Intellectual Takeout: When Men Say ‘Yes’ to the Dress

[Fred in Skirts]

There is nothing wrong with my view. Femininity is superior to masculinity and will eventually prevail. This scenario is already playing out in society.
1. Look at college graduation statistics. Women are graduating at extraordinarily high numbers, while men are playing X-Box and packing groceries at the local supermarket. As women continue to be more educated, men will become second class citizens.
2. What percentage of people that go goofy with a gun are women, maybe 2 or 3 percent.
3. Women are much less violent. We need to evolve into a Bonobo Society with women in charge. Men will be in the hierarchy provided that they can emulate women and adopt the feminine mindset.
There have been many papers and articles published on this subject and therefore it is not only my viewpoint.
Respectfully,
Jamie

My opinion of what you have stated:
BOULDERDASH!
OR IN TERMS MOST WILL UNDERSTAND BULL$H!T!

I am sorry you feel the way you do but I can not accept it. While you are welcome to your belief, as are all who post here I will call BS on what I believe is BS.
Sorry if it hurts your personal feelings!

Fred

[jamie001]

Fred and CR,

None of these responses hurt my personal feelings. You are entitled to your opinion and I respect that even if I don't agree with it. The overall problem is that men should be allowed to be feminine if they choose because as Lady Gaga said "they are born that way". The policing of men that do not live up to the masculine standard needs to stop. It has resulted in many unnecessary teenage and young adult suicides among transgender and gender nonconforming folks. The policing of men that do not live up to masculine standards is a result of femininity being valued as less than masculinity because we live in a paitriotarchial society. Our society teaches that the worst thing that a boy or man can be called is a girl or woman. Young boys are taught this garbage from an early age and it needs to stop. Boys need to have strong women role models.

[Stu]

because we live in a paitriotarchial society

Ah, so you live in Iran. I see. Yes, that is a patriarchal society.

[crfriend]

None of these responses hurt my personal feelings.

My commentary was not intended to hurt feelings. It was intended to point up faulty thinking.

The primary mistake was the confusion of "modern masculinity" with machismo, which derailed the whole process.

Boys need to have strong women role models.

Show me even one competent mother who is not strong. Just one.

[Coder]

Show me even one competent mother who is not strong. Just one.

They are a force of nature to be reckoned with (in a good way)! And that’s the hilarious aspect of the whole “women are dainty, gentle, kind”. Maybe if you are stuck in a victorian mindset.

[STEVIE]

“women are dainty, gentle, kind”.

Confuse that with weak at your peril gents.
On the other hand machismo should not be seen as a strength.
There should never be any assumption of superiority based solely on gender.
Steve.

[Uncle Al]

Do you want to see a STRONG woman
Let someone go after(attack) her kids.

The MAMA Bear has woken up and will tear you a new one

Uncle Al

[Fred in Skirts]

I have seen this first hand, when I was a volunteer firefighter.
We were called out to a home where a pedophile had broken in to the house and started to attack the 7 year old female. The mother pulled this over 200 pound man from her daughter and body slammed him down a flight of stairs and them managed to push his head through the stair railings which were wrought iron and he could not get out . We had to first hog tie the mother to get her away from the perp and stop beating him on the head. It took the Jaws of Life to spread the railings and to get him free. You never saw such a happy man. He was so grateful to be taken the hospital and then to jail. He suffered several broken bones and a concussion.
Oh by the way the mother was about 110 pounds and stood about 5 foot 1 or 2 inches in height, skinny as a rail. She was the sweetheart of the fire station after that.
Mother and daughter were just fine.

[Ray]

Fred

I think the word you were looking for was “balderdash”.

Boulder dash is, I believe, a game.

Always useful to clarify words before posting them in bright red colour/font.

[Fred in Skirts]

Fred

I think the word you were looking for was “balderdash”.

Boulder dash is, I believe, a game.

Always useful to clarify words before posting them in bright red colour/font.

I never claimed to know it all!
Although BOULDERDASH was what we said when I was a child and I guess it just stuck. Remember when I was a child, humans were still dragging their knuckles on the ground.

[crfriend]

Remember when I was a child, humans were still dragging their knuckles on the ground.

Heck, many of them still are!

[Ray]

Fred, Carl beat me to it!

Quite a few knuckle draggers near me. They practice what would be known as the “simian stroll” - seen a lot in Manchester, UK!

[crfriend]

[... T[he “simian stroll” - seen a lot in Manchester, UK!

Oh by the gods I damn near spat my teeth out over that crack! Well played!

[moonshadow]

The overall problem is that men should be allowed to be feminine if they choose because as Lady Gaga said "they are born that way". The policing of men that do not live up to the masculine standard needs to stop. It has resulted in many unnecessary teenage and young adult suicides among transgender and gender nonconforming folks. The policing of men that do not live up to masculine standards is a result of femininity being valued as less than masculinity because we live in a paitriotarchial society. Our society teaches that the worst thing that a boy or man can be called is a girl or woman. Young boys are taught this garbage from an early age and it needs to stop. Boys need to have strong women role models.

I agree that men who wish to explore femininity should not fear it nor avoid it, however I disagree that femininity is somehow superior compared to masculinity.

Both are just means to describe gender characteristics, and there is virtue in both. Likewise both can be a vise if not refined and tempered properly.

So no, I do not shy from my inner femininity, yet there is an equal place in my soul for masculinity as well.

On a personal note, I find it somewhat ironic that since I've started exploring the enby path, "masculinity" seems to have taken a larger influence in my life. It's helped me to embrace the inner person that I am, all parts of my heart and spirit, femininity and masculinity combined.

As for the author referring to men in dresses being weak... as a woman, she is privileged in that she can wear whatever she wants without any fear of societal prejudice or harassment. She likely has lived her entire life in such a world.

She, like all other women can not possibly know the courage it requires to step outside and express one's self as a man that doesn't conform. And that's what she doesn't understand, it takes strength to put that foot outside and walk down the street confidently, being your own true self...

... it takes... masculinity.

Yes, it's somewhat ironic that for a man, it seems to take a LOT of masculinity to be feminine. Men can paint their nails, and put on pretty sun dresses and pose in front of their bathroom mirrors all day long, posting selfies to their tick tock fans and what not in the privacy of their own home, but it takes that good old fashioned masculine strength to walk across a busy southern truck stop towards the men's room to answer the call of nature.... in a dress...

It took masculinity for those first women to buck the rules and wear pants openly and proudly for the first time. It was never the pants that were masculine, it was the inner courage and strength these women needed to invoke to wear them openly.

Femininity is beautiful, but it takes masculinity for a man to express that femininity openly, without it [masculinity], he will always be "just another closeted crossdresser..."

I had a man tell me once in regards to how I brazenly wear whatever I want that "I was the most masculine guy he's ever met."

[crfriend]

I agree that men who wish to explore femininity should not fear it nor avoid it, however I disagree that femininity is somehow superior compared to masculinity.

Both are just means to describe gender characteristics, and there is virtue in both. Likewise both can be a vise if not refined and tempered properly.

This rings powerfully true, and fits the older views of masculinity and femininity to a T -- both are descriptions of a collection of traits and how those traits are integrated into the person in question. Thus, there have always been "masculine women" and "feminine men" -- and both were considered normative.

The problem arrives when one set of traits becomes more valued than another, and everybody flocks to those and shoves others aside; this has produced the problem in modern times where women now occupy 90% of the overall spectrum of traits and men are only allowed to display the worst of traits, those of machismo.

The important takeaway from this is that neither "masculinity" nor "femininity" is superior. They stand on their own as equals, and both are necessary for us to be mentally healthy. To claim otherwise is to expose profound ignorance and misunderstanding.

So no, I do not shy from my inner femininity, yet there is an equal place in my soul for masculinity as well.

There is a place for both in all of us -- that's one of the things that makes us fully human.

On a personal note, I find it somewhat ironic that since I've started exploring the enby path, "masculinity" seems to have taken a larger influence in my life. It's helped me to embrace the inner person that I am, all parts of my heart and spirit, femininity and masculinity combined.

It's truly astonishing how long it takes us as adults to actually discover ourselves when we should have been doing that in our teens instead of posturing like morons.

Yes, it's somewhat ironic that for a man, it seems to take a LOT of masculinity to be feminine. Men can paint their nails, and put on pretty sun dresses and pose in front of their bathroom mirrors all day long, posting selfies to their tick tock fans and what not in the privacy of their own home, but it takes that good old fashioned masculine strength to walk across a busy southern truck stop towards the men's room to answer the call of nature.... in a dress...

It took masculinity for those first women to buck the rules and wear pants openly and proudly for the first time. It was never the pants that were masculine, it was the inner courage and strength these women needed to invoke to wear them openly.

Femininity is beautiful, but it takes masculinity for a man to express that femininity openly, without it [masculinity], he will always be "just another closeted crossdresser..."

I had a man tell me once in regards to how I brazenly wear whatever I want that "I was the most masculine guy he's ever met."

Life teaches us those lessons eventually -- if we're wise enough to listen.

One of the more interesting comments I've received over the years was from a woman in my old local who my late ex- and I were chatting with who commented that I was, "more comfortable in my skin than anyone she'd ever met before". Saphhire concurred.