Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

The private is political in action.

I am putting this in the same category as him playing the guitar terribly or him telling someone how to incorrectly bake bread when he's never done it before. I am not telling the world he has some tragic body odor (made up example).

hey mordy you're being a dickhead

He's being the typical dude.

i don't really feel like getting into a fight on ilx

being a socially successful, sexually charismatic male is the greatest feeling in our collective imaginary (or genes?), as such a person enjoys the greatest freedom.

"Imaginary" is right as I reckon only a vanishingly small percentage of males feel like this on anything resembling a regular basis. Like I get that just because something is nigh-on unattainable doesn't mean ppl stop yearning for it (cf self-made man myth and all that) but I don't think this is something to get too fatalistic over

xpost No, it's cool. I am using him as an example because we've had many discussions and many examples where I LOVINGLY but seriously call him on "mansplaining" or talking over me. And I am fascinated by what compels white men to do this. Like, it's so subconscious sometimes that it's like they're sleepwalking through the actions of doing it.

"just fyi i'm not sure if you're aware"

yeah, um, this is that thing by the way. that people do. if you aren't aware...

Why the continued emphasis on whiteness? Male privilege/toxic masculinity are a near-universal given throughout space and time. Chalk it up to the need for a US/non-US thread (board, even).

It drives my wife crazy when people (especially her mom!) address questions about science-y topics to me, as if I would know (I would not, and she is far more knowledgeable about those areas). I've definitely become more conscious of that sort of thing and try to redirect the conversation.

Same for the dynamics at our weekly potluck, where in the old days it was more common for dudes to dominate the conversation (usually about books & music, since there are a lot of writers and musicians in the group).

It drives my wife crazy when people (especially her mom!) address questions about science-y topics to me, as if I would know (I would not, and she is far more knowledgeable about those areas).

Fuck, I got this for a while. Not my wife, but my sister-in-law. Whenever anyone had a computer problem in HER family, they would look to me for help and advice. I have an intermediate knowledge of Microsoft Office. They actually paid for her education in a computer-related field.

D-40:

on a more serious note, when people talk about white men letting loose their grip on power i don't really feel like it actually...connects to the way the world works. It's treating a systemic issue, once again, as an individual behavior issue. and we have a system that specifically rewards individual behaviors. if all the woke dudes start giving up their power it leaves the worlds biggest assholes in power, rather than the ones more liable to i.e. hire female employees. of course, entrusting the system to solve these problems is also wrong...but we also all have to pay rent? idk, i feel like people haven't really thought about what letting go of power really means

another way to look at it is with Trump, who actually gets what white people are correctly afraid of: many of them would lose jobs if a truly equitable society were to take shape. I know privileged ppl who have jobs in which they coast, as the children of wealthy or powerful ppl, making 80k to moderate unimportant organization message boards or whatever. We can tell poor white ppl "no you don't understand trump doesn't have your interests at heart" and we're right bc Obamacare would help them but we're wrong in the sense that they know the truth: white privilege is a real benefit to them, even as its also destroying them, and that there actually *aren't* enough jobs to go around, and they are worried theyll lose those jobs....which is true! id argue many of them probably deserve to, of course. But this applies to many ppl whose lives began from places of greater opportunity, and why would they give it up? to 'do the right thing'? Because they want to be a 'good person'? We have a system that doesnt incentivize these behaviors, so instead we just look down on ppl for acting rationally

This is a booming post, frankly. I agree that the problem is first a systemic problem (and, once the US have finally implemented single-payer health care and stopped issuing CCW permits, then, even if anti-woman anti-black sentiment continues to exist, it at least won't nearly be affected in life-threatening terms). But arriving at that place where these legislative changes can happen? doesn't that have to come from a position of social change?

I'm sure you read that Mother Jones article about the bright young Oklahoman? https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/donald-trump-2016-election-oklahoma-working-class/

We have a system that doesnt incentivize these behaviors, so instead we just look down on ppl for acting rationally

I think about this all the time when thinking about gun nuts, and the "cold dead hands" rhetoric-- people criticizing my facetious "we can't genocide them" seriousjoke? they fucking started it--

I really do think that the fight needs to be won by psychologists who can figure out ways of convincing so-called the "right wing" why their viewpoint is entirely buttressed by faulty logic and an ignorance of statistical data-- won by propagandists and speech-writers who can rebut a "city on the hill" aphorism with a better aphorism that suggests, at the very least, "women are safe in our country", or something else

xp you're posturing for an audience that has no need for it and on the basis of what would seem to be a sophomoric understanding of the topic at hand

this is maybe a tension in the online-social-justice movement or whatever you want to call it, on the one hand there's a hyper-focus on shaming people from privileged groups who have said/done the wrong thing in some particular instance, but there's also implicit in their worldview the idea that any individual choices or actions a specific person makes will count always be less significant in forming their identity, and in what impact they have on the world than their race and gender?

It's kinda like, no matter what you do, you always lose.

xpost No, it's cool. I am using him as an example because we've had many discussions and many examples where I LOVINGLY but seriously call him on "mansplaining" or talking over me. And I am fascinated by what compels white men to do this. Like, it's so subconscious sometimes that it's like they're sleepwalking through the actions of doing it.

― Yerac, Thursday, March 8, 2018 10:33 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I can completely relate to this, and I wonder why the hell it's a mode of conversation I'm used to? Part of it was being really into reading about all kinds of different things as a kid, and my patient mother letting me stand and "converse" with her, which was really her doing some task while I enthusiastically yammered about whatever thing I got into reading about that week.

_obviously_ not everyone was a voracious reader with a patient mother, but there's this entire mode of "conversation" that's just telling long anecdotes or spewing information with little interplay that I experience a lot more with male friends and coworkers than I do with women. and I'm aware of it, and am guessing Yerac's husband is, too!

I mean, I've jokingly said "I've got to warn you, I'm a talker" when introducing myself to people. But that's a joke, not an excuse for being bad at interactive conversation, especially when talking to someone who is socialized to not interrupt you, or feels like they're not allowed to.

it's not that the speaker even necessarily thinks they're an expert, but by talking over others, they become the de facto "expert" because they never bothered to ask if anyone else had ever baked bread or w/e

He's being the typical dude mordy

xp - I know plenty of women that do this, too, (me included) but it almost always involves anxiety and/or alcohol

there's also something to the "whoa, I wouldn't say things about my wife like that" thing

it's cool to be someone not saying rude things about a significant other, especially when I've listened to older dudes talk about their marriages in "ball and chain" terms and wonder why these fossils are still talking to me. but there's also the element of trusting people to have an understanding about what their partner would be cool with, discussion-wise

I have a few married couples I hang out with where I get the exact same discussion of small grievances, in the same terms, whether they're both present or just one of them. And I have that relationship with both spouses

i've never experienced neither anxiety nor alcohol, obviously

True story: we were at a pub quiz last month and he acknowledges that I am a thousand times better at trivia than him. There was a question about what facial feature in House Hapsburg was elongated due to inbreeding. I was staring off into the distance because, I dunno, I was looking to see where the restroom was or the question was poorly worded. He started to define to me what inbreeding is and I loudly said "Are you seriously explaining what incest is to me!?!" Our team laughed.

Yeah, when I go off on a topic it usually involves alcohol. But I also know a lot about the topic and if someone corrects me or knows more than me, I stop talking and listen.

it can be fun to bullshit, to see how far you can push it; but i don't have an SO to complicate that.

(I only know a lot about maybe 3 things, so I keep my mouth shut unless one of them comes up)

xpost Meaning to say, if I start to soliloquiz it's usually on a topic I know a lot about and not something I am pulling out of thin air.

honestly, Yerac, I wouldn't be apologetic about those anecdotes about your husband -- I see it as indicative of what long-term intimate relationships are like. I thought it was funny and apt.

ha, the first autocomplete on Google for Habsburg is "Habsburg jaw"

Oh, I am not apologetic. This should be a teaching moment for the dudes on this thread who find it distasteful and need to learn the difference. But thanks!

Sometimes when I go out to dinner or some other with his work colleagues (international crowd) I think about whether I should say anything when a controversial topic comes up. But then I say fuck it. I've asked before if it bothers him. But it doesn't because he usually agrees or just thinks it's funny.

I'm cool with people sharing stories about their partners or friends when it's pretty clear through context that the subject of the story would be fine with it. I feel like it's a red flag if it sounds like some old coworker harping on about his "ball and chain" or w/e but people generally have the respect to not air things out in a way their spouse would be angry at

https://goo.gl/images/ZVpTCd

my wife and i zing each other all the time in front of others bc it's good times, i've never been shaken by one of her remarks in those situations, like "how dare you speak about me in such a manner in front of the neighbors" etc.

Bullwinkle J. Filmandbaseball

I'm cool with people sharing stories about their partners or friends when it's pretty clear through context that the subject of the story would be fine with it. I feel like it's a red flag if it sounds like some old coworker harping on about his "ball and chain" or w/e but people generally have the respect to not air things out in a way their spouse would be angry at

― mh, Thursday, March 8, 2018 3:05 PM (twelve minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

FWIW there's also a strain of old-fashioned "man-code"-ism that I've come across where guys say they don't discuss their relationships. I don't know where this originated or how far back it goes, but it seems like it's associated with it being "unmanly" to gossip.

it's not unmanly to gossip. it's bad human behavior period.

Well, I get that. But I consider these anecdotes to illustrate a point You don't have to defend a man you have never met. He's ok.

oh yeah i said up top that i'm not judging your particular marriage

that would be pretty dumb to judge the relationship of two people who i know nothing about and have never met

I feel like "gossip" gets used to describe people speaking about something with nuance, without a sense of condemnation, when it's women doing it. I think of "gossip" meaning ephemeral details, maybe damning or salacious, shared for the purpose of entertainment or airing a grievance.

basically condemning how women will analyze social interaction through conversation, which -- and not in all cases! -- is a lot different in tone than dudes just complaining

It's also seen as malicious in intent and ambiguous as to whether it is true or not.

Also, can you gossip about yourself? Is that a thing?

I feel like there are underlying aspects of misogyny to it, that makes me uncomfortable when someone says "gossip is bad behavior"

fwiw the torah is basically "never talk about other ppl unless it's productive" i.e. to warn somebody of a bad business partnership or warn someone about information about who they're dating. the idea that you would chat about other ppl's lives for entertainment (prurient or really otherwise) seems anathema (tho this is not across the board - but in 2018 it's mostly the canonical take). i think of this as separate from the talking about your spouse thing which (and i know for sure i've expressed this idea on ilx before) is more about making public what should be intimate and private. again which isn't to judge yerac's relationship at all in specifics. just that in the aggregate ppl should probably err on the side of privacy when it comes to their spouses even when the teasing seems good natured. i know of couples where one person good naturedly teases/teased their spouse and the spouse smiled but you could see there was pain and friction and they were trying to be a good sport but it seemed probably not super healthy for the relationship. again nothing about yerac specifically. i'm speaking entirely in generalizations.

Also, can you gossip about yourself? Is that a thing?

again, torah perspective says no, you cannot. if productively disclosing information for whatever reason (guidance, etc) sure. but generally trash-talking yourself is also supposed to be a no-no.

nb i'm just sharing a particular milieu i'm not expecting or even hoping anyone here adopts it themselves, but it does inform my perspective.

xxxxxp otm the whole reason the word "gossip" has a pejorative sense is because over the centuries it became primarily associated with women talking to each other. The origin is from "god-sib" or god-sibling, someone extremely close to you, like family, who you share confidences with. It was value-neutral until it got attached primarily to women's conversation.

I feel like there are underlying aspects of misogyny to it, that makes me uncomfortable when someone says "gossip is bad behavior"

men gossip too. while i think there might be stereotyping about who does most of the gossiping, ime it's not really gendered in practice.

also i should clarify "gossip" is an english word w/ a particular etymology, none of the terms as I'm using them are originally in english - the terms are "lashon hara" (lit: "evil speech," aka truthful harmful speech) and "motzei shem ra" ("making a false name," aka false harmful speech).

I think you'd come up with some interesting responses if you asked a cross-section of men if they gossip!

fwiw, I would say these things to any man, pointing out their eye rolling behaviour. I have similar anecdotes about my dad, brothers, coworkers, doormen, tsa at the airport.

like the dudes I ended up having beers with after work yesterday who work in a completely different area were talking all kinds of trash about an older manager in their area who should just retire instead of trying to assert control

pretty sure at least one of them would be angry if I called it gossip

Yerac seeing your partner from this side is hilarious. NB: at least during infrequent social contact, her partner appears to be a very mild-mannered, gentle person, who comes across as a good listener and a peace-maker. Which I think is even more evidence that even dudes with positive intentions and a natural inclination to be kind, good, etc, are still steeped in a certain amount of assumption of speaking with authority.

not like women ever speak w/ assumptions of authority and especially not on ilx and especially not women posting on this thread right