"In defense of manhood"

Submitted by Mastodon on Mon, 2014-06-09 01:10

Article here. Excerpt:

'I have — tired — of the constant attacks on men these days.

From the "rape culture," to bumbling depictions of men on television, to the constant drumbeat that manly and masculine behavior is somehow antisocial, to the overmedication of primarily young boys in school, misandry is rampant in our current culture.

And all the while the administration and the media bleat about misogyny and the "Republican War on Women™.

Is misogyny real? Certainly.

But so is misandry. So is this idea that somehow traditional ideas of manliness and "the man thing" is the source of all trouble.

So forthwith is a defense of manhood, starting with a description of what a man truly is.'

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'So forthwith is a defense of manhood, starting with a description of what a man truly is.'

Then it became a near word-for-word reading of the modern chivalrous man's credo to serve and protect "the fair ones", be a provider, etc., etc. No mention of the concept that a REAL MAN may want to adopt a rather different attitude toward his place in society and his particular mission in life. He immediately states a true men never physically hurts women. (I wonder, even if she's coming after him with a kitchen knife?) But he delivers no suggestion that women should never hurt men. He seems oblivious even to the possibility. He also over-estimates the average man's physical advantages over the average woman's; typically, men are only about 30% stronger than women, but even so, a single blow to any sensitive part of the body from a woman's fist, foot, etc., is enough to incapacitate anyone, male or female (and I am not referring solely to a woman kicking a man in the groin, either).

Likewise, he is ready to see men be sole breadwinners, supporters of women and "their children" (he got that right-- the kids certainly are the mother's, with the fathers merely on the paying-for side of the equation), with no suggestion that in the whole formula, mom was also a deciding player in the repro agenda (if not THE deciding player) and ought be expected to pay up equally, too.

He ends with the idea that most women want men to behave as he has described, so men ought to. In short, live for women and what they want.

Well I won't deny that in all LTRs, there's give and take. How you decide to deal with that and to what degree the giving and taking is done is for the people involved to decide. But it sounds like he has defined REAL MEN to pretty much be all about giving. He never once says a man ought to stand up for *himself*, not allow himself to be abused or used/exploited by a wife or someone else, etc. Sounds to me like he has a map of MANHOOD that is taken from a men's Codependents Anonymous meeting handout, only in the "let's do it this way!" sense instead of the "here's the signs to watch out for" sense. You can lead a horse to water, but...

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Submitted by Matt on Mon, 2014-06-09 01:36