Evan Urquhart

So, what we think of as masculinity is some percent the effect of testosterone on human bodies, and some percent patriarchy justifying male supremacy/women's oppression.

These threads are incredibly hard to untangle several millennia down the line. Hard enough that my attempt to separate them may easily have gone wrong, falling into the mentality of "masculine/man things good, feminine/woman things bad" however hard I tried not to fall into that.

It's also the case that, while you can't simply declare yourself masculine, you CAN increase how masculine others perceive you to be. Synthetic testosterone is one way (lol). You can also study what's culturally associated with masculinity and work to project more of that.

That's called being socialized male. And the interesting thing about being socialized male is that it's MOSTLY about punishing anything feminine. Which makes sense, on a certain level, bc if you can't raise your testosterone you can still avoid anything socially coded as femme.

Culturally, masculinity becomes an extremely shallow game of never being caught liking the things women like. Then, since masculinity is culturally positive, women invariably start liking masculine things. So then the men have to abandon those things and come up with new things.

Then beneath it all, we have this deeper level of masculine/feminine based on deep voices, muscles, broad frames. These are traits some women also have, they're neutral, difficult or impossible to change, and have nothing to do with transitory sociocultural cues (like pink/blue).

And, because the culture is so fucked, there's a lot of shame around being a man and not having those traits. Not having the height, not having the muscles, not having the deep voice or the thick beard.

It leads to overcompensating, overdosing on the women-hating cultural masculinity to make up the deficit in testosterone-influenced natural masculinity. We're getting in to my third Big Question, here. What's left of masculinity without sexism?

What's left of masculinity without sexism.... What's left... I think what I really mean, in asking this question, is: Can you ever feel good about your masculinity, or your male identity, in a culture where women are oppressed and femininity is devalued?

I feel strongly that men shouldn't have to "embrace the feminine" to be good guys. Not reflexively push away, mock, or devalue the feminine? Yes. Embrace if it feels weird or wrong or embarrassing for them? No.

Men should: Challenge any impulse that leads them to mock femininity, replicating the toxic behaviors everyone from brothers and uncles to playground bullies perpetrated on them.

Men shouldn't: Feel ashamed of their sexuality/kinks/sex drive as if their thoughts alone have the power to oppress someone else.

Men should: Engage in healthy, fair competition as a mode of building and maintaining friendships, often as an alternative to long talks about feelings.

Men shouldn't: Treat women as unworthy of competing with. Feel ashamed or emasculated when they fail in competition with a woman or more feminine-coded person.

Men shouldn't: Be surprised if some tasks come less easily to them than they do to women, such as nurturing young children. Men should: Value, and work hard to become competent at, those tasks.

Men shouldn't: Engage in over-dramatic self-shaming monologues about how they, like all men, are trash and women have it soooo unimaginably hard and, and, and... Men should: Speak up to confront sexism. Support women's political and social equality. Vote with this in mind.

Men should generally worry less about being perceived as sexist, and more about supporting efforts to break down and ultimately bring an end to sexism.

I think about my masculinity like I do about my favorite color, yellow. I dunno if I was born predisposed towards yellow or subtle social forces steered me towards yellow, but I'm sure I like yellow. I don't, however, think there's anything wrong with liking red, blue, or pink.

I don't see any point in pretending to like pink (or pretending to like blue), but I do try to be vocal in my support of people who like pink, because they seem to get a lot more shit.

It is harder to have this attitude of "I like what I like but it's not better than what someone else likes" about masculinity, bc of all the cultural shit I've been talking about. But, it's necessary to try, bc not being masculine, or not being a man, would be untrue to myself.

I think that this can be the most difficult for those who, whether cis or trans, are men, and are more masculine than not, but aren't particularly masculine for a man.