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Do you agree with the idea that masculinity is subjective?

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Original post by ilovedesifems
I don't care about PC pseudo-science.


None of those are "pseudo-science" and sorry that they are still correct? There has been tons of research done on it by anthropologists and psychologists. It's not very difficult to find. Like I said you should do some basic research.
Reply 21
Modern PC values say that. kindly provide evidence to the contrary.
Reply 22
Original post by Bagration
Some aspects of "masculinity" are evolutionary/genetic, and so aren't subjective. Others are obviously completely subjective. Some people would say it isn't manly to listen to Justin Beiber, but really there's no basis in that (although it is still gay.)

:lol:
Reply 23
Original post by RandZul'Zorander
Well a basic example would be the Amazonians. The females were warriors, aggressive, "tough", as compared to their male counterparts.


LMAO! The Amazonians were mythical!

Tell me about the gender norms of the Cyclops. Maybe the social conditioning of Medusa.
(edited 11 years ago)
Original post by Harrifer
LMAO! The Amazonians were mythical!

Tell me about the gender norms of the Cyclops. Maybe the social conditioning of Medusa.


Like NYU said, it's irrelevant. It get's the point across of how subjective gender is.
Is the level of testosterone in a man not a way of objectively measuring 'masculinity'? However, the effects of the hormone will differ from person to person so its certainly not that reliable.
No but they're probably more masculine than others. Women with high levels of testosterone are usually in menopause, and their 'masculinity' manifests itself in not being able to have children any more.

A MTF transgender is certainly more masculine than your average woman.

Men have 7 or 8 times the amount of testosterone than women so even women with 'high' levels of testosterone are not comparable to men.
No, masculinity isn't subjective. Musculinity has a clear definition: strong, big, dominant, usually associated with males but can also be present in women. I don't see how it has anything to do with relationships, though.
Original post by Dux_Helvetica
No but they're probably more masculine than others. Women with high levels of testosterone are usually in menopause, and their 'masculinity' manifests itself in not being able to have children any more.

A MTF transgender is certainly more masculine than your average woman.

Men have 7 or 8 times the amount of testosterone than women so even women with 'high' levels of testosterone are not comparable to men.


Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems to me that you're both arguing semantics. You need to agree on a clear definition of "masculinity" before your debate can go any further.
Reply 29
No, masculinity is completely subjective. No one can dispute the claim that someone like Jeffree Star is masculine.






Yes, this post is teeming with hateful sarcasm.
Society defined every single word in our language. If you look at "masculinity" as "being a man" then all it takes to be musculine is to have a Y chromosome. The levels of testosterone you produce in that case wouldn't matter. If you look at it behaviour-wise, as in "how men typically act", then you are right it is subjective and a social construct.

If you decide to define it as "strong" and "alpha", then it would be false to associate it with being of only one particular gender.
The problem with this is that 'masculinity' covers a huge number of traits, from those which are objectively masculine, through those which are typically accepted by most of society as masculine, to those which are considered masculine only by certain sets of people. Is having an XY chromosome pair masculine? Yes, objectively so. Is being tall and broad shouldered masculine? I think most people would agree it is as these are characteristics that are sexually selected for in men. Is being aggressive masculine? Some people would say yes, others would say that masculinity means having confidence and restraint instead.

The other problem is that the original poster seems set on dismissing any view that isn't in direct accordance with his own as being 'PC' and therefore invalid.
Reply 32
There was a good quote on masculinity...

The gyms you go to are crowded with guys trying to look like men, as if being a man means looking the way a sculptor or an art director says. ~Chuck Palahniuk (Author of Fight Club)
Again, definitions. I think we agree.


That's the interesting thing about gender roles - masculinity is often associated with 'strong' and 'alpha' and these are often considered to be manly traits. But, we know that other genders display these qualities as well. It's one of the interesting parts of gender that certain qualities are found across genders (in some cases), yet are still associated with a particular gender.

Men do tend to be much stronger than women physiologically. Society has just gone wrong is assigning superiority and leadership stereotypes to such primitive traits (I insist on using the word trait and not "quality").

Regradless, I would still object to associating "masculinity" (strength/size) with males because, although it is more common in males, it isn't exclusive to them.
As a biologist I couldn't pretend that there isn't a genetic difference in the potential for strength between males and females. If a human female is stronger than a male it would be either because of superior training or because of a rare/mutated gene, which in itself of course is natural seeing as we arrived at our current state mostly with the help of mutations.

I see our evolution as a species moving towards lesser physical strength for all of us, though.
There are some traits that occur more often in XY people than XX people. However, much of what 'society' considers masculine (and feminine) is either a highly embellished take on stereotypical genetic elements or a social construct. Many of the traits considered masculine vary from culture to culture. There is also a lot of social reinforcement of gender - men are expected to conform to a certain set of traits and women are expected to conform to a different set, albeit with some overlap. Those that don't conform are considered odd, to a greater or lesser extent, and may be ridiculed or persecuted. This increases the sense that 'real men' should present and behave in a certain way and increases pressure on people to be 'normal' for their gender. The whole thing has become very artificial.

So yes, masculinity is subjective. It should also be noted that not conforming to your society's version of masculinity doesn't make someone less of a man. The concept is increasingly meaningless and sadly prescriptive.
Reply 36
To some extent it is real, to some extent it's made up.

Men have not yet been emancipated from traditional gender roles unfortunately, so we don't have the choice.
It can be objective sometimes, for example guys naturally have more muscle mass than women. And I don't see any society that doesn't define muscle as masculine.

But the behavourial traits certain societies deem masculine is obviously subjective.
Reply 38
Isn't that just said to preclude sexism?
Original post by ilovedesifems
To be PC, we often say that being a man is not about being strong or tough.

But I was thinking something the other day. Many women still believe that despite our modern PC ramblings, men should lead in relationships. Some may say this is social conditioning, but IMO it's something deeper than that.

Is masculinity subjective?


it's not that we want you to led it's that we want you to know what we want with out us telling you. - by the way if women want men to led what does that men when i date a women i want her to led or that i'm leading?
(edited 11 years ago)

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