Male Gender Roles and How They Specifically Affect Men
 

Disclaimer: Anyone is free to chyme in, but I'm more interested in the male point of view, as -- no offense -- but, as a male, I wouldn't really be as qualified as a woman to comment on traditional female gender roles and expectations either.

Anywho, I'm not one to be particularly concerned with male gender roles: I don't really care to involve myself with traditional male activities, such as sports, even though I certainly appreciate the competitive aspect, and can enjoy the testosterone rush and camaraderie of actually participating in physically demanding team sports on occasion; I have no invested interest in defining myself as a man, even though I certainly consider my one, due to my lack of non-male or gender neutral "feelings", or whatever such notions runs through those peoples' heads; and while I'd consider myself heterosexual if pressed to define my sexuality, I feel no inclination to remain "loyal" to my "straightness" (While I'm really not attracted to men, I don't see the problem with engaging in a little recreational, same-sex friction if I were in an adventurous mood and the opportunity presented itself.)

But of course, even in many the most enlightened circles, there's still a certain, unspoken expectation that men conform to at least some traditional male attributes. Whether it be not hitting women, avoiding playing the "female role" in a relationship, maintaining that wall of manly stoicism that precludes crying or talking too much about your feelings, etc.

Then of course there are the more mainstream societal expectations that are even more restrictive. Having worked more than a few minimum wage jobs where my fellow male employees would have looked at me like an alien had I ever showed up listening to Britney Spears on an iPod, or claimed to be straight while still having had sex with a dude, I know that it's nearly impossible to integrate yourself into certain male subcultures without being "one of them", or at least pretending to. I listen to music that would make your average dude's look like Celine Dion, and objectify women and their naked boobies as much as the next straight dude, and yet that would simply be ignored in light of Britney and a night of drunken dick sucking.

Fight Club expressed this tension pretty well. Men are supposed to be more enlightened in this day and age, while still being expected to conform to old stereotypes that conflict with the new standards, and the issue is further muddied because of those ingrained instincts for men to be hunters and warriors, ready to commit violence at a moment's notice. I know it's hard to be a woman in a man's world, but it's also quite a headache to be a man in a world that doesn't even know what men are supposed to be anymore. It's like, can we just make up our minds already? I'd like to **** bitches and watch General Hospital in peace already.

This was on TV a couple of weeks ago and is worth watching to see Milo Yiannopoulos takedown a couple of gobby feminist nut jobs around 8 mins in.

So, what's the question?

I think one good thing that the video unintentionally brings up is the cognitive dissonance concerning ideas about gender indentity. On the one hand, many people try to say that gender is a construct, and is only due to how children are raised in society, and yet we see the transgender woman around 12:00-13:00, and if someone were to tell her that her gender was a construct, they would be treated as a pariah. Either there's a mental, developmental difference between men and women that is innate, or transgender people are delusional and should receive psychological treatment for their mental disorder. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Not really a question, just a topic for discussion.

As I've noted here before I was raised in a home with my mom, her partner and her daughter, and my two sisters. We got to see my dad for 1 afternoon a week and that was basically go outside and play so I can court my new young hot wife. I seriously don't remember a single time we tossed a ball or watched a game together. I was picked on relentlessly at school because my mom was "queer" and my home life was even more depressing because of physical and emotional abuse.

In very quick succession I landed a lucky punch in a schoolyard fight and split a kids face open, discovered Led Zeppelin, and decided to learn the guitar. Almost overnight it seemed I earned respect and became cool. I probably overcompensated a bit macho wise during my teen years but heck, I'd earned it I guess based on how ****ty things had before before then.

I don't have a gay cell in my body but I'm about as far from homophobic as a person can be. I love sports - but that's just about a birthright based on my Boston roots. I will not take **** from anyone except my wife and I've always given 100% at trying to be the best father possible.

I haven't a clue what all of the above has to do with the OP but that's all I got at the moment.

People have killed themselves over being told things like this their whole lives.

My point stands, either gender is innate, and not a social construct, or transgenders are delusional.

There are definitely developmental differences between the biological "male" and "female," so in that regard I think you can consider that those differences innate biological traits, but there are so many variations and exceptions that putting weight in the idea of a male/female line in regard to identity is silly. There are obviously core differences between people on one side of that made up line or the other, the danger comes in assuming you have to fit - or forcing others to fit - into one category or the other.

Why does it have to be either nature or nurture? Why can't both have an effect on people and their identities?

In my opinion, gender is partly a social construct, and partly something inherent. After all, there was a pre-societal time before we had such constructs as the idea of the modern man and woman, and yet almost every culture in the world developed to have men and women in roughly the same roles (though it isn't absolute, since there were/are a few matriarchies, even though they're few and far between). And this is taking into account the fact that these similar customs came from ancient nations that had very little to no communication with each other. The average man and the average woman have differences, both physically and mentally; different averages of physical strength, different ways of interpreting and solving problems, etc. So yes, in a way, each gender is born different, with skill sets that lend themselves to fulfill certain roles.

Many of society's ideas of what is "correct" for those gender roles are created to accentuate those natural inclinations. They're like those old fancy dresses that had wire frames, and accentuated a woman's hips (a sign of her femininity/fertility) to a ridiculous degree; they are not necessarily naturally inherent in the gender, just as the dress is not apart of the woman, but they play off of what is usually there. These can have obvious correlations; some of the more obvious are that men, being born on average with more physical strength and testosterone, are expected to take part in a variety of physical activities, and women, being burdened and vulnerable while developing (and, after birth, caring for and breastfeeding) a child, and usually having higher amounts of estrogen, are expected to be "protected", and to find value in emotive and social roles. But there are also gender roles that are more specific for each culture, and show how fleeting our ideas of what comes naturally in a man and woman can sometimes be; in ancient China, it was considered a strong sign of male bonding when two men held hands, a sign of togetherness and brotherhood, and it was also considered very moving when a man was brought to tears, showing their passion for something. In various Native American tribes, homosexuals were accepted in the community, and were considered to simply be men who were born with a female's spirit inside them. Another example is how not so very long ago, in america, pink was considered a "boy's color", while blue was considered "feminine". Also, in ancient Rome, there were many female gladiators, although evidence of their existence is only recently starting to be found and accepted. Anyway, in many modern cultures, these are now considered "unmanly"/"unwomanly".

My point is, a lot of what we consider to be a "man" or a "woman" is inherent, but society takes those natural differences and comes up with a few culture-specific ways of expressing those genders that is not inherent. And remember, you can't forget that these gender roles work off of averages, but not everyone is average. Everyone is different. Is it really so strange when a man born with a certain factors, like a higher then usual amount of estrogen, ends up identifying with the opposite gender? Their desire to switch comes as naturally to them as someone else's desire to stay. But that's not to say that they are immune to societal constructs; homosexuals have plenty of activities that they are expected to enjoy, and an image that they are supposed to project.

Just my two cents. Feel free to TL;DR.

Pretty much everyone with a heart and a functional brain in their head has said everything I would have mentioned but here are my main problems with how patriarchal values/specifically male gender roles affect men:

"Boys aren't allowed to cry/crying makes you a sissy!"

This is nasty toward both men and women because crying is a completely natural, normal occurrence and nobody should ever be ashamed to cry or show their emotions; on the other side of the coin, implying that crying makes a man "girly" and that he should be ashamed to be "girly" reinforces a negative opinion of women by bringing into a play a stereotypical "female-only" behavior. Crying is therapeutic. Emotions are important and normal.

"You're making THAT fashion/grooming choice? What are you, some kind of girl/gay boy?"

I'm going to use long-haired men as an example here. Some people are really rude about their hairstyle of choice because somehow or another, long hair came to be a feminine choice. Again, telling a man that his hairstyle (perceived as feminine) is shameful because it is perceived as feminine is damaging to women, but it's also damaging to men because it is discriminatory and rude.

I've also heard people make snide remarks about the sexuality of a man, insinuating that just because he has some feminine qualities, he must be gay. Well, if he's gay, it's none of your damn business! But it's also rude to assume that every gay man carries and dresses himself in a decidedly feminine manner just because he prefers dudes.

"You were nice to a woman? Better turn in your 'man card'!"

Men are often times expected to be ignorant douchenozzles incapable of understanding or concerning themselves with the emotional needs of women (and are often portrayed as such in the media) so when it's even lightly suggested that a man is acting like a decent human being, treating the lady/ladies in his life as if they matter to him, all his caveman buddies chortle "better turn in your 'man card'!"

This is a toxic attitude to men because their peer groups are important to them and they don't want to be ridiculed, so they change their behavior around their friends - or even completely, entirely, regardless of the situation - and end up hurting others with their stoical displays. I don't even think I need to fully explain why it's also harmful to women.

anyway I'm a little too drunk to carry on but I'm sure I could think of more.

the patriarchy hurts everyone.

In response to the threads' title,

I wasn't ever socialized as male. I was raised by my mom, who was often absent as a parent, and her friends- almost all of whom were gay adult women with ****ed up family histories. I was pretty much left alone to my own devices most of the time and any sense of masculinity I've ever known was just me imitating what I felt was expected of me by my peers. I've consequently picked up some mannerisms and mentalities over the years that now deeply upset and offend me. I experience gender dysphoria on a daily basis and often feel out of place in my body but at the same time behave in ways that are very male. I don't know what it means to be a man in this world, probably because I never met a man who made sense to me.

Pretty sure you have sex and gender confused Batlord. Did you mean masculine gender roles? Males/females don't have specific gender roles.

http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/...m-definitions/

*Devil's Advocate*

So if someone says they identify as a dog is it okay for them to bang dogs? Are they delusional? Where is the identity line drawn(if at all) and who gets to draw it?

last i checked dog isn't a gender...

So because there isn't a word specifically designated to being attracted to dogs it's not valid?

Why don't you answer the idea behind the question instead of dodging what it's intended to make you think about.

when was the last time you checked? you might be a bit out of the loop. they're coming up with new genders every day it seems.

Caninephilia, perhaps? A more specific subsection of bestiality?

Bestiality is an issue of consent. A dog might not object to sex with a human but it's still taking advantage. I liken it to taking home women who are too drunk to say no or think about whether or not they actually want to sleep with you.

I'm not dodging anything I just don't see the relationship between bestiality and a person identifying as a gender different from what's considered the norm of their sex.

My only biologically-related sister came out to me recently as genderqueer.

The first thing I said was "what are your preferred pronouns?"

Gender is a fluid concept, but it's also very emotional and personal and I think everyone struggling with gender dysphoria would appreciate being taken seriously.

No. Gender is brain chemistry, and/or whatever other biological processes create it. If you're born male, but claim to be a woman, even though that doesn't jibe with what actually makes you whatever gender you are, then you're delusional. If a transgender male-to-female's brain/body/whatever chemistry are actually out of whack with how they were born, then yeah, they are female (at least according to modern scientific understanding).

Gender isn't a claim, it is a scientific fact, and facts can't just be declared however you want them to be.

And I'm pretty sure you have my points confused. The OP was about gender roles, but my later posts were about sex. I'm all about not conforming to gender roles, if that's your disposition.

He probably checked before tumblr happened.

The point was that you can't just claim to be anything, whether it be dog, llama, or a living piece of granite. You are what you are and making a claim doesn't change that.

What are you saying? That someone assigned male at birth can't be female? I think the notion that there's a difference between a person's sex and their gender are two different things is lost on you guys.

Gotcha.

Get off the technicalities of the question. It isn't about fucking dogs. Gender is a way to define masculine/feminine traits and sexual attraction. The long list of definitions I posted early are some of the ones acknowledged, but with the current system there is a possibility for infinite gender identities because it's entirely personal(not enough time for science to explain/understand it). So, where/when, if ever, do you draw the line? Who gets to decide?

If someone is born and truly believes they should have been an animal instead of human how is that less valid then someone born male but feels they should have been a female?

I acknowledged that difference in my very first post of the thread.

You are forever my little sister and I adore you!

Please always remember that. :)

That is not at all what I said. I explicitly said otherwise. Read my post again.

All I am saying is that for someone who is born male to claim to be a female, whatever internal, biological traits that define gender have to actually make them female. If those traits are in fact male, but the person claims otherwise, then they are delusional.

It may not be as black and white as male/female only, but biology is what determines gender, not words.

0/10, dig the Batlord but probably wouldn't share a drink with :(

I'd draw the line where there's a lack of consent or risk of developmental harm.

I wish I had an answer for that but you're breaching on territory I don't really understand- all this calls to mind is furries but I'm not sure that's what we're talking about. The only response I really have is that one is significantly more likely than the other to occur.

Either make a point or go away.

Forget about ****ing. If I said I was a dog, would you accept that I was a dog?

@WD - It's all good dude nvm.

I missed the part where you guys announced that, sorry.

How does biology define gender? Biology is neutral, all it does is determine a person's sex. Gender is how we interpret a person's sex.

Of course not. I just don't see the relationship. Dogs are a species, not a gender. It's a complete red herring.

Aren't you?

No its not. It's an extreme example used to illustrate a point. Is it possible to be transgender? Yes. Is it possible to be a dog? Not if you're human. But there are people who claim to be animals, and they are delusional, as would be somebody who was male in both body and gender who claimed to be a woman.

Only when it comes to the bitches.

this makes more sense.

The Batlord should had drop the "n" in the title. It should read:
Male Gender Roles and How They Specifically Affect Me
...cause he's pretty much self centered and it would keep up with his current trend of making threads about himself.

:clap: this, though

gender stereotypes are harmful.

patriarchal constructs are harmful.

gender discrimination is harmful.

know the gender pronouns of your friends. Love and respect them.

Dude, you've had a bug up your ass ever since I said I thought you were boring months ago. Quit acting like a girl.

acting like a girl is pretty ok.

being a girl is ok.

'cause we're soft and pretty and tough as nails.

dude, I get the joke; it just sucked.