Great article indeed! Agreed with majority of it.
I have some questions though on one of the last paragraphs:
’ Today, I fear we are making the same mistake, only in reverse, by telling men (or boys) that they should be like women. They should like princess power. They should do more housework and perform more of the child care. They should work less and “lean out.” Men should go to therapy like women, cry like women, and be less assertive and more deferential.’
So is the consensus for men to just go back to not being in touch with their emotions and bottling them up? Or that if a husband and wife both work, that the man should still do no housework because he’s a man and that the women should pick up after all his slack and end up doing triple the work? That men shouldn’t be more present in their children’s lives and leave the mothers to do most of the parenting? That men need to go back to being stubborn and less empathetic to others? That we should make our lives all about work and work ourselves to exhaustion?
Like, how do we define a true masculine these days and does it entail some of the things I wrote here?
If so, then I personally think that’s degenerating back to being less of the best you can be as a human being. Forget about man or woman and I’m now just talking about our selves. This all just sounds like a downgrade to me personally. I think as a man, the goal should be to be as balanced as possible in my feminine while being as powerful as possible in my masculine. Like I definitely don’t agree with men having to appreciate princess power, be as emotional as women or to do more work than women do. That’s ridiculous. But finding a middle ground rather than leaning towards extremes will take us all so much farther in life and create much more balance between men and women.
Where are the people that talk about finding a middle ground? Why are so many people’s arguments about this so black and white?
This is why this topic agitates me so much. It’s the black and white nature of it that is getting everyone complaining absolutely nowhere. Like the woke crowd and their virtue signaling of ‘toxic masculinity’ and just trying to demean masculinity as a whole. Get out of here with that. Masculinity is an energy and at it’s height, it builds the future and evolves humanity forward. Just as any creative power, it is also destructive and we can acknowledge that. But that destructiveness is a force of a nature and without it, there wouldn’t be progress. The sum of man’s wars and overall destruction has equaled progress.
I understand the frustration a lot of men have and a lot of it comes from the media telling them that their natural way of being is wrong. And feminizing men in very extreme ways, to the extent there’s often media showing men being under women on a daily basis. I think that’s all quite too much and I believe that masculinity should be celebrated as much as femininity. Both energies couldn’t exist without eachother.
I certainly think we need more healthy male role models in the media that reflect pure and healthy masculinity with a balance in femininity as well. Being balanced in femininity doesn’t entail being girly or crying over your friend’s break up. It’s a matter of being very conscious of your emotions and naturally expressive of them, understanding/empathetic to others and open minded enough to allow for creativity. Having both adds much
The issue is that most if not all the male role models in this movement are so on the extreme side of masculinity, that they put off the rest of the world. I’ve heard and seen enough of Andrew Tate to see that he is not a positive role model for men and people will always tell me ‘you just don’t get him. He just says things for shock value.’ If you have to say things for shock value to get attention then you’re essentially saying that you need to be fake and an asshole to get places in life. That’s not a good example to set.
So my question and only real energy going towards this at this point is for people to come up with viable solutions. The solution women on the extreme side are saying is for men to give up their masculinity and become more feminine so we could get along better. That is not… happening.
The solution men on the extreme side suggest that we go back to how things are where women go back to working and men go back to being the providers… That is not happening. The majority of people that have a taste of freedom are not going to want to go back to being a dependant and be eliminated of having options. If my future daughter wants to be an biologist, I can’t ever see myself saying something like ‘no, you can’t do that. You need to find yourself a good man with a good paying job and take care of his home and kids.’ That option is over. Especially since AI and the incoming singularity is about to change the work force forever. I don’t even know what’s to come anymore.
So, what are some viable solutions we can think of?
