Well, given the fact that my attempts to wrap my head around various wibbly ideas of manliness have done enough damage in the plushie thread, I think it's a good idea to separate it out. So here's the topic: Masculinity and femininity are not simply biological, they come with long-standing cultural expectations that sometimes we meet up with and sometimes we don't. I tend to be a traditionalist when it comes to gender roles, but you may not be. How do you perceive your gender ideal? How do you perform it, or execute it? Share your thoughts! Get deep, man. We might disagree, but hopefully we can be grown-ups about it.

Eh, mine isn't really so simple. There's many ways to be a man, many ways to be a woman. For me personally, being a man is more about what's at heart. Honour, integrity, attempting to be courteous to women at all times (Some women it's harder than most).

As for gender perceptions, I'd say I'm relatively progressive. I've come to embrace transgender people and the gender cues they prefer. I used to think it creepy, but I think keeping an open mind to a lot of things in life have left me to find it easier to embrace things most traditionalist people might not. Plus, a couple users here (Who shall remain anonymous) have helped to show me transgender people aren't freaks, they're people just you and I. Do I particularly BUY into all the science of trans things? Not exactly, but who am I to judge people if it's what makes them happy?

I think ultimately men and women are the same except for a few hormones and what-not. If you get into the details it gets a bit gross and not safe for work. But we are not as different as we tend to think, on a biological level. We're all one. Do it with who you want, it's trivial.

On the cultural level, it gets magnified and extremely complicated. I'm not going to write a massive essay about it. If you want to be a girly girl or manly man, that is your trip, no-one should ever criticize you for it. Same thing if you want to blur the lines, culture is yours to play with. The basic principle is freedom of choice. We're mostly lucky enough to have that, it's amazing when you consider the history of oppression by the powerful.

I see what you're saying. To me, I have fairly concrete ideas of what makes a man or a woman, but those are ideals, and we all fall somewhere in a scatterplot around the actual ideal.

I agree about transgenders. I've gotten in the argument with people a number of times, but I never really saw anything wrong with them. Frankly, gender is functionally about identity, how we perceive ourselves. So, if we perceive ourselves to be a gender, why not express as that gender? I think all the arguments about gendered brains and such just muddies the issue.

The only issue comes in when one stands in conflict with accepted norms for whatever gender you express as. That makes things very complicated indeed. A man who identifies as a man who wears a skirt with a mohawk while smoking Virginia Slims is going to cause some issues, I think.

I'm no good at gender roles. I do what pleases me and it doesn't always agree with the expectations of my assigned gender. I don't have a strong gender identity. Stop telling me how to live my life, society.

I'm definitely not a traditionalist when it comes to this topic.

Well i think being a man is to beable to own up to things, and being generally respectful, also being able to understand all forms of differences.

Lets say for example plushies, i wont stay on this topic long, there are many reasons as to why people would do this, comfort, loneliness, attachment, and many others.

I do tend to break away from social norms, such as, i watch MLP, i dont buy anything related to the show, because of my seeded desire to respect people, i respect that it is awkward and strange. I also love Romance stories, i think because my mother is Disabled, and i lived with her as my dad worked to provide, and i would end up exposed to what she liked, so i have a love of Elvis, and older music, and i love drama, because i was exposed to such. I generally cant see someone as strange, more as a rule than anything else, i find it disrespectful. Generally if you provide me with and example of something out of the social norm, i can understand why they would break that norm.

A man has XY chromosome and a woman has XX chromosomes. No matter what you do in life you can't change that. I think it's silly to have to re-define your gender just because you happen to enjoy things not traditionally associated with being a man/woman. The definition of gender is a very specific descriptor like hair color or height.

If every single man on the planet started wearing skirts today and continued to wear skirts for the rest of their lives you wouldn't say that they've changed their gender to some gradient that is acceptably feminine for skirt wearing.

You'd say that we changed skirts into a manly uniform.

Yet, a lot of the psychology of gender draws a clear separation between biological six and psychological/emotional gender.

Within that hypothetical, skirts would then become manly. But within current gender norms, a boy going out in a skirt would draws glares, perhaps even violence. Expression of gender normativity by most individuals prevents radical changes like that from actively occuring. Take a look at men's dress. While details change, the actual get up hasn't for almost 800 years. Hypothetical's aside, male and female ideals are pretty firmly ingrained in our culture. I do like the acknowledgement of non-binary genders, but I personally don't see the two traditional gender identities undergoing much of a change for all our supposed liberalism.

Not a fan of gender roles. I'm a strong believer in individuality and having the freedom to define yourself. I think many of these arbitrary gender-based projections do a lot to harm that and surpresses the true individual from blooming out throughout their life. This hurts both genders but I think it hurts women more, as men seem to have a lot more flexibility in hobbies, careers and stuff that's "okay" for them to be passionate about. I started thinking about this stuff a lot when I realized how underrepresented women are in certain creative and technology fields. I don't believe for a second that there's some biological explanation for that.

As a man who was raised with no traditions whatsoever, I view men and women as basically the same(The differences comes from our bodies duh). With the exception of flirting (I love flirting with girls), no gender get's special treatment from my non-traditional ass.

The whole "Gender jobs" thing is silly to me.

I think that's purely a social issue, and not one of personal internal identification.

A case example: http://www.odditycentral.com/news/meet-hideaki-kobayashi-the-famous-japanese-man-who-dresses-as-a-schoolgirl.html

Wearing a skirt doesn't make you a female, it's why you chose to wear it that determines whether it makes you male or female.

Not at all, social issues like accepted gender norm exert a strong influence on our expression or the way we think about gender. We may all be rugged individualists at heart, but we are strongly influenced by the culture around us.

I'm not sure the point of this thread was expressed properly: It's not just about personal identity, but also how we interact with our culture's gendered expectations. For example, I dress a certain way, and it garners such a reaction, and it makes me feel thus so I do this.

Before today I had no idea how hard it is to simply sum up and define something that comes so natural to me ha. I'm an unorthodox traditionalist of sorts as I believe a "manly man" falls under certain guidelines yet they're not really defined by the times nor the norm...it's more of an internal thing then an external imo.

I don't feel that manliness is in the appearance but rather the attitude and actions. Timeless traits of being manly imo are being hard and strong, not soft and sensitive. Simple things like those have nothing to do with society or the times we live in, it's simply just a manly way to be.

I also don't believe in gender specific roles and rules.

That's one way of looking at it. History doesn't look like that, though. Different people in different situations even within the same culture have different expectations of them. Being hard and strong hasn't always been part of that, particularly for cultural elites. While the peasant might benefit from those virtues, a nobleman might instead be perceived as coarse or unrefined. While I agree to an extent, as we talked about in the other thread, very little of gender seems to be constant or innate. It tends to be informed by how we were raised. That said, certain themes (male providers, female nurturers) tend to be repeated time and again.

There are two ways to look at Gender, Romance/Personal Relationship and then everything else.

For the former, I tend to follow in the traditional sense, protect the woman, be the guy who squashes a bug for her, that kind of thing. I want her to be girly and soft and sweet to offset my rough and tumble ways.

As for everything else, it matters not what reproductive equipment they have, everyone is equal in all areas but those of extreme strength and conditioning, and that only applies at the upper levels of sport or jobs like being a firefighter.

I don't think much of gender roles at all, since of all the things we could group people into doing things with roles...you're literally putting half the population in one set of roles, and the other half in another set of roles and by maintaining that outlook on what roles fit what gender they can't all be right.

Instead roles should be defined on personality characteristics, as well as physical and mental traits. When you look at classical gender roles, masculinity in most cultures is associated with dominant roles while femininity is tied to non-dominant roles. Really gender should be taken out of the equation because not all men are going to be a dominant type of personaility or have the traits requried to match. Same for women, not all are going to be a non-dominant personality and so forth.

Let me put it another way.

Here are the classical roles I fill as a man (this is far from an all-inclusive list)

-Head of household

-Handyman

-Primary decision maker

Here are the non-classical roles I fill as a man (this is far from an all-inclusive list)

-cooking

-cleaning of kitchen and bathrooms

-grocery shopping

-taxi for the kid (soon to be kids)

Here are some roles that would be more associated with a man, but my wife takes care of.

-finances (I really don't feel like touching them and she is an accountant...win for all)

-coordinates all work to be done on house(s), maintains list of outside contractors

-primary contact for tenants (we are landlords, but I'm pretty much one in name only)

.....

.....

I could go on and on, but really it all depends on the person, their personality traits, their capabilities, and if in a relationship or relationships it depends on who is willing to do what and what needs to be done. There are things I just don't do and that's her job, and we hashed all this out a long time ago. I have the dominant personality, but I'm not omnipotent and I don't try to be which is why she handles the finances and the stuff needed around the house. I love cooking so I do it often (it also is most convenient since I'm home first). She is an accountant and she is quite handy with number crunching and really efficient (something I would normally do, but I hate doing it and she is much faster). She notices things I don't with financial statements and she manages quite a large return on our taxes. Though when it comes to decision making, I usually have the final say on what is going to be done. Though together we weigh out all the options and there are times where I go against my better judgement because she is so headstrong and confident about something (usuallly because for that particular situation and decision, she knows better).

It's all about give and take. Give it your all, take what is yours.

I do like idea of chilvary though. I always walk on the sidewalk with myself between her and the road. I always hold open the door (unless I'm carrying our son), I kill the spiders and such she hates (but the opposite to that is that she shoos away bees for me....I absolutely [censored] hate bees).

I'm definitely masculine in appearance and how I tend to act around others outside of the internet. But when I'm in my room, alone, my mindset is my own and can encompass all spectrums of and between each gender. Doesn't matter to me. I do keep some of my quirkier nature hidden away when in mixed company, because I do agree that going about one's daily affairs without conforming in some way to set standards can lead to unwanted consequences and conflicts.

I'm bigender, I tend to sway back and forth between gender identity. Some days I can look down and be perfectly happy with a [male reproductive organ], and other days I look down and almost feel disgusted that it's not a [female reproductive organ]. It's got nothing to do with me about male/female activities, and I do not care if people percieve me as masculine or feminine. Gender identity is about how you feel about yourself, not how other people feel about me.

EDIT: ITT Gender is a lot more than just biological and social, there's an internal aspect too.

I believe there are times in a mans life where you have to be strong and hard, but there are times where you need to be "soft and sensitive" it all depends on the situation, some one mourns, i feel the need to be sensative and comfort them, i feel a man should beable to do anything to do what needs to be done, and that calls for being emotionally diverse.

I'd be very curious in how such a thing is expressed socially. It would be very difficult for people, I would think, for someone to be one gender one day and the other on a different day. Or is it something kept private? Don't answer if you don't want to, but I'm quite curious.

DNA doesn't code for skirts.

Things such as gender roles and stereotypes and the like have never been something that bothered me. I certainly don't hold traditionalist views on the subject, and I think you should just act how you feel you should and don't think about how it ties into your gender, but you also shouldn't be bothered by how society perceives you. I'm not the most "manly" male ever, and it doesn't bother me that I don't fall into a gender-specific role.

I think it's silly for society to set a precedent for how people should act based on their gender, but I also think it's silly to be bothered by that, because it doesn't seem that important. Just do what you want without caring about how others might perceive you (not saying you should get obnoxious about it and emphasize it to everyone around you, but just be natural without having to think about it or go out of your way to let people know what you're like).

I don't care for the emphasis placed on gender identity, either from traditionalists or... the opposite of traditionalists. Gender to me is just a difference in anatomy. I don't care if I should follow traditions and act how my respective gender is "supposed" to, but nor do I care for making a point and proving a traditionalist society wrong, because traditional gender roles don't bother me anyway. I guess I'm neutral on this. Politically, at least.

This is true but I'm sure there were many noblemen and the like who went against the norm and stayed true to their inner manly nature...I believe it's something that's hardwired within us just like the alpha male trait amongst wolves. I also feel that many adhere to the social side of things (behavior, dress, etc.) from fear of being shunned for being different by being themselves. I would likely still feel the same way I do now about manliness, regardless of if I were rich or a lord in ye olden days...part of being manly includes courage and that means not hiding behind what the world wants you to be.

I can't speak for everyone but from my personal experience it certainly doesn't stem from how I was raised because my dad was a deadbeat and I was raised by a single mother yet I'm not the least bit feminine or unmanly...this is why I say it's a natural internal thing as I've always gravitated towards manly things and traits as far back as I can remember.

As I've said, I don't believe in gender specific roles so I think you're still a man if you're a "Mr. Mom" so long as you maintain your masculinity while taking care of your baby. This even stems to our ape cousins as I've seen a film about a chimp whose mother was killed when he was still too young to take care of himself and none of the female chimps in his group helped him or took him in yet the solitary alpha male of the group took care of him in a motherly way which is all but unheard of. You can be both a hard alpha male and a mom

The thing about this is, because your father was a deadbeat, as you say, you likely tried hard to fill his role as man of the house, as you were the only male, it is easy to see how you actually have been shaped, unintentionally because no matter what can be said, we are shaped by how we grew up in a large way.

Edit: its all about the environment we lived in and how things may have been handled around you that shaped you, i see no problem with liking feminine things, because I was raised in an environment where i did have a hate towards my father, perhaps that is why i leaned toward the social norm of a man, perhaps i though men were like him, and i wantwd to stray from that.