Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

I’m going to charitably assume “feminists on the internet” until the Milkshake Duck effect kicks into high gear

Of course the comic potential of MRAs striving towards an Alpha ideal and failing comprehensively is routinely and deservingly mocked, but I don't think it follows that the ideal itself isn't being attacked - someone who actually embodies the qualities MRAs strive to attain (and in fact there's plenty out there who have qualities yr typical MRA lacks: physical strenght, self-confidence, etc.) could still be a pretty terrible person (and certainly more dangerous).

a better masculinity, a revisionist masculinity: dashing, protective, decisive-but-not-domineering, vulnerable-but-not-whiny, etc.

Kinda with JRN on this one: is there any reason to gender these qualities?

I always find it hilarious that Ben Shapiro, who prattles on about "protecting women" all the time, is like 5'4" - 5'6". TBC, nothing wrong with being short but there are a lot of women who could protect him better than he could protect them.

https://media.giphy.com/media/XqNEOQT9bp3uE/giphy.gif

But the larger point there seems important -- a lot of our gender attitudes are vestiges of a past in which physical labor was a substantial part of most people's lives, and physical strength against threats was a more common need, and men were/are on average physically stronger, so some division of labor made sense. However that division of labor and "protection" also came with inequality. Today, when most people in advanced countries almost never do or need to do physical labor, and "protection" is mostly either professionalized or automated, men increasingly struggle to rationalize their vestigial superior attitudes, since there isn't really evidence that women are less able to do most of the jobs and tasks the modern economy requires, and in some cases are excelling more than men at them on average. Maybe higher testosterone levels have some kind of advantage in some fields, but the analysis is often prone to circular reasoning (e.g. "Men are better negotiators because they're more aggressive." But why does negotiation have to be aggressive? If people on both sides use a different approach, the aggression isn't necessary).

xp, I think a guy who bats .346 with 24 HRs is probably a little different on the protection scale than a fierce debater.

― IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Monday, October 30, 2017 9:26 AM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I do think it’s true that society broadly still rewards men who perform masculinity “effectively” tbh

w/o a doubt

ditto "romantic success" "career success" ad infi fuckinitum

it's amazing that this thread think it's about what the title says

or i guess not, really

Oh yeah for sure. I think about this a lot as a person in a very traditionally masculine and testosterone-oriented profession. It's part of why I started lifting.

Just as grist for the mill re performance of gender, the way I think of it is: I feel like a woman, I am bodied as a woman, I live as a woman, therefore whatever I do or whatever qualities I have are by definition "womanly." Or put another way, "feminine." So I en-gender the performance instead of the other way around. This might be useful for positioning oneself wherever you feel the most like your authentic self?

^^^ I cosign this viewpoint from the male point of view.

I think that is useful. I also try to "redirect" some of the traditional gender qualities; for example, once in an online thread somewhere or other a guy was saying that doing housework and childcare wasn't "manly" and I said something to the effect of "No, it's manly to do what needs to be done, whatever it is, washing dishes, changing diapers, buying dresses for your daughter, etc. It's part of being an adult." I realize this is still a step removed from what you're saying, bc I'm trying to reframe things within a traditionally manly quality (responsibility, taking charge, etc.), but those are positive qualities that people of any gender identity should aspire to I think.

But we can also say those same qualities are "womanly" as well. They don't have to be exclusive.

Yes to the last bit! Being a competent caretaker, performing nurturing and support tasks that enable families, networks, and communities to prosper, everything in this field is within the role of being an "adult." Is it "feminine" to change a sparkplug? Yes because I just did it. Etc.

I mean yesterday afternoon I took my 2 and 5-yo by myself to a halloween event, in the pouring rain, and when we wound up unable to go in, salvaged it by taking them both (who were each upset for different and competing reasons) for pizza and dessert. It was as mentally and physically challenging as anything else I do in my life and took an enormous amount of patience, problem solving, and literal wrangling. How is that not manly?

Of course the comic potential of MRAs striving towards an Alpha ideal and failing comprehensively is routinely and deservingly mocked, but I don't think it follows that the ideal itself isn't being attacked

― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 30 October 2017 13:51

The way people sometimes do it sends out the wrong message. Like mocking them for what they feel physically inadequate about, or inexperienced or living with their mother (as if that's worse than just saying their parents). I think these things probably reinforce their worldview.

I think that may be true, but it's also difficult to find a way to get through someone who is, somewhat ironically, so hypersensitive.

I mean yesterday afternoon I took my 2 and 5-yo by myself to a halloween event, in the pouring rain, and when we wound up unable to go in, salvaged it by taking them both (who were each upset for different and competing reasons) for pizza and dessert. It was as mentally and physically challenging as anything else I do in my life and took an enormous amount of patience, problem solving, and literal wrangling. How is that not manly?

― IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Monday, October 30, 2017 11:57 AM (forty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's not manly because nothing about it has anything to do with your being male.

I have red hair, and I do my laundry every week. I do not think, on that basis, that doing laundry is a redheaded thing to do.

Fair point. Maybe we can just say that responsibility, confidence etc. are positive qualities period for any gender.

As are nurturing, listening, etc

the way logical fallacies are woven into defenses of MRA beliefs/behavior and gender essentialism is so transparent it hurts to look at.
"xyz is not manly/womanly" = no true scotsman
fundamentally it is flawed so whatever conclusions are drawn from that assertion are based on a fallacy.

i taught my composition 1 students about logical fallacies today, like I just stopped to eat my lunch, so this is fresh on the brain for me.

have any MRA dudes addressed toxic femininity yet

based on that account, you rock as a parent, man alive

https://www.thecut.com/2017/11/ask-polly-i-hate-men.html?utm_campaign=thecut&utm_source=tw&utm_medium=s1

Most men are terrible. Most men will underestimate you no matter what you say or do. Most people in general are much more stupid and selfish and dishonest than we want them to be. Most of the world is overheating and going up in flames and flooding and imploding in ways that make any discussion about finding love sound like writing sad poetry as the sky falls.

that seems otm

there's a pop culture theory (??) that ppl date/marry ppl who recreate the dynamics they experience w/ their parents particularly w/ the parent who shares a gender w/ the SO. if true (seems anecdotally so) it's really not a shock that two toxic father presences (well, one non-presence and one gross step-dad) have led to poor choices in potential mates. the letter writer has almost exclusively dated men who aren't present/available. this is maybe off-topic for this thread tho...

does it ever depress you that 300,000 years of homo sapien evolution still results in people wanting a violent chest-beating primate with a big stick to lead them? is biology destiny? i guess i wonder if the incremental changes that people force upon society could ever be enough to change things in the long run. though i am happy to see those incremental changes. for instance:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/10/30/saudi-arabia-will-allow-women-to-attend-sporting-events-in-stadiums/?utm_term=.10d6a403b50e

but jesus even that story is sort of depressing given the year on the calendar. i guess i wonder if its a too little too late kinda thing. but maybe i should take that to the global warming thread. i guess i just get pessimistic. and start to think things like: well, as long as we have enough food and water we can pretend to be civilized and occasionally do nice things for others and act better than our nature.

there's a pop culture theory (??) that ppl date/marry ppl who recreate the dynamics they experience w/ their parents particularly w/ the parent who shares a gender w/ the SO

I don't really buy this, from personal experience

don't be happy about saudi arabia incremental change imo until it leads to actual change. as long as women cannot marry, work or travel without male permission they are essentially chattel even if they're allowed to attend sporting events or drive. xp

xp yeah i'm not sure about it's validity. i've noticed it true for some ppl tho this could just be something more obvious/simple like ppl with good parents have healthier relationships in general and ppl with shit parents have shittier relationships.

armchair psychology aside (and I do think there is *something* to that concept), I don't think it's really a typical dating pattern to have a "theme" of dating guys who are already in relationships. So it's hard to universalize her experience even though more broadly a lot of men are assholes.

from a sociocultural point of view human evolution is accelerating rapidly tho scott the changes (mostly for the better) we've made as social creatures have been way more rapid over the last few hundred years than over millennia before that, and for the last few millennia way way more rapid than the 300,000 years preceding them

I had shit parents (sorry if ur reading folks but cmon own it) and I resemble this turn of inquiry

i inadvertently glanced at a cashier's cleavage last night. i hate myself.

I mean, I think there's no question that our parents/caregivers/other most present figures in our childhood serve as some kind of model for our relationships, but this can play out in more complex ways than just looking to duplicate the relationship your parents had.

i inadvertently glanced at a cashier's cleavage last night. i hate myself.

― brimstead, Wednesday, November 1, 2017 10:59 AM (forty seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Look but don't stare imo. You can't be expected to completely avert your eyes from things that are in plain view.

i don't mean inadvertent, i meant casually and like automatically. aaaaaaaaa

xp yeah i'm not sure about it's validity. i've noticed it true for some ppl tho this could just be something more obvious/simple like ppl with good parents have healthier relationships in general and ppl with shit parents have shittier relationships.[

the latter's probably closer to a general truth, the former seems closer to some pop-Freudian-extrapolation that is a little too deterministic

while i love the idea that social justice movement will have the same laws for looking at women as orthodox jewry i personally think it's fine to check out ppl of the opposite gender as long as you're discreet and not creepy about it.

I just spent the last few days on a camping trip with 48 fifth-graders.

Hate to say this because it is way oversimplifying. But I will just go ahead and say it: The boys just seem like... not very good people? Anti-intellectual, id-centric, competitive in dumb ways, cruel in dumb ways. The girls are way more interesting and various. Not without meanness, but way more interesting.

Simultaneously, I was expected to spend time with other dads, and that was almost worse. Trying to out-macho each other, talking about penis proxies like the horsepower of the outboard motors of their fishing boats.

And I don't necessarily exempt myself from criticism here. If the topic had been guitar string gauges, I would probably have happily nerded out with them. It's just that I don't have much in common with this batch of guys.

Trying to out-macho each other

i haven't been following this thread but this kind of unspoken dynamic is one reason i just can't hang with most dudes these days. there's just a weird one-up-mans-ship vibe/energy that's present, even if it's in a lighthearted non-hostile way or whatever. i just don't play that game.

since we were talking about ending masculinity earlier i think it's worth bringing up that there are generalizations about boys and girls that imo are true. i think boys have a harder time sitting still in a classroom for many hours a day. they're less refined and more rambunctious than girls of the same age. i don't think they're socialized this way - i think it's hormonal (and maybe chromosomal?). there was a lot of talk about a decade ago (that seems to have died down) about how boys were achieving less in schools and the theory was that schools aren't set up to engage them in the most productive ways. i think it's a mistake to say they're not very good people - as if it's a moral flaw as opposed to nature. we can ask them to refine themselves but the vast majority of males are never going to be feminized to the degree that ilxors think they should.

What age are fifth graders

like 11 iirc?

Ok

Even allowing that YMP is best people and has qualified himself in the selfsame post, and that the word 'gross' is a criminally overused and loaded term, I'm gonna opine that that is a gross sentiment right there

I mean....no doubt popular itt but I mean ctfo

Totally willing to acknowledge that I'm no angel. For example I am plenty fucking rugged and I do kinda want people to know it. I wish to be admired for my outdoor skillz, envied for the understated quality of my camping gear, and respected for my effortless self-sufficiency. I love it when I am faster than someone else to name a particular sort of bird call or tree bark. I am thrilled when someone needs a particular pocket-knife tool and I can casually offer it.

I just don't want to talk about football because I'm no good at that and it makes me feel stupid and unprepared.

I can't relate to boys and I don't understand them. That makes me feel like I am not good at something I want to be good at.

well like on ilx you're mostly going to get sensitive guys who are trying to be good allies, progressive, etc and are therefore going to be more reticent to challenge sacralities regarding gender esp as produced by gender studies academia. the v idea that gender might not just be performative but have a natural hormonal component is going to be controversial here (but pretty much nowhere else in the world). xp

certain kinds of behaviour are more obnoxious or trying especially as you get older tbf

i don't personally place that much in the biological realm, at least not in terms of how they manifest, so i'm not going to jump right onto the next generalization but