Just because you don’t think so doesn’t mean those things haven’t had influence on the cultural perception of it.
I understand the desire to separate yourself from those things as an individual. And I don’t know what method will work, but simply telling people the “manosphere” just doesn’t count isn’t going to change anyone’s minds.
Saying manosphere bs represents masculinity is like saying TERFs represent feminism.
They’re minority extreme angles on a topic, to the point we give them different names so we know what’s being spoken about because they are not the baseline.
That may be the case but it is not a rebuttal to my point.
Those things have had an i fluence on the perception of masculinity. And yes, TERFs have had an influence on the perception of feminism. And simply saying they don’t count isn’t an effective way of countering that influence.
I feel like the point is rather that instead of redefining masculinity into something more positive, we should rather deconstruct gender norms in general. Because regardless of masculinity being something “positive” or “negative”, it is still an expectation for people to live up to. And eventually people will fail to live up to them. That’s why I would say it is preferable to deconstuct gender as a whole, rather than redefining it.
I think we should redefine “womanhood” into something more “positive” too! Go fuck yourself, seriously, stop that tiring sexist bullshit, it’s ok to be a man if it’s ok to be a woman. God I’m tired of this non debate trying to pigeon hole people as if one’s “gender” is ALL one’s personality is. I’m so fed up with this it’s not even funny. Start caring for something real for fucks’ sakes, the world is burning and all you talk about is about dicks and vaginas. Jesus christ…
first of all, I really apreciate your comment is thematically consistent with your username. checks out!
it’s ok to be a man if it’s ok to be a woman.
I never said otherwise! gender and identity is fine, and people should live and express themselves however they feel the happiest with.
all you talk about is about dicks and vaginas
I am specifically not doing that. gender is not tied to sex. I think you really miss my point here. I think that men should be free of any gender expectation. People should be able to identify themselves without having to meet any expectations imposed by society.
as if one’s “gender” is ALL one’s personality
I quite literally advocate for the opposite - gender does not (intrinsically) mean anything for one’s personality.
If the goal of the article is to promote agenderism, it goes about it poorly. From the tagline of
It’s perfectly fine to be a “feminine” man. Young men do not need a vision of “positive masculinity.”
Before leading into countless criticisms based purely on a far-right view of masculinity. It takes a rather hostile approach to many people’s identities and falsely attributes a perspective onto it that not everyone shares.
While it would be interesting to live in a world without gender, it’s a very radical change. It would be more prudent to achieve the shorter timeframe goal of eliminating that harmful right wing conceptualisation in the meanwhile.
Not to mention the morality, as we would effectively be erasing people’s experiences, as for many people they do identify as somewhere on a gender spectrum.
Is it okay to say that’s wrong, and they shouldn’t? I don’t know, I can see the merit, but I can also see the oppression in dictating how others live and identify.
There’s also a bit of a colonial attitude issue, can we say tell other cultures (ex. Indigenous) to stop their traditions around gender such as coming of age ceremonies?
While it would be interesting to live in a world without gender, it’s a very radical change.
I don’t think that is necessary. What we should do is to detach gender from any form of judgement or expectation. There is this feminist, liberal idea of how a modern man should be like, act like, feel like - but at the end of the day it is still maintaining the concept that men have some sort of role to fulfill. That it is what bothers me about gender expectations: you are supposed to be in a certain way just because of the sex you were born with/the gender you appear to be. And no matter how you want to (re)define it, you’re always going to have people who won’t feel comfortable in these categories.
There’s also a bit of a colonial attitude issue, can we say tell other cultures (ex. Indigenous) to stop their traditions around gender such as coming of age ceremonies?
What exactly is the colonial attitude supposed to be? This discussion seems to focus on western ideas around gender?
Non-masculine perspectives are incredibly important in making sure that that the lived experiences of others are present in discussions on masculinity, but please remember that this is a space to discuss issues pertaining to men and masc individuals; be kind, open-minded, and take care that you aren’t talking over men expressing their own lived experiences.
The post before this one is about protecting our sons from right-wing radicalization.
From what I’ve seen, the mod(s) have taken pains to make this not an aLl LiVe MaTtEr sub.
the morning light hit my stove’s greasy backsplash in just the right way to reveal a finger-traced drawing of a dick ’n’ balls spraying a few fingertip-dots of jizz.
Us mere mortals can only dream of writing this perfect, for indeed here we have an example of prose from an artist at the pinnacle of the form.
I think it’s hilarious that his praise of prose contains errors, perhaps intentionally, but pointing out the irony of such errors causes people to react negatively with down votes.
It’s like you’re the only one who got the joke and everyone else is mad they didn’t understand.
The whole “human brains aren’t fully developed until you’re 25” is such an annoying quote that gets thrown around by people just because they’ve heard it online.
I swear half the time it’s used to infantise young adults. I’m glad people weren’t pedalling this pseudoscience “fact” when I was that age, it’d probably get on my nerves.
It’s based on essentially nothing.
There isn’t an age where your brain is done developing. It constantly changes all throughout your life, affected by a whole load of factors we don’t really understand yet.
It certainly goes through periods of rapid change, but this happens predominantly years before you’re 25, or after life-changing events that alter how you think - things like moving out and having to manage your own life more, moving country to a very different culture/language, entering a LTR, having children, using drugs, getting a job, losing family members, even learning to drive can have a profound effect on your brain, evidenced by MRI scans.
Much of that stuff happens in your early-mid twenties, so I see why people would erroneously think that it’s the turning 25 part that does it.
I actually learned it in university studying biology. Which was some time ago and I didn’t follow up on research. But if I remember correctly there is rather large deviation on individual level.
Loads of people are dying because of political decisions in other countries too and you rarely see uprisings, only difference is that in Russia the cause of the deaths is more obvious
That’s not Russian mentality at all. It’s more that people don’t believe that they can change things anyway - but Russians are in general not to much into their government, I would say quite the opposite of ultimate subjects.
Thats text book russian mentality: part of why nothing changes over there is because the people are willing to endure terrible living conditions, governments sending them into the meat grinder, corruption, virtually anything wrong, out of a weird mix of stubborn pride and stoic resignation. Perfect subjects: hardy, accepting, nationalistic.
Have you ever been to russia? The mentality is more of a general not giving a shit and nothing really matters. People don’t like or trust the state in general (some love it in stockholm syndrome kind of way) and laws are more like an inconvenience. The corruption is deep ingrained into society and does not just come from the government. Funny thing if, you read Leskov it appears it’s been like this since before the revolution almost 200 years ago.
It’s what Timothy Snyder called “the politics of inevitability” in his excellent 2017 book, “The Road to Unfreedom.” I highly recommend said book to anyone who wants to understand Putin’s larger project. It’s almost like Snyder had a crystal ball that he could see into the future with.
Because they are immersed in an ecosystem that pretends that respect for human dignity and unearned respect for authority are identical because they use the same word.
They believe that others should respect the innate authority they feel they should hold as men. Simultaneously, since they don't get that, they don't feel like they need to respect other people's right to exist.
And then a group promises them everything they've ever wanted, if they are willing to do fascist shit. Of course they're into it.
I highly doubt any language is more correlated with authoritarianism, particularly the English language. There is a cultural aspect to collective action over individualism, but I think authoritarianism is a base human personality trait.
You might change your view about that if you ever read “Mutual Aid” by Peter Kropotkin. I used to think the same, but it appears things like authoritarianism and hierarchies actually run contrary to evolution. Not that the trait doesn’t exist, but it appears to be something that has been exacerbated in cultures that deliberately adopt a hierarchical system vs. something that’s just natural to all humans.
I am someone who believes that multilevel selection is a primary driver of evolutionary dynamics and works at levels ranging from the organism to the ecosystem (at various levels of effectiveness). Kropotkin is nice philosophically, although he is read about far more often than he is read. That’s entirely reasonable, because his theories provide a foundation for lines of investigation we still pursue today but are obviously outdated, as are the ideas of everyone whose work predated discoveries like genes.
If you want a more modern view on the evolutionary benefits of cooperation, I would suggest starting with Harvard biology professor EO Wilson, who specialized in ants and ended up concluding that humans were in fact a eusocial species - unique among primates and one of very few on earth. He invented the field (or at least added additional formalization to the study) of sociobiology - the evolution of social behaviors. It’s the same category as ants and bees. For an anthropological and cross-cultural perspective I’d suggest Graeber. For a mathematical and economic perspective, I’d start with Sam Bowles. For the foundations of pro-social behavior in primates, I’d recommend Frans de Waal.
I’d be happy to try to answer any questions on the subject.
I’m not qualified to engage in your discussion, nor do I have a good experience trusting random internet strangers who say they’re certain things, but here’s Kropotkin’s book for anyone who wants to read it: theanarchistlibrary.org/…/petr-kropotkin-mutual-a…
Gen-X men see eye-to-eye with male Gen-Zers. An identical 43 percent of men in that bracket call themselves feminists, compared to 49 percent of the generation’s women.
I feel like the authors think these 2 sentences are supporting the same argument, and I think they do not.
Asking someone if they “identify as a feminist” is vastly different than exploring their core values. “Feminism” is a badly exploited word that means many different things to many different people, even within a generational cohort.
It’s entirely possible that the sample of Gen-Xers that identify as feminist also carry more regressive beliefs than Gen-Zers that said they were not feminists.
The way this study was summarized in the article smells a lot like an older author (read: Gen-X or Boomer) trying to make sense of Gen-Z by plopping them into buckets created for the older generation.
I don’t know anything about anything, but this smelled less of science than an article reporting a study ought to.
If you’re interested in animated shows, Avatar: The Last Airbender’s uncle Iroh is a really solid depiction of healthy masculinity.
He’s kind and gentle, but has a tremendous amount of strength both emotionally and physically. He’s empathetic and loving, diplomatic and wise, but very humble and doesn’t take himself too seriously. He loves tea and flowers, and doesn’t get bothered or embarrassed when other male characters tease or mock him for his hobbies.
From the world of animation princess mononoke and for a very direct approach Vinland saga ( you have to be ok with ultra violence, but in this case it’s a clever device to lure in a specific target audience that actually needs to hear the message).
For purely positive masculinity, Avatar is good. It was great for it’s time, but I think there are some bits and pieces that haven’t aged the best. Most of the female characters end up being damousels in distress. The most prominent, Katara, is primarily a maternal figure who mostly adheres to traditional heteronormative gender roles. Toph was originally written as a joke, according to interviews with the writers. It’s hard to say for sure how much was on the writers vs the execs at Nickelodeon. For the time, it was still fairly progressive.
Korra is a worse show for a variety of reasons, but this is one of the places where I think it’s better than Avatar. Another show that shares some writers with Avatar is The Dragon Prince. It’s still not done yet and it’s not perfect, but so far seems to be pretty good.
I do think Avatar helped to bush the boundaries and opened up doors for later shows. Adventure Time is probably the biggest, and I’d say Finn is a fantastic example of a boy growing up and learning to avoid toxicity. That spawned a wave of what some derrogatorily and erroneously refer to as the “Cal Arts” era, which I think are even more great examples of not just positive masculinity, but positive humanity. Steven Universe is probably the most relevant here, but it seems like almost everyone who worked on Adventure Time went on to get a show of their own after, and most of them are pretty good.
Katara had an entire character arc where she flipped gender roles.
She was also an active participant in the action rather than a passive emotional anchor
I can’t see that reddit post without downloading the app, but I think I understand.
With Flapjack, I know that Quintel. Was involved too and he went on to do Regular Show, which ran largely parallel to Adventure Time. A lot of shows in that era of CN I lump together: Flapjack, Chowder, Foster’s, Regular Show, etc. They’re all fine, often with similar and interesting visuals. I think if you’re just looking at technical aspects like the animation, the use of textures, sureal world building, and more you can draw that back to Flapjack.
But I think there’s a huge gap in the writing. Those other shows are mostly just “hijinks of the day”. The writing isn’t all that different from shows throughout the 90’s and 00’s like SpongeBob, Billy & Mandy, Johnny Bravo, Dexter’s Lab, CatDog, etc. That’s where I think Avatar really pioneered, and Adventure Time differentiated itself. Tackling heavy emotional topics in a way that was accessible to a young audience, almost educational with regards to emotional intelligence. Getting children to think and feel complex things instead of just re-hashing the same 2 dozen episode tropes. I never cried watching a Flapjack episode, for example.
I don’t mean to say that it wasn’t done before Avatar. Samurai Jack is notable for going an entirely different direction. Or you can point to Japanese anime (a lot of which gets referenced by these later shows, like Evangelion). Even when it comes to Adventure Time, I would point to Over the Garden Wall as a stronger influence in terms of what made AT unique than Flapjack (though McHale worked on all 3). I didn’t bring up OtGW earlier because it doesn’t really have many examples of positive or negative masculinity, but it does have a lot of dark themes and some serious character development.
For sure, it is of its own era 100% I never watched Adventure Time but I heard a lot of good things about it. My spouse is into Steven Universe and I’ve watched a few episodes. From what I’ve seen it’s pretty good!
HIGHLY disagree with the damsoules in distress comment.
While Katara does take on a motherly role in the group (which is even addressed in “the runaway”) she is never portrayed as that way even in that episode where her and toph are taken prisoner as bait for Aang, she busts them out on her own. And is scarily powerful in episodes like “The Puppet master” or “Ths souther Riaders”
Then Toph is a fucking badass.
Suki is also a fucking badass and has a whole mini arc with Sokka about NOT needing him to save her in “The serpents pass” and while she is part of the jail break in “the boiling rock” she is never the motivation for that story, Sokka’s dad is. And the jailbreak is a team effort, not her being saved.
Azula is fucking Azula
Mai and Ty Lee are a little underdeveloped but are badasses through and through and never really need saving and are even the ones to save the Gaang in “the boiling rock”
Sokka also has very good character growth in terms of healthy and positive male traits. He starts out as a bit abrasive and sexist. The opening scene of episode 1 is actually just Katara going off on him about sexism. The scene is kind of abrasive but again, the character grows really well as the series progresses. And I think Sokka is important too. Showing that male characters CAN change and CAN become better people.
Plus, the show does have another case of character growth, with one of the most compelling in all media when it comes to Zuko. And towards the end of the show, he’s also showcasing a lot of positive traits. The duality with his sister is also important. Because this is one of the only shows that has the female counterpart as more violent/“evil” than a male character. Usually the female character is always the gentle, kind, loving one that tempers the male one. But they flipped that on its head. No, girls can be abusive too.
One thing I learned way too late in respect to this, confidence isn’t being sure that you will succeed, it’s being sure that you’ll be okay if you don’t.
I’ve found that being confident about others ability to succeed or recover is very attractive to some people. “I think you can do this and if your can’t that will be ok and you will be ok and I will be here to help” is better than, “Of course I can do that.”
It is true that women’s pants sit closer to the skin, and yet women’s pants tend to be made out of a much higher percentage of latex so they stretch more than men’s pants.
The only thing I wish men’s attire had that women’s has is thumb holes on hoodies. This article has to be bulkshit otherwise because, yeah, pockets are cool.
Super rare for men’s but almost standard issue for women’s. I was given a school hoody when I started my Masters program that had a thumb holes. I said, “wait a minute”, checked the tag and it was a women’s. Super bummed I spent $45k and no thumb holes when swapped for the men’s.
Women’s pants don’t have pockets because putting stuff in your pockets causes weird bagging on your upper thighs and ruins the silhouette of the pants. However, I do agree the utility of having pockets is hard to live without.
Women’s pants don’t have pockets because it’s a way to force them to buy purses.
Every person ever who has said that this is purely due to women’s choice needs to go shop for pants once. It’s a miracle to be able to find a single pair of pants that either isn’t 6 inches too long or 3 inches too wide at the waist. Women don’t have luxury of choosing pockets when most pants are either so long they drag through every puddle or too wide to the point of showing the whole ass crack when sitting down.
You say that as if altering clothing isn’t something that takes time to learn, time to do, risks of ruining your clothes, affect it’s durability, and difficult to do well. If it were so easy no one would pay for it to be done. Go to your local tailor and ask how much it is to hem a pair of pants or take the waist in.
Imagine everytine you buy a pair of pants you have to mentally prepare yourself to put the time and effort into sewing your own pants, something that most guys don’t have to do.
I have the exact same problems finding men’s pants. The leg length never makes sense with waist size. Not to mention being a skinny guy having one pair of pants in my size in the entire store, if I’m lucky. I almost always have to settle for at least one size to big.
Spending 5 minutes on Google shows that the number of construction workers is at all time highs.
It’s just that a hot economy requires even more labour.
My 2 cents, the economy could use a rebalancing by raising wages and reducing profits a bit.
If salaries of construction workers get raised from $40K to $50K, then the number of openings will go down and the remaining workers can focus on the more important work while getting a better wage.
mensliberation
Hot
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.