My parents and extended family, too, took some time and trouble to set me on the 'right path' when it came to my understanding what men do (being than men are supposed to be masculine and project that image around them), AND what men really do not do (because such a behaviour would not be deemed as masculine).

First off, the visuals they approved of was a dude mostly in blues, browns and blacks. (Military uniforms were fine, and so were sport uniforms.) A guy has got to look the part.

Second off, complaining in great detail about small issues, and sweating small stuff was totally unmanly. Being a male was not an easy task, and you had to be prepared to bear its burdens without a word, really. (On some very basic level, the narrative had it that males derive more pleasure from sex than females do, and hence, there was a price to pay for this imbalance??!)

Third off, career success was a major prerequisite for being a successful male in their eyes. A dude who was unsure about a restaurant bill was not really one of us 'real guys', in their worlds.

Fourth off, within reason, 'a guy has got to do what he has got to do'. All the burdens of manhood had to be rewarded, too. A dude who took care of his family, business, and had a good standing in society, naturally had right to answer to no one. If he wanted to go fishing/hunting for a week with his buddies, married with children or not, well, this was his prerogative.

This list rolls on and on...

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No doubt, some of their views are now anywhere between being wrong and obsolete. And, frankly, I always took the stories that they were trying to share with me, probably for the educational purposes, with a pinch of salt.

The manly thing is to listen to your folks, family and friends, but to call your shots as you find fit.

Adding the fact that I was perfectly aware of my gay identity in those days to all of the above did little to help my full adherence to their rules and concepts.

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Yet, for all the practical purposes, I did absorb the customs and traditions of the world that surrounded me. I sure, broke the mould by wearing bright pink shirts under the formal sports jacket but I stopped short of going overboard in any particular direction.

With the benefit of the hindsight, I can now say that I adopted their views on masculinity and the duties of a male, mostly to my benefit.

There is really a great merit in keeping yourself a bit above the things, and NOT sweating the small stuff. And it does make a lot of sense to have a successful career for many obvious reasons. It also makes quite some sense so safeguard your own sense of autonomy, especially if it does NOT affect your children, and possibly other dependents, etc.

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Back to the present time. Probably, fewer parents spend their time and energy trying to instill specific concepts of masculinity into their sons. We all live in a changing world, and the guys will get there on there own, anyway. Or so the narrative goes...

Starting a young and independent life without ANY guidance is not easy. Your life compass needs calibration...

I have been coming across the dudes in their very early 20's who seem to be entirely lost, without any life plan, neither really working nor studying nor doing anything in particular but going around and trying to figure out what is it that they want/should/need to do. Where is it that they want to go to? What is it that they want to achieve?

Trying to find yourself in the chaos of contemporary living is probably a natural part of growing up. Yet being totally clueless about the values that you wish to embrace while searching for the meaning of it all, makes it so much more difficult, too.

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Would love to hear your thoughts on this subject, guys!

Thanks in advance,

KD

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When I saw this the topic on "Masculine Ideals 1980's" I was sure this was going to be about David Hasselhoff's hairy chest or Tom Selleck's mustache!



The stereotypical gender roles have been around since the dawn of time and really only started to change in the 1990's...

When I grew up it was still the "pink and blue" world for girls and boys.

In gym boys had football, girls had kickball. Boys had wrestling (unfortunately no singlets), girls had gymnastics.

Both sexes were required to take some HomeEc and shop classes, but boys learned how to sew a button back on his shirt in HomeEc and girls learned how to check their oil in auto shop.

The changing roles I think started with girls being taught more traditionally male fields like science and math than boys learning more of the traditional female fields.






Very true - guys were expected to be clean - but boys will be boys - we were in jeans and t-shirts and girls may have been in slacks but they were still expected to be more "presentable".




Exactly. You hurt yourself in gym you were told to "walk it off". I often think of the scene in "Monty Python's Meaning Of Life" when John Cleese as the headmaster is making morning announcments and says "Oh and Jenkins? Apparently your mother died this morning."



The role of the provider -


The old "well he works hard all week so he needs to blow off some steam" or if you look at some of the "advice for woman" articles in the 40's and 50's when it talks about making sure you look good and have dinner ready when your husband gets home from work....


These days the stressing over being "gender neutral" for parents must drive them crazy. In the toy stores many are now putting toys out by age group rather than boys toys and girls toys. If you buy your son a toy truck and your daughter a doll you are stereotyping them - even if it the toy each kid would want.






A lot of that is the "I'm ok - your ok" attitude of "find what makes you happy and don't worry - every thing else will just happen". Well it doesn't in today's world. Tons of kids are graduating from college with degrees they will never be able to use - they may be very knowledgeable on a subject - but they don't know how to survive or earn a living on their own.

Yes - finding something that you will enjoy in life is very important - but it also needs to be tempered with some reality - and it is the lack of understanding of what it takes to get by in life that I find missing in so many young people.

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It's self-indulgent for me to take the time to write today since I should be doing other things. My reflections are colored by always having been an eccentric outlier. I was a military brat and my parents also had a mixed marriage, he being Catholic and she nominally Presbyterian. My mother was in fact a free-thinker and sort of iconoclast and thought and did pretty much what she pleased within the social constraints of the times.

Speaking to her kids, Mom always questioned what was expected of Air Force wives and women in general, although she played along publicly to her advantage. Having married late for the early 1950s after having had her own career for ten years, marriage was, among other things, a way to leave a small racist Southern town. Marriage to a military man who was absent so much allowed a type of freedom. No doubt they also loved each other, although the relationship evolved and changed and was rocky at times decades later when he retired.

With all that and with my father being away so much and our living in so many places, I was exposed to many different ideas, ways of thinking, and ways of living that by the time I was a teen in the 70s I realized that I had to work things out for myself, in my own mind, regardless of social norms. It took a few years to figure out who I and what I wanted but once I did I proceeded openly, though generally tempered by good manners and respect for others.

Anyhow, about the different influences... There were two years living in a state where I attended Catholic school. There was a year when I attended public school in a poor inner-city district. There were another two years in a place where public school had all students, both sexes, take a quarter each of art, music, home economics, and shop.

The only constant was change, and I learned that there were many options. It was up to me to choose, no one else.

I have two brothers. One became an Army officer, stayed for years, later was "RIFed" at the end of the Cold War then hired back as a civilian to do similar work. He follows conventional gender norms and is conventional and conservative in general. One became a Navy officer but left after a few years, then kept moving around the country in different managerial jobs. Both remained Catholic but had different relationships with the Church and its teachings. The second eventually separated from his wife, moved overseas and became a permanent resident of an Asian country. Finally they divorced and he remarried. He has adopted many of the attitudes and norms of his adopted country.

My two sisters and I became more free thinking, more like my mother. One became an Air Force officer, was married, divorced, remarried, and now is Pagan. The other is a scientist, never married, and pretty much quietly follows her own mind about things in life and gender matters.

As for me, I considered a career in some diplomatic or national security civilian agency but, seeing barriers and wanting more freedom, decided to leave that track, get a "normal" job, and do what I pleased.

I suppose I'm an early example of the ones who had no "life plan." They always told me I could do and achieve whatever I wanted in life -- lucky me -- but they never told me how to choose. So I drifted from data entry into programming into systems analysis into e-commerce and eventually into working for Keith on this site.

For me, life hasn't been about preconceived expectations very often. It's always a work in progress.

All for now. ~ Bob

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This is the subject I wanted to discuss here.

Yup. Opportunities and chances do show up. There are openings in life; many of them made by ourselves. Once a young dude stands before choosing what option/choice he wants to take, he appears to be fully disoriented. Actually, the dude is completely clueless, putting it down bluntly. His usual responses are: 'I do not know. I cannot make that decision.'

Being taught a specific worldview, probably outdated to a degree, and certainly wrong in some of its postulates, used to be of great importance to me in my 20's.

Just like everyone else I was clueless. But I knew only too well what my 'ole folks' would want me to do under such circumstances. (Yeah, do the 'manly, right thing.) By no means did I embrace this, but I had a very important starting point, and a general point of reference.

If I were to do what they would have wanted me to do, I reckoned, I was going these upsides, and those downsides. So, the thinking process set in, and it was only for me to decide what mattered to me personally, and which way I really wanted to go.

With the notion of gender neutrality, much of the referential structure of the decision-making process is gone. The dude shrugs with his shoulders, and says, he is clueless, and goes to the sidelines to see what happens next. (Usually, not much. He has just sidelined himself...)

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Bob tells a similar story, too.

Complex and possibly confusing or even contradictory at times, Bob, too, stated his interior debate on how he wanted to handle his life with a clear reference to an existing system.

If you start from a scratch you are really starting a very much of a life-long uphill struggle.

KD

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Quite honestly, I know very few young people well. At 54, my friends are around my age or older, some into their 70s. I have nephews and a niece from age 39 going down to college-age but they live far away and we seldom see each other. None of us have seen each other since my mother's funeral eight years ago.

From their parents' reports and their Facebook posts, I would say my nephews and niece didn't really start from scratch. What they had was an array of choices and, like me and like my brothers and sisters, made choices among them and sometimes synthesized them into something personal and unique.

My niece might be bi or lesbian or straight, I'm honestly unsure. The nephews are straight and pursuing very different life paths based on their skills, education, and opportunities. I think all of them made their choices based on the multiple systems presented. Some have been quite successful, one or two have been less capable of achieving their goals. Likely that's typical of most families, and if I can generalize, of most people their age. And those of any age - that's life.

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