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Why that's MANTERESTING
13 years ago
Being a MANLY MAN is really fucking simple.
http://manteresting.com/shame/
I mean, you know when you're doing it wrong. These guys are letting you know you're doing it wrong by shaming. They're just letting you know! No harm in that. They're letting you know how you should behave, and you know, this sort of chummy competition is just what being a man is all about. You like competition, right? SPORTS! WAR! Men make fun of each other, it's just what they do. There are things that people do that they should be ashamed of, especially other men. Do you do those things? Maybe you should feel ASHAMED. If you're ashamed enough, maybe you'll see reason and adopt proper manly behaviours. Maybe you should make other men feel ashamed of not being as manly as you are. They're probably gay! Man, all these homos queering up the place. Pinterest has too many women talking about things other than having sex with me. Only QUEERS hang out with women without wanting to fuck them. FRIENDZONE. Chick shit like BATH MATS and BEAUTIFUL LANDSCAPES are not MANTERESTING enough. Pins? Pins are for BITCHES. We don't use no pins. We've got NAILS. We NAIL SHIT to OTHER SHIT with our ERECT PENISES. NO FAT CHICKS. You wear a cardigan? GAAAAAY. I bet you enjoy CALLIGRAPHY and COOKING. I bet you like the Chicago Bulls, because they're a GAY TEAM. You would wear a hat with FLOWERS ON IT because you're SO GAY. FISTBUMPS, BRO! NO HOMO.
Ahem.
For the men, does this "shame" thing feel familiar to any of you guys? Can you identify behaviours and interests that you have that you feel go against the norm? Do you feel ashamed about having these behaviours and interests, even though nobody has told you personally that you ought to be ashamed? Have you suffered consequences for failing to meet gender norms that you weren't aware of?
I'm curious about all of this because I've never found a better example of hegemonic masculinity than the Manteresting Wall of Shame. Let's call this into question: the traits of (violent) aggression and dominance of other men and especially of women is inherent to the male sex. It's purportedly just what guys do, but let's say it is a culturally constructed system called The Patriarchy which is continued generation after generation because of men who are afraid of losing their privileged position within society. Let's say they associate their dominant behaviour with their gender as a reason not to get called out on being kind of horrible human beings because "that's just the way guys are". The association of violent dominance and masculinity could not be illustrated any more clearly than the image of a fist facing downward (as though beating someone into submission) and it's funny that Manteresting uses that iconography for "shaming" an image. Oh no wait, it's not funny. It's horrifying. Remember that time a guy was beaten up for his presumed homosexuality? Wait, hold on, you mean which time this week, or...?
Instead maybe we guys should pay close attention to this kind of thing because it makes is very, very, very easy to manipulate into doing stupid shit. To women, especially, but also to other men. We ought to adopt a skeptical attitude toward our own (male/masculine) gender, considering that we have been born into a world where we are continuously being privileged, and ask ourselves if the good of 100% of the human population is being promulgated by preserving an essentialist view of gender, especially our own, within our respective communities.
At least drop this fucking violence/shame bullshit.
http://manteresting.com/shame/
I mean, you know when you're doing it wrong. These guys are letting you know you're doing it wrong by shaming. They're just letting you know! No harm in that. They're letting you know how you should behave, and you know, this sort of chummy competition is just what being a man is all about. You like competition, right? SPORTS! WAR! Men make fun of each other, it's just what they do. There are things that people do that they should be ashamed of, especially other men. Do you do those things? Maybe you should feel ASHAMED. If you're ashamed enough, maybe you'll see reason and adopt proper manly behaviours. Maybe you should make other men feel ashamed of not being as manly as you are. They're probably gay! Man, all these homos queering up the place. Pinterest has too many women talking about things other than having sex with me. Only QUEERS hang out with women without wanting to fuck them. FRIENDZONE. Chick shit like BATH MATS and BEAUTIFUL LANDSCAPES are not MANTERESTING enough. Pins? Pins are for BITCHES. We don't use no pins. We've got NAILS. We NAIL SHIT to OTHER SHIT with our ERECT PENISES. NO FAT CHICKS. You wear a cardigan? GAAAAAY. I bet you enjoy CALLIGRAPHY and COOKING. I bet you like the Chicago Bulls, because they're a GAY TEAM. You would wear a hat with FLOWERS ON IT because you're SO GAY. FISTBUMPS, BRO! NO HOMO.
Ahem.
For the men, does this "shame" thing feel familiar to any of you guys? Can you identify behaviours and interests that you have that you feel go against the norm? Do you feel ashamed about having these behaviours and interests, even though nobody has told you personally that you ought to be ashamed? Have you suffered consequences for failing to meet gender norms that you weren't aware of?
I'm curious about all of this because I've never found a better example of hegemonic masculinity than the Manteresting Wall of Shame. Let's call this into question: the traits of (violent) aggression and dominance of other men and especially of women is inherent to the male sex. It's purportedly just what guys do, but let's say it is a culturally constructed system called The Patriarchy which is continued generation after generation because of men who are afraid of losing their privileged position within society. Let's say they associate their dominant behaviour with their gender as a reason not to get called out on being kind of horrible human beings because "that's just the way guys are". The association of violent dominance and masculinity could not be illustrated any more clearly than the image of a fist facing downward (as though beating someone into submission) and it's funny that Manteresting uses that iconography for "shaming" an image. Oh no wait, it's not funny. It's horrifying. Remember that time a guy was beaten up for his presumed homosexuality? Wait, hold on, you mean which time this week, or...?
Instead maybe we guys should pay close attention to this kind of thing because it makes is very, very, very easy to manipulate into doing stupid shit. To women, especially, but also to other men. We ought to adopt a skeptical attitude toward our own (male/masculine) gender, considering that we have been born into a world where we are continuously being privileged, and ask ourselves if the good of 100% of the human population is being promulgated by preserving an essentialist view of gender, especially our own, within our respective communities.
At least drop this fucking violence/shame bullshit.
get it?
But anyway, I completely agree, Dated views of What a man or woman should or should not be has no place anywhere
Actually, Any views of what someone should or should not be or act like is barbaric and stupid
Going to go on a MANCATION with my BROMANTIC INTERESTS and if we put our dicks in each other's butts we're just DUDES hangin out in my MAN CAVE and being totally manly. NO HOMO.
But this issue comes up in nearly any group which has loud violators, in leading positions. Of course their positions don't help the rank and file, but if the rank and file don't stand up and say, 'this is wrong, and we can't support these people doing these violations' it doesn't get anywhere to say they're innocent.
also i am drunk as shiiiit
this may have come out as womens studies homework word salad
I think though, a lot of people understand and acknowledge the truth about gender/race power dynamics when someone explains intersectionality- or how you can be differently privileged or dominated based your gender, race, class, etc.-the different kinds of domination cannot be measured against each other as "worse" or "not as bad". Like, I think a lot of people want to talk about the way they have been affected by class injustice, but feel like by acknowledging race and gender injustice somehow their experience is being erased (and ultimately makes fighting for class justice SO MUCH HARDER, because people get divided along other lines). What we all need to be able to do is acknowledge the different ways that we experience intersections of oppression and domination and how OTHERS experience them- then we can work together to break down different kinds of domination, even the ones we "benefit" from, because ultimately we'll be getting rid of the ones that oppress us too- and it's just plain the right thing to do.
You should get all your friends to read bell hooks' The Will to Change
http://www.amazon.com/The-Will-Chan.....ove+bell+hooks
It's all about gender policing between men and comes from a really compassionate/empathetic viewpoint that a lot of guys are more receptive to than some other writers... Tim Wise's writing about race/gender is a popular choice too, though I think his writing is kind of bad :/
aaaaaaagh i feel like a bad student when I can't explain these ideas as clearly as I'd like to
This. The world is run by cretins with no empathy, but they still have enough brains to want to be accepted as they are. They gain that acceptance by pounding it into everybody else's skulls that THEY are the normal ones and people who have morals, feelings, and empathy are the flawed ones.
I am a man, I am proud to be a man, but I am also proud of my accomplishments and the things that make me stand out as a human being.
Oh, and I just remembered something that happened once in junior high: some boys criticized me for carrying my books like a girl. I thought, what, now book-carrying has gender stereotyping too? Apparently, holding the books upright in a bent arm and pressing them to the side of your chest is how girls carry books. Boys are supposed to carry books with a straight arm dangling at the side. But that didn't make sense to me because that way seemed more liable to dropping the books by accident... or having them knocked to the floor by a passing bully. I carried my books up by my chest to avoid that.
So, I concluded, the "girl" way to carry books is smarter than the "boy" way. Gee, does this suggest that girls are smarter than boys? :}
I think almost every one would be better of without what you call hegemonic masculinity, not just women or queer folks even though they're hit particularly hard.
Coincidentally I just saw an anti-dandruff shampoo commercial touting "The Perfect Man", depicting a guy wearing a suit at a desert oasis being fondled by harem women. You can't be perfect if you're gay, apparently.
I mean, I'm gay, and I sometimes shame folks for acting like weird, loud, obnoxious faggots in public because it reflects poorly on the rest of the culture and creates a negative impression of the group as a whole for most people who don't otherwise know better. But then, behind that there's a basis beyond just disagreeing with their behavior and thinking that it's stupid. How is this situation different?
I guess when I look at the normative male behaviour I recognize myself within the hierarchy of maleness as being fairly low on the scale, and as a result I see my social status suffer, and it prompts a lot of suffering that I'm sure you can identify with. I've just recently been exposed to the rank theory of depression, which suggests that depression is an adaptive strategy to remove unfit competitors and add stabilization to human populations. As a dude who suffers from chronic depression I obviously have to interject! Rank theory, as far as it justifies the whole concept of there being hierarchies within humans, is overly biologically deterministic. There are only post-hoc justifications for the kind of social ranking behaviours that shaming takes place within. Just as an example of why this is bullshit, let's take homophobia. Homophobia takes the form of a shaming behaviour within men. The more "faggy" a dude is the lower their social rank. Implicit in this is the implication that there is a hierarchy of respectability within the population of gay men, where the more effeminate men are of lower social rank than the more masculine men. Within the larger male population, homosexuality is considered more effeminate than heterosexuality and therefore of lower rank, and one ought to be aware of the semiotics of proper gender norms and discouraged from aberrant behaviour through the mechanism of shame. As a gay guy kind of in the middle of all of this, you feel pressure from above to adopt certain behaviours less you be lumped in with the drag queens and twinks or whatever, and as a result you exert pressure on those that you consider lower than yourself on the hierarchy in order to reinforce your own position within that scale. I don't believe we need to be organized along those dimensions, there are too many awful side effects. Besides, a biologically deterministic approach would suggest that heterosexuality would be selected for, evolutionarily speaking, seeing as heterosexuality leads to the propagation of genes and homosexuality doesn't. And yet, there are still PLENTY of gay people around. Probably because we're self-conscious creatures and we have the capability of criticizing our own behaviour, which is what I'm trying to do here!
The long and short of it is that the hierarchy is untenable, and shame is excessively manipulative and ought not to be used. It works too well, which helps to explain why it's so prevalent, but it has horrible consequences and we ought to think about overcoming it. I'm worried that we've naturalized it and the use of shame within our gender has calcified to the point where nobody questions it. It's a behaviour we can overcome, so why not? It sounds like a great idea!
there just afraid of made fun off so they do idiot thing a result from shaming
they become afraid to show their feelings alot o men are insecure
about showing weakness thats why they act like that
becuse they are afraid of being made fun of by other men who are also insecure
thus the cycle begins recent study shows that men are more
emotional than woman but they hiide it
there just afraid of made fun off so they do idiot thing a result from shaming
they become afraid to show their feelings alot o men are insecure
about showing weakness thats why they act like that
becuse they are afraid of being made fun of by other men who are also insecure
thus the cycle begins recent study shows that men are more
emotional than woman but they hiide it
However, men become complacent about this position and take it for granted.
This leaves men to make a series of really bad socio-political decisions that mess things up, because they can't envision a world without their influence.
Men get weaker, women learn man's weaknesses, etc. etc. blah blah wah wah vicious cycle bloo bloo
boring.