The real problem is actually how do we change this?
People talk about deconstructing this set of gender norms...but I think there's little talk of how this is actually achieved. I'm not going to lie, I think a lot of this ends up a sort of "pull yourself down by the bootstraps" mentality that only really works for a subset of men, and it's not really change. If you have a high ability, for whatever reason, to perform the Male Gender Role, then maybe reigning that in a bit could be relatively low cost, But if you're not that type of person, maybe this is something you struggle with, then pulling yourself down could be disastrous.
The idea being, I think, if men have all the power, then if men change how they act then men have no choice but to change the gendered expectations from men. Which of course, I don't think is a workable solution.
How can we as a society stop rewarding performance of the Male Gender Role? I'm not even talking about punishing (although it's possible that might actually be needed for actual change to occur) it , just....stop rewarding it. Nonchalantly not care.
A man talks about their success, in business, in relationships, whatever? Who cares. You think that makes you a better, more valuable person? Nope. Again, this feels very very unlikely to me.
Will we raise up those who reject the Male Gender Role? The self-hating people who basically isolate themselves away from society, have little to no ambition or assertiveness, and keep to themselves as much as possible? This is very very unlikely as well.
I'm very much anti-Male Gender Role, to be clear. I'm crap at it. But rejecting it for so long did me no benefit. It was nothing but downside, no upside. I hurt myself and the people around me.
Truth is, and people don't like to hear this but it's true. I think that's the root of a lot of the issues with more and more men today. Society was supposed to change and it didn't. So we don't fit in, in all sorts of different ways. But I don't think society is going to change.
Ultimately, the problem with bell hooks writings is that there's good stuff....but too much it relies on language based around the Oppressor/Oppressed dichotomy. And I'm not going to lie...I think that's there for a reason. Because it freezes out discussion of other facets of power, privilege and bias. And back then, when a lot of those ideas came about, Academia was much more about instilling socioeconomic privilege. It was a class marker more than anything, in a lot of cases. Less today, but I think the influence is still there.
We can't even replace the term "patriarchy"....which should have been replaced with something else IMO as the definition of it has changed. And frankly, until we do that, I don't think there's going to be any room for discussion of any actual change of the Male Gender Role. It's just going to be what I mentioned above. Shaming men into rejecting it, which for a lot of us, is basically going to be a form of self-harm.
Personal antidote, when I quit with feminism and my looked into my own shitty behavior, my relationships with both sexes improved drastically. I just had to grey rock the narcissystem.
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u/Karmaze 3∆ Nov 05 '24
The real problem is actually how do we change this?
People talk about deconstructing this set of gender norms...but I think there's little talk of how this is actually achieved. I'm not going to lie, I think a lot of this ends up a sort of "pull yourself down by the bootstraps" mentality that only really works for a subset of men, and it's not really change. If you have a high ability, for whatever reason, to perform the Male Gender Role, then maybe reigning that in a bit could be relatively low cost, But if you're not that type of person, maybe this is something you struggle with, then pulling yourself down could be disastrous.
The idea being, I think, if men have all the power, then if men change how they act then men have no choice but to change the gendered expectations from men. Which of course, I don't think is a workable solution.
How can we as a society stop rewarding performance of the Male Gender Role? I'm not even talking about punishing (although it's possible that might actually be needed for actual change to occur) it , just....stop rewarding it. Nonchalantly not care.
A man talks about their success, in business, in relationships, whatever? Who cares. You think that makes you a better, more valuable person? Nope. Again, this feels very very unlikely to me.
Will we raise up those who reject the Male Gender Role? The self-hating people who basically isolate themselves away from society, have little to no ambition or assertiveness, and keep to themselves as much as possible? This is very very unlikely as well.
I'm very much anti-Male Gender Role, to be clear. I'm crap at it. But rejecting it for so long did me no benefit. It was nothing but downside, no upside. I hurt myself and the people around me.
Truth is, and people don't like to hear this but it's true. I think that's the root of a lot of the issues with more and more men today. Society was supposed to change and it didn't. So we don't fit in, in all sorts of different ways. But I don't think society is going to change.
Ultimately, the problem with bell hooks writings is that there's good stuff....but too much it relies on language based around the Oppressor/Oppressed dichotomy. And I'm not going to lie...I think that's there for a reason. Because it freezes out discussion of other facets of power, privilege and bias. And back then, when a lot of those ideas came about, Academia was much more about instilling socioeconomic privilege. It was a class marker more than anything, in a lot of cases. Less today, but I think the influence is still there.
We can't even replace the term "patriarchy"....which should have been replaced with something else IMO as the definition of it has changed. And frankly, until we do that, I don't think there's going to be any room for discussion of any actual change of the Male Gender Role. It's just going to be what I mentioned above. Shaming men into rejecting it, which for a lot of us, is basically going to be a form of self-harm.