It’s perfectly fine to be a “feminine” man. Young men do not need a vision of “positive masculinity.” They need what everyone else needs: to be a good person who has a satisfying, meaningful life.
That makes as much sense as saying trans, non-binary people only need to have a satisfying, meaningful life without a vision of masculinity, femininity, or gender Identity.
trans, non-binary people only need to have a satisfying, meaningful life without a vision of positive masculinity, femininity, or gender Identity
Of course it makes sense to have a concept of these things, but the point is that it is not helpful to define these things with positive or negative values, but rather to look consider these things independent from one another.
no matter how positively you define a gender role, it will negatively impact those who struggle with conforming to said roles. So I say it is preferable to define masculinity (or gender in general) without any value judgement.
I hate gender roles and assigning anything to them. But everybody deserves a positive view of the traits and ideals they identify with and everybody deserves positive examples of how to express/demonstrate the traits and ideals they identify with.
Noticing more smells and colors and flavors and sounds and being able to listen to more complicated music are all skills that we gain over our life. Identifying and identifying with traits you have or aspire to is almost certainly the same, and even if it isn’t I have no place to say that someone else shouldn’t think about themselves primarily as being a reproductive male (which may be devastating if that’s not something they can do), and since that is a common way to see oneself, due to the importance of reproduction or due to culture or due to some aesthetic like which flavors go together, then people identifying with masculinity deserve positive views of it, and positive examples of how to express it.
That makes as much sense as saying trans, non-binary people only need to have a satisfying, meaningful life without a vision of masculinity, femininity, or gender Identity.
you left out the “positive” in your analogy:
Of course it makes sense to have a concept of these things, but the point is that it is not helpful to define these things with positive or negative values, but rather to look consider these things independent from one another.
No. Gender Identity isn’t zero sum. Things can be positive without other things being negative.
no matter how positively you define a gender role, it will negatively impact those who struggle with conforming to said roles. So I say it is preferable to define masculinity (or gender in general) without any value judgement.
I hate gender roles and assigning anything to them. But everybody deserves a positive view of the traits and ideals they identify with and everybody deserves positive examples of how to express/demonstrate the traits and ideals they identify with.
Noticing more smells and colors and flavors and sounds and being able to listen to more complicated music are all skills that we gain over our life. Identifying and identifying with traits you have or aspire to is almost certainly the same, and even if it isn’t I have no place to say that someone else shouldn’t think about themselves primarily as being a reproductive male (which may be devastating if that’s not something they can do), and since that is a common way to see oneself, due to the importance of reproduction or due to culture or due to some aesthetic like which flavors go together, then people identifying with masculinity deserve positive views of it, and positive examples of how to express it.
Great analogy here. It’s sth that I didn’t find the right words to explain for.