To be a man

[Cramulus]

ehh I thought his post was fine. He gets the difference between sex and gender, and talks about gender as a social construct, so he's clearly not talking out of his ass even if he hasn't explicitly read the literature.

I don't mind if people discuss topics they haven't studied -- as long as they have something interesting to say. I thought this was an interesting question.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

ehh I thought his post was fine. He gets the difference between sex and gender, and talks about gender as a social construct, so he's clearly not talking out of his ass even if he hasn't explicitly read the literature.

I don't mind if people discuss topics they haven't studied -- as long as they have something interesting to say. I thought this was an interesting question.

Yeah, but read my post. I'm not saying that his thoughts/opinions don't have validity, just that it's difficult to have a very deep conversation about it until he knows a little about what's already being talked about on the subject. Then I recommended some materials for him if he's genuinely interested in taking the conversation beyond waiting-room chitchat.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

He has good questions.

[Placid Dingo]

To me, this does not suggest that Cap should be shorter and skinnier, but that you (we) should insulate yourself against the empire of signs and signals.

I brought up CA because he IS short and skinny at the start; I was surprised to find a masculine ideal I actually intimately identified with. That's what got me thinking about this whole subject area. And agree on the insulation idea.

I think that ambiguity is a very useful thing to keep in mind. If you can see that the meaning of these images is self-generated, rather than imposed from outside, it's harder for those images to get inside your head and start pushing your self-worth buttons.

I'm not opposed to a sense of ambiguity. I think it's a good start. But I don't think that it's the end point for comprehending your personal sense of self. I'm exploring the idea that unless you have some personalised concept of gender you're willing to accept, there's not a lot to do with all those existing narratives except the old 'yeah well, that's just, like, your opinion man.'

Best example of what I'm trying to say came as a reply where I cross-posted this.

Men are people who say they're men.
I don't see why you'd want anything else. What's so great about pointless restrictions and harmful goals? Fuck the whole idea of masculinity, whether new or old.

So masculinity is nothing and doesn't matter? I don't like that any more that the idea that masculinity is clearly and specifically defined. I think that a definition does matter, but it doesn't have to be the same for everyone.

Does this conversation also apply to things like race? Is there an essential "blackness" that we've lost through postmodernism, and is it important to protect that? People identify with race, they use it to tell their stories about who they are and where they're going. And certainly the media has a large bearing on how we think about race. I'm not going anywhere with that, just food for thought.

That did occur to me. I guess for whatever reason I just found the gender narrative more interesting at time of writing, but I'm love to explore ideas of race narrative. I am a very white Aussie teaching Japanese, and often seem to be more culturally asian than my GF who is Australian born Chinese (she calls me a boiled egg; white on the outside, yellow on the inside). So the ideas of race narratives interest and excite me in a few ways.

As to the bolded, I don't think masculinity needs to be protected but I do feel there needs to be a better way of defining it than either taking the prepackaged version or just saying 'fuck it, it's all crap'.

Which of the men posting ITT does NOT wield fabulous facial hair?

The biggest problem I have with that whole post is in the first line:

I've NEVER read any gender theory

Now, I'm not saying that your opinion/thoughts are invalid simply because you haven't done any research or study into what's already being said; it's just that, right there, I can see that you have a desire to postulate on an existing dialogue without so much as finding out where that dialogue is at. It has a bit of similarity to Trix wanting to discuss first-year ethics without having just taken a damn ethics class or reading a book on ethics. Ever had a little kid come up to you and tell you about politics? You can tell that they feel really sophisticated, but the ideas they're dropping are extremely naive and simplistic, because they just don't know better yet. They're at a beginning point, and you can't have a serious conversation with them about politics because they just aren't educated in what they're talking about.

Yeah. I'm happy to agree with that. The main point of writing was to get the ideas in my head out of my head, and initiate some kind of feedback cycle by getting responses. But I appreciate that, especially for people who have actually studied this stuff, the whole thing must be frustrating, and I apologise.

I really liked the article you linked me, and am interested that there's possibly more happening than a confused perception of masculinity, that in real measurable terms we can see men developing a sense of uncertainty about their role in life and the world.

I have a fucker of a reading list, but the works you suggested are going pretty high up on it. Thank you.

[Kai]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiXaT_1I-vw


what makes a man, is it the power in his hands?
is it his quest for glory?
Give it all you've got, to fight to the top.
so we can know your story.

now you're a man, a man, man, man.
now you're a man, a manly, manly man.
a man, man, man.
you are now a man, you're a man.
now you're a man.

what makes a man, is it the woman in his arms?
just cause she has big titties?
or is it the way, he fights every day?
No, it's probably the titties.

now you're a man, a man, man, man.
now you're a ma-man, a ma-ma-ma-ma-man
now you're a man, M-A-N man, man.
man, man, maan.
now you're a man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HSj-2shbqY

[Kai]

To answer the OP:

Like most things, I take an absurdist view of gender. There are biological roots for gender, to some extent. Humans, like most metazoan species have two sexes, one of those sexes having a larger gamete (anisogamy), and the sex with the larger gamete carries the developing young to birth, and provides nutrition to the infant until they can eat other foods. From this, there's an obvious biological division of labor that proceeds. The social nature of humans means both sexes have roles in post natal care. The sex which must bear and care for the young directly for several years is more vulnerable to predation and has less time for food gathering, so the sex with the smaller gametes has more time for food gathering and defending from predation. In outward appearance and abilities the sexes fall into two slightly separate distrobutions: those with the larger gametes have a higher BMI and tend to be shorter and less muscular than those with the smaller gametes. Since the parental care is higher for one sex, the sex with the larger gametes is generally more mate selective, and the smaller more mate promiscuous, but in social animals the post natal care is generally significant for both sexes and therefore this difference is less pronounced. There are other secondary sexual characters that aid in distinguishing between these two as well, and primary sexual characters related to gamete transfer, embryonic development and post natal care, but these are as I said above.

And it's an imperfect system, just like all biology. There are humans who's gametes are incompatible but neurologically they seek out those sexual characters anyway (gays, lesbians and bisexuals). There are people who seem to have a fundamental incompatibility between sexual characters and their neurology (transgenders) or neurologies that are incompatible with sexual characters in some way or all together (asexuals, neutrois, etc). There are many people who are infertile, or have a mixture of sexual characters rendering them biologically infertile (intersex).  None of these are really a big deal in social animals since psychological or biological infertility doesn't necessarily cause a loss in productivity (e.g. sterile workers in social insects).

While theres a tendency for sexes to follow particular roles in social mammals related to anisogamy, theres no standard beyond what I've said above. The roles are based primarily along the extent of the inequality of parental imputs, both social and biological. Any gender narrative beyond this is largely a cultural and social construct. Since I am an absurdist, I assert that the fundamental nature of gender is absurd, it may have meaning, but the meaning is unclear, and that we should individually construct our own narrative on what it means, or if it even necessitates further exposition than anisogamy. Personally, I see gender as archetypes. Archetypes don't really exist of course, they're just ideals. There's no reason why there can't be a bunch of gender ideals.

tl;dr: Biological sex confers some basic trends, but they should not be used as rules for behavior. If you don't like the gender narrative you are assigned, or feel lost without one, construct your own along absurdist rules. I'm sure you know people with qualities you admire. So construct your narrative around those qualities. Figuring out what 'being a man' means to you is really no different than figuring out what sort of person you want to be.

Disclaimer: While the biological stuff in this is true afaik, the other shit may be, well, bullshit.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

For most of human existence, biological sex has played the major determining role in identity. If you were female, it was basically biologically preordained that you would bear young and spend most of your life tending to them. If you were male, you would spend most of your life doing some variation of looking for food for your family/community. With technology, both biological and social, we have changed that. For those of us in first-world countries, we get to determine our identities according to choices we make. In a sense, the Catholics do have it very right; we are playing God by having the temerity to shape and control our own identities. At one point, not even all that long ago, I would have had two choices of identity; mother, or nun. Now, I can choose to be a mother or not to be a mother, and even greater, I can choose from an infinite spectrum of other identity-defining aspects of life.

Gender roles can be useful in some ways, but they are becoming decreasingly meaningful as people define and express themselves in ways that have nothing to do with genitalia or reproduction. It does, for some, create an increased internal pressure as there is decreased social guidance on what constitutes being a "good man" or "good woman". However, are there any attributes of a good man which are not also applicable to being a good woman, or vise versa? Or do all such attributes constitute the nature of a good human being? I think the focus would be more useful if it was shifted to framing it as "what makes a good adult".

[Don Coyote]

For most of human existence, biological sex has played the major determining role in identity. If you were female, it was basically biologically preordained that you would bear young and spend most of your life tending to them. If you were male, you would spend most of your life doing some variation of looking for food for your family/community. With technology, both biological and social, we have changed that. For those of us in first-world countries, we get to determine our identities according to choices we make. In a sense, the Catholics do have it very right; we are playing God by having the temerity to shape and control our own identities. At one point, not even all that long ago, I would have had two choices of identity; mother, or nun. Now, I can choose to be a mother or not to be a mother, and even greater, I can choose from an infinite spectrum of other identity-defining aspects of life.

Gender roles can be useful in some ways, but they are becoming decreasingly meaningful as people define and express themselves in ways that have nothing to do with genitalia or reproduction. It does, for some, create an increased internal pressure as there is decreased social guidance on what constitutes being a "good man" or "good woman". However, are there any attributes of a good man which are not also applicable to being a good woman, or vise versa? Or do all such attributes constitute the nature of a good human being? I think the focus would be more useful if it was shifted to framing it as "what makes a good adult".

THIS

[Kai]

I think the focus would be more useful if it was shifted to framing it as "what makes a good adult".

Nailed it.

[Triple Zero]

I think the focus would be more useful if it was shifted to framing it as "what makes a good adult".

Nailed it.

That's what he said!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think the focus would be more useful if it was shifted to framing it as "what makes a good adult".

Nailed it.

That's what he said!

[The Johnny]

For most of human existence, biological sex has played the major determining role in identity. If you were female, it was basically biologically preordained that you would bear young and spend most of your life tending to them. If you were male, you would spend most of your life doing some variation of looking for food for your family/community. With technology, both biological and social, we have changed that. For those of us in first-world countries, we get to determine our identities according to choices we make. In a sense, the Catholics do have it very right; we are playing God by having the temerity to shape and control our own identities. At one point, not even all that long ago, I would have had two choices of identity; mother, or nun. Now, I can choose to be a mother or not to be a mother, and even greater, I can choose from an infinite spectrum of other identity-defining aspects of life.

Gender roles can be useful in some ways, but they are becoming decreasingly meaningful as people define and express themselves in ways that have nothing to do with genitalia or reproduction. It does, for some, create an increased internal pressure as there is decreased social guidance on what constitutes being a "good man" or "good woman". However, are there any attributes of a good man which are not also applicable to being a good woman, or vise versa? Or do all such attributes constitute the nature of a good human being? I think the focus would be more useful if it was shifted to framing it as "what makes a good adult".

What i can add to this, is that there's post-feminists that critique earlier waves of feminists, not because of their deconstruction of gender, but because of their take on the reconstruction of "what a woman is" because it was a universalization from a skewed perspective of upper class white women speaking for all women.

So unless the reconstruction of gender identity/role doesnt come from an individual's perspective, it turns into an imposition.

[Placid Dingo]

Quote feature failing, but thanks all for your responses, especially Nigel's which were great.

Jon'nyx's second paragraph and Kai's tldr were pretty much what I was trying to express in the op, but possibly a bit better articulated.

[Phox]

Nigel and Kai have said everything that I would say on this subject, so I'll just laugh at LMNO and Kai's links. 

[Kai]

On the same line as this thread, I'm looking for an article from a few years back about changing gender roles in Japan. The article was particularly about these men who had home making crafts as secret hobbies. I can't figure out where I saw this or who pointed it out to me, but I think Nigel also saw it. Do any of you remember?

I usually keep these things in Zotero so I can find them again, but I didn't for this.

ETA: I just remembered part of it. The article talked about "herbivorous males".

ETA: Found it! http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120696816

Multiple recent surveys suggest that about 60 percent of young Japanese men — in their 20s and early 30s — identify themselves as herbivores. Their Sex and the City is a television show called Otomen, or Girly Guys. The lead character is a martial arts expert, the manliest guy in the whole school. But his secret passions include sewing, baking and crocheting clothes for his stuffed animals.

"I will hide my true nature," he vows in the first episode, as he sews secretly, shut away in his living room. "At all times, I will be a man — a real Japanese man," he says.

But what does that mean?

"It's not so much that men are becoming more like women. It's that the concept of masculinity is changing," says Katsuhiko Kokobun.