A PSA for the Boys

As you can tell by the gun/phallus cradling muscle bound hunk of man meat in the tighttight pants cleaving to his piston-like thighs, this post is for the men.

Listen.

Masculinity is homosocially defined.

HEY.

I said homoSOCIAL. Not -SEXUAL. Look at the nice image of VIRILE MASCULINE (white) HETEROSEXUALITY to the left, take a breath, calm down, this isn't about teh homoghey.

Feel better? I thought so. I feel better, too.

Ok. How is masculinity homosocially defined, you ask? Well, you can go read everything by this person, but instead, lets think of some masculinity-conferring activities. We have watching movies, which includes but are not limited to watching well greased MAN Spartans sauntering around topless, We have hunting (which we can do with our MAN friends), we have sports (in which we get sweaty with out MAN friends, or watch other sweaty MEN in tight pants with our MAN friends), and maybe most of all, we can join the military and develop close bonds with other MEN by doing MANLY heroic deeds together.


I think I've made myself clear. (please click this one, you'll be happy you did.)


For some reason, these activities are considered to be the apex, or near apex, of Western contemporary masculinity. This isn't a bad thing, necessarily. It just is.


Of course women do WOMEN things with our WOMAN friends too, but these things don't confer a "WOMAN" identity on us in the same way. Many women like to get their nails done with their friends, but the woman who doesn't is not generally considered to be less of a woman. She might lose a few "femininity points", but these have less value to other women then "masculinity points" seem to have to other men.


In most culture, 'girls' become 'women' when they start to menstruate. Either you bleed or you don't. Mostly, you bleed. It might take a while, but when you do, you are a woman. End of story. Boys, however, often have to go though extensive, painful, highly ritualized and public ordeals involving stinging ants, jumping off things, or in my hometown, racing cars down curving roads with low visibility that are basically paved cattle paths. Maybe they win and live. Then they are men. Maybe they lose and die. Then they have to prove themselves some other way.


The point is, it isn't nearly as easy to be recognized as a 'man' as it is to be recognized as a 'women'. You can make counter arguments as to the difficulty of being recognized as a "legitimate/good/attractive" woman, but that is an issue of gradation. Not of "woman".


Now, recently, I've descended from my ivory tower into the miasma, where the regular people live. Apparently, some of these regular people are men who are very anxious over the state that 'woman-ness' is in. They don't like that women don't (they feel) have a great deal of respect for their man-roles as soldiers or foot-ball players. They are horrified that women want to "date like men" and drink apple-tinis and giggle about men with their friends. They hate that some women aren't nearly as invested in living on a pedestal or in Victorian concepts of gender roles (woman/home = purity vs. man/outside = sullied thing to be purified though contact with -specifically- the woman/home).


So what do they do? They whimper and whine that the "feminazis" are mean to them! They hunch over their Hooter's chicken wings and call Natalie Dylan bad names! They seethe over the effect that Madison & Vine has on the moral fiber of young women!


Most of all, they piss and moan that if women remove themselves from the purity pedestal, if women try to "act like men" (sexually)* then men won't respect them, and society will plummet into a black pit of despair. We'll all have to beat it back into the trees and make nice with the chimps! That would suck, because you can't play Wii!


Because, you know, those women who are "acting like men" by humping and dumping them, well, they are doing this with other women. The men are upset because these women who are "acting like men" (sexually) are taking all the women away! No women for the men anymore! Not even one! The other women (the ones who watch Sex and the City) have taken them all. Now they are all watching L-Word!


Wait a second. That can't be right.


Oh I get it. The men who are complaining are the same ones who are being humped and dumped. Or maybe their friends are being humped and dumped after having naughty sex with the bad women! Well, that's actually great news for the men, since as we have already discovered, masculinity is homosocially defined.


So, guys, listen up. If you want women to be 'better', then ridicule your guy-friends for having sex/interacting with these wicked bad dirty Sex & The City females. If you emasculate your friends for interacting with these bad women, it will make the bad women much less attractive to them.

Women are very responsive to the type of attention they get from men. Ms. Dylan and I, in our Women's Studies classes, call this "the male gaze".


If you stop gazing at (heterosexual) women when they are making out with each other in a bar to Katy Perry songs, they will stop doing it in a jiff.


So get on that.


Don't call the women names. That is a much less effective strategy. You've already seen how well it hasn't been working. What it has been accomplishing is degrading what respect women have for you as a whole gender. Because when you call us bad words and then buy us drinks anyway, well, then you are just another cheap mark.


We are both on the same side here, actually. We both want women and men to be better. We are stuck here, together.


At least till they perfect ova/ova fusion like they did in Japan with the little mouse.

*I specify "sexually" because I've yet to hear any wailing and gnashing of teeth about women who double their family's income with a second professional paycheck.