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Masculinity, a Delicate Flower

thetrollking

May 7, 2011

18 upvotes

/r/MensRights

http://healthland.time.com/2011/05/05/masculinity-a-delicate-flower/

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Post Information

Title	Masculinity, a Delicate Flower
Author	thetrollking
Upvotes	18
Comments	20
Date	May 7, 2011 1:29 AM UTC (15 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/h5r4j/masculinity_a_delicate_flower/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/masculinity-a-delicate-flower.1040180 https://theredarchive.com/post/1040180

Comments

[–]aetheralloy 1 point2 points3 points 15 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]PastafarianNutJob 1 point2 points3 points 15 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]killwhit3y 1 point2 points3 points 15 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]thetrollking[S] 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]thetrollking[S] 2 points3 points4 points 15 years ago (9 children) | Copy Link

[–]adriens 2 points3 points4 points 15 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]chavelah 1 point2 points3 points 15 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

I thought the original article was pretty stupid, and in general I think it's less than ideal for women to write articles about what it's like to be a man in patriarchy (or vice versa), but the feminist blogger performs the very useful service of pointing out that stereotypical masculine gender performance (very different from BEING A MAN, or BEING MALE, or BEING MANLY) doesn't impress attract her or impress her, and that she doesn't want or expect her partner to act it out.

This kind of feedback, to me, is a necessary foil to all the women who DO reward that kind of bullshit. Masculine gender performance is irritating as hell to put up with, and I can only assume that keeping up the act is also irritating, emotionally draining and a general pain in the ass to the man inside the swaggering bully.

[–]thetrollking[S] -1 points0 points1 point 15 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[–]chavelah 1 point2 points3 points 15 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

How is it NOT different? I'm not trying to be difficult, I'd be happy to answer your question, but I don't even know where to start. It's the difference between being yourself and putting on a show - and it's a very obvious difference, to me, at this point in my life. A man who is being himself will tell you what he thinks. A man who is doing the "man act" will tell you what he thinks you think he should think, and then get angry if you disagree. It's fucking exhausting, and women shouldn't be neutral about it - they should say "cut that shit out, I'm not impressed." That's very hard, because it means dropping the "woman act" and actually giving honest feedback. But it's work that needs doing if we're going to make any kind of progress.

And as long as we're swapping anecdotes here, most of the bullies I know who didn't grow out of it learned their craft at the feet of their swaggering bully fathers. Nothing like passing the damage down the generations...

[–]thetrollking[S] 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

I didn't say all bullies. I used qualifiers like tend and but not always....

I find the use of anecdotes funny. Or more succinctly, people calling out others observations that they don't agree with anecdotes. If I look at the number of bullies that I have known from the schools I went to in my life then I can get a number high enough that might even be bigger than the populations used by many social scientists in their graduate studies.

Many studies and papers use populations of 20 or 40 people to draw conclusions from. That aside.

I do know what you mean with the man act but I just don't think it is as common as you make it out to be. Maybe it is because I don't date guys or maybe it is because I never had many jock type or frat type buddies IDK? I have hung out with a wide range of guys. I am not the sort of person who only hangs out with people who listen to my exact type of music and refuse to be friends with people who dress differently than me....I tend to find more women than men who fit that description but there are plenty of hipster type guys like that who are annoying.

I just don't see it very often. That isn't to say that I don't see people of both sexes who are trying to fit in and look cool or what have you, I just don't come across it very often.

Have you ever thought that maybe those guys who are putting on the "man act" are simply acting like who they really are? I never cease to be amazed at how dumb and shallow some people are. I really wish I had telepathy. I would like to be able to look inside some people mind and see that it truly is empty. I have had some friends and gfs claim that they could actually sit there and not have a thought for hours on end. I can't even do that stoned. It boggles my mind...or blows it man.

[–]nanomagnetic -2 points-1 points0 points 15 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

[–]thetrollking[S] 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[–]nanomagnetic -1 points0 points1 point 15 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

[–]thetrollking[S] 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]adriens 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

[–]Chimp711 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (4 children) | Copy Link

[–]thetrollking[S] 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (3 children) | Copy Link

I found it interesting too. I also see that the experiment is based on a feminist framework.

I wouldn't call the research that amazing. In one example they had men braid ropes and braid hair and then watched which ones punched a punching bag afterwards. There are many factors that could play into this. We the researchers or observers making any sort of remarks, were the girls whos hair was being braided making remarks and were girls in the room watching as the men braided rope?

I think some aspects of it are interesting. I believe in the evolutionary theories of male-male competition/display and female choice. The article fits that framework if you look at it through that lens.

I am just sick of women thinking they can tell men what masculinity is or study it in our place or redefine it for their purpose/benefit. This is especially annoying when you realize two things. 1. Many men grow up without fathers. 2. Women would be pissed as all hell if men attempted to define femininity/womanhood for women without their input. Then there is my thinking that women create the "man-box" and force men into. At the very least women are the carrot that is helf infront of men that lure them down the manpath.

[–]jlenes 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (2 children) | Copy Link

[–]thetrollking[S] 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (1 child) | Copy Link

And how was it controlled? I haven't read up on it much but I am curious. I could see controlling for certain behaviors and remarks but body language is still body language. I know that is not what you meant by controlled, but still.

This didn't happen in a vacuum. They may have measured beliefs about it but I am not sure what we can really take away from the study. So some men punched a punching back after braiding hair. Was it all men or a majority? Even if it was a majority, then what does that really say about masculinity? Maybe they were pissed off for having to do such a stupid experiment to get extra credit for a psych class. I am just sayin, I had to go and do a few psych studies for extra credit and even had to do a few as part of the class curriculum and they were stupid. Anyways, in the last part of my comment I wasn't talking about the study so much as in general.

I would disagree that they didn't put men into a manbox. They had the men do something that is coded to be stereotypically feminine compared to something that is supposed to be seen as unisex, which I am not sure about, and then measured their responses afterwards with something the researchers thought would represent masculinity...they had to punch something or act aggressive to display their manhood.

Now, I don't agree with their constructions of masculinity and wonder who they are to construct it in that way but that aside they did take these guys out of what they thought was the cultural construction of masculinity and then allowed them to put themselves back into that construction which is interesting but I don't really see how it tells us that much. I kinda wonder where they got the idea that braiding rope is unisex or not feminine??? I wonder if they braided a real live girls hair or a wigs hair. The woman may not have said anything but it would make some difference in my mind whether it was a wig or a actual person.

[–]jlenes 0 points1 point2 points 15 years ago (0 children) | Copy Link

First, let's say that I have some particularly good inside knowledge about this set of studies. Second, you seem to misunderstand how experimental design works. If they were using subtle "body language," we would expect that same body language would adversely affect participants in both the experimental (threat) and control (affirm) conditions -- again, this is false. Additionally, experimenters are blind to the threat condition. Additionally, you seem to have a rather juvenile understanding of statistical hypothesis testing. Significance tests aren't simple majorities.

Again, your argument that people were "pissed off" for having to do a "stupid" experiment is invalid because of the way that basic experimental design works. If people were pissed off for having to do a "dumb" experiment, they would have been equally pissed off in both the experimental and control conditions. Again, that wasn't true.

You really, really, really need to read the original articles in their entirety if you want to understand what happened and how they did it. If you haven't done this, you are doing a disservice to yourself. Read: "Precarious Manhood" (Vandello, Bosson, Cohen, Burnaford, & Weaver, 2008) and "Precarious Manhood and Displays of Physical Aggression" (Bosson, Vandello, Burnaford, Weaver, & Wasti, 2009). What you would find is that the researchers gave participants a choice of tasks, and didn't make them all punch the punching bag -- they chose it.

To answer you directly, it was a mannequin. Using a real woman for the braiding task would be reflective of poor experimental control. You seem to be ignoring the first set of studies that have to do with beliefs about manhood as precarious, and have nothing to do with aggression. These are Studies 1a, 1b, 2, and 3 of the Vandello, et. al (2008) paper. Just as an FYI, Joe Vandello, Jonathan Weaver, and Dov Cohen are all men who are authors on this research.