This comment was by wellokaythen on the post “Why I Can’t Write What’s Good About Masculinity.” 

In the post, Joanna Schroeder had written:

“If you’d described Robert to the “me” I was before I knew him—a feisty feminist who wouldn’t let anyone look at her cross-eyed—I would’ve said he sounded terrible! Sexist pig! But he was, in fact, wonderful. He believed in our strength and deeply respected femininity. We were grateful for that hulking exemplar of masculinity…”

Wellokaythen gave a reaction to that paragraph:

This was the part that I found most important, because it needs to be said but is too rarely said here on GMP. Here is an example of someone who could have been terribly misjudged if you had not gotten to know him. Here is a great example of a man who is masculine in some traditionally defined ways, but those ways are not inherently at odds with feminism or gender equality. Those ways are not necessarily misogynistic, and it’s not a zero sum game between masculinity and femininity. Some people might even think he was some sort of dinosaur doomed to extinction (“the end of men” garbage again) instead of someone clearly thriving in a modern gender world.

It’s refreshing to hear about a male hero who is not some entirely new version of masculinity vetted by therapists and cleansed of any old ideas about men and women. Bravo.

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photo by liamliberty / flickr