You keep bringing up this non sequitur and I'm tired of it. Leaving homosexuals out of a discussion about heterosexual masculinity is not some massive offense against homosexuals.
But why the assumption that "heterosexual masculinity" is somehow essentially distinct from what I suppose is "homosexual masculinity"? And what of bi- or pansexual people? Human sexuality is not so simple as to allow the grand delineations which you would propose.
As to the rest of your post, you are veering the conversation into a discussion based on crit theory and queer theory, which is good for me because a whole lot FEWER people are going to agree with that liberal arts BS than would have agreed with Tony's talk in the first place.
Just because you don't have an interest in a particular field doesn't mean that it is mature or reasonable to disparage an entire field as "BS". A scientist, as you seem to consider yourself to be, should really be above such things.
Besides, it's not as if there is some lead-lined division between queer theory and biology, as the work of
Julia Serano seems to prove. You are not the be-all and end-all of science, you know.
If all this conversation accomplished was to make you
make explicit the critical-theory / gender-studies dogma
underlying Tony's lecture, so that folks like Cheetah can get an understanding of what Tony and you are really proposing, then I consider that worthwhile
Out of interest, what are we "really proposing"? So far, you seem to have declared that me and Tony (who apparently are in cahoots) both despise masculinity and worship femininity, while simultaneously denying that either exist; that we wish to make men slaves to women, and that we wish to destroy all differences between men and women; that we wish to destroy everything with a penis, while at the same time refusing to believe that the penis exists. This, if I may say, seems a tad contrary. Please make up your mind as to why, exactly, we are so very awful, because, I must say, you're getting into "
Commie-Nazi" territory here.
I didn't bother with the video, but I just had to comment on this:
One of the things I tried to discuss on feminist blogs before, was exactly that there is a distinction between responsibility and guilt: A woman who is raped has none of the guilt, but - in the applicable cases - may have acted irresponsibly. Rape victims have none of the guilt from a rape, but they should try to act responsibly to avoid it (I.e. don't get wasted among strangers with no friends nearby (and especially don't follow them home), don't walk through certain areas at night, etc.).
The only thing civilised about their replies was that they had to actually write their replies in text...
So I'm very surprised to see someone who labels himself (and argues for) a feminist, to try and make a distinction between responsibility and guilt.
Sorry that this might have been a bit off-topic.
Well, yes, that's really not the sort of "guilt" and "responsibility" that were being discussed, but to address the point itself, it may be worth remembering a few things.
Firstly, that these women are not the be all and end all of feminism, and so ultimately speak for nobody beyond themselves.
Secondly, that "rape victims should be more careful" is a classic dismissive victim-blaming tactic, and so, if comments about responsibility are improperly posed, they may be read as such, especially if those reading are themselves rape survivors, and so easily triggered by the topic.
Thirdly, that the above tactic is often used to shift responsibility from rapists to victims, particularly in the suggestion that whatever "fault" lay with the victim was a necessary condition for rape, rather than, at best, an incentive for a rapist (who had that inclination before he and his victim ever entered the same room); in essence, the suggestion that rape only occurred because of such-and-such factor, posing the victim, rather than the rapist, as making the critical decision. As such, this produces similar misreadings.
Fourthly, the fact that most rape victims are not particularly irresponsible in their actions, but suffer from the bad luck to have been targeted by rapists. Most rape victims are raped by people they know and trust, and the sort of scenario in which the rape occurs- a woman getting drunk and then sleeping in the same bed as her boyfriend, for example- are not the sort of classic "danger zones" that are discussed in observations about "responsibility". As such, these can often be unhelpful and distracting.
And, finally, that women are expected to demonstrate a responsibility far beyond that expected of men, which, while practical in the world in which we live, is itself representative of sexism. Most rape, after all, is not of the classic "stranger in an alleyway" variety, so there is really no innate biological difference that should make that so, if the difference in question- the increased muscle mass and aggression which comes from testosterone- was a great enough or uniform enough difference to render the sort of disparity we see to day. So, while expecting responsibility may be reasonable as a practical measure, it is not an answer to the question of why rape occurs.
Two through three, by the way, apply as much to male victims of rape as female, and, in both cases, whether the rapist was male or female. Rape, while primarily something done by men to women, is far from exclusively so.
No. Just NO!
You, me, or anyone else, is not - and never has and must never be - allowed to be "what we are"!
From what I read, you complain about the norms for men and women, and would rather all of them be discarded. Do you think the same about any (all?) other norms in society? We have tens of thousands of norms, expectations, rules and laws about how we - as persons, adults, children, men, women, employees, employers, workers, owners, artists, researchers, etc. - should act. Those norms allow our societies to function. I can't really believe that you would argue that we remove all of them simply because they "are someone else than others think they should be".
Of course, bits and pieces might need to be changed or removed (or added), but simply claiming that social identities represses individuals and should therefore be abandoned is insane.
I would suggest that may represent a fundamental philosophical disagreement. I do not see norms as particular necessary- or even all that valuable- but expect people to behave in a moral manner because it is indeed moral. If a society is unable to behave civilly without such norms, then are some deep problems which are not solved- even if they are abated- by prescribing certain behavioural patterns. All it takes is for someone to break from those norms for their effectiveness to be brought into question, as, I would suggest, our own society demonstrates.
Far better, then, that people simply be socialised to be decent and empathetic than to adhere to some abstract set of standards without context or innate meaning.
And that's as much because I was raised as a Christian as because of any black-flagisms I may have picked up in the mean time, so don't dismiss that as mere lefty naivety.
Hyper-masculinity is not a product of traditional masculinity in any other way than that they both grow out of our biology.
Hyper-masculinity is a creation of the prosperous, well-off, modern society in which traditional masculinity has been looked down upon for the last few decades. Which is quite ironic, since it was the hierarchical, lawful, orderly society created by traditional masculinity that allowed society to get this far. Now, much that is natural for men is being made illegal, and much that is natural for women is being promoted; families break apart; men seldom get much - or any - contact with their children; men are mistrusted and unwanted around children; working-class men find it harder to support a family; and many similar things. So we end up with boys growing up without proper men around that can teach them - both explicitly and implicitly - how to be men.
You're right that hyper-masculinity is robbed of restraints. Real men would keep each other in line to avoid this rampant destruction. And yes, while "nurturing and healing" are both feminine traits, that does not mean that men are deprived of them. It does mean that women usually do - and should - have more of those traits than men. But no man are without them. LoneWolf said that positive traits are good, and of course he is right, but that does not change the fact that some traits are more present in men than in women, and vise versa.
That "men don't cry" is not because we can't, or that we must not. It's as Cheezy said: Men do not cry because crying signals a lack of control, and lack of control is a very bad sign in a leader. And men must seek to be leaders, because of the sexual selection that women drive. And you can't go around calling 9 year-old boys "young men"! They're kids. And while what they said might sound alarming to you, I had a conversation with a 9-year old last week which, if I had taken him on his word, would have conveyed a very crazy message. No boy likes to be compared to a girl, and no girl likes to be compared to a boy. It's as simple as that.
Hyper-masculinity is a product of a feminised society where traditional masculinity is being shunned. Ironically enough, it is not the masculine ones that are being hurt the most by this.
It's almost like the more spiritual amongst us could start to think that this is natures way of getting back at people who choose to ignore it...
You seem to be suggesting that "hyper-masculinity" is some strange aberration that sprang into being spontaneously, and not, as I would suggest, the inevitable result of traditional masculinity robbed of a context which supports and legitimises it. You observe, quite correctly, that the breakdown of working class society has produced many of the more obvious distortions in masculinity, but distortions by definition reflect the original form, and so the distorted nature of "hyper-masculinity" draws entirely on traditional working class masculinity for . That, to me, suggests some innate flaw in traditional masculinity that cannot simply be dismissed.
Now, I do believe that traditional masculinity had some value historically, because the social model imposed upon the working class made the sort of division of labour seen, if not necessary, then at least effective. In particular, I understand the stoicism cultivated by such men, because the crushing brutality of their lives- the burden of providing in a cripplingly exploitative and oppressive society, with uncertain prospects of future employment, a lack of effective provisions in the case of a loss of income- demands that one grows a tough outer shell. (I, unlike some more extreme RadFems, do not see traditional masculinity as a nefarious male plot, but, like just about everything else, a reaction to social conditions.) But that does not mean that this model of masculinity is of timeless value, that it is effective or useful all people, or that it represents an objective biologically-declared norm.
Furthermore, I believe it is foolishly over-simplistic to reduce this to a discussion of some caricature of "hyper-masculinity". Did rape not occur before the later 20th century? Did men only lose the ability to deal with their emotions as a reaction to Reaganomics? Are all of the issues which Porter discussed, only one of which actually had much to do with this "hyper-maculinity", issues of the last few decades? Because I would suggest that, even if we set the issue of "hyper-masculinity" aside entirely, traditional masculinity still appears to have some very self-evident flaws that I feel need addressing.
After all, women were given the opportunity to challenge traditional femininity, so why not give men the same shot? What are you, sexist?
Gender roles are based on our sexually dimorphic biology. It can - and often is - enhanced and intensified through culture, but it is not "constructed" any more than our physical sexual organs.
Then why, I wonder, does the human race have such a well documented tendency to dissent from the strict biologically determined binary of the West? And why do the gender roles in question vary from society to society, and the disparity between the roles of men and women (and other genders) so inconsistent? And why do not all people express satisfaction with the gender roles to which they are assigned, and wish to challenge or revise them? If normative binary gender is a product of biology, then a great many human beings must suffer from some sort of catastrophic mutation.
Nobody is saying that the male and female genders are not derived from or based upon the equivalent biological sexes- this being self-evidently the case- merely that they represent social custom, not an objective reality. That doesn't mean that they are not real or valid, any more than the fact that France is a construct means that they it is not, in their own way, real. All it means is that it is not an objective or absolute truth, and so need not be treated as such.
People can like whoever they want, that's not the point. The point is:
Most men are masculine, because most women prefer masculine men. Most women are feminine, because most men prefer feminine women. Outliers and statistical abnormalities are not interesting in this discussion, precisely because they are not part of normality in this picture.
You conflate the majority with an objective norm, which is not at all accurate. One may as well claim that whites are the "norm" in the United States, or that Christianity is the "norm" in Europe. The "norm", remember, is not merely an average or a majority, but an assumed default the standard by which all else is judged. On what grounds to lend this privilege to the current norms, beyond majority and tradition?
And again, all norms are limiting and ultimately repressive. That's the point of norms!
That X is the point of Y does not mean that Y is justified- for that, one justify X, which is in this case a far trickier proposition.
And, finally, Tacitusitis isn't the only one who get the feeling that many feminists really do hate masculinity - and even men.
And Domination isn't the only one who thinks that socialists hate freedom. Sometimes people are wrong about things.
It's not that I believe the Jews are behind everything, but ...
That is what it sounds like to everyone who hasn't bought into his point of view from before the beginning.
Fair point.
However, I do not think that the talk contains the sort of general condemnation of masculinity which you suggest, but acts as a critique- albeit a very basic one- of traditional masculinity in particular, a far narrower construct. One could quite reasonably say, after all pre-fix a criticism of Israeli treatment of Palestinians with a refutation of anti-Semitism, especially given if an audience is likely to suggest such a conflation.
Essentially masculinity is what women value in a man. Femininity is what men value in a woman.
Do you mean averages, or norms?
I disagree. While you may find abnormal individuals among both men and women, if you exclude them from the statistics, you will find that the majority of men and women have more in common within their group than with individuals in the other group.
Well, yes, if you assume a predetermined "norm" and only measure those adhering to that norm, you will find that people tend to group into two disparate norms. Unless you can produce evidence for an utterly overwhelming disparity between men and women, which I do not believe is possible, that is simply circular logic.
That is precisely what we are discussing. Normal, functioning, heterosexual men and heterosexual women are the vast, vast majority of humans.
I meant that Tacitusitis seems to be conflating masculinity in the social sense with masculinity in a biological sense, which will inevitably lead to some miscommunication.
Funny. I guess the previous knowledge each actor has does influence what the information that is communicated to us actually is.
And, of course, it helps if we deliberately misconstrue things to avoid a difficult conversation, as Tacitusitis is so keen to do!
The statistical outliers do not matter in this discussion. Is this point really something we have to argue about?
If your rule has plentiful exceptions, then, yes, I feel justified in questioning the rule. "Most Americans are white, therefore it is the norm" sounds fine and dandy right up until the President ambles into view...
And let me point out that there is one thing about what is natural. It's quite another thing what is moral. But not all acts taken to increase morality are effective, or even good, especially if they go against how nature works.
Personally, as examples, I think it is immoral that men have a harder time getting sexual satisfaction than women. And I think it is immoral that women have a harder time getting emotional satisfaction than men. But I don't even know if this problem can be solved.
And how, exactly, "does nature work" in this matter?
I know I have it better while others have it worse, but I do not accept that they have it worse because I have it better.
Well, of course you don't. That would make your privilege morally untenable, and we can't have that.
![[pissed]](/images/smilies/pissed.gif "Pissed [pissed]")
Maybe I should switch to a rosary ring because that's how it feels
