There are certain characteristics I have that I am confident about - that are part of how I think about myself, my identity. These include that I am my three children's father, I am intelligent, I write well, I am a Clark, I think like an engineer, I see the world in ways that not many other people do, I am loyal, and I am a man. My maleness manifests as intellectual aggressiveness; an ability to deal with conflict in an honorable way; competitiveness; a strong drive to make and take responsibility for decisions that affect my life sometimes without waiting for other's agreement; a desire to protect my family, friends, and people who are more vulnerable than I am; and a desire for emotional and sexual intimacy with women. That's what being a man means to me. — T Clark

Wonderful reflection. Thank you for sharing. Responsibility, action, loyalty, aggression, providing protection to the vulnerable, and sexual attraction to women are perfect explications of a masculinity.

If I'm reading you correctly you're making a hard distinction between the biological and the social in how you treat the two nouns -- a man is biologically defined, and masculinity is defined in this more psychological, spiritual, ontological, or social sense.

Heh. Maybe he is :D -- I identify as an androgenous man, though my presentation is very masculine. Once upon a time I cared about living up to the expectations, but I've let go of that now. I think it's a masculine trait to be able to claim whatever one does is manly -- or maybe a better way to say that is that the expression is a masculine expression, though other genders can certainly feel stubborn in that similar way.

Ask a reductionist question and you get a reductionist answer. Masculinity gets defined as being the kind of matter which possess a certain collection of properties or essences.

So a problem is created right at the start. We have to identify a set of characteristics that are then arguably just accidents and which lack any contextual justification.

This is not a good way to proceed. — apokrisis

Great response apokrisis. Much to think through and on.

Hopefully the general reflection addressed some of this. I'm still bundling, I'm just not bundling characteristics, essences, or properties.

As a holist, I would ask what does masculinity seek to oppose itself to? What does it dichotomously "other".

Of course, that would be the feminine. Well perhaps. We might start down this road and start to think that the masculine~feminine dichotomy isn't that massively useful after all. It kind of gets at something, but lacks strong explanatory value.

Logic demands we get down to useful dichotomies – polarised limits that capture a critical axis of difference. And the truth of biology is that male and female involves considerable overlap. The truth of culture is that humans are remarkably plastic.

How are we telling the truth of the world when we allow dialectical argument to drive us to opposing extremes that are mostly about just putting small tilts one way or the other under a giant magnifying lens? — apokrisis

I think there are masculinities which pit themselves against the feminine, absolutely. It's a darker masculinity, in that it can feed into misogyny, but feminist theory has pointed out that misogyny comes from hating that women have the power to emasculate or masculate, that their worth as men is in the hands of women who get to say whether or not they are real men -- an obviously toxic identity, but one which does occur.

There's masculinities which are softer than that ugly look, though, which still puts a hard distinction. I think I'd say my upbringing and @Hanover's exposition is along these lines.

I agree with you that the truth of biology is that male and female involve overlap, and that human beings are remarkably plastic. It's part of the difficulty in trying to put the notion to words: there's something there, but it's not crisp. (as if biology was crisp... no. It's just even more fuzzy than biology)

So sure, we could give an accurate answer about maleness as biological identity and masculinity as cultural trope. We can put the small statistical differences under a spotlight. That is an interesting game, especially when you are a masculine male wanting an easy check list to confirm what you suspect.

But philosophically, we have to start by realising how the current gender wars are a cultural symptom more than a metaphysical question. — apokrisis

Oh yes. We're in agreement there. I put this in ethics for that very reason -- it's more a reflection on norms than a question of knowledge or ontology.

I still believe that gender identity is a real thing, though -- in spite of the culture wars. It took me a minute to get there, because I like all the second wave feminist stuff which is more about gender abolition and I like my Marxism which is impersonal rather than personal. Again, a line I've said in my general reflection, just too many people care about their gender identity and express it in various ways to dismiss it, even if it's not ontological. Maybe not quite ethical, but certainly close to value-theoretic thinking.

The right of politics has turned its aggression and frustration outwards on migrants and liberalism because the political realm is simply stalled when it comes to addressing humanity's real problems of climate change, food insecurity, etc. And likewise the left has followed its own inbuilt dialectical tendency by turning its frustrated rage inwards on the question of identity within the social collective.

One others to construct the outsider. The other others to deconstruct the legitimacy of leaving anyone out. The right promotes over-exclusion. The left promotes over-inclusion. And for both it is the only political game left to them as real world control has been taken off the table.

To join in with a reductionist analysis is not going to help solve anything. Male~female is already a marginal kind of dialectical difference, not worthy of cashing out in the language of substance ontology – what is the "right stuff" in terms of a set of metaphysical-strength properties.

What we should be more worried about is how left~right became such a politically neutered debate in terms of actual economic and institutional power, even as it became such a fevered debate in terms of gender politics and other superficial identity issues.

Personal identity counts for shit in the world of real politik. Because real politik has now institutionalised the impersonal flows of capital and entropy. — apokrisis

The one thing that keeps me in favor of exploring these is that I think social organisms only change because "regular" people come together to force them to -- the people who purportedly the whole organization is about. Because of that we're taught various things which dissuade people from engaging their governments.

I see the issue of gender identity coming to light because of the efforts of regular, marginalized people kept speaking up about their problems. And the whole social-movement approach to understanding the change of social organisms is pretty much my orientation.

The real politik is what the nationalists practice. And it has real effects, so it's worth paying attention to. But so do social movements, and they are likewise worth paying attention to.

As always, I'm threading needles between competing thoughts. I don't want to dismiss the realpolitik, but I think that personal identity has more influence on the real politik given how regular people speaking up have become a prominent topic by doing nothing but talking about their identities and what they need. (feminism counts here, too -- not just the recent trans stuff)



I think that's a good expression of a masculine self-image from the perspective of a man. It's the thing men often like to look up to and act towards in the sense of fully Being the Man I should be. Thanks for sharing.

Where's your thoughts now?

What differences are magnified? Who does this and for what purpose? For whose benefit? — Amity

Here I'm riffing from @Hanover's thread but into a separate topic to see what the differences are between the thread on defining "Woman" and a thread on masculinity. Different emphasis because of our respective beliefs, but I thought it'd be interesting to explore this notion given my various commitments.

So -- it's for my benefit. Naturally. :D

I agree with this line of questioning:

"As opposed to what?" — Amity

However, I think the patterns point out that there is an oppositional notion -- the boy who couldn't become man. For many masculinities the oppositional point, to speak to @apokrisis's point, isn't feminity as much as boyhood. To journey to manhood is itself a story, and the question of what a real man is is a way of differentiating one's childhood, immature, or adolescent self from one's responsible, grown-up, and mature self.

It's a Bildungsroman more than an opposition to the other sex, except when it gets ugly.

I haven't been around, so have missed this. Also, I haven't read much about philosophy and gender issues, so thanks for this thought-provoking thread. More interested now as I begin to appreciate the political implications — Amity

Cool :). I call myself a feminist because I've read the feminist works and agree with them. (I don't call myself a feminist because most people have ideas about what a man calling themself a feminist is, and it doesn't correspond to why I like feminism)

How many still think in absolute terms of masculinity/femininity?
Talking about being a 'real' woman or man...the extremes. Is that where we want to go, to be? — Amity

Worldwide? Many.

If you ask what the differences are, given its cultural dimension, you'll find contradictory accounts.

But I don't think the simple demand to abolish gender roles works because it's too central for too many people. At least, so it seems.

What do men do? They build, they toil, they manipulate their environment, they brave the elements, and they protect. The vehicle that got you to work was likely designed by a man, built by a man, driven on a road laid down by a man. The building you walked into was likely designed and built by a man, the sink you used, the toilet you flushed, all built and maintained by a man. The HVAC, the elevator, the electrical system, all installed by a man with dirt on his hands and his name on his shirt. The desk you sit in front of, also built by a man. And most, real men I propose, do this less so because of the great rewards that might or might not follow, but it's because what real men do.

This is meant as a celebration of the man. The celebration of the woman is just as real, but looks much different. Their hand rocks the cradle and therefore rules the world.

Such outdated thinking I know. But I also know that someone here reads this and says "Thank God there are still people who say this." I wrote this for you. — Hanover

I accept your panegyric to manhood. Obviously I'm more on the other side, but it accords with much of my upbringing, and my commitment to masculinities makes room for this kind of masculine identity.

Ask a woman. Ask Science Fiction. Don't ask the dicks round here, they'll start talking about their genitals and how they can lay bricks with them. — unenlightened

:rofl:

That's a wonderful image of the masculine imagination. :D

A "female man" is a woman with a man's mind, her body and soul still female.[2] Joanna's metaphorical transformation refers to her decision to seek equality by rejecting women's dependence on men and mirrors the journeys made by the other three protagonists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Female_Man

Or if you prefer your critique less angry, The Left Hand of Darkness.

On Gethen, the permanently male Genly Ai is an oddity, and is seen as a "pervert" by the natives; according to reviewers, this is Le Guin's way of gently critiquing masculinity.
— wiki — unenlightened

More books on the list, now. I agree with you that asking a woman or science fiction is a great method, if one is ready for the truth.

:D

OK, funny -- I laughed. There's too much interplay between the sexes, and cross-support (especially in a family structure) to define men by their occupation. The men may build things, but they don't do everything (there are women at the worksite who are just as capable), and they rely upon the network of women in the more traditional set-up.

One thing I'd note, though, is that you're equating men and women in terms of ability -- which I agree with -- but you're not setting out what it means to be a man, unlike @Hanover. We may disagree on masculinity, but he answered the question. Do you have an answer?

The strictly biological answer could be about how a man is an adult human with XY chromosomes, and that is easy enough. But the more one thinks about it 'being a man' is an abstraction... it's a personal identity, a social identity, and the biological answer is only the starting point, not the end point. So, there is no definitive or all encompassing answer for what masculinity is. If I tried to take a stab at it, I'd say masculinity is a set of behaviors biological males tend to exhibit and society expects men to have, both good and bad. Since men often exhibit these behaviors and also are expected to, it forms a closed circle of selective reinforcement. — GRWelsh

I'm hesitant to accept "behaviors" for the reasons I've already mentioned. What men exhibit, yes -- but I'm more inclined to parse masculinity in terms of social or psychological terms rather than behaviors.

That's a perfect example of toxic masculinity. Force your son to become a real man by getting them killed in a senseless war!

I definitely don't think there's a point to providing a strict set of requirements. However I'd say that gender identity, and especially masculine gender identity, isn't oft discussed and it's worthwhile to explore.

Are not the "masculine" attributes of e. g. aggressiveness and competition generally privileged in contemporary societies? Isn't social success primarily presented as being about dominance / status / material gain rather than e. g. caring / protectiveness / cooperation etc? — Baden

Yup!

Most of us know particular men and women who are not typical of men and women - in general. Take 1 million women and 1 million men and there will be significant differences. — BC

Oh, sure. "significant" being determined by the measurer, but I don't deny difference. It's a plastic difference, in light of @apokrisis's comments, but a difference that seems to persist in our perceptions at least.

But the topic isn't difference, unless masculinity is defined by the feminine. I don't think it is. I think men have various attachments, expectations, feelings, and modes of expression.

Thus emasculating you respondents. — Banno

I hope not!

I have a mate who owns a property near Wangaratta, drives a John Deere all day, keeps his cigs tucked in the shoulder of his singlet, and always has a half-smile on his face. He saw the title of the book "Real men don't eat quiche", and murmured quietly "Real men eat whatever they fuckin' want."

:D

Perfect.

What is a real man? — Moliere

This has been a conflicted issue for me, more earlier in life than later. I didn't fit. First, I was seriously visually impaired from birth, which has been a life-long limiting factor. (I didn't hear about partially blind, partially deaf E. O. Wilson till it was way too late for him to be a model.). Second, I am gay. This isn't an impairment, but it can require extra psychic labor to locate define and locate one's self in community.

I did have good models of manhood: my father especially, and there were uncles and family friends. My father was a steady long-time worker in the post office, and a produce gardener. He had grown up on an Iowa farm when horses were still essential, and he had a lot of general skills. He was always even tempered--something I didn't become till late in life. He supported a large family of wife and 7 children. He smoked but didn't drink. He was very active in church and small-town community life. A good man.

I wanted to be "a good man" too, but with different parameters than my father's. I often found myself up against the status quo, and resisted. Successful resistance, and if not resistance then strong criticism of the status quo was a significant piece of manliness. I was a SJW before the term was coined. As a consequence, my worklife was not particularly peaceful, nor highly remunerative. A lot of the leftists and gay activists that I admired were resisters, criticizers, and in general trouble makers for the establishment. They were "real men".

On the other hand, I consider pleasure in art, film, literature, and music also a significant part of manliness, as long as it isn't too academic, too 'fussy', too rationalized. Brandon Taylor, author of The Late Americans, excoriates the academic, fussy, feminist, POMO climate he depicts in the University of Iowa's Writers' Program through a gay student frustrated with the artificiality of it all.

Ready-to-go sexuality is also a feature of manhood. Of course I realize that there are various restrictions, boundaries, limitations, and degrees of decorum that we (try to) respect, but I expect men will be sexual when and where it is possible, and that this is a good thing.

I don't consider my definition of manhood applicable to all men. Manhood varies from the refined to the rough.

Here's refined gay Cole Porter's take on the rough man from his 1929 musical, 50 Million Frenchmen:

Find me a primitive man,
Built on a primitive plan.
Someone with vigor and vim.
I don't mean a kind that belongs to a club,
But the kind that has a club that belongs to him.
I could be the personal slave
Of someone just out of a cave.
The only man who'll ever win me
Has gotta wake up the gypsy in me,
Find me a primitive man.

Maybe that doesn't fit in with what you think I ought to think and feel, but that's your issue, not mine. — T Clark

I was addressing how to think. A question of epistemology. This is high on the bullet point list of things that make me “a philosopher”. :wink:

For me, it's not. I'm not a man in opposition to anything. — T Clark

Well that is silly. Even there you have those who are less of a man versus more of a man. All those who rank higher or lower than you in your atomic list of essential traits like aggression, competition, paternalism, loyalty, honour, responsibility, etc.

How men treat women, how people treat other people, is not a political question, no matter how much political ideologues try to make it one. — T Clark

What is it that attracts you to philosophy exactly? Is it the opportunity to counter all the fancy talk with your bluff and manly plain-speaking? :grin:

↪180 Proof If I'm reading you correctly you're making a hard distinction between the biological and the social in how you treat the two nouns -- a man is biologically defined, and masculinity is defined in this more psychological, spiritual, ontological, or social sense. — Moliere

:up:

My family did not impose such a polarizing set of options of what makes a "real man" as yours did but the society around us was dominated by that ethos. My particular situation probably had something to do with short male life spans and abusive behavior encouraging finding new mates over several generations of mothers. I am twenty-seven years older than what my father got. I don't know what my lease agreement says. The process has not given me a strong patriarchal vibe.

Both my male and female siblings received a training based upon being able to fend for oneself rather than expecting shelter by means of another. Kind of a mixed message as far as family bonding goes. My son grew up in a much more supportive environment. That is not to say I did not make a lot of stupid situations. Parenting is a fantastic method to learn about one's limitations.

Despite those generational differences, I think there was a continuity in a belief in a balance of personality of the sort Jung talked about between animus and anima. Male and Female were mythological components that had to be explored but was not a law or something. My parents did not read Jung (as far as I know) but there was a sense that we had to find out what we were rather than being told what those roles were.

This experience causes me to reflect on how humiliation gets mixed up with all sorts of sexual distinctions. Humiliation comes in many forms. There is the Lord of the Flies, The Last Picture Show, the fetishes of Sade. I think the Metamorphosis of Kafka may be the most terrible vision of the conditions. The son turns into another species while the favored daughter is put upon display the next day to lure prospective husbands.

How men treat women, how people treat other people, is not a political question, no matter how much political ideologues try to make it one. — T Clark

How people treat each other is a personal, family, social, moral and ethical question, certainly. But I don't see how it can NOT be a political question as well. Jim Crow laws involved white people treating black people very, very badly. People who hate homosexuals tend to discriminate against them. Women could not vote (in this country) until the 20th century. How have these wrongs been ameliorated? Through political action, because what people can get away with or for what they are punished for doing is determined through political processes. Women weren't granted the vote through religious means. The Civil Rights efforts by blacks were nothing if not political. Homosexuals resisting police bar raids was entirely political.

That said, I don't understand why Apokrisis' post was so caustic.

How true is this? How do you know? How helpful is it to use extreme positions of 'right' and 'left'? — Amity

There is a ton of literature now analysing what is going on right under our collective noses. Fukuyama's book, Identity, is a good example. He tracks this back to events like the "therapeutic turn" in the US psyche, as exhibited in the 1990 Californian task force report, Toward a State of Self Esteem.

Here is a chunk of my notes on where Identity directly touches on this if you want to check it out. (I'm writing from my own "ecological economics" viewpoint, so some of the jargon may be unfamiliar.)

Fukuyama p113 notes that as left politics turned towards woke grievance industry - chasing the marginalised beyond the traditional working class of a nation in pursuit of the international - that left the Marxists seeking a new relevant politics. Working class turned to right wing nationalism (rather than right wing economic liberalism). Upper class elite also likely to back traditional cultural identity over the very multiculturalism their economic platform was predicated on.

So an irony where domestic working class and economic elite found a new common cause in an assimilationist politics losing out to a globalist multiculturalism. The new dichotomy where a nation was just the local part of a larger internationalist project.

The left kept growing its scope to take in an ever expanded moral view - third world, ecosystems, historical injustice - and the right was formed by its homing in on core verities. It could be abortion, gun ownership, small government, and other defining narrow issues. Short-terminism in which the past was fossilised, the future more of the same.

So old left-right was a class war. Workers vs capital. Physical labour vs form and goals. The Aristotlean dichotomy of a local-global rational order now growing and changing too fast as people became divided between being near robotic machines and the hero boss class with all the ideational power and dignity.

This has mutated as globalisation exported all grunt work to China and US workers either became tradies and soldiers, or office workers slowly being computerised and professionals becoming time managed. The new dichotomy is still ideas vs mindless muscle, but even the muscle is going, and even the autonomy of choice is eroding.

Consumers are being given endless choice of purchase decisions. But in the workplace, choices are templates and scripted. How to do a job is less creative for white collar as well as the original blue collar factory hand.

Bringing it together, the left-right dynamic boils down to final vs material causality and what happens as that is carried to workplace extremes. Then overlaid is the personal side of politics and social institution building - the romantic response to the erosion of balanced life meaning. The old human who lived inbetween as a happy farmer fighting occasional battles.

So scalefree growth was what the reorganisation of the industrial revolution was about. That led to class war in a century. And it led to a deeper spiritual malaise a century later. First the psychic rot showed in the new materialistic foundations of the Maslovian enterprise, then in the self-actualisation upper levels - even as the growth seemed to answer the foundational needs of society, in the short term view at least.

Wonderful reflection. Thank you for sharing. Responsibility, action, loyalty, aggression, providing protection to the vulnerable, and sexual attraction to women are perfect explications of a masculinity. — Moliere

Thank you. I don't see those as "perfect explications of a masculinity." I see them as an explication of how I experience of the fact that I am a man. I don't expect other men to experience it the way I do and I don't generally judge, or even pay much attention to, the masculinity of other men.

But I don't see how it can NOT be a political question as well. Jim Crow laws involved white people treating black people very, very badly. People who hate homosexuals tend to discriminate against them. Women could not vote (in this country) until the 20th century. How have these wrongs been ameliorated? Through political action, because what people can get away with or for what they are punished for doing is determined through political processes. Women weren't granted the vote through religious means. The Civil Rights efforts by blacks were nothing if not political. Homosexuals resisting police bar raids was entirely political. — BC

Yes, I overstated my case. All those instances are political. On the other hand, once all legal restrictions to equality are removed (and I acknowledge they have not been) the battle will not have been won. How people treat each other will remain an unresolved personal, family, social, moral and ethical question. I'll go further, those non-political factors are what lead to the political obstructions.

I was addressing how to think. A question of epistemology. This is high on the bullet point list of things that make me “a philosopher”. — apokrisis

If you had addressed your post to anyone else, I wouldn't have responded, but you didn't. So I did respond, but I was confused, I'm still confused, about why you think your post was responsive to what I wrote.

My post was based on introspection, which I consider a valid epistemological method. Perhaps you don't, but you didn't say that. You say you are a philosopher (Yes I saw the wink), but really you're a western philosopher, apparently rejecting what I find most important about philosophy - the chance to examine and understand, be more aware of, how my mind works. Not calling myself a philosopher, I'm free to do with it whatever I please. I say that approach has value. Perhaps you disagree.

Well that is silly. Even there you have those who are less of a man versus more of a man. All those who rank higher or lower than you in your atomic list of essential traits like aggression, competition, paternalism, loyalty, honour, responsibility, etc. — apokrisis

As I noted in my response to @Moliere, I did not describe what it means to be a man, I described what it means to me for me to be a man. I wasn't speaking for anyone else and I don't generally judge anyone else.

What is it that attracts you to philosophy exactly? Is it the opportunity to counter all the fancy talk with your bluff and manly plain-speaking? — apokrisis

As I wrote previously, I am attracted by the chance to become more self-aware about how my intellect works. Calling it "fancy talk with your bluff and manly plain-speaking" says something about you, nothing about me.

So, would you agree that 'what is a human?' — universeness

Of course. But then again, as opposed to what?

Humans need to be understood in terms of the dichotomies that give reality to the notion of life involving "choices", or at least a flexible range of options so that behaviour is not reflexive and stereotyped.

If you label yourself as X, then you are locked into "being X", and this mostly measuring yourself in terms of actually too often "failing to be perfectly X". It is a broken way of thinking when it comes to being a man, a human, an engineer, a whatever.

What you need is some intelligible spectrum that is bounded by its opposing limits. Then you are free to range over the spectrum in ways that are adaptive to a world that is increasingly changeable and complex.

So you might find it useful to have a spectrum of human behaviour that runs between the masculine and feminine. Being able to move about this range "at will" – as a personally adaptive choice – seems a good thing as who wants to be stuck in the rut of a stereotype?

But then the other side of this is that you need to indeed find the maximally adaptive positions on this spectrum and even largely stick to it as a general habit. That is also part of the same systems deal. Having choice, but making a choice, and sticking to it while it works. The definition of self-actualisation in the healthy sense of discovering yourself through intelligent action, not trying to live up to some cultural stereotype.

Personally, I just don't find categorisation behaviour by the masculine~feminine spectrum of supposed traits to be particularly useful when living my life. It is weakly a predictive factor at the collective statistical level, but a poor predictor at the everyday personal level of the folk you have to get along with.

Why not have a debate about the prosocial~antisocial spectrum? That would be a more general human level alternative to a gender-based dichotomy. And it would for instance capture more of what @T Clark looks to want to claim about his personal identity.

The celebration of the woman is just as real, but looks much different. Their hand rocks the cradle and therefore rules the world. — Hanover

Oh the casual misogyny of celebrating the little homemakers who "are really in charge" because they tend your heirs just as your wonderful mum tended you. Pass the sick bag.

If I tried to take a stab at it, I'd say masculinity is a set of behaviors biological males tend to exhibit and society expects men to have, both good and bad. Since men often exhibit these behaviors and also are expected to, it forms a closed circle of selective reinforcement. — GRWelsh

An intelligent point at last.

Not worth posting the vid here but the ambience seems similar to me. And again, not a criticism, but your piece struck me as a kind of ''advertisement'' for manhood. Which is appropriate as a 'real man' seems a thing of marketing--maybe that's the essence of it. — Baden

I didn't take it as a criticism.

You missed the last line. It wasn't written for you. It was written for @T Clark

It was written for T Clark — Hanover

I guess I missed it.

Personally, I just don't find categorisation behaviour by the masculine~feminine spectrum of supposed traits to be particularly useful when living my life. — apokrisis

I don't either. By the time a child can benefit from reading about the masculine-feminine spectrum his or her location on any M-F spectrum is firmly in place and isn't going to change on the basis of a psychologist's construct.

The same thing goes for Kinsey's homosexual - heterosexual distribution scale. It has diagnostic value for someone who finds that what they want to do and what they are doing is at variance--like a person whose behavior is entirely heterosexual, but whose fantasies are entirely homosexual. Very screwed up. The spectrum is real, and most adults who are reasonably self-aware, pretty much already know what they are and would like to be doing.

And it would for instance capture more of what T Clark looks to want to claim about his personal identity. — apokrisis

I think there are masculinities which pit themselves against the feminine, absolutely. It's a darker masculinity — Moliere

I was framing my reply in the structuralist sense that the dichotomies that succeed and thus persist must be intrinsically complementary rather than antagonistic. They must embody a win/win division of some kind. Because that is just how nature works.

So human social organisation boils down to the complementary dynamic of local competition vs global cooperation. The system works by being globally closed by its laws or habits, while remains open and flexible as it also then composed of locally-enshrined creative freedoms of action.

Social democracy as "peak human politics" in a nutshell. We strive for a win/win where our legal system and economic goals provide the general cohesion that knits everything together while also doing as much as possible not to flatten out all the competitive differences between the individuals making up that society.

So same would go with the social construction of the male and female roles. They should be framed in ways that stress the complementary. The differences shouldn't be arbitrary traits but evolutionary sensible traits – like the good old hunter~gatherer mobility dichotomy which saw men go out for days chasing dangerous meat while women and children hung close to camp while collecting tubers, berries and hunted small game.

There are genetic tweaks for these roles. But all that is a long time ago now. Modern society has a different economic base and so this particular division of labour lacks its evolutionary logic. It feels displaced. Instead we've gone down paths like the social construction of property rights. Ownership in the form of slavery, dowries, custody, relationship contracts are all thinkable ways of human life.

There is a lot of still quite recent social history based on race, gender, ethnicity, class, etc to work through with better framing.

That is why I am favouring a systems view of the topic – one which is pretty alive in current political history and social science.

For many masculinities the oppositional point, to speak to apokrisis's point, isn't feminity as much as boyhood. — Moliere

Good point. This goes to the prosocial behaviour a society must extract from the individuals that are going to compose it. It speaks to the differences that are actually going to matter in whatever is the current concept of "the world of proper grown-ups".

I'm still confused, about why you think your post was responsive to what I wrote. — T Clark

Again, I was pointing out that it speaks to a reductionist metaphysics. What's so confusing? That I didn't reply in the same terms as if I might accept them as analytically valid?

My post was based on introspection, which I consider a valid epistemological method. Perhaps you don't, but you didn't say that. — T Clark

Well, I'll say it now. But what would give it validity would be to add the cultural context shaping those "discovered" traits.

I share much the same list. And I can trace them to the specifics of being heir to a Scots/colonial/Presbyterian/pragmatic/settler tradition and all the values held dear for good reason within that social frame.

So even in terms of introspection, you looked inward for your encultured sense of being "a man" and I read it as far more accurately a description of your experience of coming from that familiar kind of colonial settler stock – male or female.

You say you are a philosopher (Yes I saw the wink), but really you're a western philosopher, apparently rejecting what I find most important about philosophy - the chance to examine and understand, be more aware of, how my mind works. — T Clark

That is a little ridiculous as I in fact grew up in the East. So on top of recognising you immediately as the same kind of social type as myself, I am sensitised to these kinds of contrasts because I lived in five different countries before I was 12.

At 50, I eventually decided to live where my own parents grew up and was shocked to discover how much everyone was "just like me" in ways I had always thought were a bit peculiar to my parents and myself.

So I had had wide experience of many cultures – with a mangled accent to match – and yet suddenly felt totally at home somewhere, for the first time, in a place I had only ever paid a flying visit.

I don't look inwards to then find "the real me" though. I know from experience and science that this is just how cultural construction works. I don't have to be the epitome of the type of person that my grandparents geography would seem to dictate. And I don't have to rebel against it either.

I can just appreciate the prosocial aspects that this specific cultural history represents, along with its various shortcomings. Some of the habits are good. Others demand some ironic detachment.

I did not describe what it means to be a man, I described what it means to me for me to be a man. — T Clark

Again, my response is that at best it told me more about the specifics of your cultural identity than of your gender identity.

I'm sure you will now tell me I'm quite wrong about the Scots/colonial settler/etc heritage. :grin:

Again, I was pointing out that it speaks to a reductionist metaphysics. What's so confusing? That I didn't reply in the same terms as if I might accept them as analytically valid? — apokrisis

Of course they're not analytically valid. They're not analytical at all.

Well, I'll say it now. But what would give it validity would be to add the cultural context shaping those "discovered" traits. — apokrisis

What you consider valid philosophy appears to be different than what I do. I'm not sure there's any way to bridge that gap.

I share much the same list. And I can trace them to the specifics of being heir to a Scots/colonial/Presbyterian/pragmatic/settler tradition and all the values held dear for good reason within that social frame. — apokrisis

I don't doubt or deny my attitudes are formed by my western European background, among other things. I'm responsible for being aware of those attitudes and deciding whether it is proper for me to act in accordance with them. You don't know me well enough to know whether or not I'm successful with that.

That is a little ridiculous as I in fact grew up in the East. — apokrisis

If you reject self-awareness as valid epistemology, your philosophy is western, even if your upbringing isn't.

I don't look inwards to then find "the real me" though. — apokrisis

That's just your snotty way of saying, again, you don't recognize introspection as valid epistemology.

Again, my response is that at best it told me more about the specifics of your cultural identity than of your gender identity. — apokrisis

I don't see how that matters. Again - I'm not responsible for my attitude or identity, I'm responsible for my behavior.

You and I have gone back and forth a couple of times and all you've really said, over and over again, is that you don't recognize the way I understand myself and my society as valid. If you think it makes sense to do that one more time, now's your chance.

Masculinity is entitlement - ask any incel. Men define, and women opine. Blah blah Blah. A man is the one on on top, the missionary in the missionary position, the speaker not the listener, the author of authority, God Himfuckingself. The possessor of all property, of women, children, slaves, language itself, and all virtue.

Masculinity is the philosopher king, knowing best and condescending to do it to the lucky, lucky, world.

What differences are magnified? Who does this and for what purpose? For whose benefit?
— Amity

Here I'm riffing from Hanover's thread but into a separate topic to see what the differences are between the thread on defining "Woman" and a thread on masculinity. Different emphasis because of our respective beliefs, but I thought it'd be interesting to explore this notion given my various commitments.

So -- it's for my benefit. Naturally. :D — Moliere

Thanks for both your general and particular replies to all discussion participants. It helps to clarify understanding and furthers exploration.
The questions you picked from my response were not addressed to you or the motivation for your thread. Here is the full exchange:

How are we telling the truth of the world when we allow dialectical argument to drive us to opposing extremes that are mostly about just putting small tilts one way or the other under a giant magnifying lens?
— apokrisis

What differences are magnified? Who does this and for what purpose? For whose benefit?

The right of politics has turned its aggression and frustration outwards on migrants and liberalism because the political realm is simply stalled when it comes to addressing humanity's real problems of climate change, food insecurity, etc. And likewise the left has followed its own inbuilt dialectical tendency by turning its frustrated rage inwards on the question of identity within the social collective.
— apokrisis

How true is this? How do you know? How helpful is it to use extreme positions of 'right' and 'left'? — Amity

I had been thinking of the extremism/fundamentalism in politics and the need to identify and relate a hard core message. Unambiguously from an absolute and dogmatic point of view. All the better to claim or manipulate voters. So, even though most voters might have similar personal values re the economy, how money is spent - there is a strong issue on which they will not budge. Like gun control and abortion.
In the UK, it was Brexit that took central stage and won the election for the Tories. People already convinced of their specialness, holding a hatred for the 'other', and those who were swayed by lies.

What is considered to be the most pressing of 'humanity's real problems', see above, will not be properly addressed until the world sinks or burns. Or their paying customers hurt.
Short-termism is the order of the day for whoever is in power. That is part of the problem.

We can ask if concerns are related to 'masculinities' or 'femininities' - does one attitude favour environmental concerns over eternal wars? Differences are magnified for the benefit of divide and conquer. Think colonialism. Us v Them. Males v Females.

So, as to masculinities and femininities:

"Femininities" and "masculinities" describe gender identities (see Gender). They describe socio-cultural categories in everyday language; these terms are used differently in biology (see below). Because femininities and masculinities are gender identities, they are shaped by socio-cultural processes, not biology (and should not be essentialized). Femininities and masculinities are plural and dynamic; they change with culture and with individuals.

Points to keep in mind. — Gendered Innovations - Femininities and Masculinities

Read on for more...

https://genderedinnovations.stanford.edu/terms/femininities.html

I'm interested in the whole spectrum of masculinity and femininity. Perhaps from female masculinity to male femininity. And anything in between...

“Masculinity” refers to the behaviors, social roles, and relations of men within a given society as well as the meanings attributed to them. The term masculinity stresses gender, unlike male, which stresses biological sex. Thus studies of masculinities need not be confined to biological males. Masculinity studies is a feminist-inspired, interdisciplinary field that emerged in the last few decades of the 20th century as a topic of study. It deals with the diversity of identities, behaviors, and meanings that occupy the label masculine and does not assume that they are universal. — Masculinity - Sociology - Oxford Bibliographies

There is a ton of literature now analysing what is going on right under our collective noses. — apokrisis

Yes. Of that I have no doubt.
The questions

How true is this? How do you know? How helpful is it to use extreme positions of 'right' and 'left'? — Amity

related to your view of the labels 'right' and 'left' of politics.

The right of politics has turned its aggression and frustration outwards on migrants and liberalism because the political realm is simply stalled when it comes to addressing humanity's real problems of climate change, food insecurity, etc. And likewise the left has followed its own inbuilt dialectical tendency by turning its frustrated rage inwards on the question of identity within the social collective. — apokrisis

Given that there are varying degrees of 'masculinities' and 'femininities' in so-called 'lefties' and 'righties' with different areas of concern, I don't see such generalizations as helpful.

I hadn't seen this video before. It certainly made a strong impact on my brain.
I 'saw' it when I woke through the night and thought "Plato's Cave".

In the allegory "The Cave", Plato describes a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners' reality, but are not accurate representations of the real world [...]
Socrates explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are actually not the direct source of the images seen. A philosopher aims to understand and perceive the higher levels of reality. However, the other inmates of the cave do not even desire to leave their prison, for they know no better life — Plato's Cave - wiki

A brilliant ad - 'Think Different' - 1984.
But does it take violence by a single female warrior to break the illusion - the projected reality?
We are in 2023. It beggars belief that progress can be halted and new realities or rights killed off.
Is it that we know no better? Or are we convinced by others that think they do...or lie.

Apologies for not commenting on this in my earlier post:

Fukuyama's book, Identity, is a good example. He tracks this back to events like the "therapeutic turn" in the US psyche, as exhibited in the 1990 Californian task force report, Toward a State of Self Esteem.

Here is a chunk of my notes on where Identity directly touches on this if you want to check it out. (I'm writing from my own "ecological economics" viewpoint, so some of the jargon may be unfamiliar.) — apokrisis

I appreciate you taking the time to provide this viewpoint. I scanned it but have yet to digest it.
Brow furrowed and question marks appeared at the

So scalefree growth was what the reorganisation of the industrial revolution was about. That led to class war in a century. And it led to a deeper spiritual malaise a century later. First the psychic rot showed in the new materialistic foundations of the Maslovian enterprise, then in the self-actualisation upper levels - even as the growth seemed to answer the foundational needs of society, in the short term view at least.

For me, a squashed and unenlightening history of apparent cause and effect.
I know about Maslow's pyramid but unsure as to the 'Maslovian enterprise' and any 'psychic rot' in its 'materialistic foundations'. What is meant by this?

I agree with this line of questioning:

"As opposed to what?"
— Amity

However, I think the patterns point out that there is an oppositional notion -- the boy who couldn't become man. For many masculinities the oppositional point, to speak to apokrisis's point, isn't feminity as much as boyhood. To journey to manhood is itself a story, and the question of what a real man is is a way of differentiating one's childhood, immature, or adolescent self from one's responsible, grown-up, and mature self.

It's a Bildungsroman more than an opposition to the other sex, except when it gets ugly. — Moliere

To backtrack a little. The original question as to opposition related to your:

I am still a man. I know those patterns.
But I'm not interested in being a real man.
— Moliere

Whatever that means. — Amity

Why would you say that you are not interested in being/becoming a 'real man' in the sense of growth you describe?

The journey to a mature adult for all humans pretty much follows a natural/socio-cultural path with no clear demarcation. Unless you specify a legal age or perform a particular rite of passage.
Even then, questions remain.

What rites of passage mark the transition from adolescence to adulthood in your culture or community? These might be more traditional events, like getting your license; graduating from high school; or celebrating a quinceañera, Sweet 16, or bar or bat mitzvah. Or they could be more unconventional ones, like having the sex talk with your parents, learning how to handle a police encounter or experiencing the death of a loved one. At what age do these rites typically happen, and how do they prepare young people in your community for adulthood? — Rites of passage - NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/learning/what-rites-of-passage-mark-the-transition-to-adulthood-in-your-community.html

What is a real man? — Moliere

As opposed to a "fake" man ... :confused:

Perhaps a more probative inquiry:

What are the functions, or duties, normatively expected of men at (this) historical moment and by (this) culture / in (this) society? And what does such an expectation 'to be a man' mean to (for) each concretely situated person?

A socio-psychological topic, however, rather than philosophical aporia, no?

There are certain characteristics I have that I am confident about - that are part of how I think about myself, my identity. These include that I am my three children's father, I am intelligent, I write well, I am a Clark, I think like an engineer, I see the world in ways that not many other people do, I am loyal, and I am a man. My maleness manifests as intellectual aggressiveness; an ability to deal with conflict in an honorable way; competitiveness; a strong drive to make and take responsibility for decisions that affect my life sometimes without waiting for other's agreement; a desire to protect my family, friends, and people who are more vulnerable than I am; and a desire for emotional and sexual intimacy with women. That's what being a man means to me. — T Clark

Wonderful reflection. Thank you for sharing. Responsibility, action, loyalty, aggression, providing protection to the vulnerable, and sexual attraction to women are perfect explications of a masculinity. — Moliere

This caught my attention. I’m conscious of the effort to not explain ‘maleness’ in opposition to the notion of ‘female’, and I recognise this is a personal reflection, but it’s difficult not to consider answers such as these without asking ‘as opposed to…?’ Especially when reading it as a woman.

Aggression, for instance, is traditionally considered a masculine trait - yet young women these days, freed from learned expectations of passivity as ‘feminine’, are often (not always) more openly aggressive than their mothers and grandmothers were. They no longer need to appear ‘ladylike’.

Protection to the vulnerable, too, without these learned expectations, is increasingly recognised as a human trait, rather than a particularly masculine one. As a woman, it isn’t that I have no intention to protect the vulnerable, only that in many (but by no means all) situations I recognise a lack of physical or political capacity to individually eliminate a threat. That I have and make use of other means to protect the vulnerable rarely registers as action on my part, or is dismissed as ‘underhanded’ or ‘manipulative’ because it lacks this physically or politically overt individual action. I gather the support of relationships, adjust the circumstances, lend my capacity to others…

The ‘maleness’ described here appears to prioritise individual agency and attributable action - a sense of identity and ownership found in isolating one’s self from the world as the subject. Competitiveness and conflict over collaboration - my life, my decisions, my honour, my family, my desire, as opposed to others and their (dis)agreement, vulnerability, etc.

When we use this kind of language, the frustration as a woman is that it isn’t as important for me to be recognised as the subject behind every event as it is for the event to occur. I, too, want protection for the vulnerable, I want less conflict, I want change, I want reliable and intimate relationships, and I’m willing to do what I can to achieve this - but this ‘maleness’ seems more about consolidating identity through attributable action than intentionality.

Please note - this not a criticism, but a personal reflection.