this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2024
1233 points (93.7% liked)
Microblog Memes
6483 readers
3794 users here now
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
Rules:
- Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
- Be nice.
- No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
- Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.
Related communities:
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I feel like a man when I know I've met all of my responsibilities to myself and the ones I care about, and that I've moved the world even an infinitesimally small way forward to help the others in it. This means lending a hand or an ear to those that need it either with my labor or my mind (or many time both).
I hope others have something close to this definition, but realistically I don't think its common.
I guess what confuses me about all of this is why these things are in any way manly?
Like being reliable and following through on your commitments. Is it masculine when someone who isn’t a man is like that?
Or if I’m told someone is manly, have I now learned that he is in fact dependable?
I don’t mean to try and excessively pick apart what you’re saying, it’s just something I’ve always really struggled with understanding. People always seem to say things that strike me as being ungendered character traits when they’re asked about their gender.
That's a good question. I think most of the traits described here also apply to women, but as always, we're talking about overlapping Bell curves here. I think men derive their sense of self worth from things like strength, leadership and independence more so than women do on average. There's also traditionally feminine traits men derive self worth from, like empathy, affection and devotion. The same is probably true for women; little of column A, little of column B.
I don't think there's anything wrong with that, this is just how genders shake out on average, so the implication that a man shouldn't like feeling like one kind of bothers me.
Not who your responding too ...
I totally agree with your final thesis, it bothers me a lot too.
However, there's some nits I could pick with your construct of what drives men's (or women's) sense of self-worth as being part of the "bell curve". Meaning, that feeling of self-worth is itself derived from the culture they grow up in (read: imposed) and not some inherent trait that has been statistically examined and can be plotted on a bell curve (read: implicit).
I'd assert that the bell curves overlap 1 for 1 and that all "traits" being discussed are traits of a good person without respect to gender. Note: I'm not talking about physical traits, I'm just talking about traits of the mind and action. Emotional strength, women can and do have that. Strength of character, courage, leadership, independence, compassion, empathy, protectiveness, selflessness, charity, etc, these are all traits both genders can and ideally should objectively possess regardless if they've grown up being told otherwise. Even how those traits are made manifest are influenced by the society around them.
You didn't say it, but "Taking care of family" is the most laughable one I think I ever hear. Like, seriously? Women don't take care of their family? Aren't protective of their family? The only aspect of those that has any whiff of validity of being "masculine" is when it's associated with physical strength. But as a "trait", men have nothing on women for the societal expectations, and possibly the genetic "urge", to take care of their family. So I always just get a chuckle when someone lists taking care of family as something that defines being a man.