1y ago

Against Masculinity

www.currentaffairs.org /2023/07/against-masculinity

It’s perfectly fine to be a “feminine” man. Young men do not need a vision of “positive masculinity.” They need what everyone else needs: to be a good person who has a satisfying, meaningful life.

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I recently struggled with gender identity. I thought maybe I was non-binary for a while.
But I've come to realise I'm just a guy that likes certain things the would be considered feminine and my dad's toxic masculinity made me feel that was wrong.
Once I identified the influences in my life that made me feel that way it is much easier to be myself.
I love my beard and my penis. But also my curly ringlets on my hair and painting my toe nails.
- Congrats on figuring yourself out; for many in your situation it can be a difficult journey. I imagine that as the left takes more cultural victories, terms like masculine and feminine will lose their meaning and people will be able to choose their interests more freely without judgement.
  
  Thank you my friend. It certainly wasn't easy. But I was in therapy for other stuff already and that gave me a safe space to explore it.
  Yeah I can still remember years ago my daughter getting really upset because she wanted a robot but it was in with the boys toys.
  It's not the easiest thing to explain to a child when the stereotypes are forced down their throat by TV and older family members.
  Luckily the media (some elements anyway) are getting much better and breaking that divide now.
  
  I temporarily ended my exodus from American entertainment media a couple years ago to watch Steven Universe and I couldn't imagine such a show existing when I was a child. I can definitely agree that they've gotten better about gender stuff and emotional intelligence.
  
  @OneRedFox @Lmaydev I hope so, I really hated those terms. Those terms strip out individuality for the sake to conform to stereotypes.
  
  True, and they're completely arbitrary as well. Traditionally masculine and feminine activities can vary heavily between cultures.
  
  I think to many, these terms have lost their meaning already. I personally never really used them, nor do most of the people I know. People are just people. The only place I see this distinction so strongly made is in media, and only certain kinds of media. I'm sure though that this doesn't represent everyone's experience, or every location, I just wanted to share that I think in some places this is already fairly well accepted.
  I've had some great role models as a kid who were both biologically female and male, but the things they taught had nothing to do with gender. We have "they", but I wish we had a better singular gender neutral pronoun in English. "They" can be confused with plural and "it" can sound very rude. I guess distinguishing between singular and plural isn't critical... I just wish we had the ability to invent a new useful word and have it be widely accepted. So much of our society runs on precident and momentum sadly.

29 comments