Julie Gillis wonders if there are universally masculine traits, or just universally human ones?
Hamlet:
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet,
to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—
nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
—William Shakespeare
Recently, an email popped up in my inbox asking for submissions to The Good Men Project on the topic of…. “So, what’s good about masculinity?” And I thought, foolishly, that this would be an easy piece to write. I could think of so many positive traits, the piece would write itself. Then I saw Neely’s piece. And the piece after that. I wrote a few drafts. I got a bit stuck.
The curators helpfully provided some examples of masculinity as a jumping off place, “Some thoughts to get you started: courage, loyalty, decisiveness, leadership, strength (physical), strength of character, self-sacrifice (in defense of others, through long & inglorious work), etc.”
But, still I just couldn’t get that “click” as a writer. Because each of those qualities I’ve seen in men, women, children, the elderly, gay, straight, rich and poor. I’ve seen men be courageous in the line of danger. I’ve seen women make immediate and difficult decisions, I’ve worked with straight female business executives and gay male artistic directors (and I’ve worked with other wildly varied combinations of gender and sexual orientation as well), each exemplifying the best of leadership.
Physical strength…well, on average the men do have more of that, no argument from me there. They can certainly open the jars I can’t. But my mother could also do that. She had really strong hands.
Also? My mother could fix cars and equipment like nobody’s business. I recall her telling me that when they first married in the early 1960’s, my father, a composer, would get ruffled when he couldn’t fix a piece of recording equipment and she could. She told him, “Don’t you cook far better than me?” “Yes,” he admitted that was true. “Well,” she said, “I can stay out of your studio and your stuff will stay broken, if you stay out of my kitchen and we eat food that we both don’t like.”
My father had a tremendous sense of humor, immediately understood, let go of his feelings about who should do what, and they ate well while his equipment stayed fixed.
As for strength of character? I’ve been highly impressed by a few 11 year old boys recently, standing up for their friends in the face of bullying, and I’ve sat back in awe at women like Lisa Hickey standing up for peace and dialogue in the face of all kinds of pressure from anonymous commenters and emailers on both sides of the gender fence.
Self sacrifice? There are the obvious examples-our fire fighters and police, our armed services members (which currently include men and women), and there are probably millions of people, male and female alike, in the world who work in back breaking conditions, sweatshops, fields, all to produce goods for us here in the western world so that they can feed their children.
There are men and women both who persevere in their lives against lay-offs, mortgage payments, divorces, doing whatever it takes for the kids to get good educations even if it means less gratification for them.
I can’t say for a fact that any of those traits listed above are inherently masculine, any more than I could say traits such as dedication, grace, thoughtfulness, kindness, flirtatiousness, shyness, or vulnerability are inherently feminine traits.
The chicken or the egg question becomes are “masculine” and “feminine” traits mirroring some biological truth about male and female bodies, or do we create traits to align with roles we’ve historically played out due to biological differences?
Being me, I suspect it’s both.
At that point I wiki’d. Here’s a link about gender which takes that chicken or egg question on with various theories. We do have physical differences to a large degree. Based on XX or XY, males get more testosterone and females get less, even in the womb leading to differences in brain structures, though researchers point out that brains are not all “masculine.”
“Animal studies also show that in any male, some regions make connections typical of males, but some parts remain feminine. ‘There’s really no such thing as a completely male brain,’ McCarthy says. ‘It’s a mosaic of male and female.’”
Those hormones create differences in how male and female bodies develop during early childhood and then again during puberty (and hormone levels of testosterone change for both men and women during later middle age, creating another shift in how the body looks and behaves).
Even so, it is possible and even common to see a wide variety of “male” bodies; short, tall, slight, heavy, highly muscled, softer skinned. The same goes for “female” bodies. Of course intersex is another matter all together and adds to the conversation about what traits are what.
If the traits listed above are found in both male, female and intersex people, and if brains aren’t one “sex” or the other, and in fact are subject to influence by hormonal changes over the course of a life (as well as a multitude of personal experiences that influence beliefs) if there aren’t character traits that belong to one sex over the other, why do we still create binary attributes such as “masculine” and feminine” when we are talking about those traits?
Because it’s easier to say “men are like this and women are like that?” Because in earlier periods we had little to no scientific knowledge at all about how the body and brain work and we went with what we saw? Because there is, perhaps, some bell curve of average tendencies for males to take on certain roles and for women to take others (even though those themselves may vary culture by culture)? Because picking the two most common points on the bell curve creates a binary? Bear in mind, we here at GMP may be focused on these traits from a Western-centric POV. Other cultures may value and thus places emphasis on different traits.
I favor the argument that a lack of scientific understanding led to survival roles becoming based on physical attributes. This may have led additional tasks becoming the purview of male or female over long periods of time, thus creating a cultural and social expectation connected to tasks and thus qualities assigned to those tasks.
But what happens when society changes? When technologies are introduced that allow survival to be more of an afterthought? When it takes less time and physical energy to rear children, clean clothes, eat meat and build homes? This is when those traits come into question and when roles begin to shift. If women and children need no protection from lions, what good does courage do? If we can play equal roles in our work (which many many more of us could than at any time in history) how do we claim that one sex has particular traits that would place one gender in one work role and another in the other.
Thus, I think, began a period of Western cultural existential angst, starting up round the time of the Industrial Revolution and gaining tension around the Computer Age. What does it mean to be a man? To be a woman? To be neither? Both? These questions make us grumpy. You can see it here on the site.
Perhaps like Hamlet above, also experiencing such deep moments of thoughtful maudlin questioning, we also have of late lost all our mirth.
We are knee deep in it this cultural moment (or maybe waist deep depending on who you talk to) and I don’t have many answers myself except to try to look at character traits as universal and brave the coming change of roles. Yes, it’s likely those changes will affect economics, politics, history, even. And it’s happening now. Which is why we should be doing exactly what we are doing here at GMP, which is talking about all that is so very good about men and asking the questions.
What purpose do we serve? What qualities of reason, what faculties admirable, what pieces of work are we made up of if not all of them, together, wonderfully beautifully human?
—Photo Sheep purple/Flickr
About Julie Gillis
Vocalyze
I read that whole piece with “What a Piece of Work is Man” from Hair playing in my head. (With slightly different lyrics about halfway through the Hamlet quote.) Anyone else?
As intellectual abstractions, I can get talked right out of thinking there’s any such thing as masculinity and femininity, or into this idea of gender as purely a performance. And then I go through my day, interacting with the world around me, and it doesn’t ring true. These differences seem genuine to me, and I find myself feeling silly to think otherwise. However, and it’s a big “however”, I am opposed to the kind of thinking that regards and treats either side of the binary as superior to the other. “Binary” also strikes me as limited to just two types, when in fact I think it’s more of a big spectrum, with valuable, whole humans all along it, so I don’t condone expecting people to only cluster at the extremes. For every tendency that makes sense in a bell curve kind of way to see as more “masculine” or “feminine”, I also think that outliers and exceptions should be recognized and valued, not marginalized or mistreated. Applied as rigid norms, I think masculinity and femininity can be damaging concepts, but sometimes it’s just humans seeing patterns, because that’s what humans do. Then again, we’ve been known to see Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich, so that pattern-seeking thing ain’t perfect.
Equal or different is sure to cause controversy:
“In univariate terms, the largest differences between the sexes were found in Sensitivity, Warmth, and Apprehension (higher in females), and Emotional stability, Dominance, Rule-consciousness, and Vigilance (higher in males). ”
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0029265#
Thank you, Bad Man for posting thsi link. I’m going to read it this evening.
The “Hair” song has been in my mind all week!
I’ve also been struggling with “but I can see masculinity!” I think actually I see male “gender
and create additional attributes in terms of traits. “Because that body looks male, I assume the attribute of courage is masculine.” Gets more confusing when you think of it in terms of “performing” masculinity. Think of a drag performer, yeah? A female will don male clothes, change her facial look to be more masculine (highlight the jaw, add stubble or a beard, pad her crotch, bind her breasts and add shoulder pads, lower her voice). But those are all physical manifestations that sync with male gender. The other attributes are also physical, swagger, stride, ways of standing. But we associate the character traits like courage with the physical performance. Does courage really look differently when coming from a woman vs a man? Do we experience her courage differently? If so, why? Because of how we’ve been cultured?
These are things I wonder about.
The stereotypical male characteristics are, rightly, associated with the ways of making a living, or surviving, prior to the nearer part of the industrial revolution.
IOW, if things fall apart and we’re back to pre-industrialization, permanently or temporarily, the stereotypical male characteristics will be necessary. Or if you happen to be someplace that hasn’t been niced-up like western society, you might want to have stereotypical male characteristics on hand.
So, in fact, we can wonder about them due to society’s changes. BUt we’re not guaranteed the current cocooning. We can have war, natural disasters, social and economic catastrophe. In which case, the stereotypical male will probably say..”.I’m out of here. Got too much grief from the rest of you. Have a nice day.” So far, they haven’t. Lucky you.
As I have said before, go to youtube. Search for “Roger Moore” “thomas atkins”. He’s cut the poem some, but it’s still good. As I ask from time to time, what are you gonna do if Tommy goes on strike, at least against those who’ve been giving him a hard time for having the attributes that make him useful?
You make some valid points. But I wonder about some things still. Back when my grandmother was alive and living in Northern Michigan, she farmed. Hard. During the depression. My great aunt and uncle fixed cars. My mother and her sisters were very handy with a rifle and hunted for deer for food (including the gutting etc). Together. My great great grandparents on my dad’s side lived in a dugout in Missouri (I think it was missouri), which if you think about what it takes to live during those periods of time, it took everyone to make survival work. The women and men on both sides of my family were courageous, stoic, hard working, dedicated to the family, and physically very strong. I suppose the women had long hair and dresses and occasionally heels. But I’m not sure which characteristics you’d say were stereotypically masculine if you had three girls and a boy hunting deer together and women helping their uncles fix cars and scrapping for money during the depression.
Even my in-laws…they lived off the grid in the 70′s and my mother in law did incredibly back breaking work to farm, deal with goats, help my father in law build their house. She and he both hauled water from a well, chopped wood, canned food they raised….no bon bon eating there!
All this to say. Women and men both throughout history have built things, broken bones trying to raise a family, learned to survive. Mothers (grands, aunts, cousins) taught daughters and sons things. Fathers (grands, uncles, cousins) taught daughters and sons things. Women learned to skin, gut, preserve, can, hoe, dig, clean, deal with early soaps (containing lots of lye) etc.
Men played fiddle, danced and sang. I realize it’s very easy and comfortable to imagine that in the past it was men doing all (all) of the work and women sitting at home knitting cozily by a fire), but that’s just not the case. Perhaps it’s the very wealthy you are thinking of, but I daresay many of the wealthiest men didn’t do backbreaking work. They had slaves and servants to do that for them in years past. Average to poor women and men both died defending homes. Women and men both grew old together surviving measles, diphtheria and worse. They buried children together, and life was pretty HARD on the American frontier at least.
Surely you don’t think during the medieval period all the women sat around on pallets, while men all worked. Women had to work, fight, defend, raise kids, deal with disease, financial issues and so forth.
It took everyone to survive (men needed women too) and it took everyone to start the process of thriving. So I’m not sure where this particular apocalyptic fantasy comes from. Should there be a Great Disaster, I feel certain that there will be significant cultural changes. Hopefully the lessons of birth control and reproductive planning will remain at the very least. But women and men will homestead, everyone will suffer, it won’t be some kind of paradise for men with no dentistry, no vaccinations, and constant war mongering you know. And women won’t sit on pallets eating bon bons. They’ll work, as they always have done, to help their partners, families and tribes.
Julie, no one can possibilly look at human history with open eyes and think that women didn’t work or weren’t tough. The toughness of the HUMAN spirit resides in both men and women ,as does virtue, honesty and all human traits. Good and not so good. Technology has changed modern life to where men and women don’t physically need each other. But in other ways (emotional support being one example) we still do. Some articles from this site speak of how modern young men seem content to “play video games and deffer adulthood”. I think alot of this “Feminista Dogma” (all men are rapist/male privilage blah..blah.. blah..) is born from Fustration. Ironically , their solutions(make men more like woman) and their retoric, make the problem worse.
Julie.
Recent forensic anthropology tells us that medieval women worked considerably harder than was once thought. There is a reason, however, that the complement to “distaff side” is “spear side”. We’re not talking solely about hard work.
One author, can’t recall, noted that the Great Plague left a number of widows, compared to widowers, because the diseases were associated with domestic animals and men put in more time in barn and pen.
And nobody said a post apocalypse catastrophe would be fun. But, given the recent goings-on about stereotypical men, the stereotypical men may decide not to take the role they had in the bad old days.
Birth control goes out the window when you need kids to support you in your old age and only half of those born make it to age five.
In fact, nobody said women wouldn’t/didn’t work. False premise. Point is, if things get bad, temporarily or permanently, some folks will be pretending they hadn’t said all those bad things about mean old traditional masculinity. But they may not be convincing. Too bad for them.
Well I hope they have fun going their own way.
I wonder how the MGTOW will know which women did t like traditional masculinity? Anyway if they leave, maybe the rad fems will go too leaving the humanist colloborationists to creat a brand new world .
Julie.
I don’t know about going their own way. Picture Vikings. They’ll probably show up from time to time. Radfems will be insisting they were misunderstood.
I guess all of us should learn to wield swords as well as pens. And how to can food.
Julie. Yeah. Being omnicompetent is a good deal. Never can tell. Still, when I was fencing, the weapons I used felt like feathers compared to the real deal.
Julie.
Some background: I was born in 1945 to a veteran and grew up among veterans. Among other things, we had duck&cover drills in elementary school. Conelrad carats on the AM dial. The Army figured it needed sixteen batteries of the old Nike Ajax to defend Detroit, where I lived. Which meant that when you were riding around with your folks, you might pass a missile battery.
Field expedient radiation detectors–made in your kitchen–demonstrated in HS chemistry.
Lots of fiction having to do with nuclear war. Mostly SciFi, unless it sold well, in which case it was either “crossover” or “mainstream”, thereby annoying the SciFi guys. There was the near -war scenario such as “Red Alert”–plagiarized into “Fail Safe”, and “Alas Babylon”, both mainstreamed. There was scenario long after the nuke exchange such as “Canticle for Leibowitz”. Also mainstreamed.
Much scifi seemed to require at least a reference to the nuke war in the past, almost as if editors needed that box checked. Or if you had a particular plot in mind but Drums Along The Mohawk had been done, you have a nuke exchange, kick over the board and start fresh.
Most of the scenarios had people reduced to medieval if not Dark Ages circumstances. It was all very real to us. I happened to be discussing the issue with a colleague, an extraoridnarily attractive woman. She said she’d do whatever the most powerful man in the area wanted, in order to survive. No choice.
All very real to us, and that was when the guys who had the other nukes didn’t believe in life after death and so could be presumed to be prudent with the one they had. IMO, things are a good deal more loosey-goosey now.
I believe it was absolutely real to you. I grew up in the 70′s and while nuclear war still was a threat, I doubt that my experience with it was as intense. I did, however, grow up with the spectre of AIDS and had been aware of the sexual freedom of the 70′s and then the pushback in the 80′s and early 90′s. These experiences have a deep influence on how we experience the world.
I’m quite sure that in a conflict, especially in the immediate aftermath, there would be a great pull to find a charismatic leader to set things right. I have the benefit of time at the moment to look over history and to observe that those charismatic leaders rarely treated anyone fairly and after periods of totalitarianism, democracies rise up in periods of Enlightenment. Renaissances. So forth.
Maybe part of our meta evolution is to take steps back, then forward again in the hopes well get it right and stay in the loosier, but kinder times. Or maybe those periods of enlightenments are just flukes and humanity is mostly just one big game of dominance and submission.
It’s like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs I guess. Can’t get to equality when people are starving, people just revert to hard behavior. Too bad though.
By the by, I’m always fascinated with SciFi and how it reflects the very real fears of a culture. Zombies/poesession/alien overtaking pop up every decade or so, only with such different traits. I was a great fan of 28 Days Later, the corporate/military malfeasance and the Rage zombies. Spectacular.
I am thankful for this article and many of the comments, because they point out what I was trying to say with my comment about an earlier one: the trait of dutifully doing what needs to be done is not one exclusive to men. Many, many women possess and exercise that trait. Most traits are indeed not exclusive to men or women, but can be found in either.
I understand the attractiveness of the idea that “gender is culturally constructed,” yet this strikes me as a somewhat problematic assumption to make.
For one, it cannot be definitively proven, so you are just substituting one set of unsubstantiated claims (i.e. X is inherent in women and Y is inherent in men) for another (everything is just a cultural construct). It’s hard to see true usefulness in that.
Second, the idea that gender is socially constructed seems to ignore the “big picture.” Men and women can be observed, across societies and generations, to utilize *on the average* different methods of problem solving. If the entire system was a social construct it is unlikely that we would find the “binary system” to be so universal. Indeed, it stands to reason that in large areas of the world, instead of “masculine and feminine” these problem solving traits would be ascribed to “short and tall” or “thin and fat” or some other combination.
Yet nowhere do we see societies who do no (again, on average) acknowledge that men and women approach problem solving in different ways, nor do we see societies that ascribe traits to groups that supersede men and women (e.g. Of course they agree to that solution, they’re both tall and not listening to a short person’s perspective).
This “big picture” must be completely ignored in order to accept gender as a social construct. I find that a very difficult pill to swallow.
Actually it is noty a question of whether it is a social construct (surely it is to some extent) or not. The question is how significant a difference there is between men and women regardless of the reason.
I have six kids and they are ALL different. It is interesting that they one overwhelming distinction in character is their sex. I am not an expert but it leads me to think that sex has a major role in determining personality. I personally see a huge difference between women and men. The why seems to point to birth.
Julie. Democracies don’t just “rise up”. They’re a matter of luck and circumstance. The Mongols’ irresistible advance into Europe was ended by….Genghiz’ untimely death. The Assyrians, guaranteed victory, turned back from the last Jewish stronghold for reasons not explained. The average age of the replacement pilots in the Battle of Britain was seventeen. Running pretty thin, there.
Western culture, from which comes democracy, was a matter of luck.
Where it started, it wasn’t what we’d like to see. In classical Greece and early Republican Rome, you got the franchise by being able to afford the panoply of a hoplite, a heavy Infantryman, and showing up for the wars. Except for the equites, who could also afford a horse, nobody else voted. A couple of unlikely victories, at Salamis and Plataea, preserved Greek and thus western culture from the stultifying Persian/Oriental cultures.
If we lose this, we’ll have hell’s own time to build up another.
Well, I guess we’d better take care to work on peace, collaboration in the face of differences, education for all, and focus on feeding people fairly within the resources we have, yes?
A good idea Julie, but one thing you could note from Richard comment is that the world is probably too unpredictable. We pray and hope that if Western Culture does decline it happens like Rome, but don’t want to believe just as easily an Assyrian situation could happen (Nineveh was destroyed so badly, bible critics thought it was just a myth)
A couple of unlikely victories, at Salamis and Plataea, preserved Greek and thus western culture from the stultifying Persian/Oriental cultures.
Ive always considered Greece and Rome to be the Western end of the Eastern Cultures. Transport an ancient greek or roman to today, and i think theyd feel more cultural similarities with India than with the West.
I dont think a greek or roman would recognise themselves as being part of western culture
I would say Rome and Greece (but especially Rome) are pretty much Western. Their ideas influenced pretty still exist today. The clean shaven and short hair look most white men have is Roman based. The decline and acceleration of science can fall back on the Romans and Greeks respectfully. Philosophy is still pretty Ionic. the Age of the Titans was pretty much socialism. Even some of the stories of politicians in those times greatly parallel to those today. When great Renaissances come, they always fall back to the Greeks.
julia, thanks for reminding me(via the link) that men can breast feed
Julie, thanks for the great article. Very good points.
I think of all the divisions that traits can be divided into (admirable or not, practical or not, etc.) gender has got to be one of the most useless. To be honest, there are so many traits that I think make men more masculine and women more feminine. Kindness, for example. Or intelligence. They’re just such attractive qualities that gender really doesn’t matter – it’s appealing for both.
I guess I just don’t “see masculinity” much that way either.
In the other thread I tried to figure out what the heck people meant by “feeling like a man” or “feeling like a woman” and came to the hypothesis that it is,
but another question is whether that is a good thing or not. The classical MRA view of this is that feminists are knee-jerk against such expectations. Personally I have not seen that flaw within feminists myself. My own view is that I think individual people should be able to observe gender roles or break out of them as they like. However whether society itself has any business having a sort of default option to begin with is another question. On the one hand I can see that the weight of expectations have hurt many people. On the other hand it seems like it has led many other people to some of the best parts of their lives. On the one hand by declaring that the default is expected to be ignored often and celebrating those differences it seems like the bad can be eliminated without throwing out the good. On the other hand where people have experienced the exhilaration of “feeling like a man” or “feeling like a woman” they could probably have just felt good for doing something praiseworthy without needing a gender tag.
I just gave a similar comment on another post. “Exhilaration” describes the feeling I have of being feminine, female, perfectly. It’s the “fulfilling your socially expected gender role” that does not fit with my experience. I am more likely to feel that exhilaration when I am alone — on top of a mountaintop for example, or even doing something that is not an expected gender role. It’s almost like — let me see how to describe it — it’s almost like being totally comfortable in my own skin PLUS acknowledging that I’m a female. It doesn’t mean I love men as a separate being any less, quite the contrary. When I am feeling that exhilaration, it is almost like I love them more.
Hmm, sounds kind of mushy. But that’s how I feel. Wonder if anyone else does?
I guess I don’t understand your words “plus acknowledging that I’m a female” mean, if it’s not about gender roles in any way (which would include the feeling of pride that you were able to do something despite it not being seen as a “female” endeavor stereotypically). What does “acknowledging that I’m a female” mean, then? It’s gotta be about something more than just acknowledging some purely physical characteristics you have, right? But as Julie’s article says, whenever you try to pinpoint what mental characteristics are “feminine” or “masculine”, it always seems kind of iffy on close examination, and you can’t be sure that it’s not just societal conditioning that causes you to identify these mental traits with this gender (i.e. “socially expected gender roles”).
Right — I wish I could articulate it better. It’s almost as if…Julie gives a great example on this thread about talking to her son about about trans issues. And telling her son he could ask “what gender do you identify with.” And that is actually how I feel. That I *identify* with being a female. It is a part of myself I like about myself. It actually has very little to do with how I look at any given time, or who I’m with. I could be wearing a flannel shirt and workboots and still feel female. It’s more like…that my core being feels right, and my place as a female who doesn’t feel as there are any limits because of that feels right too. And, I think about being female a lot, actually, and how great it is, how much I enjoy being alive but also how much I enjoy being alive as a woman. Ugh, that really sounds sappy, but that’s how I feel. Do men feel that way?
Well I don’t. I don’t recall ever feeling “male” which is why I am wondering what it is like for folks. But you seem like almost the opposite. I’m not at all surprised either. In fact I was reading along what you wrote there and I thought, “Lisa identifies as female when she has a numinous experience. I wonder if she identifies as female just a lot of the time.” And that’s your next line.
Actually — your mountaintop example did you mean that as a numinous experience, or did you mean as Jesse suggested, a feeling of accomplishment? I can see how accomplishment would make sense but for some reason I assumed you meant like that powerful feeling of being alive and everything right with the world and glowing— and that makes you think “and I am a woman”.
I meant it as a numinous experience. Upon reflection, it does happen with the feeling of accomplishment also, but less so, as it is the accomplishment itself I focus on first, only later do I get to how I “feel” about that accomplishment, and perhaps when I get to that feeling stage does my “woman identity joy” kick in also.
I think that the fulfilling of your gender role combined with the biological alignment you feel (you are in the right body) is why you feel that exhilaration. We only feel the lack of that exhilaration when we stop performing gender “correctly.”
Like if you went to work in sweats, no makeup and manly shoes. You might feel a sense of distortion. I know I do. As much as I try not to feel it, I feel better when I’m performing my gender correctly at work or in the grocery story. Not on stage that’s different and I’ll come back to that.
I remember explaining trans issues to my son as follows. At a gay rights rally he saw someone that appeared to be a FTM trans person. He said, “Is that person a man or a woman.” I told him the proper thing to do was to ask the person if you knew them well enough, how they identified. He asked me a bit about trans issues and I said to him, “When you put on your clothes in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror do you feel like you?” Yes, he said. “And if I insisted you grow your hair out, wear a dress, and so forth would that feel right to you in your bones?” And he said no. “So that person is trying to wear the clothes and things that make him feel the most real. And it’s hard because people get confused, but if that person is trans, then they honestly believe they are in the wrong gender and that feels really bad so what our job is, is to be kind to them. Also bodies are really weird things sometimes.”
And he was totally cool with it.
I love this phrase, David, ““the exhilaration of fulfilling your socially expected gender role“”
It’s exactly what “performing gender” means and its why I love drag and genderqueer performance. One of my favorite things to do onstage is to try to inhabit other bodies that are not my own. Improv is, or can be depending on the city, a highly masculine community. Women often wind up playing traditional gender roles while men play males but also play kind of “mock’ female roles. This happens especially with newer improvisers, so I have experienced.
It’s amazing when you get very experienced players together and they can play with gender like a juggler plays with balls. You (well, I) can see the shifts and you can watch the audience first respond with laughter “Hey that dude is playing a lady.” And then they believe it. See it. Forget the sex and see the character. It’s kind of amazing stuff.
We all perform gender, I think. It’s maybe more conscious for some than others, but I think we all do it. Some people feel the urge to fuck with it, push the limits of it. Some don’t. I myself wish I felt more comfortable without the trappings of “femininity” because I never feel feminine, even when I’m made up and wearing heels. I know I look feminine, I’ve been told that. But I never feel…girly. I always feel, well not like what I think girly girls feel like. It’s tough at times.
Well I asked Justin about this on the other thread and he said that he had had the experience of “feeling like a woman” (or female anyway – I imagine it was when he was young) when he was outwardly female. That didn’t surprise me, but now what Lisa’s said has me thinking again.
I love this phrase, David, ““the exhilaration of fulfilling your socially expected gender role“.”
Julie, nice talking up your mom and all, but honestly I have been interested in about your own abilities with respects to being masculine.
My own abilities? Do you mean character traits I have that might be considered masculine? Or physical attributes of maleness in terms of gender. Or are you being sarcastic cause I can’t tell.
I am actually being serious so the two former points
Ok. Let’s see.
One of my earliest playground memories-We had a playscape at our school in 1979. The game was that it was a ship and it was a kind of “who gets to own the ship” game, this day it was a boys vs girls thing. The boys were chasing the girls around to win the ship. All the girls were running around squealing (playfully I think, realizing it was a way to get attention from the boys) and I stood on the “mast” and said, “WE CAN WIN, FIGHT BACK!” and I didn’t understand why a) the girls didn’t play war and b) the boys didn’t pay attention to me.
Go figure. I’m sure this will provide ample fodder for anyone here to read much into. I just wanted to play war and the girls wanted to play flirt.
As a child (in the deep south, in the 70′s) I was discouraged from climbing trees, speaking out in class (answering too much), and wearing pants. I didn’t like skirts, preferred playing with the boys and enjoyed bows and arrows more than dollies. As an adult, I’ve rarely worn long hair, too much trouble, dislike make up in general, am more comfortable in pants and boots than skirts and heels (though I do wear both) though I wear it, and often just “feel” more masculine than how I believe my gal friends feel, like….I hate girly drinks. Cabernet, bourbon, tequila shot. No sugary drinks. I hate chick flicks for the most part and prefer sci fi, documentaries, books on facts, rather than romance. Totally intrigued with books on serial killers of all kinds. I know I’m female, my body looks female, I’ve had babies. Clearly, I am gendered female, but often feel less feminine internally than I assume my counterparts feel. Many men have told me they consider me quite feminine. It’s an internal feeling state, not an external perception.
The traits listed by the original poster were “courage, loyalty, decisiveness, leadership, strength (physical), strength of character, self-sacrifice (in defense of others, through long & inglorious work), etc
For characteristics that could be classified as masculine traits-I’m competitive, decisive, assertive in most arenas. I lead, I”m physical, vocally loud, I don’t hold back in meetings. I”m sexually aggressive. I’ve probably asked out 75% of the people I’ve dated ever. I’m at ease on the stage, and have been told I’m intimidating both for my intelligence and stage prowess. I have no fear of bugs, snakes, spiders, body waste, “gross things” and have no issues dealing with gross jobs. I experience courage as doing that which I am afraid of, Which I do here and in other places I write under my own name, or perform under my own name. I’ve conquered personal demons from my family. I like sparring, wrestling and stage combat. Have never really tried real combat. I have a high pain threshold. I prefer grilling to baking, am straightforward, I’m as loyal as the day is long to those close to me, I have exceptional ethics, love dirty jokes, have been a parent of small children (and the caretaker of my mother who now has Alzheimer’s) and so do believe I’ve shown great strength of character there.
(on the other hand, I do cry, feel emotions deeply, really dislike people yelling at each other no matter the sex, especially if some basic communication would solve the problem, have soft skin, am small boned, flirt, enjoy men very much, and occasionally enjoy what a good corset will do to my figure, and love pop music. I was a dancer for years, creative intuitive type still.)
I’m not physically strong, and haven’t worked in factories/in the army/in the police etc, but those traits-the ones suggested as masculine, are traits I have.
So either the traits are masculine and so I am masculine. Or the traits are human and I share them.
Or I am a female body with a more masculine energy. Or maybe my feeling state has nothing to do with it. Or maybe each of us has some traits that could commonly be found in the opposite gender and mine happen to be pronounced.
I’m not entirely sure if that answers your question or why it even mattered to you, but there you have it.
Well except for the last two paragraphs which were doing the most, your answer was pretty much what I was looking. Thank you, I was just interested in those things about you. I don’t know why it matters either, but I don’t care. I just like to learn.
So you just wanted to learn about me personally? What does “last two paragraphs which were doing the most” mean? Like you really just wanted personal details on my life? Huh. Anyway, I should likely ask you to reciprocate the favor just so I know who I’m talking to Mr. anonymous.
I thought the questions in the last two paragraphs (really the second to last paragraphs) were a little extra. I think learning more about you personally was the point (well at least what you would consider masculine). Anyway since you asked nicely, I will return the favor.
I am young (22), short (5’6″), and small (148 lbs.). I am a black American, but I looked mixed race, I am a male (My real name is Phil since I am revealing all of this), I have reddish brown skin and “good” hair, so most black people think I have a Hispanic parent. I choose to be anonymous because I don’t trust people very much. I have no political leanings at all, so I am not an MRA or a feminist, neither a conservative or a liberal. I graduated from a university recently and hope to go to pharmacy school. I don’t like fast food (it literally makes me sick) or eating out, I have done much better making my own food.
For “masculine” traits, I am good at math and science (especially Biology and Chemistry, math waned when I got to college). I am not tech savvy, but I can fix my own car pretty good and can put things together easily (my dad thought it was important to do things by myself). A lot of people would consider me to be pretty strong especially at my size (they think 265 lbs. should squash me, some think deadlifting should destroy my back, and I am weird for doing heavy military presses), but I think the general population is just complacent with being weak. I like to listen to rap music, a lot of it. I ain’t afraid of bugs, spiders, or snakes either since I believe man is the mightiest animal. I like to watch sports, and I have discovered my tastes change overtime. I used to be a huge football nerd, now I can watch baseball and basketball. It still makes me upset when sports media tries to demonize James Harrison while forgetting you don’t have time in 1 or 2 seconds to think about what you are doing in the NFL. I don’t really care about what people think of me and I am not afraid of embarrassing myself, while I can be very shy. I am a little absent minded and my parents believe I have undiagnosed ADHD. I have good composure and patience. I live in your state, and I went to high school in the city.
I also am pretty smart and a huge nerd. I don’t play games as much as I used to (I would be considered worse than casual), I have never really played COD games (the one I have is still in the wrapper). I believe in giving people a chance, especially my enemies. I do much better with cooking my own food. I enjoy learning languages as well. Right now I am learning Spanish, French, and Arabic (I like the pretty letters), most people are quite impressed at the speed at which I can learn (Arabs are impressed with my pronunciation especially with consonants that don’t exist in English, and my ability to read the script). That path has made me quite trivial with languages. I know why daughter has a gh, and how it was pronounced (like a French R). I like to learn about other cultures, and I am very happy to have made friends with people who are from different countries.
Well that’s a little bit about Mr. Anonymous. If you want to know more I am free to answer. As for asking you the questions from, I wanted to know what things you did that you considered masculine. I wasn’t as much as interested in learning about your life story since we will probably never meet.
Thanks! I enjoyed reading that! Have a great weekend!!
Thanks and you too as well
What do women mean when they say that sort of thing? About being intimidating? Feminists often say that men are “intimidated by a strong woman”. It sounds like they are trying to say something insulting about men like, “Men find strength in women a turn off. Men want women to be weak.” I’ve always found those qualities very attractive in women. As far as I can see other men do too. Is that false? What I always felt a _man_ means by intimidating is that someone is “out of my league”. That is to say if a woman is obviously very attractive for whatever reason a guy will just assume that he will be rejected if he initiates because, well attractive women have a lot of guys to chose from and are going to pick someone better. Since nobody enjoys being rejected, possibly humiliatingly, it’s best to not ask. Hence “intimidating”.
And that view with respect to intelligence is accurate isn’t it? Men and women both rank intelligence and personality strengths as the highest criteria they look for (usually they say “good sense of humour”). And it’s not just men trying to downplay looks either. It really is number one. So if a woman is obviously smart, outgoing, engaging, funny why wouldn’t that be intimidating the same way as great beauty would be? The more so because a beautiful woman won’t necessarily demand a great looking guy but a very smart woman is going to want men who are at least pretty smart.
Well, the result is the same, isn’t it? Means I don’t get asked out much, or didn’t. The poly thing is a bit of a barrier these days, even though the barn door is open, no one wants to take the horse out for a ride, so to speak. So I’m in the same boat as always, asking men out, hoping the ones I find attractive also find me so, and can deal with polyamory.
As for this, “It sounds like they are trying to say something insulting about men like, “Men find strength in women a turn off. Men want women to be weak.”
Maybe women need to find denial and justifications to protect their own egos too. I mean, I suppose it’s easier for me to think of myself as intimidating rather than ugly or something. I see girly girly (yes using gendered language) getting hit on. Pretty, giggly, etc Soft acting, demure etc. I am not demure. I don’t know. You’d have to meet me in a place, observe and tell me what I’m doing wrong I suspect.
And it was men that told me I was intimidating. If they mean, “don’t think she’d say yes,” I couldn’t say. Some of them were men who already were taken and were commenting that I probably didn’t approached because I was intimidating. I would always laugh and say, “Me? Goofy, silly, 5’5″ small, non weapon wielding me?”
I have no idea what they meant.
Julie. Running a bit late, here.
As to intimidating: I once worked with a woman who was fabulously beautiful. Such a great figure that she dressed so as to moderate its effect. She also had an IQ of about four hundred. For obvious reasons, she had developed a public self-presentation, even among colleagues of “Don’t even think it.” I don’t know if she knew but I expect so. We were partners in the enterprise–each having someone at home whom we later married–and I am convinced a number of other folks thought we were an item. We were not, we’ll call it congenial colleagues. Since I was not a threat, didn’t pester her, I was allowed inside the outer wall. Nice person. Personable, cheerful, insightful. My suggestion, stemming from this experience, is that people may, for one reason or another, project an air of “oh, yeah?” As an actress, you’ll be familiar with bits of business which do that or do not.
In addition, and related but not necesssarily because of pnysical appearance, there is a kind of receptiveness built into self-presentation, or not. There are people who, you absolutely know it without having ever passed a word with them, will contradict you if you make a pleasantry about the weather. Others will react pleasantly until finding they shouldn’t. These folks get more business.
My issue is that I’m big and my relaxed expression isn’t relaxed-looking. It looks pretty harsh. I actively work to counter that impression. On the other hand, it’s useful from time to time, as is, I have no doubt, the intimidating air would be for you, if you really have it.
Julie.
If the latter, don’t lose it. Control it. Have it handy. Never know when it’ll turn out to be conveeeenient.
Guys who are put off by putatively full dance cards probably aren’t worth worrying about.
You might, now that you mention it, be seeming to dare guys to keep up with you in bed, or wherever. We’d mostly like to think we’re adequate.
“Direct” has a lot of definitions. Give and take usually presumes alternating and equal thrusts and parries. Speaking metaphorically. Two to one and going to trump first is disorientating.