What makes a 'real man'?

[Charlie]

We were at the checkout in the local supermarket. I was wearing an olive Unionkilt and a pink polo shirt. The woman behind the counter said she liked my kilt, and then went on to mention that her husband would say that it takes a 'real man' to wear what I had on - essentially a skirt and pink top.

It's baffled me for years as to what makes a 'real man'. I'm a man because I've got all the 'man bits' - so what else is there to make me 'real'?

Some years ago I wrote a letter to the local paper replying to a columnist who made the case for men wearing skirts (it was a hot summer), saying how I'd like to wear a skirt as every day attire. The story made it to the paper's on-line forum, where someone posted that he was a 'real man' and would never wear a skirt.

So - are 'real men' brave and adventurous, or too frightened to be even a little bit different? Do you have to be a Crocodile Dundee type or is it enough to just be yourself and ignore the nay-sayers? Advise please.

Charlie

[crfriend]

Do you have to be a Crocodile Dundee type or is it enough to just be yourself and ignore the nay-sayers?

I'd have to go with the latter. One needn't be all brusque and swagger -- and recall just how much of Crocodile Dundee's behaviours were faked -- one only needs the confidence, itself considered masculine, to pull it off and to brush the naysayers' objections aside.

[RichardA]

It is said that “the woman makth the kilt, but the kilt makth the man”

[Taj]

On the serious side, a real man is actions not words. The actions I'm referring to are the responsible ones of keeping his commitments to his family, his community, and himself. Its the big scary R word, responsibility. Then, there are words like duty and honor. None of these have a thing to do with what he wears. They all require an amount of bravery that defines character. Fulfilling those things make you a man.

[couyalair]

It's all a question of local/regional/national culture/tradition/religion.
In other words we conform to the way we see others acting/doing/speaking.
A boy will generally copy other men, and the more careful his copying, the more of a man he will become.
We grow up doing this and imagine that our ways will be the same the world over. In spite of television, however, we still act differently in different parts of the world.
I remember when I was a student in London, meeting for the first time young people from the north of England; how soppy they sounded to me with their quaint way of speaking (accents that were never heard on national radio). But it soon became clear that they found me just as soft and unmanly with my more standard pronunciation, whereas they thought themselves "real men" speaking just like their fathers, the farmers and miners of their area.
That is within one small country.
Having lived in two or three different countries, I have often noticed that speech that is accepted as masculine in one place is barely acceptable in others. Think of the double bass tones of many Northamerican men (you can't get any more male than that!) compared with the tenor voices heard in many parts of Europe. British voices tend to be pitched higher than French ones, whereas German voices tend to be lower, though all are higher than American ones. In Spain, I have been stuck by the way men can send their voices way up high in ordinary speech, while women often go as low as if they have permanently sore throats. Yet I'm sure no-one thinks those men are speaking unmanly. The old mediterranean machismo still persists in Spain, but you still see men with long hair, men that can sing and dance (think flamenco, not clubbing), ways that would be unthinkable north of the Pyrenees. Around the Mediterranean men express themselves with almost continuous hand gestures, which in some places further north would be regarded as a sure sign of unmanliness, but that has not stopped them having large families.

Enough rambling; suffice to say that there is no one answer to the question. However manly you may appear in one place, it is quite likely that you could be taken for not quite a real man elsewhere. So get your skirts on and to hell with the world!

Martin

[crfriend]

So get your skirts on and to hell with the world!

Hear, hear!

Seriously, it does really boil down to that. The remark of, "Be the change you want to see in the world." is usually attributed to Ghandi -- and it's accurate. If you want to change the status quo there's no better way to go about it than by demonstrating the path. Yes, you'll receive your share or lumps -- agitators get those. But, if you persist, quietly and sincerely, that will show through and acceptance will be had. It just takes time.

[ethelthefrog]

This says it all, really...




Paul.

[Silhouette Legs]

Equally what makes a 'real woman?'

[Sinned]

But what a price? Vistaprint will print a T-shirt in black, grey or white with a speech bubble slogan on the front and another slogan on the back for £2.85 plus 20% VAT. Not sure if there's a delivery charge or not but it's certainly better than the £23+ that the Amazon charges. Vistaprint do a lot of other designs that cost more but they are individual to you. I was thinking of one with "It's comfortable, it's cooool ...." on the front and ".... & MOH wears the trousers." on the back. Not sure how MOH would take it though.

[skirtyscot]

This question is too much like "what makes a skirt masculine?", on which there is already a long thread. Ask 10 people and you'll get 10 different answers. The OP gives you the opposing ends of the spectrum: a real man would never wear a skirt; and a real man has the courage to wear a skirt (and a pink shirt) if he wants to.

Good answer, Martin. Men are strongly encouraged to follow male norms, or pain of all sorts of bad things happening.

My answer: if you have the requisite body parts, then you're a real man!

BTW, Charlie, I suspect that Mrs SS would say that only a man would wear pink and olive green! No offence intended, she comments with disapproval on some of my colour combinations and reckons that men just don't think about colours.

[skirtyscot]

I'm in the skirt and pink shirt club too! http://www.skirtcafe.org/forums/viewtop ... le#p118462

[crfriend]

I'm in the skirt and pink shirt club too! http://www.skirtcafe.org/forums/viewtop ... le#p118462

I'd forgotten that shot -- NICE!

I was in the skirt and pink-shirt club today when I wandered out from home to take a relaxing walk on our local "rail trail" (a repurposed railroad right-of-way that's now a walking/cycling/cross-country-skiing trail) in my long purple "walking skirt" and a pink dress shirt. What a small world!

[Sarongman]

You know, I think it all boils down to the fact that a "real man" has the guts to not slavishly follow the herd. The aforesaid neighbour has shown that he is a timid soul who has NOT got said guts.

[Charlie]

BTW, Charlie, I suspect that Mrs SS would say that only a man would wear pink and olive green! No offence intended, she comments with disapproval on some of my colour combinations and reckons that men just don't think about colours.

I told the check out girl that I wear pink to annoy people. I used to teach in a Technical College and the habit of making people think hasn't gone away. Anyway I, like many other men, am slightly colour blind so pink and olive green look OK to me. Women aren't colour blind (so it's said).
BTW, I wanted to follow in my father's footsteps and become a Printer but couldn't because of the colour blindness (red/green), so instead became a ..... colour TV engineer
Charlie

[crfriend]

I used to teach in a Technical College and the habit of making people think hasn't gone away.

I've never taught anything formally, but the desire to make folks think is one of the reasons I likely got the sack from my last job. Thinking -- especially critical thinking -- is the key to everything.

[...] pink and olive green look OK to me.

The thought of that colour combination actually makes me feel a wee bit nauseous.

Women aren't colour blind (so it's said).

They can be, but the condition is much rarer than it is in men.

BTW, I wanted to follow in my father's footsteps and become a Printer but couldn't because of the colour blindness (red/green), so instead became a ..... colour TV engineer

I see you've worked in bars and pubs all around the USA, then . It's very seldom one sees a properly-adjusted telly in these here parts -- and when somebody who does know how to adjust one ( ) does so it's inevitably reverted to rubbish-settings the next time it's seen.