Rolling Maleness and Masculinity Discussion Thread

*Most of the 'positive' definitions of masculinity* IN THAT ARTICLE is what I meant to type

it's empty rhetorical gestures all the way down

is the difference that the positive definitions of masculinity sometimes fall into essentialism, that men are naturally stronger than women (not just physically but mentally, emotionally) rather than differences between men and women being the result of a way of organizing society that could potentially be changed? But accepting that wouldn't necessarily mean we shouldn't try to define masculinity, or mean that the question is pointless and we should just focus on 'being a good person'

The apparent exclusion of gay men, soft boys, trans men from the article is itself kinda the point, the “masculinity” under discussion is a series of aesthetics and poses that are intractable from dangerous patriarchal power structures

Craig Culp, 63, seems like the sole voice of reason here

I’ve recently been thinking about the difference between “destination” and “vector”. That is, with any societal issue, there is an ideal endpoint that can be defined, but there is also critical action that needs to be taken to redress those who are in a current state of oppression; engaging in the critical action may sometimes contradict the direction toward the ideal endpoint.

For example I am a communist who does not believe that land should be owned, but I support the land back movement which insists on returning ownership of stolen land back to Indigenous people

For example I subscribe to the idea that James Baldwin stated whereby the entire concept of “race” was created by those who would oppress and the idea should be eliminated, but I also acknowledge that while socio-economic systemic oppression of certain racial groups exist within a society, we cannot simply do away with terms of “race” until these disparities have been redressed

wrt masculinity, I remember ten years ago that I felt most-comfortable with my (non-)gender, and would agree strongly with essays arguing for anti-essentialism, and wore a shirt that nodded to Ono: “Gender is over! if you want it”.

It seems over the past ten years that (broadly speaking) the gender gap is simply too critical an issue that needs to be corrected, it needs fixing before we can truly say “gender is over”. Anti-essentialism is the destination, a world where we enjoy our beards and leather fragrances and penises and Paul Newman movies but have absolutely no relationship of these things to any concept of “maleness”, a concept that will hopefully within my lifetime seem prehistoric

In the meantime, Jordan Peterson and adjacent philosophies are as offensive to me as white supremacism; the safety and security and employability of non-men remains in a state of crisis and this is the (only) topic at hand

Kate— bless you, Kate, by the way, your posts are always the highlight of my day— posted on another thread about how she “loves men”; I do not love men. I love humans, and some of these humans would previously be described as being “men”, but I seldom think of them as such, unless they start exhibiting behaviours that are reminiscent of “maleness”, at which point I stop loving the human and start disliking the man

I’ve recently become acquainted with a poly pan she/them in my neighbourhood, her name is S. S recently was drinking with a dude in our extended circle. They were flirting, he walked her home, and he prefaced an acceptance of an invitation inside with an assertion that he “doesn’t eat pussy”. S got angry and called him names and he left.

I went with S out to meet some friends, and the man-who-doesn’t-eat-pussy was there. S started trying to pick a fight with the guy, but he (genially?) was exacerbating things, edging further and further into problematic territory. S would leave, and then come back, and leave, and then come back. The hostile dialogue between them both continued, apparently, long after I left.

A couple nights later, I was with some other people who were present, including a cavalier bartender woman named B. I asked B what her take was on the whole thing.

B said, “there is so much sexual tension between S and that pussy-non-eater. Have you seen the dudes S dates? They’re all soft boys with blue hair. Sometimes you want a dude who will be sweet and listen to you. Sometimes you want to get railed by a misogynistic shithead who doesn’t eat pussy. S is attracted to that guy but she doesn’t want to admit it.”

I bring this story up because I think there is a contradiction at play here— hating maleness, but also feeling attracted to it— that doesn’t just apply to the sexual arena but a broader arena as well

But accepting that wouldn't necessarily mean we shouldn't try to define masculinity, or mean that the question is pointless and we should just focus on 'being a good person'

I was being sort of flippant there, responding to the WaPo thing. It just made me think it's probably better if most men don't think too much about "being a man" because it's more likely to reinforce insecurities and bad existing models than challenge them. Getting men in general to think/worry less about "being a man" is probably a step in the right direction.

I think there is a contradiction at play here— hating maleness, but also feeling attracted to it— that doesn’t just apply to the sexual arena but a broader arena as well

Sure, and I think there's version of that contradiction in conceptions of femininity. In an ideal world these are types or roles everyone can play with and enjoy, but obviously that ideal world would be one without our existing gendered power differentials.

I was being sort of flippant there, responding to the WaPo thing. It just made me think it's probably better if most men don't think too much about "being a man" because it's more likely to reinforce insecurities and bad existing models than challenge them. Getting men in general to think/worry less about "being a man" is probably a step in the right direction.

I'm not saying this is necessarily wrong, but it's weird to me how many people would argue this who very much wouldn't argue that white people should think less about being white, who would insist that white people in fact have a duty to think about being white and 'whiteness', why is it different in this case?

i don't think it is different, really*

but thinking *about* whiteness or masculinity or privilege in general is very different from trying to define positive versions of these things which are essentially constructs of power and hierarchy. gods help us there's people talking about "positive whiteness" out there but i hope mostly when somebody does that it's seen as the huge red flag it is

*BIG CAVEAT: the stuff about sexuality and desire that fgti and kate and tabes and others have brought up here, which is such a rich topic for exploration that it deserves its own thread(s) imo

not very articulate of me so i'll try again (and still be inarticulate): recognising how categories of identity are imposed on you and how they impact your privilege and your oppression is good and necessary. trying to find a way to perform your imposed categories more positively seems like a foolish endeavour that's already surrendered to that which is imposed

all the stuff about how to be a good white ally or how to be a 'white abolitionist' or a white person who 'works to dismantle whiteness' - this is to all intents and purposes "positive whiteness", even if the people advocating it wouldn't use that term, yes?

even if the hypothetical end goal is a society where 'whiteness' no longer exists (but it's understood that this will be in some unforeseeable future, that you as a 'white ally' will never transcend whiteness)

what

Being conscious of the privilege that one lives with is markedly different from attempting to be embody an “ideal” of a privileged state that one is trying to mitigate/eliminate

if all of those 'postive definitions of masculinity' had been proceeded with throat clearing about how masculinity is inherently bad, and hopefully one day will not exist, but for the moment while it does here's the best way to live your life as a man who can't effectively renounce his maleness, would that have made them more palatable to the people who found fault with them? Because it doesn't seem like something that would make any real practical difference to the content of those definitions, or their utility as advice on how a man should conduct himself in the world

it's not about palatability, it's about recognising that what somebody is doing when they talk about "how to be a man" is reinforcing the concept of masculinity, whatever the stated intent

I think the piece missing here, and it’s what is missing whenever defensiveness starts to crop up in these conversations about intersectionality, is that there’s nothing wrong with being White, there’s nothing wrong with being straight, and there’s nothing wrong with being male, but there is something wrong when you’re a dick about it, and the difficult thing is that the definition of “being a dick” is going to change depending on who you are interacting with and will sometimes be or feel unfair. And, well… that’s just life.

Part of the message here is that if you are focusing less on “how can I be a good [x] person” and more on “how can I be a good person”, you will make fewer mistakes and missteps. You’ll still make some, because again that’s life, and the nature of intersectionality means there aren’t any one-size-fits-all answers to how to be a good person, but navigating all of this as best you can is literally the definition of trying to live a good life.

Otm

'm not saying this is necessarily wrong, but it's weird to me how many people would argue this who very much wouldn't argue that white people should think less about being white, who would insist that white people in fact have a duty to think about being white and 'whiteness', why is it different in this case?

Oh I mean, I think men should think about the construction of male-ness and its relationship to power, in more or less the same way white people should think about and engage with whiteness. It's just that asking men what they think a good way to "be a man" is is probably not the route to go, because you're going to get ... that. (And surely WaPo would have better sense than to ask white people what are the good ways to be white people, because you'd get endless lists of all the great things white people have done and why you "shouldn't feel ashamed" to be white or whatever.)

And DJP otm.

DJP otm x3

To finish my thought, the unfair part of mixing “how can I be a good person” with intersectionality means that, while there are many instances where focusing on being a good person is sufficient , there are also going to be times where you identity has to be considered, whether it’s race, gender, sexual orientation, profession, whatever. So it does eventually come back to including elements of your identity in the equation, but that’s not necessarily the starting point, if you get what I mean.

there’s nothing wrong with being White there’s nothing wrong with being male

idk if that's the consensus view here, though? if someone is advocating dismantling whiteness and masculinity, that suggests that they think there in fact is something wrong with being white or male, surely?

sigh

lol you ask a lot of rhetorical questions

being individually racialized as white and whiteness as a social, cultural, political, economic thing (lol sorry) are not the same

Cutting out “there’s something wrong with being a dick about it” and the complications of defining what “being a dick” means changes the meaning of what I’m saying dramatically.

We want a simple answer. Superficially, there is one. Practically, it’s insufficient to the point of uselessness and none of this can move forward without being comfortable with consciously examining things through the multiple overlapping prisms of experience and perspective that we all do subconsciously and interrogating whether the conclusions we’re drawing are true/fair/reasonable/the conclusions we wish to see.

being individually racialized as white and whiteness as a social, cultural, political, economic thing (lol sorry) are not the same

― rob, Thursday, 17 August 2023 16:24 (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

what's the difference? I mean, you can't have one without the other, surely? They're two sides of the same coin

_being individually racialized as white and whiteness as a social, cultural, political, economic thing (lol sorry) are not the same

― rob, Thursday, 17 August 2023 16:24 (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink_

what's the difference? I mean, you can't have one without the other, surely? They're two sides of the same coin

Yeah otm

lots of excellent posts itt, but just to address soref for a sec:

I actually meant to post "obviously they're related" after that post but got distracted

if someone is advocating dismantling whiteness and masculinity, that suggests that they think there in fact is something wrong with being white or male, surely?

I guess the way I see it is that whiteness and maleness are most significant in terms of this conversation as social relations not as qualities of individuals, so the "something wrong with being white/male" is that those relations are unjust and that's what people want to dismantle. People also want to abolish the categories of gender and race, but that isn't solely motivated by "there's something wrong with being male/white," it's usually a recognition of the harm these forces have had on everyone (disproportionally, tbc).

But I think at this point I need you to explain what *you* mean by "something wrong"; I'm not quite sure what I'm being asked to contest with.

I guess I don't think that *there's nothing wrong with being male (or white, or whatever), there's just something wrong with being a dick about it* (paraphrasing) doesn't work as a formulation, partly because one aspect of privilege is that you don't need to be a dick to benefit at others expense, society will do the dirty work for you, allowing you to keep you're own hands clean.

Like the social type of the Hugh Grant style upper-class brit who is charmingly diffident and self-effacing and polite - he doesn't need to trample on other people's heads to get to the top because he will effortlessly rise to the top anyway, pushed there by various social and political forces. Being a dick or not being a dick doesn't make much difference to the end result for him or for the people beneath him the hierarchy, everyone ends up in basically the same position whether he's a dick or not. In fact, maybe the people below him would rather he was a dick, because then it would be more straightforward to resent him, rather than having to acknowledge that he's a nice guy and he's doing his best etc

and obviously a lot of those upper-class brits are not charmingly polite and are brash, bullying arseholes, but that only make a difference at the margins, everything basically stays the same whether they're a dick or not

That's the toxicity around whiteness and masculinity that people talk about being rid of when they say they want 'eliminate' whiteness.

Reducing the "don't be a dick" advice to "be charmingly polite" is severely misguided at best.

"Be humble and kind" works too.

A lot of people (from what I see of soref's posting and in social media) tend to really struggle and get very defensive around this type of stuff, and ask a lot of draining questions. People give answers and the questions keep coming, with no end in sight.

So a focus on being good to other people is important. Good for others but also good for you as well, as tying yourself in knots is no good for you.

Like there's obviously ways in which wealth can be used to good political purposes! Financing legal advice for protesters, mutual aid groups, investigative journalism, etc. None of which makes that wealth "good" or an article about how to be a good rich person a good idea.

does anything in the article quote or refer to Kipling's "If"? I grew up with that model ... did I post about that upthread? Anyway, I grew up with concepts where "how to be a good person" and "how to be a good man" were conflated. Like masculinity was always part of "goodness" and "adulthood" ... and being female, that gave me cognitive dissonance as well as gender dysphoria. Why shouldn't everyone aspire to be masculine, if "goodness" is wrapped up in it, plus men have more power? Why would you _not_ want that in some way / shape / form?

To clarify for soref, in the example he gave “being a dick about it” isn’t existing as an affable White man who is riding society’s preferences for his identity to success; it’s shutting down any talk of the intersectional forces that contributed to his success with “but he’s nice, you are attacking White people”

None of which makes that wealth "good" or an article about how to be a good rich person a good idea.

but there are so many of these articles lol

xp there are successful white people who try to shut down any talk of the intersectional forces that contributed to their success, but there are also plenty of successful white people who are eager to talk of those intersectional forces that contributed to their success at great length, and who delight in wringing their hands about this, and it doesn't seem to make much difference at the end of the day? It seems like what unites them is more significant that whether they shut down or encourage talk about intersectional forces

but there are also plenty of successful white people who are eager to talk of those intersectional forces that contributed to their success at great length, and who delight in wringing their hands about this, and it doesn't seem to make much difference at the end of the day?

huh?

A difference to whom?

to anyone I guess, including the people disadvantaged and exploited by those same intersectional forces

sorry but you'll have to bring up cases of these sad white men

Look, we've answered your questions every which way.

Failing to see how articles going "being a good man is like being George Clooney or the captain from Star Trek" do not leave everything the same tbh.

those articles do leave everything the same! that's what I'm trying to say - I can't see the big difference between articles like that and symposia on how to be mindful of your privilege as a man, and how to be a good ally etc, so I don't understand why somebody would disapprove of the former but approve of the latter

I can't see the big difference between articles like that and symposia on how to be mindful of your privilege as a man

Because the one reinforces assumptions and the other challenges them? (Not saying that symposia are necessarily a great idea either, it kind of depends on the content.)

I don't think you need to approve of symposiums of any kind to want to abolish gender! You can reduce "being a good ally" to introspective self-analysis but there's all sorts of deeds, not words, that come into it, from simple speaking up at moments of bigotry through to organising, volunteer work, direct action, etc.

Still it seems like your initial take wasn't "none of this creates material change" but rather "finding a positive defintion of masculinity could be useful" so I'm a bit ??? at this pivot.

Still it seems like your initial take wasn't "none of this creates material change" but rather "finding a positive defintion of masculinity could be useful" so I'm a bit ??? at this pivot.

I'm not sure if finding a positive definition of masculinity would be useful or not, but it's more that I don't see an obvious difference between finding a positive definition of masculinity and the how to be a feminist ally stuff aside from semantics, but my thinking on this is confused and I don't think I'm capable of articulating it very well anyway, so I'll leave it there. Apologies to those who found all this annoying

This post isn't be a direct response to anything or anyone immediately preceding it, but rather is my attempt to step back and gather my thoughts on the subject.

Most of the ideas of masculinity expressed by the contributors to that WaPo article, when they are considered in isolation, are worthwhile attributes and valuable traits when they are applied in their proper context. On the whole these men are attempting to define an idealized set of virtues, like courage, honesty, humility, good judgment, reliability, tenderness, accessibility and the like, then identifying these as the ideals that they, as men, would like to embody.

I think we should acknowledge they really are doing their best, in a confused and unhelpful society, to understand that basic "to be a good man just be a good person" idea. I don't think they should be faulted or dismissed for failing to see the hidden pitfalls in the question they were invited to answer. It's obvious to most of us here that those pitfalls can and do lead to very bad consequences, easily typified by such crap artists as Jordan Peterson.

"The very question of what constitutes ideal masculinity is, at best, a fool’s errand and, at worst, dangerous. It also might lie at the heart of why we are losing young men to cults of toxic masculinity. The minute you define this false ideal, you are falsely defining those who don’t meet the ideal. — Craig Culp, 63, Gaithersburg, Md."

This old guy knows the score, but this one brief quote doesn't go far enough to untangle the process and identify where the danger lies. I'd identify the biggest trap as the fact that all those admirable virtues listed by the men in that article are inherent in specific human actions, not in categories of people or states of being. The moment you identify these virtues as a property of an abstract category such as masculinity (or religious affiliation or sexual orientation or...) you're irrevocably moving into nonsense and worse.

The effect of thinking in nonsense is bad enough, because it leads to confusion that can't be resolved until you recognize and abandon the false premise that led you into nonsense. That's the "fool's errand" piece of it.

Just as often the "at worst, dangerous" consequence emerges from the strong human tendency to binary and oppositional thinking. Even if the majority of the men in the article, when asked, would deny thinking that women can't have courage, good judgment or the other virtues they were naming, by claiming those virtues as part of 'masculinity' they're unconsciously setting up an opposite category into which all 'un-masculine' people belong, the members of which lack the masculine qualities of courage or good judgment. The next step is simple enough, which is that the more virtuous masculine people should have power and precedence over the less virtuous and therefore sadly inferior, un-masculine people.

As a sidebar, this oppositional formula often sets up a harrowing anxiety among young men that they may actually be among the un-masculine inferiors, because the ideal that is "masculinity" is basically an unachievable state of being. The most toxic path to resolving that anxiety is to substitute conventional signifiers of masculinity for those ideal virtues listed in the WaPo article, allowing one to proclaim one's masculinity, and by proxy, one's greater virtue and worthiness to social precedence. It's the consumer version of masculinity and capitalism is thrilled to cater to it.

I know there's much more to be said about all these toxic social misconceptions, but I think for me this covers the basics of the question.

This is what every group of guy friends thinks they look like when they go out pic.twitter.com/2dTMZgAobn

— socialist sopranos memes (@gabagoolmarx) August 17, 2023