Me Too

This is an interesting topic; in many cases aggression is a positive thing. An engineer being driven to make technology more powerful and faster will be successful. A lawyer who searches through case law to doggedly defend a client, or a CEO innovating to push ahead of the competition, in many cases aggression is a key to success.

I teach my daughter to push on ideas, to be competitive (she plays chess and poker) and to use any advantage to crush an opponent.

Of course, there is also the decency to know when aggression is appropriate, but without it we can't excel.

Every boy has been pushed down on the playground. We learn social skills, we learn when to push back...and when to walk away. It is rare that a boy looks for help or accepts it. Sometimes this is bad, some times it is good. But it is true that boys are taught lessons that society wants to protect girls from learning.

Aggressivess is part of the many skills that successful men and women need to be truly successful.

In any case, some boys enjoy fighting. I know I did, and still do. It's loads of fun (until it's not of course -- sometimes you regret it).

I taught my son the pleasure of fighting, plus a few tricks. We were often wrestling when he was younger. He's been in a few fights at school, as one would expect, but nothing grievous. At least I know he can fight back a little, if aggressed.

In contrast, I never taught my daughter how to wrestle and fight, and she never fought physically with anyone, that I know of. But she was submitted to other forms of violence from other girls all right. Harrasment, exclusion, threats... The first year in NYC she was left entirely alone, shunned by ALL her classmates, for 6 long months. Downright inhuman if you ask me.

My older (now adult) son did boxing through high school and had some amateur bouts. He has been teaching my daughter how to fight. I have mixed feelings about this... but I am not worried about her being physically bullied. She can hit my son's heavy (punching) bag pretty convincingly.

Her biggest problem in school are the "popular" girls who apparently can be quite mean if you don't meet up to their standards of dress or interests. Luckily she has a really nice group of friends (the nerdy outsiders) which is really all she needs.

Usually, the "popular" girls in a US context are just the richest ones, high in the pecking order because their parents buy them the latest ****. It was educative for my daughter to realize that, to demystify this hierarchical BS. So I thank them now but back then I could have strangled a few...

BTW, why "mixed feelings"?

why not teach your daughter? shouldn't she get the same opportunity as your son?

Because that's not what she needed to survive recess.

I taught my son because he was being bulied by a bigger boy. He needed to know how to defend himself. My daughter needed something else: the capacity to withstand peer presure, to ignore the ignorers, to judge the judgmentals back.

All I could do is tell her stories about social outcasts who thrive and have fun. One very long lasting one (told on our way to and back from school in subway rides) was about a girl abandonned by her parent on a subway track as a baby. The subway rats adopted and fed her, and she became the queen of the New York rats, did all sorts of exploits fighting for the rats survival against humans and stuff... It was as antisocial a story as one could get and she loved every episode of it. I don't know if it helped. The general idea was: **** 'popular'.

I tried to get my son to be less inclined to fight, so I suppose I have the same feeling about my daughter. I might have trouble being proud if she were really to break some other kids nose (depending on the circumstances... of course).

It is why I have mixed feelings.

It is interesting... there is research that the best way to lower the incidence of rape on campuses is to teach girls to be more assertive. In fact, this is the only method backed by scientific research that has been shown to work. Programs that target teaching boys to "not be rapists" fail to have any measurable affect (probably because most boys aren't rapists).

Of course, there there is substantial political opposition to the programs that actually work. They don't match the narrative.

I teach my daughter to be very clear about what she wants and what she doesn't want. Fortunately, this has never been a problem for her.

but if it's a pleasure you shared with your son shouldn't you also have shared it with your daughter? not because either of them needed it but because you liked it / describe it as a pleasure.

I always wrestled with my children, including my daughter. The rule generally was the only way to take Dad down was to work as a team, but my daughter had no problem trying to take me down herself. She never had to use those skills on the playground (that I know of), but she is playing two varsity sports as a freshman and routinely runs with girls inches taller and a good number of pounds heavier.

They should only use what they learn in self-defense of course. Control of self and all that. Judo style.

Maybe I should have. So yes, I guess I conformed to a gender role. Now she's taking boxing lessons by the way... must be a trend. :-)

Very interesting article in the Guardian about "Men after #MeToo": 
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/09/men-after-metoo-masculinity-fundamentally-toxic

Who is pushing a positive image of traditional masculinity? That article was a little frustrating. I read it carefully, and I didn't see a positive description or why masculinity should be celebrated.

If you look at the determination of successful men in the past.... Martin Luther King's forceful sermons and his dogged determination. Einstein's brilliance and hours spent working alone on his theories. Muhammad Ali's pride and prowess. These are traditionally masculine traits. Yes, there were women who have shown them too, but these were strong, opinionated, brilliant men acting like men.

There is a strange thing... the pride, the forcefulness expressing opinions, the determination, the aggressiveness... these are the traits that made these men successful. Instead of instilling these traits in women, we are asking men to give them up. The traits that have made the most successful men invent, and lead, and find justice are now ridiculed.

Fighting for justice takes courage, strong beliefs, aggressiveness and a willingness to push others. Inventing new technology takes self-assuredness (arrogance), willingness to express one's ideas loudly until you are heard, and long hours alone.

Somehow we want women to be successful... yet we aren't willing to take the very traits that have made the patriarchy successful.

There is no real "men's movement" without celebrating the traits that made successful men do amazing things.

And what do you see when you look at women who have been successful in the past? Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, Angela Davis... They had more balls than you and me.

Last time I checked, women and men were still part of the same species. They're not that different from one another.

Of course.... there were successful women. And successful women can be aggressive, and opinionated and courageous. There are aggressive, successful women the same way there are female mass murderers and rapists (which is the dark side of masculinity; the two sides go together).

I respect Harriet Tubman for courage and Alice Paul for being impossibly opinionated. Angela Davis too fits this list (and spent spent time in prison for it) although I have mixed feelings about her legacy. Incidentally, I am not sure I would put Cleopatra on this list; she was manipulative rather than courageous.

The traditionally masculine traits that made the most successful men and women successful are being downplayed.

By whom?

This criticism of 4 year old boys from EhBeth is one example. The recent article blaming gun violence on "toxic masculinity" is another.

The narrative is that aggression, pushing strong opinions, demanding a high salary... these are all now viewed as negatives. The incredibly successful culture of silicon valley that invented the internet we are now using is demeaned as "bro culture".

Does anyone here have a positive thing to say about masculinity as it differs from femininity.

I think you take the feminist noise too seriously. The success in libraries and on the silver screen of the 'Shades of Grey' franchise -- in spite of it being so poorly written -- should tell you something about the hiatus between the anti-man brouhaha out there and what many women still very much like in men, in the secret of their little heart.

You don't counter racism by singing praise to blackhood. You counter it by organising, protesting, fighting, etc. Likewise, don't expect anyone to sing praise to manhood. That'd be ridiculous. Just organise, demonstrate, and fight.