Socialization of the manly man.

My whole life I have grown up with men who are “manly men”. They drink beer, they watch football & they sit with their hand down their pants. They feel they are the epitome of masculinity, the poster child for those who are penis endowed. Why is it that acting this way is an automatic membership card to the “Manly Men Club”. I have never understood the desire to be apart of something so block-headed. It is not the beer, sports & ball sack fondling that bothers me. It is everything else that goes with these behaviors; it’s the state of mind. To them wearing anything pink is the equivalent of saying, “Hey, I like to stick my “junior” between my legs and pretend I am a girl.” Anything that threatens their masculinity is the enemy. My question is, why are objects with a feminine undertone so threatening to the “uber” male? One theory is that they became so manly they eventually do a 180 degree flip & that is why they are deathly afraid of My Little Pony & nail polish. They put down women & men who cannot use tools or throw a ball. Isn’t it just as bad, even more so, that something as simple as the color pink can make a man feel totally defensive & belittled?

There are guys who spend their whole lives putting on a virile show for the rest of the world to constantly reinforce this macho image they have built up for themselves. I would imagine it gets exhausting for them to keep up this performance. I believe that a lot of this insecurity is rooted from overbearing parents who had such a strong opinion about making their girls girly & their boys manly that their children became afraid of anything that is associated with the opposite sex. They grow up their whole lives gendered with no option for leeway. When a 3 year-old boy wants to wear a skirt & twirl, not because he wants to be a girl, but because he thinks it looks cool, he is told no & given a baseball mitt instead. Dear imperious parents, let the boy twirl in the nifty skirt. He just wants to twirl, he is not asking for a set of ovaries. A skirt will not determine your child’s sexual orientation for the rest of his life, so please, get over your homophobia & let your children play with dolls, trucks & board games alike.

Genderization is probably the longest running epidemic known to mankind. Boys will have a blue room; girls will have a pink room. Boys will rough house & girls will play with dolls. Heaven forbid that the socially approved assignment of colors & activities be tampered with. I am telling you, parents who think that butterflies will prevent your son’s balls from dropping, paint his toenails & give him a doll if he wants you to. This is part of the reason why men & women have such a hard time co-existing; you keep beating the understanding & empathy toward the opposite sex out of your children. Men cannot understand women because they were brought up to only know that girly things are wrong & visa versa. It is not Mars & Venus; it is footballs & Barbies, soccer practices & dance lessons. Just stop with the whole charade. Limiting exposure only guarantees that your child will be a little less tolerant & a lot more ignorant.

You manly men may be one of the most obnoxious people on Earth (We get it, you are the equivalent of G.I. Joe), but it is not your fault. Your constant battle of pushing the rock up the mountain, Sisyphus, is something that has been engrained in you for your entire life, even before you plowed your testosterone dynamo self into the world. However, now that I have pointed out just how pathetic your ploy is, maybe you will calm down your stallion of a personality & go get a mani pedi. No one likes someone with dirt under their nails.

Yours,

DB