Masculinity: Society's expectations vs observed traits (especially when discussing change/challenge)

iainmf · 2019-08-02T05:40:18+00:00

Masculinity is too vague of a term to be useful. We need more specificity. Here's part of a discussion I had with a psychologist on FB

I've found when talking to people they change the definition they are using partway through the conversation depending on what they are saying at the time. The definitions are related but not the same. EG

Some kind of archetype
An internal sense of, or affinity with being male (eg this is obvious in trans men because it causes gender dysphoria, but I think cis men have a similar sense)
Observable traits that men have more than women. Can be physical like being tall, or psychological like 'risk-taking'
Things associated with the male gender role.
Cultural signifiers of being a man, like 'blue is for boys', or wearing trousers rather than a skirt
Actions performed to show others you are a man (eg doing what is expected of men)
The expectations society places on men (sometimes explicitly like "real men should X" and sometimes not so obvious things like expecting a man to sleep on the couch after a fight with his partner rather than the other way around.)
The social traits that lead to a patriarchal society
The characteristics that men value

That's all I came up with but there are probably more gradations that can be made.

I think misandrists like the ambiguity of the term because it allows them to duck, dodge and deflect criticism. EG "We're not talking about men, we are talking about masculinity" except the solutions they propose for 'toxic masculinity' involves changing and policing men, not changing their attitudes towards men.

Edit: formatting

Tank-o-grad · 2019-08-01T23:22:40+00:00

Just chicks trying to collectively change men, nuff said.

And why is it feminists can expect certain masculine traits, but if the genders were reversed and we expected feminine behavior there would be uproar. Hypocrisy.

RoryTate · 2019-08-01T19:51:01+00:00

I think the problem you will run into is that masculinity is largely a pejorative term nowadays (when it is displayed by men at least). So promoting this distinction between expected and observed masculinity will have little benefit for men when there is no such thing as a "positive masculinity" in people's minds. Thanks in a large part to feminism, men are seen as damaged women and cannot simply be themselves, or do whatever their own interests inspire them to do.

genkernels · 2019-08-02T00:36:34+00:00

These are worrying results, however where I think we (certainly I) differ with the author of the article is that this is likely best tackled by changing society's reaction to those that do ask for help

I would not say best, but rather "necessarily depends upon". See, of course, the helpseeking experiences of men experiencing DV. When seeking solutions for problems, not only is the propensity to avoid help is going to be related to the social cost of receiving it, but also it is right and rational to avoid solutions demonstrated to be useless and worse than useless.

When it comes to dealing with difficult social difficulties, it is important for men to have a male contact they are regularly in contact with who appears to have genuine care for them as a person and knows basic details about their life. This provides useful access to a sober second opinion on tough choices and reduces social isolation which may well be the better part of the help that one would hope for in any case -- and at less risk than seeking professional "help".

knowing the BBC I would not be surprised to find, if I dug deeper, that the work done was more this change the masculinity that is society's expectations than it was change the masculinity that is how men are, as the BBC portraied it.

Nope, the feminist focus (see menslib) is almost entirely to get men to seek help sooner without sweeping change to the nature of the help they receive. On the other hand, the study in the link above did eventually result in hotlines substantially reducing the number of referrals to batterer's programs for victims IIRC.

Another thing to point out is that connecting more men to other men (both peers and elders), having more undivorced functional families, etc. are things that would not be progress over the past, but rather a return to form. I would point to urbanization and the minimization of the nuclear family as two social innovations that worked to isolate men without providing much in the way of replacement support, although I'm not completely sure about that.

is there a distinction to be made in such discussions between masculinity as the set of observed traits more common to men than women and masculinity as the set of expectations and limitations placed upon men by society

Masculinity is the former. The latter is gender roles. I don't see those two things being conflated much except by that awful term "toxic masculinity" which is commonly employed in order to create that and other confusions.

PsychoPhilosopher · 2019-08-03T00:53:51+00:00

I take issue with the assertion that talking therapies have been 'shown' to be less effective for men.

The issue we have is that a majority of talk therapy approaches have been engineered towards female clients, right from Freud's psychoanalysis to the modern day.

I work as a counsellor, and my niche is working with men. There are differences that a huge number of counsellors and psychologists aren't picking up on.

Mostly it's little stuff, like men needing time away from therapy to think over what they've talked through, preferring practical solutions and problem solving over empathy alone and even smaller things like a reduced need for eye contact and a longer warming up period.

But by far the biggest challenge I've found in working with men is that for most men the degree to which we've internalized the expectations of our culture and the degree to which we cleave to them, and therefore the degree to which we are grieved when we cannot keep up with unrealistic interpretations of those expectations, is far greater than with women.

That's fixable, it just requires a shift in mindset and approach that counsellors and psychologists have been slow to adopt.

rabel111 · 2019-08-03T09:35:49+00:00

Are you completely mad?

This facination feminist and male apologist have with describing masculinity as a flawed ideology is totally catastophically wrong. Masculinity is not some sociological concept that can be molded, changed and fixed. It's the lived experience of men and boys however occupied. Stop trying to nail it down and control it. Suggesting it is something that can fixed reduces it to a definition derived from feminist ideology, constructed and imposed.

Haven't you made the connection between the definition of "toxic masculinity" and the view of masculinity described in the radical feminist man hating Valarie Solanas' SCUM Manifesto? The definitions are almost identical. By accepting toxic masculinity in any form you are empowering radical feminism and reducing masculinity to something imposed on men, by those who hate maaculinity. Is this what you are suggesting?

If I am kind, and I am, I might accept that you are suggesting that toxic masculinity is the societal expectation imposed on men. A destructive stereotype that expects men to sacrifice and control their humanity for the benefit of others. But the definition of toxic masculinity you use seems to be derived from the hegemonic masculinity/patriarchy model used by feminist trolls to shame and demean.

LemonCanopy · 2019-08-03T20:57:39+00:00

Mental health professional have had a terrible track record. It is a very subjective field, especially when applied.

People bias to care about women and disregard main makes it rational for men to refuse to put their sanity in the hands of a stranger.

To me, the Opioid crisis in the US is evidence of this. Organisations and individuals looking to make easy money buy selling addictive (legal) narcotic drugs to vulnerable men. Many people in the pipeline probably believe they are doing the right thing, but it's because they don't bother to look too closely at the men that they harm.

Meanwhile, instead of implementing rules and regulation to crack down on and stop psychiatrists from perpetrating various levels of misandry against their patients. You have the APA going right up to the line of promoting it.

I think what we need is general acceptance among academia about the fact that society lacks compassion for men, and then for government to take measures to address the problem and prevent it from adversely affecting the most vulnerable men.

I believe that men's relatively greater distrust of strangers is an evolutionary adaptation to people instinctive reduced compassion for men. It can't be fixed.

So the solution is to make help available to them on men's terms in a way that men seeking help can be certain that the help given is legitimately helpful.

I've had a family friend commit suicide shortly after seeing a therapist. From comment's he's made before his suicide, it seems like he didn't trust his therapist at all. And frankly, I suspect that chances are good that she wasn't deserving of his trust.

And the solution isn't to find a way to get him to trust his therapist. That's the paths that therapist want to take because it gives them the power in the situation. Maybe the solution is to find out how to give the patient the help he needs without ever requiring him to trust the therapist. The therapist should just be a tool that the patient can use to help himself.

iainmf · 2019-08-02T00:11:58+00:00

We should treat men better.

That’s a much better way of talking about changing societies expectations of men.

xNOM · 2019-08-02T17:43:37+00:00

I don't think there's a distinction between the traits and the expectations. It's not nature or nurture. They're the same thing. If environment and genes always combine to give the same results, then what does that mean?

To me, masculinity isn't complicated. Masculinity = taking responsibility. The End.

Everything else: order, analytical thinking, stocism, hierarchies, assertiveness, etc. is a consequence of this.

What does anyone else think, is there a less clunky way to make this distinction, is this distinction even important or real, because I don't know whether I'm miles away from reality in my thinking and I'm still trying to form this chaotic thought pile into something useful and maybe discussion will help this?

Jordan Peterson's psychology lectures are kind of a goldmine for this kind of thing. Particularly the mythical archetypes.

Title	Masculinity: Society's expectations vs observed traits (especially when discussing change/challenge)
Author	Tank-o-grad
Upvotes	42
Comments	35
Date	August 1, 2019 6:03 PM UTC (7 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/ckrwvo/masculinity_societys_expectations_vs_observed/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/masculinity-societys-expectations-vs-observed.872014 https://theredarchive.com/post/872014

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