Men's Liberation

This just sounds like the author thinks masculinity is all negative things.

Anyone who thinks Trump is a representation of masculinity is not someone who’s opinion on the matter I care for.

It seems like the author cannot reconcile that positive masculinity cannot simultaneously mean to be a good person who has a satisfying, meaningful life.

There is no rule set down in stone for what men have to be like and what women have to be like. I do think there are rules for what people generally ought to be like, and I admire those who display what I consider to be the universal virtues. It’s true that many young men lead lives of quiet desperation. But I don’t see how masculinity has anything to do with the solution to that.

I get the general point that gender roles should be overcome etc, but we're definitely not gonna be able to change anything by ignoring the fact that they exist and influence us on a daily basis.

That makes as much sense as saying trans, non-binary people only need to have a satisfying, meaningful life without a vision of masculinity, femininity, or gender Identity.

this was a really funny article to me because the author really doesn't seem that attached to being a man. i want to be clear, that's fine and valid. but it seems weird to then speak to the want of men in general to have more positive role models of masculinity, and say, well you should just want positive role models

like? yeah, you can have role models of any gender, but isn't it nice to have role models who look like you? isn't that the entire point that people make when saying representation is important? that doesn't stop being true just because we're talking about men now

he's missing such a basic and fundamental argument that the entire thing just becomes, at least for me, an externalized argument about how he feels about his own gender, which appears to be disconnected and largely not good

also he picked like, apparently the worst examples of masculinity he could find and said, yeah this is why we don't need positive masculinity?? like c'mon

i like being a man, it's cool. there's a lot (A LOT) of shit i have to reconcile with being a man. but imo that's part of the duty that comes with it. so yeah, author, it would be pretty cool to see men who had done that, who expressed their masculinity in unique and authentic ways that sometimes conform and sometimes don't

you know. like people

(i want to take a moment to say that i have several women role models and also people whose gender identities aren't so easily captured by the binary. but those people, generally speaking, don't need to reconcile with the long history of people of their gender doing harm to those around them, nor with the present day scars from that harm. it's a LOT to come to grips with understanding that you scare a lot of people just by existing, and frankly, that's just an experience that a man is more commonly going to have to experience. exclusively? of course not. obviously, there's a racial bias here as well. but due to the commonality, having readily available examples of how to handle it well, and even gracefully, would be nice)

Sounds like the author thinks we need to change our culture's definition of "masculine." I agree.

I’m not a very “masculine” man, I guess. I like flowers, and I wear purple. I sip lattes and my hair is longer than average. I have a trace of a British accent, which makes me sound prissy. I do lift weights at the gym most days, but it certainly hasn’t turned me into the Hulk. When I’m sad, I cry, and when I am delighted, I laugh. I am tender toward animals. Does it add up to being “unmanly”?

If you substitute for black coffee, I fulfill just about all of this criteria.

Based on my limited understanding of what masculinity is supposed to be, he beats me at it.

So he admits to not understanding masculinity, not engaging with it, then stating that it is pointless. Methinks he is threatened by masculinity and thus he tries to claim it is unnecessary or automatically and necessarily harmful on its face. The "essence" of the sexes — masculinity and feminity — have been commercialized, commodified, pulled out by the roots and dipped in a disinfectant solution. I can see this in how every reference to his understanding is hinged on pop stars and movie figures.

What is masculinity? It's a hard term to define because the basic sense of it is so general. How do you describe sight? How do you describe feeling confident? It's not exactly easy to define the sweeping, largest-scale aspects of our lives. I think that masculinity is not set in stone but there are some general, atavistic elements of it that are mostly universal to all men who have those traits, borne necessarily of living in a dangerous world and needing to protect kith and kin:

• Disagreeableness (sometimes decisions must be made without a discussion, life or death, etc)
• Lowered inhibition (willingness to go out and take risks for higher gain)
• Ability to withstand troublesome situations/pain (one only needs to look to the conditions that construction and other trades workers endure, traditionally masculine jobs)

Women historically often encapsulated the reversal or mirror of many of these traits:

• Agreeableness (physically smaller and weaker women tend to be safer in numbers and when working together)
• Higher inhibition (risk taking = higher chance of death = less chance children survive or are born)
• More apt to improving on a rough environment instead of just dealing with it (healthier, happier home, etc)

It isn't to say that I don't believe that these traits cross over between the sexes, of course they do, and someone can embody many of these traits and be masculine or feminine.

But people have an essence about them. The reader himself states that he considers himself to be more feminine. I think that it is healthy and normal to recognize one's essence in this manner, and to strive to live in comport with their basic feeling of self. I lived a very feminized life for years and was unhappy with myself. Upon taking on some more masculine traits, I found strength and austerity that I lacked before.

I wholeheartedly agree. I don't believe there is such a thing as a "good masculinity" in the same way there isn't any "good femininity". Gender roles don't need to be redefined, they should be overcome.