Labels of any kind can cause harm. And no one is perfect.
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This comment was by Bill in reference to the post Choosing the Man Over the Bully and the Boy
Why must we rank guys as to how “masculine” they supposedly are? Why the obsession over the supposed superiority of “alpha males” over “beta males,” etc.? I see this obsession frequently.
Why don’t people realize that none of us is perfect? In other words, why don’t some people mind their own business and stop putting other guys down for supposedly not “measuring up” or being “butch” enough? Over a period of decades, I’ve become so aware of my own shortcomings that I just don’t feel the urge to be as judgmental as some people. I’d make an exception for those who deliberately hurt others for no good reason.
Manhood is simply the state of being responsible, as opposed to being irresponsible, in one’s conduct. We’ve all seen “macho” men who were childish in their behavior — little boys in big men’s bodies.
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Shallowly ranking people based on the qualities *we* specifically wish they possessed to satisfy our own desires is messed up. But it’s the world we currently live in. Women understand this experience very well since we are 24/7 always ranked for our worth based on our beauty. Doing the same to men based on ‘masculinity’ is no different. The only difference is that this is something women have lived with forever and unfortunately, it’s beginning to be something that is catching up more with men now too. Perhaps sometimes we reap what we sow even.
Some of the greatest acts of heroism have been driven by compassion. The toughest man I ever met — mentally, that is — was a white Texan named James Hippard, a WW2 veteran who reacted against the horrendous racial injustices of the day and became a civil rights attorney in the early 1950s. That took a lot of courage on his part. Over the years he and members of his family received death threats from white racist bigots, but he could not be intimidated. He and other civil rights activists during the Jim Crow period were cut from the same… Read more »
My post was directed to G.
We need to write more articles that suppose the other side of mens’ emotions like compassion, care for others, laughing, crying, being allow to have anger or showing righetous anger when there is some kind of political, social and/or economic injustice.
And conversely, stop vilifying the men who fit the perceived masculine image. Stop writing articles that make it look as though they’re unfeeling, uncaring brutes.
…or we’ll beat you up!
Kidding of course, but Tom does have a point. There is not just one box, there are many.
The deeper we dig, the harder the digging becomes.
That is something I’ve never done.