Watch now (19 mins) | This is #5 in the Understanding Men Series. We begin to discuss the research driven ideas of what is being called Precarious Manhood. Testosterone and Precarious Manhood work together to push men to strive for status. Testosterone gives a biological push from the inside while Precarious Manhood is the social push from the outside. It's basically a double team that impacts men and boys but is absent for women and girls. This first section gives you a basic idea of the nature of Precarious Manhood and also compares it to the hateful toxic masculinity ideas.
Feminists (including their self loathing male allies) who revile men, ascribe manhood to anyone with a penis and asume them to be riddled with toxic masculinity and male privilege no matter how weak, docile, and ineffectual they are.
Only women who actually like and are attracted to masculinity discriminate among men based on their abilities and accomplishments.
Yes, an important point. I agree that men are defined by what we do, not what we (or others) think. Accomplishments are what count; that to me means testing ability to see what it amounts to.
Walter J. Ong’s "Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness" (1981) is helpful in thinking about precariousness. Ong believes that insecurity is built into male biology and is the price we pay for being male. “If stress or insecurity means an easy or unstable relationship with one’s environment, males are insecure because they are in more constant and complex conflict with their environments than are females.” He adds that clinical data show this is “most likely true from birth.” (p. 68). Ong argues that “males are readier risk takers for a species because they have been so programmed evolutionarily, as the more expendable sex” (p. 69). People think that insecurity means lack of confidence and uncertainty. The dictionaries remind us that insecurity means being open to danger or threat. Men have been exposed to threat and danger, because they are men, for millennia.
And let’s not forget that, as men meet their socio-biological responsibilities, they gain status and get other rewards. Ong’s comments on men’s relationships to me sound like a description of boxer friendships. “The male values a companion whom he can stand up against and who can stand up against him,” so that “each receives assurance from the other’s decently adversative stance.” Men need each other but men also keep their friends “at arm’s length—an admiring arm's length” (p. 81). No back patting for us. Adversity builds character; taking a risk usually does.
Wow. Ong was way ahead of his time. Wish I had read him earlier! Very interesting ideas. Men have "insecurity" based on conflict with environment. Vey different from self esteem which I think is also highly misunderstood. <big generalization coming> Men tend to be inflated with the "I got this" attitude while women seem to be less so and more in the "can I do this?" space. Self esteem is best measured not by those characteristic but by how closely our personal self knowledge is to reality.
Yes, Ong's book, which I knew about only because it is mentioned in Jonathan Gotschall's "The Professor in the Cage," is really good for perspective. I have noticed that, when it comes to boxing, lots of men think "I got this" because they think boxing is only fighting. Then they find out that the opponent knows more than they do about boxing, as opposed to fighting. The surer they are of their skills, the more likely they are to have an untested view of them. That's the reality you refer to here, I think. Not many bar fights last 3 minutes. Fighters I know who are not boxers run out of steam long before the bell rings. Fighting does not require conditioning, but you can't box without it (of course, you can't box if conditioning is all you have, either).
Feminists (including their self loathing male allies) who revile men, ascribe manhood to anyone with a penis and asume them to be riddled with toxic masculinity and male privilege no matter how weak, docile, and ineffectual they are.
Only women who actually like and are attracted to masculinity discriminate among men based on their abilities and accomplishments.
https://youtu.be/7L7NRONADJ4?si=e2eaIxr6Og6y-sno
Yes, an important point. I agree that men are defined by what we do, not what we (or others) think. Accomplishments are what count; that to me means testing ability to see what it amounts to.
Walter J. Ong’s "Fighting for Life: Contest, Sexuality, and Consciousness" (1981) is helpful in thinking about precariousness. Ong believes that insecurity is built into male biology and is the price we pay for being male. “If stress or insecurity means an easy or unstable relationship with one’s environment, males are insecure because they are in more constant and complex conflict with their environments than are females.” He adds that clinical data show this is “most likely true from birth.” (p. 68). Ong argues that “males are readier risk takers for a species because they have been so programmed evolutionarily, as the more expendable sex” (p. 69). People think that insecurity means lack of confidence and uncertainty. The dictionaries remind us that insecurity means being open to danger or threat. Men have been exposed to threat and danger, because they are men, for millennia.
And let’s not forget that, as men meet their socio-biological responsibilities, they gain status and get other rewards. Ong’s comments on men’s relationships to me sound like a description of boxer friendships. “The male values a companion whom he can stand up against and who can stand up against him,” so that “each receives assurance from the other’s decently adversative stance.” Men need each other but men also keep their friends “at arm’s length—an admiring arm's length” (p. 81). No back patting for us. Adversity builds character; taking a risk usually does.
Wow. Ong was way ahead of his time. Wish I had read him earlier! Very interesting ideas. Men have "insecurity" based on conflict with environment. Vey different from self esteem which I think is also highly misunderstood. <big generalization coming> Men tend to be inflated with the "I got this" attitude while women seem to be less so and more in the "can I do this?" space. Self esteem is best measured not by those characteristic but by how closely our personal self knowledge is to reality.
Yes, Ong's book, which I knew about only because it is mentioned in Jonathan Gotschall's "The Professor in the Cage," is really good for perspective. I have noticed that, when it comes to boxing, lots of men think "I got this" because they think boxing is only fighting. Then they find out that the opponent knows more than they do about boxing, as opposed to fighting. The surer they are of their skills, the more likely they are to have an untested view of them. That's the reality you refer to here, I think. Not many bar fights last 3 minutes. Fighters I know who are not boxers run out of steam long before the bell rings. Fighting does not require conditioning, but you can't box without it (of course, you can't box if conditioning is all you have, either).