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<\/a><\/p>\n*Note to would-be commenters: This is not a discussion board; it is a place for me to share my opinions and have civil, respectful and constructive conversations with others about them. Comments that are overly long or off topic or uncivil will not be approved. Do not include any links or photos. Do not write your own essay; respond only to what I wrote in my essay.*<\/p>\n
This blog post is about an essay I read on CNN\u2019s web site entitled \u201cTalking to boys about being a boy\u201d by Elissa Strauss. The date it appeared and I read it was June 10, 2022. You can read it at the CNN web site by searching for it. Unfortunately, it was only up for a few days.<\/p>\n
Ms. Strauss argues that all the talk about toxic masculinity is harming boys; they are being given the impression that all masculinity, even all maleness, is toxic. There is no other adjective attached to \u201cmasculinity\u201d these days. The gist is that \u201ctoxic masculinity\u201d has become one word, not two. This harms boys because they grow up with the impression that being masculine, and perhaps even just being male, is a bad thing, always, unconditionally.<\/p>\n
Ms. Strauss appeals to a book by one Don McPherson entitled \u201cYou Throw Like a Girl: The Blind Spot of Masculinity.\u201d I have not read it. Ms. Strauss reports that Mr. McPherson has suggested the term \u201caspirational masculinity\u201d not as an alternative to toxic masculinity but as a way of holding on to masculinity as potentially a good thing.<\/p>\n
As my faithful readers here know, this has been a theme I have raised and \u201ctalked about\u201d here numerous times before. That is, that masculinity is not in and of itself bad and we need to find ways to affirm masculinity while continuing to condemn toxic masculinity.<\/p>\n
Aspirational masculinity is a clunky term; I doubt it will catch on\u2014especially among boys! May I suggest \u201chealthy masculinity\u201d to describe maleness that is directed toward positive goals, even with a degree of aggressiveness typical of maleness? (I am not saying of \u201call males\u201d but only typical of most males who desire to express themselves outwardly in risky adventures involving their bodies.)<\/p>\n
I today\u2019s popular culture and even in much education, boys are often treated either as sinister, potential predators, or as effeminate. The problem is that the so-called effeminate boys are often really quite masculine but direct their masculinity in positive, constructive ways.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s take two U.S. presidents mentioned prominently in Kristin Du Mez\u2019s book \u201cJesus and John Wayne\u201d\u2014Theodore Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter. One could get the impression that Carter was not very masculine while Roosevelt typified masculinity. But why? Carter was a solder, a successful farmer, and man\u2019s man in many ways, and still today, in his very old age, a hard worker for Habitat for Humanity, climbing on roofs, hammering nails, aggressively building future homes for people who cannot afford housing. Why is he treated as effeminate? Why can his way of being be called \u201cconstructive masculinity?\u201d<\/p>\n
The upshot of Ms. Strauss\u2019s essay is that boys need to be told that it is okay to be boys and that being masculine is not in and of itself a bad thing. That is the impression they are being given by too many critics of masculinity.<\/p>\n
I will go out on a limb and take my lumps for saying here that we need to stop treating boys and men as all toxic, as all potential rapists, as all violent. I was told by a feminist student that \u201cMen are violent.\u201d When I asked \u201cAll men?\u201d She would not answer. Her silence meant \u201cyes.\u201d Maybe that was her life experience, but we educators, social workers, influencers of culture, need to stop it, stop projecting onto all boys and men the evil characters of some, yes, too many, men.<\/p>\n
Ms. Strauss and Mr. McPherson argue that we need to find a way to affirm boys as boys and not treat them as defective girls. Why? For me it is not so much a matter of building or protecting their self-esteem as it is a matter of a problem we are already experiencing in American society of boys resentfully dropping out or just not knowing who or what they are or their place in society. That was affirmed by a female character in the movie \u201cThe Intern\u201d in which Robert DeNiro played a constructively masculine character.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Toxic Masculinity or Aspirational Masculinity? *Note to would-be commenters: This is not a discussion board; it is a place for me to share my opinions and have civil, respectful and constructive conversations with others about them. Comments that are overly long or off topic or uncivil will not be approved. Do not include any links […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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