Came across these posts on feminism and the men who are rejecting negative masculinity, but questioning (and eliciting good discussion) what the alternative is. If you’re against negative masculinity, great, but what’s a replacement concept of positive masculinity?
This is the same kind of argument I often hear from young women who, despite fully supporting gender equality, don’t want to be “labeled” as a feminist. Which makes me wonder: Do men really lack an alternative to “toxic masculinity”? Or is it just that even these gender-conscious youths still have trouble fully identifying themselves as feminist–balking, like too many women’s rights supporters, from a conception of themselves that should be empowering? Moreover, the concept of a “feminist masculinity” seems unnecessary, and if anything detrimental, to the goal of combating sexism and homophobia in that it continues to present men and their “masculinity” in opposition to women. What if everyone just worked toward being a decent (feminist) person?
This all reminds me of John Stuart Mill’s ideas of liberty, and critiques of them. The idea being that he has important things to say about liberty, but they’re negative philosophies: “Don’t do this, don’t do that,” that define freedom as against what it isn’t. But how do you have a positive idea of freedom as an empowering, enabling force? And again, my favorite answer is basically, true freedom requires each generation to constantly renew its freedom by finding the new limits and removing them. Some would call this progress… But the point is, this means positive freedom is the struggle itself to achieve freedom. And you do this by acting positively to remove limits, which may itself be a negatively-defined thing, but the actions of doing so are positive.
Thus, if you want to be a manly, masculine male man, but reject oppressive masculinity and male hegemony, the answer is: simply be a decent human being. If you need some sort of storybook archetypical role to fit yourself into, and you’re rejecting the ones presented to you, I’d say “simply human” is a pretty good alternative
Or as another person put it, “If all the problems are due to the fact that the sexist masculine stereotype is simply an act, then not acting is actually quite an accomplishment.”
Yup. Yet another part of the constant struggle to be authentic. And I’ll take “human” over “male” any day.
by Leshka
19 Nov 2009 at 21:28
You can be my human any day.
by Sara
20 Nov 2009 at 12:09
There is nothing inherently wrong about being male just as there is nothing inherently wrong about being female.
The small subsection of radical feminists who believe ‘all aspects of male’ are evil – the extent that bi women of the group will only date other women and refuse to date men – make a lot of noise. And it’s just that – noise.
Not everything they are saying, not the feminist movement, but the anti-masculine sentiment. Christ, you all are born with testosterone. Many components of masculinity are good, healthy, and natural. Why the FUCK does everyone in the world need to go girly in order for things to be right. Being human doesn’t necessarily mean rejecting one’s sex.. sex, sexuality, and hormones are essential part of being human.
This subset of liberal feminists are those who MAKE other women shy away from the word. They are the ones who make good men feel like shit for having a dick.
Any one – male or female, can be a sexist evil jerk. Being a decent person is definitely part of the fix..but I can’t possibly buy in to one sex being the ‘bad guy’ (pun intended)
by Adam
20 Nov 2009 at 12:40
I agree. I think the larger critique I see on feminist sites these days isn’t that one sex or gender is “bad,” but that we exist in a system saturated with messages that say exactly that – and they say it’s the women, and men who thus receive most entitlements and privileges.
So, I don’t hear feminists saying men are bad, but that our culture needs to be changed, and one of the ways in which it needs to be changed is to remove all the male-centered beliefs and practices that serve to limit, dehumanize, remove consent from, etc. – women.
Woohoo!