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ismnotwasm

(41,921 posts)
Thu May 16, 2013, 05:22 PM May 2013

We need to talk about masculinity

We need to talk about masculinity. Across a country torn by recession and struggling to adapt to social change, men and boys are feeling lost and powerless, unsure what the future holds and what role they might play in it. Most feel as if they're not allowed to question what it means to be a man today – or discuss what it might mean tomorrow.

The Labour MP Diane Abbott, launching a new campaign this week, is not the first person to kick up a fuss about this "crisis of masculinity". In a speech to the thinktank Demos on Thursday she said that millions of young men are in distress, acting out violently or sinking into depression. Unfortunately, the only solution many in the audience could offer is not giving men and boys more power over their own lives, but restoring their traditional power over women, as "breadwinners" and "male providers".



In the real world, not all men want to be "breadwinners", just like not all men want to be violent, or to have power over women. What men do want, however, is to feel needed, and wanted, and useful, and loved. They aren't alone in this – it's one of the most basic human instincts, and for too long we have been telling men and boys that the only way they can be useful is by bringing home money to a doting wife and kids, or possibly by dying in a war. It was an oppressive, constricting message 50 years ago, and it's doubly oppressive now that society has moved on and even wars are being fought by robots who leave no widows behind.

The big secret about the golden age of "male providers" is that it never existed. First, women have always worked. Second, and just as importantly, there have always been men who were too poor, too queer, too sensitive, too disabled, too compassionate or simply too clever to submit to whatever model of "masculinity" society relied upon to keep its wars fought and its factories staffed. "Traditional masculinity", like "traditional femininity", is a form of social control, and seeking to reassert that control is no answer to a generation of young men who are quietly drowning in a world that doesn't seem to want them.


http://m.guardiannews.com/commentisfree/2013/may/16/masculinity-crisis-men
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Warpy

(110,913 posts)
1. Wow, talk about missing the point!
Thu May 16, 2013, 05:37 PM
May 2013

If they're depressed and acting out, maybe it's because they see themselves with no future, now that labor has been looted to fatten a few rich guys.

Maybe she needs to look at JOBS and WAGES to cure the angst she sees among those young males.

Crisis of masculinity, my flabby, big blue butt. It's a crisis caused by government policies that have determined labor is worthless and only capital should be rewarded and respected.

ismnotwasm

(41,921 posts)
6. From the article
Thu May 16, 2013, 07:21 PM
May 2013
Nobody seems to have bothered to ask men and boys whether they actually want to be "breadwinners", or whether female independence is really their biggest worry at a time when youth unemployment is more than 20%. Sadly, the debate is still focused on the evils of feminism, and on convincing men their real problem is that women are no longer forced to trade a lifetime of resentful sex for financial security. The chosen scapegoats, inevitably, are single mothers.



redqueen

(115,096 posts)
2. The concepts of "masculinity" and "femininity" need to just end.
Thu May 16, 2013, 05:47 PM
May 2013

I will never get why people are so damned fond of genderfying everything.

It's so obvious that people need to kick the habit. Now.

It adds nothing, does nothing constructive, and in fact does A LOT of damage.

It is fucking stupid.

 

seabeyond

(110,159 posts)
3. here here. and. hear hear. could not agree with you more. and intellectually they make no damn
Thu May 16, 2013, 05:51 PM
May 2013

sense.

how can people even argue them.

i am clueless what they are. as seems to be everyone else.

redqueen

(115,096 posts)
4. Everyone just gets to make up their own definition.
Thu May 16, 2013, 05:56 PM
May 2013

Kinda like 'feminist'


Seriously though, it really is some of the stupidest shit... and it does no good at all.

I also love what she says about the conservatives' vilification of single mothers, and the nod to MRA dumbassery.

Arcanetrance

(2,670 posts)
5. I agree I remember my uncle and grandfather called me a million names when after
Thu May 16, 2013, 06:36 PM
May 2013

A semester of law classes I dropped out. I didn't want to be a lawyer I wanted to be a chef. Well I got called every name in the book being told cooking is a woman's job and such. My girlfriend is a long haul trucker and I cook so screw gender stereotypes

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