I tried to turn to my heavy background in feminist theory and gender theory to try to understand this limiting devaluing of masculinity, but found a gap. Feminism hasn't dug down deep into masculinity the same way it has dug down deep into femininity, and those who are digging down deep into masculinity are often reproducing some sort of essentialist tripe that clashes with feminism and feels completely removed from explaining my own experience. I want a masculinist theory that grows out of feminism, that works with women instead of against, that understands that all the so-called "man-hating" issues of feminism have much more to do with backlash than with fundamental philosophies of the work.
So I have studied butch. I was not born with swagger: I learned it.I have studied butch. I was not born with swagger: I learned it. I earned it. I was not born knowing how to use a cock or tie a tie or match my belt to my shoes or court a girl or refrain from chivalry when it's not welcome or to contain something big and chaotic.I earned it. I was not born knowing how to use a cock or tie a tie or match my belt to my shoes or court a girl or refrain from chivalry when it's not welcome or to contain something big and chaotic. I have read everything I can, gone to the performances, asked my friends or perfect strangers for their definitions and understandings and hardships. I've found that most of the misunderstandings come from simple, basic sexism—simple, basic policings of masculinity—like when I ordered a vanilla vodka and cranberry from the bartender at my regular bar and she leaned over the counter, confidentially, and said, "Really? Are you sure? Because that's awfully ... sweet."
Implying, of course, that sweet drinks are for girls and wasn't I a guy? A guy's guy? A butch's butch? Come on, order something that'll put hair on your chest, like whiskey or beer!
Why the fuck can't I just order what I want to order?
It isn't just me, either. As I've been more confident and explorative in my presentation and understanding of my masculinity, I've been observing over and over the limitations of masculinity in others, and the effect these limitations have on all kinds of people with masculine presentations—gay boys, trans men, straight men, women who date men, female masculinity, men who are unemployed in this recession, non-traditional men like my yogi straight cis male roommate, anybody who loves or cares for or is related to or interacts with men or masculine people.
The restrictions and prescriptions for masculinity affect everybody.
There are so many rules of masculinity which are really fucking painful, to ourselves and to others. The competition, the fighting, the physical violence, the anger, the rage, the lack of emotional expression, the policing of each other's weaknesses, the presumption that someone masculine is always sexually available and is probably sexually promiscuous, the issues of commitment, the expectations of "bringing home the bacon."
Of course, it is not all bad. There are beautiful traits, too, care-taking and problem solving and the use of tools and innovative thinking and observation and leading others in passion and entering and embiggening and guiding energy in just the right way. There are many people doing all sorts of Radical Masculinity work already—butches, genderqueers, gender-non-conformist folks, masculine trans women, effeminate trans men, gay men, men who are professional pastry chefs, metrosexuals, guy yogis, feminist men, the "new" stay-at-home-dads, and all sorts of other aspects of masculinity that are still desperate to be explored.
So many questions about masculinity still remain: what are male traits? What makes a 'good man'? What is a positive presentation of masculinity? What are masculine traits? Sure, I can describe physical presentation and some sort of energy movement, but what about emotional traits, what about interpersonal traits? Is there any truth to the broad-sweeping concepts about men from one planet and women from another? Can we really make any emotional, psychological, or interpersonal conclusions by dividing people by gender? I remain unconvinced that those conclusions are much more than stereotypes.
But I do know that we need to continue struggling and stumbling into a new masculinity, a radical masculinity, a masculinity that is not painful for those who wear it or those who fall in love with it or for those who interact with it. Radical masculinity does not hurt. Radical masculinity is strong enough to be vulnerable and receptive enough to put his foot down. Radical masculinity is trans men and fairy fags and butches who do girly drag. Radical masculinity is straight women with cropped hair and tool belts marrying men, not apologizing, refusing to take the lesbian jokes personally. Radical masculinity is a new form of fatherhood, of manhood, of adulthood, of humanhood. Radical masculinity is feminist men doing real work for equality and liberation for everyone. Radical masculinity is football games with your daughter's ballet class and ice cream sundaes with your high school son's best friends. Radical masculinity is big cuddly bears and vicious hardcore dharma punx, urban cowboys and the sexiest MMA fighters, yogis and your brother with his new baby and yes even sometimes your dad, showing everyone that you can teach an old dog new tricks.
Radical masculinity is a way to present, perform, play with, celebrate, and liberate masculinity, in thousands of multi-dimensional expressions. It is still being created, recreated, formed, and reformed, and I want to be a part of its ongoing evolution.
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Masculinity
For many men, masculinity is defined by behavior that attracts women. Women, especially feminized women, often say they want one sort of man, but are often sexually attracted toward a different sort of man. I think women need to realize how much like trained animals MOST men actually are. The behavior you reward, is the behavior that will be emulated. Being considerate, and respectful of women, has never earned me so much as the scent of vagina and being a jerk has. I lost my virginity to a woman 6 years my senior, i was 18, after telling her "Your too homely for my tastes but your friend is hot." I was raised in a liberal household, my mother was a working woman, I was raised to believe that that was a horrible thing to say, and yet that attitude was rewarded with intercourse. To me this was a clear indicator that being a dick got a positive response from women, especially after Nice Guying myself into the friend zone while assholes laid the girls i loved throughout my teen years.
As a grown man now, I've decided that women and their expectations and desires, and my ability to meet their demands, do not define my manhood. I've discovered that the ultimate display of manhood, is to do what you wanna do, and fuck what everyone thinks.
What is honestly more masculine, than telling EVERYONE, EVERYONE, to take their expectations and stereotypes, and shove them up their respective asses?
If none of this makes sense, then I apologize, because its Wednesday afternoon and I'm drunk. Thats right, I'm too masculine to wait until Friday like all you conformist pussies out there.
"Women, especially feminized
"Women, especially feminized women, often say they want one sort of man, but are often sexually attracted toward a different sort of man. I think women need to realize how much like trained animals MOST men actually are. The behavior you reward, is the behavior that will be emulated"
Number 1: you assume all women think the same way, this is as ridiculous as assuming all men think the same way - which you do. Number 2: It is insulting to men say that they are trained animals who only respond to the possibility of almighty Pussy. Men are not controlled by their sexual appetites any more than women.
"Being considerate, and respectful of women, has never earned me so much as the scent of vagina and being a jerk has."
Why not just be considerate and respectful of women because YOU SHOULD RESPECT AND BE CONSIDERATE OF PEOPLE? We are not masturbatory aids that need you to flick the right number of switches before catching your jizz.
I call troll.
That wasn't really the point
That wasn't really the point of his post.
I call flame.
Oh I think that was exactly
Oh I think that was exactly the point of his post. Or was the point finding a place to whine?
Pretty accurate
As much as I dislike what you said, you are pretty on target. As long as women reserve nice guys for friends and screw the bad guys the negative incentive remains. This doesn't mean that women bear the blame, but don't be surprised if men roll their eyes when we hear women lamenting that lack of sensitive men. Of course, men are guilty of speaking out of both sides of our mouths too. Likely we could all stand to be more honest about what we seek in a spouse.
Related to this topic, real masculinity is having the conviction to stand up for what is right and to lead by example. It makes you stronger, emotionally and spiritually speaking, than you can normally behave. When men draw on this source of power and use it to promote justice and order they are respected. When they abdicate their calling to lead they are treated as effeminate know-nothings, as is often the case these days. In other words, step up to it men.
Radical masculinity
What are the positive traits that make us successful human beings? Can we impart and teach and imbue our cultures and our feelings for all the various "genders" with those? I want to offer a few traits, and perhaps others will add to the list:
Courage
Intrepid curiosity
Loving kindness
A sense of honor and personal Integrity
Enough empathy
Nimble intelligence
Sense of humor
Consideration
Creativity
Humility when appropriate
Largesse when appropriate
Sensuality
compassion self worth taking
compassion
self worth
taking responsibility for oneself
questingness
reverence
boldness
liberality and generousity
I like it. As Deleuze says,
I like it. As Deleuze says, "a thousand tiny sexes".
I'm saddened
I went through this whole article, hoping to see some examples of radical masculinity. And there was...not very much.
And that made me sad.
And then I noticed that this would be continued, that this was an introduction!
And that made me happy.
Hurry up and write more, Sugarbutch!
Excellent article, with
Excellent article, with several valid points. I'm actually writing an essay right now about how the movie The Big Lebowski shows these notions of evolving masculinity.
As a man who self identifies as a feminist, I know that there is an analysis gap between classical masculinity and classical femininity, and this makes it easy for men to write off feminism wholesale.
comment from the peanut gallery
Believe me when i say that i always enjoy your writing, but i do think your gender-related posts are the best. I've been reading your stuff for a few months now and a lot of it reminds me of the kind of discussions that spark up once in a while when i'm with my friends. Truth be told, said discussions are few and far between, and they tend to fizzle out before we're really able to get in depth. If anything, this is the direction i'd like to go in when we do have those chats and i would if given half the chance.
But that's not the reason i'm commenting. I'm commenting because i read a point that made me laugh my ass off. You wrote:
"Implying, of course, that sweet drinks are for girls and wasn't I a guy? A guy's guy? A butch's butch? Come on, order something that'll put hair on your chest, like whiskey or beer!
Why the fuck can't I just order what I want to order?"
It brings up a very funny issue that i've noticed quite a bit when i go out. If i'm wearing my typical outfit (jeans, button-down shirt, the occasional vest and/or tie) and i order a fruity drink, i often get odd looks. It's almost like i'm not acting butch enough. If, however, i go out in drag, the story is quite different.
When i'm in drag, the only thing that differs from my normal appearance is that i use mascara to add a bit of a 5 o' clock shadow. That's it. That's all it takes to make everyone assume i'm a young metrosexual man. And when a metrosexual dude orders a fruity drink and isn't getting it for the woman he's with, nobody thinks twice.
Apparently, it is more of a societal norm for a metrosexual guy to order a fruity drink than it is for an androgynous dyke to do the same thing.
It's not just a drink thing, of course. It's almost as if people expect me to be more masculine when i'm "butched up" than they do when i'm out in drag. When buying tampons, for instance, people either see a dyke who must know all about car maintenance, or a sweet young man on an errand for his girlfriend.
Anyway, that's pretty much all there is to my comment. Nothing important. Just wanted to add my two cents and to say that i really do enjoy reading what you post.
- Tristan
Hi. I think there's one main
Hi.
I think there's one main definitional issue - being and playing. A lot, if not most, of gender identities is actually a matter of performance. Yet there is a problem for all those who don't choose or have to choose their identity if there is no inherent meaning left to the definition of what they *ARE*. Performance of gender practices is about separating being from playing, but that separation is not one that can be easily made if you ARE a man.
I really don't know how to square this. How to allow complete personal freedom, let JD order an Appletini and hug Turk, while at the same time retain some meaning content to *being* a man rather than performing masculinity.
In the end, it seems, whatever it is, it is mostly defined by what feminine women prefer in men they then decide to have sex with.
interesting comment, thanks for capturing the zeitgeist of man
It seems that every comment on topics like this must somehow be prefixed with the writers background, so a proper context can be set. So here goes. Born an ethnically Canadian male, raised in a female-only household (single mom), where there was limited contact with males of my family, and furthermore most of it negative. My mom was involved in the feminist community. I did things like attend take back the night, went to my mom's work at various feminist organizations, attended "lesbian night" at the local gay bar, etc. I wasn't allowed to watch star wars, I had non-violent toys (no toy guns for me), and I was taught to respect women. Furthermore I was home schooled, so I avoided the inevitable shitty times people have at JR high school.
I realize now that when I was younger that the feminist upbringing in fact was just a "feminine" upbringing. There wasnt much effort to create or seek out positive male role models. The ones I had in my life were all negative: absent dad, abusive grandfathers, bad uncle, bad uncle-in-law, bad partner to the neighbour, etc. I can only think of one male who wasn't presented in a negative light, but I didn't really ever bond with him. Even as a kid I knew at take back the night marches that my time here was limited - women and children, but eventually I would be what we were marching against.
In the end, I guess im just somewhat dissapointed in my feminist upbringing, how it didn't really prepare me for the world, how it didn't teach me how to be a good male, or that they existed other than a theory. The sum total of my instruction might be the line: "show the world there can be good men and be one". It wasn't helpful. I also find the male hating in my family (not a feminist issue per se) really dissapointing. It was never directed at me, but if all you learn about people who look like you is that they are bad, it doesn't really help. I lived my first 25 years solidly in the realm of math, science, school and technology. It has prepared me well, and now that I am reassessing the world around me I am finding joy in discovering positive male role models. They are somewhat stereotypical, but admirable nevertheless: fathers, men who care for their friends/partners, competent and competitive men who enjoy life.
I'm not your typical male by any means, not overly traditionally male, I live in SF and close to the castro, and I have many gay male friends who don't threaten my "manhood" (whatever that is).
In this end this comment was less prescriptive than descriptive, consider it talk therapy!
male role models
My upbringing was different but I can relate to a "feminine" upbringing, without much presence of "positive male role models."
For a short while I identified this as a source of a number of problems for me - but recently I've begun to think it's not really that I had a lack of "male" role models, but a lack of role models with whom I could identify my gender. Or something like that. I have male biology and am straight, cis, etc. There were some alright role models in my life, but they were all female. This is fine, but confusing when immersed in a culture that so rigidly defines a binary of what it is to be "male" and "female."
I guess I'm saying, in terms of *human* role models, I had a few at hand, but since they were biologically female, in a culture that defines development and identity unnecessarily strongly in terms of biology and gender, I didn't notice or appreciate or learn from them as much as I could have, how to be an effective and happy human being.
I've recently been discovering positive male role models as well, and attempting to be one myself - but also noticing the many positive female role models - and human role models in general - that come into my life.
Radical Masculinity Always Questions Privilege
Thank you for a great article.
Without a thorough examination of male privilege and how it manifests in a masculine person's daily life and how we benefit from such privilege, masculinity is not radical.
Additionally, I have come to understand in my journey from lesbian female to straight male that there are women who, while they say they may want radical masculinity in their bedrooms and boardrooms, do not. Such responses are too be expected. Unthinking femininity requires its equally unthinking counterpart to function.
I've had to fight a good fight with women I've dated on this point. Simply because someone may ask me to treat them in a particular way doesn't mean I should.
Radical masculinity is about personal and collective liberation. Everything else is just costumes and dress-up.
Keep up the great work. I'm looking forward to more articles.
Take care,
Jay
definitions
The Masculine Manifesto: http://manhood101.com/principles101.pdf