What About The Mens?
And another thing.
So, a little while ago, an online friend posted about how, even as a father and home-owner, and married person, he doesn’t feel like a man. He was kind of nostalgic for the rituals of manhood, some ideal of manliness that would give a security of identity. And while many people sympathized, my problem (and the problem many other people had) was that the things he cited as “manliness” were all very traditional skills/roles that women ought to be able to do/capable of as well.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. Because I don’t think homosocial groupings are automatically bad or anything - there’s nothing inherently wrong with men wanting to get together with men in order to pass on certain knowledge.
The problem is that we’re all harkening back to the familiar - in part because the known is comfortable - but that familiar was also oppressive and unhealthy for EVERYONE, women and men and everyone in between. Sure, woodworking is a traditional masculine art/craft. But it is not an essentially gendered activity. Does a new masculinity (this term is probably used somewhere by someone to mean something I’m not implying here - I’m not referencing any actual groups with this) have to mean returning to activities that prevent women from engaging with them? Is there no way to define male power that doesn’t involve female weakness/inability?
I think it’s hard - and that’s really what’s been circling in my head the past two days. I think gender is, and it seems unrelated to genitals, partly nature and partly nurture - as with so many other things. I think cultural construction plays a FAR larger role for the average person than essential gender differences but I’m not going to dismiss the impact hormones and chemical makeup and whatnot have on bodies.
If I got a vote (and I know that I don’t because men need, first and foremost, to define masculinity for their own damn selves and not in opposition to everything that women are talking about), this is what I’d vote for:
First and foremost, they need to teach themselves and their peers that women are not the enemy. Men need to teach each other not to rape women. I’ll repeat that one because it’s a big fucking deal: men need to teach each other not to rape women. Not to rape people - any people of any gender. If your partner says they don’t want to have sex, don’t have sex with them. End of story.
Men need to teach each other that sticking your dick into another person with a dick does not make you somehow less of a man. The corollary to this is that not sticking your dick anywhere is also just fine. (ETA because I was not clear enough: letting someone stick their dick in you also does not make a person less of a man.) Dicks are personal things and where you choose to take them to play is your business, not everyone else’s business. Men need to teach each other that fear of the different, in whatever form, is a loser's game. Transphobia, homophobia, etc, are not manly traits.
Men need to teach each other about prostate health. (And how much fun the prostate is in general.)
Men need to teach each other how to be good fathers (which involves teaching sons not to rape and daughters not to be ashamed of themselves).
Men need to teach each other that, yeah, we don't yet live in a post-racial society and there are ways they can help each other deal with that, including calling out racism when they see it and not being racist douchebags themselves.
Men need to teach each other all of those traditional manly activities - and recognize that women can also do these things without being inferior or subservient to men. Men need to realize that building a house does not, in fact, define their gender identity in and of itself.
There are tons of things I wish men would teach themselves and each other and they mostly have to do with finding a new way to be strong, responsible adults who are aware of other people in the world without trying to subjugate them. I want the idea of “a man” to mean someone who works towards a better world and is responsible for himself and his actions and his choices. I want men to work wood and work on cars and wear glitter unicorn pajamas and braid their hair and make choices without being afraid it will make them less of a man. (I want women to be able to do the same things without it making them less of a woman.) I want good things for dudes - things that give them more options, more choices, more ways to be.
I want men to realize and to know and to teach that masculinity does not have to be exclusive; nor does it have to exist in binary opposition to femininity.
However femininity gets defined because, goddamn, there’s a concept that needs some rework as well.
But what it takes is approaching the idea of masculinity from a different perspective; it means leaving a lot of those familiar old tropes, the ones that are so comfortable for the people they wind up empowering even as the rest of us are slowly ground underfoot, behind because they just aren’t healthy for us anymore. It’s a big scary thing and maybe, as another commenter said, I’m just a radical and the world isn’t ready for that. But, hey, a girl can dream, right?
This entry was originally posted at http://onceupon.dreamwidth.org/1264248.html.
So, a little while ago, an online friend posted about how, even as a father and home-owner, and married person, he doesn’t feel like a man. He was kind of nostalgic for the rituals of manhood, some ideal of manliness that would give a security of identity. And while many people sympathized, my problem (and the problem many other people had) was that the things he cited as “manliness” were all very traditional skills/roles that women ought to be able to do/capable of as well.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. Because I don’t think homosocial groupings are automatically bad or anything - there’s nothing inherently wrong with men wanting to get together with men in order to pass on certain knowledge.
The problem is that we’re all harkening back to the familiar - in part because the known is comfortable - but that familiar was also oppressive and unhealthy for EVERYONE, women and men and everyone in between. Sure, woodworking is a traditional masculine art/craft. But it is not an essentially gendered activity. Does a new masculinity (this term is probably used somewhere by someone to mean something I’m not implying here - I’m not referencing any actual groups with this) have to mean returning to activities that prevent women from engaging with them? Is there no way to define male power that doesn’t involve female weakness/inability?
I think it’s hard - and that’s really what’s been circling in my head the past two days. I think gender is, and it seems unrelated to genitals, partly nature and partly nurture - as with so many other things. I think cultural construction plays a FAR larger role for the average person than essential gender differences but I’m not going to dismiss the impact hormones and chemical makeup and whatnot have on bodies.
If I got a vote (and I know that I don’t because men need, first and foremost, to define masculinity for their own damn selves and not in opposition to everything that women are talking about), this is what I’d vote for:
First and foremost, they need to teach themselves and their peers that women are not the enemy. Men need to teach each other not to rape women. I’ll repeat that one because it’s a big fucking deal: men need to teach each other not to rape women. Not to rape people - any people of any gender. If your partner says they don’t want to have sex, don’t have sex with them. End of story.
Men need to teach each other that sticking your dick into another person with a dick does not make you somehow less of a man. The corollary to this is that not sticking your dick anywhere is also just fine. (ETA because I was not clear enough: letting someone stick their dick in you also does not make a person less of a man.) Dicks are personal things and where you choose to take them to play is your business, not everyone else’s business. Men need to teach each other that fear of the different, in whatever form, is a loser's game. Transphobia, homophobia, etc, are not manly traits.
Men need to teach each other about prostate health. (And how much fun the prostate is in general.)
Men need to teach each other how to be good fathers (which involves teaching sons not to rape and daughters not to be ashamed of themselves).
Men need to teach each other that, yeah, we don't yet live in a post-racial society and there are ways they can help each other deal with that, including calling out racism when they see it and not being racist douchebags themselves.
Men need to teach each other all of those traditional manly activities - and recognize that women can also do these things without being inferior or subservient to men. Men need to realize that building a house does not, in fact, define their gender identity in and of itself.
There are tons of things I wish men would teach themselves and each other and they mostly have to do with finding a new way to be strong, responsible adults who are aware of other people in the world without trying to subjugate them. I want the idea of “a man” to mean someone who works towards a better world and is responsible for himself and his actions and his choices. I want men to work wood and work on cars and wear glitter unicorn pajamas and braid their hair and make choices without being afraid it will make them less of a man. (I want women to be able to do the same things without it making them less of a woman.) I want good things for dudes - things that give them more options, more choices, more ways to be.
I want men to realize and to know and to teach that masculinity does not have to be exclusive; nor does it have to exist in binary opposition to femininity.
However femininity gets defined because, goddamn, there’s a concept that needs some rework as well.
But what it takes is approaching the idea of masculinity from a different perspective; it means leaving a lot of those familiar old tropes, the ones that are so comfortable for the people they wind up empowering even as the rest of us are slowly ground underfoot, behind because they just aren’t healthy for us anymore. It’s a big scary thing and maybe, as another commenter said, I’m just a radical and the world isn’t ready for that. But, hey, a girl can dream, right?
This entry was originally posted at http://onceupon.dreamwidth.org/1264248.html.