What is masculinity and why is it important?

In My Humble Opinion
1

It would be fatuous to ask “what is masculinity” without acknowledging that I am really asking “what is it to be a man”? Masculinity just means pertaining to or characteristic of a man, or the qualities generally ascribed to men.

And that’s precisely where I have a problem. Are there qualities aside from the strictly sexual that define men? I think there are plenty of men who don’t share many or most of any set of such qualities that you might come up with, yet who are still men. Even “real” men (whatever that means).

Why is it important that men behave “like men?” Can’t a man just behave like a person? I know there are cultural differences in masculinity that seem to drive some men around the bend. I don’t get it. Why do you, as a person who happens to be male, have to measure yourself against some invented idea of manhood? Would meeting that standard make you a better person?

(This is probably the place to note that I am aware that I am not including questions about either women, or transsexuals, or anyone else who doesn’t consider themselves to be men. One thread can only contain so much, and that is my only excuse.)

So many men seem to be slaves to cultural stereotypes, and it doesn’t seem to make them happy. There are men who seem quite relaxed about themselves, but they seem to me to be in the minority. I believe there are some on this board, insofar as it is possible to know someone just by reading their posts.

There is a thread partly about “toxic masculinity” and a lot of disagreement about what that means. I submit that any standard of behavior that is based on masculinity or “what men are supposed to do” is almost certainly bound to be toxic to some significant degree. I find as I write this that what I object to is the use of gender-based roles and behavior as the basis for moral or even practical judgments about people, including oneself.

Sorry, this has become rather diffuse. I would like to polish it and make it more direct and pointed, but maybe a more useful discussion can be had if I don’t. Who knows what I might be leaving out. So I will just close with two questions:

In what way is being a good man different from being a good person?

How important are those differences to you for yourself (if you are a man) and/or for you to be happy with the men around you?

2

Gender identity is important to people of both genders; and some people are control freaks.

The former means that many/most people want some kind of definition of “manly”/“ladylike” they can adhere to, and the latter means that a lot of people want to force* theirs* on everybody else.

3

Masculinity has been conventionally defined (more or less) by society for millennia as some mixture of courage, provision for family, being a breadwinner, strength, confidence, etc.

I could write a lot more but that’ll just get bogged down in protracted debate over “what is the meaning of A/B/C/D/E” so I’ll just conclude with this: It is what it is because it is what it is. The differences between masculinity and femininity aren’t something society invents; they’re hard-wired and physiological. Any attempt by society to deny this inevitably causes a host of problems, like pretending that a dog is a cat and then acting baffled when the dog doesn’t behave like a cat.

4

Heck, these days it varies a bit within society.
Some of what Velocity said, courage, confidence, strength. Being the bread winner/sole provider for the family is falling to the wayside for the most part. There are exceptions to that of course, but our (U.S.) society has changed a great deal in the last 50 years.

I would add humility and self sacrifice to the list, and I suppose determination and dedication can be counted as forms of strength.

Perhaps what it all boils down to is this, a man, aquires a set of standards for behavior for himself and holds, or strives to hold himself to those standards at all times, all places, all costs no matter who is or isn’t watching, while fully aware that he will likely fail at some points.

A real man makes a great Dad, with wisdom, courage, selfsacrifice, humility and discipline.

Manhood isn’t how well you fight or how much money you make or have or do you cry at sappy movies or not. Thats just stupid preadolescent boyhood shit.

And yes there are physiological things that, even though I deliberately left out for brevity, cannot be ignored for the conversation as a whole

5

I never really thought of myself as a man. More as a person. Then, at a certain age, I looked in the mirror and noticed that I had developed a bit of belly fat. Like my Dad before me. And looking at that, I spontaneously thought, with a certain amount of pride: “I’m a man. That’s what a man looks like.”

6

Masculinity describes the traits that social convention associates with the ideal man: knowing how to stop a fight, knowing how much to tip and when, not looking too smart nor losing the common touch, telling your problems or your business on a “need to know” basis, being feared and respected to a degree that people know better than to mess with you and yours.

I once explained to my adult students the difference between a “pussy” and a “cunt.” The former is a man lacking in virtues that we value in males, and the latter is a duplicitous woman. That’s how Americans use the terms; in Britain, it might be the other way around.

7

Yeah, I use those coterminously too.

I think it’s pretty obvious that originally those two terms were directly bolted onto biological / morphological sex. But I’m also one of those who distinguish the socially associated paraphernalia of personality and behavior and nuance and so forth from the biological / morphological, and I use “masculine” and “man” to refer to the social stuff. And “male” to refer to the physiological as bracketed off from all that. That enables me to say I’m male but not a man and not masculine. (And it’s useful to be able to say that so succinctly).

Where it gets complicated is when people who reject socially rigid notions of how you’re supposed to be if you’re male decide to use “man” or “masculine” to refer to whatever-the-heck they do consider attributes of being biologically male. Then they accuse people who use the words like I do of being the ones with sexist and antiquated notions of sexual difference.

8

I don’t think that strong gender identity necessarily goes with wanting a societal definition of that gender which distinguishes it from any other gender.

I strongly identify as female; but I’m not interested in many of the things that this society has coded as female, and I do a number of things that the society codes as male.

Are you seriously saying that women don’t have courage, provide for their families, act as breadwinners, have strength, and/or have confidence?

9

Of course we do. We just aren’t compelled to prove it over and over.

Seriously, when was the last time you heard of a woman needing to prove her womanhood? In a movie, a novel, or real life or anything?

10

So far, we have these qualities proposed by three posters as components of masculinity:

-courage
-ability to provide for family
-strength
-determination
-dedication
-confidence
-humility
-self-sacrifice
-having a set of standards for behavior
-knowing how to stop a fight
-knowing how much and when to tip
-not looking too smart
-not losing the common touch
-being feared or respected so as not to be messed with

(OK, some of these are just silly, but I’m not going to say which ones, judge for yourselves.)

thorny locust has questioned some of these as specifically or exclusively masculine traits, and to expand on that question: why are these characteristics of good men rather than characteristics of good people?

Historical and societal norms have been cited, but I would really like us to be able to look beyond those to the core of what it means to be a man, and why. Men’s roles in society have changed drastically in the past century but so many of these traits are rooted in the past. The fight for survival in our society has little, in my opinion, to do with physical size or strength, or the ability to fight. I notice in this list a distinct lack in traits centered around thinking, or wisdom. Don’t men need those traits too? Doesn’t everyone? Or are “masculine” men doomed to be left behind as society advances?

11

Our culture prizes masculinity. It devalues femininity.

Feminism has enabled women to see that acting “like women” encompasses a lot. Women can be strong, independent, brave, stoic, and aggressive—and they can be the opposite of those things—and still be on solid ground with their gender identity. You see parents bragging about their daughters climbing trees and playing with trucks, rather than dolls and princess dresses. Action heroines that kick ass alongside men are celebrated. Why? Because traits that are associated with men have prestige, and women that exhibit these traits can acquire access to this prestige.

It does not work this way for men and femininity. And there is no male equivalent to feminism that has helped men (and women) to see other valid ways of acting “like men” than the traditional way. So what you end up with is a gross imbalance between men and women in the importance they assign to measuring up to their gender expectations.

The most obvious sign of this is clothing choices. Women enjoy a freedom in how they dress themselves that men can only imagine. Pants, shorts, skirts, dresses. I can wear my husband’s jackets and sweaters and no one will blink an eye. But it would be unthinkable for most men to wear anything from a women’s closet. You can’t do that unless you’re prepared to be identified as a non-man.

12

There’s something to do with risking a heap of all your winnings on one turn of pitch-and-toss then losing. Can’t remember details. Glad I’m female and don’t have to do anything so stupid.

13

One confusing factor is that, in our language, “man” means “adult male human being”; and when we talk about what it means to be a man, sometimes we’re focusing on the “adult” part, sometimes on the “male” part, and sometimes on the “human being” part—and sometimes we aren’t clear about which we mean, and we mix them up and conflate them. So when we talk about being a man, or when we tell someone to “man up” or “act like a man,” we might be telling them to be a grown-up (a man instead of a boy), or to be masculine (a man instead of a woman), or to be a human being (a man instead of a beast).

14

This is all true, but it’s descriptive of the way people are taught to behave (and it can vary by culture, although I don’t know of a current culture where femininity is valued over masculinity). Are we able to go any deeper and change the things we value – i.e. to recognize that so many of the traits we value are adult human traits rather than gender-related traits? Or is this an ineluctable outcome of whatever influences caused it to happen in the first place?

A good observation. Sometimes more than one is meant at the same time – we might be telling someone both to be an adult and to be masculine. Words certainly have power, and it is notoriously hard to get people to change the way they talk.

15

Coming back to this to post again because this kind of stuff fascinates me.

I’m going to refine/expand my earlier posting.
The way I see it, the definition of “manhood” changes depending on the perspective.

From the pov of observing my own family while growing up Ive learned that being a man is;
about taking care of responsibilities
Doing the things that need to be done, no matter who usually does them. There is labor division within the home but not “women’s work” or “men’s work”
Both men and women have a friend outside of the marriage they confide in (usually of the same gender) and its ok to show strong emotion (for instance, when you outlive your own child). A man is in control of how he displays emotions, but he doesn’t bottle them up and never express them.

From the pov of how a man interacts with his peers;
He is confident in his abilities and knowledge.
He is smart or mature enough to make sure he has the knowledge he needs when doing something new, he doesn’t just jump into something blind if he can help it.
He is reliable, his peers can count on him, this allows him to be able to count on his peers when circumstances dictate the need.
He is outwardly humble, he doesn’t boast or brag. But he doesn’t hide accomplishment either.
At some point, men will engage in behavior designed to attract and win a sexual partner. This behavior, which is also “manly” includes things like posturing, fighting, other high risk behavior, displays of wealth etc. This is acceptable behavior for younger men as a stage of life. but unfortunately a great many men get stuck at this stage and don’t fully mature out of it. I like to think of it as the end of adolescence/childhood and the beginning of adulthood.

I suppose when you strip away everything, manhood, true manhood is really adulthood. All the mating ritual stuff is just that, mating rituals designed to attract and keep a mate. And even those change after a while if a man and a woman are old enough.

In short, “manly men manhood” is all dick measuring, whereas “real manhood” is merely a heavily gender biased way of saying adulthood

16

Yes we are able to do that. Because we are doing it with women.

That list that you just posted of “masculine” traits? They are not really perceived as manly when a woman is doing them. It’s like wearing pants; only a stone age relic would see that and think “look at that masculine woman”.

Once men claim “feminine” traits the same way women have claimed “masculine” ones, they will cease to be seen as gendered.

17

I see what you did, there.

To rephrase the OP, “What is Yang and why is it important?”

18

Many years ago, a male partner at the consulting firm I worked for told one of the female associates she wasn’t “womanly.” She was extremely hurt and insulted by this remark, as were all the other females who heard about it.

Except for me. I knew the firm well and the partner somewhat well, and AFAICT he was saying she didn’t act enough like a little girl.

To this day I still don’t know if he meant something else by it, and if so what that was. I still don’t know why so many thought it was such an insulting thing to say. Why would you take to heart anything said by an asshole partner? (And, yeah, they were pretty much all assholes.)

19

“Masculinity” is the set of traits that stereotypically exemplify “being a real man” for a given culture or subculture at a particular time. Some are, IMHO, positive traits and some not as much so.

Of the positive ones that are not physical they are rapidly becoming traits that we associate with ideals of “being a real woman” too - courage, grit, so on - and in various subcultures have historically to various degrees also. You can go back to many of various cultures’ myths (Biblical inclusive) for these values being celebrated in women heroes, even if less consistently as among the male ones. Sometimes the strong woman in these myths allows the male and others to think he is the strong one, but the reader/listener knows better.

“Masculinity” traditionally has not included being a nurturer but the importance of being a present and nurturing father, along with being supportive as a partner, is increasingly a part of what our culture defines as “being a real man”.

As a parent I hope I have done my part getting my kids to adulthood messaging and modeling that grit and nurturing both are not being a real man or a real woman but being the kind of person we should all aspire to be.

Another major gender-related stereotype is how willing each is to reveal vulnerability with the male stereotype much less willing to do so lest they be thought of as weak and of less “honor”. This is one that I hope we can move out of as a cultural expectation sooner than later as I believe it is associated with completed male suicide.

I doubt our society will throw the concepts completely in the trash heap, but the less we emphasize the stereotypes and instead move to identifying that these are things “we value are adult human traits rather than gender-related traits” the better for us all.

20

I was replying to Velocity, post #3; who in that post seemed to imply that expecting women to have those characteristics was like expecting dogs to behave like cats.

I don’t know that I’ve seen it phrased that way. But I’ve certainly heard and seen women (occasionally me specifically, often not) criticized for being unwomanly/unfeminine all of my life, in all of those forms.

Seconding that this is a good point.

Hard, but not impossible. Language changes all the time.

IME this sort of behavior, while it may impress other boys or men who behave in the same fashion, rarely impresses women. Women subjected to it are more likely to roll their eyes (possibly covertly and only to other women, if their particular society discourages women from openly criticizing men) and to try to get out of the way.