Um, as far as I can tell, it means considering the "cheat" you do at the gym, when you hoist the weight up initially, as your first rep. Is there anything else I missed?

I think the arguments outlined in Jensen's article are fairly straightforward. Masculinity in some cases is defined in contrast to the other, or anything not feminine. There are certainly dominant constructions of masculinity. That is, a shifting hegemonic form that is difficult to pin down. A good point that can be learned from Jensen is that both men and women are complicit in the policing of dominant conceptions of masculinity. In fact, men police each other in a very strict fashion, with non-conformity in many cases leading to violence.

Love the article (except the "people are born male, female, or *rarely* intersexed" part). I was just thinking yesterday that it seems like the only way men can be sexy in our society is to try to look as powerful and dominating as possible. It can be incredibly sexy to see a man who is vulnerable in some way, or posed/viewed in a physical position that is predominantly associated with female sexiness, but we almost never see it. For instance, I came across a Cosmo online "male pinups" thing and there wasn't a single vulnerable, non-muscular (like I like!) guy in the bunch; they all looked like they were about to rip my head off, or at least capable of it. But if they had been posed in any of the positions that are assumed to be 'sexy' for women, they would have been too feminized for society and the average Cosmo reader, which would have called their very masculinity into question. It sucks.

I like guys like him and Jackson Katz challenging the dominant version of masculinity sold to boys and men.

Men have a lot to be angry about--the toxic version of masulinity sold to them at an early age is damaging--men suffer violence at the hands of other men, they may not form as close of relationships as they would like, and maybe, just maybe, they would enjoy life more if they were taught from the outset to treat the other half of the population with respect--real respect-not like the kind where women are put on a pedastal of purity.

It makes me angry to think that, if I have a son, that his friends and the culture would teach him to be an asshole. I think boys deserve better, and I hope men like Jensen and Katz keep at it!

I love that a professor is getting these kinds of conversations started. And it's significant that the direction of it is guided by the students' ideas and definitions. A single exercise and discussion like this can be the catalyst to true shifts in thinking down the line. It's wonderful to have allies.

I have two young sons and am often challenged to find ways to raise them as feminists, and not buy into the feminine/masculine stereotypes. I like the way the professor lays out that what I truly am trying to do is raise people who are kind and respectful, regardless of their gender.
No small order but a helpful context nonetheless. Now if only we could get everyone else to do it, too.
Thanks, Jessica, for the post.

I was a bit disappointed by the article. It doesn't seem to recognize the fundamental sameness of the "two" versions of masculinity his students describe: being "strong and reliable" can mean standing up for what you believe in, helping your family, etc.; or it can mean dominating others, protecting your territory and position, etc. It's hardly shocking that the version people imagine teaching their children is more idealized and positive than the version that gets enforced in practice -- wouldn't that be true of any ethical code?

Also, a more general point about "policing dominant conceptions of masculinity" (and femininity). I don't think we can dismiss all such policing as bad. It really is good for men (as for women) to be brave and responsible, and a lot the men who are punished for not living up to masculine standards are, in fact, acting like jerks. It would be nice to change the terms of the policing, so men and women were held to the same standard (one that included both "masculine" values like courage and "feminine" ones like compassion), and to stop punishing things like homosexuality that are "unmasculine" but morally okay, but I don't think many people would like to do away with policing of values entirely.

It should be no surprise that words have different meanings based on context.

I'm put in mind of a poll that asked, "which is masculine, a spoon or a fork?" The fork won, hands down.

The follow up question was, "which is masculine, a fork or a knife?" The knife then won, hands down.

Well, maybe it's because I'm a man but I think "masculinity" is one of the most important questions in gender relations, and it's not being taken seriously - it's practically impossible to discuss without being pinned to either the MRA corner or the self-hating male corner. By both men and women, feminists in particular.

That said, personally, as much as I think the subject isn't discussed as much as it needs to be, I don't appreciate most of the contributions of people like Robert Jensen or Hugo Schwyzer because whatever they say seems dripping of contempt and arrogance - it's like newborn Christians. They think they have an answer and everyone else is simply ignorant for not seeing it. Mostly unbearable for me, to be honest.

The article linked to is slightly self contradicting with respec to the question of culturally independent biological influences on behaviour. However, I think it gets one thing right, that most people subconsciously know, but hardly ever openly address: What is masculinity is mostly defined by what's not femininity and what works with feminine people in a sexualised context - aka flirting, dating, sex, etc. - where gender matters because the sex of the person matters.

This is where, I think, perceived and actual female preferences will be most responsible for what is considered masculine.
As a generalisation, and disregarding biological markers of testosterone or estrogene and respective beauty constants like the hip-waist or shoulder-waist ratios, "masculinity" is in my opinion comprised of all non-visual qualities leading to success with females interested in males, "femininity" comprises all non-visual female qualities leading to success with males interested in females.

I've always found it slightly confusing that much of feminism seemed to - as I saw it - ignore the (cultural) mechaninisms of sexual attraction, which to me seems to be the most obvious, possibly most important reason for persistent and stereotypical gender roles outside this particular area, where they are indeed useful and important for sexualised communication.

This thing reads like a sermon. Jensen is lucky he didn't teach at my university. My classmates were much more challenging to our professors.

I don't really support the thesis that men are just women only bigger. I'm pretty sure that nature doesn't support it either as it to relates to people or any other mammals. Rather than focus on the denial of difference it might be a good starting point to discuss the overall tendency to view "different" as opposite/better/worse when it seems "different" so often simply means not the same.

I don't buy into the whole toxic masculinity craze like the target audience of his books. There are elements of masculinity that are loveable and others that are hateable and whole bunch of stuff in between. Does Jensen have a self esteem issue? For him a feminist context = justice, what would he mean by a masculinist context?

Iqonefiftynine: I suppose it's a good thing then that no one said that men are just large women.

What are the lovable aspects of masculinity? Are those traits belonging only to men? What then, makes them masculine? You can flip it to femininity, if you'd like. I think the same thing can be done for listing some of the loathsome aspects for both genders as well. None of the things that are supposedly feminine or masculine are traits that belong to only men or only women, but the nasty ones are the parts that are socially enforced and policed, and that's where toxic masculinity (or femininity) comes from, from what I understand. It has nothing to do with hating maleness or Jensen having a self-esteem problem (though that's a bizarre little assertion that I see made about Jensen anytime his work comes up), and everything with him wanting being a man to be a good thing. That's a feminist endeavor, if you ask me.

And as far as "masculinist" things are concerned, as far as I know there isn't a masculine equivalent of feminism, unless you count MRA's, and I think that works nicely as the antithesis of feminism=justice. Feminism includes men.

iqonefiftynine:

I've read Jensen's books before, and I don't see the "self-esteem" issues that you see.

I think Jensen is consciously trying to form a new maculinity, or a new "inity" that can be applied to people all genders. I think he tries to discard the bad parts of masculinity and keep the good parts. And there certainly are good parts, but there are also the toxic parts.

I agree with biancamarisa -- men have a lot to be angry about. I think one of the main problems (in terms of reaching men) with how most feminisms are presented is that they don't tap into that very well.

"I don't really support the thesis that men are just women only bigger."

I'm not sure that the article necessarily makes this point. I think it recognizes that average sex differences may exist, but that overall men and women are more similar than different, and that even when there are average sex differences, there is often more variation within each gender than there is between them. In other words there is lots of overlap, such that many generalizations based on gender are actually inaccurate for many individuals. As a result, it seems that delineating certain traits as "masculine" and "feminine", despite such overlap, often creates unnecessary social pressure to conform to gendered stereotypes. Why do we feel the need to generalize in this way as opposed to dealing with people on their individual merits?

I do agree that "different" is often (inappropriately) conflated with opposite/better/worse rather than "not the same" and that diversity should be celebrated. However, I think gender stereotypes, for many, do not describe what "is", but rather they prescribe what "should be." To the extent that gender differences are inconclusive or include lots of overlap, concepts of masculinity and femininity end up being largely prescriptive anyway, so I think that the article makes a lot of sense in arguing for a gender-neutral conception of "humanity" -- especially when gender roles synergistically reinforce "hateable" behaviors that are detrimental to others/society in general.

What do we gain collectively by encouraging and perpetuating the negative behaviors associated with each gender role? And why would we not want people of both genders to aspire towards all of the positives, regardless of whether a given trait has traditionally been characterized as "masculine" or "feminine"?

I bought Jensen's book for my mostly feminist but occasionally backsliding boyfriend and it really clicked for him. While Jensen isn't my favorite, and I agree that he can be a little preachy, I do think it's important that there are men out there writing and teaching who address not only how the patriarchy negatively affects women, but how it damages men too.

I see what you're saying about policing, iqonefiftynine, and I agree in a sense, but you seem to be saying that it's all or nothing, which is not true at all. As I read it, Jensen was arguing only against the kind of policing that pushes men to be "players", nasty jocks, etc. Policing others to be good, reliable, responsible and kind is fine; punishing others for not being mean enough to fit a narrow definition of masculinity is not.

I read his book (Getting Off) and found it incredibly problematic. He made broad generalizations, and his analysis was severely lacking. I see similar problems in this article, but I'll keep this brief.

I feel like he doesn't take it far enough.. He says, "What if the positive attributes ascribed to “men� are simply positive human characteristics distributed without regard to gender...?" Or, what if attributes which are considered positive in our society are considered thus because they are associated with men?

My main problem with his article is that when he says there are innate biological differences which determine sexes. And then he says since we have "limited knowledge" about complex biological questions, he dismisses the issue completely. Sure, it's complicated. But that doesn't mean you can just ignore that somewhere around 1 in every 2000 babies (about 5 every day in the US) is born intersexed.
And that the lines between male and female genitalia have been arbitrarily drawn by (white hetero male) doctors...

I really just wish this guy would read some Judith Butler.

I'd rather tell the child that it isn't his identity that counts, it's his conduct.

Word substitution time:

Daddy, what does it mean to be...

white
black
northern
southern
asian
homeless
wealthy
(etc.)

The only good response is to turn the question around--what does it mean to be a good person? That's much more important. What I would tell my son is that the same qualities make good men and women. Courage, strength, discipline, compassion, tenderness, honesty--nothing gender specific about those things.

But also that, in our culture, there are lots of people who think that there's something called "manliness" that is all about power over other people, and violence, and insecurity. And that he's going to run into it and needs to know how to spot it and how to fight it, because it's harmful to everyone. Depending on his age, we could talk about what patriarchy means, and the history of it, and so on.

The thing about myths of "manliness" is that it's most powerful when it's least discussed...when everyone "just knows" what it is to "be a man" then no one dares to ask questions, implying they're not manly enough to already know, and making everyone insecure and needing to prove their masculinity. But the whole idea is so shoddy it can't stand exposure to daylight, which is why people get uncomfortable.

I'll agree its a broad arguement, but Jensen is tackling a broad discussion of popular notions of masculinity based on class discussions in a 300 word magazine article - it's not going to bring about a truly analytical look at definitions of masculinity.

I also don't agree that he implies masculinity as toxic . His point was the popular view of what it means to be a man, what masculinity is, is largely toxic to men. Many of his discussions about pornography in the media and feminist issues always point back to how patriarchy, pornography and misogyny are also harmful to men.

On a personal note, I have to say I've always loved Jensen - he was one of my first J-school professor's at UT.

He raises some good points, but one of the problems is that he doesn't really answer the question of what one should tell a little boy about what it means to be a man. Children like easy-to-understand categories; I just can't see a little boy being satisfied with, "Well, it's not so different from being a woman". Tell them that the most important thing is to be a good person, sure, and that part of being a good man is to remember that women are equals, but they'll still want an answer about what it means to be a man.

I know we can quibble over many of the minute philosophical points of his lesson, but we're people who obviously read about & think about identity issues often. I don't know which students take his classes, but I would wager that many - if not most - of them haven't ever had this type of conversation. I'm in grad school and even at that level of education I find it difficult to find classmates to have real conversations with on these types of issues, or who even know what I'm talking about. So, just keeping that perspective in mind, I do think it is a positive thing that there is a teacher having these conversations in his classes.

Question is, should they get an answer to "what is a man"? I think the gender binary is socially constructed, so the answer would be something on the lines of " a socially constructed group of people who are in a position of power over the remainder of the population, subject to crosscutting divisions like race, disability, class, sexual orientation etc." Sometimes it's too complicated?

I don't think we can dismiss all such policing as bad.
When it's gender based, I definitely think we can.

It really is good for men (as for women) to be brave and responsible, and a lot the men who are punished for not living up to masculine standards are, in fact, acting like jerks.
Really? Because in my experience a lot of the men are just different. They not acting like the stereotypical "macho man" and are punished for it.

It would be nice to change the terms of the policing, so men and women were held to the same standard (one that included both "masculine" values like courage and "feminine" ones like compassion), and to stop punishing things like homosexuality that are "unmasculine" but morally okay, but I don't think many people would like to do away with policing of values entirely.
I think we should do away with gendered policing entirely.

Shiftercat- Actually, I have no problem imagining kids who get told "It's not that different from being a woman" grow up to be much better people. Why don't you think they'd be satisfied? Hasn't it occurred to you that their lack of satisfaction with any explanation that doesn't set them apart from the girls is a symptom of having already been indoctrinated? Why do you think that little boys need to be told that they're emotionally different from girls when there is no conclusive evidence to back this up?

e- I'm not quite sure why you think his study of the interactions between people perceived by society or who perceive themselves as male and those who are perceived by society or perceive themselves as female absolutely must include a study of intersex individuals. It seems outside the scope of his article.

kissmypineapple-

What makes a trait masculine is that it occurs more in adult men by percentage and/ or quantity.

"What are the lovable aspects of masculinity?"
Farting! Play along here. Are women ever farters? Should women be farters? Oh that class needed me!

Seriously. I think discretion with regards to personal things about the people in their lives. It's "not gossiping" in Jensen speak.

"None of the things that are supposedly feminine or masculine are traits that belong to only men or only women."
Sure there are. Think plumbing.

"the nasty ones are the parts that are socially enforced and policed"
I don't agree. It's not only the the nasty parts of femininity or masculinity that get socially enforced.

"a bizarre little assertion"
It wasn't an assertion, hence the question mark. And what do you mean by bizarre if you hear it all the time?
I haven't read much of Jensen's stuff, but anyone who says that men see relationships as fundamentally a contest for control has me wondering if he has issues. The "buddy film" is iconic as is a man spending too much time with his friends and not enough alone with her... both so for good reason.

Ultimately I don't feel all warm inside about a professor who thinks that discomfort equals learning. I thought "no pain, no gain" was tired, but alas it was just rebranded.

Right on, Emjaybee.

The concepts of "masculinity" and "femininity" are problematic because they reinforce the notion of oppositional gender - that masculine qualities and feminine qualities are opposites.

If it's "masculine" to be brave, that means it's "feminine" to be cowardly.
If compassion is "feminine," that means it's "masculine" to be callous.
Why is it necessary to lead children into one box or the other?
How about encouraging them to develop positive characteristics without gendering them?

IQ, "masculinity" and "femininity" have nothing to do with plumbing. Nothing.
"Masculine" is not synonymous with "male," nor is "feminine" synoymous with "female." The former are artificial constructs whilst the latter actually have something to do with our physical bodies.

Infant studies have shown some tendencies between male and female infants in terms of how they react to their environment, so it's not all culture.

And I personally think of a number of both positive and negative traits as having some gender identification, even though I also recognize that any human being has an awfully big toolbox to pull from (is that a masculine metaphor?).

As Terence said, "I am human. Nothing human is alien to me."

Little kids can be such fierce gender cops (my nephew once said he didn't want to be an engineer because "that's what girls do!"), and many languages are gendered, so I'm not sure that the labeling of traits as masculine and feminine is going to go away. Maybe the best we can do is work our butts off to make it okay for men to be nurturing and women to fix things.

Oh, and for the sake of men and the women who love them, can we draw a line between manliness and guyliness. A male that thinks his worth is measured by the shininess of his car is a guy. One that knows his worth is an outgrowth of how he treats others is a man.

"None of the things that are supposedly feminine or masculine are traits that belong to only men or only women."
Sure there are. Think plumbing.
___________________________
This, again, is conflating SEX, which is biologically based, with GENDER (or what is thought to constitute "masculine" and "feminine"), which is a social construct. Masculinity and femininity have NOTHING to do with biological sex inherently.

So, MikeT, you think baby boys are born knowing that to be "girly" is to be inferior/aberrant? Gendered socialization begins the moment babies are born. Children are fierce gender cops because the world around them trains them to be super aware of gender and it's implications.

Newsflash, iq: women fart. We can also pee standing up.

I think there are no suitable answers to his questions. I don't think of men and women as having certain traits that come with their respective genders - other than those falsely assigned by our patriarchial society.

I prefer thinking of men and women as individuals who display traits based on their characters, which are defined (imo) not by their genders but their humanity.

On a related tangent, I watched a fascinating movie last night, XXY made by an female Argentinan film-maker about a teenage girl who was born with "confused gender identity", iow, she exhibited both gentitia.

The movie addresses the problems she faces when trying to deal with her burgeoning sexuality and navigating the always murky waters, made moreso because of her differences, of relating to both boys and girls.

Her parents deal with the issues related to whether to suggest having a surgical procedure.

Well recommended.

david

SarahMC, the study I'm thinking of was done within 24 hrs of birth, and the testers didn't know the gender of the baby. The baby was presented with a picture of a truck and a picture of a face, and it was tracked which one they looked at, and for how long. There was found to be a significant gender difference, with boys preferring the inanimate object, and girls preferring a human face.

But it was a tendency, not an absolute, which was the whole point of what I was saying. Men tend to be physically stronger than women. That's statistics. But if you use that tendency to say that women can't be firefighters, that's discrimination. It's also stupid, because lots of women are stronger than lots of men. Population analysis can tell us a lot about populations, but is lousy for making predictions about individuals.

My experiences and my studies have led me to believe that human beings like to take their experiences and put them in little boxes, and that gender is one of those boxes. That I think it's natural doesn't mean I think it's good.

My goal in raising my daughter is to do my best to make sure that she doesn't put limits on herself based on arbitrarily external bullshit. If she wants to be a welder, that's cool. Or a dancer, or a teacher, or an engineer, or whatever.

Raven,

Jensen writes that "masculinity/feminity is a suspect category." His argument is for androgyny not "humanity". I do not need for us to be more similar than different to value you.

One of the biggest challenges of a global society is how well we manage and understood difference not how quickly we run from it. Society should not need sameness to experience justice. I find Jensen remedial.

iqonefiftynine:

While I understand your discomfort with the "no pain, no gain" line of thought, I think it is pretty clear that Jensen's lesson isn't one designed on the same philosophical basis as junior high football practice.

I applaud Jensen for making students uncomfortable when talking about these issues. Well, not for "making" them uncomfortable, but the reason these students are uncomfortable is that they probably haven't discussed these issues before. For men in particular, I've found through my experience in a men's groups, it really takes a searching self-examination to really tackle issues of masculinity. You start to realize that so many big things, and a ton of little things, are based on this patriarchal notion of masculinity and how it affects you.

I read a book by Augusten Borroughs, about his experiences as an alcoholic and his recovery. He has a line somewhere about how he started to realize that every little thing about his life, from when and how he woke up and brushed his teeth in the morning, to how he was at work, and what he did when he came home, was based around his alcoholism. I found, at least for me, that when you start studying masculinity, as a man who has been able to take advantage of our heteronormative patriarchal society, it's like Borrough's discussion of being a recovering alcoholic -- you realize a heckuva lot of your world is built around that.

And that's a very uncomfortable feeling, iqonefiftynine, to put it lightly. The little taste that Jensen gives his class is pretty uncomfortable too, I imagine.

Throughout my life (I'm 55), though I've never been confused about my sexuality, I've had periods of confusion about my "femininity" because I've rarely exhibited it in "girly" ways. I dislike cooking, shopping, cosmetics; I am not married, have no kids. I am a community volunteer and leader. I'm strong in math and computer tech, and have worked in a male-dominated field of engineering work.

During those times of confusion, if I saw a counselor, she/he would point out that my strengths ARE feminine, but I've never taken much confidence in those statements because that's not how they're seen in the world in which I live.

I take heart in reading articles such as Jensen's, and knowing that thinking people are more accepting of these qualities as human strengths rather than strengths of one gender over another.

iqonefiftynine, you may not "need for us to be more similar than different to value you," but you do seem to be working very hard to push this idea that men and women are inherently and mostly different from each other. I'm not sure if you are merely trying to inject this possibility into the discussion, but it is beginning to seem like you might be doing it because you feel you have some personal stake in it.

Also, I find your dismissal of "no pain, no gain" (as you put it) interesting. The biggest lessons I've learned in life were the hardest ones to learn, and I've watched too many friends who were complacent in their lives give up without being able to learn those lessons - lessons that would inevitably make their lives better - because they weren't interested in putting in the effort or being uncomfortable. There is a reason that "no pain, no gain" is so cliched: because it is, in many instances, true.

IQ: I agree that "[s]ociety should not need sameness to experience justice" but I disagree that Jensen (or myself in my previous post) is necessarily advocating "sameness".

In a way, I think he is doing the opposite by favoring individuality over restrictive definitions of masculinity/femininity that implicitly presume all real men "Y", while all real women are "X".

I think perhaps you and I disagree over the extent to which maculine/feminine roles are descriptive v. prescriptive. I, of course, think it is crucial to respect and appreciate differences when dealing with people on the individual level. But I am not sure how productive it is to essentially create differences by pushing people into culturally constructed roles in even when they may not comfortably fit.

I loved this article. At some level, I felt as though it was something I'd been waiting to read for years.

I interpreted it as an attempt to dissociate the word "good" from both "man" and "woman." I don't see any claims that men and women are the same; I see an argument that the traits that make someone "good" are independent of gender.

I've raised an adult son and I am raising a teenage daughter, and I have tried to instill in both exactly the same values. But my son and my daughter are not at all alike. My son likes soccer, rock music, and "Doom" -- and loves to cook; my daughter likes gymnastics, cuddly animals, and "Lego Star Wars" -- and can dispassionately watch graphic images of surgery.

Whether or not we believe that there are traits and affinities which are gender related, I think it is a useful and powerful idea to think of values as being gender independent. A good man, a good woman, a good person: anything that could be ascribed to any of them, could be ascribed to all of them.

"Ultimately I don't feel all warm inside about a professor who thinks that discomfort equals learning."

on the contrary, i think one of the reasons to go to college is to experience discomfort with ideas you hold dear when you realize you don't know WHY you hold them. it's scary to think how far inside our head societal standards can get, and it's important--if sometimes uncomfortable--to question them. i was a rabid pro-life christian as a child, but i had no real idea what it meant--i just knew that the adults in my life were that way, so i thought i should be too. it was incredibly uncomfortable to start thinking about the implications of religion and pro-life doctrine, but i think i'm ultimately a better person for having done so. you're right that discomfort does not equal learning, but i think it can be an important first step. the discomfort indicates a realization that things aren't as simple as you thought.

Kayla,

So traits more commonly seen in men are SEX if you think they are biologically based, and MASCULINE if you think they are socially constructed?
Hmmmm.
I'm not conflating. You're separating.

IQ: I asked you to name some traits, and I meant specifically, not a definition of what might qualify as one. I don't see a penis and all its accouterments as masculine, but rather male, as they are part of determining someone's sex.

IQ, you're now saying "traits," which unless you're referring to the "trait" of "plumbing" as you referred to previously, you've yet to prove or even consistently assert that any "masculine" "trait" is conferred through possessing the "plumbing" associated with men (i.e. penis and testes). Unless you are actually arguing that men are "masculine" because they *usually* have a penis and testes, then to say that MAN(as in xy chromosomes, and even this catagory is suspect)=MASCULINE is inherently a conflation of two overlapping, but very separate concepts. This is the same old nature vs. nurture argument.

But somehow when one makes a point using farts to illustrate, I really doubt you are absorbing or even really thinking about anything being written here, by myself or anyone else.

Actually, I think the farting point illustrates why the masculinity/femininity constructs are suspect, but I am finding it hard to keep a straight face long enough to type it!

Suffice it to say that I bet the social construct of farting as "unladylike" coupled with a greater social tolerance for unabashed male farting probably creates a disparity between male v. female public farting, even though farting is natural for both...

Sorry I couldn't resist ;)

I stand corrected! Raven, you've made a point using farting which is spot on! ;)

I always like to see a discussion of masculinity on this site, but I think the comments above are missing the mark.

We have to decide if the discussion of the gender binary is going to be eliminated based on a GENDER FULL paradigm or GENDER NEUTRAL. To me, gender FULL leads more to the acceptance of multiple practices and individual preference, rather than trying so hard to ignore gender completely.

Yes, gender full. That's the one, think about it.

"I don't see a penis and all its accouterments as masculine, but rather male, as they are part of determining someone's sex"

Is it really either or? Can't it be both? Would you describe a dildo as masculine? Why or why not?

kaylagrrl, I think you are right on.

For the tenth time, IQ, male is not the same thing as masculine. A dildo is neither.

On reflection, Voltairine, I think you're right. Kids can be downright Manichean in their insistence on drawing distinctions, but we should be trying to break them of that rather than cater to it.

I made a similar comment to this earlier, but for some reason it was not allowed.

I said nothing wrong, so I shall try again, only more briefly.

I don't believe it's fair or justified for women to attempt to define masculinity for males, or to tell us what it should mean to us. It's a topic that is specific to men's experience, and requires being a man to truly understand how it feels.

If this is considering wrong, or sexist, I provide this, from Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog:

"Your opinion, as a man, about the extent and nature of the problem is not valuable when the specific problem pertains to women’s experience. [...]"

Therefore, if the opinion of a man on things pertaining to women's experience is not valuable, then by definition, the opinion of a woman on something pertaining to man's experience is not valuable.

If masculinity is to be redefined, it is up to men. What masculinity means, and what it means to be a man, is up to men.

I would never presume to tell a woman what it means to be a woman, or what femininity means, as it is not my place to do so.

It's offensive and insulting and sexist to tell us, as males, how something is affecting us, without actually having an input FROM us on how we feel about it. To assume our opinions for us is rude, and unfeeling.

To do so, and then claim to be fully correct, while trying to silence those of us that want to engage in discourse WITH you (NOT against) just feels to be alienating and hurtful, and makes us want to go elsewhere.

IQ: No, I would not describe a dildo as masculine, for the same reason I would not describe a lamp as masculine: It has no self-expression, being an inanimate object.

I tried posting this comment yesterday, but it went awry into the Ferraro topic:

I haven't read a lot of Jensen but every time I do I am annoyed. There's something about his attitude that nearly all men are brutish, unthinking assholes. Yeah, many of us are, but his examples here don't come close to supporting his premises.

His first question, what to tell a 12 year old, doesn't really separate out what is stereotypically or societal (or even historical) masculinity vs. what the students think ought to be told.

Then he supposes locker room posturing is an accurate reflection of true inner beliefs.

I suppose his exercise is worth doing, for the neanderthal college students who might be in his class. (Of course he does not try to reverse the gender questions, or doesn't report on the attempt if he did.) But it's not very enlightening.

Deborah Tannen has more useful things to say in gender differences on behavior and language, and even her views make the differences more distinct than in reality in my view.

Yes, there is a stereotypical image of masculinity that many, even most, American men (maybe even most women) subscribe to. But.... duh, this is a revelation?

Kiss:

"...It has no self-expression..."

Ok. Your lexicon is becoming clearer. Cumshots are masculine behavior.

Black Thirteen said:

"It's offensive and insulting and sexist to tell us, as males, how something is affecting us, without actually having an input FROM us on how we feel about it. "

The post addresses Robert Jensen's writing on masculinity. In fact, as the father of a daughter, I've been through a similar thought experiment to what Jensen describes myself, and I can't think of a positive quality that I attribute to masculinity that I do not also want my daughter to possess.

So there's the view of two men. If you find you still disagree, then let us dispense with the notion that you're offended simply by women trying to define masculinity and instead recognize that you are invested in notions of masculinity that men like man and Jensen interrogate, challenge and sometimes reject.

Black Thirteen said:

"It's offensive and insulting and sexist to tell us, as males, how something is affecting us, without actually having an input FROM us on how we feel about it. "

The post addresses Robert Jensen's writing on masculinity. In fact, as the father of a daughter, I've been through a similar thought experiment to what Jensen describes myself, and I can't think of a positive quality that I attribute to masculinity that I do not also want my daughter to possess.

So there's the view of two men. If you find you still disagree, then let us dispense with the notion that you're offended simply by women trying to define masculinity and instead recognize that you are invested in notions of masculinity that men like man and Jensen interrogate, challenge and sometimes reject.

No, what I'm saying, is I was referring more to the commenters.

Not precisely Jensen, more the women present here that were debating the definition without input from what these definitions mean to us.

It's also that I disagree with the earlier stated opinions that when a child asks "What does it mean to be a man", that the response should be "basically like a woman".

Femninism seems to advocate that women should be proud of who they are, and have identity AS women, so the idea that "being a man" shouldn't mean anything just seems odd to me.

As I said on the "rape is a men's issue" thread, there are men who are heavily influenced by extrinsic standards of masculinity. I think it's more effective to work within that framework to influence their behavior than it is to try and dismantle the frame.

An analogy would be to debating environmentalism with Christians. I'm not going to challenge their faith, even if they quote Genesis that "man has been given dominion over the earth". Instead, I'll introduce the idea that dominion includes responsibility and maybe try to get him to read some Christian environmentalists.

"Little kids can be such fierce gender cops (my nephew once said he didn't want to be an engineer because 'that's what girls do!')"

Interesting. And in about 40 years, boys will say this about being doctors.

"Femninism seems to advocate that women should be proud of who they are, and have identity AS women, so the idea that 'being a man' shouldn't mean anything just seems odd to me."

I'm afraid I don't get this either. Ideally, boys and men should learn to be good "people" as earlier comments mention, but I see womanhood as being considered something different here.

I'm a (Northern) European, heterosexual, middle-class, white male.

I have no need to go around constantly identifying with those traits. I don't have to if I don't want to.

I am my own individual. I have my own unique mind, personality, desires, talents, experiences, views, hopes and dreams, etc. I'm able to operate merely as a Human being.

That is the privilege of not having been constantly under attack, of being constantly categorized and chastized, conditioned and reminded of who and what you were and who you were supposed to be and what you were supposed to be doing based on prejudices and double-standards regarding certain traits.

It is not weird at all that women, ethnic minorities or non-heterosexual people tie in the trait, that they are constantly denigrated and attacked for, so deeply into their identity. How could they not?

Traits deemed vile, weak, undesirable or whose value was just plain average, inconsequential or uncertain by the dominant class, have traditionally been dumped off on those of already lower standing. Be they women, ethnic minorites, non-heteros, whoever, take your pick.

If some people finding pride in the trait that other people have found so undesirable, that they had no say in whether or not to possess, if they in some way manage to attach value to those traits, gives them the strength to feel comfortable in their own skin, and perhaps enables them to stand and fight against these injustices, more power to them.

Through my privilege, *I* am not necessarily defined by certain traits unless I *choose* to be.

And even then, I'm able to decide the definitions mainly by myself. I have no reason to not want others to have a meaningful access to that same option.

(Which is incidentally part of why I'm pro-feminism.)