What does it mean to be a man?

That you love a good bj. And I'm not inferring your user name... If you catch my drift ;)

But I jest, Esquire Burger.

This has potential to get me thinking. I guess I'll revisit it later tonight.

Your inherent problem - you essentialize both genders. They are not dichotomies, they are variables on a scale. A man who works as a nurse is as manly as a woman who assembles cars.

Further, sex is gendered.

Are there biological differences between men and women? Obviously. But how far and to what degree do they go? Hard to say. Again, sex is gendered. Can you say, with an honest mind, that you do not, in any degree whatsoever, project a certain idea of masculinity and femininity based on what you think is a man or a woman? I certainly can't. Anything else is intellectual dishonesty in my mind.

Basically, this whole thread is just making gender anyway. You're asserting a specific type of masculinity here. Do note though, there is no THE masculinity. We can only talk about MASCULINITIES. Again, I refer back to my manly nurse and womanly car assembly-ist.

This isn't feminist rantings. I always disliked classifying myself as such either way. But you should be very careful what you are saying and thinking here. I think there's a certain lack of self-reflection, or perhaps understanding, of the concept and performativity of gender in your post.

A man is always as manly as he thinks he is. And really, that's all there is to it. Just like a woman is always as womanly as she thinks she is. And that's all there is to it. Again, it's a variable scale.

So if you think those values you enlisted defines your definition of masculinity, fine enough. Just don't go tell another man that just because he cannot fulfill those values he's not manly. He simply adheres to a different definition of masculinity than you do. Again, MASCULINITIES, not masculinity.

As for Arnie... ask yourself: do you think it's manly because you've been taught to believe is manly or because you believe there is some inherent natural quality of it that is manly, based on biology?

I am not denying that what Arnie does is manly, but similarly, I think it's as awesome and cool when women blow up robots like Arnie does. Or at least, goes on bloody killing sprees like Arnie does. Unfortunately Hollywood rarely allows women to blow up giant robots.



I really cannot deny the badassery of Selene. I cannot. Yet in my mind, would I never classify her as a man. Yes, I am guilty of gendering in this thread too.

Interesting forum post.

As a woman I have to say, that I indeed prefer manly man (manly in a sort of traditional way). James Bond is that kind of ideal. Though I'd prefer devoted to one woman James Bond =].

When I see younger men (more like boys) and how unmanly they act and look, I am sad, sometimes even disgusted. For example some of them obviously spend more time in front of a mirror doing their hair than most women. Of course I can't say, that it applies generally to all, but trend of feminization is set. Even here.

There are even those subcultures of hispters or guidos for example.

Well, well... this topic reminds me of this:

Society is reaping the rewards of the feminization of men already.

When the Titanic sank, men that tried to enter the lifeboats before women and children were beat to a pulp by the other men aboard. When this Italian ship went down, pregnant women were shoved and bullies out of the way (while their husbands began to think about filing a lawsuit, instead of laying out the shit-for-brains who just manhandled his wife and child.)

In the Polytechnique Massacre here in Canada, Marc Lépine, an anti-woman leftie who blamed his poor marks on women, entered a classroom, armed, and demanded all the men leave the room. The men obliged and continued to exit the room, even as Lépine opened fire on their classmates, friends, and girlfriends. Even the campus security, rather than storm the room and put two bullets in Lépine's knees (or head, I'm not fussy in cases like this), waited around for the RCMP.

When a 28 year old male (we cannot, in good conscience, call him a "man") saw a 10-year-old boy getting sodomized in a shower by football coach Jerry Sandusky, he turned around and walked out of the locker room.

Namby-pamby, post-moderns will say that gender is a social construct. Might be. But I know that losing that "construct" is a huge loss for humanity. "Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up." - G K Chesterton.

Good to know that to win Dolce's heart all I need to do is pick up a gun.
Oh and a shaken Martini is a weak one (not very manly, is it).

But really I agree with bj to an extent. There were reasons behind certain fences, but I think that these days there mostly moot. I can drink with the best of them but most women could probably beat me in an arm wrestle, tick one box and cross out another, we can't all be winners here and not all men easily fit into your masculine mold but they shouldn't be looked down on for it.

It is also nice to think that we could defend our fellow students, but how many of us has had a gun pointed at our face and told to leave. I would also like to think I could stand my ground ( and for some people I probably could), but If I am being honest I would probably high tail it out of there.

Tuco1992 said:
most women could probably beat me in an arm wrestle

Lol please tell me you're kidding. And if not, start lifting weights. No one says you have to be Adonis or Schwarzenegger (I'm not!), but that is a bit much, dude...

Agreed! Nowadays people are so obsessed with getting a degree at university... This itself might not sound all that bad... BUT! Horrendous amount of people study bullshit (environmental studies, philosophy, gender studies, european studies, musicology, film studies and so on and on...). Those people are good at writing essays about ... nothing. Or at least nothing important and on top of that those essays have no value, since they don't change anything, they won't make a new better technology. It's nothing, but a rant.


Ehm...

I don't need to remind you that it is thank to those gender people you are now capable of going to the uni yourself instead of being forced to be at home with kids?

You study political science, I could equally argue how little that changes the world. The academia isn't about changing things, it's about gathering and spreading knowledge. Do you even realize what you say when you claim it's pointless to study philosophy...? Well, I think I let Waldheri explain the importance of philosophy for you when it comes to that one. Suffice to say, it is quite a ludicrous claim. We wouldn't even have adademia if people shared that notion with you, anyhow, because philosophy would've died out with the Greeks.

I am happy you are not in charge of telling people what they should and should not do. You might be surprised how capable the humanist and social sciences are at changing the world. They don't invent new technologies, but they certainly help to progress OUR THOUGHTS.

There were no students of "gender studies" back then. And it was back then, when situation started changing for women. But it's not like that women were "oppressed" back then. Our primary role used to be different, because it was enough for just a man to go to work. And just like Burger said, women could do all sorts of stuff. If they wanted to of course. Also I don't think taking care of home is something to be looked down upon, it's still a quite important task to do, unless you want to live in a mess.

You can't imagine, how much I regret those 5 years of my political science studies now. I finished my master degree just not to waste those 5 years completely. Also that's why I started studying certain foreign languages 2 years ago. I've also started taking "management" courses. And if I could come back in time, I'd make a very different decision those 5 years ago. I'd have probably tried some hard science (maybe something close to biology such as "molecular biology and genetics") or engineering or maybe industrial design or dressmaker? ... Even if I wasn't good enough to become the best of the best, I would love helping those best with their projects. Now I am of no help to those people... I am of no help to anyone, when it comes to my academic specialization. Who cares, that I know, that nazism is not fascism, how does it help, that I can tell a difference between political regime and political system? And name all the regimes and systems and so on and on and on...

Progressing thoughts is not as important as progressing technology in my opinion.

Nevertheless, let very few people study philosophy... What I however object is the amount of people at universities, which means that quality drops, but also that people are studying nonsense and keep inventing more and more useless "studies", the latest add I've noticed at the faculty of philosophy is "theory of interactive media" :D. By far the very most populated faculties are those of social sciences and philosophy, which is quite disturbing.

I think the best contribution to society I can do now is to have children and educate them in a way, they would not become social scientists, philosophers or something like this. =]

Besides, most social scientists seem to make our world worse, not better. At least in 20th and 21st century. I also have to say, that social scientists (social engineers) have no responsibility. And it's them, who try to dictate. In today's society. In modern times, those people are of pretty much no use mostly. Most of them can hardly find employment (not all of those tens of thousands of social scientists can be employed by the government or some NGO). I am not saying it's impossible to find a job, but of course preferred are engineers, technicians, medics, intelligent people willing to work manually and so on. It's them, who push us forward, who are the backbone of this society. And those people are slowly disappearing.

To make at least some connection to the original post... I think all this is connected to feminization too. Feminized men just prefer contemplating to actually working. I am afraid most young men can hardly do at least a little bit complicated manual work and on top of that they look down on manual work and are unwilling to do it. Just like the numbers of capable, strong, efficient and competent policemen, military men, firefighters are slowly diminishing too.

Dolce,

I agree so much about doing things differently lol. I actually decided to drop out of uni, cut my losses, and look at doing something else (I'm looking at 2-year programs in either Investment Management, Finance, or Underwater Welding.) Good call on learning other languages. I really want to start studying either Mandarin or Arabic, and maybe finally become fluent in French. (I'm "functional" in French. If I woke up, stranded in Paris, I could order food and give directions to a cab, and board a plane fine. Just not able to be argumentative or poetic or things of that nature.)


Another problem, in general, with academia is that there is no real diversity of thought. University, at least in Canada and America, is generally more about adopting the right "attitude" (liberalism, non-judgmental multi-culturalism, Keynesianism, Marxism, atheism) more than it is about pushing the envelope or challenging prevailing orthodoxies.

It's funny, once the universities had been fully "converted" to those aforementioned "-isms", the educators became far more dogmatic than the original, often Catholic, academics who began universities in the first place.

I'm digressing, though.

As for what it takes to be a man, I'd add these to BJ's list:
- Strength; including mental and emotional.
- Maturity and Responsibility; also, part of maturity, I think, is knowing not to take life or yourself TOO seriously.
- Courage. We've all but lost courage in our modern era. During the London riots last year, some of the most inspiring photographs were of Sikh men, aged 12-80, standing in front of their temples and storefronts. While the entitled English man-children were trashing things, these men merely stood there, with resolve, as if saying, "Break my property... I... Dare... You." Bad ass.

That was an interesting essay, Dolce. It mentions a notion which I have recently surmised about but haven't looked into yet, that women's migration into the workforce was not as a result of feminist action, but a natural migration as the workforce changed to include more and more jobs that didn't require upper body strength and jobs that women had a natural talent for. The misallocation of cause is similar to how labour unions and intellectuals claim credit for ending child labour.

So since women in the workforce are not going anywhere and male breadwinning is not the primary goal for men, nor supporting women, though those things certainly still exist to some extent, what do you think will either emerge as the "goal" for men? As mentioned in the essay there used to be a general approach to life; childhood, adolescence, marriage, childrearing, and death. If these middle two aspects are becoming less and less important to people, is there an imperative to bring them back (Even if not the old roles) or some kind of reworking of men and women's roles to stem either feminization or, and I would say far worse, the creation of man-children? (Questions directed at anybody, by the way)

I think men themselves will someday realize that many women just don't want to marry man-children or overly feminine men. I am convinced most of us women (I mean at least a little bit mature ones) don't want a weepy, rude, lazy, non-independent boys, who on top of that make not much more or maybe less money than women... So I think, they (men) themselves will see, that this is not, what they want to live like, because such a way is not the way to impress a lady. Of course, not all men will adapt, but then there will always be "winners" and "losers". In this case gentlemen and man-children.

Also I am of that opinion, that even though losers tend to be glorified by politically correct people, gentlemen will not just disappear, if ever. For the reason I mentioned above and for many other reasons I believe.

To what men to say 'yes'? To what men 'no'? (a little list a certain woman made, it provides a hint or two: http://blissbombed.com/2012/01/hell-yes-hell-no/)


LeaTelamon said:
Because they go hand in hand with the rest? Evolution theory was born out of the Enlightenment movement.
Or more likely the actual Enlightenment movement just reflected all the changes and technological progress and didn't give birth to it. If they even viewed themselves as some sort of movement at all.

I think men themselves will someday realize that many women just don't want to marry man-children or overly feminine men. I am convinced most of us women (I mean at least a little bit mature ones) don't want a weepy, rude, lazy, non-independent boys, who on top of that make not much more or maybe less money than women... So I think, they (men) themselves will see, that this is not, what they want to live like, because such a way is not the way to impress a lady. Of course, not all men will adapt, but then there will always be "winners" and "losers". In this case gentlemen and man-children.

I think this shows a narrow view of masculinity. It's not either or, it's a wide spectrum. If anything, in my experience, most of the so called macho men you are referring to are the ones I personally experience to be immature and childish in their behavior, especially those that are anti-feminism everything.

Case in point: the early black metal movement for example. It's the epitome of childish men attempting to reject modernity at large. I don't know what you mean by gentlemen but chauvinistic men have never really attracted me anyway.

In Sweden it is very much attractive for men to currently show interest in meeting women on equal terms so your statement is again very narrow-minded and only seems to cater your personal opinions on the subject rather than judging masculinity as a whole and how people over the world act differently according to their gender.


Or more likely the actual Enlightenment movement just reflected all the changes and technological progress and didn't give birth to it. If they even viewed themselves as some sort of movement at all.


I don't think this ever has been a matter of what came first. Rather, they all emerged at the same time. It's something holistic. The French revolution didn't occur as one individual instance but it occurred as a reaction of everything happening in France at the time and the history in which it was situated in and so on and so forth.