Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

my favorite are the men who won't go near a bidet because it's not "manly" enough and use baby wipes on their ass instead

― dub pilates (rushomancy), Saturday, October 6, 2018

naw bruh

https://target.scene7.com/is/image/Target/GUEST_0789dcb8-e73e-47cc-93c0-710c151dc24c?wid=488&hei=488&fmt=pjpeg

That'll do pig, that'll do.

what the hell happened in here

In light of the Kavanaugh hearings and some hard conversations with my partner I've been diving into a reading list with the supplemental curating help from a bunch of women who are smarter than me

Here's what I'm reading now--survivor accounts, essays & fiction & poetry:

Alexandra's Truth http://www.verahouse.org/domestic-violence-sexual-assault/survivors/alexandras-truth
Are Women People? https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11689/11689-h/11689-h.htm
Dru's Survivor Story https://www.thesurvivoralliance.com/blog/survivor-stories/dru-survivor-story/
Fault https://www.thesurvivoralliance.com/blog/survivor-stories/fault/
Feminist Perspectives on Power https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-power/
Five Faces of Oppression https://mrdevin.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/five-faces-of-oppression.pdf
Gender Relations in The Female Man http://www.blue-stockings.org/?p=250
Half-Life Book: Fiction
Her Body and Other Parties Book: Fiction
How misogyny, narcissism and a desperate need for power make men abuse women online https://theconversation.com/how-misogyny-narcissism-and-a-desperate-need-for-power-make-men-abuse-women-online-95054
I Realized Women Are People (Satire) https://medium.com/@taliajane/i-realized-women-are-people-feel-free-to-sleep-with-me-now-821b6023603b
Lauren's Truth http://www.verahouse.org/domestic-violence-sexual-assault/survivors/laurens-truth
Lea's Survivor Story https://www.rainn.org/survivor-stories/lea
Misogyny and Homicide of Women https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/confrontingviolence/materials/OB11560.pdf
Samentha's Survivor's Story https://www.rainn.org/survivor-stories/samentha
Sex Object: A Memoir Book: Nonfiction
The Bad Wives https://eidolon.pub/the-bad-wives-fa0fb8a69aba
The Female Man Book: Fiction
The Girl in the Road Book: Fiction
The Logic of Misogyny http://bostonreview.net/forum/kate-manne-logic-misogyny
The Matter of Seggri Book: Fiction
The Worst Year of My Life To Date https://www.thesurvivoralliance.com/blog/2017-the-worst-year-of-my-life-to-date/
Woman’s Situation and Character Book: Nonfiction (Excerpt)
Women & Power Book: Nonfiction
Women Are People, Too https://www.endtimespeptalk.com/podcast/ep-42/
Throwing Like A Girl & Other Essays Book: Nonfiction
Acting Older Isn't Being Older https://www.thenation.com/article/acting-older-isnt-being-older-how-we-fail-young-rape-victims/

The desire to do this reading comes down to a difficult recognition I've had: even though I can throw around my pocket full of feminist buzzwords with the best of them, and even though I'm steeped enough in these things to consider myself well past the nigh inevitable Woke Bro 101 performative guilt & callouts, the simple fact is that my behavior, especially in my alcoholic 20s but also since then, has not aligned with the things I've said I believe. For example I know, unpleasant as it is to see in myself in retrospect, that I've benefited from subtly coercive dynamics in relationships I've had even if only resting on age difference. I've had a facile understanding of power in relation to gender, and my behavior has sometimes reflected that, and I must do better.

Thanks for posting your reading list! I just read Tanya Tagaq's new book Split Tooth last week, which might be a good addition.

Aaaaa I want that book v badly

thanks hoos, i'm still reading some pretty basic shit like "not that bad" and it rocked my world

I tend to think Laurie Penny can be glib, but I really appreciated this generous piece: https://longreads.com/2018/02/14/the-great-stink/

Part of adulthood is learning, slowly and painfully, how to rectify past mistakes, make amends, and move on. Many of us spend a lifetime learning how to do that within our intimate communities, and some of us never do. The dreadful truth, however, is that growing up in public as a political being is a wholly different experience now than it was in previous generations — we need to do it faster, smarter, and with more flexibility than was required of our parents and grandparents.

We are afraid of fucking up, and we are right to be afraid. Fucking up is embarrassing, and hurtful, and can damage both the fucker-upper and the up-fucked. It is also inevitable. It is part of learning how to be human, especially in a volatile and fast-moving political culture. The plain fact is that if you want to be part of a cause that’s bigger than yourself, you will, at some point, fuck up, unless you’re among the rare subset of the human species who tumbled from the womb with perfect politics.

So I do understand how it feels, and it’s coming from a place of sympathy, as well as love, when I tell you to suck it up.

Suck it up and let go. Let go of your resentment at women’s lack of patience, let go of your wounded pride, let go of your useless shame, and let go of the idea of being a “good guy.” “Good” is not a thing you are, it’s a thing you do, or don’t do. The world is not neatly divided into good and bad men. It never was, and we need to let go of the idea that it ever was, so that we can finally be better to one another, finally learn to deal with our shit like grown-ups in this strange new cityscape we’re crawling through together, trying to find our way to the light. That’s the only way we’re going to move from a place of holding abusers to account, into a future where abuse is less likely to happen.

We won’t get to that world by continuing to infantilize men, nor by clinging to the curiously sexist belief that they are too fragile to cope with the consequences of their actions. That sort of belief might be nice, but ultimately, it is not kind. It is not a kindness to have low expectations of men, to always be doing the emotional work for them. It is not a kindness to give in to the threat — so common in abusive relationships — that if we don’t do what they want, they will do violence to themselves, or to us, or both. For a long time, I thought that I was being loving to men by expecting less of them. I thought wrong. I was not being loving. I was not being kind. I was only being nice — and nice is not enough.

that is a good piece steen

ime ive found the most damaging part of toxic masculinity (amongst males) is the attitude that certain actions connote someone as not being manly, or a wimp
like when i was beat up earlier this year the dude actually said "that will teach you something about being a man" while i was crying
this shit needs to die in a fire

last night's svu about incels was very good pic.twitter.com/QM0pPVnmnG

— 𝚍𝚊𝚗𝚝𝚎 🦇 (@metaltango) October 12, 2018

is that a good piece idk is it

dmac:

https://media.makeameme.org/created/is-it-though-5b0c0c.jpg

in many ways yes i am chris hemsworth yes

Putting this in here because it contains a discussion of self-awareness and masculinity

https://longreads.com/2018/10/18/the-denial-diaries-on-metoo-men-with-no-self-awareness/

just to establish imo a bright line of ridiculousness:

i should have known the logical conclusion to the “pay me for my emotional labor” stuff would be “Woke Egoism” pic.twitter.com/pdZA52COhB

— authcom doomguy (@gaddafistfuture) October 19, 2018

Woke-ciopathy

The texting back part is true though. I am very bad at texting back.

just to establish imo a bright line of ridiculousness:

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver

i considered starting a gofundme to overthrow capitalism but decided against it on the infinitesimal chance it might go viral and undo all the work i've put in to not kill myself

makes u think

https://external-preview.redd.it/v_owXCe7jDiMDgIk_yvB5LoUSsNVeL92zRyvDsrVZDk.jpg?width=576&auto=webp&s=c62f0e0d4e173dbef8f035d57b330581b45b9dbe

don't want none of that Mamby-Pampyism

Don't go to Montecito

I didn’t even know that was an expression

Haha, it's a High Llamas song

I finally understand it

i have literally no idea what any of that means but i have the perfect strangers theme song stuck in my head now

For reference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hmIRrN8xio

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/10/acting-like-a-psychopath-is-great-for-male-ceos-not-so-much-for-women/

Women should have equal opportunity to be psychopathic CEOs.

Have been reading *Her Body and Other Parties* and *Throw Like A Girl* just arrived in the mail -- excited to start it.

I loved Her Body &c and should reread some of it probably.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/cooperation-is-cultural/

Ugh: https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/7xqw3g/this-is-what-the-life-of-an-incel-looks-like

I have no idea what can be done about this.

damn, these folks have some hardcore gender dysphoria

This whole article...it's a lot.

yeuch

I mean, I think this part is right

“I’ve literally been to some of the best psychologists in the country, and not one of them hinted that my problem may be societal,”

But the diagnosis of the problem veers so far off course from there.

I mean so much of it has to be societal because this generally doesn't happen to women.

At the same time though, I would be completely happy if these guys were all sent to live in a remote location with a monitored version of the internet to play on all day. I think this is what some of them want anyway, no pressures of having to live outside of their screen.

i wisely stopped reading as soon as the one guy shit his pants and then died :(
it's too much

some of this doesn't seem far off the reasons why I take a break from, or at least have attempted to attenuate, my engagement with social media.

that instant engagement and constant blast of different ideas, with a bunch of people instantly weighing in on (what is in the incel communities) batshit theories, gives you no space to separate your sense of self from whatever you're engaging with. at least give yourself a ten minute break to walk around the block and realize whatever you just read is bullshit and you don't need to comment on it!

tbh this dude chain smoking is uh not helping either. he's just wired his brain to be completely into compulsively commenting and refreshing

his mom is also enabling him by paying for his entire life

i really just couldn't keep reading, it's too depressing

I mean, there is a point at which when a group of people very insistently wants to wallow in their own misery, there is only so much intervention you can do. And I can relate to it to an extent, because I know the addictive, cruel comfort of online commiseration. But that's why I generally stay away from the parts of the internet where that goes on.

I'm not going to spend much of my mental energy trying to figure out how to help incels. But I do think there is something about contemporary society that leads to this -- a combination of capitalist hyper-individualization and something male-specific that I have trouble articulating, but maybe I would say it's that we haven't developed strong enough positive narratives for men's roles in a more feminist world. The dying of the old entitlement combined with a hole in terms of what to replace it with.

Also LL totally OTM about the mom enabling it.

yes

there's definitely a part of me that just screams "take away his goddamn computer and kick him out of the house" but I don't think any of these situations start with the guy who never leaves his room

Women are raised and are pressured to be conciliatory. I hate socializing but it's ingrained in me to be a host and to make sure all other people are comfortable. I was never allowed to hide out in my room.

I keep thinking of two people I know where, as far as I know, they never got into this rhetoric but definitely have a bit of the shut-in w/a computer mentality

one is my cousin who is a bright guy, but socially awkward and probably on the autism spectrum. we'd get along great when I saw him a few times a year as a kid, talking about all kinds of computer and video game stuff. he was a great student, went to college and graduated with near a 4.0 in computer science, and then moved back to his parents' basement and... that's it. he's nearly 35 now, and maybe helps out at his family's store. I have no idea wtf he does other than that

the other is a good friend of mine who was a college roommate. also a computer science guy, one of the most talented programmers I've known. while he'd be in his apartment alone in front of a computer, he'd be working remotely with a team -- he was always a good collaborator and went to grad school and later got a few pretty cool jobs. he got married this year! his wife is almost hyper-social and just as motivated as he is. as far as I know his online socialization was always about *finding projects to do* and that's a key difference

there's something to the insularity of these incel dudes being about a lack of focus beyond their own situation

some of this doesn't seem far off the reasons why I take a break from, or at least have attempted to attenuate, my engagement with social media.

I was thinking the same. In some respects, this looks somewhat similar to my own dysfunctionality. I'm not sure that the amount of time I spend absorbed in my laptop screen would look much less creepy to an outside observer. And I've certainly had the experience of becoming financially dependent on a parent and not knowing how to break out of it. I don't think this is uncommon in our generation.

I would just say, yes I know ilx loves to find commonalities and I'm not trying to discourage self-reflection, but I also think there's a significant difference between "parents helped me for a while in between jobs/during illness/etc" and what's in that article.

this really is like an analogue to anorexia isn't it? it's a modern mental illness and it self-perpetuates and abets itself as with those pro-ana websites