What Does It Mean To Be A Man?

Those are some pretty outdated and downright sexist notions of manhood and masculinity. Like ... seriously?

 

Hey Bear101!

Phew, there are easier topics! It's actually an interest of mine and I've read a few books on the topic.

One thing for sure is that boys need to consciously become men; call it initiation or whatever. This whole idea of boys becoming men is engrained in literature, art and ancient story-telling and crosses pretty much all cultures.

There are archetypes as well: King, warrior, magician, lover...the list goes on. Sam Keen, who wrote plenty of books on this topic defines the essence of a man as "questing and questioning", which aligns nicely with the mythical search for the Holy Grail, the classical tale of male heroism.

Rilke's advice to young men is also pertinent: "Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers...Live the questions."

Being a man today means that you must learn to be comfortable with being lost. This does not mean that you drop yourself in the desert without water or a compass or that you do this without a guide, but it does mean that you need not respect authority for authority's sake, it does mean that you need to carve out your own path and to accept doubt and uncertainty as part of life.

And isn't that what you are doing now? Asking questions, discovering something new about yourself...takes courage, imagination and guidance to do these things, doesn't it?

 

Personally, I would focus less on becoming a man, and more on just being yourself, and here is why. When people attempt to define what it means to be a man, every single answer will root from something that has to do with your personality, your mind, your thought process, ect, things that vary among every single person. Because of this, you cannot define what it means to be a man. Yes, society has established some standards for men and women, but they are by no means definitive and absolute. Before you are a man, you are a human being, and while it is true that males and females tend to have variances in behavior and expression, there is no correct way. The correct way is your way, what your body and mind naturally tell you to do.

 

I too am interested in this question of what it means to be a man. I really like what you say, greatwhale, about questioning and questing. The most difficult part is accepting doubt and uncertainty.

I think for me too, being a man means fulfilling my responsibilities, always behaving with integrity, and protecting women friends and acquaintances when they need my help. The last point especially, which is unique to my being a transman, because I did not feel this way at all when I still lived as a woman. I am shocked at how much unwanted attention my women friends and women dates are getting, especially in the clubbing scene. I would even be dancing with a woman, and some random guy would come up behind her and try to "dance away" with her, and because I'm a timid guy, the first few times, I let them. I think I am very traditional, in the sense that I want to be protective of women.

And yet, this is a very feminist society. Often, I've found that women I date don't want or need my protection. Which I love! Strong women are awesome and sexy. They want to stand on their own. And yet, like I mentioned, I need to "stand my ground" when some guy comes up and tries to "steal" her. And yet, I also have to be careful that I don't trample on a woman's space. Sigh. It's confusing.

 

Being a man means identifying as a man. Period.

Anything more than that is gender stereotyping perpetuated by society.

 

So personally I think pretty much every trait that's admirable in a man, is admirable in a woman, and vice-versa.

But as far as being a man, as in boy-becomes-man, I think pretty much everything has always been summed up in this,
Literature/The Hero with a Thousand Faces - Television Tropes & Idioms
Main/The Hero's Journey - Television Tropes & Idioms

Really similar to what GreatWhale said. All about growing stronger and wiser and being able to overcome your challenges and be a real force for good, destroying the world's dragons and solving its problems, and sacrificing and fighting so that those weaker than you can thrive.

Just saying though that I also view my transition into womanhood as being a lot like the hero's journey too Which really gets to my point; I think the best definition will separate men from boys, not men from women.

 

To me, being a gay man means I'm a person who has a penis who likes other people who have penises. That's all.

 

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[YOUTUBE]ZSS5dEeMX64[/YOUTUBE]

 

I was thinking about Mulan earlier!

Mulan <3

 

I think that phrasing things this way is a bit problematic when taking trans people into account, because not all people with penises are men, and not all men have penises.

It's sort of insinuating that a straight man who is interested in a trans woman is really gay, and a gay woman who is interested in a trans woman is really straight.

Now I'm not saying those are your beliefs, because you only talked about how it related to you, but I just wanted to caution phrasing things the way you did because of what I wrote above.

 

A man is someone who feels like a man on the inside, simple as that. While in the olden times it was usually the man who went out hunting for food because of biological males having by default more arm strength, we live in a modern society where everyone of all genders can do nearly everything. Basically if you feel you are a man, you are a man, even if you like feminine things, are bottoming in a sexual encounter, looks after the kids rather than go out to gain money and food, is not good at fixing things, etc.

 

If you change "being a man" to just "being me" thats where I am. I am happy w/my gender & body except for a desire to be more toned & fit.
The gender roles I was raised with are confusing. Publicly I was required to look feminine & ask a man for help. at home my nickname was a definite male name. I was treated like a boy while berated & lectured for not being more feminine to get a man...and I was told a "wife never says no to her husband" Ick!
It was a household of only women w/no male role model. So coming out & figuring where I fit in is tough. I've talked to my therapist about being an old fashioned "gentleman" in how I feel women should be treated. Its all confusing!
I think I do have a lot of "masculine" energy but at the same time I do have my "girly" moments(don't tell)

---------- Post added 25th Dec 2013 at 05:13 AM ----------

Well said,Cassie!

---------- Post added 25th Dec 2013 at 05:18 AM ----------

I'm 100% lesbian. One of the most stunning feminine women I have ever seen is trans. Absolutely captivating. A bit young for me but if I had dated her I would not consider myself bi.

 

Totally agree!

True that!

 

^^ Perhaps the most intriguing definition of what it means to be a man that I have encountered in some time. By this logic, I am not a man because, while I feel perpetually lost, I haven't yet learned to be comfortable with it. :eusa_thin

 

This definition right here. There is no such thing as a "real man".

 

In 1990 there appeared a book by the respected poet, Robert Bly, called Iron John: A Book About Men.

Bly argues that the "New-Age" man, the sensitive caring and nurturing man has been a wonderful development. However, he deemed it necessary but insufficient for living as a man.

I mentioned above the initiation of boys to men. What is essential is that this has to be done in the company of older men. A boy needs to be reborn, as it were, from men. In the 19th century when most men were farmers or tradesmen, boys worked with their fathers the entire day. In their presence, they could learn the skills, decisiveness and resolve needed to grow crops, slaughter animals or build things. Women too learned what they had to learn from older women. However since the industrial era, fathers became separated from their sons. The father's work became a mystery. The Absent Father became commonplace.

Today so many boys live in single-parent homes usually headed by the mother. The mothers themselves, in many cases, keenly sense what is lacking in their son's growth: that male presence that we are so uncomfortable talking about. Simply put, we have no language, or myth, to express the nourishment that a father brings to his sons. In writing this book, Bly brings back the myth of the Wild Man, which predates Christianity by a thousand years.

You can find an excellent summary of the book here:

Robert Bly | Iron John | Review and summary | Tom Butler-Bowdon

Here is a relevant extract from that summary:

Who or what is a Wild Man?

Bly makes the important distinction between the Wild Man and the savage man. The savage is the type who has wrecked the environment, abused women and so on, his inner desperation having been pushed out onto the world as a disregard or hatred of others. The Wild Man has been prepared to examine where it is he hurts; because of this he is more like a Zen priest or a shaman than a savage. The Wild Man is masculinity’s highest expression, the savage man its lowest.

A civilized man tries to incorporate his wildness into a larger self. When the prince in the story risks all and goes into the forest with the Wild Man, the parents simply think their boy has been taken by the devil; in fact it is a profound initiation, an awakening. Bly’s message is that the modern obsession with making childhood a cocoon of light closes children off to sources of power. Addictions and psychological disorders mirror society’s inability to accommodate the ‘dark side’.

Bly believes that New Age thinking about harmony and higher consciousness holds a dangerous attraction to naïve men. Mythology beckons us to enter fully into life, with all its blood and tears and joy; the way we achieve full realisation of ourselves is to focus on ‘one precious thing’ (an idea, a person, a quest, a question) and the decision to follow it at any cost is the sign of maturity. When we make a clear choice, the King inside us awakens and our powers are finally released.

Again the idea of a quest: whether it is starting a business, or building a home and family, or pursuing an idea to its very end. This is the kind of resolve, so lacking today in so many uninitiated and naïve boy-men (the kind that women, if they were honest, truly disdain), that resides in the dark and deep realms of the wild man.

Bly's book is flawed in many ways, a little too abstract and unnecessarily difficult. I recommend Sam Keen's books as an addition to this topic.

 

Thank you again, greatwhale, for the insights. I'm interested in your discussion of how boys become men in the company of older men. I do not mean to be stereotypical, but I think my approach to my masculinity is centered on my distinct experiences as having lived as a woman until early adulthood, and so I missed out on experiences that cis-born boys and men take for granted. My father always treated me like a daughter (even after my transition), so even now, I feel like I've never quite had the guidance on how to become the man I want to be.

And I Know there are quite distinct gendered experiences. For example, after my transition, I went to Greece for a month and roomed with two awesome male friends, and there were many responsibilities that I was given that I know would not have been given me if I had gone as a woman. One example being that I had to walk with female friends wherever our group went to make sure they were not bothered. Once, I was chastised by one elderly lady in the group because I was lacking in this duty. And when I hung out with my male friends, we got into ... macho competitions to show off to the women. If I showed particular attention to one woman friend, perhaps being more helpful, one of my best guy friends would chastise himself for not having seen to her needs also. I Never had any of these experiences as a woman. In short, for me, it was thrilling to have these distinct masculine responsibilities. I'm not saying that women can't act protective and helpful too, I absolutely believe they can too, but for me, these experiences were my initiation into manhood, and I still feel so lucky that I had such wonderful male roommates, who showed me with their kind and strong example that yes, here, this is how gentlemen behave.

Apologies if I've offended anyone, but truly, I'm glad for the insights.

 

@Silenthe,

What an interesting perspective, that of a trans man. Because you too need to learn, no less than any boy, what becoming a man is all about. Yes indeed, you can learn this from any grown man or group of men.

Let me tell you about my mentors, the ones who sort of guided me into manhood. I was 18when I first arrived in Great Whale River in the Summer of '78. Into a village with four distinct communities and a history as a military base.

There were the Inuit (a.k.a. Eskimo), the Cree, the whites (us) and the hydro-Quebec base whose workers were based apart like a suburb about a mile further south at the mouth of the river. We whites were part of the airline crew loading cargo and taking care of passengers. We also included maintenance crews, nurses, a protestant pastor, teachers, grocers, weather and communications technicians, etc. Both the Inuit and the Cree were hunters and trappers, artists and layabouts, living in a place that had no TV.

First there was Gerry, my Quebecois boss, a bearded family man who bore the weight of responsibility running the airline I worked for. It weighed heavy on him, he smoked like a chimney and drank heavily when off the job. He knew that I was more educated than he was, but he didn't hesitate to put me in my place when I slacked off. He taught me initiative, he taught to me care about what I did, even if I was only a lowly cargo loader.

Then, Moses, a old Cree grandfather who taught me what being Cree was about, I could confide in him, and we shared stories. He taught me a few simple things in mechanics, I taught him a few things about the world out there...

There was the Pilot. He crash-landed his small Cessna about a hundred miles north, and he had to stay in Great Whale River for about 6 weeks that summer until they could fix his plane. He was from the south, Peterborough Ontario, to be exact. He taught me lots of things, about airplanes, and women, and how to drink.

There was the Sailor, Jacques, an electronic technician who taught me some self-defence moves, celestial navigation, and the complexities of relationships. He understood my then dream to sail around the world and he was inspired to share with me what he knew.

There was the Artist, an Innu named Henry Napartuk, who I met during my lonely vigils at the beach. I loved his quiet demeanor and his beautiful drawings and paintings. I met his family, his son showed me a soapstone carving that he made..

Many men I've met have been some kind of mentor to me. I can say that even today, since I started my new job in March, I have a new mentor, my supervisor, and it's a blast being with him, I have learned so much already.

Learning never stops...

 

I just want to clarify my earlier post that had some people upset with me. That wasn't a knock on trans people. What I meant was that for me, I only identify as male because I have the male genitalia and male hormones, mainly because IRL, I have a pretty androgynous personality. I'm not hugely macho and masculine, and I'm almost certain that if I was born with a girl's body, I'd probably have the same personality, and would still identify as female because I had a female body.