Great essay from Chuck today on masculinity and femininity in stories (and
real life) and how weird it gets when you try to define people by them. A
particularly key bit:
If the traits that Paul lists are “masculine,” do we list their opposite as “feminine?”
Femininity: doesn’t drink, no sexualizations, no violence, cowardly in the face of danger, soft versus challenges and pain, emotions out of check, no code of honor, etc. –?
Again, I don’t think Paul is actually saying these things. But, this is why I get weird about trying to define masculinity, particularly as it relates to characters in a narrative.
Once you say: “THIS is masculine,” it’s hard not to say, “THAT is feminine.”
That can get toxic pretty quick. Particularly for those folks — a lot of us, really — who don’t fit really nicely into one slot or the other. Fiction can teach us things and if it teaches us that masculinity is XYZ and we’re a man who fits X but maybe not Y and Z, where does that leave us?
How should we feel?
I think that’s where things start to go wrong and weird, really.
Also I laugh any time anybody attempts to select ‘stoicism’ as a masculine
trait. Compared to what many women choke down on a daily basis, most men have no fucking idea.
Chuck Wendig’s latest post: “MANLY MEN TALES, SWINGIN’ DICK STORIES, AND HAIRY-CHESTED HISTORIES”