On Masculinity
it's weird that at a given age, 45 say, someone can't just write down the compressed/compiled topline notes on everything they've learned about life, and then just hand that to someone at 20, saving them 25 years of lessons. why that doesn't work is a somewhat instructive Q
norvid_studiesx.comI have suggested that women look at men this way: if they took away their own network of intimate friends, those with whom they share their personal journey, removed their sense of instinctual guidance, concluded that they were almost wholly alone in the world, and understood that they would be defined only by standards of productivity external to... See more
Bromance:
"Men have the ability, the need and the desire to form deep and intimate friendships just as much as women... Male friendship is so fraught that we as a culture have invented a special term to characterize the extraordinary phenomenon of two men having dinner together."
– Liz Plank, For the Love of Men
hypervigilance required to maintain masculine performance.
"Masculinity is much more rigid and requires constant self-regulation... Even if a man squats three hundred pounds, biting into beef jerky with one hand and fighting a hungry bear with the other, his masculinity would still be put into question for ordering a drink that comes in a cosmo
... See more"If you look through nineteenth-century photos of men, you'll notice right away that male friendship has undergone a massive transformation. It used to be common for men to seek a photographer's services to capture them holding hands, sitting on each other's laps and being physically intimate."
– Liz Plank, For the Love of Men
It is a great mistake to confuse physical strength, dominance, violence, vulgarity, or brutality with masculinity. Masculinity is emotional stability, undaunted integrity, quiet courage, humility, generosity, and capacity for enduring love, or it is nothing.