Writing About Men is Important
-
My new piece, “Writing About Men is Important” is up at The Spearhead today.
“Real men don’t read books about masculinity or sit around talking about manhood.”
I’ve heard it more than a few times. Masculinity is associated with action, so men who simply write about men’s issues are sometimes taunted with accusations of defective masculinity. This also plays into the big, dumb, silent thug stereotype that is half-consciously accepted by men, though it only advances the cause of women. My joke that even Conan studied the classics only draws blank stares.
But, by Crom, the truth is that men have been talking about what it means to be a man since the beginning of recorded history. Continue reading at The Spearhead…







4 Responses and Counting...
First off, I’d like to congratulate you on your involvement with The Spearhead. You deserve to be there, and I think your presence there is necessary and beneficial to all.
I’ve found it thrilling to be a fly on the wall there. A thrill I haven’t felt since witnessing and partaking in the catalyst which occurred that first day the Androblog began to “live” on it’s own, all those years ago.
Reading this post, I’m glad to see that a particular dismissive insult directed at you a few weeks ago, and other times before, seems to have been set to simmer in your mind.
It appears to have forced you to clarify for yourself and other men the actual importance of “expressing oneself”. Not as some pointless masturbatory feel-good effeminate indulgence, but as a powerful and necessary goal-oriented means to an end.
I somehow doubt that particular clarification is what you intended it to be, but that is exactly what it is.
“Reading this post, I’m glad to see that a particular dismissive insult directed at you a few weeks ago, and other times before, seems to have been set to simmer in your mind.”
Well, one thing I’m enjoying about The Spearhead is that many of these guys are being bombarded by the exact same tactics that were deployed against me–because feminists and fags feed off one another and use the same bitchy playbook.
One of the Spearhead guys recently linked to this list of said tactics, and I liked it so much I bookmarked it.
The Anti-Male Shaming Tactics Catalog
http://www.dumpyourwifenow.com/2007/03/01/the-anti-male-shaming-tactics-catalog/
Great stuff.
The other thing I’m enjoying about The Spearhead is that I have already gone through a lot of this. I’ve had time to work out my answers, and I have a better sense of who I will and will not deal with or waste my time on. I don’t even read comments which are obviously written by women there.I don’t need to win them over to my side.
Dealing with men, even when they’re angry, has thusfar been FAR preferable to dealing with women and fags. Even when they get pissed off or they think I’m wrong…it’s still for the most part “business.” By now some fag would be telling me all about myself and my psychological problems and trying to emasculate me in some predictable way.
Some of those Anti-Male Shaming Tactics are sometimes used amongst men towards each other, in situations decidedly un-gynocentric.
And when “telling you about yourself” becomes necessary, the job is best left to your friends in private discourse.
They’re the ones who will know you best, after all.
Fellow homo here – age 27. This is fantastic. There’s more like-minded of us out there than you might think.
This is where the future is–independent thought, resistant to dogma, brave and bold, and always cognizant of facts.