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I am not an enemy of masculinity ~ ♪ ♫ ♬
6 years ago
Hi, everyone who reads this. Assuming anyone does XD ~
I was looking at my recent artwork today, and it crossed my mind that people may perceive an implicit theme throughout my drawings that I'm bad-mouthing masculinity. I want to openly dissolve that premise.
I don't think masculinity is inherently good or bad. It's just a thing. I know and love many people who wear masculinity extremely well. It fits their personalities and lifestyles, and they appear to be wholly comfortable within it. I similarly know many feminine people that feel the same. I also recognize it's not a binary; the same logic applies to anything along the spectrum between masc and femme - including the absence of both. Neither right, wrong, good, nor bad.
Instead, the point I'm trying to make is that it's a choice. Some people may try it on and decide it doesn't fit them. That's okay. Alternately, you may decide that you like masculinity enough to suggest someone else tries it. That's okay too, so long as you're willing to detach yourself from the other person's educated decision.
I'm assuming most of you already know all of this and many of you are in a similar place, mentally. But there's a bigger principle at play for me. If I allowed my drawings, even unintentionally, to vilify a certain lifestyle - that would be unkind. Kindness (the principle) is an enormously important thing to me. The last thing I want to be remembered for is "being the person who waged an assault on masculinity just because it didn't fit me as an individual".
Not only would that be unkind, it just wouldn't make SENSE. The only things we should use words like "love, like, and hate" toward are other living things. Masculinity isn't a living thing, it's a concept. You can't functionally make an enemy out of a concept; instead, what you may inadvertently do is make enemies out of people that value that concept. And to be transparent, there is no one in my life who is using masculinity as a weapon against me. I don't think I'd even know what that MEANS.
tl;dr I'm totally cool with masculine folks. I'm just enjoying my departure from being one. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.
I was looking at my recent artwork today, and it crossed my mind that people may perceive an implicit theme throughout my drawings that I'm bad-mouthing masculinity. I want to openly dissolve that premise.
I don't think masculinity is inherently good or bad. It's just a thing. I know and love many people who wear masculinity extremely well. It fits their personalities and lifestyles, and they appear to be wholly comfortable within it. I similarly know many feminine people that feel the same. I also recognize it's not a binary; the same logic applies to anything along the spectrum between masc and femme - including the absence of both. Neither right, wrong, good, nor bad.
Instead, the point I'm trying to make is that it's a choice. Some people may try it on and decide it doesn't fit them. That's okay. Alternately, you may decide that you like masculinity enough to suggest someone else tries it. That's okay too, so long as you're willing to detach yourself from the other person's educated decision.
I'm assuming most of you already know all of this and many of you are in a similar place, mentally. But there's a bigger principle at play for me. If I allowed my drawings, even unintentionally, to vilify a certain lifestyle - that would be unkind. Kindness (the principle) is an enormously important thing to me. The last thing I want to be remembered for is "being the person who waged an assault on masculinity just because it didn't fit me as an individual".
Not only would that be unkind, it just wouldn't make SENSE. The only things we should use words like "love, like, and hate" toward are other living things. Masculinity isn't a living thing, it's a concept. You can't functionally make an enemy out of a concept; instead, what you may inadvertently do is make enemies out of people that value that concept. And to be transparent, there is no one in my life who is using masculinity as a weapon against me. I don't think I'd even know what that MEANS.
tl;dr I'm totally cool with masculine folks. I'm just enjoying my departure from being one. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.
And I agree, none of these things are inherently bad, it’s just up to how they are used overall :)
I feel the same way! I love conversing with you.