"It's hard to be a man"No. It's the easiest thing in the world. One just relaxes. Allows himself to be himself, let his own truth come forth, his own masculinity to define itself.
I love being a man. Most of us do. What could be easier or more fun? If you're a man, that is.
"It's...hard to live up to the demands that come with the dominant conception of masculinity, of the tough guy."What a simpleton statement!
Why bother, Robert?
If you're tough, you're tough. If you're something else, you're that. If you're soft, you're soft.
Do you mean to tell me you've been trying to be a tough guy all this time??? You've been trying to be something that you're not??? No wonder you're so srewed up!
"So, guys, I have an idea -- maybe it's time we stop trying. Maybe this masculinity thing is a bad deal, not just for women, but for us."Robert. Robert. It's your misconceptions about "masculinity" that are the "bad deal". And not for women--or men either--but for you--and probably those around you.
You need therapy.
The rest of us are doing just fine--men and women.
Get help.
"We need to get rid of the whole idea of masculinity."Uh...Robert. Get help.
"It's time to abandon the claim that there are certain psychological or social traits that inherently come with being biologically male."There are definitely psychological and biological traits that inherently come with being biologically male, Robert, and they inevitably lead to distinctive social traits. The same is true of being female. And it's a good thing.
For example, men tend to fall in love with women, women with men. It works. It is also an important part of reproduction.
Men tend not to worry about having menstrual periods. It is something that women must be concerned with.
Men and women love their children, but in ways that are probably slightly different, and they tend to assume different responsibilities in caring for their children, for the benefit of the children and the general benefit of the family.
And--the biological demand for ejaculation in men tends to give them a more immediate and goal-oriented demand for sexual gratification.
The biological fact that the fetus develops within the female body--and not the male--causes women to have certain biological, psychological, and social concerns that men do not have.
"If we can get past that, we have a chance to create a better world for men and women."Most of us got past that somewhere around adolescence. And if not, during the first years of marriage and child bearing.
"That dominant conception of masculinity in U.S. culture is easily summarized: Men are assumed to be naturally competitive and aggressive, and being a real man is therefore marked by the struggle for control, conquest and domination. A man looks at the world, sees what he wants and takes it. Men who don't measure up are wimps, sissies, girls."Robert. Get help.
"Although the culture acknowledges that men can in some situations have traits traditionally associated with women (caring, compassion, tenderness), in the end it is men's strength-expressed-as-toughness that defines us and must trump any female-like softness. Those aspects of masculinity must prevail for a man to be a "real man."You're nuts!
I have never known anyone more caring, compassionate, or tender--or more masculine--than my son. If anyone is a "real man", he is.
Men in general are like this. So are women.
If you don't know this, you are living in a terrible delusion.
You are in for a very pleasant surprise if you can manage to escape from the unhappy delusional paradigm in which you are obviously living.
You are speaking of your own personal concept of "the culture". It is sick. It is false. You are delusional and horribly misguided.
Get help.
Wow. Very, very well put.
I believe that men and women are not only physically and behaviorally different (in many ways), but are actually hardwired in our brains very differently.
Liberals like this guy believe that sewing a penis on a woman and removing her breasts will make her a man, and vice versa. I just don't believe it.