Good post. I'll observe that, as a man, looking around at other men, there is one type of man who basically *seems* to pull off the impossible masculine- Sociopaths/Psychopaths/ASPD. While they obviously do not move through this world effortlessly, society is structured to reward them and venerate them. As a man, empathy is true weakness, because not only is it seen as weak in and of itself, it allows you to be set up to be taken advantage of. Seemingly only a psychopath drifting through life, without empathy, looking coldly at everyone around them as levers to pull to move through life, seems to have "figured it out".
That's why you can go on youtube and type "dark triad" and get a bajillion self help gurus trying to teach young men how to behave like a functional psychopaths. The end result of so much of this masculinity fetishism seems to lead towards just turning off empathy and focusing on a bottled up furnace of rage and pain.
I always liked Atticus Finch. A little bit of Buddhist thought went a long way with me without becoming Buddhist, specifically the teachings on the morality of letting go of expectations of people and the concept of the wanting mind. It helped me a lot to not feel entitled to attention from women specifically but people in general.
There's aspects of my father and grandfathers I like, but also aspects I don't like. I was never someone who admired famous people to the point where I tried to emulate them. Maybe it's because my family grew up in the show business industry and I've seen how truly fucked up famous people can be that the illusion is broken. I think you have to look around and pick and choose traits from the world around you, but we need to as children be taught which traits are healthy and which aren't. And that's difficult.
I'm also in therapy. We don't talk about masculinity so much as we talk about healthy behavior and thought patterns and healthy relationships and boundaries. I feel personally like "masculinity" kind of comes from that kind of healthy living. Masculinity is, for me, the healthy management of emotions, healthy relationships, and a place of contentment with yourself. It's the fruit of a healthy tree, not a mask that you put on. That feels liberating to me.
It's not perfect, the world isn't perfect, you can't be in harmony with everything, but the pursuit brings some stability and contentment to me and that's enough. I am treated more like the way I want to be treated when I'm healthy and treating others healthy. And when that breaks and goes sideways, there are tools and skills that provide resiliency without resorting to anger.
I'll be honest, diving into and concerning myself with "masculinity" pretty much was the most miserable period of my life. Both with the feminist circles I spent time in and with the brief exposure I had to the masculinity fetishists.
Laura's insight into gender equality as opposed to feminism or masculism is probably a good start. Ditching femininity or masculinity as like... scoring zones to reach is a good start and re-framing it as whatever emerges from a healthy human with healthy human relationships seems like a far more achievable goal than the performance art that is modern masculinity. It also is far more LGBT-inclusive because it relies on authentic, healthy organic behavior manifesting instead of a checklist.
I know I'm not talking about social constructs and societal levels of gender identity and... I don't know if the work that needs to be done benefits by fixating on the macro without fixing the micro. All of this is just kind of rambling observations I've had over the past few years and I'm open to other thoughts on it.
"Masculinity is, for me, the healthy management of emotions, healthy relationships, and a place of contentment with yourself."
and
"Ditching femininity or masculinity as like... scoring zones to reach is a good start and re-framing it as whatever emerges from a healthy human with healthy human relationships seems like a far more achievable goal than the performance art that is modern masculinity."
Would it be fair to say that using a label like masculinity does more harm than good because it confines the relevance of these good qualities to a subset of people (as opposed to being LGBT or female inclusive)?
Furthermore, could we extend this reasoning to assign gender labels as obsolete in an ideal egalitarian society?
Given the understanding of gender quality as something approaching equity of job/social position/partner dominance/etc distribution, are there empirical grounds can this be considered reasonably possible on a societal level?
I say this with studies in mind which show that in more egalitarian countries (where feminism is more accepted and culturally enforced) woman choose to take more traditionally female dominated careers and men tend to take more male dominated careers. See https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/
Essentially, the studies show a proportional relationship between the widespread acceptance of feminist education and polarization of gendered career distribution.
Should we conclude that gender equality/feminism creates more career polarization or is this not "real feminism/gender equality"?
Good post. I'll observe that, as a man, looking around at other men, there is one type of man who basically *seems* to pull off the impossible masculine- Sociopaths/Psychopaths/ASPD. While they obviously do not move through this world effortlessly, society is structured to reward them and venerate them. As a man, empathy is true weakness, because not only is it seen as weak in and of itself, it allows you to be set up to be taken advantage of. Seemingly only a psychopath drifting through life, without empathy, looking coldly at everyone around them as levers to pull to move through life, seems to have "figured it out".
That's why you can go on youtube and type "dark triad" and get a bajillion self help gurus trying to teach young men how to behave like a functional psychopaths. The end result of so much of this masculinity fetishism seems to lead towards just turning off empathy and focusing on a bottled up furnace of rage and pain.
Where do you look towards for positive role models for masculinity?
I always liked Atticus Finch. A little bit of Buddhist thought went a long way with me without becoming Buddhist, specifically the teachings on the morality of letting go of expectations of people and the concept of the wanting mind. It helped me a lot to not feel entitled to attention from women specifically but people in general.
There's aspects of my father and grandfathers I like, but also aspects I don't like. I was never someone who admired famous people to the point where I tried to emulate them. Maybe it's because my family grew up in the show business industry and I've seen how truly fucked up famous people can be that the illusion is broken. I think you have to look around and pick and choose traits from the world around you, but we need to as children be taught which traits are healthy and which aren't. And that's difficult.
I'm also in therapy. We don't talk about masculinity so much as we talk about healthy behavior and thought patterns and healthy relationships and boundaries. I feel personally like "masculinity" kind of comes from that kind of healthy living. Masculinity is, for me, the healthy management of emotions, healthy relationships, and a place of contentment with yourself. It's the fruit of a healthy tree, not a mask that you put on. That feels liberating to me.
It's not perfect, the world isn't perfect, you can't be in harmony with everything, but the pursuit brings some stability and contentment to me and that's enough. I am treated more like the way I want to be treated when I'm healthy and treating others healthy. And when that breaks and goes sideways, there are tools and skills that provide resiliency without resorting to anger.
I'll be honest, diving into and concerning myself with "masculinity" pretty much was the most miserable period of my life. Both with the feminist circles I spent time in and with the brief exposure I had to the masculinity fetishists.
Laura's insight into gender equality as opposed to feminism or masculism is probably a good start. Ditching femininity or masculinity as like... scoring zones to reach is a good start and re-framing it as whatever emerges from a healthy human with healthy human relationships seems like a far more achievable goal than the performance art that is modern masculinity. It also is far more LGBT-inclusive because it relies on authentic, healthy organic behavior manifesting instead of a checklist.
I know I'm not talking about social constructs and societal levels of gender identity and... I don't know if the work that needs to be done benefits by fixating on the macro without fixing the micro. All of this is just kind of rambling observations I've had over the past few years and I'm open to other thoughts on it.
Given your thoughts on
"Masculinity is, for me, the healthy management of emotions, healthy relationships, and a place of contentment with yourself."
and
"Ditching femininity or masculinity as like... scoring zones to reach is a good start and re-framing it as whatever emerges from a healthy human with healthy human relationships seems like a far more achievable goal than the performance art that is modern masculinity."
Would it be fair to say that using a label like masculinity does more harm than good because it confines the relevance of these good qualities to a subset of people (as opposed to being LGBT or female inclusive)?
Furthermore, could we extend this reasoning to assign gender labels as obsolete in an ideal egalitarian society?
Love this article. Hits harder after my friend passed. Almost lost my job because of my unruly emotions. Breaking down and weeping at work.
Given the understanding of gender quality as something approaching equity of job/social position/partner dominance/etc distribution, are there empirical grounds can this be considered reasonably possible on a societal level?
I say this with studies in mind which show that in more egalitarian countries (where feminism is more accepted and culturally enforced) woman choose to take more traditionally female dominated careers and men tend to take more male dominated careers. See https://www.thejournal.ie/gender-equality-countries-stem-girls-3848156-Feb2018/
Essentially, the studies show a proportional relationship between the widespread acceptance of feminist education and polarization of gendered career distribution.
Should we conclude that gender equality/feminism creates more career polarization or is this not "real feminism/gender equality"?