retain their childhood love of pink and rainbows, their peers are likely to tear them apart. The concerned parents in my liberal bubble school are doing what we can about it, but I know that's not the way it's working across society.
I'm not tearing my hair out in despair, yet. But as a boy dad, I'm definitely anxious and scrambling for ways to counteract all of this.
posted by obsoletefuture at 10:20 AM on July 11, 2023 [7 favorites]
Seems goofy but harmless compared to manosphere shit.
It can easily become manosphere shit, done that way. Just like Tucker Carlson's dumbass solar testicle cult. And the 'essentializing' impulse is not unproblematic in its 'earth goddess' version either. (Less touchy-feely versions also show up in orgs like Outward Bound and its offshoots, or there are neo-Christian flavors.)
Declaration of War Against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality (1998)
Appropriative 'essentializing' agrarian pastoralism is not even a new problem in the US, or elsewhere. There's what you might think of as the Fundamentalist branch of the Indian Guides, which refused to go along with the YMCA's name-change to 'Adventure Guides.' That org goes back to 1926. And, a little later, guess who else was into agrarian pastoralism and appropriating other culture's symbols for their syncretic nationalist youth organizations?
There's plenty more about essentializing modes of appropriation and imitation going all the way back through early American history to the Colonial era, but probably best to leave it there.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:36 AM on July 11, 2023 [4 favorites]
It can easily become manosphere shit, done that way. Just like Tucker Carlson's dumbass solar testicle cult. And the 'essentializing' impulse is not unproblematic in its 'earth goddess' version either. (Less touchy-feely versions also show up in orgs like Outward Bound and its offshoots, or there are neo-Christian flavors.)
Declaration of War Against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality (1998)
Whereas pseudo-religious corporations have been formed to charge people money for admission into phony “sweat lodges” and “vision quest” programs; and...Spiritual Hucksterism:The Rise of the Plastic Medicine Men
Whereas non-Indians have organized themselves into imitation “tribes,” assigning themselves make-believe “Indian names” to facilitate their wholesale expropriation and commercialization of our Lakota traditions; and...
Whereas non-Indian charlatans and “wannabes” are selling books that promote the systematic colonization of our Lakota spirituality; and...
Whereas individuals and groups involved in “the New Age Movement,” in “the men's movement,” in “neo-paganism” cults and in “shamanism” workshops all have exploited the spiritual traditions of our Lakota people by imitating our ceremonial ways and by mixing such imitation rituals with non-Indian occult practices in an offensive and harmful pseudo-religious hodgepodge...
Appropriative 'essentializing' agrarian pastoralism is not even a new problem in the US, or elsewhere. There's what you might think of as the Fundamentalist branch of the Indian Guides, which refused to go along with the YMCA's name-change to 'Adventure Guides.' That org goes back to 1926. And, a little later, guess who else was into agrarian pastoralism and appropriating other culture's symbols for their syncretic nationalist youth organizations?
There's plenty more about essentializing modes of appropriation and imitation going all the way back through early American history to the Colonial era, but probably best to leave it there.
posted by snuffleupagus at 10:36 AM on July 11, 2023 [4 favorites]
This will drive gender-essentialist conservatives right up the wall, but speaking as someone NB/trans, I really wish it was easier for people - men in particular - to try out estrogen to be able to see both sides of the gender hormone divide, if only temporarily.
Because being estrogen dominant is a whole different world and experience and it really highlights how much hormones regulate and inform our behavior and actions.
Within the first week and month of starting HRT a lot of my male/masc friends noted that I wasn't interested in randomly arguing about things as a conversational sport or past time, and I used to love doing that and the whole feeling of being right and "winning" debates and arguments.
After HRT I just found it tedious, needlessly confrontational and incredibly boring. My whole conversational and interpersonal style changed and I listened a whole lot more.
Pair that with not being conventionally raised as feminine to "play nice" or "be agreeable" or whatever and I really did not give a fuck and would just shut down these kinds of sporting arguments with really blunt rebuttals and candor that I was bored as fuck and could we talk about something else?
My sex drive and sexuality totally changed, too, and went from "need" to "want" in ways that are challenging to put into words. I still had a sex drive but it was... different. It was no longer some kind of urgent need or hunger and much more of a flexible soft "want" that was a whole different mental space with a lot more flow.
Trans masc foks have also experienced the other side of this, too, and in many different ways. I had a trans masculine coworker that started on testosterone therapy and while it was amazing watching him blossom into being comfortable with himself, they also went from being pretty chill to an absolute hazard with unbridled confidence in our restaurant kitchen in the space of like a month or two to the point that our very butch and totally kick ass lesbian chef and kitchen boss had to have a serious conversation with him about dialing it back and firmly remind them of their actual job title as a line cook and they weren't in a position of authority or management at all because they were bossing everyone around when they should have been working their station and job.
The dynamics of this were fascinating because after he started HRT he was all dude and started doing really typical cis dude things in a kitchen workplace that was mostly queer and fem, like talking over people, not listening, raising their voice, failing to co-operate and flow like we were doing all along before HRT and generally throwing their weight around with the implied risk of vocalized anger or even some hints of violence.
I'm not saying that one is better than the other because being masculine or feminine or anywhere in between are valid - but oh, man, we seriously underestimate how powerful testosterone in particular is as a naturally produced mind altering drug that can really amplify risky or socially harmful behavior like violence, aggression, a disdain for co-operation or even basic interpersonal skills like listening.
posted by loquacious at 10:37 AM on July 11, 2023 [15 favorites]
Because being estrogen dominant is a whole different world and experience and it really highlights how much hormones regulate and inform our behavior and actions.
Within the first week and month of starting HRT a lot of my male/masc friends noted that I wasn't interested in randomly arguing about things as a conversational sport or past time, and I used to love doing that and the whole feeling of being right and "winning" debates and arguments.
After HRT I just found it tedious, needlessly confrontational and incredibly boring. My whole conversational and interpersonal style changed and I listened a whole lot more.
Pair that with not being conventionally raised as feminine to "play nice" or "be agreeable" or whatever and I really did not give a fuck and would just shut down these kinds of sporting arguments with really blunt rebuttals and candor that I was bored as fuck and could we talk about something else?
My sex drive and sexuality totally changed, too, and went from "need" to "want" in ways that are challenging to put into words. I still had a sex drive but it was... different. It was no longer some kind of urgent need or hunger and much more of a flexible soft "want" that was a whole different mental space with a lot more flow.
Trans masc foks have also experienced the other side of this, too, and in many different ways. I had a trans masculine coworker that started on testosterone therapy and while it was amazing watching him blossom into being comfortable with himself, they also went from being pretty chill to an absolute hazard with unbridled confidence in our restaurant kitchen in the space of like a month or two to the point that our very butch and totally kick ass lesbian chef and kitchen boss had to have a serious conversation with him about dialing it back and firmly remind them of their actual job title as a line cook and they weren't in a position of authority or management at all because they were bossing everyone around when they should have been working their station and job.
The dynamics of this were fascinating because after he started HRT he was all dude and started doing really typical cis dude things in a kitchen workplace that was mostly queer and fem, like talking over people, not listening, raising their voice, failing to co-operate and flow like we were doing all along before HRT and generally throwing their weight around with the implied risk of vocalized anger or even some hints of violence.
I'm not saying that one is better than the other because being masculine or feminine or anywhere in between are valid - but oh, man, we seriously underestimate how powerful testosterone in particular is as a naturally produced mind altering drug that can really amplify risky or socially harmful behavior like violence, aggression, a disdain for co-operation or even basic interpersonal skills like listening.
posted by loquacious at 10:37 AM on July 11, 2023 [15 favorites]
Last comment re: Iron John…
It wasn’t pivotal, and it wasn’t cool. It *was* on the bestseller list for over a year (I remember because a family member was instrumental in getting it published). It *was* mentioned on talk shows (and sitcoms: Cheers did an episode where Frasier takes the guys on an ill-fated “men’s workshop” in the woods). When it came up, it was usually as a pop-culture oddity for people to giggle at, and specifically for all the divorced professional moms in Cambridge Massachusetts to roll their eyes at.
So it was ridiculous, but it found an audience, it did its little dance, then the culture moved on (Bly’s follow-up, the Sibling Society, was a flop).
The thing about it: it was actually very cuddly and harmless, like PBS. It did not celebrate aggression or conquest. It did not contain tips for picking up women at bars. But some people just loved to hate it, and while I mostly understand why, to me it kind of illustrates the discomfort that a specific intellectual establishment feels addressing men’s issues at all.
posted by ducky l'orange at 10:42 AM on July 11, 2023 [5 favorites]
It wasn’t pivotal, and it wasn’t cool. It *was* on the bestseller list for over a year (I remember because a family member was instrumental in getting it published). It *was* mentioned on talk shows (and sitcoms: Cheers did an episode where Frasier takes the guys on an ill-fated “men’s workshop” in the woods). When it came up, it was usually as a pop-culture oddity for people to giggle at, and specifically for all the divorced professional moms in Cambridge Massachusetts to roll their eyes at.
So it was ridiculous, but it found an audience, it did its little dance, then the culture moved on (Bly’s follow-up, the Sibling Society, was a flop).
The thing about it: it was actually very cuddly and harmless, like PBS. It did not celebrate aggression or conquest. It did not contain tips for picking up women at bars. But some people just loved to hate it, and while I mostly understand why, to me it kind of illustrates the discomfort that a specific intellectual establishment feels addressing men’s issues at all.
posted by ducky l'orange at 10:42 AM on July 11, 2023 [5 favorites]
Snuffleupagaus, I agree that essentialism taken too literally or to an extreme is dumb, but you can say the same for just about anything.
posted by ducky l'orange at 10:52 AM on July 11, 2023
posted by ducky l'orange at 10:52 AM on July 11, 2023
Or rather, it is dumb, but not entirely without value.
posted by ducky l'orange at 10:58 AM on July 11, 2023
posted by ducky l'orange at 10:58 AM on July 11, 2023
[Iron John] was actually very cuddly and harmless, like PBS. It did not celebrate aggression or conquest. It did not contain tips for picking up women at bars. But some people just loved to hate it, and while I mostly understand why, to me it kind of illustrates the discomfort that a specific intellectual establishment feels addressing men’s issues at all.
There was a Dilbert strip I remember from some time when Iron John was a thing where Dilbert decides to check out a "mens' group" - and the group is depicted as a bunch of meek looking men standing around and chatting, some holding drums, and all of them holding coffee mugs; one man is enthusiastically handing Dilbert a mug, and gushing "have you tried the cinnamon snap tea?"
I find the fact that Scott Adams disliked the Iron John approach kind of....telling, especially in retrospect.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:59 AM on July 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
There was a Dilbert strip I remember from some time when Iron John was a thing where Dilbert decides to check out a "mens' group" - and the group is depicted as a bunch of meek looking men standing around and chatting, some holding drums, and all of them holding coffee mugs; one man is enthusiastically handing Dilbert a mug, and gushing "have you tried the cinnamon snap tea?"
I find the fact that Scott Adams disliked the Iron John approach kind of....telling, especially in retrospect.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:59 AM on July 11, 2023 [9 favorites]
Outgrown hobnail, I have a 15 yr old son who is also saucy, confident, high achieving, ambitious, and Not A Sports Jock (though he loves many physical pursuit), or a dudebro nor does he have "pull". He seems to have found his tribe at school, a whole bunch of boys who share his interests and, like him, seem to have it together? All of them are very sociable, geeky, and outdoorsy. They plan scout-style camping trips with just the guys and at school they cluster around each other's tech projects, helping to get the thing to work. They are thrilled when the weather gets nice enough for them to all walk home from school "together" (they live anywhere between 1 to 5 miles away from it). My son is the glue of this group, he's got the best social skills and he brings them together, initiates plans, and creates that easy intimacy between them all. Of course the other boys too are all such a lovely bunch. But I take some extra credit for my son because I've seen him build this group from the ground up, and I see him set the tone. He has such a cool knack of "leading from behind" when he pushes back against some wayward comment in a roundabout way - like someone will use "pussy" in an edgy derogatory way and a minute later he'll find a way to say, "What an asshole, haha, I would never compliment you by calling you a pussy, lol." I've seen him holding the hand of one boy who was having troubles at home and was crying to him - my jaw dropped, I had no idea he could do that.
But I wonder how this group of boys looks like from the outside, you know? They're comfortable with their female classmates and a few of them have/had girlfriends or boyfriends, but their masculine identity seems to be tied to being part of this group and no girls have ever been part of the group as independent members. So from the outside I think they must seem exactly like an old-fashioned dudebro buddy group. Hell, if the gender balance of the group doesn't organically change over the next year or two, they WILL be an old-fashioned dudebro buddy group, because even nice guys are fully capable of cultivating involuntary and unconscious sexism. But for now I'm willing to give this group a little grace, allow them to grow into themselves a little more. They've just got through the first year of high school. They have time to relax the link between their masculinity and this friend group. TEMPORARILY single gender friend groups are a necessary part of their process of defining themselves.
I will note this: I had to fight so hard and protect the bubble of our home so fiercely to raise this kid well!! And I was incredibly lucky that I had the time, the resources, and the ability. Like, my son used to wear dresses quite often until he was 9 years old - the lengths to which I had to go to let him feel free enough to do that! Nobody was allowed to say a single word even nudging him away from his clothing choices - not the grandparents, not his dad. I was a hellbitch to the whole family about it because they wouldn't take me seriously otherwise. I made several trips down to his school, spoke to each individual teacher, and even volunteered to read an age-appropriate relevant book to his class when he was in first grade, trying to educate the world around him as opposed to making him self conscious by teaching him to protect himself from it. When he was a toddler, people would say to him, "Oh, what a handsome young man, do you have a girlfriend?" and I would glare at them and add to their question, "Or a boyfriend?" When I read books out loud at bedtime, I used to change the gender of every animal character (they're ALL always male, wtf). Telling him mythological stories from my culture/religion, I had the hardest time before I finally said, fuck it, and I edited the stories wholesale with zero respect for the original. Instead of Rama rescuing Sita from the demon king Ravana, in my stories to this kid, Sita rescued Rama. Also Rama and Ravana had to learn how to talk through their differences. And the monkey God, instead of serving Rama all his life, got Rama to serve him all his life, because fuck that coded racism and casteism. All through this kid's childhood I had to be the most extreme rabid version of a feminist you can imagine. And even I couldn't protect him past halfway through elementary school.
If that's what it takes to raise a boy differently, I don't think any parent can be faulted for not doing it. I tend to think of parents' responsibility as being "don't personally screw up your kids". It makes no sense to hold parents responsible for fixing everything in the world that can and will screw up the kids.
posted by MiraK at 11:02 AM on July 11, 2023 [16 favorites]
But I wonder how this group of boys looks like from the outside, you know? They're comfortable with their female classmates and a few of them have/had girlfriends or boyfriends, but their masculine identity seems to be tied to being part of this group and no girls have ever been part of the group as independent members. So from the outside I think they must seem exactly like an old-fashioned dudebro buddy group. Hell, if the gender balance of the group doesn't organically change over the next year or two, they WILL be an old-fashioned dudebro buddy group, because even nice guys are fully capable of cultivating involuntary and unconscious sexism. But for now I'm willing to give this group a little grace, allow them to grow into themselves a little more. They've just got through the first year of high school. They have time to relax the link between their masculinity and this friend group. TEMPORARILY single gender friend groups are a necessary part of their process of defining themselves.
I will note this: I had to fight so hard and protect the bubble of our home so fiercely to raise this kid well!! And I was incredibly lucky that I had the time, the resources, and the ability. Like, my son used to wear dresses quite often until he was 9 years old - the lengths to which I had to go to let him feel free enough to do that! Nobody was allowed to say a single word even nudging him away from his clothing choices - not the grandparents, not his dad. I was a hellbitch to the whole family about it because they wouldn't take me seriously otherwise. I made several trips down to his school, spoke to each individual teacher, and even volunteered to read an age-appropriate relevant book to his class when he was in first grade, trying to educate the world around him as opposed to making him self conscious by teaching him to protect himself from it. When he was a toddler, people would say to him, "Oh, what a handsome young man, do you have a girlfriend?" and I would glare at them and add to their question, "Or a boyfriend?" When I read books out loud at bedtime, I used to change the gender of every animal character (they're ALL always male, wtf). Telling him mythological stories from my culture/religion, I had the hardest time before I finally said, fuck it, and I edited the stories wholesale with zero respect for the original. Instead of Rama rescuing Sita from the demon king Ravana, in my stories to this kid, Sita rescued Rama. Also Rama and Ravana had to learn how to talk through their differences. And the monkey God, instead of serving Rama all his life, got Rama to serve him all his life, because fuck that coded racism and casteism. All through this kid's childhood I had to be the most extreme rabid version of a feminist you can imagine. And even I couldn't protect him past halfway through elementary school.
If that's what it takes to raise a boy differently, I don't think any parent can be faulted for not doing it. I tend to think of parents' responsibility as being "don't personally screw up your kids". It makes no sense to hold parents responsible for fixing everything in the world that can and will screw up the kids.
posted by MiraK at 11:02 AM on July 11, 2023 [16 favorites]
we seriously underestimate how powerful testosterone in particular is as a naturally produced mind altering drug
I do tend to think it is but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were also a significant placebo effect in play here. Or, like, testosterone pulls a few big levers but the specific male coded behaviors that come out of that are more socially conditioned.
posted by atoxyl at 12:13 PM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
I do tend to think it is but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were also a significant placebo effect in play here. Or, like, testosterone pulls a few big levers but the specific male coded behaviors that come out of that are more socially conditioned.
posted by atoxyl at 12:13 PM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
Before we go to far down the hormone essentialism rabbit hole: Testosterone's exact effects are specific to each individual's body (e.g., almost 17 percent of elite male athletes measured in one study had testosterone levels below the typical male range, and nearly 10 percent of them had testosterone levels under 5 nmol/L (i.e., the typical female range). Treating a single hormone like it's magic that determines everything for anyone is just another essentialism trap and has serious implications for female athletes especially.
posted by hydropsyche at 12:26 PM on July 11, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by hydropsyche at 12:26 PM on July 11, 2023 [16 favorites]
MiraK, I absolutely congratulate you for taking the time and massive effort to accomplish all that. When I blame parents, I'm blaming them not for being largely helpless against giant cultural trends, but rather for actively encouraging toxic masculinity in their boys, something that IME happens far, far too often.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 1:05 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 1:05 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
The whole article just comes at it backwards. We don't need more masculine role models. We need more role models who act prosocially and who are masculine. There is no logical reason you can't be a good, nurturing, group-oriented person with a penis. Insisting that we have to find ways to make having a penis special is the entire root (rimshot) of the problem.
posted by Scattercat at 1:16 PM on July 11, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Scattercat at 1:16 PM on July 11, 2023 [5 favorites]
I think the author would probably agree with you. While acknowledging difference seems important to her argument (which struck me as a pretty even-handed-if-not-terribly-fresh take on a well-worn topic), i really don't get a make-penises-special-again vibe from this text.
posted by ducky l'orange at 2:24 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by ducky l'orange at 2:24 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
> I do tend to think it is but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were also a significant placebo effect in play here. Or, like, testosterone pulls a few big levers but the specific male coded behaviors that come out of that are more socially conditioned.
It is both, and it is a spectrum, and I'm definitely not saying your hormones give anyone a free pass on being a shitty or abusive person.
But can testify that being testosterone dominant or hormones in general are no placebo. For example, the emotion we generally call "anger" felt like two different things, textures or vectors and more importantly processes with different ways to express it that are most satisfying or relieving when I compare testosterone to estrogen.
Somewhat related when estrogen dominant I've experienced a rather confusing and alarming emotional state where it's like I am - and I'm not trying to be cute, here, and this is difficult to put into words - but I'm like angry and happy at the same damn time, like hangry yet not wanting to eat and totally grossed out by food? I described it as feeling like wanted or needed to hug the absolute stuffing out of a dog, cat or even a human but also maybe actually eat it, and not in a "cute aggression" kind of way?
To me it definitely felt like testosterone was more acute and focused one emotion at a time kind of experience, while estrogen was more obtuse and diffused and often a blend and spectrum of emotions competing for attention or harmonizing contiguously.
posted by loquacious at 2:31 PM on July 11, 2023 [8 favorites]
It is both, and it is a spectrum, and I'm definitely not saying your hormones give anyone a free pass on being a shitty or abusive person.
But can testify that being testosterone dominant or hormones in general are no placebo. For example, the emotion we generally call "anger" felt like two different things, textures or vectors and more importantly processes with different ways to express it that are most satisfying or relieving when I compare testosterone to estrogen.
Somewhat related when estrogen dominant I've experienced a rather confusing and alarming emotional state where it's like I am - and I'm not trying to be cute, here, and this is difficult to put into words - but I'm like angry and happy at the same damn time, like hangry yet not wanting to eat and totally grossed out by food? I described it as feeling like wanted or needed to hug the absolute stuffing out of a dog, cat or even a human but also maybe actually eat it, and not in a "cute aggression" kind of way?
To me it definitely felt like testosterone was more acute and focused one emotion at a time kind of experience, while estrogen was more obtuse and diffused and often a blend and spectrum of emotions competing for attention or harmonizing contiguously.
posted by loquacious at 2:31 PM on July 11, 2023 [8 favorites]
I fully applaud what you did, MiraK, your son sounds awesome. I mostly outsourced my 15 year-old's upbringing to Steven Universe and Adventure Time, TBH.
So far, so good.
posted by signal at 3:21 PM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
So far, so good.
posted by signal at 3:21 PM on July 11, 2023 [3 favorites]
Hey, young men! You want a role model who’s masculine, sexy, and nontoxic? Levar Burton.
I'll say though, from experience, that he is very unkind to waitstaff and tips very badly. Not characteristics we should encourage in anyone. Still, the public persona is laudable.
posted by kensington314 at 4:52 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'll say though, from experience, that he is very unkind to waitstaff and tips very badly. Not characteristics we should encourage in anyone. Still, the public persona is laudable.
posted by kensington314 at 4:52 PM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Popping in to say that we humans (male/female/nonbinary) are more alike than we are different. The only reason people try to police masc/fem behaviour is the patriarchy. The less we worry about gender, the better, IMHO.
posted by acridrabbit at 8:49 PM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by acridrabbit at 8:49 PM on July 11, 2023 [2 favorites]
I haven't read the whole thread, but I want to throw in something about knowledge and risk-taking.
I think that badly thought-out submersible was partly a display of bad masculinity, the idea that real men take risks. They just charge into risks because that's courage.
There's another variety-- not uniquely male but still coded male in my head, about actually knowing the situation and pinning down the corners for as much safety as feasible.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:01 AM on July 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
I think that badly thought-out submersible was partly a display of bad masculinity, the idea that real men take risks. They just charge into risks because that's courage.
There's another variety-- not uniquely male but still coded male in my head, about actually knowing the situation and pinning down the corners for as much safety as feasible.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 8:01 AM on July 12, 2023 [3 favorites]
I’ve worked in male dominated spaces my whole life. One of the things that was characteristic of those spaces was (as a woman) routinely getting push back on safety and risk. Even mentioning that an action was risky (strategically or physically) usually got eye-rolling, big sighs, pushback or was ultimately ignored. And I remember these distinctly for the times I was right and projects got derailed, my friend nearly lost a finger, a worker nearly got brained by a massive chain falling after my yelling about why is nobody wearing the damn hard hats?! Did they stop and get hard hats? No, just continued on until the near-accident. Are all men like this? Hell no. I’m so lucky to have had several shop/heavy machine teachers who were male and were incredibly safety conscious and good teachers to both men and women, boys and girls. It’s important, I think, that their job was to teach. I’ve definitely seen men get into dangerous situations just because it’s apparently unmanly to appropriately teach use of equipment instead of just assuming the guy can figure it out. And in white collar settings where my job was strategy and logistics, the amount of instant pushback I get from some men is so stupid. It’s not like they actually think I’m wrong, it’s just…they can’t help themselves. They need to make it look like I’m a little bit wrong and they are probably more right. There’s numerous studies about how women in decision making leadership are advantageous to company success and longevity. I don’t know how you teach men to *value* and respect and learn from those examples. Girls outperform boys in school settings but then languish in lower paid positions. It’s maddening.
posted by amanda at 12:49 PM on July 12, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by amanda at 12:49 PM on July 12, 2023 [8 favorites]
Is there any way of pushing the idea that safety and knowledge and calculated risk when necessary are properly masculine? I'm assuming that men in general aren't going to give up on being masculine any time soon.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:19 PM on July 12, 2023
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:19 PM on July 12, 2023
> Is there any way of pushing the idea that safety and knowledge and calculated risk when necessary are properly masculine?
I don't think it would help.
I have a theory that it's often just sexism that makes men take inopportune risks. This is neatly illustrated by Amanda's anecdote. Those guys weren't so much invested in taking stupid risks as they were invested in acting dismissive towards a woman. I can point to examples of masculine preparedness and masculine risk calculation till the cows come home (Scouts? Combat strategy? The entire field of risk management which ime in the finance industry is staffed entirely by dudes) but bring in a woman who asks one question about safety and watch them all forget everything they've dedicated their lives to so far in the effort to show a woman that she's stupid for being concerned about safety.
It works for other things too, like women pointing out technical defects or women pointing out sexism or women pointing out something that could improve performance. No quicker way to get an optimization-obsessed dude to change his tune than to have a woman say, "Might be more efficient if ___"
posted by MiraK at 2:23 PM on July 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
I don't think it would help.
I have a theory that it's often just sexism that makes men take inopportune risks. This is neatly illustrated by Amanda's anecdote. Those guys weren't so much invested in taking stupid risks as they were invested in acting dismissive towards a woman. I can point to examples of masculine preparedness and masculine risk calculation till the cows come home (Scouts? Combat strategy? The entire field of risk management which ime in the finance industry is staffed entirely by dudes) but bring in a woman who asks one question about safety and watch them all forget everything they've dedicated their lives to so far in the effort to show a woman that she's stupid for being concerned about safety.
It works for other things too, like women pointing out technical defects or women pointing out sexism or women pointing out something that could improve performance. No quicker way to get an optimization-obsessed dude to change his tune than to have a woman say, "Might be more efficient if ___"
posted by MiraK at 2:23 PM on July 12, 2023 [4 favorites]
Those guys weren't so much invested in taking stupid risks as they were invested in acting dismissive towards a woman.
That and being afraid of what the other men would say, which is all tangled up in the same thing and partially expresses itself as being dismissive towards a woman and partially as stupid bravado in this case. Ironically some of them were probably genuinely worried about the risks and just would not admit it in that social situation, because patriarchy conditions some pretty stupid behaviors into people. Men would literally take a hammer dropped from high scaffolding to the brain instead of going to therapy, and such
posted by jason_steakums at 2:40 PM on July 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
That and being afraid of what the other men would say, which is all tangled up in the same thing and partially expresses itself as being dismissive towards a woman and partially as stupid bravado in this case. Ironically some of them were probably genuinely worried about the risks and just would not admit it in that social situation, because patriarchy conditions some pretty stupid behaviors into people. Men would literally take a hammer dropped from high scaffolding to the brain instead of going to therapy, and such
posted by jason_steakums at 2:40 PM on July 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Very hypothetical, but maybe what's needed is movies/tv etc., possibly but not necessarily made by men, where the sensible man saves the day and the blowhard risk-taking nitwit dies in some embarrassing fashion.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 4:39 PM on July 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 4:39 PM on July 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
I'm not saying this is right, true in every instance, or using it to excuse bad behavior:
Risk taking, confidence, and willingness to take the lead are often percieved to be positive hetero cis-male attributes during hetero courtship and dating, particulary amongst young people. That's kind of what this article is about. I guess it'd be nice if those behaviors could be strictly bracketed to romance and dating, but separating individual personality aspects by interpersonal context appears to be difficult. Perhaps that is the direction our culture is trying to head. I don't know.
*User ducks head from tomatoes hurled in his direction.
I'm not trying to be argumentative or controversial. I'm really not. But, I just get the sense this phenomenon kind of lurks as the "elephant in the room" during these discussions, and I think that it is worth exploring.
Or maybe I'm totally off base like I might have misused the "elephant in the room" saying above.
posted by eagles123 at 8:13 PM on July 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Risk taking, confidence, and willingness to take the lead are often percieved to be positive hetero cis-male attributes during hetero courtship and dating, particulary amongst young people. That's kind of what this article is about. I guess it'd be nice if those behaviors could be strictly bracketed to romance and dating, but separating individual personality aspects by interpersonal context appears to be difficult. Perhaps that is the direction our culture is trying to head. I don't know.
*User ducks head from tomatoes hurled in his direction.
I'm not trying to be argumentative or controversial. I'm really not. But, I just get the sense this phenomenon kind of lurks as the "elephant in the room" during these discussions, and I think that it is worth exploring.
Or maybe I'm totally off base like I might have misused the "elephant in the room" saying above.
posted by eagles123 at 8:13 PM on July 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
Very hypothetical, but maybe what's needed is movies/tv etc., possibly but not necessarily made by men, where the sensible man saves the day and the blowhard risk-taking nitwit dies in some embarrassing fashion.
This right here seems to be a theme in some sci-fi, though the opposite in other sci-fi stories. (For All Mankind last season comes to mind.)
I think it also explains part of my delighted schadenfreude at r/CapitolConsequences. So satisfying. How’s that for left wing patriotism? To see rabid MAGA idiots (mostly male, often poisoned by toxic masculinity) in a failed coup get their day in court.
posted by ec2y at 10:58 PM on July 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
This right here seems to be a theme in some sci-fi, though the opposite in other sci-fi stories. (For All Mankind last season comes to mind.)
I think it also explains part of my delighted schadenfreude at r/CapitolConsequences. So satisfying. How’s that for left wing patriotism? To see rabid MAGA idiots (mostly male, often poisoned by toxic masculinity) in a failed coup get their day in court.
posted by ec2y at 10:58 PM on July 12, 2023 [1 favorite]
While I'm not surprised that the conversation here has veered towards simultaneously critiquing masculinity as a construct and critiquing the gender binary, I think there's more to this issue than just those two vectors.
Yes, binary gender constructs force a lot of men into too-small identity palates while pushing some really terrible ideas about "who they are." Yes, masculinity as an umbrella is used to normalize some extremely toxic behaviors. But there are also people who fundamentally identify as male, and who gravitate towards masculinity because it suits their sense of self, in the same way that there are people who identify as female and gravitate towards femininity. And the point this article makes is that we really do not know how to discuss the world those people experience, particularly at young ages, beyond the endless discourse talking about the toxicity of men, of maleness, and of masculinity.
It took me until I was 27 to realize that masculinity is an important part of my identity: that when I lean into my masculinity, I feel like myself, and that when I push back against it, I feel intensely uncomfortable in my own skin. It's hard for me to describe just how much my life has changed in the half-decade since I figured that out: it's not just that I'm more confident or have more fun being me, it's that I literally did not know how to form healthy relationships with people, and now I do. My disconnect with my masculinity led to my getting into a seriously abusive relationship, because I was unable to perceive how poorly I was being treated. I felt such a self-loathing towards my own tendency towards masculinity—and, relatedly, towards heterosexuality—that the abuse and neglect I received felt like what I deserved. I was routinely, repeatedly gaslit by my ex; I was told that I was responsible for how terribly she treated me; and I believed it, because I'd told myself the same things long before I ever met her.
I've met a shocking number of men who've been through similar experiences. I'm not talking about the Joe Rogan crowd: I'm talking about intersectional feminists who care a shitload about unlearning their own privilege, are friends with plenty of women, and often outwardly appear to be comfortable in their own skin. A lot of them struggle to talk about this, in part because they don't have words for it, and in part because there are plenty of left-leaning social circles where masculine self-loathing isn't a welcome discussion. I've had men who were afraid to talk to me about this because they're so used to men policing what other men say, calling them misogynist for trying to talk about it, or turning attempts to vulnerably discuss a difficult subject into a performative fight.
And, yes, I've heard a lot of men—even ones with stable enough senses of self that they're not in danger of being radicalized—say that they find Joe Rogan or Jordan Peterson cathartic because they catch glimmers of conversations there that they struggle to find elsewhere. Natalie Wynn brought this up on a Chapo Trap House guest appearance a few years ago: a lot of well-intentioned men are faced with a seeming choice between a left-wing version of maleness that mostly consists of unlearning bad behaviors and a right-wing version that, in between bullshit conspiracy theories, tries to articulate a positive masculinity, and find themselves veering towards the right. I've had that happen with male acquaintances who tried, for a long time, to find ways of feeling welcome in more left-leaning circles, men who were fully aware that the Jordan Peterson vision of maleness is on many levels a crock of shit, and who nonetheless found themselves moving towards "less political" (i.e. more right-wing) circles because it was the only place where they felt welcome.
I'm not saying this as some kind of both-sides nonsense: I'm allergic to Peterson and Rogan, I think Andrew Tate is a virulent cancer, and I'm not about to claim that it's feminism's fault that men struggle on the left. In fact, I think that a lot of men who struggle on the left struggle because we never unlearned the toxic behaviors we picked up on in the mainstream; moreover, we never learned more positive behaviors either. Men who never learned how to form healthy bonds with other men don't suddenly develop that skill upon learning that most men have shitty behaviors; if anything, they've just been handed a new excuse not to connect with other men, or a new way of seeing other men as competition, or flat-out a new way to bully and coerce one another. Right-wing radicalization movements, meanwhile, aren't reaching out to make men feel comfortable out of the goodness of their hearts: they're doing it because "make someone feel accepted" isn't just a basic tenet of any healthy community, it's also a fundamental conversion tactic for any aspiring cult.
But it's hard to talk about "men" or "masculinity" when those are the terms we're using. Masculinity as an aesthetic, for instance, is different from masculinity as a culture, and both of those are different from masculinity as a set of personality assumptions.
On some level, for instance, I think that cishet men would benefit from being able to get as geeky about masculine presentation as every other demographic gets about their aesthetics: the likes of GQ and Crossfit make such rigid cultural and class assumptions about their participants that a lot of men simply don't have access to that stuff. There's a reason why MaleFashionAdvice is one of the most popular subreddits in existence, and it's because men are just not given avenues to be playful with masculine presentation. (And yes, men should be allowed to pursue non-masculine presentations too, but not every man does in fact feel more like himself while wearing eyeliner. It sucks that "appearing masculine" has been culturally dominated by either reactionary or wealthy institutions.)
Masculinity-as-personality, meanwhile, needs a thorough weeding. It can be hard to suss out the lines between "taking control" and "being controlling," or between "assertive" and "silencing voices in a room." What's the line between being flirtatious and being a chauvinist, or between playful banter and negging? How do you learn how to be in a room without either (a) compulsively feeling the need to speak up and hear the sound of your own voice or (b) being so uncommunicative that it stops being "strong and silent" and starts flat-out being emotional unavailability?
I love me the fuck out of some Steven Universe and I love that we're creating role models for boys that don't purely revolve around masculinity, but I also don't think that masculinity as a construct is going away. And your mileage may vary, but I personally wouldn't want it to, in the same way that I'm quite fond of femininity as a construct. I'd love to decouple both of them from anything remotely resembling heteronormativity, and neither should ever be imposed on people as a model of how they ought to act, but they hold a lot of power as archetypes for a reason. And you'll never get rid of them, because we are pattern recognizing creatures and we love to create groupings of things; at most, you can create new archetypes, which is why "masculinity" as an archetype is in fact a few hundred different archetypes all Venn diagramming one another. You can try to eliminate every single thing that you've ever seen associated with traditional masculinity or with maleness or with men, but can you guarantee that, once all those things are removed, you won't be left with a whole chunk of people who feel drawn to all those things? Because those people will go looking for explanations that suit them, and if you haven't created a more positive vision of masculinity, the only things those folks are gonna find are the old tired right-wing bullshit.
I have not-so-fond memories of a lot of late nights in my late teens and early twenties, nights where I found myself reading proto-MRA blogs with a kind of horrified fascination. The men writing those blogs were clearly poisonous and awful shitheads—I never once lost sight of that. But I also felt this awful knife-twist loneliness, this horrific sense of not fitting in, not knowing how to fit in, not knowing how to find the connections I was most desperate to find, silently terrified that my very yearning for such a connection meant that I was fundamentally toxic as a human being, that I was doomed to hurt whoever I reached out and touched. And for a decade of my life, the gross-ass "manosphere" was the only culture I knew that remotely touched upon that feeling I had, or acknowledged that it was a real feeling. (In fact, the more progressive and enlightened cultures I belonged to were often the ones that most made me feel like a piece of shit whenever I tried to express having those feelings.)
I'm in a pretty happy place these days. But, Jesus, some of the men I talk to. Some of the men who reach out to me, because I write a blog where I talk about sex and relationships, or just because I have a relationship. Some of those men break my fucking heart.
Yes, some of the guys who reach out to me are unbelievably sick and damaged. Some of them parrot sick and damaged things, because they're clearly afraid of owning up to how afraid they are. (Those ones I sometimes try to help.) Some of them are just too apathetic, too unconcerned, to give a shit. But some of them are just hurting, and clearly have been hurting for decades. And of the ones who hurt, sure, some of them try to articulate their hurt using ideas they picked up on some grody subreddit, or they don't know how to express their loneliness without reverting to flashes of resentment or bursts of anger. But some of them are too sweet and gentle even to go there. They're sweet, they're gentle, they're incredibly concerned with meaning well, and they just do not have the first idea about how to make peace with the parts of themselves that they despise, or how to play with being a little masculine or "being" a "man," without everything going catastrophically wrong.
Conventional wisdom is, just learn how to be a decent person! Just learn how to listen to other people. Just learn how to treat women decently. It's not hard, men. It's not hard. And to some extent, and for certain men, that's enough, because they've got all the other pieces they need: if they unlearn the shitty shit, if they figure out how to perform basic emotional labor, they've got it made. But that isn't always enough. For a lot of men, it is hard. It's really heartbreakingly hard. And if the only answer is to try and unlearn even more toxicity, to try and find more ways to blame being male or being masculine, you do eventually wind up at a point where you're blaming quite a lot of victims.
It's not just a crisis of masculinity, obviously. The economy is in shambles. People have fewer opportunities than ever. There are fewer ways to go out and meet people, and the ways that exist cost more and more money. Everybody is lonely. Everybody is suffering.
But I do think that there's a dearth of resources for cishet men, and for men who lean towards more heteronormative standards (whether or not they like that those are the standards). I think the "crisis of masculinity" is more than just that toxic masculinity gets critiqued so much, more than just the loss of a little bit of male privilege. That's not intersectional feminism's fault, obviously, and (as feminists correctly constantly point out) our toxic cultural mores do hurt men, and are responsible for an awful lot of male pain. In my experience, though, a lot of people lean on all those arguments because they're convenient ways of dismissing the possibility that there is more going on here. They're all clean-cut, they present easy answers, and they let the conversation shift back away towards "anybody but straight men," because everybody is understandably tired of talking about men. But I suspect that people lean on those arguments, too, because if you do acknowledge that something more is happening here, then suddenly you're dealing with a serious problem that doesn't have an easy answer, and that's scary.
I've been thinking about this pretty heavily for the last few years. I'd love to find an answer, and maybe dedicate a chunk of my life to doing something about it, but I don't know what the solution is. I do think that there's a problem, though, and I'm glad that it's being talked about by folks who aren't transphobic dipshits. This is a very, very dangerous territory to cede to right-wing nutjobs, and I think that a lot of the claims that this isn't an issue at all, that even suggesting that it's an issue is ceding ground to reactionary bigots, inadvertently help reinforce the relative dearth of discussion about this on the left, while also signaling that any man who feels insecure about all this might also, without his even realizing it, be a misogynistic piece of shit.
Which, make no mistake, is a signal that a lot of men receive. Yes, some of those men go on to become redpill dipshits and that sucks, but don't underestimate how many men who don't do that nonetheless feel like they're receiving that signal loud and clear. This is hands-down one of the subjects that I've most had men approach me about—and given how nervous many of them were about discussing it, even in private, I suspect the situation is a lot worse than even that.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 9:29 AM on July 14, 2023 [16 favorites]
Yes, binary gender constructs force a lot of men into too-small identity palates while pushing some really terrible ideas about "who they are." Yes, masculinity as an umbrella is used to normalize some extremely toxic behaviors. But there are also people who fundamentally identify as male, and who gravitate towards masculinity because it suits their sense of self, in the same way that there are people who identify as female and gravitate towards femininity. And the point this article makes is that we really do not know how to discuss the world those people experience, particularly at young ages, beyond the endless discourse talking about the toxicity of men, of maleness, and of masculinity.
It took me until I was 27 to realize that masculinity is an important part of my identity: that when I lean into my masculinity, I feel like myself, and that when I push back against it, I feel intensely uncomfortable in my own skin. It's hard for me to describe just how much my life has changed in the half-decade since I figured that out: it's not just that I'm more confident or have more fun being me, it's that I literally did not know how to form healthy relationships with people, and now I do. My disconnect with my masculinity led to my getting into a seriously abusive relationship, because I was unable to perceive how poorly I was being treated. I felt such a self-loathing towards my own tendency towards masculinity—and, relatedly, towards heterosexuality—that the abuse and neglect I received felt like what I deserved. I was routinely, repeatedly gaslit by my ex; I was told that I was responsible for how terribly she treated me; and I believed it, because I'd told myself the same things long before I ever met her.
I've met a shocking number of men who've been through similar experiences. I'm not talking about the Joe Rogan crowd: I'm talking about intersectional feminists who care a shitload about unlearning their own privilege, are friends with plenty of women, and often outwardly appear to be comfortable in their own skin. A lot of them struggle to talk about this, in part because they don't have words for it, and in part because there are plenty of left-leaning social circles where masculine self-loathing isn't a welcome discussion. I've had men who were afraid to talk to me about this because they're so used to men policing what other men say, calling them misogynist for trying to talk about it, or turning attempts to vulnerably discuss a difficult subject into a performative fight.
And, yes, I've heard a lot of men—even ones with stable enough senses of self that they're not in danger of being radicalized—say that they find Joe Rogan or Jordan Peterson cathartic because they catch glimmers of conversations there that they struggle to find elsewhere. Natalie Wynn brought this up on a Chapo Trap House guest appearance a few years ago: a lot of well-intentioned men are faced with a seeming choice between a left-wing version of maleness that mostly consists of unlearning bad behaviors and a right-wing version that, in between bullshit conspiracy theories, tries to articulate a positive masculinity, and find themselves veering towards the right. I've had that happen with male acquaintances who tried, for a long time, to find ways of feeling welcome in more left-leaning circles, men who were fully aware that the Jordan Peterson vision of maleness is on many levels a crock of shit, and who nonetheless found themselves moving towards "less political" (i.e. more right-wing) circles because it was the only place where they felt welcome.
I'm not saying this as some kind of both-sides nonsense: I'm allergic to Peterson and Rogan, I think Andrew Tate is a virulent cancer, and I'm not about to claim that it's feminism's fault that men struggle on the left. In fact, I think that a lot of men who struggle on the left struggle because we never unlearned the toxic behaviors we picked up on in the mainstream; moreover, we never learned more positive behaviors either. Men who never learned how to form healthy bonds with other men don't suddenly develop that skill upon learning that most men have shitty behaviors; if anything, they've just been handed a new excuse not to connect with other men, or a new way of seeing other men as competition, or flat-out a new way to bully and coerce one another. Right-wing radicalization movements, meanwhile, aren't reaching out to make men feel comfortable out of the goodness of their hearts: they're doing it because "make someone feel accepted" isn't just a basic tenet of any healthy community, it's also a fundamental conversion tactic for any aspiring cult.
But it's hard to talk about "men" or "masculinity" when those are the terms we're using. Masculinity as an aesthetic, for instance, is different from masculinity as a culture, and both of those are different from masculinity as a set of personality assumptions.
On some level, for instance, I think that cishet men would benefit from being able to get as geeky about masculine presentation as every other demographic gets about their aesthetics: the likes of GQ and Crossfit make such rigid cultural and class assumptions about their participants that a lot of men simply don't have access to that stuff. There's a reason why MaleFashionAdvice is one of the most popular subreddits in existence, and it's because men are just not given avenues to be playful with masculine presentation. (And yes, men should be allowed to pursue non-masculine presentations too, but not every man does in fact feel more like himself while wearing eyeliner. It sucks that "appearing masculine" has been culturally dominated by either reactionary or wealthy institutions.)
Masculinity-as-personality, meanwhile, needs a thorough weeding. It can be hard to suss out the lines between "taking control" and "being controlling," or between "assertive" and "silencing voices in a room." What's the line between being flirtatious and being a chauvinist, or between playful banter and negging? How do you learn how to be in a room without either (a) compulsively feeling the need to speak up and hear the sound of your own voice or (b) being so uncommunicative that it stops being "strong and silent" and starts flat-out being emotional unavailability?
I love me the fuck out of some Steven Universe and I love that we're creating role models for boys that don't purely revolve around masculinity, but I also don't think that masculinity as a construct is going away. And your mileage may vary, but I personally wouldn't want it to, in the same way that I'm quite fond of femininity as a construct. I'd love to decouple both of them from anything remotely resembling heteronormativity, and neither should ever be imposed on people as a model of how they ought to act, but they hold a lot of power as archetypes for a reason. And you'll never get rid of them, because we are pattern recognizing creatures and we love to create groupings of things; at most, you can create new archetypes, which is why "masculinity" as an archetype is in fact a few hundred different archetypes all Venn diagramming one another. You can try to eliminate every single thing that you've ever seen associated with traditional masculinity or with maleness or with men, but can you guarantee that, once all those things are removed, you won't be left with a whole chunk of people who feel drawn to all those things? Because those people will go looking for explanations that suit them, and if you haven't created a more positive vision of masculinity, the only things those folks are gonna find are the old tired right-wing bullshit.
I have not-so-fond memories of a lot of late nights in my late teens and early twenties, nights where I found myself reading proto-MRA blogs with a kind of horrified fascination. The men writing those blogs were clearly poisonous and awful shitheads—I never once lost sight of that. But I also felt this awful knife-twist loneliness, this horrific sense of not fitting in, not knowing how to fit in, not knowing how to find the connections I was most desperate to find, silently terrified that my very yearning for such a connection meant that I was fundamentally toxic as a human being, that I was doomed to hurt whoever I reached out and touched. And for a decade of my life, the gross-ass "manosphere" was the only culture I knew that remotely touched upon that feeling I had, or acknowledged that it was a real feeling. (In fact, the more progressive and enlightened cultures I belonged to were often the ones that most made me feel like a piece of shit whenever I tried to express having those feelings.)
I'm in a pretty happy place these days. But, Jesus, some of the men I talk to. Some of the men who reach out to me, because I write a blog where I talk about sex and relationships, or just because I have a relationship. Some of those men break my fucking heart.
Yes, some of the guys who reach out to me are unbelievably sick and damaged. Some of them parrot sick and damaged things, because they're clearly afraid of owning up to how afraid they are. (Those ones I sometimes try to help.) Some of them are just too apathetic, too unconcerned, to give a shit. But some of them are just hurting, and clearly have been hurting for decades. And of the ones who hurt, sure, some of them try to articulate their hurt using ideas they picked up on some grody subreddit, or they don't know how to express their loneliness without reverting to flashes of resentment or bursts of anger. But some of them are too sweet and gentle even to go there. They're sweet, they're gentle, they're incredibly concerned with meaning well, and they just do not have the first idea about how to make peace with the parts of themselves that they despise, or how to play with being a little masculine or "being" a "man," without everything going catastrophically wrong.
Conventional wisdom is, just learn how to be a decent person! Just learn how to listen to other people. Just learn how to treat women decently. It's not hard, men. It's not hard. And to some extent, and for certain men, that's enough, because they've got all the other pieces they need: if they unlearn the shitty shit, if they figure out how to perform basic emotional labor, they've got it made. But that isn't always enough. For a lot of men, it is hard. It's really heartbreakingly hard. And if the only answer is to try and unlearn even more toxicity, to try and find more ways to blame being male or being masculine, you do eventually wind up at a point where you're blaming quite a lot of victims.
It's not just a crisis of masculinity, obviously. The economy is in shambles. People have fewer opportunities than ever. There are fewer ways to go out and meet people, and the ways that exist cost more and more money. Everybody is lonely. Everybody is suffering.
But I do think that there's a dearth of resources for cishet men, and for men who lean towards more heteronormative standards (whether or not they like that those are the standards). I think the "crisis of masculinity" is more than just that toxic masculinity gets critiqued so much, more than just the loss of a little bit of male privilege. That's not intersectional feminism's fault, obviously, and (as feminists correctly constantly point out) our toxic cultural mores do hurt men, and are responsible for an awful lot of male pain. In my experience, though, a lot of people lean on all those arguments because they're convenient ways of dismissing the possibility that there is more going on here. They're all clean-cut, they present easy answers, and they let the conversation shift back away towards "anybody but straight men," because everybody is understandably tired of talking about men. But I suspect that people lean on those arguments, too, because if you do acknowledge that something more is happening here, then suddenly you're dealing with a serious problem that doesn't have an easy answer, and that's scary.
I've been thinking about this pretty heavily for the last few years. I'd love to find an answer, and maybe dedicate a chunk of my life to doing something about it, but I don't know what the solution is. I do think that there's a problem, though, and I'm glad that it's being talked about by folks who aren't transphobic dipshits. This is a very, very dangerous territory to cede to right-wing nutjobs, and I think that a lot of the claims that this isn't an issue at all, that even suggesting that it's an issue is ceding ground to reactionary bigots, inadvertently help reinforce the relative dearth of discussion about this on the left, while also signaling that any man who feels insecure about all this might also, without his even realizing it, be a misogynistic piece of shit.
Which, make no mistake, is a signal that a lot of men receive. Yes, some of those men go on to become redpill dipshits and that sucks, but don't underestimate how many men who don't do that nonetheless feel like they're receiving that signal loud and clear. This is hands-down one of the subjects that I've most had men approach me about—and given how nervous many of them were about discussing it, even in private, I suspect the situation is a lot worse than even that.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 9:29 AM on July 14, 2023 [16 favorites]
I'm trying to square all that with your username, Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted, and it just seems to work perfectly. :)
One thing that springs out at me from your examples pinning this to Right and Left such as that construct exists for the U.S. population is that the Left is constantly telling us we gotta work. If we want these things, we gotta work. The Right suggests that men, white men in particular, already own these things, they just have to take them. They are owed these things and these things are one and the same as being a Right-leaning man. If you don't have these things, it's a personal failing and you need to find your bootstraps and take these things. The people who would deny you these things are women, minorities and the Left. It's so easy! Requires no work at all to join the aggrieved at demanding what is yours. If you join the Left, we promise you that you can work alongside the rest of us and there is a lot to do so get ready to jump in and get dirty. If you join the Right, you don't have to do none of that. Oppression is your birthright! Just keep us in power and we'll keep the bennies rolling. (They won't but this is your identity now so just put your head down and keep pushing.)
In contrast, what is the Left offering to minorities and women? What is the Right offering? The Left benefits from this culture war almost as much as the Right. Women are encultured, actually, to get in there and do the dirty work for the benefit of the community. So, we are in. But, the Trad Wife option is also attractive, especially as the Right makes it harder and harder for women. The abortion war is all about getting women beholden to men and men beholden to the Right. So, by seeing things that appear attractive to you on the Right, it's because they are catering to you specifically. It is truly hard to align yourself with an entity that doesn't cater to you. The Right offers a tempting illusion, the Left says you'll need to give these things up if you want a better, more joined community.
posted by amanda at 9:51 AM on July 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
One thing that springs out at me from your examples pinning this to Right and Left such as that construct exists for the U.S. population is that the Left is constantly telling us we gotta work. If we want these things, we gotta work. The Right suggests that men, white men in particular, already own these things, they just have to take them. They are owed these things and these things are one and the same as being a Right-leaning man. If you don't have these things, it's a personal failing and you need to find your bootstraps and take these things. The people who would deny you these things are women, minorities and the Left. It's so easy! Requires no work at all to join the aggrieved at demanding what is yours. If you join the Left, we promise you that you can work alongside the rest of us and there is a lot to do so get ready to jump in and get dirty. If you join the Right, you don't have to do none of that. Oppression is your birthright! Just keep us in power and we'll keep the bennies rolling. (They won't but this is your identity now so just put your head down and keep pushing.)
In contrast, what is the Left offering to minorities and women? What is the Right offering? The Left benefits from this culture war almost as much as the Right. Women are encultured, actually, to get in there and do the dirty work for the benefit of the community. So, we are in. But, the Trad Wife option is also attractive, especially as the Right makes it harder and harder for women. The abortion war is all about getting women beholden to men and men beholden to the Right. So, by seeing things that appear attractive to you on the Right, it's because they are catering to you specifically. It is truly hard to align yourself with an entity that doesn't cater to you. The Right offers a tempting illusion, the Left says you'll need to give these things up if you want a better, more joined community.
posted by amanda at 9:51 AM on July 14, 2023 [6 favorites]
amanda: I had a conversation with someone I consider myself fairly close to, someone who's struggled with relationships and connections for a long time, where he said something like: "I know I'm not working on myself just to get a cookie. I know I'm not doing this stuff to 'earn' other people or to 'attain' them. But also, I could really use a cookie."
It's genuinely upsetting to see someone put in tremendous amounts of effort for years, despite facing all kinds of struggles, and still be in the place of... not just not having a healthy relationship, but wondering whether even basic healthy human connection is ever going to happen. (The only thing I knew to tell him was that, once you've made a healthy connection a couple of times, you stop worrying that each one you make is a fluke... which is true, but still not a whole lot of solace when you're still waiting on it to happen once.)
The MRA vision of men working to "earn" women, the one that says some men are superior to others and "deserve" women, is such a weird mixture of toxic and aspirational. Obviously it's fucked up in all kinds of ways, but it does present the idea, on some level, that if you're desperately lonely and isolated, you can go to the gym or get a raise at work or [insert hoary cliché here], and if you keep on doing that it'll lead somewhere, eventually. I get why that appeals to so many desperately lonely people. Jordan Peterson's whole "clean your room" thing works on the same level: it presents a narrative in which you can assert control over your own life. And while that need for control often forms the seeds for toxic masculinity itself, the despairing feeling that you have no control over your own life isn't really any better, and the leftist conversation about privilege and structural oppression doesn't always address that. At its worst, it can leave people feeling more hopeless.
I mentioned that I wish there were better ways for men to get playful with masculine presentations, and I think that that urge for play runs deeper and is more important than we often acknowledge. So much of my emotional well-being and healthy social/dating life comes from the fact that I just have fun being myself now; I enjoy seeing what happens when I come into contact with other people, rather than dreading things going wrong, or feeling a futile sense that certain nice outcomes just won't ever happen. The less I worry about outcome, in fact, the more it feels like I wind up in lovely circumstances.
I forget who said it, but at some point I came across the idea that the right always has the advantage of material power and a living memory. The left is always the side advocating a possible better future, with fewer resources and with less evidence that better is possible. But the left is free to be playful in a way that reactionary institutions can't be: it's allowed to make up its own rules, it's allowed not to assume that certain things are set in stone, and it's allowed to value people having a collective good time. I think that Judith Butler was right about camp being a radical, liberating force for all matters gender: my version of masculinity is a campy self-identity, because I enjoy being masculine but also don't need to take that identity "seriously." And I think that a decent divining rod for whether or not a version of masculinity is healthy or not is how much it embraces playfulness; the more it insists that men "don't" do certain things, the worse it is.
(Obviously, playfulness is a collective quality, and "doing XYZ ruins the fun for somebody else" is a genuinely important consideration. Which makes the whole conversation about being decent to others way easier to have, in my experience: I don't have to get anxious about memorizing 78 separate rules for talking to women, I just have to make sure that anyone I'm talking with is having a decent time. Simple! And any time we run into something that's not fun for one person or another, we don't just have to throw up a steel wall and call it off-limits: reconciling our separate feelings and whims and finding a way to make things work for everybody becomes the game. This applies to much more than just gender identity, obviously.)
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 11:02 AM on July 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
It's genuinely upsetting to see someone put in tremendous amounts of effort for years, despite facing all kinds of struggles, and still be in the place of... not just not having a healthy relationship, but wondering whether even basic healthy human connection is ever going to happen. (The only thing I knew to tell him was that, once you've made a healthy connection a couple of times, you stop worrying that each one you make is a fluke... which is true, but still not a whole lot of solace when you're still waiting on it to happen once.)
The MRA vision of men working to "earn" women, the one that says some men are superior to others and "deserve" women, is such a weird mixture of toxic and aspirational. Obviously it's fucked up in all kinds of ways, but it does present the idea, on some level, that if you're desperately lonely and isolated, you can go to the gym or get a raise at work or [insert hoary cliché here], and if you keep on doing that it'll lead somewhere, eventually. I get why that appeals to so many desperately lonely people. Jordan Peterson's whole "clean your room" thing works on the same level: it presents a narrative in which you can assert control over your own life. And while that need for control often forms the seeds for toxic masculinity itself, the despairing feeling that you have no control over your own life isn't really any better, and the leftist conversation about privilege and structural oppression doesn't always address that. At its worst, it can leave people feeling more hopeless.
I mentioned that I wish there were better ways for men to get playful with masculine presentations, and I think that that urge for play runs deeper and is more important than we often acknowledge. So much of my emotional well-being and healthy social/dating life comes from the fact that I just have fun being myself now; I enjoy seeing what happens when I come into contact with other people, rather than dreading things going wrong, or feeling a futile sense that certain nice outcomes just won't ever happen. The less I worry about outcome, in fact, the more it feels like I wind up in lovely circumstances.
I forget who said it, but at some point I came across the idea that the right always has the advantage of material power and a living memory. The left is always the side advocating a possible better future, with fewer resources and with less evidence that better is possible. But the left is free to be playful in a way that reactionary institutions can't be: it's allowed to make up its own rules, it's allowed not to assume that certain things are set in stone, and it's allowed to value people having a collective good time. I think that Judith Butler was right about camp being a radical, liberating force for all matters gender: my version of masculinity is a campy self-identity, because I enjoy being masculine but also don't need to take that identity "seriously." And I think that a decent divining rod for whether or not a version of masculinity is healthy or not is how much it embraces playfulness; the more it insists that men "don't" do certain things, the worse it is.
(Obviously, playfulness is a collective quality, and "doing XYZ ruins the fun for somebody else" is a genuinely important consideration. Which makes the whole conversation about being decent to others way easier to have, in my experience: I don't have to get anxious about memorizing 78 separate rules for talking to women, I just have to make sure that anyone I'm talking with is having a decent time. Simple! And any time we run into something that's not fun for one person or another, we don't just have to throw up a steel wall and call it off-limits: reconciling our separate feelings and whims and finding a way to make things work for everybody becomes the game. This applies to much more than just gender identity, obviously.)
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 11:02 AM on July 14, 2023 [5 favorites]
You can try to eliminate every single thing that you've ever seen associated with traditional masculinity or with maleness or with men, but can you guarantee that, once all those things are removed, you won't be left with a whole chunk of people who feel drawn to all those things? Because those people will go looking for explanations that suit them, and if you haven't created a more positive vision of masculinity, the only things those folks are gonna find are the old tired right-wing bullshit.
I'd suggest that examples of this do already exist, actually. The Cinema Therapy video I linked to up here brings up the notion of The Warrior Poet - and you can find a crapton of Warrior Poets throughout fictional AND real history. The flip side of that, though, is that these same figures are also used by the Bro-Code-Manosphere - the kind of "chivalry" the Warrior Poet depicts gets used as an excuse to be "A White Knight for the helpless lady". So I agree with you that there's a little something more going on than "masculinity: good or bad?", but I think one of the complicating factors has to be "how are we defining masculinity in the first place, and why."
Freely admitting that I'm talking out my ass right now, and what I'm saying is fueled by some pop culture deep-dives crossbred with having mainlined Free To Be You And Me during grade school. But I think one important piece of the puzzle is: respect for one's self, and respect for others. At some level, I don't think the Manosphere guys have really learned how to respect either themselves or other people, on a basic they're-distinct-human-beings-and-deserving-of-dignity way. Nor have they learned how to have that kind of innate respect for their own selves. It's all about gender roles and trappings: Real Men must attain A.B.C. and D. in order to really be "successful" as men, and in Situation E.F. or G. a Real Man must do H.I. and J. And if a Real Man wants a woman, he needs to do X, Y, and Z because...
You know? That kind of approach completely ignores the uniqueness of each person, their strengths, their weaknesses, their personalities. Including one's own uniqueness. If we're taught how to respect and accept our own selves, and that we also need to do that for each other, then we're more likely to organically know when and how to step in and help others; it's not always perfect and we'll still screw up, but we'll know the difference between "I need to to help that lady because I Am Man Rawr" and "shit, that woman looks uncomfortable because that douche is bugging her, lemme see if I can step in somehow."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:08 AM on July 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'd suggest that examples of this do already exist, actually. The Cinema Therapy video I linked to up here brings up the notion of The Warrior Poet - and you can find a crapton of Warrior Poets throughout fictional AND real history. The flip side of that, though, is that these same figures are also used by the Bro-Code-Manosphere - the kind of "chivalry" the Warrior Poet depicts gets used as an excuse to be "A White Knight for the helpless lady". So I agree with you that there's a little something more going on than "masculinity: good or bad?", but I think one of the complicating factors has to be "how are we defining masculinity in the first place, and why."
Freely admitting that I'm talking out my ass right now, and what I'm saying is fueled by some pop culture deep-dives crossbred with having mainlined Free To Be You And Me during grade school. But I think one important piece of the puzzle is: respect for one's self, and respect for others. At some level, I don't think the Manosphere guys have really learned how to respect either themselves or other people, on a basic they're-distinct-human-beings-and-deserving-of-dignity way. Nor have they learned how to have that kind of innate respect for their own selves. It's all about gender roles and trappings: Real Men must attain A.B.C. and D. in order to really be "successful" as men, and in Situation E.F. or G. a Real Man must do H.I. and J. And if a Real Man wants a woman, he needs to do X, Y, and Z because...
You know? That kind of approach completely ignores the uniqueness of each person, their strengths, their weaknesses, their personalities. Including one's own uniqueness. If we're taught how to respect and accept our own selves, and that we also need to do that for each other, then we're more likely to organically know when and how to step in and help others; it's not always perfect and we'll still screw up, but we'll know the difference between "I need to to help that lady because I Am Man Rawr" and "shit, that woman looks uncomfortable because that douche is bugging her, lemme see if I can step in somehow."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:08 AM on July 14, 2023 [3 favorites]
“The Crisis Over American Manhood Is Really Code for Something Else,” Virginia Heffernan, Politico, 14 July 2023
Male malaise in the United States goes back to the founders, and it is a preoccupation of elites in particular. They might teach us something about this current wave of manliness panic.posted by ob1quixote at 9:48 AM on July 15, 2023 [6 favorites]
Good article above from Politico about politicians preaching manhood from the Bible. It makes sense that if right wing strategists want to preach the economic survival of the fittest, a form of libertarianism, they can't pass up the chance to preach manliness to the family guy, because women are more sensible about caring for the family, and willing to use a public safety net. As right wing strategists from marketing backgrounds, they seem to know that financially insecure men are eager to flaunt their masculinity as a coping mechanism.
posted by Brian B. at 11:57 AM on July 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by Brian B. at 11:57 AM on July 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
Also from Politico, about a new poll: The Best Way to Find Out If Someone Is a Trump Voter? Ask Them What They Think About Manhood.
In which 73% of both Republicans and Democrats agree with this quote from First Gentleman Doug Emhoff (as long as you don't tell them who said it):
“We’ve kind of confused what it means to be a man, what it means to be masculine. You’ve got this trope out there that you’ve got to be tough — and angry and lash out to be strong. It’s just the opposite. … Strength is how you show your love for people. … And how you stick up for other people and [push back] against bullies.”
posted by box at 2:07 PM on July 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
In which 73% of both Republicans and Democrats agree with this quote from First Gentleman Doug Emhoff (as long as you don't tell them who said it):
“We’ve kind of confused what it means to be a man, what it means to be masculine. You’ve got this trope out there that you’ve got to be tough — and angry and lash out to be strong. It’s just the opposite. … Strength is how you show your love for people. … And how you stick up for other people and [push back] against bullies.”
posted by box at 2:07 PM on July 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
I think most male malaise could be cured by Good Jobs at Good Wages, a slogan that I wish was closer to the center of leftist discourse.
posted by ducky l'orange at 1:32 PM on July
A lot of the "men" crisis is that lower class men and men of color are not being hired to be, say, nurses and teachers, although our economy needs nurses and teachers and more men in caretaking professions.
Because men are not being hired in these "pink"collar positions, their funding gets cutand wages are stagnant. It s a chicken and egg problem. We need both affirmative action for male teachers, and higher wages for teachers.
Schools are also not recruiting men into the trades, which we also need. But Republicans don't want to fund community colleges, or vocational programs, mostly.
Compare the debate--child care and health care were not considered "infrastructure", because, although we need growth in these sectors, these are the sectors that are not hiring /recruiting proportional numbers of men.
But a man being a Nurse does conflict with the old Roman masculinity, and patriarchal masculinity, let s be real. If Caesar were not sodomizing someone, he wouldn't be Caesar, it would be scandalous. That was/is part of manhood. Only recently, ironically with the rise of Christianity, are we increasing the idea that there s a person on the other end of the psychosexual relationship. We go from Caesar to Thomas Jefferson, and it was bad for Jefferson to do what he did to Sally Hemmings, but not bad enough to affect his presidential campaign, it was understood.
And now we have, who, Bill Clinton? nowadays the public loves Monica more, and we are getting around to prosecuting Trump, and sheriffs and priests, these patriarchs, as rapists.
So we need to recruit men as nurses, and accept that nurses need to be paid oodles of money, economically. This pink collar shit is fucking up our economy and fucking men up.
but we also need to firmly commit to prosecuting these abusive priests and cops, loudly and publically, as a rejection of that old roman patriarchal manhood of subordination.
posted by eustatic at 6:45 PM on July 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
posted by ducky l'orange at 1:32 PM on July
A lot of the "men" crisis is that lower class men and men of color are not being hired to be, say, nurses and teachers, although our economy needs nurses and teachers and more men in caretaking professions.
Because men are not being hired in these "pink"collar positions, their funding gets cutand wages are stagnant. It s a chicken and egg problem. We need both affirmative action for male teachers, and higher wages for teachers.
Schools are also not recruiting men into the trades, which we also need. But Republicans don't want to fund community colleges, or vocational programs, mostly.
Compare the debate--child care and health care were not considered "infrastructure", because, although we need growth in these sectors, these are the sectors that are not hiring /recruiting proportional numbers of men.
But a man being a Nurse does conflict with the old Roman masculinity, and patriarchal masculinity, let s be real. If Caesar were not sodomizing someone, he wouldn't be Caesar, it would be scandalous. That was/is part of manhood. Only recently, ironically with the rise of Christianity, are we increasing the idea that there s a person on the other end of the psychosexual relationship. We go from Caesar to Thomas Jefferson, and it was bad for Jefferson to do what he did to Sally Hemmings, but not bad enough to affect his presidential campaign, it was understood.
And now we have, who, Bill Clinton? nowadays the public loves Monica more, and we are getting around to prosecuting Trump, and sheriffs and priests, these patriarchs, as rapists.
So we need to recruit men as nurses, and accept that nurses need to be paid oodles of money, economically. This pink collar shit is fucking up our economy and fucking men up.
but we also need to firmly commit to prosecuting these abusive priests and cops, loudly and publically, as a rejection of that old roman patriarchal manhood of subordination.
posted by eustatic at 6:45 PM on July 15, 2023 [4 favorites]
“There Isn't a Crisis of Masculinity,” Noah Berlatsky, Everything is Horrible, 24 July 2023
Masculinity is the crisis.posted by ob1quixote at 12:21 PM on July 24, 2023 [2 favorites]
From the article about how there isn't a crisis: "Progressives have solutions to a lot of these real, life-threatening problems facing men" [i.e., all the same ones claimed to comprise the 'crisis.']
Good piece, nonetheless.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:00 PM on July 24, 2023
Good piece, nonetheless.
posted by snuffleupagus at 3:00 PM on July 24, 2023
I enjoyed this counter to the original article.
Reeves says that we need a “pro-social masculinity for a post-feminist world, and we need it soon.” I don’t believe this at all. I think what we need is to give everyone,regardless of their gender, models of what makes a fulfilling life, and what strong, courageous, inspiring people look like. Needing to be “masculine” is, ironically, not really compatible with the “masculine” ideal of self-confidence, because if you’re comfortable with who you are, you don’t worry about whether you are an “alpha” or a “beta” male. Personally I like my mixture of traits, and nobody’s going to make me feel bad or inadequate about them.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:44 PM on July 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
Reeves says that we need a “pro-social masculinity for a post-feminist world, and we need it soon.” I don’t believe this at all. I think what we need is to give everyone,regardless of their gender, models of what makes a fulfilling life, and what strong, courageous, inspiring people look like. Needing to be “masculine” is, ironically, not really compatible with the “masculine” ideal of self-confidence, because if you’re comfortable with who you are, you don’t worry about whether you are an “alpha” or a “beta” male. Personally I like my mixture of traits, and nobody’s going to make me feel bad or inadequate about them.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 1:44 PM on July 31, 2023 [1 favorite]
Coming back to this quite late, but I found that loquacious's first comment really reinforced the point of the article. After 8 paragraphs of critical comments about the effects of testosterone, we come to "I'm not saying that one is better than the other ..." OK, sounds good. Wait for it... "...we seriously underestimate how powerful testosterone in particular is as a naturally produced mind altering drug that can really amplify risky or socially harmful behavior like violence, aggression, a disdain for co-operation or even basic interpersonal skills like listening." OK, so one is not better than the other, but having the dominant male hormone makes you violent and antisocial, the clear implication being that men should be more like women.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 9:19 AM on August 3, 2023
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 9:19 AM on August 3, 2023
And a followup from Christine Emba: "The Ideal Man Exists: But we refuse to admit it."
If you didn't like the essay. you'll probably hate this. I liked her essay but found this too ambiguous. It's counterproductive to simply specify a masculine ideal and urge men to aim for it. However, for men who are looking for a masculine ideal - and there are many of them, as the growing Peterson/Tate audience shows - describing a prosocial (and prowoman) ideal would be helpful.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:02 AM on August 4, 2023
If you didn't like the essay. you'll probably hate this. I liked her essay but found this too ambiguous. It's counterproductive to simply specify a masculine ideal and urge men to aim for it. However, for men who are looking for a masculine ideal - and there are many of them, as the growing Peterson/Tate audience shows - describing a prosocial (and prowoman) ideal would be helpful.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 11:02 AM on August 4, 2023
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