The bit you wrote about how people "really do think of themselves as the vanguard of radical change, and fully don’t realize they are running with a patriarchal playbook." Reminded me of this book, Humankind by Rutger Bregman. It's not about gender, but rather the idea that on both the right and the left, there is a fundamental belief that people are just "bad at heart". And this has been the root cause of wars, violence, genocide, sexism, etc. But the author turns the idea on its head and talks about how [A.] People are actually very fundamentally good, especially when the world "goes to shit" [B.] Even people committing heinous acts are doing evil from a foundation of good intent or even love. AND [C.] That power is the thing that causes folks to switch from a baseline of good to other more dubious places. A lot of what you're talking about here, really. And because the author's a historian, there are tons of fascinating stories throughout.
It's very interesting and optimism-pilled. I'm actually due to reread it myself!
Re: hatred/fear of femininity, I think you’re onto something - the hatred of women that is mobilized politically today is usually a sort of fear of their rejection.
The one thing I have difficulty squaring with that paradigm is the perception of the feminine as frivolous.
I guess when it comes to the feminine in men, one could say that what’s at issue is its detraction from “necessary” masculinity, and in women, a kind of resentment again borne of fascination (why does something so silly have so much power over me).
But a lot of the time I think it’s what you point out as women-as-children, which (to me right now before coffee) feels like the sort of hate that just comes out of power relationships providing a reason to feel superior whether that’s race or class or gender
I'm not sure I know what you mean by "the perception of the feminine as frivolous." I guess if I think of Victorian times, where women were largely contained to the domestic sphere, of course a lot of things they were encouraged to do were sort of... "unproductive" time-filler? Things like needlepoint or quilting or playing music are beautiful creations, but of course you're not exactly building cars or running the government, right. So maybe that influences the idea of "women's work" being "frivolous," and I want to say that those works are valuable and important at the scale of living our lives and experiencing beauty, but at the same time, women's ability to recognize that the "frivolous" domestic work they were left with was not comparable to a life of actual public participation helped motivate them to say "fuck this 'separate spheres' shit" and demand change, right?
I'm not sure if I can think of a modern comparison, though. I think what I see more often is a mutual acceptance that the opposite sex has stereotypical hobbies we think are dumb, and it's fine to rib each other about it a bit-- like, videogames are The archetypal masculine passtime of my generation (even though only a little more than half of American gamers are men), and everyone sort of knows that that's about as frivolous as it gets. And when men demur from the *actual labor* that is usually left to women-- the community-building labor that Jessa Crispin was talking about in that Baffler article I linked-- they tend to say that women are just better at it, rather than that it's trivial work that doesn't really need to be done.
I think a better way to think of it is to understand that the patriarchal gender paradigm is an economic one, especially for the lower classes-- men endure hardship in the marketplace so they can provide comfort for their wives, and this is acceptable because women like luxury and men are soothed by their attention (sex, mainly) after a day of labor. So cultural ideas of "masculine" and "feminine" sort of orient themselves around this economic trade-off, either justifying its necessity or displacing the problems with the system onto the people trying to live inside of it. So those conditions don't really add up to "masculine" and "feminine" being a consistent list of traits that sit on opposite sides of a spectrum, or to men thinking that "failing to be a man" just means "being a woman." That's how I think of it, anyway.
So I think saying "men think femininity is frivolous" is kind of just a blame-y way to rephrase "men associate femininity with luxury"-- for past generations & among the working class, providing that luxury was their whole raison d'etre, and they resist indulging in it themselves because they're afraid that they'll miss it when it's gone, which makes it harder to do the work to provide. It was kind of a trope in the 90s to show men doing things like getting pedicures or otherwise feeling pretty and cared-for and realizing that they love it, because like, who wouldn't? Derision is just a cover for jealousy there, I think, but maybe you're thinking of examples that I'm not.
What frustrates me about Gender Discourse is that it often erases the actual work being done to help people. I feel like part of the reason that so much Gender Discourse centers around dating is that... dating is one of the few areas where there really is a zero-sum game and few institutional levers to solve problems. So many progressive organizations and policies are actually trying to help men! See: men's mental health, acknowledging domestic and sexual violence against men, dismantling a school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately affects men. It is actually more or less noncontroversial on the left to say something like "we should destigmatize men going to mental health treatment if they need it" or "we should encourage more men to become teachers" or "we should educate boys on body dysmorphia and how action stars are unrealistically ripped because of steroids because eating disorders among men are on the rise".
I guess those efforts aren't as algorithmically optimized as dating content and edgy "girls rule, boys drool!" content and girls in superhero movies content, though (although feminists rolled their eyes at the Marvel Endgame moment, too! that scene was written by a man! the problem isn't feminism, it's that corporate pandering is stupid!). And I do think there is something to be said about how a lot of the reaction machine is bad-faith content intended to drive polarization, specifically funded by right-wing organizations. Look at how Steve Bannon talks about Gamergate! Even if all the lefty politicians we choose to represent us say the right things about caring for and uplifting the men in our community, the reaction machine will find one lady on Twitter complaining about her boyfriend and make her a symbol of The Movement.
As for a way forward: maybe it makes sense to follow the example of Black male organizing? Whether it's Visible Man Review in Chicago or Morehouse traditions or Sing Sing (which is a really beautiful movie about masculinity, male friendship, and The Power of the Arts and Expression imo), there are many solid examples of Black men talking and thinking about masculinity or putting together structures and organizations to support each other.
I just realized that I typed up a whole thing and didn't address the really cool analysis of Puritan gender roles and the idea of idealized vs stigmatized expressions of masculinity and femininity, but thank you for writing it! That was really interesting to learn about!
See my point is kind of that the bad-faith-polarization-machine is working overtime on both the left and the right, and there really isn't a stark boundary between "just venting" and intentionally creating outrage content to get a response.
But yeah, I think black men are about the only people who consistently have anything interesting to say about masculinity or who are offering any compassionate paths forward. Jessa said in that Baffler article something that might as well be about every trans "community" I've ever tried to participate in: "Maybe what we think of as community was simply the unpaid emotional and physical labor of women, as they created social networks and pathways of care that make a marginalized life survivable. Now that we think of things like community as “unpaid emotional labor,” no one wants to be the one to do it." We can recognize that the work is work and it's not fair that men aren't pulling our weight, but we haven't developed a sense that *these things still have to get done* if any community is to sustain itself, and that the duty has to be shared instead of constantly loaded onto whoever can be compelled to do it.
There is a huge difference between putting out PSAs that say "it's ok to have feelings :) get therapy" and actually providing enough therapists to go around, or building the personal connections and culture that are imho a better solution to emotional problems than therapy. And I like therapy! So when I talk about systems and institutions, I do mean things like churches and schools and social media, but also the communal infrastructure of specific people making a life together in a specific place, doing all the things an NGO just can't do.
The problem with something like the Morehouse Man (and most advice for men, and patriarchy itself, imho) is that the emphasis is on incentivizing men to 'choose' to make themselves good citizens, rather than caring for people regardless of how well they fit into some paradigm of productivity or good behavior. I think we would find that people are more likely to be good citizens of their own accord if they aren't scrounging for rent and stressed to hell all the time (or at least, that's how it's worked out for me! I'm a lot better at keeping a day job and not getting into fights with people now that I'm out of the part of my life where I just felt like scum all the time.), but in order to build the infrastructure to that end we have to first believe that everyone is intrinsically worthy of care.
Oh, for sure! I think what I was trying to say was that while algorithmic pressures work on both sides, right-wing influencers are actually being funded by Bannon, Peter Thiel, Russia etc. to produce content that drives young men towards misogyny.
But yeah, to your larger point I do think that's when we get to, like... We live in a society where everything is interconnected! We can't fix things for men until we fix our broken healthcare system, which affects men, and an ableist system that ties worth to capitalist production, which affects men, and racism and transphobia and all the other -isms as well. And when it comes to community care... I think a lot of progressive people like the idea of it in abstract but the actual process of, like, "hey, are you going to emotionally or materially care for this annoying dude you know who you don't like" is kind of a hard ask for a lot of people. Which, like... My experience in a close-knit immigrant community is that a lot of actual community is helping out or being helped by annoying people you don't like! If you're not willing to do that, you just have a friend group!
And this can be challenging. Like, intellectually I believe that people who cannot regulate their emotions, who have poor social skills, who struggle with hygiene upkeep, etc. do deserve to have community and care. But who provides that care? I don't actually want to hang out with very many stinky, unpleasant people who yell at me all the time. And I'm for everyone's right to voluntary association — if someone has hurt you badly, you shouldn't feel obligated to stay in community with them just because they need it. Sometimes people choose not to receive care no matter how much motivational interviewing you've practiced, and that has to be okay, too. The left can solve people's material needs given enough power, but also on some level most humans want to be cared for on a voluntary level by someone who sees them and loves them, which is not something a government can necessarily provide.
I do think that fixing the basic needs level of society will help a lot with that, though. Like you said, it's way easier to be a good citizen when you're not stressing over basic needs. But on the cultural/emotional level... IDK, it is tough! I think sometimes the presence of women in a space can orient the purpose of it for some men from "gain emotional support, experience a more positive masculinity" to "gain approval from the women". We're kind of fighting against society, there. I'm not sure if women can take point on this, not in the least because a Girl Savior men's movement would feel just as artificial and pandery as Marvel's Girl Power. But I do think women can call in our own (like why are self-proclaimed Boy Moms so weird!!), speak openly about gender pressures without judgement, contribute to the GoFundMe for a local Men's Shed... Open to more suggestions!
Unrelated but if you're ever in LA I really think you should come check out T-Boy Wrestling & other events that they run! It's on a more indirect arty kayfabe level but I think they're doing really interesting things with masculinity as play and community-building on that level.
Well, I don’t know if this helps, but I started to literally see The Discourse as a predator that feeds on our fears as stressed social animals, and after that I mostly felt sad about how we can get ensnared in it.
I expect trying to reason in The Discourse is a trap; reason is not what drives it. What drives it is the need to believe we are in the group of people who will not be torn apart, in a way that accelerates the probability that we’ll all be torn apart in any case. But that’s no help when forced to engage in the thing
The bit you wrote about how people "really do think of themselves as the vanguard of radical change, and fully don’t realize they are running with a patriarchal playbook." Reminded me of this book, Humankind by Rutger Bregman. It's not about gender, but rather the idea that on both the right and the left, there is a fundamental belief that people are just "bad at heart". And this has been the root cause of wars, violence, genocide, sexism, etc. But the author turns the idea on its head and talks about how [A.] People are actually very fundamentally good, especially when the world "goes to shit" [B.] Even people committing heinous acts are doing evil from a foundation of good intent or even love. AND [C.] That power is the thing that causes folks to switch from a baseline of good to other more dubious places. A lot of what you're talking about here, really. And because the author's a historian, there are tons of fascinating stories throughout.
It's very interesting and optimism-pilled. I'm actually due to reread it myself!
Oh that sounds great, a ton of stuff I've been trying to think around and advocate for a while now. Thanks for the recommendation!!
Re: hatred/fear of femininity, I think you’re onto something - the hatred of women that is mobilized politically today is usually a sort of fear of their rejection.
The one thing I have difficulty squaring with that paradigm is the perception of the feminine as frivolous.
I guess when it comes to the feminine in men, one could say that what’s at issue is its detraction from “necessary” masculinity, and in women, a kind of resentment again borne of fascination (why does something so silly have so much power over me).
But a lot of the time I think it’s what you point out as women-as-children, which (to me right now before coffee) feels like the sort of hate that just comes out of power relationships providing a reason to feel superior whether that’s race or class or gender
I'm not sure I know what you mean by "the perception of the feminine as frivolous." I guess if I think of Victorian times, where women were largely contained to the domestic sphere, of course a lot of things they were encouraged to do were sort of... "unproductive" time-filler? Things like needlepoint or quilting or playing music are beautiful creations, but of course you're not exactly building cars or running the government, right. So maybe that influences the idea of "women's work" being "frivolous," and I want to say that those works are valuable and important at the scale of living our lives and experiencing beauty, but at the same time, women's ability to recognize that the "frivolous" domestic work they were left with was not comparable to a life of actual public participation helped motivate them to say "fuck this 'separate spheres' shit" and demand change, right?
I'm not sure if I can think of a modern comparison, though. I think what I see more often is a mutual acceptance that the opposite sex has stereotypical hobbies we think are dumb, and it's fine to rib each other about it a bit-- like, videogames are The archetypal masculine passtime of my generation (even though only a little more than half of American gamers are men), and everyone sort of knows that that's about as frivolous as it gets. And when men demur from the *actual labor* that is usually left to women-- the community-building labor that Jessa Crispin was talking about in that Baffler article I linked-- they tend to say that women are just better at it, rather than that it's trivial work that doesn't really need to be done.
I think a better way to think of it is to understand that the patriarchal gender paradigm is an economic one, especially for the lower classes-- men endure hardship in the marketplace so they can provide comfort for their wives, and this is acceptable because women like luxury and men are soothed by their attention (sex, mainly) after a day of labor. So cultural ideas of "masculine" and "feminine" sort of orient themselves around this economic trade-off, either justifying its necessity or displacing the problems with the system onto the people trying to live inside of it. So those conditions don't really add up to "masculine" and "feminine" being a consistent list of traits that sit on opposite sides of a spectrum, or to men thinking that "failing to be a man" just means "being a woman." That's how I think of it, anyway.
So I think saying "men think femininity is frivolous" is kind of just a blame-y way to rephrase "men associate femininity with luxury"-- for past generations & among the working class, providing that luxury was their whole raison d'etre, and they resist indulging in it themselves because they're afraid that they'll miss it when it's gone, which makes it harder to do the work to provide. It was kind of a trope in the 90s to show men doing things like getting pedicures or otherwise feeling pretty and cared-for and realizing that they love it, because like, who wouldn't? Derision is just a cover for jealousy there, I think, but maybe you're thinking of examples that I'm not.
I appreciate and am pondering the response. Thanks for writing this!
What frustrates me about Gender Discourse is that it often erases the actual work being done to help people. I feel like part of the reason that so much Gender Discourse centers around dating is that... dating is one of the few areas where there really is a zero-sum game and few institutional levers to solve problems. So many progressive organizations and policies are actually trying to help men! See: men's mental health, acknowledging domestic and sexual violence against men, dismantling a school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately affects men. It is actually more or less noncontroversial on the left to say something like "we should destigmatize men going to mental health treatment if they need it" or "we should encourage more men to become teachers" or "we should educate boys on body dysmorphia and how action stars are unrealistically ripped because of steroids because eating disorders among men are on the rise".
I guess those efforts aren't as algorithmically optimized as dating content and edgy "girls rule, boys drool!" content and girls in superhero movies content, though (although feminists rolled their eyes at the Marvel Endgame moment, too! that scene was written by a man! the problem isn't feminism, it's that corporate pandering is stupid!). And I do think there is something to be said about how a lot of the reaction machine is bad-faith content intended to drive polarization, specifically funded by right-wing organizations. Look at how Steve Bannon talks about Gamergate! Even if all the lefty politicians we choose to represent us say the right things about caring for and uplifting the men in our community, the reaction machine will find one lady on Twitter complaining about her boyfriend and make her a symbol of The Movement.
As for a way forward: maybe it makes sense to follow the example of Black male organizing? Whether it's Visible Man Review in Chicago or Morehouse traditions or Sing Sing (which is a really beautiful movie about masculinity, male friendship, and The Power of the Arts and Expression imo), there are many solid examples of Black men talking and thinking about masculinity or putting together structures and organizations to support each other.
I just realized that I typed up a whole thing and didn't address the really cool analysis of Puritan gender roles and the idea of idealized vs stigmatized expressions of masculinity and femininity, but thank you for writing it! That was really interesting to learn about!
See my point is kind of that the bad-faith-polarization-machine is working overtime on both the left and the right, and there really isn't a stark boundary between "just venting" and intentionally creating outrage content to get a response.
But yeah, I think black men are about the only people who consistently have anything interesting to say about masculinity or who are offering any compassionate paths forward. Jessa said in that Baffler article something that might as well be about every trans "community" I've ever tried to participate in: "Maybe what we think of as community was simply the unpaid emotional and physical labor of women, as they created social networks and pathways of care that make a marginalized life survivable. Now that we think of things like community as “unpaid emotional labor,” no one wants to be the one to do it." We can recognize that the work is work and it's not fair that men aren't pulling our weight, but we haven't developed a sense that *these things still have to get done* if any community is to sustain itself, and that the duty has to be shared instead of constantly loaded onto whoever can be compelled to do it.
There is a huge difference between putting out PSAs that say "it's ok to have feelings :) get therapy" and actually providing enough therapists to go around, or building the personal connections and culture that are imho a better solution to emotional problems than therapy. And I like therapy! So when I talk about systems and institutions, I do mean things like churches and schools and social media, but also the communal infrastructure of specific people making a life together in a specific place, doing all the things an NGO just can't do.
The problem with something like the Morehouse Man (and most advice for men, and patriarchy itself, imho) is that the emphasis is on incentivizing men to 'choose' to make themselves good citizens, rather than caring for people regardless of how well they fit into some paradigm of productivity or good behavior. I think we would find that people are more likely to be good citizens of their own accord if they aren't scrounging for rent and stressed to hell all the time (or at least, that's how it's worked out for me! I'm a lot better at keeping a day job and not getting into fights with people now that I'm out of the part of my life where I just felt like scum all the time.), but in order to build the infrastructure to that end we have to first believe that everyone is intrinsically worthy of care.
Oh, for sure! I think what I was trying to say was that while algorithmic pressures work on both sides, right-wing influencers are actually being funded by Bannon, Peter Thiel, Russia etc. to produce content that drives young men towards misogyny.
But yeah, to your larger point I do think that's when we get to, like... We live in a society where everything is interconnected! We can't fix things for men until we fix our broken healthcare system, which affects men, and an ableist system that ties worth to capitalist production, which affects men, and racism and transphobia and all the other -isms as well. And when it comes to community care... I think a lot of progressive people like the idea of it in abstract but the actual process of, like, "hey, are you going to emotionally or materially care for this annoying dude you know who you don't like" is kind of a hard ask for a lot of people. Which, like... My experience in a close-knit immigrant community is that a lot of actual community is helping out or being helped by annoying people you don't like! If you're not willing to do that, you just have a friend group!
And this can be challenging. Like, intellectually I believe that people who cannot regulate their emotions, who have poor social skills, who struggle with hygiene upkeep, etc. do deserve to have community and care. But who provides that care? I don't actually want to hang out with very many stinky, unpleasant people who yell at me all the time. And I'm for everyone's right to voluntary association — if someone has hurt you badly, you shouldn't feel obligated to stay in community with them just because they need it. Sometimes people choose not to receive care no matter how much motivational interviewing you've practiced, and that has to be okay, too. The left can solve people's material needs given enough power, but also on some level most humans want to be cared for on a voluntary level by someone who sees them and loves them, which is not something a government can necessarily provide.
I do think that fixing the basic needs level of society will help a lot with that, though. Like you said, it's way easier to be a good citizen when you're not stressing over basic needs. But on the cultural/emotional level... IDK, it is tough! I think sometimes the presence of women in a space can orient the purpose of it for some men from "gain emotional support, experience a more positive masculinity" to "gain approval from the women". We're kind of fighting against society, there. I'm not sure if women can take point on this, not in the least because a Girl Savior men's movement would feel just as artificial and pandery as Marvel's Girl Power. But I do think women can call in our own (like why are self-proclaimed Boy Moms so weird!!), speak openly about gender pressures without judgement, contribute to the GoFundMe for a local Men's Shed... Open to more suggestions!
Unrelated but if you're ever in LA I really think you should come check out T-Boy Wrestling & other events that they run! It's on a more indirect arty kayfabe level but I think they're doing really interesting things with masculinity as play and community-building on that level.
Well, I don’t know if this helps, but I started to literally see The Discourse as a predator that feeds on our fears as stressed social animals, and after that I mostly felt sad about how we can get ensnared in it.
I expect trying to reason in The Discourse is a trap; reason is not what drives it. What drives it is the need to believe we are in the group of people who will not be torn apart, in a way that accelerates the probability that we’ll all be torn apart in any case. But that’s no help when forced to engage in the thing