I've certainly known many stress tolerant women. — Hanover
Thank you for being so patient, with me trying to get away without laying my worldview out in much detail. (So to speak.)
I can see I would need to start a new thread to fill in the details, and while I might be up for that, it would be a sciency explanation of how I see humans as existing within a system, and most affectingly, within a system of their fellow humans and the universe at large.
It would help motivate me to take on such a project, if I had confidence it wasn't going to feel like a waste of my time. So how interested are you? — wonderer1
So while maybe men have certain competitive advantages in society, they don't serve to promote happiness. — Hanover
In my experience the writer's world is often very competitive - who gets to be interviewed and on what media, sales figures, invitations to speak, prizes. Several of my friends are successful writers and journalists. They describe a hive of competition, bitter rivalries, irrational hatreds and enmities. If it's your profession, the solitary act of writing is often subsumed by the social world of writers. — Tom Storm
Clearly I was talking about predicates and not names when talking about self-labelling. A name makes no claim about the qualities you possess. — apokrisis
You're not eliminating competition, you're just reducing the risk of loss so that the limited reward of winning is worth entry into the contest.
The risk of loss is the stress associated with criticism or being told you rank beneath your peers. The reward of winning is a pat on the back. To get more entrants, you either need to reduce the risk of loss (e.g. don't have an objective rating system or don't permit harsh criticism) or increase the rewards of winning (e.g. give the winner $1,000).
Since we have limited resources to increase rewards, we opt to limit risk. That is, you just rewrote the rules to your competition. You didn't eliminate it. — Hanover
As to stress tolerance, a critical attribute of any competitor (arguably as critical as intelligence and conscientious), if that is more a male trait, you are correct that its reduction would benefit women. That thesis would rest on the idea that women seek stability more than men, perhaps owing to their nurturing instincts, but that's an idea based on stereotype, but maybe supportable empirically. I don't know. I've certainly known many stress tolerant women — Hanover
So while maybe men have certain competitive advantages in society, they don't serve to promote happiness. — Hanover
Was this all just good clean Amurican fun? or does it exemplify American cultural confusion as to their national notion of patriarchy and masculinity. — universeness
I have with TT is the one I have with drag performers - men wanting to steal something from women without ever having to pay their dues. I've always found it disrespectful. — T Clark
Why would you say that you are not interested in being/becoming a 'real man' in the sense of growth you describe? — Amity
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? — 180 Proof
So let's get off the idea that men and women are just the same but for a few anatomical differences, and that it makes sense to respect some amount of gender behavior is in fact caused by basic genetics, — Hanover
I don't usually do hot takes but here's one: it's about risk. I doubt it's entirely a social construction, but if I suggested that male mammals are more, shall we say, disposable, that would be a just-so story. Vaguely the right place to start though, to find the material social construction has to work with.
The roles men are expected to take on -- with the usual caveats here -- that neither women nor children are, are risky. Men go to war, not just because of their aptitude for violence, but also because there is considerable risk.
The Pony Express used to run this ad: "Wanted. Young, skinny, wiry fellows. Not over 18. Must be expert riders. Willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred." As a group essential but individually disposable.
I won't multiply examples, but I'll add that it might make sense for a society to arrange itself partly in terms of risk. There have generally been dangerous things that need doing, so you probably don't want everyone doing them. Obviously today we have women soldiers, fire fighters, and so on, and we have child soldiers too. Yay. — Srap Tasmaner
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. — Possibility
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.
or step back to critique the settings of social system that is seeking to over-simplify us. — apokrisis
Regardless of whose lives are relatively better, we're all worse off. Men are not better off by being marketed a masculine ideology from a young age. The whole society is sick and we all suffer from it. — Baden
The realities of class overrun our educated chatter about sex, gender, men (masculinity), and women (femininity). Educated, professional workers are just not in the same boat as blue-collar / gray collar workers. I've been both. The latter is definitely more pleasant than the latter. — BC
So in your opinion, was Tiny Tim a willing participant in an overall wish by a patriarchal American culture to parody/ridicule homosexuality? — universeness
Why do you think John Wayne acted the way he did on stage — universeness
Do you think there are any parallels between this and going to see/laugh/be entertained, at the freak show where you could be smug and self-righteous, — universeness
Does male masculinity and how it has historically manifested in patriarchy, have any place in the future world, you would like for your children? — universeness
Should posters here, be allowed to accent only, whatever evidence they think they have, for a future positive role, for traditional/historical male role models in a patriarchy, without counter points and red flags being raised by other posters? — universeness
Would the fact that they loved the work and enjoyed the job very much, sway you in any way? — universeness
think men should never parody women? — universeness
Which means that this genetics is, in fact, a pop-biology that's not looking at the wide range of expressions which are possible. — Moliere
I am still a man. I know those patterns.
But I'm not interested in being a real man.[*]
— Moliere
From what I understand you identify as a male. Transitioned from boyhood to manhood.grew into 'something' which doesn't fit with 'real men' [*] whatever that is.
...this kind of goes to what I'm trying to do with the distinction between boyhood/manhood and feminine/masculine -- our adult selves are differentiated from our childhood selves more than they are differentiated from the other gender. We look for differences between men and women because that's part of the gender game is to find differences to confirm that we're different but complementary to one another. But in coming to understand masculinity I'm suggesting that the coming-to-age story is more relevant than the game of gender differences. — Moliere
Then, surgery.Puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. Side-effects.
In general, people wanting masculinisation usually take testosterone and people after feminisation usually take oestrogen. — NHS
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
Your answer is exactly what I'm looking for — Moliere
From what I understand you identify as a male. Transitioned from boyhood to manhood. — Amity
You focus on social traits (rather than physical, mental or psychological factors) related to being a woman or a man. Why?
What do you mean by 'social traits'? — Amity
Do you mean the forming of personality or character/istics including the emotions, whether or not they are masculine/feminine?
You think that the difference between the feminine/masculine (or men and women) is less relevant than the transition from boyhood>manhood (or girlhood>womanhood) when it comes to understanding 'Masculinity'.
Have I understood you correctly? I don't think it is that simple.
Complexities arise when you consider that males (young and adult) can have a heady mix of masculinities and femininities along a spectrum of human characteristics/traits.
This becomes even more complicated in the case of Gender Dysphoria.
For example, transitioning from male to female during puberty. Growing from boyhood to womanhood.
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/
and treatment (psychological and medical):
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/gender-dysphoria/treatment/
Puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. Side-effects.
In general, people wanting masculinisation usually take testosterone and people after feminisation usually take oestrogen.
— NHS
Then, surgery. — Amity
What do you mean by 'except when it gets ugly'? — Amity
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