Before I go on please let me say I have nothing against men who find the models of traditional masculinity to be the ones that work for them these are just some observations I’ve made from studying certain online sources most notably the site official man card – which I admit to becoming scarily addicted to over the last week – Noah linked to in his gender enforcement in the wild post.
It occurs to me that, put side by side with something like Hooking up Smart, there really is no difference in the advice they are giving in regards as how to conduct yourself in accordance with your gender: it’s just as narrow, just as hectoring and just… well, prissy.
Although I’m not the first person to make this observation far from it, journalist (and coiner of the phrase Metrosexual) Mark Simpson has been saying it for years:
I’ve always felt the facade of traditional gender roles is fragile at best; it requires constant vigilance to maintain, and with all this constant policing and fussing it’s only natural that you’re going to notice when someone else does something you’ve trained yourself to spot as being outside of self-imposed norms.
That’s when you head to places like Man Cards to gossip with your fellow real men about how totally saw Dave wearing eye liner, crying over some girly film, or eating something other than red meat and cheese and like a bunch of spiteful mean girls from a cliché high school comedy they have their little bitch fests.
This is something that could only exist on the internet as well; could you imagine what would happen if these guys uttered their critiques of their friends to their faces, so they do it in private where their intentions and their prissiness won’t be called into question.
I should say again that I don’t have a problem with so called “traditional behaviours” as long as they are not being enforced or are being touted as the only way men and women can lead happy lives because they’re really not.
aliarasthedaydreamer
Ami Angelwings
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2020
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Cliff Pervocracy
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John Hawkins
No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz? 
I’m glad I’m not the only one to have noticed the similarities between stereotypical macho men and stereotypical teenage girl cliques. Really, gender enforcement is just childish, no matter who does it.
OMG:
Puppies and guppies and kittens and whales are all fornicating!
I actually agree 100 percent with AB.
Of course, aren’t most of these sites, shows, etc., sort of tongue-in-cheek anyway? I don’t think that anyone is really taking seriously the idea that there is a “man card*” that you lose by not acting “manly*” enough.
* When reading these words aloud, make certain to say “man card” and “manly” in basso profundo.
Considering that some people are seriously considering a little boy with pink nail-polish on his toes to be “an attack against masculinity”, and that feminine boys and men are frequently the subject of harassment, I’d be careful to write it all off as ironic.
“In 1999, Rekers was still caught up in that enthusiasm himself, boasting that his breakthroughs with Kirk and other children opened the doors “for preventing homosexual orientation in males, if applied extensively in the population.””
You know, applied behavioral therapy which includes spanking a boy who does feminine thing, to prevent him being gay. As if this wasn’t tried before him even in the 70s, to no avail.
Schala:
I want to puke. “Applied Behavioral Therapy”? Sounds like stupid , ineffective, psychological malpractice to me.
It’s effective in curbing behaviors, generally, but it also traumatizes the subjects possibly for life, and scares them off doing anything even remotely linked to the behavior, either in their mind, or in the mind of their caregivers/therapists.
So, it won’t prevent someone being gay, but it will make them swear off feminine behavior to the point of obsessively NOT doing it…and possibly drive them to kill themselves for being judged unacceptable by even themselves.
“Every boy should be trained in real and proper masculinity. This does not mean that the boy should be trained according to the menacing macho myth. However, just because there is a macho myth in our society does not mean that we should throw out all distinctions between men and women. The choice is not between unisex versus macho training for boys. Both of these extremes are equally wrong and equally destructive. We must achieve a balance between these two extremes. That balance is real masculinity, which should be affirmed in every young boy and every young man in order to prevent them from being strongly tempted by the sexual perversions of homosexuality, transsexualism, and transvestism.
– Rekers, George A. Shaping Your Child’s Sexual Identity (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1982): 112.”
Says Rekers, caught in the rent-boy scandal last year.
Sounds like stupid , ineffective, psychological malpractice to me.
To me it sounds like an excuse to child abuse. And there are few things more despicable then that.
Funny enough that, probably to Rekers, ALL men are tempted by homosexuality, attracted to men – but they have to fight it, for God’s sake! It’s like not eating too much cake to him.
Being attracted to women is what God wants – not necessarily what he wants, but he thinks that what he himself wants doesn’t matter – he should want to be attracted to women, to please God, and to not be attracted (or at least, not do anything about it) to not displease God. And doing feminine stuff apparently makes it easier to displease God. Notwithstanding the ‘do not cross-dress’ deal in some discredited Old Testament chapter (the one about the price of slaves and not mixing fabrics, you know).
Clarence: This site has details about that story, if anyone is interested. http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/what-are-little-boys-made-of-main
Particularly obnoxious is how the story of that experiment kept getting cited as proof that therapy like that could give the kid a “healthy male identity”, even though they followed up with him at 17 and knew he was both depressed and gay.
“That’s when you head to places like Man Cards to gossip with your fellow real men about how totally saw Dave wearing eye liner, crying over some girly film, or eating something other than red meat and cheese and like a bunch of spiteful mean girls from a cliché high school comedy they have their little bitch fests.”
Quite honestly, the more I observe men and women separately, the more I see how great the underlying similarities are. Our basic human nature is pretty much the same, we’re just conditioned to express it in different ways, with different terminology/symbols/etc.
In 1991, Rekers summed it up this way:
The boy who is encouraged to act in a masculine way will develop a firm masculine identity.
The boy who develops a firm male identity will behave in a more masculine way.
Similarly, the girl who is encouraged to act in a feminine way will develop a firm female identity.
The girl who develops a firm female identity will behave in a more feminine way.11
…and the girl who is encouraged to act in a masculine way will still develop a firm female identity…even against legal sex assignment at birth. So much bull this Rekers.
I find the attempt to label traditional masculinity as prissy or fragile to be very petty and “sour grapes.” As if the fact that the exclusivity of being a “real man” is so aggravating that people who could never join that club need to make it seem less desirable by making comparisons between it and less badass groups like teenaged girls.
You’re basically trying to emasculate masculinity which is a semantic quagmire that will never quite yield the results you’re seeking.
I could just as easily, and more accurately, compare traditional manhood with Olympic athleticism. They’re both aspirational ideals. Achieving them requires constant vigilance and effort. Winners and losers are separated by the tiniest of measurements and the bars keep getting raised. Men ranking each other by what seems like the most insignificant of minutia is analogous to an athlete getting the gold because he was one-tenth of a second faster than someone else.
Kind of agree with Tu Quoque here. Calling that man card site “prissy” is simply engaging in the same game as they do. Instead this time, you’re trying to pull away their man card for pulling away other people’s man cards. I understand the impulse, but it feels very… wrong to me.
“I could just as easily, and more accurately, compare traditional manhood with Olympic athleticism. They’re both aspirational ideals. Achieving them requires constant vigilance and effort. Winners and losers are separated by the tiniest of measurements and the bars keep getting raised.”
That’s cool
“Men ranking each other by what seems like the most insignificant of minutia is analogous to an athlete getting the gold because he was one-tenth of a second faster than someone else.”
That’s not cool. This is the gossipy, non-serious, reality TV and “we all know this” kind of deal where we universalize some trait as good, for arbitrary reasons (for example, homosexuality is disliked arbitrarily – no one cares that we have less reproduction by choice, they care if people are sterilized by their workplace though).
This is the kind of thing where someone will go: “Well, yeah, everybody knows that going ballet dancing means you’re gay, unmasculine and are weak.” Because THEY are insecure themselves about other stuff, possibly also masculinity related. If it’s girls commenting, then it’s also probably related to insecurities they have, and a ‘protecting the territory’ deal (men do this too, in extremely male-dominated workplaces/domains).
It’s fun how this ‘protecting the territory’ deal seems to have expanded lately, and made into girl-only and boy-only foaming baths (Seriously! This didn’t exist 10 years ago. Foaming kids bath is foaming kids bath…).
It feels as if people want to prove they belong to their sex, and grasp at more and more straws, while being less and less confident about it – and this ironically encourages transphobia (because you can push someone you perceive as being worst socially, down, getting a tiny boost up).
The trick is not to invent more male-only or female-only things, it’s to be confident that you are who you are. It’s for me to be confident that I am female, and not let myself be told or convinced otherwise. Because I KNOW it to be true, and I don’t have to prove it.
I agree with Schala. Wanting to achieve a certain ideal can be good. Spending your time gossiping about someone because they didn’t show the required vigilance in avoiding threats like handbags and nail-polish, and thus aren’t special like you are, is just stupid.
@ tu
“I could just as easily, and more accurately, compare traditional manhood with Olympic athleticism. They’re both aspirational ideals. Achieving them requires constant vigilance and effort. Winners and losers are separated by the tiniest of measurements and the bars keep getting raised. ”
It could also be compared to the beauty ideal and how achieving a semblance of it requires constant vigilance and effort where winners and losers are separated by the tiniest of measurements and the bars keep getting raised.
In both situations the genders are competing for external approval and taking that competition to increasingly arcane and absurd lengths.
All the while they build nothing, achieve nothing, destroy cooperative solidarity, all to compete for the sake of vanity and to deny their own mortality.
There is nothing separating them but an arbitrary set of rules. And both systems represent neither masculinity nor femininity but rather, undeveloped and dysfunctional behavior for adults.
@tu quoque I could just as easily, and more accurately, compare traditional manhood with Olympic athleticism. They’re both aspirational ideals. Achieving them requires constant vigilance and effort. Winners and losers are separated by the tiniest of measurements and the bars keep getting raised. Men ranking each other by what seems like the most insignificant of minutia is analogous to an athlete getting the gold because he was one-tenth of a second faster than someone else.
Speaking as a distance runner: bull shit. First, athletes have objective, agreed-upon criteria for success. Second, putting other athletes down may not make you a worse runner, but it is still shoddy sportsmanship, and not in the spirit of human excellence. Not to mention how stupid it is to put people down for not wanting to be athletes in the first place.
If dressing butch is your hobby, then bully for you, but there’s no point in acting snotty about it.
“In both situations the genders are competing for external approval and taking that competition to increasingly arcane and absurd lengths.
All the while they build nothing, achieve nothing, destroy cooperative solidarity, all to compete for the sake of vanity and to deny their own mortality.
There is nothing separating them but an arbitrary set of rules. And both systems represent neither masculinity nor femininity but rather, undeveloped and dysfunctional behavior for adults.”
Quoted for truth
Yeah. Seeking your own gender identity is cool, being butch is cool, but trying to pressure other people into being butch simply because of their gender is Not Cool.
“It’s amazing the work a woman has to put into not being a man, considering how she wasn’t a man in the first place.”
Ditto in reverse
I find “masculinity” a much different animal than you speak of. (Admittedly I know little of how it is for younger men, except as I’ve heard in limited ways from my son and step-sons.) The worlds I know of – have No Deviations – in significant areas – where being Fag Bashed or otherwise Trashed being possible to be expressed. The fears – relate to possible Violence from either Peer Males (or when younger – Older Boys) or where Violence wasn.t an issue the social isolation could easily generate – what I might call: “idol fears” (not having peer support or dialog to help clarify the norms which were often not clearly spoken, but came through rumor and innuendo). Ridicule and putdowns did come from girls in some situations, however the fears were different.
My sense is that the pressures upon younger women are different in various ways. The pressures to seek Male Approval (as well as Female Approval) – in my mind have different safety issues as well as simply other significant differences.
I hope that the worlds – of boys and men are more open as you allude to. My sense is that it depends upon Where and with Whom. Thanks!
@typhon
“In both situations the genders are competing for external approval and taking that competition to increasingly arcane and absurd lengths.”
The more people of similar ability compete, the more specific and demanding the criteria is for success in competition has to be. Manhood is a competition that billions of men play, so of course the standards by which winners (which can never be nearly as large a group as losers) are determined are going to be “arcane.”
“All the while they build nothing, achieve nothing, destroy cooperative solidarity, all to compete for the sake of vanity and to deny their own mortality.”
Traditional masculine competition hasn’t ever achieved anything? You’re going to have to provide a more elaborate argument if you want me to believe that.
My observations concerning the difference between men who adhere to traditional gender roles and those that don’t, as far as solidarity is concerned, is this: traditional men are suspicious and guarded against other men and put each other through a lot of tests, but when friendships arise, they’re solid; nontraditional men make friends with each other more easily, but they’re usually more tenuous.
“There is nothing separating them but an arbitrary set of rules. And both systems represent neither masculinity nor femininity but rather, undeveloped and dysfunctional behavior for adults.”
How are they arbitrary? If you’re arguing they’re arbitrary because they’re based on cultural values that aren’t perfectly constant, then all rules are arbitrary and such a charge holds no importance. And you can’t claim traditional masculinity doesn’t represent true masculinity without defining what you accept as masculine and arguing why that definition is more appropriate.
@rae
“Speaking as a distance runner: bull shit. First, athletes have objective, agreed-upon criteria for success. Second, putting other athletes down may not make you a worse runner, but it is still shoddy sportsmanship, and not in the spirit of human excellence. Not to mention how stupid it is to put people down for not wanting to be athletes in the first place.”
First of all, you completely missed my point in order to stroke your rage-on, but you’re wrong in any case. Tons of olympic sports do not have have objective, agreed-upon criteria for success. Gymnastics, figure skating and any event that’s judged rely on the judges’ personal values. Even ones that don’t, like basketball, are affected by factors that people haven’t agreed whether or not reflect athletic ability, like dealing with the “home-team” advantage. Second, what is considered good “sportsmanship” is also a value that one aspires to or rejects, just like masculinity.
“Yeah. Seeking your own gender identity is cool, being butch is cool, but trying to pressure other people into being butch simply because of their gender is Not Cool.”
Saying Jezebel is full of idiots is trying to pressure other feminists into being “good” feminists. Everyone tries to shift the non-conformists in their own demographic into proper behavior with the threat of disapproval. Yet, people are particularly wary of that practically universal instinct when it comes to men and the push for masculinity.
I had someone I didn’t know notify me, after having finished what all (very drunk) observers regarded as a ‘heartwrenching’ cover of “This Charming Man” by The Smiths that he was taking away my Man Card, and he was halfway serious about it
“Everyone tries to shift the non-conformists in their own demographic into proper behavior with the threat of disapproval. Yet, people are particularly wary of that practically universal instinct when it comes to men and the push for masculinity.”
Actually, most of us are just as concerned when it comes to women and the push for femininity, and a good deal of us are even concerned when it comes to women and the push for non-femininity. There’s also a huge difference between an ideological movement, and a group of people who just happen to be born with certain genitals. And there’s an equally huge difference between acknowledging that humans have a tendency to categorise people and force them into conformity, and pretending that it’s always a good thing.
Interesting choice of words, prissy, considering its origins are tied to the word “Sissy”.
and sissy is endearment for sister
@Schala
Yeah, and we know he was using it as an endearment. 😉
@ tu
“Traditional masculine competition hasn’t ever achieved anything?”
Throughout history the men who have achieved the most are dillettantes working on intellectual hobbies and groups of men working together.
I don’t see how this posturing over man cards has anything to do with either of those two groups.
Those who achieved the most were often derided as being too much outside the norm, ironic no?
“Throughout history the men who have achieved the most are dillettantes working on intellectual hobbies and groups of men working together.”
Traditional masculinity is based on men working together AND competing against one another. It basically results in an extreme tribalism within an “ecosystem” of interacting men. Gang culture is an unfortunate side effect when that ecosystem comprises of disenfranchised and (usually) poverty-stricken men. But even in that environment, like all male environments, the violence, contempt, and distrust is balanced by firm loyalties. Which also explains hazing and initiation rites; since men pose a primary threat to one another in these situations, some kind of test needs to be administered to establish that a man is trustworthy.
“I don’t see how this posturing over man cards has anything to do with either of those two groups.”
Probably because “man cards” is hardly a good representation of traditional masculinity. From a pan-historical/cultural perspective, there are few men more traditionally masculine than Alexander the Great. It would be ignorant to deny that intellectualism was critical to his achievements and upbringing, but it would be equally as ignorant to deny that violence, competitiveness, and a thirst for power were also of critical importance. He basically saw himself in competition with every known leader of the civilized world.
The fact that ancient masculinity is so different than modern masculinity is mistakenly attributed to its arbitrariness, when it’s actually due to its adaptiveness. In a culture where a majority of the traits that were considered masculine are now accepted as non-gendered, men are going to construct within those limits a masculine code, and the tighter the limits, the weirder those codes are going to seem.
All of which still leads me to believe that Traditional masculinity and HyperMacho “Man Card” Asshole-ery is absolute bullshit.
Do not try to be a MAN, just be a person. History will make its own mind on your legacy.
“Which also explains hazing and initiation rites; since men pose a primary threat to one another in these situations, some kind of test needs to be administered to establish that a man is trustworthy.”
Or to make him hate you for decades and have psychological issues due to it.
@ tu
I don’t think we’re actually in disagreement. Unless you’re equating this kind of modern vanity based masculinity with traditional masculinity? (I disagree with the OP that the two can be equated.)
Group hazing has a purpose in traditional masculinity. Or, rather, group hazing has a purpose when trying to get people to set aside their personal interests and invest in a group goal.
“In a culture where a majority of the traits that were considered masculine are now accepted as non-gendered, men are going to construct within those limits a masculine code, and the tighter the limits, the weirder those codes are going to seem.”
Alternatively they can do the more difficult job of decoupling masculinity from femininity. If you think about it, in this context femininity is a more powerful ‘marker’ then masculinity.
To use an example: My husband likes the Can-Am Spyder Roadster. An older man attempted to sell him on a Goldwing(which he hates) instead by saying that ‘a lot of women are buying Spyders’.*
Once women choose to do something, it becomes feminine. But the reverse is not true. If men take on a traditionally feminine occupation or activity, that activity doesn’t become masculine, the men become feminine.
The end result is that men are continually chased out of whatever activity they code as masculine. Or have to give up their identity as men to take on activities coded ‘feminine.’
Masculinity is, functionally, a rather submissive thing. It can never coexist with femininity, it can only exist in femininity’s absence. Sort of like a void or a negative. (Ironic that these qualities, submission, void, negative, are associated with femininity which is socially more powerful then masculinity.)
* Husband dismissed the whole argument thus: ‘If I’m riding it, it’s masculine. I don’t care how many women like it.’
@tu quoque: First of all, you completely missed my point in order to stroke your rage-on,
Please rephrase your point so that I understand it. I thought you were saying that the kind of masculinity exemplified by the “Man Card” website was a positive thing that could be understood along the same model as competitive sports. I take it this was not what you were trying to say?
I was indeed cranky (a sports injury is making me annoyed and frustrated, coincidentally); I will try and dial back the crankiness in future.
Tons of olympic sports do not have have objective, agreed-upon criteria for success. Gymnastics, figure skating and any event that’s judged rely on the judges’ personal values.
Sorry, my point was just that in sports, it’s possible to tell when somebody has won. (A gymnast has won when the judges’ numbers add up to a higher score than for any other gymnast.) With masculinity, there is just nothing that counts as winning. Of course, what counts as conducive to winning is still fuzzy and debatable in sports, but I don’t see how you can have a competition if there are no conditions for victory. If there were masculinity competitions with judges and codified rules (10 points for moustache symmetry; 30 points for gait), then I think the analogy would hold good.
Second, what is considered good “sportsmanship” is also a value that one aspires to or rejects, just like masculinity.
Oh, I agree; I’m not some kind of crazy moral relativist. I know that not everybody values sportsmanship (or fairness, or hard work, or independent thought, or any of the other things I value). But (a) I value sportsmanship anyhow and (b) sportsmanship is generally held up as an ideal for athletes, even if real life contains plenty of unsportsmanlike athletes. Do you think sportsmanship is a bad ideal that we should reject? Do you think it is un-masculine? If so, why?
@typhonblue: Masculinity is, functionally, a rather submissive thing. It can never coexist with femininity, it can only exist in femininity’s absence. Sort of like a void or a negative. (Ironic that these qualities, submission, void, negative, are associated with femininity which is socially more powerful then masculinity.)
Huh. I had never thought of it in quite those terms. That’s fascinating. (Your husband sounds like he has his head screwed on properly, by the way.)
Yikes! “Crazy” was a dumbass word choice on my part; sorry, mentally ill NSWATM readers. (This one’s probably going into moderation for both “crazy” and “dumbass”. Alas.)
Hmm, I have to take issue with the word “prissy” here. It seems to me that what we’re looking for here is a term like “restrictive”.
I wonder what people here think of the concept of subtractive masculinity? I was reminded of it because of tu quoque’s comment about how the framework of masculinity seems to be getting more arbitrary and pettily restrictive over time. The idea is that masculinity is primarily defined as “all that stuff women don’t do”. Thus as women break down barriers in the worlds of work, education, wear pants and flat shoes and have short hair, etc, the concept of what can be feminine expands – it essentially can be defined as “all that stuff women do”. Everything women participate in can therefore be considered “feminized” and no longer the marker of a Real Man. So, as society becomes more egalitarian, masculinity policing focuses more and more on petty, arbitrary distinctions, until one’s Man Card can be revoked for ordering a strawberry margarita.
Personally I found this a pretty compelling explanation for how this bullshit works. It’s interesting that the car dealer in typhon’s story tried to dissuade her husband from buying a Spyder because women like that car as well, therefore the Spyder is too feminized for her husband. Whereas her husband rejected the idea of subtractive masculinity by saying, “If I like it, and I’m a man, then it’s masculine”.
Perhaps a better relation than sports is something like dog shows. There is a rough “breed standard” for men, and while each person judges each man in their own way, there are still those that will win best in show most often. The “winners” are the ones with the least faults, as perceived by most judges.
I think there’s a difference in gender policiing– the male style is centered on “get it right or you’re not a man at all”, while the female style style “not a woman at all” at the edge (some of the flack Ann Coulter gets), but mostly says “you’re a woman who’s doing it wrong”. The female style isn’t as deep an attack on one’s identity.
There are two groups of men in the world (IME) who fixate on the idea of “manliness”- suburban white males and urban ghetto African-American males. As someone who wasn’t raised around either group, arguments about the subjectivity of “manliness” have never made sense to me; Hell, there’s a group of adult males in my mostly-Caribbean neighborhood who walk the streets with dyed-blond mohawks (and, yes, its because of the xman Storm.) No one in my neighborhood comments on their lack of manliness, but they can’t travel a mile north of our neighborhood to where the AA males are for the bullying. When I was younger, I used to hang out with Asian immigrants, most of whom embraced some level of bishonen mimicking. In their neighborhoods, they were the guys with the pink shirts and massive bangs, but their manliness wasn’t questioned to the extent of your average American. And, of course, everyone knows about…”European men”. Bottom line, I don’t miss being around the suburbanites or the ghetto snobs, so dwelling on their pecadilloes has never made sense.
@Nancy Lebovitz:
“I think there’s a difference in gender policiing– the male style is centered on “get it right or you’re not a man at all”, while the female style style “not a woman at all” at the edge (some of the flack Ann Coulter gets), but mostly says “you’re a woman who’s doing it wrong”. The female style isn’t as deep an attack on one’s identity.”
I guess that’s one of the advantages of not being the most prestigious sex. I once remarked to a male friend how I felt that many the traits my culture tells me are required to be a successful woman are opposed to those the same culture tells me are required to be a successful person, which makes it pretty much impossible for me to get something completely 100% right. On the other hand, it also makes it less likely for me to get something 100% wrong.
I’ve never thought about it before, but perhaps that’s the reason certain men are so protective of what they see as their role as men, and so opposed to what they see a ‘feminisation’ of society. Many people would prefer strict rules to the confusion and ambiguity of never being able to do anything completely 100% right. Of course, the men who never fitted the masculine ideal are more than happy to swap condemnation for ambiguity instead.
Nancy, I think you have captured what the rest of us try to say when we talk about how masculinity is soemthing you can have revoked while femininity isn’t. Nicely done.
@ AB
“I guess that’s one of the advantages of not being the most prestigious sex.”
Men who fail at manhood are not even treated as human. Again, manhood may be socially better then womanhood, but males are not more valuable then females.
@typhonblue:
“Again, manhood may be socially better then womanhood, but males are not more valuable then females.”
Didn’t mean to imply there were (at least not always), but some people seem to have a problem with the word gender, so it was the only word available to me in English which encompassed the idea, and ideal, of manhood. In Danish, there is only one word for both sex and gender, køn, so I’m still learning to navigate the English separation of the concepts.
“so I’m still learning to navigate the English separation of the concepts.”
That puts you way ahead of most English-speakers. And bear in mind it’s a moving target for now. The semantic boundaries are not yet really set because the concepts haven’t really gelled.
@ AB
Sex seems to refer to the physical male or female.
Gender seems to refers to the psychological man or woman.
‘Sex seems to refer to the physical male or female.
Gender seems to refers to the psychological man or woman.’
Im in the same boat of AB, but I got the difference of the two pretty fast, but only because I stumbled a blog (right now I dont remember exactly witch blog was) where the topic was gender vs sex.
Gender as a concept in gender discourse is borowed from linguistics, and originally referred to a system in Indo-European languages that is a subset of noun clases as a general phenomenon in language. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noun_class. It is not inherently or necessarily about a feminine-masculine contrast and in fact in Indo-European it arose intially as an animate-inanimate copntrast, and as such it intersected with the case system (inanimate nuns could not be subjects, so there was no nominative form for them.) In most IE languages the inanimate (“neuter'”) has died out and the animate has split into masculine and feminine genders – thus the availability of the concept as a metaphor for the sexes. (Ironically becaue germanic retained all three genders and because Norse expereinced a sound change that levelled the distinction between masculine and feminine, the Scandinavian langugaes are back, after 5,000 years, to having only two genders, animate and neuter ro soemthng along those lines.
But here’s the beautiful aptness of the metaphor – nouns fall into genders only roughly along the lines of sex. I’m not just talking about the arbitrary assignment of ‘fagus’ = “beech” as masculine, and say….. ‘crapula’ = “hangover” as feminine, but really striking misassignments such as ‘uxor’ = “wife” (masculine).
Which means the metaphor allows you can have one or the other set of genitals and be one or the otrher sex (even thugh even that is not a matter of physical fct in all cases. ) but still fall into some other gender. And there can be lots of genders.
@Skidd: Perhaps a better relation than sports is something like dog shows. There is a rough “breed standard” for men, and while each person judges each man in their own way, there are still those that will win best in show most often. The “winners” are the ones with the least faults, as perceived by most judges.
Oh, I like that. There’s room in the metaphor for criticism (what’s the point of setting up a breed standard that gives bulldogs breathing problems, or makes men emotionally repressed?) and for people who just aren’t playing the game at all (a shelter mutt is a fine pet, and a not-especially-butch man is a fine husband, brother, dad, or friend) and for people who play the game as a hobby, but don’t treat their breed standards as some universal moral rule (both dog fanciers and man fanciers should include more of these sorts of people).
Ugh. End italics, damn it.
“Masculinity is, functionally, a rather submissive thing. It can never coexist with femininity, it can only exist in femininity’s absence. Sort of like a void or a negative.”
I don’t think deeming femininity as more powerful and masculinity as submissive is correct. Pregnancy, which is considered an inherent attribute of femaleness, justifies womanhood. It’s also a attribute that a man can never have. Thus, in order for men to justify their existence, they need to acquire attributes that women very rarely express. That’s the point of the pursuit of masculinity: it’s a culture created by men to make them necessary and to balance the discrepancy of not being able to get pregnant. The reason why women joining in on an activity makes it feminine is because a masculine pursuit has to be something women don’t do or it doesn’t help to justify men’s existence.
“That’s the point of the pursuit of masculinity: it’s a culture created by men to make them necessary and to balance the discrepancy of not being able to get pregnant. The reason why women joining in on an activity makes it feminine is because a masculine pursuit has to be something women don’t do or it doesn’t help to justify men’s existence.”
Then it can stop existing now.
You don’t need to be uber-different-from-some-other-category to value existing. Your uniqueness an individual is already pretty good. You’re good at ________ because you are _______, where the last blank is not filled by a category, but by your name/identification.
Ergo: Don’t do stuff because other people don’t do it, or because some people do it.
Do it because you, personally, and as subjectively as possible, like this.
Play videogames because that’s how you like to pass time. And avoid player-vs-player because you think it’s too drama-prone and e-peen waving. Don’t feel forced to do or avoid either of those “because other people think/say so”.
Even less because some people say it makes you “not-inborn category”.
@ Tu
“I don’t think deeming femininity as more powerful and masculinity as submissive is correct. ”
You actually just supported the assertion with this:
“The reason why women joining in on an activity makes it feminine is because a masculine pursuit has to be something women don’t do or it doesn’t help to justify men’s existence.”
Needing to justify their existence? To whom? And doesn’t not needing to justify their existence put women in the more powerful position in terms of their gender identity?
@typhonblue:
“Sex seems to refer to the physical male or female.
Gender seems to refers to the psychological man or woman.”
I know that, but I was looking to describe manhood as an institution, the idea of manhood in itself, which is heavily linked to the physical (just look at how often the penis is mentioned).
@typhon, I think the point here is to remember that it wasn’t always easy for women to join in on any old activity. Now that we often can, the concept of manhood as “whatever women don’t do” is obviously under fire. I don’t know if that implies any particular power balance, just that femininity is a category capable of expanding while masculinity is dependent on a set of things which haven’t been feminized.
There’s another piece of the puzzle here – feminized often means “devalued”. As an example, we can take my profession, urban planning. This is actually something I’ve talked about with some of my professors, here’s a quick rundown. 30 years ago when the profession first started to be seen as an entity independent of architecture, most of the people who were teaching, learning and practicing planning were men, many of whom had got their start in either civil engineering or architecture. At the time those were overwhelmingly male professions and the engineer / creative artist designation was seen as pretty macho. Planning was technical, it involved asserting political will and coming up with creative ideas. Man things!
However, for about the past 10 years or so women have been getting more and more interested in planning. In a lot of university programs, you now have a situation in which a lot of the profs are men and a lot of their assistants and PhD candidates are women. My program was evenly split 50/50 between male and female students, whereas all the other engineering programs were more like 70/30. And oh my lord, you would not believe the scorn that was heaped upon our program by the other faculties at the technical university where I went to school. Acquaintances from other programs were all about informing us that while they did engineery man things, all we did was lounge about coming up with ideas for where to plant trees and drawing pretty pictures. The innovation involved in our work, the group projects and learning how to lead discussions, was all a bunch of pointless babbling about unimportant things. “Creativity” itself was not as rigorous or important or valid as Hard Science. We were producing a bunch of emotive, subjective, waffly crap. In other words, urban planners were considered girly girls and girly men. And that made our work unserious.
Now personally, I like being in a profession that’s gender-balanced and I don’t much care if it is feminized compared to other engineering jobs. My male professors, on the other hand, expressed serious concerns to me that less and less young men are interested in going into planning. They feel like it is… surprise… not as prestigious as other types of engineering careers. A total reversal from when my professors started out in their careers in an exciting, dynamic field.
I’d really like to know, how do you square that with femininity being considered superior? Maybe more like ubiquitous, or… devouring, or something. Whatever it is, it really seems like the gender balance is viewed as a stain on my profession. Planning is not awesomer due to the increased estrogen quotient, in fact exactly the opposite has happened.
“I’d really like to know, how do you square that with femininity being considered superior? Maybe more like ubiquitous, or… devouring, or something.”
As someone said above, men are considered unspecial because they can’t give birth, so if a woman can give birth, AND do serious stuff…it mustn’t be THAT much serious stuff (or else guys ONLY doing the serious stuff are fucking lazy).
I guess that’s a possible theory anyways.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MenAreGenericWomenAreSpecial
“Men are Generic, Women are Special” cuts both ways, as always.
“You actually just supported the assertion with this:”
That’s like saying innovation is less powerful than mediocrity since what’s common determines what can be unique. However, even though masculinity is innovative, that’s not to say men as a whole are more powerful in society. I agree with you that a man who isn’t masculine is not seen as fully human, as well as this breakdown someone made on Feminist Critics: M>W>w>m. By definition, the vast majority of men will not be alpha, and therefore their value as people will rank lowest on the human totem pole. But masculinity itself is extremely powerful, and men who embody it ideally have been the most powerful people in history.
Women benefit greatly from the cosmic equivalence between femaleness and pregnancy, but at the same time suffer a gender glass celing, in a sense. Men are either heroes or trolls and women occupy the creamy middle.
“Needing to justify their existence? To whom? And doesn’t not needing to justify their existence put women in the more powerful position in terms of their gender identity?”
To the societies they dwell in.
It puts most women in a more powerful position than most men. But because masculinity is so powerful, it puts men who can embody it at the highest rankings of society.
You know, y’all… I’m really not sure women don’t need to justify our existence. In the good old “women = birthers of children!” formulation, if we end up not pairing off with a suitable partner, not having kids, or somehow are perceived as failing as a mother to those kids, judgement can get pretty harsh. Luckily the stigma against childlessness and singledom is slowly fading, but it’s definitely still around. Good lord, just look at how gossip magazines act like Jennifer Aniston is somehow a pitiable creature because she’s divorced, childless and 40ish.
@ tu
” But because masculinity is so powerful, it puts men who can embody it at the highest rankings of society.”
Then it’s not masculinity that’s powerful; it’s the absence of a immutable gender identity that’s powerful. This absence spurs men to compete or cooperate or labor in order to attain a positive identity.
I’m going to term men who believe they have to achieve notability–financial, political, etc–in order to attain a positive identity, apexuals. Apexuals do not identify with other men as a source of a positive identity, they identify with the hierarchy for the source of their positive identity and they see that identity in terms of a zero-sum game with other men. If they dominate another man somehow, they ‘win’ by getting closer to the apex. Conversely the man they’ve dominated looses by moving further from it.
Apexuals see other men as a threat to their masculinity and their identity arises from competition with other men. They don’t have a sense of solidarity or fraternity with other men nor do they feel their positive identity arises from solidarity or fraternity with other men.
An apexual, when asked, will say that it’s not his friendships with other men that make him masculine but his ability to dominate other men.
Now, this apexual identity is not really masculine or feminine. It’s just an arbitrary social role. In fact the apexuals who attain the highest levels of this arbitrary hierarchy (where it’s relatively porous) have the least sense of themselves as men or masculine; the greatest perception of identity deficit in relation to women; and feel the most threat from other men.
This deficit makes the apexuals both the most motivated to climb the hierarchy and the least sympathetic to other men(who are simply a threat.)
@ f
“I’m really not sure women don’t need to justify our existence.”
I don’t think you are understanding the assertion. It isn’t that individual women can’t have their lifestyle questioned; it’s that women *as a whole* don’t need to justify their usefulness.
Ah I see.
Pretty good terminology, Typhon.
My only quibble is that lots of the people at the top (men or women, usually men) don’t particularly identify with any other humans at all. Even for the ones who aren’t sociopathic, the path to the top is often lonely, dehumanizing, and immoral (by most standards) or amoral in terms of philosophy(there’s a reason “The Prince” is still standard reading). Politicians and other high ranking people often view everything as a game to win or lose and often view anyone who is not playing in their status game as either non -existent or else (if they are useful) as a tool. And yes, as you mention, they often do not identify with the losers though there may be room in some of their personal philosophies for a respected foe.
“Now, this apexual identity is not really masculine or feminine. It’s just an arbitrary social role. In fact the apexuals who attain the highest levels of this arbitrary hierarchy (where it’s relatively porous) have the least sense of themselves as men or masculine; the greatest perception of identity deficit in relation to women; and feel the most threat from other men.”
I see no reason why you think “apexuals” aren’t masculine. They absolutely identify as men, more vigorously than most men. They don’t identify with mere *males*. They see themselves as the real men. Of course they feel the most threat from other men; that’s a further establishment of their manliness. They fear other men because they know the competitiveness imbedded in masculinity.
Reply on @tu quoques comment
Tu quoque, i really appreciate your comparison of traditional masculinity and Olympic sport. I see functioning masculinity as doing the best you can do at every turn. It is not trying to be women or gladiators. It is not comparing yourself to others but rather it is functioning from your optimal level and thriving in your world. Is it prissy to want to be a good, upstanding citizen that people can count on, who is a good neighbor, who is a good human being? The notion of gender goes out the window when we are just talking about being the best we can be and proud of ourselves in the world. Women are taking on a lot of masculine roles. It does leave men with a load of nebula and thus the onslaught of dozens of websites and blogs dedicated to the subject of men.
@manontopbook
I would argue that sport is a symbolic, ritualized representation of the pursuit of masculine ideals.