Against masculinity
When I was a small, school-age child, perhaps 7 or 8, I brought a new book to class for morning reading. It happened to be “Baby Island,” a 1937 novel that Wikipedia describes as “Robinson Crusoe… but with four babies.” My intention, on that brisk fall morning, was to pull the paperback out of my backpack and open it to my bookmark.
“What is that? Why are you reading that?” someone asked. A cluster formed around my desk, to see the boy who was not reading a very boyish book. Babies, of course, were the realm of moms — of women. I wasn’t sure what to say. It was a story. I wanted to find out what happened next.
There was never a restriction, in my house, of what a boy should or should not consume. I read Nancy Drew and the Hardy …show more content…
What could possibly happen, dudes? Could it be that we might experience a wider view of the human experience? Could it be that women are people and sensitivity is a universal quality? Could it be that Fiona Apple is a better songwriter than Bob Dylan?
This morning, after engaging on Twitter with a man heckling feminists and “beta males” (that term a truly awful feat of insecurity and self-denial), I received a handful of heckles myself: mostly, comments that I own a cat. This was the worst they could come up with: I am a failed man, a beta male incapable of reason or seriousness because I own a foster animal that isn’t a dog. Or isn’t a 150-pound police-trained killer. Or isn’t an actual fire-breathing dragon. I don’t know, I must’ve set the Man Rules emails to spam.
The effort to define manhood is a source of artificial strength, a buttress against crumbling walls. Men who aspire to such stereotypes are searching for a safe and simple path, the same way people turn toward religion or any form of dogma. If you never have to look outside your prison walls, you never have to be afraid of what you might encounter. Thinking for yourself eases away. The world never changes, and we know change is
When I was a small, school-age child, perhaps 7 or 8, I brought a new book to class for morning reading. It happened to be “Baby Island,” a 1937 novel that Wikipedia describes as “Robinson Crusoe… but with four babies.” My intention, on that brisk fall morning, was to pull the paperback out of my backpack and open it to my bookmark.
“What is that? Why are you reading that?” someone asked. A cluster formed around my desk, to see the boy who was not reading a very boyish book. Babies, of course, were the realm of moms — of women. I wasn’t sure what to say. It was a story. I wanted to find out what happened next.
There was never a restriction, in my house, of what a boy should or should not consume. I read Nancy Drew and the Hardy …show more content…
What could possibly happen, dudes? Could it be that we might experience a wider view of the human experience? Could it be that women are people and sensitivity is a universal quality? Could it be that Fiona Apple is a better songwriter than Bob Dylan?
This morning, after engaging on Twitter with a man heckling feminists and “beta males” (that term a truly awful feat of insecurity and self-denial), I received a handful of heckles myself: mostly, comments that I own a cat. This was the worst they could come up with: I am a failed man, a beta male incapable of reason or seriousness because I own a foster animal that isn’t a dog. Or isn’t a 150-pound police-trained killer. Or isn’t an actual fire-breathing dragon. I don’t know, I must’ve set the Man Rules emails to spam.
The effort to define manhood is a source of artificial strength, a buttress against crumbling walls. Men who aspire to such stereotypes are searching for a safe and simple path, the same way people turn toward religion or any form of dogma. If you never have to look outside your prison walls, you never have to be afraid of what you might encounter. Thinking for yourself eases away. The world never changes, and we know change is