Today is International Men’s Day. Finally! I’m so tired of being ignored all the other days of the year.
I do wish to complain, though. Most of the logos I can find on Google are all about facial hair, ties, and sometimes bowler hats. Is that all we are? We can do better.
The theme this year is “Positive Male Role Models.” I don’t want to hear about your positive role models, though — tell me how you’re trying to be a good role model.
I honestly think we do need a much greater focus on men. Like feminism has done so much to create a new world for women to inhabit. Like there us so much more to fight got, but it’s impossible to deny that what feminine is has changed so much for the better even since the 90’s.
Our expectations and ways of raising “men and boys” has changed very little from the friggin 60’s. Like being a trans woman gives me such a interesting perspective on how we raise young men, and it’s fucked. Like I was in grade school in the 90’s and James bond was still seen as the ideal man. A role model who was a narcissistic rapist imperialist, is it any suprise young men are fucked in the head? Even on a less oppressive level men are still caught that the goal of masculinity is being the sole breadwinner for your wife, a state of affairs that is literally impossible to reach for a huge percentage of men for whom the family wage has been deliberately abolished.
Like the guys are not ok. Dudes are in fact not rocking and need some help.
Well, I try to be a good person mainly, not a good male whatever.
Lieutenant Columbo.
Just finished streaming the entire series and that man is awesome. A man from the 70s who does not meet typical masculine expectations is a rare.
He loves flowers, chess, classical music, poetry, justice, and cooking. He is proud of his nephew he is a professional weightlifter/needlepoint artist.
(FYI yes he has 3 or 4 sexist moments throughout the series but I’ll chalk that up to sexist writers.)
matthewfiore @3
Columbo is supposed to be an exemplar of Socratic irony. So is Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer:
https://eriksimpson.sites.grinnell.edu/Connections/Poetry/Terms/tropes4.html
I know you didn’t ask for role models, but Mr. Rodgers comes to mind to me. We need men who can be kind and caring. We need to grow masculinity beyond the brutish action hero and whiny manchild to show how to be a good man when there isn’t a crisis.
crimsonage @1: I once asked my son if he felt like he missed out on anything due to not having been raised (consciously) as a boy, and he said he was actually glad to have skipped the social pressure of militaristic culture and the emphasis on sports.