> Do you feel you're worth less if you're perceived to be less manly?
No, I simply dislike it when other people tell me how I'm supposed to act based on their proprietary rules. I don't give a shit about my masculinity per se, but I do not like to be mashed in by association with stereotypes that feel alien and artificial to me.
whoa there cowboy, society isn't one person you have to narrow the scope.
> Do you understand what masculinity is?
This is the best question. It's having a penis. That's it. Everything else is fantasy around having special traits, but in fact, men are also human, just like women. It's toxic when "masculinity" is seen as superiority, when you think there is no way women could understand what life is like peeing standing up.
And yes I am male, would love to hear your definition.
I think you've meant this as an insult by insinuating my comment somehow made me "less of a man."
Swing & a miss.
As you can clearly discern from my username, I'm a woman, so I don't much care about your opinion of my "manliness."
Perhaps you should ask yourself why you feel the need to attack someone's "masculinity" when you disagree with something they've said rather than discussing your disagreement on the merits.
> Productive masculine behavior is shamed nowadays
Can you list some examples for that? It just doesn't match my experience. When people complain about masculine behavior, it's never the productive kind.
>Not to get too irate about it but I can't stand when people whine about [...]. If you're going to extol the virtues of being a man, the least you can do is act like one.
I hope you see the irony in complaining about perceived sexism towards females by being sexist towards men.
> For the purpose of feminizing men so that they are more passive and they fit better into your ideals of who people should be? So to fit men who want to be themselves into your little cult of civility?
Grow up.
> The point is to appeal to your group, not to appeal to all of society.
The point is your group is flawed, and that flaw legitimately keeps newcomers out and cause well-intentioned contributors to leave. There's absolutely no reason why the community should have the stance "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."
Competition is only going to make you better. Taking the time to help someone will also help you. Having the support of your peers for being courteous does far more for you in the long-run than intimidating them into submission does. But I guess that's "feminizing men" vs. holding them accountable as not only adults but as advocates and respectable members of the community.
I sometimes wonder why people are so desperate to craft a position that the other person has never taken. Want to constructively discuss issues? Limit yourself to thing the other person has actually said.
My statement is that men have chosen a more effective way to deal with erosive influences, and it's a behavior that women can and should adopt -- not by imitating men, but by adopting a more effective approach to negative influences. There's no gender dimension to it.
If I had said that gerbils have a more effective adaptation, would you have the right to ask, "So you want everyone to become a gerbil?"
> And people can't just rewire their brains because a man on the Internet says their problems are all in their head.
You need to stop inventing imaginary positions for other people. I never said or implied what you claim. My remarks address, not the original influences, but constructive ways to deal with them.
> Living by yourself in the woods is apparently manly.
Yes, men are more likely to live in the woods by themselves than females. I haven't looked up this fact anywhere, but I guarantee I can find you a reference if you want one.
> But saying that she is "more of a man"...
... means she is better than most men at something they typically perform "better" (in a quantitive sense, mind you) than females. Which is completely the same as the situation I provided above. Perhaps you are getting confused by common American phrases. I might guess that you are not a native (American English) speaker?
EDIT: Just checked out your Twitter from the link on your HN profile and confirmed what I thought with regards to American vernacular.
And "somebody dunk that nerd's head in a toilet. It'll put hair in his chest. Like a real man!" Wow, seriously? This kind of hypocrisy? May I ask why it's okay to discriminate/oppress only certain groups?
I am certain your (and your friend's) views are highly abnormal, OR you are both greatly misinterpreting what scrapcode said (hint: this is the more likely explanation).
Check out the definition of sexist:
"Discrimination on the basis of sex, esp the oppression of women by men"
I do not adhere to this definition one bit, and quite frankly, I'm upset that you are having fun at my expense (with something that is not true) on Twitter. Anonymous HN users on are people too.
>A common answer I received was: "I love the push for equal opportunities for men and women, but I desire [traditional gender role] and I dislike having to justify it to myself."
It's funny how some folks think that they have to justify anything they do. It doesn't seem to like click with some folks that if you have to justify something that you're doing but it doesn't truly affect others in the sense that it's an impediment to their health and happiness then maybe there's no need to justify it at all and that all the pressure that you're feeling is others being... a-holes. Just a random thought I guess.
No, why in the hell would that be okay? What makes one act of discrimination better than the other?
>Every single time I think about this issue I feel guilty as hell just for being male. Every time I see a cultural norm that discriminates women I feel a bit responsible for it - and these bits accumulate quickly. I'm ready to be discriminated against to some extent if it's going to help; it's not because I want someone to make effort in my place but because I know that my effort alone is not sufficient.
Congratulations, your internalization of guilt and willingness to be discriminated against does not extend to me, and you have no right to tell me that it should.
I'm not responsible for the crap that happened in the past, and I'm not okay with being told that I should bear the consequences of poor decisions made before my time.
>Also, multiple generations is not that long a time. Twenty, maybe thirty years and it would be over - society evolves quite fast nowadays, we don't need to wait for centuries - like women had to.
Twenty or thirty years is the prime working window of my life. It's difficult enough, thanks.
> I don't care about the gender of my peers and that should be enough.
Not caring about their gender is awesome. You know what's not awesome? Refusing to accept that other people who do care might have had a big impact on their lives.
> Female peers never had any issue with me.
Well, they have never admitted any issue to you. It could be that they have no issues. Or it could be that they've put you in the category of "person not worth talking honestly with." Given that you have a strong aversion to what you see as "special treatment" and they might see as "fair treatment", I could see why someone might be inclined to flip the bozo bit. [1]
> I mean, have you seen my gender, next to its opposite?
This is an incredibly sexist point of view. Cultural expectations for the role of women in society have been continuously expanded while nothing remotely similar has been done for men.
> Regarding male-only traits as prestigious implies that they are superior to female-only traits
Nope. It in no way implies that. That was an assumption you made. Among male traits, strength has historically been prestigious. How on earth is that implying female-only traits are inferior? Give me a first-order logic chain or something here because I'm not seeing the inferences.
> Whether or not you think sexism is insulting
I do think sexism is insulting. His post was not sexism.
> It seems like you're saying "yeah you're a girly man, that's what you are now, better learn to embrace it" rather than "learn to express yourself how you want".
It's true, I am saying that. I think the root problem is how the parent comment author is being treated, rather than how he is acting, since his main motivation for changing how he acts is to be treated differently.
He's free to reject my advice, but I know that when I was a younger person going through the same thing, it was exactly this advice that helped me survive after many years of only being ineffectively told that I needed to "man up."
> Many of us are victims of feminism to some degree.
A male doesn't have male friends and this is femenism's fault?
> But after high school, I preferred to hang around straight people, and a straight guy won't get too close--because it might be gay?
Sounds like you have some serious insecurities... One of my best friends is gay, I don't think anyone ever thought I'm gay because I hang out with him, but if they did I just don't care. My mate is more important to me than some random prick's opinion.
Also plenty of activities considered manly and not gay are done in groups. Team sports are often perceived as manly not gay activities, things like hunting or fishing are also done in groups commonly and society percieves them as totally not gay, even after Broke Back Mountain. Men hanging out with other men are usually not perceived as gay.
I'm not saying that you are, but this sounds like a repressed gay man would be insecure of. And there's nothing wrong with being openly gay, but being repressed fucks people's mental health.
> I was subjected to decades of gender-based emotional abuse and so my relationships with women are also poor. This is a direct result of feminists and feminism.
Honestly pretty much everyone is influenced by the society, feminists and feminism are everywhere. If it was something provoked by a social movement as large as feminism it would hapen affect everyone. It would affect me, your coworkers, your cousin, the butcher, etc. Now I agree that social interactions in general have changed, but most people still manage to have functional relationships.
Sounds to me that you have some internal issues to deal with... Perhaps professional wouldn't hurt.
> That's a pretty sexist, and condescending, point of view.
Have you lived in the South before? Men are raised that it's a sign of respect to be on their best behaviors around ladies. Shouldn't this count as cultural diversity and be respected?
> Sorry, but not being a woman, how would you know whether or not men are standing in the way?
That viewpoint is innately sexist. It essentially says only women can interpret women's experiences. If that were true (it's not) then by the same rationale only men can interpret men's experiences, which means women have no right to complain about men's motivations or behavior. So think before you post.
Women spend much of their time freely interpreting men's behavior, for example whether it's acceptable or not as though only a woman's perspective on men's behavior has validity, but when a man does the same thing, it's a sexist offense.
> Your premise rests on the idea that in order to get along with men, women must behave like men ...
Locate where I said or implied this. To get along with men, women must behave like people first and foremost (as do men). Your remarks continue the currently fashionable trend of reinterpreting everything as a gender issue. But in fact, much of human experience is not affected by gender -- certainly not technical or scientific activities, the present context. Good code, good mathematics, good scientific research, has no gender.
> ... in a system originally designed by and for men.
Living in the past will get you nowhere. Humans evolved in a world most recently shaped by and for prehuman simians. Did that hinder us? Not at all -- we reshaped the world to suit our needs. Now reshape yours.
> Starting your own business is a non-answer ...
Okay, I get it -- you really, really want to remain a victim. If you can't blame men for your problems, there are no other options. How do you think creative men and women deal with situations they find intolerable? Steve Wozniak repeatedly petitioned his managers at Hewlett-Packard to accept and produce his design for a personal computer, but failing at this, he left the company and started his own.
Marissa Mayer has a similar background -- Mayer joined Google in 1999 as employee number 20 and was the company's first female engineer. She eventually left Google and is now the CEO of Yahoo. Imagine how far she would have gotten by instead complaining about the very real sexism at Google and elsewhere.
Early in life, men learn that they have to build something positive, that to perpetually complain about how the world is arranged is a dead end. Many women learn this too, but it's voluntary.
> Starting your own business is a non-answer— you're again playing the "have you tried acting like a man" card.
Ah, so, based on the above quote, you believe than only men can start businesses. If I said that, you would have the right to call it a sexist and outrageous claim.
No, I simply dislike it when other people tell me how I'm supposed to act based on their proprietary rules. I don't give a shit about my masculinity per se, but I do not like to be mashed in by association with stereotypes that feel alien and artificial to me.
reply