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Against Masculinity (www.currentaffairs.org)

submitted 1 year ago by OneRedFox@beehaw.org to c/socialism@beehaw.org

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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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[–] OneRedFox@beehaw.org 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I can’t reconcile the idea that every group except boys benefit from positive role models that help young people see their potential.

The article isn't arguing against having role models; it's questioning why they have to be masculine specifically when desirable characteristics among people are largely gender neutral. To quote a relevant portion:

To which I’d answer: why the hell do you need specifically masculine role models? My personal “role models” (to the extent I have any, which I actually try not to) are Emma Goldman (whom I’ve been told I resemble), Thomas Paine, Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, Murray Bookchin, Hubert Harrison, Eugene Debs, Vera Brittain, A. Philip Randolph, Rose Pesotta, Dorothy Day, Paul Robeson, Aneurin Bevan, Shirley Chisholm, George Orwell, Martin Luther King Jr., Ursula K. Le Guin, and Ella Baker. These people all share traits I respect: courage, moral integrity, perceptiveness, commitment, strength in the face of hostility. Brittain was a pacifist horrified by war who nevertheless devoted herself in World War I to tending to men gruesomely wounded on the battlefield. Bevan rose from working in Welsh coal mines to become Minister of Health in the postwar British Labour government, where he started the National Health Service. This week I’ve been admiring Rashida Tlaib, the Palestinian-American congresswoman who had the guts to stand up against most of the members of her party and tell the truth about the apartheid in Palestine. Emba and Reeves worry that young boys don’t have good examples of people they should try to be like. I say let them admire Rashida.

I just can’t imagine thinking about masculinity or femininity in deciding whom to look up to. What kind of young man fears having a female role model, except a boy irrationally terrified of appearing unmanly? Why do stereotypically male traits matter in the slightest? Some of the people on my list might be more “masculine,” others more “feminine.” When we try to organize people this way, we quickly run into confusion. Paul Robeson was a football player, but he also performed musical theater. Is the former “masculine” and the latter not? (Robeson was also a Stalinist. People are complicated, and it’s best not to admire anyone uncritically!)

And the author is correct. Especially as we gain more success in destigmatizing men doing traditionally feminine activities, qualifiers such as masculine and feminine make less sense. After all, if every gender wears makeup, then why is it feminine? If every gender likes sports, then why is it masculine? Because that's how it was traditionally? We changed the tradition because it sucked, so we don't need to continue being beholden to it.

[–] LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

it's questioning why they have to be masculine specifically when desirable characteristics among people are largely gender neutral.

Because young men exist, and study after study has shown that positive role models who look like the group in question have an outsized effect as compared to those from a different group. It's a matter of how easily a young person can imagine themselves as that other person.

I don't mean to argue against the degenderization of stereotypical behaviors and traits, and I've had plenty of role models who run the gamut of identities. But where is the inherent value in dismissing an identifier? We come to know ourselves through the similarities and differences we observe - what is gained if we think of one as inherently toxic? How much is lost if we abdicate our responsibility and allow regressive voices to offer the only definitions?

It's perfectly fine to be a feminine man. Young men do not need a vision of positive masculinity.

This is where my beef is. It's active dismissal of people for whom "masculine" is an identifier. This is an argument that there is no space for positive masculinity in social equity. If the goal is to destigmatize people being who they are, why are we choosing to stigmatize a subset of those people?

What kind of young man fears having a female role model, except a boy irrationally terrified of appearing unmanly?

I was hit for having emotions as a child. When my grandmother died, I was terrified of showing how sad I was because it would have meant a beating. I was terrified of acknowledging my female role models, terrified of the fact that I had them. I'd have loved to have a positive male role model! One who embodied the kinds of prosocial gender neutral behaviors that would have let me know I wasn't a complete outsider.