Masculinity

The specifics of your career choice are irrelevant. You've made it clear that you're a feminist, so it's a pretty obvious method of provocation.

 

Fine then, according to you, he made up unfounded facts about career choices in his country to get that reaction. Is that how I should interpret it when you say he was trolling ? Has he completely misled me into believing a false fact just to provoke me?

 

I invite @SickSicko and you to drink some tea. How about it? I make you as a Jasmine man. As for SickSicko, I see you as an oolong man. Am I right?

 

Rooiboss or jasmine. I’ll drink either.

 

How did you know?

 

My apologies. I've been parenting, securing groceries, cleaning, quitting P, all kinds of things, so I haven't been able to babysit this thread and answer everything right away. You have given me plenty to think about, though, and I've been doing that instead of thinking about P so if for no other reason, this thread for me is a win. In writing responses I've been wordy af so I'm editing and restricting myself to four sentences per response or less and that's going to result in a couple run-on sentences, maybe a little confusion so if you need me to clarify I will.

Being compared to a woman is an insult when it's directed at a man, but not if it's directed at a woman. Being compared to a man is an insult if it's directed at a woman. It's not "men = good, women = bad," it's "is this individual conforming to cultural expectations as defined by gender?" This is a topic that could be explored in depth, but there are a lot of traits that are traditionally associated with femininity and viewed as absolutely positive.

I personally don't gravitate toward dominance or humiliation toward either gender in P as it's a huge turn-off for me. However, I've seen self-professing feminists say they do enjoy submission etc., provided it's in a strictly sexual context with a person they trust/feel safe with and I don't know if that's internalized misogyny or not but I'm not qualified to tell a person how they should be buggered. Sex is confusing. Porn's ubiquity and why it is the way it is definitely says something about the culture that consumes it, but I don't know what, and for the record I don't think toxicity of any permutation is going to be cured, I just don't think you're cutting us enough slack.

Gendered expectations for the way we present are almost completely arbitrary, as far as I can tell. Feathers, heels, skirts, makeup, jewelry, etc. have all been expected of men at one time and place or another. What is interesting is every culture we've come across as far as I know has gendered expectations, and community members are expected to present according to whatever dress code their culture has for their genders, and trans people are found in most cultures. This says, to me, gender is real and useful, even though the expression of it is arbitrary.

100% based.

Apologies, I think my writing style got a little confusing and I take responsibility. I don't believe everything I've typed, I'm sometimes acknowledging ideas and interpretations that are different from mine but do exist, and I'm hoping you can use context to figure it out. My bad.

This is a good question, the best question, and I've thought a lot about it without coming up with anything satisfactory to myself. The best I have is, masculinity is very much a part of me whether I like it or not. So it feels like the loudest voices are saying, "you may or may not be an okay person, but the male part of your identity is definitely bullshit," and that's uncomfortable to me.

I could probably stand to think about it some more.

True. You got me. I knew it when I said it, but I still tried to be cute about it and you were right to call me out.

This resonates with me, but the more I think about it the harder it is to understand why. Men have decided and dictated what femininity was/is, women are going to decide on their definition of masculinity whether we like it or not, and I can't decide what masculinity is and force other men to use my definition. All I can do is decide who the ideal me is and try to make that person manifest, and I can use masculinity as I understand it, but I don't have to accept anyone else's definition either. So I'm officially rejecting the definition of masculinity that says all kinds of anti-social behaviors are acceptable; that's not my ideal, that's not what I aspire to.

STEM is clearly very personal to you for obvious reasons. I don't know whether STEM draws men in the US for biological reasons or cultural pressures, if there are different pressures in your country, or what is going on at all because I am a full time parent with an education in English lit and, like every other person in the entire universe, too many opinions. What I do know is, the reasons any single person goes into any profession at all are shaped by a lot of factors, and blaming toxic masculinity, a phrase you can clearly see by the reaction of the men in this forum that we are sick unto death of hearing, is in all probability a gross oversimplification and calling it "toxic" is an overstatement anyway. Whether or not electrical engineering is masculine or feminine or neutral is immaterial, though; you seem to enjoy it and that's perfectly okay as far as I'm concerned, it's just another piece of what makes you and you shouldn't have to take any flak for it, but you will because people are awful.

This makes me think you're not listening to me or believing anything that I'm saying. I'm a person communicating to you in good faith, trying to feel my way toward truth and hoping that I'm helping you do the same. Part of that is listening to your opinions and experience, which I have done, and I have not doubted you or your sincerity a single step of the way. However, you have said yourself that you think all men have a high probability of cynically, that is with predetermined intent to deceive and manipulate for the sake of victory, preserve their own power. If you can't separate me from the guys who have insulted you, and be willing to start with the assumption that I'm at least trying to be honest, that makes it extremely difficult to have a productive conversation.

Trans movement begs to differ, but what I'm mostly referring to is the push to not just allow but strongly encourage women to engage in select behaviors and attitudes that have been associated with masculinity in effort to make them more successful as men have defined it, and strongly discouraging men like myself from pursuing their goals because by doing so we are competing with and consequently denying women their rightful place in society. I personally was directed not to create art, when I studied at University, because people sharing my immutable characteristics had already covered everything I could possibly think to say, and it was time to let others speak. Who has historically been told to STFU because of what was under their waistline?

I won't deny that calm and rationale have been promoted as ideal traits, and men have claimed that women are far more likely to be emotional. Maybe women have simply been allowed to be more emotional, or maybe it has something to do with hormonal makeup, or maybe our biases are blinding us to male emotion and emphasizing female emotion. I've seen things in life that suggested each of these dynamics in play at one point or another. Acting smug and superior about it, taking pleasure in perceived superiority, is hardly rational though.

 

If a behavior changes according to culture then it is mostly founded on the cultural climate of the concerned region. That I am sure of. I would never have thought STEM was associated with men more in the west, before reading feedback from westerners themselves.

 

Congratulations on being a great father.

 

If anyone else is still unsure whether men can be emotional or not, they should go take a look at the loneliness section where many men claim to cry and crave emotional release. And there's nothing wrong with that, it's a part of being a healthy human.

I believe it's the combination of women being allowed to freely express emotion more than men, and the bias created around it making people disregard male emotional expression.

 

Yeah yeah right right, we men are emotional, sure, absolutely, no questions about in, BUT IN PRIVATE.

 

It's irrelevant to me whether the emotional display is done in private or not. What matters is that men are indeed emotional beings, which is normal ofc.

 

Why should we have to be emotional in private? What is it about being a human man that makes you want to hide your true self?

 

Tea often times shows relation to our personality. The only secret ingredient used in all my tea is love. Now take a seat my friends while I warm up the tea.

 

@SickSicko nails it right on the head. Some guys with a shallow sense of masculinity might take the stoic display of male heroes to mean it's manly to not have emotions, but any guy with experience in life and hopefully a good father figure to help him along knows we experience the full range. Of course it's normal! But @IGY, we don't do it in public because we don't make our emotions somebody else's problem. Emotions are fine, emotions are a useful tool, but they are personal. They don't help other people. If a guy needs help processing, he talks to his spiritual/emotional father who is hopefully his biological father but we make do with what we have, or if he's married, with his wife. If it's related to his profession, like trauma/stress as a paramedic, cop, soldier, etc. and a wife or father might have trouble understanding, he talks to a close friend in the profession. He talks to the person who signed up to help him through life, the person who has his back no matter what. He should be comfortable with that because he has their back, too. People in a forum, the guy sitting next to you on the train, the barista at the coffee shop, your coworkers, none of those people signed up to be your battle buddy. If I'm feeling big feelings, the ideal masculine thing to do is to keep that sh*t under wraps until whatever crisis moment is over, and I can talk about it alone with the person I trust. If I don't process those feelings, they will leak out in inappropriate expressions at inappropriate times and places.

TL;DR
It is human and gender neutral to experience emotions
It is masculine to conceal those emotions in public, in order to keep them interfering with everyone else's life
It is masculine to have deep, personal connections with a small, select group of other men, and a life partner you trust, and to share your emotions with them. But them only.

 

Oh I forgot @NothingMoreNothingLess , I love a jasmine tea in the morning, that's my usual, but I'll take most any real tea. I haven't experimented much with rooibos, or the other herbals, though there is a stress blend my wife got for me that works pretty well. I love tea, just try not to spill it

 

I will make you some Jasmine tea friend. As for spilt tea

 

BOYS ROOL GIRLS DROOL!!!!

 

Glad to see someone gets it.

 

I couldn't disagree with you more.

You say, "we don't do it in public because we don't make our emotions somebody else's problem." That suggests that when women express emotions in public they make those emotions somebody else's problem. That is just absurd @Meshuga!

I know so many people that do not have the support network you describe. And, frankly, it makes no difference either way. How interesting that talk about your feelings as "that shit"! IMO suppressing emotions is unhealthy. I think many men suffer because of societal constraints in how they should act. What is so scary to you in showing your vulnerability? "That shit", as you describe your big feelings, is part of who you are. Why do you walk around covertly with a mask on?

 

Is not necessarily a mask, is just, something private, is not like it is, scary, is like, why should be something showned openly to begin with? what's the point? get pity from others? look for support on whoever is willing to provide it?, and yes, looking for emotional support anywhere and putting the burden of your own emotional conundrum on whoever, is, willingly or not, trying to make your emotions someone else's problem, and yes, women have a high tendency to do that.

In terms of the support network, if you are a somewhat healthy person, you surely must have someone, at least, one person, and if you don't, then, tough luck, YOU, and your own relisience, is your support network.

No one here is denying the feelings, if anything, discussing about how they should be handled and how oneself should act in regards to them, and towards others.