This just sounds like the author thinks masculinity is all negative things.
Anyone who thinks Trump is a representation of masculinity is not someone who’s opinion on the matter I care for.
Anyone who thinks Trump is a representation of masculinity is not someone who’s opinion on the matter I care for.
While this is a fine personal metric, I think it ignores the growing social power of the strong man right and the related manosphere subcultures.
I feel like the point is rather that instead of redefining masculinity into something more positive, we should rather deconstruct gender norms in general. Because regardless of masculinity being something “positive” or “negative”, it is still an expectation for people to live up to. And eventually people will fail to live up to them. That’s why I would say it is preferable to deconstuct gender as a whole, rather than redefining it.
That makes as much sense as saying trans, non-binary people only need to have a satisfying, meaningful life without a vision of masculinity, femininity, or gender Identity.
you left out the “positive” in your analogy:
trans, non-binary people only need to have a satisfying, meaningful life without a vision of positive masculinity, femininity, or gender Identity
Of course it makes sense to have a concept of these things, but the point is that it is not helpful to define these things with positive or negative values, but rather to look consider these things independent from one another.
No. Gender Identity isn’t zero sum. Things can be positive without other things being negative.
This guy is so close but got stuck jerking off his own intellectualism half way.
As a rule masculinity and femininity are both a collection of traits. Usually defined something like this:
Masculinity is assertiveness, confidence and maybe something like independence.
Femininity is Emotional intelligence, Empathy and maybe something like team-coordination.
Now I view these groups like the hormones testosterone and estrogen. You need both to function. But the ratio between them defines whether you appear masculine or feminine.
You need to be capable of displaying both groups.
However, currently one side demonizes masculine traits, while the other side calls feminine traits gay.
The Author is close to the truth, in the sense that the traits he describes as good masculine traits shouldn’t be exclusive to men. But he looses the plot by tying the traits directly and exclusively to the genders. This is illustrated by calling Margaret Thatcher an honorary man instead of a masculine woman.
Because of this he concludes, that everyone should have all traits regardless of group. This is correct but looses the significance of these groups, both in terms of role models and sexuality.
He accurately points out the issues and ridiculousness of current masculinity gurus but misses why they are appealing. The need for guidance amongst young men is evident.
But let’s leave aside all discussion of what makes someone a real “man” and just aspire to become decent human beings.
This quote betrays a general misunderstanding of what the issue is. Becoming a decent human is not a problem. The issue is becoming a (good) man. Society has gone far in expanding women’s possibilities, but the traditional roles for men have not really been changed, so they don’t fit into this new environment. This leads to a lot of confusion, to where we have cis men struggling to perform their gender and looking for help.
Now Tate and company offer some form of help. Its terrible, but it speaks to the problem, while Mr. Robinson pretends like the problem doesn’t exist and just tells young man to become good humans.
Its often interesting to view gender issues through the trans lens. In this case I would argue that the Author would approach a trans man, who is asking how to be a man very differently.
In my opinion this article is part of the problem driving more men to become Tate-stans and misogynists.
TL;DR: Everyone should display all traits, but the ratio is significant to determine overall appearance.
The existence of stereotypes like tomboy show that there is a link between traits and gender, but on an individual basis the ratio of traits can swap. And that’s also cool.
Also the author is an ideolog ignoring the problem he writes about.
