Both: What do you hate about your natal sex/gender?

submitted by worried19 from self.GCdebatesQT

sorted by:
top
newinsightfulfun
you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]DistantGlimmer 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

I don't care about being male. It's just a neutral thing.

But I absolutely hate masculinity I hate the horrible oppressive violent borderline psychopathic behavior masculinity encourages in men. I believe you can absolutely look at it in a way that most of the problems in the world are caused by bad displays of masculinity and of course the way women and girls are victimized by masculinity all over the world s absolutely awful. I'm just thankful we do at least have an option to try to not conform to masculinity in our own lives (although the insidious socialization is very powerful).

I know some people will say there are some positive aspects to it too but I really think they are completely dwarfed by all the negatives we need to just throw the whole thing out.

[–]worried19[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

It's funny how different people's perspectives can be because I see more positives associated with masculinity. Yeah, the association with violence is not good, but there's also heroism and protectiveness associated with it. A man can be a hero. A woman can never be heroic, not truly. We're always seen as lesser no matter what. Doomed to be the saved and not the saviors.

[–]DistantGlimmer 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

We're always seen as lesser no matter what

But it's masculine men who impose that idea on you. I see plenty of women as heroic and while men can also be heroic I think they would do it by defying gender stereotypes. A lot of the men portrayed as heroes in popular culture are actually not very heroic by any decent moral standard in my opinion.

I know you get angry at women who don't stand up to misogyny but there's a real social cost for them to do that so I do sympathize with them more. Just look at what happens to women who stand up for their rights in this whole debate about gender. It would be so much easier for men to just treat women and girls better and be less misogynistic but most just don't because masculinity teaches us we don't have to empathize with women really.

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

A lot of the men portrayed as heroes in popular culture are actually not very heroic by any decent moral standard in my opinion.

Hear, hear.

[–][deleted] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

hate the horrible oppressive violent borderline psychopathic behavior masculinity encourages in men

What do you think can be done to heal men from this collectively? This is what I want men to write about. You can all "as a man" me on this topic all day.

to try to not conform to masculinity in our own lives

What are your tools? Do you ever discuss them with other men?

[–]DistantGlimmer 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I've sometimes tried to discuss it with other men. Most are not open to it from other men any more than they are from women. Maybe I could do more. I don't know. I'm certainly not a good speaker or writer or anything but I certainly have noticed a reluctance on the part of most other men to be critical of their own behavior influenced by masculinity and patriarchy.

I try not to "as a man..." to any woman about these type of subjects because I feel we should be listening to women and women's experiences and I think that is the best tool we have to overcome the destructive (to ourselves as well as others) impulses of our own socialization. But it is hard. Radical feminism has a great critique of masculinity but I'm sure you know that most men are extremely defensive about it and it doesn't really matter in my experience if a woman or a man is the messenger.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

You underestimate your writing.

I'm glad when anyone reads radical feminism; I'm sure it teaches men a lot about the experience of women and peripherally about themselves. But it's just not the same. Do you have books you can pull on to live, page by page with the author, the deconstruction of his psyche? To relive how you learned history, religion, your place in the world through your own body? Books that give words to all the childhood memories, somatic experiences, haunting feelings you thought could never be expressed? Books full of words invented just to name these unspoken things? Books that make you scream or weep with recognition? . . . I have thousands. I will never be able to read them all. How many exist for men?

Of course I'm not in the "patriarchy is just as bad for men as women" camp; simplifications are distractions and it's exhausting how men use women's honest efforts to understand them as an excuse. But the fact is that socialization into patriarchal masculinity is a traumatizing process; I also believe being an oppressor is deeply traumatizing. And until men are engaging with feminism on that level, we cannot get anywhere. You all need the books and lectures and concerts and trauma-sensitive yoga classes and specialized therapy sessions and ancestral healing workshops just as much, but tailored to your wounds. It doesn't matter how enlightened women become if men remain too terrified to say one vulnerable thing, to shift their rigid postures a centimeter.

And I'm frightened with how little men say of anything.

and it doesn't really matter in my experience if a woman or a man is the messenger

Yeah, see above. So what now?

[–]DistantGlimmer 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Thanks for the kind words. I have come to deeply care about these issues so perhaps that at least comes through in my writing. I totally agree with you that I will never be able to understand a woman's experience and I'd never claim that. I do believe I can empathize with women because of shared humanity but I also see my role in spaces like this and feminist spaces in general as being to learn from and support you and amplify the voices of women . I've said before in the old sub that I would like men to have our own movement adjacent to feminism against patriarchy. There is absolutely a need for that but outside of a couple of authors it doesn't really exist that I know of.

Absolutely men and males are not the main victims of patriarchy although especially those of us who are GNC can be marginalized by it. I really would like to see more men actually question the construct of gender the way feminists suggest. Unfortunately, this "intersectional" third wave doctrine which tells men that feminism should center our needs too is going to appeal to more men than forcing us to face hard truths about ourselves and question our role in an oppressive system of patriarchy. I'm really not sure how to get around that.