A Manifesto for Radical Masculinity
Remember back in the Spring of 2009 when two young boys committed suicide within a week of each other, both eleven years old? Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover of Massachusetts and Jaheem Herrera of Georgia were both being subjected to unbearable anti-gay bullying at school. Whether or not these boys were actually gay, using homophobia to police masculinity is practically the oldest trick in the book. In the aftermath of these suicides, and in the discussions that ensued on the Web and in print, there was extensive lip service given to gender and the inevitable complaint that boys have it so hard, that feminism has stripped men of their manliness, that men don't know how to be men anymore, that we've got a Crisis In Masculinity.
That might seem like anti-feminist rhetoric, but I agree with it—at least in part. I agree that masculinity is changing, for some in dramatic, drastic ways. I have witnessed and observed cultural changes around the masculine and male gender roles which are shifting, yes, as a direct result of the recent feminist and other gendered social change movements.
This bipolar—I mean polarized binary—gender systemHow can I be a feminist and be masculine? Does feminism devalue masculinity? Isn't that the same problem as devaluing femininity? And more personally, what does masculinity look like on me? is built for the masculine and feminine to be in sync with each other, built to be in friction, built to be in an elaborate dance of give and take. The ideal of the "American Dream" suburbia that we think of from the 1950s and early 1960s laid out precisely just how the masculine and the feminine are supposed to be dependent upon each other and interact. The problem is, that system is completely prescriptive, with exactly one option for everyone. We are used to hearing the oh-woe-is-my-gender tales from women and the feminist movements in the recent past, but it is rather new to begin to untangle the ways in which this system damages men and prescribes certain traits within masculine expression, too.
I know; my inner feminist starts rolling her eyes. Oh yeah, sure, men have it so hard. Running the world and being 485 of the top 500 CEOs (and hey, that's more than last year! that means women are on the rise! Women are now taking men's jobs!) and never having to worry whether their work shirt is cut too low to be 'appropriate.' I spent too many years examining the plights of women and the plights of queers and the plights of people of color and the plights of all sorts of other socio-economically degraded and marginalized groups—I was raised by feminist parents and majored in Women Studies, after all—it takes some work for me to be convinced that men have the short end of the stick in this system that has set up masculinity to be superior.
But I know there's something wrong with masculinity, and I know it's hard to express one's self as masculine without falling into the many, many harmful trappings of the limitations of a masculine gender, because I'm butch.
I did not grow up that girly, mostly more due to the rural mountainous landscape of my upbringing than a lack of interest. I climbed trees in my dresses, snuck my makeup to high school, studied femininity and feared myself a failure at it. Femininity was never encouraged by my parents—they still have trouble separating gender expression, celebration, or presentation from prescribed gender roles, therefore taking on an attitude that all gender is oppressive. When I came out easily into lesbian communities that value androgyny, it was easy and comfortable to don "fuck your fascist beauty standards" tee shirts and chop off my hair. It is a rite of lesbian passage, you know.
But coming into my own masculinity was harder and took much longer. I wanted to go further than androgyny; I knew I was drawn to and wanted to be butch, but I wasn't sure what that meant. Hell, I'm still not entirely sure what that means (but I do love trying to figure it out).
Not knowing what it meant to "be masculine" held up my adopting a butch identity for many years. As a feminist, as a lesbian, I was constantly asking myself, and my boi-ish friends: what is masculinity, if not misogyny? What is masculinity without misogyny? How can I be a feminist and be masculine? Does feminism devalue masculinity? Isn't that the same problem as devaluing femininity? And more personally, what does masculinity look like on me? I could recognize it on other people, but I couldn't quite figure out how it translated, or how to break it down into its individual components so I could play with presenting it myself.
As I began making a serious study out of learning masculinity, I started seeing more and more parallels in the oppressive gender roles, regardless of where individuals fall in the hierarchy. The prescriptive roles are limiting and restricting, and predetermine too much which I would now separate out and call personality. I don't believe hobbies and interests should ever be determined by your particular gender identity—if you're into fashion or ballet or football or baking or knitting or home repair or cars or video games, why should it matter what your gender is? Your hobbies might interact with your gender—they might tickle your gender in just the right ways, which may or may not align with the prescribed gender role, but they should never restrict or determine what you do or do not like.
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Masculinity
For many men, masculinity is defined by behavior that attracts women. Women, especially feminized women, often say they want one sort of man, but are often sexually attracted toward a different sort of man. I think women need to realize how much like trained animals MOST men actually are. The behavior you reward, is the behavior that will be emulated. Being considerate, and respectful of women, has never earned me so much as the scent of vagina and being a jerk has. I lost my virginity to a woman 6 years my senior, i was 18, after telling her "Your too homely for my tastes but your friend is hot." I was raised in a liberal household, my mother was a working woman, I was raised to believe that that was a horrible thing to say, and yet that attitude was rewarded with intercourse. To me this was a clear indicator that being a dick got a positive response from women, especially after Nice Guying myself into the friend zone while assholes laid the girls i loved throughout my teen years.
As a grown man now, I've decided that women and their expectations and desires, and my ability to meet their demands, do not define my manhood. I've discovered that the ultimate display of manhood, is to do what you wanna do, and fuck what everyone thinks.
What is honestly more masculine, than telling EVERYONE, EVERYONE, to take their expectations and stereotypes, and shove them up their respective asses?
If none of this makes sense, then I apologize, because its Wednesday afternoon and I'm drunk. Thats right, I'm too masculine to wait until Friday like all you conformist pussies out there.
"Women, especially feminized
"Women, especially feminized women, often say they want one sort of man, but are often sexually attracted toward a different sort of man. I think women need to realize how much like trained animals MOST men actually are. The behavior you reward, is the behavior that will be emulated"
Number 1: you assume all women think the same way, this is as ridiculous as assuming all men think the same way - which you do. Number 2: It is insulting to men say that they are trained animals who only respond to the possibility of almighty Pussy. Men are not controlled by their sexual appetites any more than women.
"Being considerate, and respectful of women, has never earned me so much as the scent of vagina and being a jerk has."
Why not just be considerate and respectful of women because YOU SHOULD RESPECT AND BE CONSIDERATE OF PEOPLE? We are not masturbatory aids that need you to flick the right number of switches before catching your jizz.
I call troll.
That wasn't really the point
That wasn't really the point of his post.
I call flame.
Oh I think that was exactly
Oh I think that was exactly the point of his post. Or was the point finding a place to whine?
Radical masculinity
What are the positive traits that make us successful human beings? Can we impart and teach and imbue our cultures and our feelings for all the various "genders" with those? I want to offer a few traits, and perhaps others will add to the list:
Courage
Intrepid curiosity
Loving kindness
A sense of honor and personal Integrity
Enough empathy
Nimble intelligence
Sense of humor
Consideration
Creativity
Humility when appropriate
Largesse when appropriate
Sensuality
compassion self worth taking
compassion
self worth
taking responsibility for oneself
questingness
reverence
boldness
liberality and generousity
I like it. As Deleuze says,
I like it. As Deleuze says, "a thousand tiny sexes".
I'm saddened
I went through this whole article, hoping to see some examples of radical masculinity. And there was...not very much.
And that made me sad.
And then I noticed that this would be continued, that this was an introduction!
And that made me happy.
Hurry up and write more, Sugarbutch!
Excellent article, with
Excellent article, with several valid points. I'm actually writing an essay right now about how the movie The Big Lebowski shows these notions of evolving masculinity.
As a man who self identifies as a feminist, I know that there is an analysis gap between classical masculinity and classical femininity, and this makes it easy for men to write off feminism wholesale.
comment from the peanut gallery
Believe me when i say that i always enjoy your writing, but i do think your gender-related posts are the best. I've been reading your stuff for a few months now and a lot of it reminds me of the kind of discussions that spark up once in a while when i'm with my friends. Truth be told, said discussions are few and far between, and they tend to fizzle out before we're really able to get in depth. If anything, this is the direction i'd like to go in when we do have those chats and i would if given half the chance.
But that's not the reason i'm commenting. I'm commenting because i read a point that made me laugh my ass off. You wrote:
"Implying, of course, that sweet drinks are for girls and wasn't I a guy? A guy's guy? A butch's butch? Come on, order something that'll put hair on your chest, like whiskey or beer!
Why the fuck can't I just order what I want to order?"
It brings up a very funny issue that i've noticed quite a bit when i go out. If i'm wearing my typical outfit (jeans, button-down shirt, the occasional vest and/or tie) and i order a fruity drink, i often get odd looks. It's almost like i'm not acting butch enough. If, however, i go out in drag, the story is quite different.
When i'm in drag, the only thing that differs from my normal appearance is that i use mascara to add a bit of a 5 o' clock shadow. That's it. That's all it takes to make everyone assume i'm a young metrosexual man. And when a metrosexual dude orders a fruity drink and isn't getting it for the woman he's with, nobody thinks twice.
Apparently, it is more of a societal norm for a metrosexual guy to order a fruity drink than it is for an androgynous dyke to do the same thing.
It's not just a drink thing, of course. It's almost as if people expect me to be more masculine when i'm "butched up" than they do when i'm out in drag. When buying tampons, for instance, people either see a dyke who must know all about car maintenance, or a sweet young man on an errand for his girlfriend.
Anyway, that's pretty much all there is to my comment. Nothing important. Just wanted to add my two cents and to say that i really do enjoy reading what you post.
- Tristan
Hi. I think there's one main
Hi.
I think there's one main definitional issue - being and playing. A lot, if not most, of gender identities is actually a matter of performance. Yet there is a problem for all those who don't choose or have to choose their identity if there is no inherent meaning left to the definition of what they *ARE*. Performance of gender practices is about separating being from playing, but that separation is not one that can be easily made if you ARE a man.
I really don't know how to square this. How to allow complete personal freedom, let JD order an Appletini and hug Turk, while at the same time retain some meaning content to *being* a man rather than performing masculinity.
In the end, it seems, whatever it is, it is mostly defined by what feminine women prefer in men they then decide to have sex with.