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.
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.
I actually found your point of view a good way to think about this… To me, it suggests that masculinity needs to be redefined or the dichotomy “masculine versus feminine” needs to be forgotten about. In different cultures that have a dichotomy of masculine versus feminine, the definitions or, if you will, characteristics that define them are different, often radically so. Why can’t it be manly to play with flower arrangements and hand out flowers to children? Sounds perfectly fine to me. Humans give meaning to body parts and behaviors with language. Depending on the society they live in, those meanings vary and evolve over time. Fashion trends in the Western world is possibly a way to understand this. Historically, the clothes that men and women wear that is “fashionable” changes over time. Sometimes prints are OK for men, sometimes they aren’t. Maybe everything needs to be considered OK for everybody.
I appreciate you commenting, and I’m glad you found it useful as a prompt! I agree that “masculinity” needs an overhaul as a concept, and that the false dichotomy of masc vs fem should go by the wayside (as they pertain to stereotypes in society, not as facets of an individual’s sense of self).