High-profile masculinity-shaming among men persists to our detriment

I saw this and shook my head. More of the same. Until men stop using preconceived masculinity and male gender roles as instruments of bashing one another, how can we expect women to stop? Excerpt:

'It’s not just that Rupert Murdoch doesn’t like Arthur Sulzberger, or doesn’t think he’s a serious newspaper publisher. It’s that he think he’s weak—girly. Sulzberger—“young Arthur”—was a frequent subject during the many hours I talked to Murdoch when I was writing his biography. Sulzberger was always, for Murdoch, a punch line. Murdoch even mimicked him in a way to suggest … well … a certain lack of manhood.

It is a joke that is shared by Murdoch and Robert Thomson, the former Australian-rules football player who is now the editor of Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal: Arthur is a sort of poofter*.
...
Without a doubt, the Wall Street Journal has selected Arthur Sulzberger as a prime example of its idea of a feminine-looking man.
...
So just imagine what Young Arthur felt this morning when he saw the lower quadrant of his face in the Journal representing the archetypal girly-man.

This is a psychological warfare side of what’s going to be a very nasty newspaper war.'

*I wonder if Vanity Fair understands that "poofter" as a word may not be seen as any big deal here in the US (in fact many American may not even know what it's supposed to mean) but has a very serious negative connotation against male homosexuals in other parts of the world. Maybe they do know and just don't care.

Like0 Dislike0

Comments

On a related note I sometimrs get very confused when considering the implications of these types of insults. Sometimes I am not sure if the effect of making fun of the Guy for acting too feminine is reinforcing the preconceived masculinity or if it is just making them more casual to the idea breaking that "ideal".

I also wonder if in some cases the male model actually is correct (in describing men as a whole) and that men as a whole are in some areas being feminized. Consider the dating world. I know that the media exaggerates the whole "I need to spread my seed" thing. I and all the men I have known dont think that much about sex. Men don't always want it just because his partner does either. So in that sense you might think a man is acting more real when he doesn't play the field. However I suspect that, as part of a feminine America, some men wont play the field for fear of being called shallow or afraid of commitment.

That being said I think in general men would be more free if we allowed them to not have to be "manly" even if sometimes they are just "following' feminine values.

Like0 Dislike0