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How good intentions can have bad results
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Good Intentions
Have you ever read an article about masculinity where you wholeheartedly agree with its goal but find the path to that goal problematic? Conversations about masculinity are very hard to get right because we are rarely aware of how deeply we are socially conditioned to think about masculinity. We may have an awareness that things need to change, and even a sophisticated political framework suggesting the nature of that change, but we often have blind spots in our thinking that threaten to undermine our whole project. As the proverb says, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Following are three such blind spots or mistakes that commonly occur in well-meaning conversations about masculinity.
Mistake 1: Real Men Don’t…
It’s probably the most well-known masculinity social media meme of the past year or two, exemplified by the Real Men Don’t Buy Girls campaign. The meme takes some social dysfunction that men typically perpetrate and informs us that “real” men don’t do that kind of thing: Real Men Don’t Rape, Real Men Don’t Hit Women.
Of course, it’s hard to argue with the intention of shutting down buying girls, rape and hitting women, but there is a problem with the logic. Buying girls, rape and hitting women result in part due to society’s regulation about what masculinity should be, in which men act out through the anxiety of performing “real” masculinity. By stating that real men don’t do something these memes unconsciously perpetuate the regulation of what men and masculinity should be about. Really, we need to dispense with referring to real men altogether.
Mistake 2: Redefining Masculinity
When talking about masculinity the easiest thing to do is to catalogue all the problems that result from society’s regulation. This is what results in all the column inches about violence and oppression. This is a very important part of the conversation about masculinity, but it usually falls short of shifting from deconstruction to construction and actually offering some solutions. When those solutions are provided they are often cast within the frame of “redefining” masculinity.
Of course, it’s hard to argue with the intention of finding solutions to violence and oppression. But violence and oppression result in part from society defining masculinity and men acting out in response to this definition. Embedded in redefining masculinity is the continuation of the problematic act of defining masculinity, just from a different angle. Really, we need to dispense with defining masculinity altogether.
Mistake 3: Getting in Touch With Your Feminine Side
When looking at all the problems surrounding masculinity, another common response is for men to counter these by “getting in touch with their feminine side”. Following this reasoning, if, for example, men are typically uncaring it is suggested they get in touch with their feminine side, which is read as nurturing. This reasoning usually concludes with a call for complementarity in which it is claimed that all people contain aspects of masculinity and femininity and that a holistic person complements their physical sex/gender with its opposite.
Of course, it’s hard to argue with the intention of creating holistic individuals who have access to any characteristic, whether commonly attributed to masculinity or femininity. But complementarity by necessity consolidates its polar elements: you cannot complement masculinity with femininity without first accepting that there is a fixed thing called masculinity and its binary relationship to femininity. So while the aim here is to mitigate regular masculinity, the end result is to perpetuate its existence. Really, we need to dispense with the polar and complementary understanding of gender altogether.
Logic Matters
Now you might think these points are hair-splitting or academic turns of logic, but they are not. It is important that if you have a worthy goal (and all three of the above mistakes relate to worthy goals) that you build a solid foundation. If the foundation for your goal is shaky, one or more things will happen beyond the continuation of the very problems you seek to counter.
First, potential allies will unconsciously perceive that there is something not quite right about the goal and while they may share its ultimate aim they will not feel passionate about it. Second, you will rarely convince your “opponents” because they too perceive the faulty logic, even if they are not in a position to articulate it in a way that you find compelling. Third, and most dangerously, your project may be co-opted by those who absolutely see the faulty logic and wish to see its perpetuation.
Once such faulty logic is revealed and genuinely understood the nature of this conversation becomes at once simpler and more fundamental: there are no real men, there is no masculinity.
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