I’ve seen this question pop up once or twice on Xanga recently. The question is, what becomes of men in the modern feminist world?
Times are changing quickly. Technology has enabled us to live lives that humanity has never before been able to do. We come into a new world where women are gaining power and influence. Meanwhile the male stereotype is being thrown under the bus as females embrace aggressive professional roles and sexual desires. Unfavorable traits of masculinity are being weeded out. Such as being an overly agressive dick and acting emotionless.
Nothing has changed yet. But it’s moving in that direction. If anything, men are being pushed further into a smaller and smaller corner with less options.
Pop culture (aside from the gay movement) is still promoting polarity in gender roles. But eventually this must break. Eventually men are going to need to snap out of the boundaries of polar male/female society and females as well will need to accept the new redesigned men.
So what is the redesigned man like?
He is a gender neutral figure who does not conform to the old ways of society. He is capable of openly displaying emotion, even if psychologically he is more limited than females. He is a father that listens to his children and may even be a stay at home dad. He has the same custody rights to his children as their mother has in the eyes of the court. His outward appearance is given the same level of care as his female counterparts. He is not confined to only pants and t-shirts but openly wears skirts, make-up and grooms unwanted body hair.
There is no reason any longer for gender polarity to exist in our society.
Physically males and females are different, but as women and men’s rights collide into perfect equality, there will be no reason for society to treat them differently in any way.
Gone will be separate restrooms and clothing sections in stores. All that will remain polar will be medicines that relate to their sex and the terms him and her. Although eventually such terms may become irrelevant themselves.
True… but I think it’s still a way’s off.
A guy can dream I guess. You must have never been to the deep south of the US (OR the midwest) if you think that is really ever gonna happen tho. I’m not sure I’d even want it to. But I don’t see men being pushed into any corners, they still make more money for the same jobs and they still monopolize all the power positions, that is in the US anyway.
Uhh.. Ive got serious problems with this.
The emasculation of our society is seen most prevalent in the bullshit mainstream music and television culture. Where did the men go? Where did the masculinity go? And lets look for a moment at the common recipe that we see on television. Men are no longer men, they are now dimwits who need their intelligent beautiful wives to save them from their stupid mistakes.king of queens? According to jim? Malcolm in the middle? (why is this fucking bullshit so intriguing?)
give me the sopranos any day. I want to a man. I want my man to be stronger than me, to take care of the problems my female sensitivities avoid. Take out the garbage, change the oil, get dirty. Ill keep the kitchen clean and my hands soft. I want my man to come home after a long day at work, so that I can take his boots off of him and rub his back until he relaxes.
Gender roles should be encouraged. Women are soft, nurturing, emotional. Men are strong, hunter gatherers who must provide security for their families. WHY is this changing? And how the fuck do I get off this awful train?
Take me back to the cave.
i prefer my manly man over an emotional one… i like the rugged shaggy unneat look….but i dont mind that he clean up every once in a while….overall i like what a man is now…
@HemptressDecember – @Snoog420 – You’ve been programmed by society to tell you what a man should be. There is no doubt men like this will always exist. The goal is to give them the freedom to choose. Just like you wear a dress one day and a pair of jeans the next. Just like you’re a tough bitch one day and crying the next. Guys don’t have those options in society today without being labeled as gay or weak or perverted. It’s not fair that women do have those options and men don’t. If you want equality, you have to have total equality. Gender roles are a carry over from when we fought to survive the wilderness. Humanity is evolving.
@Diva_Jyoti_3 – I live in Detroit and I’ve been to the bible belt more times than I can count. I used to be a truck driver for six years. I know how backwards those southerners are. Their religion is their biggest problem.
“Times are changing quickly. Technology has enabled us to live lives that humanity has never before been able to do. We come into a new world where women are gaining power and influence. Meanwhile the male stereotype is being thrown under the bus as females embrace aggressive professional roles and sexual desires.”
This is usually what happens when a civil rights movement wins out– when rights and privilages previously reserved for a previously insularized majority.
After desegregation, and recently with the expansion of gay rights, whites and conservative too whined about social seachange.
Are we talking about mens ability to be metrosexual? My boyfriend is totally metro. He dresses better than I do, and probably takes longer to get ready. But hes still a man. He still retains the masculinity I see so many boys avoiding.
Fascinating topic, btw.
@HemptressDecember – Men will always be men. They will always maintain a degree of masculinity. We’re talking about giving men choice and not chastising them for being whoever they want to be. That’s why we rid our society of the gender polarity so that no one is forced to be one way or the other. It will help women just as much. Then you don’t have a women being called lesbians because they look or act a certain way.
Take me for example. I’m not gay. I don’t act all feminine. I’ve got a deep voice and love to do a lot of “guy” things. But hell I like to paint my toe nails, wear mascara, wear colorful underwear and other clothing and sometimes shave my legs. Just look at my last blog post about my new bathing suit. I would totally wear dresses sometimes if I didn’t fear getting my ass kicked by some retarded hillbillies.
None of this makes me less of a man. Though modern society would like you to believe different. But fuck them. I’m 32 years old. I like what I like. Life is short and I’m only young for so long. I’m not going to let society tell me I should dress a certain way or act like a prick just because I’m physically male.
@HemptressDecember – BTW metrosexual is a horrible word. It has nothing to do with sexuality.
Personally I think feminists have gone too far with taking away mens’ masculinity to the degree they have. I like rugged guys who can still clean up. I don’t see a problem with stay-at-home-dads so long as the couple is fine with it. That’s really a personal preference between husband and wife.
@firetyger – Feminists aren’t trying to take away masculinity. They are trying to even the playing field and give both men and women the same choices and rights. They actually haven’t gone far enough. The problem is that society changes slowly. We still have people like yourself that believe there should be a difference between men and women aside from the junk between their legs. You’re fine with it because you’re a women who has all this choice, you’re not living as a man. What if we men don’t want to conform to your dirty man who can clean up stereotype? What if I told you, that you were never allowed to wear skirts or called you a fag if you got emotional about something?
haha well i do believe it has been etched into our brains what a man should be…. but coming from a mexican family what i like and what mexican families are use to are two completely diff things… i let my husband do what he wants with himself… i never put it upon him not to shave or not to break down when he needs to…but i guess this would be more up to men and if they allow themselves that….
@Snoog420 – Yes it should be up to the individual. The problem we face is that sometimes individuals aren’t strong enough. They need to know that society as a whole will accept them. There was a time not all that long ago where women weren’t encouraged to drive cars. It was not proper. A few brave women did but I’m sure a lot more wanted to but didn’t want to get the looks or the judgement from others. Possibly out of fear that men would think them less feminine. Same is true of women wearing pants and a whole host of other things. It took social change to happen to the point where women today don’t even think about these things. Some may not even be aware that society used to be like that.
@roxics – Well, we’ll have to disagree about feminists. I think they used to do a lot of good but nowadays it seems to be more about the pendulum swinging from men being in power to women…rather than all of us just being equal, which is why I take issue with the current feminist movement. I don’t think there is anything wrong with being different yet equal, either.
Just because I have a personal preference doesn’t mean that I don’t think guys can dress/act however they want. It’s not wrong to have a preference. In high school I had a huge crush on a guy who wrote poetry, dressed in all black, wore mascara and eye shadow. He wasn’t my typical preference but I loved who he was as a person. I say if you feel like wearing something…go for it. It doesn’t matter what society has to say about it. I prefer to wear jeans and shorts more than I ever wear a skirt (I really only wear skirts at home for my hubby – he prefers…um…easy access
). If someone called me names, I wouldn’t care. If someone was going to try hurting me physically because of what I was wearing, well, I’d get a concealed carry permit for protection. I don’t make my hubby dress or act a certain way. If he asks for my opinion, I give it. But I really just let him dress as he wants, like he lets me.
@firetyger – Sorry I didn’t mean to imply that you can’t have a personal preference. You most certainly can. Nothing wrong with that.
@roxics -You know whats sexy to me about a man, his confidence. With confidence, you can wear anything (including skirts and makeup which is a societal mishap these days) Wear it with confidence, and you’ve caught my eye.
Maybe metro is used differently here. It has zero negative connotation in my vernacular, and wasnt meant as a slight.
@HemptressDecember – While I appreicate your sentiment a lot, at the same time, I don’t think that archytype of the grunting hunter-gatherer (I’m putting words in your mouth slightly because you probably didn’t mean that) and the doting housewife really works in the long term. It cements men and women into the rigid gender expectations, of provider and homemaker, that emerged during the Industrial Revolution (along with the Cult of Domesticity), and it need not be that way. These ideas were shaped by the powerful predominance of religious ideology during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and were intended to put women at the center of the home and “civilize” men and make them “true Christians” (that is, feminize them or at least render them docile). What you are describing is the great-great-granddaughter of such a worldview.
@vocalcomposer – Perhaps. But what Im describing is also what feels natural to me. Ive tried it the other way, I prefer to play the gender roles to my advantage. Its different for everyone, for sure. This is what feels right to me. But alas, the discussion veered from gender roles to something entirely different.
@roxics – Feminists aren’t trying to take away masculinity. They are trying to even the playing field and give both men and women the same choices and rights.
Actually, I’d disagree slightly. For example, look at what’s happened in the education system. Boys are expected to behave like girls in the classroom–that is, quiet, cooperative and well-mannered. Not that boys can’t be any of these things, and American society is still very male-dominated (look at any car commercial now for evidence of that), but most boys (note that I’m trying very hard not to generalize) don’t naturally want to sit and learn quietly. Boys often want to move, manipulate, experiment, struggle, and even fight. This is an expression of the testosterone surging through them, and instead of working with that, there has been a deliberate move to try and change boys, and boys are struggling. That’s just one example.
There has definitely been a heterosexualization of public space over the last few decades, where in the interests of making spaces that everyone can be comfortable in we’ve ended up with spaces that mostly women will be comfortable in (not to pick on the ladies). Biology, history and psychology show that men and women operate with vastly different rules of social engagement. I was reading about that this weekend in Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene. The thing is to find a way to let each gender express itself in an authentic and natural way, instead of the artificial thing we have today. Just because it’s animal doesn’t make it more or less valid.
@vocalcomposer – There is no doubt that chemically there is a difference between males and females. But that variation is also dependent on the individual as well. Some males are more agressive and some not. Agression is good for certain things but not others. Sports and business are good places for men to be agressive. Outside of that, women don’t seem to like agressive men hitting on them at bars or men being agressive toward them in general. Unless she asks for it in the bedroom or something.
But women can also be agressive. It seems that what we are asking of society is that men turn agression off more and women turn it on more where appropriate. Balancing the genders. The problem right now is that we call women who turn it on, bitches and men who turn it off, fags.
We don’t need to turn men into women or women into men, what we need to do is come into acceptance that we all carry both of these traits and seek to accept them in both genders openly.
@roxics – Exactly. As a gay man, this is daily reality for me, although a bit topsy-turvy. Gay men are almost expected to fuck with gender roles and expectations, but I don’t “fit” neatly along that spectrum. I happen to work in the arts, but I’m not “artsy.” I happen to like men, but I’m not “feminine.” For a long time I worried a lot about what people might think of me or how they might judge me, but now all I really care about is being authentically “me” and being comfortable in my own skin. I’m no Übermensch by any means, and that’s fine. With a generation of young people more in favor of gay rights and consequently more progressive in their thoughts about gender and what’s “acceptable,” I think our society is gradually headed towards a place where in hopefully a few decades no one will think twice about a guy wearing nail polish or a skirt.
@vocalcomposer – Actually, you hit it right on the head in your above reply (and see my reply to @roxics): You know what’s sexy to me about a man, his confidence. That is the form and essence of true masculinity for me (not that women can’t be confident, of course). It’s a different kind of confidence, the kind that makes him unapologetically stand up for himself and how he expresses himself, and dare the world to mock him, not because he’s arrogance or cocky, but because he truly knows himself and who he is, and isn’t willing to let anyone else foist their own expectations on him. It’s also the kind of confidence that makes him stand up for others because he authentically and deeply loves and feels.
In this way men are totally different from women: there is no clear “path” that a man takes on his way to becoming a man. We used to have structures in place for “making” men: ceremonies where a tribe or culture “bestowed” manhood on a boy after proving his courage or bravery; a vision quest in aboriginal cultures where a boy gained a key insight into his true nature and quality as a man. That’s not to say that we need to bring back any of that, but even my own growing up felt aimless. Boys now are essentially left to figure all that out on their own, usually surrounded by other boys who are trying to do the same thing and live up to the impossible archetypes that society has lain down for them for what “real men” are. It’s sort of a supermarket-style deal: you can be a “macho guy,” or a “goofy guy,” or a “slacker guy,” or a “rocker guy.” The list goes on–just so long as you aren’t the “sissy guy.”
Sorry if this seems off topic, but for me, I look to the past in discussing present-day masculinity, in seeing where we’ve been and where we are now; so I don’t think you can have a discussion about gender roles without discussing the history of gender itself. What I see about historical masculinity is that it comes down to identity and being firmly rooted in that. Men today have few, if any, roots and are being blown around by whatever wind happens to catch them off guard. It’s hard to be confident when you don’t have firm ground to stand on.
you write very well. you should write for magazines or something.
i use whatever restroom is available first. men always stare when i walk into the men’s room.