this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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Men's Liberation
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Recommended Reading
- The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity, And Love by bell hooks
- Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements by Michael Messner
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As someone who presents masculine, I have gotten the "be a man" treatment from women several times. Ultimately it does come from a patriarchal standard of society, but its something that is perpetuated by everyone, consciously or otherwise. Not discounting what you are saying, but I think it's important to highlight that toxic masculinity can come from anywhere.
This is absolutely true. I've thought about this a lot in reference to a study I once saw on how early education professionals are far more likely to be right-leaning women and how that plays into this phenomena (a cursory google search did not turn up a wealth of evidence so take that with a grain of salt). Particularly because I think that policing of masculinity from women in positions of authority can be incredibly salient for young boys. Unfortunately, for some it is unlikely that they will be exposed to a more feminist perspective until later in life, sometimes much later.
It's because ultimately we all value 'strength' (of varying sorts) over 'weakness'. We are still far from socially internalising "strength is being able to show weakness", because in part you need to be strong to deal with the expected pushback of being OK with being 'weak'.
I think "be a man" is a demand for attractiveness too. It's said by women that want A MAN.