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andrewduckerThere's a fascinating article over here* about how there are no good positive models of masculinity. It goes deep into the various issues caused by letting awful people sell people the answers to "How should men be?", and is very clear about lots of the awful toxicity caused by there being a big hole. But completely falls apart at the end when the author fails to actually then come up with anything more concrete than "In my ideal, the mainstream could embrace a model that acknowledges male particularity and difference but doesn’t denigrate women to do so."
And, having read it through, my main feeling is that there is no such thing, and nor should there be. That *any* model of masculinity you create is going to be caught up with the issue of "What makes this specifically masculine?" and any answer to that is necessarily going to take you back to Mars/Venus nonsense that gives you exactly what the author says they don't want, "a masculinity defined solely in opposition to women". There is no model of "This is a man" which isn't also implicitly saying "And therefore not a woman". And the second you set up that opposition you invite in the toxicity, the side-taking, the insults, negative generalising, and all of the awfulness that comes with it.**
I am totally comfortable with the idea that more men than women will have a preference for certain types of roles. That there are themes, such as the ones raised in the article (protector, provider, etc.) which appeal more to men than women***. But the idea that there is a maleness about these roles/themes - that there is something that cuts through them all making them more or less masculine or feminine just feels silly to me. If I decided to give someone a hug or talk about my feelings or go for a nap then that doesn't make me any less or more of a man.If more men than women like the colour green then that doesn't imbue the colour green with masculinity, and liking it doesn't make you more manly, or connect you to the ineffable source of maleness. There is no such thing, and adopting the idea that there is as a starting point is, once again, inviting in the toxicity.
What I believe we need - if we want to allow people to be themselves, in ways which work for them, are positive models of adulthood. And specifically not just one model, but a variety of them. Numerous ways of being that work for different people by giving them guidelines and advice on how to be mentally, physically, and socially healthy - that have nothing to do with gender. That allow someone to say that they are a good man because they are a good person who happens to be a man, rather than because they're doing things that are specifically manly****.
* With a very stupid title. The article in no way provides a map.
** Which isn't to say that you won't get a ton of that anyway. But let's not take it as our starting point.
*** Or not - I'd want some decent research done on that front.
**** And, obviously, a good woman, or a good non-binary person.
And, having read it through, my main feeling is that there is no such thing, and nor should there be. That *any* model of masculinity you create is going to be caught up with the issue of "What makes this specifically masculine?" and any answer to that is necessarily going to take you back to Mars/Venus nonsense that gives you exactly what the author says they don't want, "a masculinity defined solely in opposition to women". There is no model of "This is a man" which isn't also implicitly saying "And therefore not a woman". And the second you set up that opposition you invite in the toxicity, the side-taking, the insults, negative generalising, and all of the awfulness that comes with it.**
I am totally comfortable with the idea that more men than women will have a preference for certain types of roles. That there are themes, such as the ones raised in the article (protector, provider, etc.) which appeal more to men than women***. But the idea that there is a maleness about these roles/themes - that there is something that cuts through them all making them more or less masculine or feminine just feels silly to me. If I decided to give someone a hug or talk about my feelings or go for a nap then that doesn't make me any less or more of a man.If more men than women like the colour green then that doesn't imbue the colour green with masculinity, and liking it doesn't make you more manly, or connect you to the ineffable source of maleness. There is no such thing, and adopting the idea that there is as a starting point is, once again, inviting in the toxicity.
What I believe we need - if we want to allow people to be themselves, in ways which work for them, are positive models of adulthood. And specifically not just one model, but a variety of them. Numerous ways of being that work for different people by giving them guidelines and advice on how to be mentally, physically, and socially healthy - that have nothing to do with gender. That allow someone to say that they are a good man because they are a good person who happens to be a man, rather than because they're doing things that are specifically manly****.
* With a very stupid title. The article in no way provides a map.
** Which isn't to say that you won't get a ton of that anyway. But let's not take it as our starting point.
*** Or not - I'd want some decent research done on that front.
**** And, obviously, a good woman, or a good non-binary person.
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Date: 2023-07-17 04:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-17 04:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-17 04:33 pm (UTC)It's so damn hard to get away from that concept!
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Date: 2023-07-17 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-17 05:07 pm (UTC)Or, put differently, is your sentence identically true when the genders are reversed:
"There is no model of "This is a woman" which isn't also implicitly saying "And therefore not a man". And the second you set up that opposition you invite in the toxicity, the side-taking, the insults, negative generalising, and all of the awfulness that comes with it."
(This is a genuinely open question. I am not trying to make any points here. I am just curious to understand your thinking.)
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Date: 2023-07-17 05:17 pm (UTC)When it comes to "being a good woman", you'll end up with exactly the same issues. Opposition and toxicity for anyone who doesn't fit into something that large numbers of women won't.
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Date: 2023-07-17 08:56 pm (UTC)Almost any measuring stick of womanhood would almost certainly make a very large number of women I've known feel very very bad about themselves. It would be likely to include things like "nurturing", and "motherhood". This already exists, of course, over very large chunks of the planet. And it's awful.
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Date: 2023-07-20 02:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-17 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-17 06:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-17 08:05 pm (UTC)The problem is that there are people who want exclusive definitions -- masculinity as traits/roles that *only* men have, and femininity as traits/roles that *only* women have. Which is bullshit, so they try to cloud the issue.
I found this article on the history of "the masculinity crisis" very interesting: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/07/14/josh-hawley-masculinity-crisis-00105436
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Date: 2023-07-17 08:59 pm (UTC)But the people who sell this stuff always sell it as "This is what manliness looks like. If you don't do it then you're not a real man." - and I think that this is kinda intrinsic to the process - as soon as you say "Physically protecting your friends is a masculine trait" then anyone that can't do that feels they aren't really a man.
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Date: 2023-07-17 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-17 08:52 pm (UTC)Parsing this out, it's "gender roles/models of masculinity and femininity invite toxicity and are thus harmful". Which... okay. It's a fine idea in and of itself, but as an idea it falls down when it has to interface with any bit of human society for at least the last ten thousand years, in which ever examination has had separation between masculine and feminine societal roles, and thus has models for masculine and feminine behaviour. To be able to ignore that is a privilege, one that is in my mind exclusively male.
You may not want to impose these models on your offspring, but you do not exist in a vacuum. Society presents us all, through shared culture — books, movies, TV shows, advertising, product packaging, and so much more — coded societal gender roles. They are impossible to ignore, which is why so many people who have lived experience dealing with both — trans, nonbinary, and genderqueer people especially — do not push for stripping away gendered identities.
What you propose is a wonderful thought experiment but it falls apart as soon as it interfaces with reality. It's Liberal Democrat centrist bullshit, gender edition, and I implore you to read more on various models of positive masculinity and defining masculinity. If you're unsure where to start, Grayson Perry's The Descent of Man is a good first step as a de- and re-construction of masculine identity.
TL;DR: You may not want a positive model of masculinity but society is pushing plenty of negative ones. As with so many things, not speaking up in opposition is idempotent to tacit support for the status quo.
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Date: 2023-07-17 09:01 pm (UTC)Labelling the fight to burn them to the ground as privilege sounds like surrender to me.
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Date: 2023-07-17 09:06 pm (UTC)I'm an anarchocommunist. That does not mean I do not participate in politics as a means to improve other people's lives. I would dearly love to burn down the system, but using that as an excuse to not engage with the system in order to improve people's actual lived experience is exactly the sort of ivory tower privilege that is afforded you by the very system you claim to want to burn down.
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Date: 2023-07-17 09:11 pm (UTC)Yes. And telling people that there is a good, noble, kind of masculinity feeds directly into that harm.
You don't need to buy into that nonsense in order to participate in society. You can encourage people with tons of role models without saying to them "This is what the ur-masculine person looks like" - and thus making every man who doesn't live up to it feel like they aren't a real man, and every women who does feel like they aren't a real woman.
Believing that we have to have a masculinity measuring stick in order to operate in society feels like saying that we need a whiteness measuring stick in order to operate in society. It's the kind of toxic nonsense that you get from the Christian Right.
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Date: 2023-07-17 09:19 pm (UTC)That measuring stick is society taking masculinity, or whiteness, as a default. It is the basic state of male or white privilege.
If you cannot see that this is what you are arguing, I'm not going to comment further as we're coming from fundamentally incompatible first principles.
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Date: 2023-07-17 09:24 pm (UTC)If you can't, or don't want to, explain it to me in ever simpler ways until it gets through my thick skull then I entirely understand.
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Date: 2023-07-18 08:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-18 10:47 am (UTC)My own thoughts
Date: 2023-07-17 08:55 pm (UTC)The big challenge is that so much of the world apparently seems to need to be part of some stereotypical and exclusive in-group -- and insists that all other identifiable groups can likewise be stereotyped, and exclude them. This feels empowering to them. Part of what I think the reason for that is, is that stereotyping is a way of managing the human limit of no more than a few hundred people identifiable as individuals in an environment inhabited by thousands or millions.
By me, much of the harm that comes from grouping people in this fashion comes from the exclusivity of being either "in" or "out" of the group. If groups focused on inclusion, rather than exclusion, the maturity that arises from recognizing one another's similarities while celebrating their differences would benefit us all.
Re: My own thoughts
Date: 2023-07-18 08:57 am (UTC)I see lots of this. A lot of (to me) toxic behaviour that stems from an apparent emotional need in some people to have some 'thing' / quality/ identifying trait that
1. A person is born with
2. Can't change
3. Can't be acquired
4. Can't be taken away
5. Makes them superior to others
So, nationalism, sexism, racism, privilege... All the same thing to me. And as you rightly say this includes ganging up on the out-group
Re: My own thoughts
Date: 2023-07-20 02:19 pm (UTC)"Can't be acquired"
O.M.G. Suddenly much of the anti-trans hostility makes a whole lot of sense. Not justifiable, I mean, but finally explainable.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-18 12:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-18 06:18 am (UTC)(Preferably with referencing)
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Date: 2023-07-18 01:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-18 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-18 02:32 am (UTC)And, once I have classified you by my little venn diagram of okidokiness, is there just some ineffable whiff of not-one-of-us to keep you out of my happy little club?
Wishing to not play these stupid hominid games makes utterly perfect sense, but it won't protect your son from someone else foisting their version of "a real man" onto him, especially if they are unshakably certain and your son is looking for an anchor to his identity.
I can't find it now, but I recently read a Medium article by a grade seven teacher where the boys are already parroting some of the Andrew Tate hooey (girls aren't real people; girls are only for sex; all girls owe men sex, blah blah blah). The kids were being enticed by social media personalities who were certain and sure of their "masculine identity". If you have a kinder ideal of what it means to be an adult human when you start out as a boy, then get in there and share it enthusiastically.
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Date: 2023-07-18 06:22 am (UTC)And they're certainly going to try, but this is why we vaccinate against the toxicity.
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Date: 2023-07-18 05:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-18 12:05 pm (UTC)Just to add my tuppenceworth, my primary model for masculinity was my father. He’s a real person, not a movie star, a singer or an influencer. Which means he comes with rough edges galore, makes mistakes, behaves badly, and yet was always there when I was growing up. People close to me have done work on how boys transition into men, and the main influence on how that works out is what examples they see from older men. If there’s no guidance around, then you take those examples where you find them, and it’s no surprise that they aren’t all positive, and don’t always turn out well. I’m not saying everyone should come up in a two parent family. I’m not even sure that the nuclear family WORKS anymore. But I do think we should make the effort to give boys positive examples, and not drop them into man-free Lord of the Flies.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-18 12:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-21 08:08 am (UTC)I certainly agree that we need to be a lot closer to "healthy models of adult humans" instead of "healthy models of masculinity" and "healthy models of femininity".
But I'm not sure that's the whole story. I can't say what masculinity is, but there seems to be SOMETHING that trans men's brains do, as well as "have typical male shaped body" but different to "have stereotyped-male hobbies", which I can't describe any other way. And I have heard trans men sometimes say, learning what sort of person to be while male was a different to having learned what sort of person to be before being out.
I *don't* think that the things often assigned to part of maleness are typically innate. For instance because it varies a lot by culture. But there might still need to be healthy models of it, partly for people who (whether reasonably or not) currently have maleness as part of their identity, and partly for "how to responsibly navigate society when society puts you into a male box whether you want to or not".
E.g. there might be good role models for "managers" and "employees" whether you like those categories or not. Or "father" vs "uncle" etc. Or there might be one of several good adult models which incorporates the cluster of reasonable things people associate with maleness, even if we sensibly say that anyone can model themselves on it regardless of gender.
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Date: 2023-07-21 08:42 am (UTC)But that doesn't mean that there is a "right way to be male". Which is what models of masculinity attempt to be. Masculinity is an internal thing to people, it's not a social role that people have to filfil. Whereas "manager" is very much a social role that people have to fulfil.
My argument is that assigning people a social role based on their gender is bad for everyone. That it makes people with that gender who don't fit it sufficiently well feel bad, and makes people who do fit it well who aren't of that gender feel bad, and is generally weaponised by unpleasant people.
What people needs is dozens or hundreds of examples out there of good role models to help them work out what masculinity means *to them*.
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Date: 2023-07-21 09:51 am (UTC)I agree there's not *a* right way.
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Date: 2023-07-21 11:03 am (UTC)I kept hearing that many would still find some kind of normative standard of masculinity meaningful and useful.
And that's what I'm reacting to.