Do you see masculinity as a social construct or a biological one? How do you define it and see yourself based on your own and society's definition. I've personally struggled with this issue because it can boil down to both normative social influence and biological factors. I have no trouble with my sex and gender and do believe that most people would fall under "binary," but aside from that, if we rely too much on gender roles, we may end up being cliches. We pick up roles from observing parents, relatives, and people around us in society and that creates a seemingly important part of us. Growing up male, I learned to be a provider and protector, among other traits; but I also picked up seemingly more feminine traits like hospitality and nurturance. Now, these roles may, up to a point, be the blend of biological and social constructs (e.g. males, in general, have greater ability to be muscular and strong vis-à-vis females, a trait that helps to "protect"). There are also the social roles that are unique to the culture and society we live in. For example, male-targeted magazine devotes many sections to technology and gadgets while a female-targeted magazines might offer reviews on makeup and emotional/romantic quizzes (e.g. "Does he love you? 10 questions to find out"). Men are "supposed" to hunt and fish and drink beer and play video games and women are "supposed" to look good for men and gossip and such. This was blatant in an article interview (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/08/fashion/08CHAZ.html?_r=0&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1397880688-QWwsEI24HP3gk8wyYsakdg) of Chaz Bono, a trans* male, who said that transitioning changed him and his personality. and For some, it would seem that when Chaz transitioned he could have picked up on what it was usual and customary for males to do and adopted it and others would say that testosterone and transitioning simply opened him up to the traits that "Western society" view as "masculine." How do you consider your own masculinity/femininity? Did you learn it or did it come naturally? Please be nice .
I see myself as in the "middle" of masc. and femme. I like it in this spot... it feels very freeing. Before I realized I was non-binary I was a lot less comfortable being femme because society. So I think it must be a bit of nature and nurture.
Both ways of looking at masculinity and femininity come from both nature and nurture as was said. My definition of being a man or a woman is someone who is responsible and cares for their loved ones and the betterment of their fellow people. I suppose it's when a person has matured and takes responsibility for their life. Masculinity though I often see as an aggressive protector like a soldier or warrior. One who is willing to put their body out there to toil and struggle. The stereotypical cis male "man's man". Anyone can do this and basically I find it to be a biological stereotype of gender. But I most certainly feel like I retain that protective nature of being born male. Femininity has the same protective nature but in a more nurturing manner. The traditional mother or nurse figure who cares for the sick or hurt. The one who comforts on a more emotional level. This is clearly not to say that only one gender can do only one aspect of that. Both men and women serve as soldiers and nurses and caretakers and breadwinners. I hate that we have to discuss such things at all because masculinity and femininity are described in common culture by such strict guidelines by most of society. But we all know that's bullshit.
An interesting question. I think we tend to focus quite heavily on physical characteristics, but I'm just as interested in the emotional characteristics. I've met guys who, at face value, are the picture of masculinity - tall, well built, deep voice... the physical characteristics match up perfectly to societies idea of masculinity, BUT, on an emotional level they are very weak and vulnerable and struggle to cope with even small amounts of personal stress. On the other side of the coin, I've met women, who have all the feminine characteristics but have been to hell and back emotionally, so demonstrate that more masculine ideal. Taking these things into account, I see myself as more masculine and a lot of it has been learned through life experience and necessity.
I actually didn't even take into account the physical traits of masculinity and femininity. I suppose those are quite "biological" and I just dismissed them outright :lol:. But how we perceive people's bodies as "masculine" and "feminine" can be more of a social construct. It's interesting that many people who are the "epitome" of maleness fall quite short of the mental aspect of what is perceived as "masculine" in the psychological arena. Unfortunately, I think this is a topic that is quite prevalent in our society and is endemic to the LGBT population.
I feel like the fact that sex and gender can be incongruous shows the distinction between biology and social construction. you have physical traits and manifestations due to hormones, sex-related factors, etc., the main ones being physical features and behaviors. but everything else under the masculine/feminine spectrum is socially defined. it's just because society meshes sex and gender together that we often inherently assign these characteristics to the sexes, and why a majority of children grow up adhering to such "standards". it can be hard to imagine stereotypical girly-girl femininity in a biological male, but yeah, obviously we know that occurs. I think being transgender and not transsexual is relevant, because sometimes people just feel their gender is incongruous with their sex (which is only a thing because society essentially constructs gender = sex), and not that their entire body is wrong. which essentially shows that masculinity/femininity are traits of gender, which I think for the most part, one's born with, but that society's messed with and arbitrarily assigned as gender traits. hopefully this makes sense and I don't contradict myself, it's really late haha.
If you could somehow measure every male and every female on "x" trait, the degree to which the two sexes differed would constitute how "feminine" or "masculine" the trait was. In other words, they are constantly changing and inherently malleable.
