birth of hybrid man

[Sean Smith]

My comment of "the pussification of the American male" is aimed at something a little more nebulous, harder to define. Boils down to men not acting like "men". And sexual preferance, clothing choice, or chosen recreations have NOTHING to do with it...

Here is my take on it:

The real problem, insofar as there is a real problem, isn't men doing traditionally feminine things.  Nothing really fundamentally important happens if I decide to cook quiche instead of chili, except that it would be silly since I don't actually like quiche.  Yeah, chili manly, quiche not, but who cares?

It is more a case of more men seeming to embody negative female stereotypes concerning weakness of character that is troublesome.  More women embracing traditionally "male" virtues of strength, courage, and so forth might scare some people with small pee-pees, but is ultimately admirable... a virtue is a virtue, after all.  Even in more sexist times this was accepted to an extent; Queen Elizabeth I of England comes to mind here, who practically had a modern cult of personality built on the contrast between her femininity and her power.

I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realms: to which, rather than any dishonor should grow by me, I myself will take up arms; I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, by your forwardness, that you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you.

On the other hand, men who adopt stereotpyically female vices of passivity, timidity and indecision have always been universally scorned by everyone... a vice is a vice, after all.  Just because women have been unfairly painted as all having such characteristics, does not mean that having them is good for anybody in 2005 AD, anymore than it was in 10,000 BC.

[Guest]

I find it very difficult to deal with people of both genders who aren't willing to stand up for themselves or others or for they believe. Frankly, wimpy people in general drive me buggy.

I consider it a failing in myself, because I don't fit any molds myself, but there you go. I'm an anti-wimp bigot.

'Course I'm also annoyed by shallow chest-beating jerks who think any man who has never gnawed through a beer can is a homer-seshual and any woman who doesn't beg them to change a tire for her wants to be a man.

[Anna G.]

I'd 3,000 times more want to investigate my own scary squirrel noises than deal with the moron that wrote that article.

Well said. If I had to chose between the man on the picture and the one who wrote the article I'd take the former without any hesitation.

Burt Raynolds type being pushed away in the pop culture by Orlando Bloom type? Great! What I need is a partner in life with whom we'd deal with problems together, not a big macho to take care of me and in return require from me to be a quiet sweet little wifey. The initial article isn't very smartly written, but they are right about that. What they aren't right about, as Barbara said in her second post, is that they want to just build another stereotype.

I won't torture my brain to formulate a post any further, since everything seems to have been said. Just write up my vote into the column "Be a honorable person, do what you want to do and don't pay attention to the machos or the fashion experts".