[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

A friend found this article and she wondered what men thought about it. I think it raises some interesting ideas, but since saying sexism exists towarsds men is itself inherently unmanly, and possibly offensive towards some women, that's all I'll say about it right now. What do you think? Are these valid points? Any others not mentioned in the article?

Quote

5 Stupid, Unfair and Sexist Things Expected of Men
We know the many ways sexism hurts women. But we don't talk as much about how sexism hurts men.
July 24, 2010 | LIKE THIS ARTICLE ?
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Petitions by Change.org|Get Widget|Start a Petition » If you have a scrap of progressive politics in your bones, it's no surprise to you that sexism hurts women. Like, duh. That's kind of the definition of the word.

But we don't talk as much about how sexism hurts men. Understandably. When you look at the grotesque ways women are damaged by sexism -- from economic inequality to political disenfranchisement to literal, physical abuse -- it makes perfect sense that we'd care more about how sexism and patriarchy and rigid gender roles affect women, than we do about how they affect men.

But men undoubtedly get screwed up by this stuff, too. Not screwed up as badly as women, to be sure... but not trivially, either. I care about it. And I think other feminists -- and other women and men who may not see themselves as feminists -- ought to care about it, too.

I care about this stuff for a lot of reasons. I care because I have men and boys in my life, men and boys who matter to me: I see how they get twisted into knots by gender roles that are not only insanely rigid but impossibly contradictory, and it makes me sick and sad and seriously pissed off. I care because I care about justice: fair is fair, and I don't want to solve the problem of gender inequality by making things suck worse for men.

And I care for entirely pragmatic, even Machiavellian reasons. I care because I care about feminism... and I think one of the best things we can do to advance feminism is to get more men on board. If we can convince more men that sexism screws up their lives, too -- and that life shared with free and equal women is a whole lot more fun -- we're going to get a lot more men on our side. (Like the bumpersticker a friend once had on her truck: "Feminists Fuck Better.")

So I've been looking more carefully at the specific ways sexism hurts men. In particular, I've been looking at our society's expectations of men, our very definitions of maleness. I've been looking at how rigid and narrow many of these expectations are, creating a razor-thin window of acceptable manly behavior that you'd have to be a professional tightrope walker to navigate. (Which would be a problem, since "professional tightrope walker" is definitely outside the parameters of acceptable manliness.) I've been looking at how so many of these expectations are not only rigid, but totally contradictory, creating a vision of idealized manhood that's not just ridiculous but literally unattainable. And I've been asking the men in my life -- friends, colleagues, family members, community members, guys I know on the Internet -- what kinds of expectations they get about Being A Man and how those expectations affect them.

Here is a list of five:

1. Fight, fight, fight! When I did my informal, unscientific poll of the men in my life and asked what was expected of them as men, this one came up a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Like, an amount that took me seriously by surprise. My slice of society -- and the slice shared by most men I know -- is comfortably middle-class: educated, chatty, civilized to a fault, and mostly very peaceful. We resolve our conflicts with words, with glares, with strategies, with the law as a last resort. Even raised voices and insulting language are considered somewhat outre. Not counting sporting events, I could count on one hand the number of physical fights I've witnessed in the last decade. Or even threats of physical fights.

And yet, man after man that I talked to brought this one up. The willingness to, as my friend Michael put it, "actually, physically, with fists or other weapons, fight" -- to defend one's honor (or the honor of one's lady, or country, or sports team, or whatever) -- is more central to how men are taught to see manhood than I had any notion of. Even if conflicts never get that far -- even if you never actually have to pound anyone with your fists -- being both willing and able to do so is a weirdly high priority in the Penis Club. As Adam said, "You would rather get a concussion than be called less than a man." And Damion told me this story: "I'm in the passenger seat when my (relatively butch) sister-in-law flips off some guy in Baltimore traffic. He jumps out of the car, enraged, and my first thought is 'Great, now I've got to beat the shit out of this guy.'"

Which puts men in a nasty conundrum. The laws and expectations of our civilized society are designed to keep physical violence to a minimum. And for good reason: physical violence is, you know, destructive. So men are expected -- indeed required -- to avoid and deflect confrontation, and to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence.

And when they do, they get called pussies.

Nice.

2. Be a good husband/partner/lover -- but don't care too much what women think.

This one falls squarely into the category of "not just insanely rigid but logically contradictory" -- a damned if you do, damned if you don't conundrum that ensures a lifetime of self-conscious anxiety if you let yourself take it seriously. Being a good husband and father -- a good provider who cares for his family and treats women with respect -- is central to the male mythos. And being good in bed has become a crucial part of this mythos as well. It's no longer enough for a Real Man to nail a lot of women: he has to get every single one of them off. Performance anxiety -- it's not just for hard-ons anymore! Not that I have any problem with the idea that women's sexual pleasure ought to matter to men who have sex with them. The problem lies with the notion that women's sexual pleasure is entirely men's responsibility; that pleasing women ought to be completely instinctive; that women's satisfaction is a victory to be achieved instead of an experience to be shared; and that this satisfaction has to be accomplished entirely with the man's hard dick, and not with his hands or tongue or toys or mind. (But that's a rant for another time.)

Yet at the same time, men aren't supposed to care too much what women think. Years ago, when I was married to a man, we were trying to make some difficult decisions together about how to arrange our careers and lives (would he work full-time and maybe even overtime to help put me through grad school?). When he asked the guys he worked with for feedback and advice, he mostly got a load of derision for involving me too much in his decisions about his job. "Pussywhipped," I believe, was the charming terminology being used. Yes, he was supposed to be a good provider and build the financial foundation for our life... but he was somehow supposed to accomplish this without asking me what kind of life I wanted, and without any willingness to compromise about what kind of life he wanted. For himself, or for the two of us. I guess he was supposed to be The Decider.

Of course, while it was horribly unmanly for him to be guided by his wife, it was perfectly fine for him to be guided by the guys he worked with at the auto shop. As Scott said, the TV show "'King of Queens' is a good example, I think because though he tries to be a good husband and companion, he often finds himself in conflict with what his friends want or with his own sense of what should be considered masculine." Men's definitions of manhood are supposed to come from other men -- not from women. They're just not supposed to care all that much what women think of them.

You see this a lot in fashion advice for men. Men aren't supposed to look like dorks or slobs, of course... but they can't look like they care about their looks, either. Men -- straight men, anyway -- have to achieve that perfect, razor's edge balance between good grooming and carelessness. You're supposed to look good -- but those good looks have to seem effortless. Looking like you care how you look makes you look like a woman. Or a gay man. (More on that in a tic.) Women are supposed to be the ones prettying themselves up into objects of desire. Men are not supposed to be the objects of desire. They're supposed to be the subjects. And subjects aren't supposed to care what their objects think of them.

Except when they're trying to get those objects to come.

[facepalm]

3. Be hot to trot. Always. With anybody.

This is another expectation that came up with striking (although hardly surprising) frequency. Men are supposed to want sex -- and be ready for sex -- all the time. With pretty much anyone of the right gender who makes themselves available for it. In his evaluation of male gender roles, Michael T. says, "To be a man you must use sexual conquest as a gauge for manhood." Jraoul quoted a song, Lou Christie's "Lightning Strikes," with lyrics that go, "When I see her lips begging to be kissed, I can't stop, I can't stop myself... When I see a sign that she wants to make time, I can't stop, I can't stop myself...." And in his litany of male gender expectations, my friend Michael listed, "Have sex with any woman who says yes, or who offers herself. If not, I must be gay, right?"

It's weird. An intense, even predatory sexual desire is a big part of the Manly Man picture. And yet that picture doesn't allow for men to have preferences. Or rather: They're allowed and even expected to have preferences -- as long as those preferences conform with social norms. I vividly remember an article from a late '60s Playboy, analyzing men's personalities based on what kind of female bodies they liked: liking big breasts made you cool, while liking big butts or legs meant you were immature. And that's hardly a relic of the '60s: even today, lots of men feel pressured to date women who meet the current standards of female attractiveness. Lots of men, for instance, feel pressured to date fashionably thin women: even if they personally prefer women with more meat on their bones, they feel embarrassed introducing them to their buddies. Like dating a fat chick is a slam on their ego. Like it means they're not high enough on the primate status ladder to acquire a high-status mate.

So yes, men are allowed to be hotter for some girls than others. But they're still supposed to get it on with anything that moves and spreads its legs. Anything female and not grotesque, anyway. Men are expected to have sexual desire... but that desire can't be their own. It can't be idiosyncratic. Or even all that personal. It can't belong to them.

And for the sweet love of Loki and all the gods in Valhalla, it can't be based on emotion.

4. Stiff upper lip.

Because for men, nothing at all can be based on emotion. Generic sexual desire, and the desire to punch someone's lights out, are pretty much the only emotions men are supposed to experience. And if they have the gall (or the lack of self-control) to experience their emotions, they bloody well better not let on about it.

This one is so common, it's almost ubiquitous. At least half the men I talked to made a point about it... and a bunch of the ones who didn't mention it explicitly alluded to it in other ways. David B. says he learned that men are supposed to be "reserved emotionally. Apparently men are only supposed to be passionate about sex, cars, sports and beer. And even then, passionate is not the 'appropriate' way for a man to describe his feeling about something."

David M. got the same memo: "No whining, no complaining, and no crying." Michael T., got it, too: "To be a man you must be non emotional and disconnected." And the other Michael: "Have no emotional intelligence / don't show too many emotions." Andrew says he learned that a man "is supposed to be hard as nails and is to show no emotion." Jason learned that being a man means "not showing emotion, being 'tough' so to speak -- and that one is from peers, family and all of the above." Dean points out "the usual messages about big boys don't cry (yes, we do) and how a real man doesn't complain (yes, they do)." Scott also points to "the boys-don't-cry mantra." Ben T. says, "I hate the fact that men can't be scared of anything." James says he learned to appear emotionless so effectively that "I did not shed a single tear when my dad died during heart surgery." And Georges points out, "It always amazed me how brave I had to be to allow my feelings to show."

This one, I would argue, is more crippling than all the rest combined. I, personally, might be able to manage a life where I always had to be willing to fight or fuck; where I had to walk an impossible tightrope between caring what my partner thought without caring too much; where I had to twist myself into knots to avoid any hint that I might be attracted to people of the same sex. (See below.) But a life where I had to deny my most basic animal emotions -- love and fear, passion and grief -- just to not get treated as a gender freak? That would send me screaming 'round the bend. (More than I already am, I mean.)

5. Fear of being perceived as gay.

This is kind of a funny one. Acceptance of actual homosexuality has increased by a staggering amount in the last few decades. In less than 40 years, the LGBT rights movement has gone from fighting for our right to not be put in mental institutions and lobotomized, to fighting for our right to get legally married. (And, okay, the right to not be fired from our jobs or kicked out of the U.S. military... but still.) And social acceptance of queers has paralleled our political acceptance. If you actually are a gay man, the "Don't be even a little bit gay" message is being replaced, more and more every day, with the message, "Well... okay."

But if you're a straight man? It's a very different story. In TV shows and movies, homosexual panic is still a reliable source of comic hijinks. Wacky situations in which straight men are mistaken for gay -- Chandler and Joey on "Friends" being out together with a baby, the "Not that there's anything wrong with that" gag on "Seinfeld" -- these are a staple of modern comedy. And that staple is usually stapled to the assumption that, for straight men, being mistaken for gay is a humiliating blow to their masculinity. You see it in fashion/ dating/ etiquette advice for men, too, which often focuses to an almost hysterical degree on walking that razor- thin line between looking like an urbane, sophisticated man of the world... while still, for the sweet love of Jesus, not being mistaken for gay.

And you definitely see it in some very common male sexual fears. I've read way too many letters to way too many sex advice columns from way too many straight men saying they like -- how shall I put this delicately? -- being on the receiving end of anal pleasure... but don't want to explore this eminently delightful activity, because they're afraid it means they're gay. Or because their female partners are afraid it means they're gay. (Somewhat testy note to straight men and their female partners: No, it doesn't. Wanting a woman to fuck you in the ass does not make you gay. Any more than wanting a woman to suck your cock does. Please.)

Now, I will say that these attitudes are beginning to change. The advances of the LGBT movement have freed things up for straights as well as queers, and the younger generation is a lot more fluid and casual about sexual orientation than mine ever was. As my friend Ben pointed out, "The loosening of roles that accompanied feminism and the gay rights movement probably benefited straight men at least as much as it did women and gay men... Witness metrosexuality: now that being mistaken for gay isn't a disaster, men have more fashion leeway." And Adam, who describes himself as "effeminate, though heterosexual," says that being assumed to be gay "gave me a pass on some of the more restrictive rules of masculinity. After all, nobody really bothered to tell me to 'man up' when I sounded 'fruity' anyway."

But at the same time, as gay visibility has increased, the likelihood of being mistaken for gay has gone way, way up. And as a result, the number of opportunities for anxious, gay-panic freakouts has gone up as well. Being mistaken for gay isn't as disastrous as it once was -- it's more of a laugh line and less of a petrifying threat -- but it also happens a lot more often. And the anxiety it still creates for a lot of straight men is a lot more constant... even if it isn't as severe.

So What Now?

And I've just barely started. I don't have nearly enough space here to write the full-length novel I could write on this subject. I've skipped some of the biggest and most important gender expectations of men: the expectations of competition, of status consciousness, of financial success, strength and athleticism, leadership skills, mechanical skills, easy erectile functionality, a dehumanizing attitude towards women, giving a crap about sports. Heck, men get a clear social message that, in order to be manly, they have to be tall. What the heck are you supposed to do about that?

What the heck are any of us supposed to do about any of this?

Well, having unloaded all this depressing crap, I think it's important to deliver some good news: There are ways out of this, and around it, and through it. A lot of men I talked about this said that yes, they were certainly aware of the rigid expectations held of them as men... but they didn't personally feel hugely constrained by them. Sure, they were aware of these expectations. But they also felt comfortable rejecting them. Or embracing the parts they liked, and rejecting the parts they didn't. Or subverting them, in creative and fun and sexy ways.

And many men pointed out that, while they're certainly getting a super-sized serving of narrow, stupid cultural messages about How To Be A Man, they're also getting a decent helping of smarter, broader messages about Not Listening To That Stupid Shit. Plenty of men have gotten spiffy, role-modely lessons and examples about being non-violent, respectful of women, emotionally honest, sexually honest, and just generally their own best selves... from sources ranging from pop culture icons to their own fathers and mothers. As jraoul pointed out, "Do I think men are given rigid and/or narrow expectations about maleness? Well, sure! And we are also given fluid and/or wide ones. Depends on who's doing the giving."

Admittedly, because of my own personality and proclivities, the men in my life tend to be -- how shall we put this? -- outside the mainstream of conventional American society. ("Big nerdy pinko freaks" would be another way to put it.) And a lot of them are gay or bi, which skews the sampling even more. But just like lots of feminist women are able to laugh off the sitcoms and billboards and women's magazines and live however the frack we want, lots of feminist men are able to unload the John Wayne/Cary Grant/"What kind of man reads Playboy" crap they got loaded with -- or, depending on their generation, the Rambo/Tom Cruise/Maxim magazine crap -- and just get on with their lives.

Different people feel more affected by gender expectations than others. Some of us -- women and men alike -- still hear these voices in the back of our heads, still feel them shaping our reflexes, still see a need to consciously drag these messages into the light so we know how to recognize them and have an easier time tossing them overboard. And some folks -- again, both women and men -- feel like this is really not that big a deal. Yes, they say, society wants men to be one way and women to be another. Who cares what society wants? For some people, it takes years of introspection and therapy and processing to unload this junk. Some people never unlearn it, in fact; some people let their whole lives be run by it. And other people seem to unload it just by deciding to do it.

So I don't know what to tell you about how to do that.

All I can tell you is that it's totally worth it.

Thanks to Adam, Alan, Andrew, Ben, Other Ben, Chad, Christopher, Craig, Crypt, Damion, Darren, David, Other David, Still Other David, Yet Still Another David, And Yet One More David, Dean, Georges, Glendon, Jacob, James, Other James, Jason, Jeff, Joel, jraoul, Kyle, Lauro, Lenny, Leo, Mark, Michael, Other Michael, Still Other Michael, Scott, Other Scott, Still Other Scott, Sean, Anonymous, and everyone else I talked to, for their invaluable help with this piece.

Read more of Greta Christina at her blog.

[worry]

I think this article holds a lot of truth, and I agree with the author that the Stiff Upper Lip thing might be the worst of them, perhaps even the basis for the rest. I also like the approach she's taking that sexism of all kinds hurts both sexes, and I wish that point was made more emphatically more often in such discussions. And I'm especially glad this didn't turn out to be a silly "reverse-sexism" article blaming women for all of this. Patriarchy is the problem, with the caveat that matriarchy isn't necessarily superior, and there are subscribers from both sexes perpetuating the deleterious effects.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

Well put.

[TheSurvivor]

One day a some guys I knew were tossing around the word 'fag' and they happened to do it around another guy I know who is gay. I wasn't expecting what happened next really but the gay one went on a ferocious verbal assault. My favourite line was, "if you say that word in front of me again I'll take this knife(and he had a fairly large knife in hand) and shove it through your eye." He said a number of other things as well, basically stating how unnecessarily insulting they were being, which they were left speechless towards. It was awesome.

[KalamMekhar]

i can say i agree with a lot of what the author says. Especially the fighting part, i know a lot of friends growing up who were taught to that to be manly or be tough you had to be able to fight or get into fights, which i wasnt, and ive never been in an actual fight. The closest i have come to getting into one is with someone a few years ago i think over the stupidest thing, and it didnt last 5 seconds before i was on the ground about to get the crap kicked out of me and had really hurt my knee from fallingon it with 300 extra pounds on top, and still hurts today. Nothing good comes out of fighting and i dont agree with the fact that you have to fight to be a man, you would think being smarter about it and resolving the problem without a physical confrontation would be the more manly thing to do, but sadly its not in today's society. Its stupid to think you are ebing a man by fighting, especially if your just fighting a fight you know your going to lose just to try and prove that statement, im a man because im fighting. Im not saying there arent things in this world worth fighting for, there are many that i would in a heartbeat, but there are plenty that are not worth it as well

also if a guy doesnt express any other emotions other than sexual desire or wanting to fight, i think they are hurting themselves by not showing they are willing to show their other emotions that they have, but choose not to because they think it will make them look like less of a man. its simply not true in my mind. I do no think there is anything wrong with showing more than those two so called "manly" emotions, i think it helps men who are willing to let those emotions be seen in every aspect in their lives such as relationships. why would you not be able to or choose not to show more than those emotions to someone ou love and care about, jsut because you dont want to be looked at like less of a man, it should be the opposite really, if your able and willing to show those other emotions you are more of a man than not because it shows you care, that your willing to let others see you do care, you do have feelings, and men can be vulnerable, scary as that might be.

This post has been edited by KalamMekhar: 27 July 2010 - 12:59 AM

[Vučina]

Its an incredibly interesting topic. I know there was an article on something similar in New Scientist recently. Where though girls and boys are traditionally better at different subjects at school (Girls at Humanities, Boys at maths and sciences) the balance is shifting. Girls are encouraged to be stronger at mathematics but the same isn't reciprocated for the boys. It was a fascinating article where the author explained how in early childhood the behaviors displayed by the different genders develop their minds in certain areas, (boys tend to prefer toys with simple mechanics leading to a better grasp of spacial reasoning, while girls prefer dolls leading to a development in social skills) and that nothing is permanent and simply practice in an area can lead to developing you're abilities. Hence a lot of gender bias around academic preferences is unreasonable and though traditionally it was a bias against women it has turned into a bias against men, though to reverse the trend it would take a revision of what we consider the roles in society of both men and women.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

Real men punch sexism in the face and make it cry.

[Cold Iron]

I emailed this article to my woman with "take it easy on us" as the subject line.

Her response:

"suck it up princess"

[amphibian]

The article seems to take the position that all of the listed things are solely social constructs. I do not agree with that. The general role of men in human society has been shaped by evolution and vice versa.

I recall Cesar Milan's phrase "Animal, breed, dog" in referring to how to understand a dog's behavior. The animal (dog) has evolved to act in a particular manner and want certain things, and that forms the deepest and largest layer of its personality. The breed of the dog (Terriers hunt small animals, Collies herd the shit out of things, Greyhounds are built for wanting to run very fast and far in straight lines etc.) has had selective traits amplified and others pushed to the background - this is the next layer up and is slightly shallower than the animal-based imperatives. The dog itself has its own quirks of personality and differences, which are the topmost layer and might be the most shallow layer of consciousness and group of imperatives.

I think humans have a mind built an awful lot like that. Evolution has accreted layers upon layers of instincts and learned behaviors upon a kernel of "lets this organism survive and prosper" - much like an old computer operating system. We as humans desire food, protection, shelter, to reproduce etc. However, we've also split into essentially two breeds - males and females. There are many quantifiable differences between genders and societies all over the world have taken much of those into their fabric (as well as shaping the differences themselves in a much lesser fashion).

In general, humans are decent fighting creatures. In the competition for resources between organisms, we do alright because we're of a passable size, can run, jump, throw, bite a little, hit, observe and strategize. Engaging in conflicts and resolving those conflicts is a part of basic human genetic makeup. Men are bigger, faster, stronger and have better spatial orientation/judgment than women. They are much better at fighting, which is an effective last resort of conflict resolution (violence does indeed solve problems, or at least punt them to another day) because they have evolved to be so. To me, a willingness to fight is a built-in biological imperative for men. Women have it to some degree, but it's much more strongly embedded in male consciousness both through evolution and societal imperatives.

The author's key point is this:

Quote

So men are expected -- indeed required -- to avoid and deflect confrontation, and to resolve conflicts without resorting to violence.

And when they do, they get called pussies.

No. This is so wrong as to be laughable. Men (and women) are expected to do their best to resolve conflicts that come up without resorting to violence and ideally gaining or losing as little status, territory or resources as possible. It's only when they do it badly or back down in a weak manner from a conflict that the "pussy" phenomenon comes in.

I think that the society the author talks about (modern American culture) handles such willingness to fight in an okay manner - in ways both good and bad. Certainly better than ze French...

Her second item on the list is kind of a mess. She says that men should take their definitions of manhood from men, that women are expected to be "prettying themselves up into objects of desire", while men are supposed to be the subjects of desire and men aren't supposed to give too much of a crap what women think of them. It makes a ton of sense for men to be used as a secondary source for a man's learned behaviors and attitudes (experience should be primary), the female pursuit of beauty is likely an evolved behavior, men as the subject of desire is a tricky subject I don't think I can discuss without going on forever (especially with so little explanation given by the author) and yes, men shouldn't pay a ton of attention to what women think of them. Building a personality or identity solely based upon what other people think of you is a terrible idea. Furthermore, women want all kinds of things in a mate and put shifting priorities on different attributes at different times. A man is likely better off developing his own attributes to the point where they're notable or serve him well in the competition for resources between other males, other humans and other species.

Her third item is another mess, but might be her best point. Noting desirable sexual partners is a great attribute for an organism to have - because without it, the organism usually won't reproduce. She says something about how idiosyncratic preferences for sexual partners is discouraged by society - which is somewhat true. However, she talks about how men are pressured into dating women who fit the current standards of female attractiveness within a society. That's true! It makes total sense for a society to pressure its constituents to choose sexual partners that can lead to the propagation of the fittest within a species. Having a preference for sexual partners outside that general range is a bit odd, evolutionarily speaking, and I'm not surprised that there is societal friction regarding those preferences for many. Given that the propagation of the species isn't a huge problem these days, societies across the would should let up on pressuring those with particularly idiosyncratic preferences in consenting adult sexual partners to convert to more "normal" preferences.

Her fourth point is terrible. Having a stiff upper lip means having self-control over the public expression of emotions, in particular anger or being upset. Or an AC/DC song. She equates it with being emotionally dead, using what I would consider to be an attitude that is particularly odd and usually reserved to dramatic females ("If I get mad and can't publicly express my emotions without restraint, then I might as well not have emotions at all!"). It makes sense for society to pressure individuals to control their expressions of intense emotions and for males in particular to retain control - because in general, men who use inappropriate violence to express emotions can do more damage than women. This one makes sense, and I'd not argue for its abolition.

I'd argue that her fifth point is seizing upon the stalking horse of something more important: people don't want to be seen as weak. It's my thinking that being perceived as "gay" often correlates with being seen as "weak". The connection between the two is dumb, to say the least, and should indeed be severed.

KalamMekhar, on 27 July 2010 - 12:52 AM, said:

i can say i agree with a lot of what the author says. Especially the fighting part, i know a lot of friends growing up who were taught to that to be manly or be tough you had to be able to fight or get into fights, which i wasnt, and ive never been in an actual fight. The closest i have come to getting into one is with someone a few years ago i think over the stupidest thing, and it didnt last 5 seconds before i was on the ground about to get the crap kicked out of me and had really hurt my knee from fallingon it with 300 extra pounds on top, and still hurts today. Nothing good comes out of fighting and i dont agree with the fact that you have to fight to be a man, you would think being smarter about it and resolving the problem without a physical confrontation would be the more manly thing to do, but sadly its not in today's society. Its stupid to think you are ebing a man by fighting, especially if your just fighting a fight you know your going to lose just to try and prove that statement, im a man because im fighting. Im not saying there arent things in this world worth fighting for, there are many that i would in a heartbeat, but there are plenty that are not worth it as well

I reacted in a strongly negative manner to this paragraph. I think exploring my reaction would be useful. On perhaps the primary level, I conceived of you as a wuss for 1) losing a fight over something dumb so quickly and badly and 2) expressing what I initially perceived as an attitude of "I won't fight, no matter what". Once I slowed down my reaction and read through your paragraph a few times, I realized that what you were saying was more nuanced than that. You acknowledge that there are things worth fighting for, but your overall tone is such that I thought "I can push this guy around. If I can push him around, others can too and therefore he's not someone I want to strongly associate with or rely upon when a conflict pops up." I don't think you're less deserving of basic human respect or rights, but I do think you are a lower status male for what you said and you wouldn't be my first choice to team up and take upon the Sinister Six. My attitude seems partly based in an instinctual thing and partly based in a learned attitude from my family/friends and society. You're obviously welcomed to ignore it, but I thought it was worth putting out there.

Fighting does solve conflicts - when it's used right. It's not always used right and fighting often leads to punting the problem to another time or escalating it into something far messier and costly. I disagree that methods of conflict resolution that are not fighting are discouraged in modern American society or in most societies around the world. I do think that mainstream media does overempathize and always has overemphasized violent resolutions to conflicts without giving a context or explaining why non-violent conflict resolution works.

[Tsundoku]

Promise me son, not to do the things I've done
Walk away from trouble if you can
Now it won't mean you're weak if you turn the other cheek
Tommy I just hope you understand, son you don't have to fight to be a man.

I promised you Dad, not to do the things you've done
I walked away from trouble when I could
Now please don't think I'm weak I didn't turn the other cheek
Poppa I just hope you understand, sometimes you've got to fight when you're a man.

This post has been edited by Sombra: 27 July 2010 - 07:20 AM

[Goaswerfraiejen]

I'm glad for the article's existence, if only because these issues need to be discussed in the public sphere. The real issue here is that we've poured a great deal of time into our women and girls in an attempt to redress gender imbalances (with a fair bit of success, despite the work that's left to be done), but have spent almost no time on our men and boys. A case in point: support for eating disorders. We make a point to let women and girls know which doors are open, and we actively try to combat female eating disorders by criticizing media portrayals, bad attitudes, etc. Unfortunately, we also operate under the (sexist) assumption these disorders don't affect men, and so we don't pay attention to warning signs and we don't redirect the traffic when such direction is most needed. The result of attitudes like these is that we now find ourselves in the midst of a male crisis, with male children dropping out in ever-larger numbers, gender imbalances in higher-education shifting to the opposite extreme, etc.

Vučina, on 27 July 2010 - 02:00 AM, said:

Its an incredibly interesting topic. I know there was an article on something similar in New Scientist recently. Where though girls and boys are traditionally better at different subjects at school (Girls at Humanities, Boys at maths and sciences) the balance is shifting. Girls are encouraged to be stronger at mathematics but the same isn't reciprocated for the boys. It was a fascinating article where the author explained how in early childhood the behaviors displayed by the different genders develop their minds in certain areas, (boys tend to prefer toys with simple mechanics leading to a better grasp of spacial reasoning, while girls prefer dolls leading to a development in social skills) and that nothing is permanent and simply practice in an area can lead to developing you're abilities. Hence a lot of gender bias around academic preferences is unreasonable and though traditionally it was a bias against women it has turned into a bias against men, though to reverse the trend it would take a revision of what we consider the roles in society of both men and women.

A number of studies have shown repeatedly that if you reinforce gender and racial stereotypes before tests, students (of that ethnicity or gender) do much worse on the tests than if you say and do nothing at all. These studies actually give a fair bit of support to the notion that these "traditional tendencies" are very much just socially and culturally ingrained and reinforced, rather than a question of essentialism.

[KalamMekhar]

amphibian, on 27 July 2010 - 04:14 AM, said:

I reacted in a strongly negative manner to this paragraph. I think exploring my reaction would be useful. On perhaps the primary level, I conceived of you as a wuss for 1) losing a fight over something dumb so quickly and badly and 2) expressing what I initially perceived as an attitude of "I won't fight, no matter what". Once I slowed down my reaction and read through your paragraph a few times, I realized that what you were saying was more nuanced than that. You acknowledge that there are things worth fighting for, but your overall tone is such that I thought "I can push this guy around. If I can push him around, others can too and therefore he's not someone I want to strongly associate with or rely upon when a conflict pops up." I don't think you're less deserving of basic human respect or rights, but I do think you are a lower status male for what you said and you wouldn't be my first choice to team up and take upon the Sinister Six. My attitude seems partly based in an instinctual thing and partly based in a learned attitude from my family/friends and society. You're obviously welcomed to ignore it, but I thought it was worth putting out there.

Fighting does solve conflicts - when it's used right. It's not always used right and fighting often leads to punting the problem to another time or escalating it into something far messier and costly. I disagree that methods of conflict resolution that are not fighting are discouraged in modern American society or in most societies around the world. I do think that mainstream media does overempathize and always has overemphasized violent resolutions to conflicts without giving a context or explaining why non-violent conflict resolution works.

Yea, I am going to ignore that part im "welcome" to ignore because you dont know me based on one paragraph, so if that is what you want to think, it's your loss. I also didn't mention that the person outweighed me by a hundred pounds and he ended up on top of me by accident of us tripping over a curb in a parking lot. Ive never been in a fight before that because I haven't been forced into a situation where I had to get into a physical confrontation. I try not to put myself into that kind of position and I have been pretty lucky to not have gotten into fights before.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

KalamMekhar, on 28 July 2010 - 05:33 AM, said:

amphibian, on 27 July 2010 - 04:14 AM, said:

I reacted in a strongly negative manner to this paragraph. I think exploring my reaction would be useful. On perhaps the primary level, I conceived of you as a wuss for 1) losing a fight over something dumb so quickly and badly and 2) expressing what I initially perceived as an attitude of "I won't fight, no matter what". Once I slowed down my reaction and read through your paragraph a few times, I realized that what you were saying was more nuanced than that. You acknowledge that there are things worth fighting for, but your overall tone is such that I thought "I can push this guy around. If I can push him around, others can too and therefore he's not someone I want to strongly associate with or rely upon when a conflict pops up." I don't think you're less deserving of basic human respect or rights, but I do think you are a lower status male for what you said and you wouldn't be my first choice to team up and take upon the Sinister Six. My attitude seems partly based in an instinctual thing and partly based in a learned attitude from my family/friends and society. You're obviously welcomed to ignore it, but I thought it was worth putting out there.

Fighting does solve conflicts - when it's used right. It's not always used right and fighting often leads to punting the problem to another time or escalating it into something far messier and costly. I disagree that methods of conflict resolution that are not fighting are discouraged in modern American society or in most societies around the world. I do think that mainstream media does overempathize and always has overemphasized violent resolutions to conflicts without giving a context or explaining why non-violent conflict resolution works.

Yea, I am going to ignore that part im "welcome" to ignore because you dont know me based on one paragraph, so if that is what you want to think, it's your loss. I also didn't mention that the person outweighed me by a hundred pounds and he ended up on top of me by accident of us tripping over a curb in a parking lot. Ive never been in a fight before that because I haven't been forced into a situation where I had to get into a physical confrontation. I try not to put myself into that kind of position and I have been pretty lucky to not have gotten into fights before.

Kalam, as difficult as it might be, if you can avoid taking what he said personally, his statement is very relevant to this conversation. It is so ingrained in us to value fighting prowess that hearing about someoen we don't even know losing a fight we didn't see and know next to nothing of the circumstances of can still evoke a negative response. It led a complete stranger to evaluate you based on the fact that from the little info we have, he believes he could take you in a fight and thinks less of you for it. The only reaction you have is through words over the internet and your ability and wilingness to fight someone is affecting your interaction! This is fucked! This is proving the exact point of the article. We are incredibly shaped by the expectations of our maleness, and it's a bit of a drag.

I like both of you guys, I don't want to get in between you two on this one, and hope it doesn't escalate into a bigger argument, I just wanted to point out how quickly the point of the article was proven in this discussion. As a snapshot of male interaction and expectations, it's pretty interesting.

[Tsundoku]

It shouldn't escalate because Amph was describing his first, (I guess you would call it) primal response, and his theory on why that was. He then went on to describe how he re-evaluated that pretty quickly afterward.

As I see it Amph wasn't saying how he thought KM as a person he "interwebz knowz" was weak, just how he (Amph) as a guy - especially with his background in martial arts - saw a story about "a guy", then checked his response not so much as because it was from KM, but from his own ability to analyse his reaction.

No harm, no foul.

I thought it was a pretty honest response and a fair example of how we can often see things from the testosterone and then the intellectual viewpoint. (Emotional followed by intellectual response?)

RLY's first paragraph above analyses it far better than I could, which is why I found his second paragraph a little puzzling until I figured out that (maybe) he was arguing against the (possible) scenario where internet discussions can be misinterpreted due to so many factors we are mostly aware of, and just making sure cool heads prevailed.

La Sombra, master of the marital arts

This post has been edited by Sombra: 28 July 2010 - 08:28 AM

[foolio]

KalamMekhar, on 28 July 2010 - 05:33 AM, said:

amphibian, on 27 July 2010 - 04:14 AM, said:

I reacted in a strongly negative manner to this paragraph. I think exploring my reaction would be useful. On perhaps the primary level, I conceived of you as a wuss for 1) losing a fight over something dumb so quickly and badly and 2) expressing what I initially perceived as an attitude of "I won't fight, no matter what". Once I slowed down my reaction and read through your paragraph a few times, I realized that what you were saying was more nuanced than that. You acknowledge that there are things worth fighting for, but your overall tone is such that I thought "I can push this guy around. If I can push him around, others can too and therefore he's not someone I want to strongly associate with or rely upon when a conflict pops up." I don't think you're less deserving of basic human respect or rights, but I do think you are a lower status male for what you said and you wouldn't be my first choice to team up and take upon the Sinister Six. My attitude seems partly based in an instinctual thing and partly based in a learned attitude from my family/friends and society. You're obviously welcomed to ignore it, but I thought it was worth putting out there.

Fighting does solve conflicts - when it's used right. It's not always used right and fighting often leads to punting the problem to another time or escalating it into something far messier and costly. I disagree that methods of conflict resolution that are not fighting are discouraged in modern American society or in most societies around the world. I do think that mainstream media does overempathize and always has overemphasized violent resolutions to conflicts without giving a context or explaining why non-violent conflict resolution works.

Yea, I am going to ignore that part im "welcome" to ignore because you dont know me based on one paragraph, so if that is what you want to think, it's your loss. I also didn't mention that the person outweighed me by a hundred pounds and he ended up on top of me by accident of us tripping over a curb in a parking lot. Ive never been in a fight before that because I haven't been forced into a situation where I had to get into a physical confrontation. I try not to put myself into that kind of position and I have been pretty lucky to not have gotten into fights before.

I have probably been in 60-70 full on fist fights in my life(not counting boxing). Most of them long ago. And I would gladly be your friend. I dont give a shit rather someone else fights when picking friends. As a matter of fact I generally dont feel very good about myself after letting raw emotions take over.

One of the most admirable things, to me, is someone who resists getting in a fight they think they can win.


and man this little diddy by Whisper just absolutely reminds me of why I spend time on this board.... "Real men punch sexism in the face and make it cry."


and from the original article....

Quote

Wanting a woman to fuck you in the ass does not make you gay.

are you sure? I might have to disagree with this small point....

edit:added last two quotes...

This post has been edited by foolio: 28 July 2010 - 05:22 PM

[KalamMekhar]

umm when did i say i wanted to fight amph? there was no anger towards amph when i typed that, i scoffed at it really, wth a little smile. i can see where it looks like it can be interpreted that way, but thats not how it was meant to come off.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

KalamMekhar, on 28 July 2010 - 05:34 PM, said:

umm when did i say i wanted to fight amph? there was no anger towards amph when i typed that, i scoffed at it really, wth a little smile. i can see where it looks like it can be interpreted that way, but thats not how it was meant to come off.

I didn't think you wanted to fight him, but I did think you were offended by what he said. Easy to interpret things wrong when communicating through text. So, that's settled. We're all friends, no fighting, and back to the discussion!

[HoosierDaddy]

Quote

I have probably been in 60-70 full on fist fights in my life(not counting boxing).

I have no idea how to respond to this. I'm just flummoxed.

[foolio]

H.D., on 28 July 2010 - 07:34 PM, said:

Quote

I have probably been in 60-70 full on fist fights in my life(not counting boxing).

I have no idea how to respond to this. I'm just flummoxed.

sorry, worked in bars around drunk people for about 6 years and played sports my whole life....

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

I was a bouncer for five years, and got in one fight, which I won without throwing a punch. Just saying.