Misogyny, resentment and subterranean norms

The second assumption is that there is a connection between the recent success of the far right and the emergence of a 'manosphere' and 'mysogynistic' tendencies.

That isn't the case I think, we had had emergence of far right movements in Europe for decades.

And the particular reason for the recent re-resurgence is because these parties had traditionally been excluded from societal debate and traditional media... with the shift to social media this isn't really the case anymore.

There are scores of movies, books and other texts/images that depict the dominant man getting a woman, from the James Bond franchise to the recent Dutch success 'Baby Girl' and from Pride and Prejudice to 50 shades of Grey. Apparently it is not that simple. Men could embrace feminine values and become nice guys, but that does not necessarily make them more attractive. Here we have a different kind of problem from the first, namely that what desired masculinity is, is itself still in doubt. Masculinity has become a problem for itself, it is unclear what it is precisely, how it should be constructed. It is clear that it is a problem, but unclear what the solution is because it is caught in a contradiction. It has to reform and not reform at the same time.

One could argue that this is something structural in the human mind, except there's genetic evidence that Celtic societies were female-dominated. Navajo relationships were at the whims of women, not men. I agree with Nietzsche that good and evil can switch poles depending on a society's underlying agendas, so I don't think it's structural. I think it's a symptom, side-effect, aspect of? certain kind of cultural journeys. It's definitely a whale in the psychic sea, though. It's ancient.

If it is an effect of the kind of society we have, i.e. exclusion of a certain part of society, then you would think the way to avoid it festering in the fringes, is to change society so there are included.

With threads like these, I honestly have to squint to find anything I find vaguely agreeable. It's like you all are living in a different world or something.

Problematizing 'masculinity' and men in general is no different than what certain cultures have done to women historically. It's just as archaic. Just as damaging.

It feeds off the primal insecurities many people harbor for the opposite sex (those being an understandable result of unrequited desires) - it's just the pendulum swinging to the other side of the spectrum.

Seldom do I see more dehumanizing, less compassionate takes on what healthy societal relations between men and women would look like.

The happiest and most enviable men who are those can go home to a wife and kids that love them. It's not the Andrew Tates of the world. A man must be able to integrate "feminine" values to some extent. My advice - read the Bible. Jesus was a man who managed to successfully integrate masculine and feminine traits in a way that made him such a powerful human. The choice doesn't need to be Andrew Tate or be a doormat. If the dichotomy of alpha asshole/submissive beta is causing you mental strain then step outside of it.

BitconnectCarlos Indeed. It's precisely because Western society failed to produce any meaningful male role models that enabled scam artists like Tate to prey on lost young men.

The reason for it's emmergence is a group of people feeling like mainstream establisment parties wasn't working for them.

Problematizing 'masculinity' and men in general is no different than what certain cultures have done to women historically. It's just as archaic. Just as damaging.

Well yes, I think it is a symptom, but a symptom of what? And what is the symptom exactly the emergence of the far right or the resentment of many young men? What I am curious about is, is whether traditional analyses of power structures in which the rise of the far right is simply conceived as a pathological reaction to the emancipatory struggle for equal rights, with an analysis a repression of masculinity.

There is a genuine need to look at the problem of masculinity.

• White men are tired of being treated with contempt and blamed for all our society's problems.
• The Democratic Party has failed to address the issues that affect working people.
• Conservative people are tired of having radical changes in social and political values rammed down their throats.

With threads like these, I honestly have to squint to find anything I find vaguely agreeable. It's like you all are living in a different world or something.

This says it all - "the problem of masculinity." Keeping in mind I'm a registered Democrat and a liberal who thinks Biden was the best president in my adult life, here are what I see as the root of the problem, at least in part.

White men are tired of being treated with contempt and blamed for all our society's problems.
The Democratic Party has failed to address the issues that affect working people.
More conservative people are tired of having radical changes in social and political values rammed down their throats.

100% agree. This feels more like a pop culture argument with very poor definitions of masculinity and femininity that are tools to argue a political point.

Really, if I were a woman, I would prefer Trump's approach. Don't treat me like a child who has to be protected. Tell your sexist jokes, grab body parts, but in the end, reward me for kicking ass. The far right does have a point, that when we finally stop worrying that so-and-so is a woman, so-and-so is black, latino, asian, etc., we've finally made progress. I realize that all sorts of toxic stuff gets drawn into that and if someone quotes that without this subsequent acknowledgement, I won't respond

Yes, but what should change? I have the idea we hear the fringes on each side far louder than in the past?

I agree with you, but I think it is not that simple. I wish the far right really didn't worry about such issues. Yet the values far right parties have embraced were all masculine values in which women as a class had little to say and their function was to beget men. Not just men though, men of a particular type favored by 'the nation' whatever that may be. In specific hiring functions it may well be that women are employed that is not the philosophy behind it. They may also employ an immigrant or refugee, yet their policies are consistently anti-immigration usually with some notion of purity or religious preference attached to it.

What do we mean by masculinity and femininity? I think in the previous thread it was left implicit. Here I take a broad and theoretical view of masculinity and femininity, derived from the sociologist Hofstede. He ranked societies as feminine and masculine based on a number of characteristics. O

What I am pointing out is that the power grab of the far right can be considered as solely a result of a backlash of some sort of patriarchy against equal rights, but may be more fruitfully considered as both the result of anxious masculinity and other more insidious feminine forms of control through which the self image of masculinity is becoming perilous.

I'm guessing something is lost in translation here. If I were at work at started talking about "feminine values" as described in the OP, I'd have to run behind the corner to avoid being hit by whatever objects are in the environment. You can't predict what a person will value based on what they have between their legs, right?

I think that masculine values as they are traditionally conceived march out of tune with the way society is developing. I think society will turn feminine as Hofstede defined it, more and more. It is not a moral claim, it is a factual claim. It may also turn out wrong. If it is not wrong though masculinity as a specific set of values runs into problems and if we have a class of people embracing values that are actually not very productive anymore, we face a problem of masculinity. It is not a moral claim at all, just a rather cold power based analysis.

Here we see the first step of the dialectic, masculinity has become a problem. Its values are losing significance its ways meet with more disapproval. Boys are taught by women and judged by women. They are judged impartially I must add, I do not wish to cast any doubt on the impartiality of female or male judges, but it is a sign of the times that women wield actual power, improve on the social ladder and boys remain a majority of the people who lose out in society. Masculinity is facing a crisis. Physical strength is not needed, but becomes a burden as using it to resolve conflicts is increasingly frouned upon. Their fondness of hierarchy is not producing results and their preference for competition is met by an emphasis on relationality and consensus.

In threads such as these, the terms 'masculinity' and 'femininity' just become a fig leaf used to slap the most ridiculous generalizations onto people.

In threads such as these, the terms 'masculinity' and 'femininity' just become a fig leaf used to slap the most ridiculous generalizations onto people.

What do you expect me to make of this?

, I hold a social constructivist view myself.

delinquency does not appear to increase dating by increasing the delinquent's desire for dates. Instead, they suggest that delinquency increases dating outcomes by making the delinquent more attractive to prospective mates. This finding supports evolutionary psychology's implicit prediction that adolescents may, knowingly or unknowingly (see Berry & Broadbent, 1984; Claxton, 1999; Lewicki et al., 1992; Massey, 2002), perceive delinquency as one type of risk-taking behavior that reflects such qualities as nerve, daring, and bravado. 5 From an evolutionary perspective, such qualities may be highly beneficial to a prospective mate's social status, physical well-being, and/or genetic lineage"

Then why did you write this?

1 ) If masculine values become more disincentivised on a societal level, how ought the relative stability of some aspects of gender norms to be explained over time? I have in mind that the boys at school are rewarded by peers for violence, bravado and competition, but punished by their teachers for it. They're taught to be as sensitive and emotionally aware as the girls, but the girls are not mocked in the playground for displays of emotion.

2 ) Some explanation is required for girls outperforming boys in school at every level and in every subject {up to some demographic factors}. Boys are much more likely to be suspended or permanently excluded too.

3 ) Some explanation is required for the rigidity of gender norms in high risk and physical workplaces - the overwhelming majority of construction workers, military personnel and offshore workers are still men. Compare the overwhelming split the other way for nurses and human resources professionals.

Though now the economic dimension of those norms has levelled considerably as of the last 5 years, and people in general see women and men as equally capable of jobs women were traditionally excluded from.

The former highlighting that generalisations like "white man", "masculinity", "femininity" are insufficiently localised and contextualised {intersectional} to make an iota of sense... and the latter that people ought be considered on a more person by person basis without the use of stereotypes.

I think we just got used to talking out of our arses about relationships between men and women, and gender in general, and selectively forget how to think about it.

What I found interesting in that article is not so much the evolutionary psychology behind it, (but in this case it is nice it supports the point as many in this forum do seem to embrace it) what I found interesting is the correlation between perceived attractiveness as a dating partner and delinquency. I think the answer for it lies more in the concept I explained as 'subterranean values', social values that are presented but seldom 'officially' articulated, then in some evolutionary psychology

Why does this need explanation? It fits the theory rather well no? In a more feminine society, these are the roles ascribed to men.

The point which I tried to make though and which you also picked up on (thanks for that) is that a lot of these values actually stay the same and that overt formal condemnation and demand for change is countered by informal 'subterranean' reinforcement. I feel stereotypical male values are formally opposed and informally reinforced.

While feminine values are becoming our mainstream values, masculine values remain revered in situations that are out of the ordinary, 'in love and war' so to speak, quite literarily in this case. When one reads young adult male forums one gets a sense that you have to be a bad boy to get girls. That can be quickly dismissed as the whining of losers, but there is some scientific support for this hypothesis. From a study on delinquency and dating behaviour: "Of particular importance, results suggest that delinquency does not appear to increase dating by increasing the delinquent's desire for dates. Instead, they suggest that delinquency increases dating outcomes by making the delinquent more attractive to prospective mates. This finding supports evolutionary psychology's implicit prediction that adolescents may, knowingly or unknowingly (see Berry & Broadbent, 1984; Claxton, 1999; Lewicki et al., 1992; Massey, 2002), perceive delinquency as one type of risk-taking behavior that reflects such qualities as nerve, daring, and bravado. 5 From an evolutionary perspective, such qualities may be highly beneficial to a prospective mate's social status, physical well-being, and/or genetic lineage"(Rebellon & Manasse 200

Internet Dating, Beasley and Holmes (2021), p31:The narratives people tell about their internet dating experiences can reveal how shifting yet stubborn heterosexual gender relations shape those experiences. We have argued that the nutter narrative is a commonly told story that exposes many of the gendered assumptions and ways of interacting that can reinforce inequalities between women and men. It is a narrative that helps us understand where the limits to gender heterodoxy sit and how they are guarded. The nutter narratives suggest that the gender innovations enabled by internet dating may travel out from the heteronormative centre, but not too far. What we offer in the rest of the book is an analysis of what kind of innovations are possible, but here we get to grips with the outer fences, the lines in the sand, beyond which it is dangerous to go. Technology has affordances, but the internet is not outside of regulatory power. The nutter narrative is one mechanism via which that power is exercised and gendered selves and interactions produced

Yes and if I am write the pendulum will swing in women's favour. They will be seen as more capable of verbal jobs that require both rational and emotional intelligence, such as judge, university professor, upper management. It will take time, but if my theory is right it will happen.

values Masculine Feminine

Yeah I think it fits your theory somewhat well. I don't think it fits the narrative you're criticising very well. It seems a vestige of a more gender-stratified economy and society. Whereas there's no reason women shouldn't be on the front lines, wearing hard hats, or heaving metal on a rig.

Internet Dating, Beasley and Holmes (2021), p31

I suppose we shall see.

It starts here. Values have no sex. So we are talking about values and perhaps virtues and vices that have been traditionally ascribed to and associated with masculine and feminine identities.

Then, the thesis is that these associations have been changing. The world has changed, for example, with the introduction of "the Equaliser". This charmingly lethal apparatus negates the physical advantage of strength in combat. No one can out-run a bullet, and even a delicate feminine finger can pull a trigger - hence the name. The facts of industry and technology have devalued masculine muscle.

The problem is that traditional male virtues have lost their value. And the solution is either a luddite reversion to primitive preindustrial society or a change of identification, of what it is to be a man, and particularly a good man. And of course women are involved with this re-evaluation of all values, because 'man' and 'woman' are identities in relation to each other.

I would like to hear more about how you understand the relation between the social construct of masculinity you are associating with the right, and conservative populist thinking in its wider scope. Do you think the former explains the latter, the reverse, or is there some more complex relation between the two?

In the US a gender gap among voters exist as well. See here: https://cawp.rutgers.edu/gender-gap-voting-choices-presidential-elections.

So no, you cannot predict what someone thinks but you can predict that when you see a woman it is more likely that she voted for Harris and when you see a man it is more likely he voted for Trump.

I think this is a very perplexing situation actually. I can imagine why women would not want to do this stuff. It is very risky and does not pay particularly well, especially in relation to the physical risk involved. It seems also that men do not like women to go to the front lines which is even more perplexing. The only reason I can think of is the control over the use of violence is key in any conflict.

On the one hand, masculinity is being unreasonably problematized, on the other hand it is being reinforced by certain political groups and social media.

Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition pg 27-31:The profound misunderstanding expressed in the Latin transla- tion of "political" as "social" is perhaps nowhere clearer than in a discussion in which Thomas Aquinas compares the nature of household rule with political rule: the head of the household, he finds, has some similarity to the head of the kingdom, but, he adds, his power is not so "perfect" as that of the king. 11 Not only in Greece and the polls but throughout the whole of occidental an- tiquity, it would indeed have been self-evident that even the power of the tyrant was less great, less "perfect" than the power with which the paterfamilias, the dominus, ruled over his household of slaves and family... Although misunderstanding and equating the political and social realms is as old as the translatio n of Greek terms into Latin and their adaption to Roman-Christian thought, it has become even more confusing in modern usage and modem understanding of society.

The distinction between a private and a public sphere of life corresponds to the household and the political realms, which have existed as distinct, separate entities at least since the rise of the ancient city-state; but the emergence of the social realm, which is neither private nor public, strictly speaking, is a rela- tively new phenomenon whose or igin coincided with the emer- gence of the modern age and which found its political form in the nation-state. What concerns us in this context is the extraordinary difficulty with which we, because of this development, understand the deci- sive division between the public and private realms, between the sphere of the polls and the sphere of household and family, and, finally, between activities related to a common world and those related to the maintenance of life, a division upon which all ancient political thought rested as self-evident and axiomatic.

In our understanding, the dividing line is entirely blurred, because we see the body of peoples and political communities in the image of a family whose everyday affairs have to be taken care of by a gigantic, nation-wide administration of housekeeping. The scien- tific thought that corresponds to this development is no longer political science but " national economy" or "social economy" or Volkswirtschaft, all of which indicate a kind of "collective house-keeping"; 13 the collective of families economically organized into the facsimile of one super-human family is what we call "society," and its political form of organization is called "nation." 14

We therefore find it difficult to realize that according to ancient thought on these matters, the very term "political economy" would have been a contradiction in terms: whatever was " eco- nomic," related to the life of the individual and the survival of the species, was a non-political, household affair by definition. 16 Historically, it is very likely that the rise of the city-state and the public realm occurred at the expense of the private realm of family and household. 16 Yet the old sanctity of the hearth, though much less pronounced in classical Greece than in ancient Rome, was never entirely lost. What prevented the polis from violating the private lives of its citizens and made it hold sacred the bound- aries surrounding each property was not respect for private property as we understand it, but the fact that without owning a house a man could not participate in the affairs of the world because he had no location in it which was properly his own. 17

Even Plato, whose political plans foresaw the abolition of private property and an extension of the public sphere to the point of annihilating private life altogether, still speaks with great reverence of Zeus Herkeios, the protector of border lines, and calls the horoi, the boundaries between one estate and another, divine, without seeing any contradiction. 18 The distinctive trait of the household sphere was that in it men lived together because they were driven by their wants and needs. The driving force was life itself—the penates, the household gods, were, according to Plutarch, "the gods who make us live and nourish our body" 19—which, for its individual maintenance and its survival as the life of the species needs the company of others. That individual maintenance should be the task of the man and species survival the task of the woman was obvious, and both of these natural functions, the labor of man to provide nourishment and the labor of the woman in giving birth, were subject to the same urgency of life. Natural community in the household there- fore was born of necessity, and necessity ruled over all activities performed in it.

The realm of the polls, on the contrary, was the sphere of free- dom, and if there was a relationship between these two spheres, it was a matter of course that the mastering of the necessities of life in the household was the condition for freedom of the polls. Under no circumstances could politics be only a means to protect society —a society of the faithful, as in the Middle Ages, or a society of property-owners, as in Locke, or a society relentlessly engaged in a process of acquisition, as in Hobbes, or a society of producers, as in Marx, or a society of jobholders, as in our own society, or a society of laborers, as in socialist and communist countries. In all these cases, it is the freedom (and in some instances so-called freedom) of society which requires and justifies the restraint of political authority. Freedom is located in the realm of the social, and force or violence becomes the monopoly of government.

What all Greek philosophers, no matter how opposed to polls life, took for granted is that freedom is exclusively located in the political realm, that necessity is primarily a prepolitical phenome- non, characteristic of the private household organization, and that force and violence are justified in this sphere because they are the only means to master necessity—for instance, by ruling over slaves—and to become free. Because all human beings are subject to necessity, they are entitled to violence toward others; violence is the prepolitical act of liberating oneself from the necessity of life for the freedom of world.

This freedom is the essential condition of what the Greeks called felicity, eudaimmla, which was an objective status depending first of all upon wealth and health. To be poor or to be in ill health meant to be subject to physical neces- sity, and to be a slave meant to be subject, in addition, to man- made violence. This twofold and doubled "unhappiness" of slavery is quite independent of the actual subjective well-being of the slave. Thus, a poor free man preferred the insecurity of a daily-changing labor market to regular assured wo rk, which, because it restricted his freedom to do as he pleased every day, was already felt to be servitude (douleia) , and even harsh, painful labor was preferred to the easy life of many household slaves.

By all means do a better job. I tried to provide definitions actually used in sociology. Two lines are a bit disappointing, but I am happy hearing where the argument goes wrong.

Also very much in agreement, yet what I miss in many discussions on this subject is exactly this two way street. We are right now in a time in which is not self evident how and with what man should identify. The general consensus on the left seems to be that man should change and that since they are the problem they should figure it out while the general consensus on the right should be that men should reassert their classical role as the 'head of the table' so to speak. On the one hand, masculinity is being unreasonably problematized, on the other hand it is being reinforced by certain political groups and social media.

Masculinity is problematised in a very different way in mainstream discourse than femininity is problematised. Masculinity's associated with violent crimes, sexual crimes, domestic abuse, posturing, financial risk, overwork, selfishness, lack of community spirit, emotional inflexibility and poor communication skills, and thus is a problem. Femininity's problematised as part of an oppressive system of norms that confines women's conduct and renders them less powerful and less capable of self expression, it is thus seen as posing problems to women.

Men are simply way too violent. It's still a huge problem.

Alright. First, I generally frown on one sided political topics in philosophy. Politics and religion are two ideologies that make people extremely defensive and shut their brains off. We don't argue for Christianity or Islam here, just like we shouldn't argue for Republican or Democrat here. Good topics are "What is God? What would prove God?" A good political discussion would be, "What is masculinity? What would prove masculinity?

Plenty of people will disagree with your definitions of masculine and feminine. Citing an author from 24 years ago doesn't lend credence. What is the justification for these definitions? How do we know his ideas aren't crack pot? You're coming in with something very sociological and often considered pseudoscience.

How would I fix this? Talk about men. If men are having problems, what are their problems? Is this all men? Because plenty of men do not fit in with this definition of 'masculinity'. Define what the manosphere is. Explain what is wrong with it. Are all men in the manosphere? Is it some men? What men get drawn to the manosphere? Why does the manosphere encourage misogyny?

Are these men the only reason the right won last election? Why is it oppressive misogyny and not economic perception or people feeling like government wasn't serving them?

Present to us why these terms are useful and concrete. That would be a philosophical topic worth discussing.

Masculinity has become a problem for itself, it is unclear what it is precisely, how it should be constructed. It is clear that it is a problem, but unclear what the solution is because it is caught in a contradiction. It has to reform and not reform at the same time.

Don’t masculine and feminine go together as the two poles of an outdated binary social conception? Aren’t they in the process of being replaced by a new binary, in which both what had been understood as masculine and what was seen as feminine are redefined? Or perhaps the binary itself is on the way to being replaced by a spectrum or non-linear plurality or fluidity?

The myth of the very stable genius has replaced the myth of the lonesome cowboy.

Not so much 'should', the facts are that man has changed because he must change.

His masculinity is now cosmetic drug induced muscle that hides a complete lack of moral integrity.

There is nothing behind the performance.

He has indeed become the bicycle that every fish no longer needs or wants.

I find questions like 'what is masculinity' to be rather silly, especially on a forum such as this. You will just get people pulling some idea out of their ass. I also think the question cannot be answered because in my view what x is depends on the interaction of people with x. The question "What is masculinity?" presupposes some essentialist answer to the question.

Now that is a fine question in its own right but then I would not get to the topic I think warrants discussion, namely why a certain political view that would be considered far out of the ballpark 20 years ago is very popular nowadays.

I could go into that of course and it would be good, but it would also extend the length of the post and not make it very suitable for a forum like this.

Let me ask you, where do you disagree with Hofstede, where do you find him not convincing? Do you think these values are not commonly associated with male or female identities?

Of course plenty of men do not fit the definition. I bet not one man or woman actually embraces all these values to the furthest extent. There will be a lot of women that embrace values associated with masculinity and vice versa. That is also not the point of an ideal type. It is a way to make certain phenomena visible by simplifying and exaggerating certain traits. If it is totally out of touch with reality, then it should be dropped of course.

Consider this quote from the CAWP website: "Women tend to be more supportive of gun control, reproductive rights, welfare, and equal rights policies than men. They tend to be less supportive of the death penalty, defense spending, and military intervention".

As for your questions on the manosphere, all interesting questions, but not the focus of my question.

Data indicates that economic concerns were the most dominant reason for voters to vote Republican, but those do not explain for instance why there is a huge gender gap in the US among young voters. As many observers expected before the election, there was a significant gender gap among young voters. Young women preferred Harris to Trump by a 17-point margin: 58% to 41%. But young men preferred Trump by a 14-point margin: 56% to 42%.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. For me the terms are useful because they enable me to make an analysis and present it to you If the analysis goes wrong I like to know where.

What is also lacking to my knowledge at least is a discursive analysis of images of masculinity and femininity among right wing populist parties. I wanted to undertake such an analysis, but alas, I want a lot of things...

I think there are public rejections of violence and aggression, which are seen as stereotypically masculine traits, but you do receive social sanctions if you don't behave enough like a man. If no one no longer needed or wanted, ie no longer enforced, the straitjacket of masculinity the expectation to behave that way would dissolve.

I also don't agree with that. I think there are public rejections of violence and aggression, which are seen as stereotypically masculine traits, but you do receive social sanctions if you don't behave enough like a man. If no one no longer needed or wanted, ie no longer enforced, the straitjacket of masculinity the expectation to behave that way would dissolve.

Men are going to be masculine no matter how hard society tries to mould them into something else.

The promotion of senseless violence is a problem very particular to certain scenes - gangster culture and football hooliganism, for example. Both have been glorified by pop culture, even though the vast majority of society recognizes these scenes as degenerate.

I'm sure you agree that 15 year olds stabbing each other with machetes is degenerate?

Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition. :The emergence of society—the rise of housekeeping, its activities, problems, and organizational devices—from the shadowy interior of the household into the light of the public sphere, has not only blurred the old borderline between private and political, it has also changed almost beyond recognition the meaning of the two terms and their significance for the life of the individual and the citizen.

This is not merely a matter of shifted emphasis. In ancient feeling the privative trait of privacy, indicated in the word itself, was all-important; it meant literally a state of being deprived of something, and even of the highest and most human of man's capacities. A man who lived only a private life, who like the slave was not permitted to enter the public realm, or like the barbarian who had chosen not to establish such a realm, was not fully human. We no longer think primarily of deprivation when we use the word "privacy," and this is partly due to the enormous enrichment of the private sphere through modern individualism. However, it seems even more important that modern privacy is at least as sharply opposed to the social realm—unknown to the ancients who considered its content a private matter-—as it is to the political, properly speaking.

The decisive historical fact is that modern privacy in its most relevant function, to shelter the intimate, was discovered as the opposite not of the political sphere but of the social, to which it is therefore more closely and authentically related. The striking coincidence of the rise of society with the decline of the family indicates clearly that what actually took place was the absorption of the family unit into corresponding social groups.

It is decisive that society, on all its levels, excludes the possibility of action, which formerly was excluded from the household. Instead, society expects from each of its members a certain kind of behavior, imposing innumerable and various rules, all of which tend to "normalize" its members, to make them behave, to exclude spontaneous action or outstanding achievement.

We find these demands in the salons of high society, whose conventions always equate the individual with his rank within the social framework. What matters is this equation with social status, and it is immateri al whether the framework happens to be actual rank in the half-feud al society of the eighteenth century, title in the class society of the nineteenth, or mere function in the mass society of today. The rise of mass society, on the contrary, only indicates that the various social groups have suffered the same absorption into one society that the family units had suffered earlier; with the emergence of mass society, the realm of the social has finally, after several centuries of development, reached the point where it embraces and controls all members of a given community equally and with equal strength. But society equalizes under all circumstances, and the victory of equality in the modern world is only the political and legal recognition of the fact that society has conquered the public realm, and that distinction and difference have become private matters of the individual.

However, I think the analyses so far provided are usually too one sided, not only in the threads here, but also in general. The tacit assumption that is usually made, is that it is a reaction of a powerful group, men, that would like to solidify its privileges and uses the same means of oppression that it usually uses to oppress women and other minorities.

It's like you know, as none of us other contributors do, what 'masculine' human nature is beyond social and cultural influence, and everyone who disagrees is wrong and degenerate. No doubt you also then know, as I certainly don't, those circumstances if any, when violence is justified and virtuous.

More or less, you're not an impoverished mentality. Thus you don't feel attacked. That doesn't mean, that masculinity isn't reprimanded currently. Just because it's not on your radar doesn't mean it's not occurring.

I'm generally opposed to victim searching, where folks go out and try to convince others they are oppressed or downtrodden.

That was my point. If you use terminology that has a high variance of answers and disagreement, its not good terminology to use. These words are usually emotionally biased which doesn't lead to good discussion.

Is it though? Trump was also elected 8 years ago. We had George W. Bush 8 years prior to Obama. If you want to cover that case, that's not bad, but you'll need to present why you think that.

Utter bullshit. I know tons of women who are money grubbing evil shits who are all about their ego. I know tons of men who are humble men who sacrifice daily for their family and friends. And vice versa. There is nothing about being a man or woman that innately indicates you're going to be focused more on one or the other. You need statistics and evidence for this.

It's not that I decided to be masculine or that I found it a good way to assert power. It's just the way I am. I don't buy into the notion that had society given me dolls, then I'd have been maternal. Maybe it would have changed me some, but probably I'd have used them as flying objects and subjects of war games and what not.

Otherwise this is punditry and pop science, not a real analysis. Honestly, this is a topic all on its own to discuss.

Then don't include it in your topic. If you don't want questions about it or it to be a possible focus, don't bring it up.

Now this is good analysis. But is this evidence that means they're more concerned with relationships than ego? No. A lot of these ideologies are supported out of selfishness and fear, not communal interest. Just as many who don't support these policies will say its because they think the community is better off even if it might put themselves more at risk

Again, these are good statistics. But have you given ample reason to explain this? What are men concerned with more than women? Start with that instead of masculinity and femininity.

Right. My feedback is telling you that you're using controversial terms without adequate argument as to why we should use them. You're going A -> B -> C and you haven't proved A or B because you want to get to C. A common desire, but I'm letting you know that you can't just gloss over A and B if you want to have C seriously discussed. This isn't Reddit. You have to build your case carefully here.

I get it. And I hope you don't take my criticism the wrong way. You've made a good attempt to discuss something you wanted. The attempt is made with intelligence, it just mistakenly glosses over too many controversial points and needs better focus on what you're trying to discuss. To your point sociology and philosophy can be pseudoscience if done improperly. I'm attempting to point out a more proper methodology that lets your post be less opinion and pop-conjecture, and more logical and reasoned points.

Yall just neglecting Hannah Arendt huh? Probably why yall ain't even ready to have this conversation. Too focused on masculine feminine to see the whole change.

Resentment from the masses, people project their powerlessness outwards, just as Nietzsche describes of the powerless in Gay Science (359 & 379) and Genealogy (First Essay 10, and practically all of the Second Essay) ... So the world has a bunch of weak resentful types from the masses feeling their manhood is threatened through this explosion and favoritism of femininity. And it's not just men, even some women are on board oddly enough.

Anyway, I don't question that there are those fully engaged in an attack against all that is manliness. My point was that it will fail by ontological force. Masculinity isn't an idea that emerged in the 1950s and now it's at the end of its run. Masculinity, feminitity, heterosexuality, homosexuality, etc are states of being and there will be manly men regardless of how condemned it is. And it's not like it's a small percentage of folks who fall into traditional male roles. It's probably around 40%+ of the billions on the planet.

I generaly don't agree either that the day of the masculine man has come and gone. I have found myself quite in demand, not that others less masculine or that women are not also in demand, but I don't walk about as if a dinasaur in a changed world. We all have our roles, but not all is choice and not all is societal manipulation.

I suppose that hasn’t been my experience. In my work, I encounter criminals, former prisoners, and men from gangs, yet I see no evidence that their behavior is worsening or that attitudes are becoming more patriarchal. If anything, the men I meet today - even those who are uneducated and tough as nails - are more inclusive and open to new ideas than they were 35 years ago. That’s not to say they aren’t sometimes violent or dangerous, but I see the same tendencies in many women as well.

I'm sure you agree that 15 year olds stabbing each other with machetes is degenerate? That's a normalcy in the Netherlands, by the way. And if you want to know where they get these ideas: it's straight from an ultra-violent fringe of the rap scene, 'drill rap'.

Masculinity oppressing and oppressed, masculinity a problem in itself

Many great[MALE] thinkers thru history have warned men about females.

I also think you don't have the balls to put your name and picture out there like i did

Betty White*:Why do people say, ‘Grow some balls’? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you really wanna get tough, grow a vagina. Those things really take a pounding!

But i do think you are an idiot.

Are we having fun now

You have 26, 563 posts on a philosophy forum and you don't even know what philosophy is about.

legacy of absentee / abusive fathers reinforced by pervasive religious-cultural misogyny ...

Gregory should be banned

That happened five minutes ago.

Excellent thread, Tobias. Gotta love Hegelian analysis. The definition of masculinity and femininity has me puzzling. Is there anything more to it than stipulation - perhaps a study that shows the traits in the table coinciding statistically, or other empirical support?

I do find the idea of some place where inequalities naturally exist to be slightly worrying without more flesh on the bones.

Some of the most compelling evidence against a strong biological determination of gender roles comes from anthropologists, whose work on preindustrial societies demonstrates some striking gender variation from one culture to another. This variation underscores the impact of culture on how females and males think and behave.

Margaret Mead (1935) was one of the first anthropologists to study cultural differences in gender. In New Guinea she found three tribes—the Arapesh, the Mundugumor, and the Tchambuli—whose gender roles differed dramatically. In the Arapesh both sexes were gentle and nurturing. Both women and men spent much time with their children in a loving way and exhibited what we would normally call maternal behavior. In the Arapesh, then, different gender roles did not exist, and in fact, both sexes conformed to what Americans would normally call the female gender role.

The situation was the reverse among the Mundugumor. Here both men and women were fierce, competitive, and violent. Both sexes seemed to almost dislike children and often physically punished them. In the Mundugumor society, then, different gender roles also did not exist, as both sexes conformed to what we Americans would normally call the male gender role.

In the Tchambuli, Mead finally found a tribe where different gender roles did exist. One sex was the dominant, efficient, assertive one and showed leadership in tribal affairs, while the other sex liked to dress up in frilly clothes, wear makeup, and even giggle a lot. Here, then, Mead found a society with gender roles similar to those found in the United States, but with a surprising twist. In the Tchambuli, women were the dominant, assertive sex that showed leadership in tribal affairs, while men were the ones wearing frilly clothes and makeup.

So here we are. Sounding off topic.

Edit: Having read a couple pages now, I see nothing reasonable was going to come out of this. Sigh.

It doesn't much matter for the purposes of the discussion if masculinity and femininity match biological gender.

[...] but I don't see much awareness of the fact that [...] some of the 'crisis' of masculinity can be perceived as a preference for 'female' values, by females, in feminized spaces.

The present move away from cooperative leadership is... regrettable.

So having established the viability of the masculinity/femininity dimension, and since it is pretty clear that the movement in the politics of the USA is towards the masculinity end of the scale, my next question concerns why we should have a preference for one dimension over anther - why not allow a "movement" towards the masculine end? Consequentialism would seem to provide a useable answer here - given the present environmental crisis, this is precisely a time in which cooperation is needed.

OK, you, I'll take you're word for it. All the same, I can't escape the hunch that many, if not most, tend to disagree with this. "Power" being often strictly equated to control and dominance over other, and in this way with the capacity to domineer, with this capacity tending to be seen as what ought to be a strictly male characteristic, which most term "masculinity".

That said, I'll endorse your statement: yes, plenty of women are domineering and in this sense alone masculine. Moreover, though, plenty more feminine women and masculine men are, despite their gender differences, alike in being neither submissive to domineering factions nor attempt to domineeringly subjugate others. But this regards a type of power utterly different from that just specified.

Can anyone explain to me how the fear of (else the roundabout concern that) “women are taking over and are destroying the core of masculinity” is in fact not a communal projection of personally held aspirations by a certain male faction in society, one composed of individuals that themselves desire to be domineering over all others

Re: legacy of absentee / abusive fathers reinforced by pervasive religious-cultural misogyny ...
Here's all you have to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.
— George Carlin
Case and point: ?Gregory :eyes:

Richard Reeves goes through this issue at length in his book. He argues that considerations of sex and gender do not need to be viewed as zero-sum, but due to political trends, conversations about the struggles of young men and boys are often framed as threatening to the progress of girls and women.

Remember, we are talking about boys and girls here. In our public schools, boys have been falling behind for decades, and yet people seem to be oblivious to this fact, or worse, seem to think it’s warranted retribution. Again, we are talking about children.

Why would someone that studies philosophy go off into such an odd absolutist reading of femininity and masculinity?

Gender differences in performance:Boys outperformed girls in mathematics by 11 score points; girls outperformed boys in reading by 22 score points in Australia. Globally, in mathematics, boys outperformed girls in 40 countries and economies, girls outperformed boys in another 17 countries or economies, and no significant difference was found in the remaining 24. In reading, girls, on average, scored above boys in all but two countries and economies that participated in PISA 2022 (79 out of 81).

PIZA results:In Australia socio-economically advantaged students (the top 25% in terms of socio-economic status) outperformed disadvantaged students (the bottom 25%) by 101 score points in mathematics.

For Gregory I feel pity actually.

Yes.

Start with two cohorts, one lower than the other, and then reduce that inequality, and it can be said that the other cohort is "falling behind". Especially when the two cohorts exhaust the population.

like an explanation for why boys face longer exclusions in schools for equivalent transgressions

...and why more men are in gaol.

How did we get on to this sidequest?

Re: legacy of absentee / abusive fathers reinforced by pervasive religious-cultural misogyny

Is there such a legacy really?

The pervasive religious and cultural misogyny I understand, but what happened to the fathers in your opinion?

There may well be a link. Before the second world war fathers were regularly absent, drinking in the bars. I do not know what happened in the 1960s or 1970s. There might well be something there, but how have the sins of the father [& the mother] influenced our current state as men and women?

Why would someone [@Gregory] that studies philosophy go off into such an odd absolutist reading of femininity and masculinity?

Well, people are strange, when you're a stranger...

Too many fathers were raised without fathers in the home by unwed single mothers, etc. Simplistically, my guess is that boys tend to grow-up more feminized (submissive) whereas girls grow-up de-feminized (dominant) by the 'genders imbalanced' example of their husbandless mothers and women teachers primarily in authority throughout primary school.

One problem for Fukuyama is that his thesis leads to a “paradox;” one he is happy to acknowledge. The end of history will be an age where liberal democracies meet the [basic] economic and psychological needs of every citizen. There will no longer be a need to struggle for respect, dignity, and recognition. However, part of what makes us human is our desire to be recognised as something more than just creatures with basic needs to be met. This leads to a paradox because when we will have finally arrived at the end of history, our basic needs are satisfied, and there will no struggle by which our superiority to animals can be recognised.

-David Macintosh — The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama

This is the “Last Man Thesis.” No longer having to struggle, the human being, whose basic needs are now easily met, sees themselves degraded into a bovine consumer. The name comes from Nietzsche:

For this is how things are: the diminution and leveling of European man constitutes our greatest danger, for the sight of him makes us weary. — We can see nothing today that wants to grow greater, we suspect that things will continue to go down, down, to become thinner, more good-natured, more prudent, more comfortable, more mediocre, more indifferent, more Chinese, more Christian — there is no doubt that man is getting ‘better’ all the time. —

Friedrich Nietzsche — On the Genealogy of Morals

I would argue that this problem has indeed materialized. It is made all the worse by steep declines in religiosity, and even steeper declines in the share of people who belong to civic organizations, clubs, and unions, as well a drop in the share of adults who are parents or in romantic relationships (all important sources of identity and meaning).

That many people are forced into unfulfilling, alienating jobs, or else become reliant on welfare programs, also makes this problem worse. One’s career can be a powerful source of meaning and identity, but it can also be a source of shame. It’s not uncommon in America to see someone denigrated precisely because of their vocation. “Don’t listen to him, he’s a pizza delivery guy,” or “you’re a failure, look at you, you bag groceries for a living,” etc.

However, I think the analyses so far provided are usually too one sided, not only in the threads here, but also in general.

That can be quickly dismissed as the whining of losers, but there is some scientific support for this hypothesis. From a study on delinquency and dating behaviour: "Of particular importance, results suggest that delinquency does not appear to increase dating by increasing the delinquent's desire for dates. Instead, they suggest that delinquency increases dating outcomes by making the delinquent more attractive to prospective mates.

I consider masculinity, femininity, homosexuality and all other gendered concepts to be social constructs which interpret biological features in ways that vary from era to era and culture to culture. What you seem to be doing is turning one such era-specific construct , the masculine-feminine binary, into a biologically essentialized universal and then using it to explain traditionalist thinking on the political right in the West today. I argue instead that what you understand as masculinity and femininity are not only culturally relative constructs, but do not explain right wing populism. Rather, they are themselves subordinate elements of a larger traditionalist worldview which is about much more than gendered behavior. Do MAGA supporters embrace guns, authoritarianism, oppose abortion, immigrants, climate science, Transgender rights and feminism because of masculine thinking, or are the very concepts of masculinity and femininity they espouse reflections of a traditionalist worldview?

Consequentialism would seem to provide a useable answer here - given the present environmental crisis, this is precisely a time in which cooperation is needed.

Yes. I think at the higher studies level we're at the point where similar incentive structures that were made for women in STEM should be made for blokes in other fields, a similar drive and marketing campaign anyway. But I don't think this is zero sum - it would still be nice to see "women in construction" alongside the occasional "men in nursing" adverts I sometimes see!

Can anyone explain to me how the fear of (else the roundabout concern that) “women are taking over and are destroying the core of masculinity” is in fact not a communal projection of personally held aspirations by a certain male faction in society, one composed of individuals that themselves desire to be domineering over all others - women very much here included as those whom they deem themselves entitled to subjugate?

Is the occurrence of "masculinity" of itself contingent on there existing "a weaker sex"?

I also uphold that "if there will be a war between the sexes, there'll be no people left". This pretty much summing up my own view.

I don't know a single person who could take this as anything other than an insult to their morality (restrict this to males I know).

Honest cooperation tends to only occur among the latter, though.

Among women? Never heard that one. I was under the impression that honest cooperation is entirely feasible among both sexes.

Yes, i agree with that. There's a clear area on the spectrum of 'masculine' behaviour which is pernicious and destructive. Equally with feminine behaviour (again, acknowledging that the important difference is that the in former case, people tend to die - hte latter, they kill themselves (this is a bit of jest)).

Can anyone explain to me how the fear of (else the roundabout concern that) “women are taking over and are destroying the core of masculinity” is in fact not a communal projection of personally held aspirations by a certain male faction in society, one composed of individuals that themselves desire to be domineering over all others - women very much here included as those whom they deem themselves entitled to subjugate? Entitled by Nature, by God, it doesn't much here matter.

And all this to me gets exceedingly complex when philosophically enquired into.

they had to be careful to avoid seeming powerful, because they would come across as bitchy.

That may be because of inappropriate generalization.

What do you here have in mind?

Just trying to give one diagnosis to a bunch of people who have different ailments?

I associate dark femininity more with Lady MacBeth - relentless manipulation of MacBeth & challenging his manhood, unbridled ambition, and complete lack of morality.

What one diagnosis would that be?

I'm not sure why you're asking me that?

I think the worst instance of the above I heard, again just this year, is in the context of body dysmorphia. Body dysmorphia among young boys is at parity with young girls these days. The response I heard was, paraphrase, "well men will just have to get used to doing what women have all this time".

There is a lot of needless combativeness.

11 points, 22 points... and 101 points. Which should be our primary concern?

My critique of Reeves is the common one that he is blaming schools for general societal problems. It's a strategy adopted by folk - politicians - so they can ignore the actual issue by blaming the teaching profession.

focusing on the extremists, in any direction, as if they are informative of average people, is needless division.

From an article I wrote a while back:

He sees identitarianism as a tool, wielded by neoliberals, to divide people - poor and working-class blacks, whites, others - from the fight against class inequality, which of course would threaten the status and privilege of said neoliberals. (Not to suggest some sort of Machiavellian mastermind behind the curtain - Reed argues that much of this thinking is well-intentioned).

I think this concept of 'reductionism' can be extended to consider a 'gender reductionism' trend, or really, a 'marginalized reductionism'. This might just be a fancy way of saying 'wokeness' but I think the flaws in wokeness are central to this discussion, and more predictive of a male rightward shift than misogyny.

They encounter far fewer male role models - one of the only domains in which having someone who 'looks like me' teaching seems to make a difference.

I see it as a group of people who adopted left wing Twitter etiquette in real life.

AOC in a policy-making position comes to mind.

I think she's fine.

I think she's fine.

Can anyone explain to me how the fear of (else the roundabout concern that) “women are taking over and are destroying the core of masculinity” is in fact not a communal projection of personally held aspirations by a certain male faction in society, one composed of individuals that themselves desire to be domineering over all others - women very much here included as those whom they deem themselves entitled to subjugate? Entitled by Nature, by God, it doesn't much here matter.

"if women stopped wanting to date gang members, guys would stop joining." That's obviously a bit simplistic, (men also join for the status they receive from other men), but I think her point had some merit.

Here some illustrations of the general thesis that masculinity is defined by women.

Can anyone explain to me how the male desire to dominate is other than a performance intended to attract a mate?

Men who are overly preoccupied with pandering to women are hardly ever taken seriously by their male peers. The classic "white knight" / "pretty boy" is seen as dainty, vain and well, useless - not manly.

I thought it was widely known that civilization, meaning a sedentary society built on intensive agriculture and characterized by social stratification and state institutions, has usually resulted in an oppression of women much worse than they experienced in hunter-gatherer societies. It happens that way for various reasons, including property and inheritance, which requires the control of reproduction. Even if men were dominant in many cases in earlier societies, in civilized society this was intensified and institutionalized.

I mean, this seems to be the most common view among anthropologists and in associated disciplines, so assertions to the contrary probably need some kind of support, rather than just intuition.

Enjoy it while you can.

Yeah I agree with Jamal's comment. It's a long way from psychological angle you took though right? I'm mostly reacting to "Men are pitiful", it doesn't seem like the kind of idea you just stumble into as a bloke. Though I did read it as wordplay, as in "to be pitied" {sardonically} and "pathetic".

You misunderstand me. Women prefer gang members. They don't choose pretty boys, they choose fighters. Women have bloodlust; look at the audience for men's boxing to see it.

And if they should change their preference, then they are "destroying the core of masculinity”.

Notice the knot in the complaint, there. Women dominate because they choose to be dominated and if they should choose not to be dominated they are trying to dominate. Men are pitiful, either way.

Must be them damn commies again, taking over the humanities.

I have a seriously hard time figuring out whether you're being sarcistic or not, and/or exactly whose argument you're responding to.

I'm not sure if my thoughts are too complex or merely incoherent.

I think you've put a lot of ideas into a very small space.

Thus I am against the patriarchy, and capitalist society in general, but I blame women equally if not more than men for it. Like 'what do you expect, girls, if that's what you go for?'

The pattern of strong female kinship connections that the researchers found does not necessarily imply that women also held formal positions of political power, called matriarchy.

But it does suggest that women had some control of land and property, as well as strong social support, making Britain's Celtic society "more egalitarian than the Roman world," said study co-author and Bournemouth University archaeologist Miles Russell.

"When the Romans arrived, they were astonished to find women occupying positions of power," Russell said.

People do as they are taught, and if you teach kids to idolize petty criminals then that's what they'll desire and aspire to be like.

I can certainly plead guilty there; I don't like writing, so I try to be brief, and make every word count.

Also on this topic my thinking is unconventional in some ways, and liable to rub everyone up the wrong way who wants me to be either on their side or on the 'other' side.

Thus I am against the patriarchy, and capitalist society in general, but I blame women equally if not more than men for it. Like 'what do you expect, girls, if that's what you go for?'

I don't know.

I don't know what you don't know. If I have said something you disagree with, based on the article you linked, then perhaps you can clarify, taking account of that DNA evidence that I think supports and justifies my position.

Yeah this stuff is relational and gender stuff tends to come in man:woman dyads, if there's a shitty man thing there's a corollary shitty woman thing. I really like Audre Lord on this, her book "Sister Outsider", she describes having made the choice to raise her boy as a patriarch - showing little to no interest in his emotional development -, without realising it. It took her a lot of effort to make other choices and raise him non-standardly {this was 1970-1980s}. Bell Hooks writes similarly about her implicit demands for the flavour of maleness she's spent her career criticising from her partners, and wrestling with it.

Suppose patriarchy won out by a kind of natural selection? It offered some advantage? If that's true, and we're now transitioning to some other scheme, we might want to think about what we're losing when patriarchy declines.

Can you actually make that argument rather than asking us to assume it?

We are (hopefully) in transition, and not all at the same speed, so all these hypocrisies and contradictions, social and psychological are to be expected.

You'd get a healthier picture of masculinity by reading some of the classics.

Think for a moment, what public figure is going to teach you or me about masculinity? Trump? Biden? Musk? Bezos? Etc. etc.

Can anyone explain to me how the male desire to dominate is other than a performance intended to attract a mate?

In the Bronze Age, the most important commodity, food, was not private property. Land wasn't. People worked in the fields and brought their produce into the temple to be divided by the priests. It's called a temple economy.

Mesopotamian empires period (2350-1750 BC). Reforms towards more inclusive political institutions were accompanied by a shift towards stronger farmers’ rights on land and a larger provision of public goods, especially those most valued by the citizens, i.e., conscripted army.

The egalitarianism typical of human hunters and gatherers is never total but is striking when viewed in an evolutionary context. One of humanity's two closest primate relatives, chimpanzees, are anything but egalitarian, forming themselves into hierarchies that are often dominated by an alpha male. So great is the contrast with human hunter-gatherers that it is widely argued by paleoanthropologists that resistance to being dominated was a key factor driving the evolutionary emergence of human consciousness, language, kinship and social organization.[33][34][35][36]

I'm of the opinion that virtues aren't gendered, just expectations are. Some virtues are expected of men and some of women, but it's good for everyone to have every virtue.

People do use them as role models, [...]

You can see a lot of masculine virtues in Trump, Musk, Bezos.

The palace economies in Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Levant were waning in the late Bronze Age, being replaced by primitive market economies led by private merchants or officials who owned private businesses on the side.[citation needed] The last holdout and epitome of the palace system was Mycenaean Greece which was completely destroyed during the Bronze Age collapse and the following Greek Dark Ages.

And if you heavily squint your eyes I'm sure you can find a few masculine virtues here or there, but calling them role models is a stretch.

I tried to point this out earlier in the thread, but that basically just put me outside the conversation while people continued saying highly disagreeable things that I felt needed a reply.

For whom? Some people absolutely love Musk - see him as Tesla or Tony Stark. People love Trump - see him as a paladin. Some people even still love Tate - see him as a charismatic masculine guru.

You pointed it out in a different way. You were speaking with people who generally see gender through a social lens - like as a social construction or a performance. I used virtues in a moral sense, and expectations in that social sense. So it's likely that what you were pointing out is quite a lot different from what I was saying, just based on presuppositions. Like I got the impression that you see an essential equivalence between the masculinity of Beowulf and that of Henry Ford based on what they are {men}. But please correct me if I'm wrong, and that you do see gender as principally socially constructed.

Beowulf seems to embody the physical aspect of it - a protector against external threats.

Henry Ford was an entrepreneur - not something I would necessarily associate with manliness.

And I have no qualms with saying that I believe people are simply often wrong.

The way 'masculinity' is used here is not the way I would normally use it. My conception is closer to that of Yin and Yang, and I don't think they're social constructions.

Tzeentch:At the most basic level, Yang ('masculine') represents action, and Yin ('feminine') represents rest.

Even in the most masculine man or most feminine woman the Yin and Yang principles must be in balance. There is always Yin in the Yang, and Yang in the Yin (as represented by the dots in the famous Yinyang symbol). Unbalanced Yang exhausts itself, while unbalanced Yin grows stagnant.

I wasn't expecting something so unapologetically mystical, thanks.

But your reply does make me curious: What would a so-called “non-mystical” account of masculinity then be?

I'd call the account non-mystical if it tried to come up with an answer

No. But I think it makes sense to be able to provide one, if you've got an account of masculinity or femininity. Like why do the gals go for sushi and the guys go for burgers bro. I find it difficult to believe the sheer degree of affectation that goes into gender derives from any cosmic principle.

Because I have a concept of masculinity and femininity, I now have to provide explanations for all of the silly things people believe or do?

I think it's more a matter of which properties one thinks it's worthwhile to pay attention to, and which aren't.

No. But I think it makes sense to be able to provide one, if you've got an account of masculinity or femininity. Like why do the gals go for sushi and the guys go for burgers bro. I find it difficult to believe the sheer degree of affectation that goes into gender derives from any cosmic principle.

Which properties go in the archetype, the essence, and which don't? And how can you tell?

Long and short hair are not part of the archetypes, but beards perhaps are.

I have an account of such, in the process of identification.

Thus 'pink' has become the colour of femininity and blue, by simple contrast, that of masculinity. Who even knew that one was expected to have a favourite colour, let alone that it was sexually determined? Personally I like my sausages brown and my cabbage green, but if you want to go for pink or blue ...

You pick universality or exceptions, not both.

Because I have a concept of masculinity and femininity, I now have to provide explanations for all of the silly things people believe or do?

Yin is:

feminine/the female force/feminine energy
black
dark
north
water (transformation)
passive
moon (weakness and the goddess Changxi)
earth
cold
old
even numbers
valleys
poor
soft
and provides spirit to all things.

Yin reaches it's height of influence with the winter solstice. Yin may also be represented by the tiger, the colour orange and a broken line in the trigrams of the I Ching (or Book of Changes).


Yang is:

masculine/the male force/masculine energy
white
light
south
fire (creativity)
active
sun (strength and the god Xihe)
heaven
warm
young
odd numbers
mountains
rich
hard
and provides form to all things.

Yang reaches it's height of influence with the summer solstice. Yang may also be represented by the dragon, the colour blue and a solid line trigram.

Alright. Can you tell me some things that go into the archetypes?

In relation to Chinese thought, this is rather like asking a computer scientist which things are 1 and which are 0.

And if they cannot tell you, it's a false distinction?

Absolutely nothing in our discussion so far has been about odd numbers or mountains.

Right - and as expected, you have to pretend discernment doesn't exist and retreat to relativity.

The challenge of accidental crap counting as masculine or feminine poses to thinking of what counts as masculine or feminine as manifestations of a Jung-flavour archetype is rather great. The archetype either needs to explain too much, or obviates itself of the need to explain some of its manifestations - ie its capacity to explain anything. Like what @Tzeentch just did, to my sights. You pick universality or exceptions, not both.

But your reply does make me curious: What would a so-called “non-mystical” account of masculinity then be? — javra

I'd call the account non-mystical if it tried to come up with an answer to why the things which count as masculine or feminine count as such. eg, skirts, where in the cosmic principle of yin and yang do skirts live? Why do they become masculine, feminine or neither depending on the context?

-- The masculine is interpreted, be it psychologically or physically, as being “that which penetrates (alternatively expressed, as that which inseminates via information)”.

-- Whereas the feminine is interpreted, again either psychologically or physically, as “that which is penetrated (alternatively, as that which is inseminated by information)”.

First, I note that no such “non-mystical” answer to the question has been provided by anyone who looks down upon them “mystical” answers - one that thereby addresses what the heck female masculinity is supposed to mean.

I’ll venture that no “non-mystical” answer is then possible to provide for why women such as Margret Thatcher, RBG, and AOL might be deemed to exhibit masculine traits, including those of assertiveness and leadership. They, after all, are not of the male sex, so, again, why the attribute of “masculine traits”?

Call it mystical or not, this interpretation can then make ample sense of female masculinity: a pussy-endowed women that is assertive (thereby radiating her being, this being yang) and takes leadership (thereby informing others of what to do, which is a type of information penetration, being again yang).

Why are skirts considered feminine? Because they get heavily associated with that which women - who are physiologically feminine - wear (unless one starts talking about kilts, a different issue).

Why is the sword masculine and the chalice feminine? The sword actively penetrates and the chalice passively accepts, accommodates, and sustains.

Consider "is a man", imagine writing a list of things that a man must have. A penis? Can lose it in war. Confidence? Can have it undermined. So on. Whatever attribute that goes in the list must be predicated of a man, and then you can prescribe an event which removes that attribute. So they must not be personal attributes, as there are men without them.

If we assume yin = feminine = 'things women do' and yang = masculine = 'things men do', we have basically arrived back where we started, and I'd argue we'd be missing the point.

That penetrating will be active and hence yang. That penetrated will be passive and hence yin. Why is the phallus (or any phallic symbol) considered masculine? Because its purpose is to penetrate and thereby radiate its energy, information, or seed, and is thereby yang. Why is the yoni (or any yonic symbol) considered feminine? Because its purpose is to be penetrated and thereby to accept and converge that accepted, and is thereby yin. Turns out that men have dicks and women pussies, thereby physically grounding masculinity in men and femininity in women. No?

Yeah. I primarily work with 5-12 year olds in education. I'm the only bloke in my work cohort. You work with kids yourself right? Do you also think that the boys are picking up relatively traditional norms - in the playground - at the same time as being demanded to follow other ones -in the classroom-? I think it's a great thing that all the kids I'm aware of are getting eg courses on self expression and emotion language, but the boys still can't use it without stigma. There also still seems to be that element of casual violence among the working class boys, which is still socially rewarded.

And did you catch that series, "Adolescence"?

Do you, as a guy, feel any differently from your colleagues on any of these subjects?

I imagine it might be actually harder for boys your student's age to express emotions?

Even the 'emotion language' topic is 'feminized' or 'gendered' female, even though that's not a thing this subject addresses - we are only concerned with gendered 'male' behaviour, since 'maleness' is the problem, per the consensus. The entire project seems to be making the boys more like girls.

Not to mention the whole 'Bad Therapy' argument, Abigail Shrier's book, condemning the therapy culture that permeates our children's lives and which may be actually causing the spikes in youth mental health.

As for raw numbers, I don't know anything recently, and its definitely still more 'male' behaviour, but it feels like the girls are closing the gap.

But reading - what we call literature - is as gendered as anything. Boys, for the entirety of my career, and per the literature I've seen, have been more likely to enjoy 'informational' or 'task-oriented' reading, which we often describe as 'not literature', whereas 'literature' - fiction - requires empathizing, provides no clear, tangible benefits (now I know how to ...) - things that girls are better at than boys

Still, I myself find that this interpretation of masculinity and femininity – itself exceedingly nebulous – denies physiological masculinity being biologically intrinsic to men and physiological femininity being biologically intrinsic to women. Which is exceedingly odd to me, and I’m guessing to many another as well.

In strictly simplistic terms, the understanding of masculinity I generally uphold will account of toxic masculinity as - here very abstractly expressed - "willfully forced penetration (physical and/or psychological) upon other without the other's consent". As two extreme examples of this: rape and murder (which sane people all know to be wrong). So too with subjugation and, in more extreme forms, slavery (abstractly, in which those subjugated are at minimum psychologically penetrated by the subjugator against their wishes such that the subjugated are forced to assume inferior roles and standing relative to the subjugator(s).)

For me it's a liberal left version of mysticism.

Sex isn't something you can just define away.

I don't like toxic masculinity as a concept at all personally. I wish we cold stop speaking about it.

[...]

For me it's a liberal left version of mysticism.

In contrast to non-liberal-left versions of mysticism?

To me it’s somewhat in keeping with the “virtues of cruelty” theme I’ve been recently told about in another thread - at least, in so far as there being nothing toxic about activities such as rape and murder, masculine though they might be.

You can't specify mechanisms for Jung, conspiracies or the occult, you tend to be able to gesture in that general direction for the left buzzwords.

If you want a stereotype to serve as an explanation, it's fine. That can even be rhetorically useful. But it's not a good lens to study anything by.

You're own view of toxic masculinity being a stereotype is therefore idiosyncratic, as evidenced by the open source article on the subject.

Toxic masculinity, interpreted in the sense of an essential collective archetype, is exactly the kind of mythopoetic move that feminism which deals with masculinity tends to reject. Though obviously not all feminists reject every essentialism.

Who the fuddle is doing this?

Here presuming you won't claim these to be feminine traits, are these behaviors toxic or not?

Obviously murder and rape are evil.

And this in no way answers the question in regard to toxic masculinity.

quite strongly criticised in eg Boise (2019)'s "Editorial: is masculinity toxic?".

I've explained my reasons for this.

So I've gots not damn interest in reading ti.

I see you as talking about masculine archetypes,

Okay. Can you please recap your position for me, what you believe we're disagreeing about, so that I can better engage with you?

-- The masculine is interpreted, be it psychologically or physically, as being “that which penetrates (alternatively expressed, as that which inseminates via information)”.

-- Whereas the feminine is interpreted, again either psychologically or physically, as “that which is penetrated (alternatively, as that which is inseminated by information)”.

You so far have been disagreeing with all of it.

Thanks for clarification. If I can ask for a bit more, how do you think I have been disagreeing with it? While I know what you've written, I don't know how you've read what I've written.

My definition of masculinity you declare a mysticism (hence to consist of "obscure thoughts and speculations") and instead argue that the gender is fully culturally relative and so cannot be defined away.

-- The masculine is interpreted, be it psychologically or physically, as being “that which penetrates (alternatively expressed, as that which inseminates via information)”.

-- Whereas the feminine is interpreted, again either psychologically or physically, as “that which is penetrated (alternatively, as that which is inseminated by information)

There is another aspect of my disagreement, which I've focussed on up until this point - a methodological one. But let's focus on this object level one for now, since the methodological discussion should probably come after this one.

They then publish your article, which puts it into the world, which is male... or is it giving birth?

You can parse each of these transitions as inseminations or births, and flip the gender they count as. If your word spills on the page, you birth it from within you, blah blah.

The point there is that whether something is masculine or feminine will depend upon how it's described. Which it shouldn't, because the act should be intrinsically masculine or feminine, no? A manifestation of all permeating principle? It should not turn on the whims of our description.

And btw, thanks for this post. It's more thoughtful than that of name calling, as per "mystical" and "stereotype".

And hey, while I’m not certain where you find yourself residing on the “spirituality” spectrum, irrespective of this, having some bloke walk up to you while your reading a book in the park so as to inform you of some true savior or such, this when you tell them you’re not interested in conversing with them, would – in keeping to my previous posts – then be a bit toxic of them if they don’t relent.

I tend to walk up to those people when I see them in the street. They get sick of me.

No curses or the like, just nifty reasoning utilized to turn their views upside down. ...

I will respond to your longer post, just when I've got more brainpower.

I believe that ?Tzeentch was warning against just this kind of thing when he said one should steer away from too dichotomous an interpretation of the yang (masculine) and yin (feminine).

Isn't it unavoidable.

You can parse each of these transitions as inseminations or births, and flip the gender they count as. If your word spills on the page, you birth it from within you, blah blah.

The being “too dichotomous” part – as far I so far interpret it – comes into play when one insists that, because the yin and yang are a strict dyad metaphysically, speaking then must be fully yang, fully masculine, such that femininity plays no part in it. Or else that listening is fully feminine, fully yin, such that masculinity, yang, plays no part in it.

What I'm making is the more modest claim, that the feminine parts are strictly feminine and the masculine parts are strictly masculine.

f there are people who seem to have been born with the skills to get ahead in society, most of us have to learn it. If we don't learn it, we're kind of screwed.

Some marxists propose that the red brick school house education is no longer very important. Mass media are in a better position to teach people how to live, what to want, and what to buy. Beyond "BUY IT!" the messages we receive are somewhat chaotic; they beckon in several directions all at once. A big problem wit this theory is that in order to buy, one has to have money, which usually requires work. Mass media doesn't tell us a lot about successful work.

here was never a satisfying answer to "why" the murder was done though. I'm quite glad of the latter, it would've been very easy to blame social media outright and it didn't.

The only adjacent thing I've heard is surprise that a bloke wants to work with kids. It was also relatively good surprise, as they were cognisant of the impact having few male authority figures/role models has on the kids.

It's taking something that was more associated with feminine social styles and trying to open it up to boys as well.

teachers? ed assistants?

The most sexist thing I ever witnessed between teachers in my 20 years was when a mediocre colleague told me she suspects 'every one' of the male teachers in high school of being creeps.

A thing will have masculine and feminine aspects. Take one of the masculine aspects. Does that masculine aspect have feminine meta-aspects? This is a way of saying, that while an object level phenomenon has masculine and feminine aspects, the aspects themselves are dichotomously masculine or feminine.

And what can we say about the superordinate concept imparting to ‘masculine’ and feminine’ their intelligibility?

I don't understand what "the superordiante concept" might be. This in relation to the yin-yang. Here addressed as though it in fact occurs.

These are just two of many possible ways of understanding the superordinate concept.

Did you ever experience a baseline of suspicion otherwise?

I come at this from a very left wing angle. I get frustrated with the above because of how patriarchal it is, and people don't notice. Seeing men as latent predators is precisely part of the patriarchal norms feminist critique is supposed to attack, it reinforces the idea that only women should work with and care for children, as well as alienates kids from male role models and authority figures

Speculating over which teachers - almost always male - are paedos is a favourite pass time

Most colleagues are / have been cool. I think it likely the few people I've worked with with a 'baseline of suspicion' of men were angry with men for personal reasons. But I also think they are often given a pass by those around them.

I always wonder if I come across as having a political ideology? I describe myself as a conscientious objector, but I was strongly left my entire adult life until getting turned off by the dogma.

Nighttime, so I don't recognize them, but this girl was obviously young enough to want to stop and look at the toys. The daughter asked her mother 'remember when you told me life was harder for girls'?

mostly men who look vaguely middle eastern that receive the worst excesses of this moral panic.

You're going to count as having a political ideology based on how you speak about this. And it's going to appear "right wing" in some circles. Don't you know this already?

In the UK there are perpetual moral panics about people of colour sexual predators, the left liberal media sees this as a sign of rape culture {it is} but emphasises that it's all men's responsibility to change ourselves on an individual basis to address these crimes. The right media explicitly racialises the issue. Rather than talking about, say, including a lot of material on establishing consent in sex ed.

You can find a lot of feminist literature that laments this pervasive essentialism outside and within feminism itself.

What I do wish was more commonplace was men describing their negative experiences of patriarchy

I find it incredibly ironic that these absurd masculinity grifters like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson actually agree with the reductive left liberal construal of masculinity on what makes a man a man. They just disagree on whether it's a good thing.

he 'grooming-gang' scandal seems beyond dispute a failure of this sort, and if the police had had the guts to address this issue, seemingly of Pakistani men with shared family ties, then 'vaguely middle eastern' looking men wouldn't have as much suspicion around them.

It is a fundamentally neoliberal solution to inequality.

Default wokist thought argues that focusing on the patriarchy helps men who have had these negative experiences, but overlooks the fact that those patriarchal norms are also enforced by women

although Peterson should be in a different category entirely than Tate.

Do you think there's a way to go about disrupting specifically Pakistani grooming gangs?

He got famous for resisting a trans rights bill

It's honestly baffling to me that this would be a contentious point

I've got a few links if you are interested, certain journalists have been following these scandals for years, but getting no interest from the mainstream media till recently. Different parties involved in policing, child services, different areas of the country have explicitly said that we didn't want to pursue these cases for fear of seeming Islamophobic. The principal journalist behind this, name escapes me currently, was coming at this from a second-wave feminist angle.

He got famous for resisting compelled speech, a completely different thing. And he was right too, a few years after, Trudeau tried to pass a law making 'future thought crimes' illegal.

Did you see the earliest videos, of Peterson trying to engage with protestors and getting shouted down? He was sincerely trying to engage, and they just shout him dwon.

A willful rejection of evolutionary theory and human history?

Should be common allies!

But we had a similar bill recently in the UK which I disliked. It's an anti hate speech bill which you can report someone based on hearsay, no witnesses required. Your name goes on a registry. No one uses it though.

no one's been punished under it right?

[...]

No one uses it though.

He got famous for resisting compelled speech, a completely different thing.

Do you have any evidence for the claim that no one is using it? That no one is reporting or recording non-crime hate incidents?