Masculinity breeds loneliness.
If feminine people are like wolves, the masculine are more like eagles.
Have you ever wondered why men take things like “friendzone” so personally? Or why they seem so ruthless and competitive, at times incapable of empathy? Or even, why they went as far as creating a system that undermines not only femininity in women, but also prevents them from exploring their own feminine side in a healthy way? Well, I have my own theory about it. And no, it does not stem from the patriarchy — or not completely, anyway. Both things are correlated, but it’s not that simple.
The eagle metaphor is because they fly and hunt alone; they don’t care too much about what their peers are doing or thinking. This is not to be taken to an extreme, though; Of course some level of cooperation WILL exist, as it does among men. I’m just saying they’re less prone to favouring “the group” than women and/or feminine people who have that pack mentality and group-think, so essentially I’m contrasting the genders; Not talking absolutes.
I chose predators on both sides, in order to prevent comments like “well of course prey will cling to the group while predators roam freely” — this is sometimes true in nature, but not always. Hence, my use of wolves in the other article, where I discussed femininity. Wolves are most definitely NOT prey; And yet, they choose to still favour the group over the individual. If you’re more esoteric-inclined, maybe you’ll also enjoy the article about a sun vs moon archetype.
I’m very in touch with my masculinity, for better and for worse, so this is partially a self-roast.
This is not a very political conversation:
Please keep in mind when I say “feminine behaviour”, “masculine behaviour” etc I’m thinking of their natural components — hence the animal metaphors. I’m not taking into account societal factors and social privilege vs disadvantage, which are very real, don’t get me wrong. Remember this is ONE article. You can’t define my entire ideology by one article, please take your time to read the other stuff I write before judging. I’m choosing to focus on this “unpolitical” aspect of masculinity and femininity for the sake of exploring something that isn’t commonly discussed. That does not mean, in any way, shape, or form, that I somehow disagree with the more conventional feminist conversation you find all over the internet. Essentially, I’m bringing you something new. If you don’t want that, you can look, ya know, all over the internet. I’m not vanilla.
The above addendum is needed because, first of all, you shouldn’t take this article as a “I-hate-men-because-they-suck” statement, or the other one as a confession that “I’m not like other girls” — I mean, go ahead, I won’t stop you, but consider that there is more complexity to it. I can’t control how this will be received, but I can perhaps suggest that there’s life beyond the tired clichés people have been parroting over and over; And most importantly, sometimes you’re so used to radical polarisation, that you see it even where it’s not (ie here), so the simple-mindedness we see online isn’t ALWAYS the author’s fault, fyi. People today are too impatient and too quick to judge, but make no mistakes: I do in fact agree with the “vanilla” crowd. They make a good point and I’m on board. I agree that by and large, we live in a patriarchal society — with some improvements since the 20th century, but still a long way to go. And I do acknowledge that feelings are easily hurt on both sides, because in my attempt to address a hidden elephant, it could feel like I’m poking a wound. I’m sorry if that happens; however, if I don’t talk about this topic, who will? I’ve been waiting and haven’t seen it yet.
Anyway, back to the opinion piece we started with:
Individualism is a double-edged sword.
Ever heard the cliché that men deal with their “inner stuff” by isolating? (In contrast to women who feel like talking it off to exhaustion with anyone willing to listen)? Like all clichés, there’s truth to it — or else, it wouldn’t be so common. The two gender extremes are hard-wired differently to some extent, and even if you DON’T take into account social constructs, this remains true. (And don’t get me started on the many gender identities that aren’t extreme).
It could be a difficult (or downright painful) exercise to try and deconstruct the idea that “self-reliance” is a good thing, because again, the patriarchy has brainwashed everyone to be partial in that regard; But if you can, you’ll see what I mean — the more masculine someone is, the more self-reliant they seem to become. I won’t pretend I know why, but the correlation exists, and as far as I can tell, there’s a bit of nature to it. So when I say that, trust me, I don’t mean “men are better, be like men”. What I mean is “men are different, and I’m sceptical you should aspire to be like them”. I mean, this whole article is about a NEGATIVE aspect of masculinity, so keep that in mind. You (like everyone, tbh) have just been brainwashed to secretly worship anything and everything manly — and no, you don’t realise. That’s why I said “brainwashed”. Same boat, my friend. If you want to understand this article, unfortunately you’ll have to try and resist that. Not an easy read.
Self-reliance CAN be okay-ish, depending on the context, but it’s far from the “great virtue” we grew up to learn about. Two scenarios that come to mind are emergencies and survival. When you’re faced with an emergency, say, someone had an accident and you’re trying to keep them alive, the last thing you should do is act all “feminine” and cling to details and subtleties, or “what decision is more socially sound” (instead of “what decision no matter how rude is going to get this person to hospital ASAP”) because that would only slow down the rescue and potentially be fatal. If you’re trying to survive a shipwreck in a desert island, the last thing you should do is act all “feminine” and worry about high-maintenance things like beauty and relaxation in detriment of more immediate needs like finding food and shelter. I hope you get what I mean. It’s not that one thing is important and the other is silly (again, ding-ding-ding! Patriarchy bells are ringing. Don’t listen to that), what I mean is the SPECIFIC CONTEXT requires a specific approach, even if it’s out of your comfort zone.
That being said… I struggle to think of other scenarios where an extremely “masculine” mindset would be required. Keep in mind that I’ve only cited TWO scenarios. That’s nothing. There’s way, way more to life! Society would have us believe that the mindset I showed you above is of utmost importance in all aspects of life — hence the ruthlessness of the Capitalistic system we live in — but that’s far from the truth.
If I were to take an educated guess about what made us all adopt a patriarchy in the first place… I’d bring your attention back to the two scenarios where “masculinity” is required: survival and emergencies.
Not long ago, life wasn’t very comfortable. You don’t need to look as far back as the Middle Ages, no, I’m talking early 20th century, even in today’s “rich” countries. Ask the elderly and they’ll confirm. Most of the world’s political, economic, transport, communication and you-name-it systems weren’t efficient enough to give everyone a decent quality of life back then. Love it or hate it, people found comfort in emulating this “eagle” way of life, where each and every person was basically fending for themselves and their own. Regardless of whatever illusion they had of a sense of community (religion; today it’s commerce, but it’s still not real), everyone but the very upper classes were basically left to their own devices.
It’s as if humanity (by and large, with very few rich exceptions) has been constantly trying to survive emergency after emergency, up until very recently. Sure, I won’t pretend things are ideal now, and depending WHERE you look, they’re far from ideal — but progress has been made in SOME places. Regardless, this progress is very recent.
Again, I’ll repeat: don’t fall for immediatism and impatience. This mindset change (from extreme masculinity to hopefully something more balanced) worldwide does not and will not happen overnight, it doesn’t matter how many feminists you put in charge. And I’m sorry to break that to you, but when we’re talking Sociology, yes, “decades” = “overnight”. It’s too short a period of time for a complete cultural overhaul. If you’re hopeless, don’t be; perhaps this hopelessness is just impatience. Nobody ever said life on planet Earth was ideal; if you’re an idealist, take responsibility for that and don’t go blaming it on everything else.
No, that does not mean we should all conform and wave a white flag — in case you’re wondering.
All I’m doing here is speculating on the deeper reasons for why the world is the way it is, why the same problem repeats over and over across unrelated cultures, except in small isolated tribal societies where (surprise surprise!) life is comfortable for the natives. And as an “insider” to some extent (being naturally not-very-feminine, but not very proud of it either), I feel the need to explore the topic. This is to say, I find it utterly unfair, not to mention counterproductive, to give in to radicalism and be like “women good, men bad! Ooga booga!”, because this isn’t a comic book or an anime. This is real life. There is no single evil mastermind we could overthrow by finding The Chosen One™ to fight him in an epic battle. Let’s enjoy fantasy on our spare time only, without mistaking it with “all there is”.
Let’s recap: impatience is a problem. Immediatism is a problem. “Fast” living is bad, even when it comes to political fights. No, we can’t streamline or automate justice, then sit back and relax. We can’t slap a label on the “villain” and another label on the “hero” and that’s that. Let’s not be lazy. There are no exceptions to that rule.
If we try and get out of this black-or-white thinking for a sec, it becomes possible to realise that, feelings aside, people who are on the same boat (aka, not in the billionaire ruling class) can only benefit from uniting. And we can only do that by trying to tolerate one another; resisting the baits thrown at us to keep this identity-based, tribalistic in-fighting going. Sure, some of us are far from perfect and do deserve punishment here and there; but going as far as total division forever and ever? Not productive.
That’s where a more masculine mindset, “overlooking the sensitivity and the social subtleties” without necessarily forgetting them, but just for the sake of practicality, could come in handy (and I know a thing or two about that); but AT THE SAME TIME, we shouldn’t throw the feminine baby away with the bathwater. Too much masculinity, and you’ll just go back to the old survivalist and highly competitive way of living we’re well used to. That’s tried and tested, and it doesn’t work.
Maybe, just maybe, extremes don’t work.
Maybe the key is to try and exercise empathy with the people who are “hard-wired different” than you, whatever your gender or overall identity. Maybe it could be useful to try and understand that some people you perceive as “villains” aren’t the masterminds; they’re just puppets of the real masterminds, but you won’t win them over by trying to humiliate them or make them feel ridiculed and excluded (and this is to add insult to injury, when their very nature ALREADY makes them prone to loneliness). Nothing happens just ’cause. Nothing KEEPS HAPPENING FOR CENTURIES just ’cause. Some problems aren’t entirely fabricated; They conveniently go on and on when there’s also a natural element to them.
It’s important not to overlook nature in certain problems, because nature is something we can’t help. It compels us to exercise empathy, and attempt to find more balance little by little.
Little by little. Never overnight.
