@realcaseyrollins

The error I see here is in what is assumed to be masculine in the first place. It seems to mix up the idea of "masculinity" vs what a traditional male role is.. to me they are not at all the same. Being the sole financial provider in a home is not, for example, a show of masculinity.

@freemo Why not?

@realcaseyrollins Well to me "masculinity" is something that is not restricted to social norms of any one culture and time of place.. to define "masculinity" as strictly the qualities a traditional male had in the early 1900s seems like a narrow definition that isnt partcularly accurate outside of a minority of people who prefer that sort of life style and world view.

Yet the term masculinity is much older than that and both today and historically we have used it to describe things other than humans or even living things, but is inspired by a more universal and intrinsic set of properties of males..

For example physical strength is masculine because it doesn't depend on any world view, it is inherent and undeniable that the vast majority of men are physically stronger than the vast majority of women. So this would be an accurate term.

@freemo Interesting. It looks like you’re confusing signs of masculinity with actual masculinity.

For instance, strength is a sign of masculinity, yeah. But using that strength to beat up your wife isn’t masculine at all.

@realcaseyrollins That wording is confusing to me on two points..

1) I didnt suggest beting up your wife was masculine. That wouldnt be masculine or feminine, as a wife could also beat up her husband and it is not a trait I'd say is any more intrinsic to one over the other. Its just that the man is likely to do more damage.

2) saying something is "A sign of" is the same as saying it is a masculin trait.. if all your traits are signs of masculinity, then you are masculine. if you have some signs of masculinity and some that arent, then you are neither masculine or not.. a trait which is a sign of masculinity is a masculine trait, having a single masculine trait without consideration of your other traits does not dictate you are masculine though, but also doesnt suggest the trait is any less masculine.

@freemo Ah I see. I’m referring to the character traits of masculinity, not the physical ones. And I think @prageru is putting emphasis on these too. Someone who has tons of physically masculine traits but is passive, shirks from responsibility, and is a coward, is hardly masculine.

@realcaseyrollins

thats fair but from my perspective it doesnt appear you are refering to intrinsic character traits but rather societal ones.

I used a physical example simply because it is less easily confused with societal norms from a specific time period, not because such traits are purely physical.

Take for example the idea of a male being the "provider". we have countless examples of historic socities where women do the providing and males tend to take care of the home. so this is not at all intrinsic to males.

Now if we want a masculine character trait in my view there are some of course. I would say logic over emotion, would be masculin where women tend to consider the emotional effects of their decisions more so than men tend to.

The importance here to me is separating out a traditional male role as seen from the USA early 1900's (which is hardly a universally masculine description) vs those qualities that are intrinsically male.

@prageru

@freemo @prageru

Take for example the idea of a male being the “provider”. we have countless examples of historic socities where women do the providing and males tend to take care of the home. so this is not at all intrinsic to males.

Well, we have countless examples of men not beating up their wives. So, using this same logic, not beating up women “is not at all intrinsic to males”, and thus not beating up women is not masculine.

This discussion should center around what men should do IMHO, not what they actually do.

@realcaseyrollins

> Well, we have countless examples of men not beating up their wives. So, using this same logic, not beating up women “is not at all intrinsic to males”, and thus not beating up women is not masculine.

Exactly thats what I said when you first brought up the example, beating up your wife is not masculine, it is also not counter-masculin. It simply does not describe gender one way or the other. The fact that we have countless examples of men who dont beat up their wives, and examples of wives beating up men, is as you say (and as i said earlier) evidence of that.

It is not about what men do, or dont do.. its about what is intrinsicly male (in other words, those characteristics that there is more commonly genetic expression for in men over women).

While I might agree that what men should do is a **more important** thing to talk about, I dont that is an accurate way to describe what masculinity is, at that point you are simply describing what a healthy male in modern society would be, that isnt the same thing IMO.

@prageru

@freemo @prageru

While I might agree that what men should do is a more important thing to talk about, I dont that is an accurate way to describe what masculinity is, at that point you are simply describing what a healthy male in modern society would be, that isnt the same thing IMO.

Why does this not mirror masculinity in your eyes?

@realcaseyrollins

Because it turns masculinity in a term that has no meaning outside of your own personal cultural framework. Moreover to the vast majority of people there is nothing that a man or a woman should or shouldnt do, only things people should or shouldnt do.. so by redefining masculinity in this way would make it a word that no longer exists to the vast majority of society outside of a few traditionalists. Those people do not and should not be able to claim ownership of a word that has been around for many hundreds of years and never limited to said group.

Moreover it would completely eliminate the use of the word when applying to things other than humans, which is quite common in language, so it would completely rewrite the usage of the word and redefine it, something I am not a fan of. For example lace and frilly things is generally considered feminine as physical objects, if we decide to rewrite the dictionary and make "feminine" only mean "Character traits a woman should have" then it would make no sense in this context and contextes like it.

@prageru

@freemo
If we define "masculinity" as those traits that are intrinsically male, without respect to one's cultural framework -- like logic or strength, to use your examples -- would you agree that a society with a deficiency in those traits, regardless of who possessed or exhibited them, may have a greater difficulty surviving in the long term?

@realcaseyrollins

@curt

Hard to say without a bit more detail. Certainly if we still lived in pre-historic times then a defiency of traits evolved to deal durvive would reduce survivability. But as a species we live in a unique situation where our genetic evolution was shadowed by our intellectual evolution. Instead of passing down genes we learned to pass down ideas to much greater effect.

As suchwe have an unusually high holdover of genetic traits from pre-historic times that do not improve survivability in modern times or even, in fact, reduce our survivability by the shear fact that our intellectual evolution happened to lap our genetic evolution.

As such it is no longer a truism that everything that is a evolved trait is useful to our modern day environment or survivability.

@realcaseyrollins

@freemo
Within a society, the transmission of ideas is certainly important, but not every contemporary society transmits the same set of ideas. When those ideas clash, as they sometimes do, our intellectual evolution will help us, but it may only take us so far.

@realcaseyrollins

@curt

While that statement is true I do not see it as being at odds with my last one. Yes when cultures clash our intellect will only take us so far.. that does not imply however that all of our genetic traits will help us deal with that scenario any better.

@realcaseyrollins