@hawkeye10,
Why would you even spend time wondering what makes for a good man, or what "masculinity" is? Why do you have to conceptualize yourself in terms of gender role? What is the difference between a good man and a good person?
I think the last thing I wonder about is my "femininity"? I grew up at a time with rather restrictive notions of "femininity" and "lady like" behavior--only wear skirts, never swear, defer to the man, be careful not to be too assertive, never be aggressive, be demure, act helpless, etc. What's made a change for me, and loads of other women, is to ditch those cultural shackles. And definitions of "masculinity" are just as confining, and just as out of touch with contemporary reality as those notions of "femininity".
Apart from these cultural gender role labels, there are essential differences between men and women. No fusion of gender roles, or expansion of gender roles is really going to confuse our essential natures or blur those differences. Women are as female now as they were in the 1950's or the 1750's. Men are just as male now as they ever were in Ancient Rome.
What's changed, is that life has become easier and more comfortable for all of us. We have machines that do the work we once did. The routines of daily life and gender assigned tasks have changed. Life makes fewer physical demands on most of us, and presents fewer physical challenges for us. There is more monotony and less that is unknown and unpredictable in everyday life. We have more free time. And, most of all, we are living longer.
Men might suffer more from this more sedentary life. They no longer venture forth to hunt, or even to expand the frontiers, but instead commute to sit in a tiny cubicle somewhere or go to work at a job dominated more by repetition than excitement. Not much is required of them in terms of daring. No opportunity to run into that phone booth and don the red cape of Superman--even the phone booth is rapidly disappearing. Men haven't been displaced by women, or been"feminized", the world has simply changed around them, and some of the changes have been relatively rapid. The "little woman", freshly made up and coiffed, who once greeted their return home with a pitcher of martinis and an elaborate dinner, now returns home after her own day in the office, wishing she had one of those old fashioned wives to greet her at the door and have everything on the home front organized and ready and waiting. The notion of the man "ruling the roost" has slowly morphed into a partnership, and marriages seem to be dissolving at almost the same rate they are being formed. This isn't the same life, or the same reality men once enjoyed, even in fairly recent memory. I can't blame you guys for wanting to play your video games to get some of you feelings of mojo back.
But to view these changes with bitterness, and to see woman as emasculators, is really distorted, and just plain wrong. Women's lives have changed along with yours. We've relieved you of the burden of being the sole breadwinner by taking on additional burdens of our own. Our lives are busier and more pressured than they were when we spent our days at home. We have needs too, and we are less afraid to assert them now. What we want shouldn't be all that confusing to you. Try asking us. Try listening to what we say. Try collaborating. It really isn't power we want. It's partnership. We really do want you men to be happy too. Is that so hard to understand or accept?
