Tag: masculinity

A rant on our gender and masculinity

A few years back, I had the pleasure of reading “The Rational Male” by Rollo Tomasi. This book essentially changed my life(that’s saying a lot because I have read hundreds of books in my life). The book is essentially a user guide to female nature and is considered a bible among the red-pilled community. One point that I took to heart while reading the book was how solipsistic women were by nature. Now, many would view this to be the sexiest, downright even misogynistic, but in evolutionary terms, this made perfect sense. For a lot of people, they just can’t make peace with biological facts and political correctness. Men and Women have fundamental differences that are the result of eons of evolution. That women would, by nature, be solipsistic, thinking of only themselves, makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. Women( as still the case today) bear the brunt of rearing children. As well as the risky situation where they go through almost a year of gestation. This would lead to women generally being more egotistical and prioritizing themselves and their children above everything else. This is perfectly fine from an evolutionary as well as a historical standpoint. But this mode of being runs into many problems in our modern times.

Men, almost universally(with exceptions, of course), have been in a position of power. And with great power comes great responsibility (as the famous comic book quote stated). So in this scenario, I believe it made sense for certain things to be deferred to women with children since they were in a vulnerable position. But in the 21st century were the support and protection that men once provided aren’t as much needed as they once were. As certain old traditions just go out of whack. The idea that men are supposed to be providers made sense when muscles were what was needed to bring protein to the table or fight off other men, but these are not as relevant, at least not in the developed world. So why should we still hold on to these ideas? That I, as a man, should be financially supporting my partner when they are as capable or are already financially better off than I am doesn’t seem to make as much sense to men anymore.

This may explain why marriage has been in decline, and why people would even consider getting married. The historical foundation of marriage, i.e, to pass down lineage, doesn’t fit well in our modern world, where patriarchy doesn’t exist as it once did, at least in the developed world. I believe, particularly for men, we need to revisit what is truly expected of us in the modern world, or just be left with our current crisis of masculine identity, especially among young men

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Challenging Masculinity in the Black Community

On an early bus ride to work one cold morning, I had a conversation with an old drunkard. The conversation began when he had made a remark about the book I was reading, which happened to be the “Souls of Black Folk” by W.E.B. Dubois. He remarked how I was reading an essential book, to paraphrase him 

“ The black man is lost…..the black man isn’t the gangsta…..the white man is the real gangsta….the black man is weak…you see how they emasculate the black by having him wear dresses and these kids think it’s cool…. The black woman doesn’t respect the black man(as he was saying this, he pointed to two black female passengers who were in front of us). He spoke on until his stop.

This brief conversation left an impression on me. Everything this drunkard old man said was nothing I haven’t particularly heard before, spurted out particularly by older black men. I must say that some aspects of his brief speech I actually agree with.

Chiefly, that the black man is emasculated. But his emasculation has nothing to do with black men being depicted as being gay or wearing a dress, but is because the black man in this country holds no power.  A brief definition of masculinity states “possession of the qualities traditionally associated with men”. This is, of course, an expansive definition, leaving room for many interpretations. However, masculinity is generally associated with power. Now, let’s define power (in the noun sense). In a quick Google search, I have come upon two definitions. First, “the ability to do something or act in a particular way, especially as a faculty or quality”, second, “the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events”.

Is the black man in this country in possession of either definition? I am particularly interested in the second definition as it is pertinent to my argument. When asking yourself, who are the most powerful people in the world, what comes to mind? For most people, it might be a political leader or a business magnate, two groups that exemplify the second definition to the fullest. Now, consider your typical political or business leader. What else comes to mind? Generally, men who wear suits, who are well spoken, and who possess great intelligence. Men in these positions are not your general ideals of urban masculinity. They are generally not physically imposing or brash in their speech, yet they hold considerable power in any modern society.

Now, when you begin to think of the race associated with these types of men, it generally tends to be white (i.e, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Elon Musk). Of course, there are notable exceptions(Barack Obama, Jay-Z), but in general, we see the men with all the real power in our society as white men.

In Urban culture, masculinity is heavily associated with gangsterism( the exhibition of gangsta behavior,  promiscuity with many women, and the ability to murder other men with little remorse), This is something I have encountered many times myself as a black man who grew up in South Jamaica, Queens, NY. Your entire identity is based on not being deemed soft and earning the respect of your peers through acts of violence. OF course, this isn’t exclusive among inner city blacks( I can think of Machismo in Latin America as an outward example), but this is dangerously pervasive in the black community among black males.

I believe the contemporary understanding of what it means to be a man in the black community leads to violence in the inner city, the sexual objectification of black women, and the pervasiveness of homophobia in the black community. I believe that as black men we need to question what it really means to be a man, and if that definition is holding us back from achieving true masculinity, i.e, power.

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Why Gender is not fully a social construct(part 1)

The argument has been made that gender is fully a social construct, with no biological merit. I want to argue against this point. First, I do acknowledge the fact that there are obvious cultural artifices in constructing how the two sexes behave. Pink is often associated with girls, while blue is typically linked to boys. Ashley is a girl’s name, and John is a boy’s name. These are all examples of gender norms established by society. But there is also a certain predisposition that is fully biologically based. Point one, men and women have varying degrees of hormonal differences. Men, on average, have far higher levels of testosterone than women, and women, on average, have far higher levels of estrogen. Our emotions and behaviors are heavily influenced by the chemicals in our brains. For example, higher levels of testosterone lead to a higher instance of aggression, assertiveness, and violence. Estrogen makes individuals more empathetic. The unequal distribution of these two chemicals among the sexes leads to differences in biological dispositions and behavior.

Many point out how Gender roles are socially based. But I want to argue that gender roles are a part of human evolution. Humans are a sexually dimorphic species, meaning there is a physiological difference between the sexes. Men are on average 3 inches taller and weigh 25% more than women. Nature doesn’t just make species sexual dimorphic unless there are some sexual survival benefits from it. Case in point, a book written by Leonard Shlain “Sex, Time, and Power”(A must read) Shlain( a surgeon) theorizes that because women on general suffer from Iron deficiency(due to the fact they lose blood every month from menstrual cycles, as well as their red blood cells produce less Iron), and the fact women have to go through eight months gestation and six years weaning a newborn child. Women needed men to help them attain Iron by providing them with meat; in return, the men got copulation.

For those (particularly feminists) who are skeptical about this. Imagine 150,000 years ago, living in the Savannah of East Africa, being a pregnant mother (let’s imagine 6 months), trying to go hunting. You would put yourself and your child at great risk. Sure, you would be able to go forging, but subsisting on local vegetation alone will not be enough for you and your gestating child. Men would have to go out and hunt while the women remained in the village. This arrangement would have existed for all of humanity until the emergence of civilization around 10,000 years ago.

With the beginning of civilization, humans transitioned from relying solely on wild game and vegetation to domesticating both crops and animals. Many of the roles that women had previously held remained largely unchanged, as women still became pregnant and had to care for their young children. Men now had to participate in the field or face starvation. We see the emergence of patriarchy in this time period. Men, having a physical advantage over women, took responsibility for keeping society safe from outsiders as well as undertaking all the intense labor required for agriculture.

Feminism as we know it wouldn’t become a serious ideology in Human affairs until the Industrial Revolution, for good reason. Humanity (at least in the West) wasn’t reliant on muscle power, but on stem and steel to grow its food. Women could go out to work. This new era of technological advancement is the only reason feminism was able to emerge!

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