I’m Increasingly Coming To The Conclusion

That masculinity is an artificial construct, separating itself off from the natural state of humanity. Femininity and masculinity aren’t “in need of balancing”, masculinity just needs to stop pretending it’s separate and superior.

Masculinity is defined at least in our culture by two characteristics: Domination, and the absence of the feminine.

Also like taking obsessive care of a lawn is masculine but gardening is feminine? So like grass is the plant it’s manly to take care of? WHY? WHY IS GRASS MANLY?

If men are supposed to hate all pink/frilly/fem stuff

then why is the performance of femininity supposed to be for them?

Like wouldn’t that mean like ruffly pink heart shaped stuff be only for wlw?

IDK

Like being kind and emotionally open with another man isn’t what I’d call a radical act but it is what I’d call a good start.

I think sometimes het guys confuse friendship with something romantic

cause they don’t know how to be close with someone non-sexually, like their relationships with their dude friends are moderated through all these weird masculine codes where like touching and discussion of emotion are limited by this fear of effeminacy/homosexuality (and like it’s so deep they don’t even realize they’re doing it) and so like the only people they really talk about that shit with is their partners and so like they understand romance with emotional closeness.

Which like doesn’t excuse their behavior, just like reiterates how much of a problem toxic masculinity is and like if men want to do something feminist one of the best things they can do is emotionally connect with other men and like not be toxic towards other men.

How is it that silent stoicism is a trait considered to be a foundation of masculinity

But men still never stfu or stop whining?

Masculinity as absence also makes the fact that masculinity feels constantly threatened make sense

Because it’s a blank space, and feels sort of “nature abhors a vacuum” but filling it with anything would be feminine? That sounded wrong. Heh male anxieties about penetration

I’ve been trying to articulate why I think femininity is necessary to the revolution for a long time

and I think I finally got part of it, which is that masculinity is hegemonic in idealized and romanticized images of labor and is kind of the “bone” capital threw male labourers (especially white male) so they’d throw the rest of us under the bus.

Like construing manual labor as romantic and the work of “real men” as well as using it as the hegemonic image of labor itself both denies women and other working class people in non-masculine fields the label “worker” (which can help undermine class consciousness and solidarity) and also serves as a way for male workers of this sort to see the bourgeois as insufficiently masculine and thus inferior so they can feel comfortable in their subordinate position (sort of)

Also keeping hegemonic masculinity and other power structures would prevent the formation of a truly revolutionary society, as if we say keep patriarchy, men will develop hierarchical power structures to maintain patriarchy, and if we keep white supremacy we’ll develop power structures to maintain it, which will lead to the recreation of a class system, I think.

Thinking about how conditional male privilege is at times, and how vulnerable men who violate the terms of it are.

I see the effects of that a lot at work. Transgressing against masculinity is a very scary thing and I totally have props for dudes who do.

That said then it’s all actually really complicated because like when a woman enters a masculinized field she’s scorned and made to work twice as hard, a man enters a feminized field and he’s welcomed by the women there with open arms and usually ends up getting paid more.

I feel like things with that are complicated.