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1 " I saw a news report recently that measured average video game use by American men between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five: twenty hours per week. Do you mean the flower of America's masculinity can't think of anything more important to do with twenty hours a week than sit in front of a video screen? Folks, this ain't normal. Can't we unplug already? "
― Joel Salatin , Folks, This Ain't Normal: A Farmer's Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World
2 " Simon turned to Jordan, who was lying down across the futon, his head propped against one of the woven throw pillows. " How much of that did you hear?" " Enough to gather that we're going to a party tonight," said Jordan. " I heard about the Ironworks event. I'm not in the Garroway pack, so I wasn't invited." " I guess you're coming as my date now." Simon shoved the phone back into his pocket. " I'm secure enough in my masculinity to accept that," said Jordan. " We'd better get you something nice to wear, though," he called as Simon headed back into his room. " I want you to look pretty. "
3 " The fear had precedent. Toward the end of the Civil War, having witnessed the effectiveness of the Union's 'colored troops,' a flailing Confederacy began considering an attempt to recruit blacks into its army. But in the nineteenth century, the idea of the soldier was heavily entwined with the notion of masculinity and citizenship. How could an army constituted to defend slavery, with all of its assumptions about black inferiority, turn around and declare that blacks were worthy of being invited into Confederate ranks? As it happened, they could not. 'The day you make a soldier of them is the beginning of the end of our revolution,' observed Georgia politician Howell Cobb. 'And if slaves seem good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong.' There could be no win for white supremacy here. If blacks proved to be the cowards that 'the whole theory of slavery' painted them as, the battle would be lost. But much worse, should they fight effectively--and prove themselves capable of 'good Negro government'--then the larger war could never be won. "
― Ta-Nehisi Coates , We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
4 " To be secure everywhere is the mark of sophistication. To be unshakeable is the mark of courage. To be permanently in love with every person is the mark of masculinity or femininity. To forgive is the mark of strength. To govern our senses and passions is the mark of freedom. "
― Eknath Easwaran , Meditation: A Simple Eight-Point Program for Translating Spiritual Ideala Simple Eight-Point Program for Translating Spiritual Ideals Into Daily Life S Into Daily Life
5 " ..the hope I have for women: that we can start to see ourselves-and encourage men to see us-as more than just the sum of our sexual parts: not as virgins or whores, as mothers or girlfriends, or as existing only in relation to men, but as people with independent desires, hopes and abilities. But I know that this can't happen as long as American culture continues to inundate us with gender-role messages that place everyone-men and women-in an unnatural hierarchical order that's impossible to maintain without strife. For women to move forward, and for men to break free, we need to overcome the masculinity status quo-together. "
― Jessica Valenti , The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women
6 " We'll never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth. "
― Gloria Steinem
7 " Radical feminist theorists do not seek to make gender a bit more flexible, but to eliminate it. They are gender abolitionists, and understand gender to provide the framework and rationale for male dominance. In the radical feminist approach, masculinity is the behaviour of the male ruling class and femininity is the behaviour of the subordinate class of women. Thus gender can have no place in the egalitarian future that feminism aims to create. "
― Sheila Jeffreys , Gender Hurts: A Feminist Analysis of the Politics of Transgenderism
8 " Reagan to son: how really great is the challenge of proving your masculinity and charm with one woman for the rest of your life. Any man can find a twerp here and there who will go along with cheating, and it doesn’t take all that much manhood. It does take quite a man to remain attractive and to be loved by a woman who has heard him snore, seen him unshaven, tended him while he was sick and washed his dirty underwear. Do that and keep her still feeling a warm glow and you will know some very beautiful music. "
― H.W. Brands , Reagan: The Life
9 " Masculinity cannot exist without femininity. On its own, masculinity has no meaning, because it is but one half of a set of power relations. Masculinity pertains to male dominance as femininity pertains to female subordination. "
― Sheila Jeffreys , Unpacking Queer Politics: A Lesbian Feminist Perspective
10 " On reflection, looking at shows like this and considering my own experiences, what fascinated me was that we have so many stories like this that help us empathize with monstrous men. “Yes, these men are flawed, but they are not as evil as this man.” Even more chilling, they tend to be stories that paint women as roadblocks, aggressors, antagonists, complications—but only in the context of them being a bitch, a whore, a Madonna. The women are never people.Stories about monstrous men are not meant to teach us how to empathize with the women and children murdered, but with the men fighting over their bodies.As a woman menaced by monsters, I find this particularly interesting, this erasure of me from a narrative meant to, if not justify, then explain the brokenness of men. There are shows much better at this, of course, which don’t paint women out of the story—Mad Men is the first to come to mind, and Game of Thrones—but True Detective doubled down.The women terrorized by monsters in real life are active agents. They are monster-slayers, monster-pacifiers, monster-nurturers, monster-wranglers—and some of them are monsters, too. In truth, if we are telling a tale of those who fight monsters, it fascinates me that we are not telling more women’s stories, as we’ve spun so many narratives like True Detective that so blatantly illustrate the sexist masculinity trap that turns so many human men into the very things they despise.Where are the women who fight them? Who partner with them? Who overcome them? Who battle their own monsters to fight greater ones?Because I have and continue to be one of those women, navigating a horror show world of monsters and madmen. We are women who write books and win awards and fight battles and carve out extraordinary lives from ruin and ash. We are not background scenery, our voices silenced, our motives and methods constrained to sex.I cannot fault the show’s men for forgetting that; they’ve created the world as they see it. But I can prod the show’s exceptional writers, because in erasing the narrative of those whose very existence is constantly threatened by these monsters, including trusted monsters whose natures vacillate wildly, they sided with the monsters.I’m not a bit player in a monster’s story. But with narratives like this perpetuated across our media, it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s how my obituary read: a catalogue of the men who sired me, and fucked me, and courted me.Stories that are not my own.Funny, isn’t it? The power of story.It’s why I picked up a pen.I slay monsters, too. "
― Kameron Hurley , The Geek Feminist Revolution
11 " Even women deeply committed to the emancipatory promises of modernity were alarmed by the " inappropriateness" of unrelated men and omen socializing in the streets. In the women's press, articles exhorted young men to treat women respectfully in public. Other articles encouraged women to act as their own police and to be more observant of their hijab and public modesty.From the beginning, then, women's entry on the streets was subject to the regulatory harassment of men. The modernist heterosocializing promise that invited women to leave their homosocial spaces and become educated companionate partners for modernist men was underwritten by policing of women's public presence through men's street actions. Men at once desired heterosociality of the modern and yet would not surrender the privileged masculinity of the streets. Women's public presence was also underwritten by disciplinary approbation of modernizing women themselves whose emancipatory drive would be jeopardized by unruly public conduct. "
12 " The idea that " femininity is artificial" is also blatantly misogynistic. Just as woman is man's " other" , so too is femininity masculinity's " other" . Under such circumstances, negative connotations like " artificial" , " contrived" , and " frivolous" become built into our understanding of femininity - indeed, this is precisely what allows masculinity to always come off as " natural" , " practical" and " uncomplicated" . "
13 " I write woman: woman must write woman. And man, man. So only anoblique consideration will be found here of man; it’s up to him to saywhere his masculinity and femininity are at: this will concern us oncemen have opened their eyes and seen themselves clearly. "
― Hélène Cixous , The Laugh of the Medusa
14 " We define masculinity in very narrow way. Masculinity is hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves, because they have to be, in Nigerian-speak-- a hard man. "
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , We Should All Be Feminists
15 " No wonder then that men who cared, who were open to change, often just gave up, falling back on the patriarchal masculinity they found so problematic. The individual men who did take on the mantle of a feminist notion of male liberation did so only to find that few women respected this shift. Once the 'new man' that is the man changed by feminism was represented as a wimp, as overcooked broccoli dominated by powerful females who were secretly longing for his macho counterpart, masses of men lost interest. "
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16 " The " new" Anglo-American feminist theory argues that too little mothering, and, in particular, the absence of mother-son connection, is what engenders both sexism and traditional masculinity in men. (...) This perspective positions mothering as central to feminist politics in its insistence that true and lasting gender equality will occur only when boys are raised as the sons of mothers. As the early feminist script of mother-son connection required the denial of the mother's power and the displacement of her identity as mother, the new perspective affirms the maternal and celebrates mother-son connection. In this, it rewrites the patriarchal and early feminist narrative to give (...) voice and presence to the mother and make mother-son connection central to the redesign of both traditional masculinity and the larger patriarchal culture. "
17 " We must dare to face the way in which patriarchal thinking blinds everyone so that we cannot see that the emotional lives of boys cannot be fully honored as long as notions of patriarchal masculinity prevail. We cannot teach boys that " real men" either do not feel or do not express feelings, then expect boys to feel comfortable getting in touch with their feelings. "
18 " Guys, you don't have to act " manly" to be considered a man; you are a man, so just be yourself. You don't have to prove your masculinity to anyone. "
19 " Guys, you don't have to act " manly" to be considered a man; you are a man, so just be yourself. Don't let society make you believe you have to prove your masculinity to anyone because you don't. You are you and you are worthy, full stop. "
20 " While mass-media images of biological " males" feminizing themselves have the subversive potential to highlight ways conventionally defined femininity is artificial (a point feminists make all the time), the images rarely function this way. Trans women are both asked to prove their femaleness through superficial means and denied the status of " real" women because fo the artifice involved. After all, masculinity is generally defined by how a man behaves, while femininity is judged by how a woman presents herself.Thus, the media is able to depict trans women donning feminine attire and accessories without ever allowing them to achieve " true" femininity or femaleness. Further, by focusing on the most feminine of artifices, the media encourages the audience to see trans women as living out a sexual fetish. But sexualizing their motives for transitioning not only belittles trans women's female identities; it also encourages the objectification of women as a group....Thus...[this type of message] sexualizes the very concept of female identity and reduces all women (trans or otherwise) to mere feminine artifacts [ex. applying make-up, perfume, putting on jewelry]. "