Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

Xp yeah I mean I don't want to exaggerate it, I don't mean that straight men are literally rendered incapable of identifying with women, but there is definitely a way that men are trained to fear and squash the "feminine" in themselves that I think by extension diminishes the capacity to imagine oneself in the place of a woman, because as horseshoe points out, fuck or get fucked.

― IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Thursday, October 19, 2017 3:25 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM. It's not that it's impossible to feel empathy, but the idea that empathising somehow makes one appear weak or 'less of a man'. This extends from not being sure how vocal to be in expressing feminist values online, all the way to feeling a bit weird carrying your girlfriend's handbag while out in public. So much irrationality going on, all in the fear of being perceived 'the wrong way'.

OTM, and 'fuck or get fucked' for swaths of insecure boys is being replaced with 'fuck or get cucked'. Hate that word so much, but it doesn't seem like it's going away any time soon. It's a vessel, an excuse, for misogyny.

American exceptionalism dictates that we believe even the worst aspects of our culture are uniquely terrible

i'm not captain-save-a-man or anything, but direct experience does create empathy. many people in this country - men and women - don't give a shit what happens to terrorized victims of american aggression in Iraq and in U.S. prisons and in the criminal justice system because most Americans haven't been in prison or had their town bombed or been abused by law enforcement. i just think most people don't like to think about horrible things at all. and you need to actively think about what someone is going through or go through it yourself to have any empathy or understanding of how horrible it is to be terrorized or violated in a horrible way. trauma in my own life has made me empathetic to people in ways i might not have been had that trauma not happened.

yeah, I think one of the things that enables me to escape that as well is knowing what it feels like to be a victim. But the thing is, I'll bet a lot of men know what it feels like to be a victim, they just don't want to face that part of themselves.

Different people can empathize the same amount, and yet have different ideas of what to do about it tho (speaking abstractly here)

You can empathize quite a lot with the plight of the downtrodden, then do exactly zero things to alleviate it.

You can empathize quite a lot and think that hyperlocal volunteerism and personal activism are the best ways to alleviate the plight of the downtrodden.

You can empathize quite a lot and think that conventional liberal politics is the most realistic way of alleviating the plight of the downtrodden.

You can empathize quite a lot and think that only overthrowing The System is sufficient.

you can also grow empathy and concern. teach it in schools at a young age. but the entire system has to be changed from top to bottom. i mean its sad that someone has to feel the hurt and pain in order to care. you see this in a lot of veterans. or with global warming. we were flooded and we know how it feels and we are going to send help to the most recently flooded. it would be nice if people didn't need the direct experience to help and care!

i guess i'm that last one, YMP!

i don't know where i am. i don't really have answers.

having empathy doesn't always have to mean direct action but it might direct your actions in the future.

it would be nice if people didn't need the direct experience to help and care!

Indeed, I've heard you can be decent toward women even if you don't have a daughter!

Well everyone has experienced some kind of pain or trauma in their lives, I think? It's just a matter of being willing to tap into that and connect it to someone else's pain.

at my kid's school they were taught at a young age to stick up for people who were hurt or being hurt and they believe that that is important now! that's just one small example. of social engineering that i can get behind. i don't know what that would take to make that the norm. a sane secretary of education would be a start...

This extends from not being sure how vocal to be in expressing feminist values online

disagree with this. we already discussed upthread that this can be to do with feeling as tho being a man means you're part of the problem and not comfortable in this role. don't think men expressing strident views on the internet is viewed as feminine, far from it.

you see this in a lot of veterans. or with global warming. we were flooded and we know how it feels and we are going to send help to the most recently flooded. it would be nice if people didn't need the direct experience to help and care!

when i worked in local news years ago it used to bother me how every family who had experienced a fatal tragedy of whatever kind always set up a campaign about that thing. not diminishing grief or saying that there can't be good done by these campaigns but just the idea that because this freakish awful thing happened to your family it's now the most important issue in the world, over and above the million other dangers you prob blithely ignore all day every day.

i dunno tho, i think humans have this deep-seated and misplaced sense of cosmic justice, even people who would never claim to be religious or believe in god seem to think that things right themselves or that somehow their life is on some rail of good fortune, at least until the unthinkable happens and then it's this awful realisation. i'm speaking of privileged people only i suppose, presumably others are born knowing how completely fucking random and unfair everything can be.

there are also women (especially of a certain generation) who are dismissive/minimizing of rape in general

I am not excusing ANYone, but I've noticed women "of a certain age" can be very dismissive of lots of kinds of misogyny because in their lifetimes there's never been any remedy for it. They figure best just to put it behind you and not dwell on what you can't help.

there are so many of those innocent white people movies where something TERRIBLE happens and they realize the world isn't what they thought it was! how dare you put ME in a Singapore prison! all those endless times where America lost its innocence....

x-post

i think i was kinda born thinking a safe was going to fall on my head at any minute...

at my kid's school they were taught at a young age to stick up for people who were hurt or being hurt and they believe that that is important now! that's just one small example. of social engineering that i can get behind.

My daughter's school is REALLY heavy on overt character-education stuff, in a way that I found kind of strange when she started (a bit protest-too-muchy maybe?). But I definitely think it's an improvement over the Lord-of-the-Flies zoos of my childhood. The culture has changed as well. You don't get beaten up on the playground for being named Hayden or whatever (because pretty much everybody is named Hayden or whatever).

My son's school doesn't make as much of a deal about it out loud, but in practice they have proven to be extremely accepting of difference and extremely committed to inclusion. (Speaking mainly in terms of people with disabilities here, as that's what I know all too well.)

This in a deep blue and obscenely affluent school district, but still.

My mom has passed off lots of comments from an elderly man at her church that she befriends--he makes off-color comments to her and they go right over her head. When I bring it up later, she's almost maternal in her empathy and care for him. "He just needs to feel like a man," "Oh honey, once a Marine, always a Marine" (wtf does she know about Marines?? nothing, that's what), and other brush offs that prioritize HIS feelings and well-being.

"(because pretty much everybody is named Hayden or whatever)"

i was looking at a collection of class poetry from my oldest kid's class a few years back and one of the poems had the line: "and i hang out with my friends who are named after trees..."

lots of kids named after trees.

like how? silver birch? sycamore? palm?

that's interesting YMP - I was talking with a parent friend of ours (lesbian couple w/two kids) about their experience w schools out near Walnut Creek and she was telling me about their 5th grade son getting harassed/called a faggot for having long hair. And I was like "damn some things never change"

xp to in orbit
my grandfather (who died earlier this year) was never necessarily off-color but had the weirdest dynamic with women after the death of my grandmother nearly thirty years earlier. there's something to the idea that the attention of women is currency in how he related to people. that's not atypical for people who aren't used to being alone, but being around him became very one-note because he had a list of topics that he knew would interest people or get female sympathy and as he became senile, every conversation was just going through that checklist.

I mean, I'm all for treating the elderly with respect and humoring them, but this maternal bit you mentioned definitely sounds too familiar

Yeah but at the same time she was mothering him he was sexualizing her. Like she was putting him in a fatherly role, and he was putting her in a wifely one. Gross.

feel like i've seen that dynamic work in reverse and it's just as creepy.

"like how? silver birch? sycamore? palm?"

Cedar and Willow are big.

see also: Mike Pence calling his wife "mother" for a glimpse of the dynamic from the other end of things

Oh heck my parents call each other Mom and Dad all the time. I don't think that's necessarily directly related to what I was thinking of, although let me never discourage anyone from hating on stupid traditional gender roles/performances.

I’ve never heard my mother call my father by name. He is always “Papa,” except - now that he’s a grandfather to my nephew, he’s become “Grampy”

i never wanted a mommy. so many men want mommies. i mean i like my mom. she's nice. i actually hugged my mom last weekend and told her how much i loved her and how she was the best mom to me. she's losing her marbles. figure i should use every opportunity. i know for a fact that my dad has referred to my mom as mommy to me and my mom has referred to my dad as daddy to me in conversation as an adult and it always felt a little weird to me but they are definitely the products of the fabulous 50's.

I was talking with a parent friend of ours (lesbian couple w/two kids) about their experience w schools out near Walnut Creek and she was telling me about their 5th grade son getting harassed/called a faggot for having long hair. And I was like "damn some things never change"

are they still near the W.C. or did they move to San Francisco?

so many men want mommies.

troothbomb

some of them want nice, indulgent mommies, and others want domineering, controlling mommies, and they are often willing to pay at least $200/hr for that

Tbtf women are encouraged to regard their husbands as surrogate fathers too. You know, someone big and strong who'll take care of you and protect you and solve your problems. Of course it's ridiculous and insulting to everyone involved to make the gender performance the important thing instead of a reasonable burden of responsibility to your family no matter what gender you perform.

xp lol

I do know one last vestige of my fab 50's parents in me! ALL my kid's friends call me Scott and it has always felt kinda wrong to me. I got used to my kids calling me Scott. And yet, at this late date, it would feel weird to me if all their friends started calling me Mr. Seward. It's rare when I feel like a fuddy duddy like that. When I think about it, it's probably a good thing. Respect for elders nonsense always kinda dumb.

FWIW, I call H "mom" sometimes but only in front of the kids. I can't get used to parents being called by their first names by five year olds.

When my kids start having friends over more regularly, none of them are calling me by my first name. This is non-negotiable.

I guess if they befriend an adult, that adult can call me by my first name, (e.g. "Dan, all of this is totally innocent, why are you calling the cops?")

Your real name is HI DERE, right?

that's Mr. Dere to you, buddy

I actually call her "Ema" (hebrew for mom) in front of the kids, which kind of works bc I didn't call my own mom that, so it doesn't leave me feeling like I am referring to my own mom.

do you write her name high on that silver screen?

again, this is that progressive western mass thing. my kids called all their teachers by their first names too. there must be some serious prog-ed literature on the subject.

loling about mommies

this is one of the reasons some men scare me -- if they cannot fuck you, and you are not their mommy, you don't exist/have no purpose. if you do manage to exist, they let you know they think you don't deserve to exist. this is at the heart of restricting reproductive rights and patrolling women's sexuality in general. see also mike pence and mother or anyone who thinks that way and expresses it openly

it really provokes an existential fear

Sarahell they moved from SF to Pleasant Valley (i think thats it?) A few years,ago

Xp

Scott, it actually comes from Quaker educational theory! (Which had a strong impact on Dewey, et. al.)

As both a Quaker and progressive educator, I rallied to get my students to call me by my first name and the school administration came down on me (in my first year) like a ton of bricks.

Now that I’m much more established, I might try again.

xp - Pleasant Hill?

That's it yes

oh this does all remind me of the time that i was at the local market and the cashier -a woman - said to me "where's your little helper wife?". i was kinda stunned! at first i didn't know who she was talking about. i was picturing a troll woman in a tree knitting. i just said "uh....at home?" i told maria and it STILL bugs her and this was years ago. sometimes we go there and i get out of the car and ask if she's coming with me and she'll say "i don't want to go in there. i'm not your little helper wife." ouch! it stung. i only told her because i HAD to tell someone. the olde tyme residents here are very trad. i mean most of them voted for hillary, but still trad. very quiet on sunday.

xp - lol at living somewhere for at least 20 years and not knowing the names of suburban towns near you, esp. ones that appear on BART system maps.