In general is masculinity thought to be more fragile then feminity?

Question

Many in this forum seem to hold a view that men are somehow lost without a dominant (alpha) type role in which women are followers. Men supposedly become feminized in this situation. Conversely, I've never observed a loss of feminity in a feminist ( none that I know). So is the suggestion that masculinity is somehow how more fragile?

Answer 1

Where the h**l are you getting all this c**p?

Answer 2

I was raised to think that the male ego was fragile.  Bonkers!  It's just men worrying that their willy will not work when needed.

It must be truly stressful, though, to often be judged on a subconscious response.  NOT that they have any qualms about asking for our help raising the flag...

Answer 3

Yes.  Men have a CONSIDERABLY more fragile egos than do women.  Here is what I answered on a recent question:

Emotions are a HUMAN default characteristic. There are universal emotional responses recognizable by all humans from any culture. Expression of those natural universal emotions is controlled and perverted by social norms and expectations.  Males and females are oppressively taught genderized rules for emotional expression.  For example, women in some cultures are taught not to laugh out loud and so they express happiness with suppressed giggling, from behind veils and by covering their mouth. Just because they don't belly-laugh at jokes like men do doesn't mean women in those cultures shaped by those acculturations regarding suppression of female laughter have less a sense of humor than do men.  For example, men in some cultures are taught that it is weak for men to express sadness or pain through tears. Just because men in those cultures don't cry as often as do women doesn't mean women are "more emotional". It means men are abstracting their feelings in unhealthy ways.

Suppressing laughter causes less emotional damage than does suppressing tears / sadness / pain and in most cultures males tend to suppress the most vital "NOT to suppress" emotions so often and so stringently that it stunts their emotional development in comparison to female's before even puberty in denser populated societies. Because males suppress their emotions so much, they fail to learn / explore / practice as much as do females more complex emotional and cognitive coping mechanisms, self-control, resilience, etc, which breeds ego-fragility, what women call the emotionally fragile "male ego". Male emotional instability, their violence and poor self-control, hails not from testosterone but from sickening acculturations that force them to suppress their emotions so much.

Answer 4

I know that some people in this forum really seem to believe that. I believe this is because they have a difficult time thinking of men and women relating to each other without thinking in terms of dominance and submission.

So yes, they feel that a man is less of a man if he is not in some dominant role. They also sometimes say that it's more easy to be a woman because women don't have the pressures a man has. And maybe they are right in some ways though we have different pressures.

I think it is not so much that masculinity is thought to be more fragile than femininity as that femininity is often not thought of as something that requires effort.

But please consider too that GWS is a place where quite a few people are seriously disturbed and insecure to the point that they are neurotic. I sometimes have to remember that for perspective.

Answer 5

I think that its human nature to have a dominant leader and a submissive follower in all relationships.  In the past we have called these two positions (in very sexist terms) masculine and feminine, or playing the man or the woman.

Having said that, if we look at same s*x relationships we see that one partner takes on the masculine role, and the other takes on the feminine role, every time.  I've never been witness to a truly egalitarian relationship in that both partners are both masculine and feminine at the same time.

I would say that masculinity is not more fragile, because in the situation in which you describe (in which the man doesn't play the dominant role) the woman would take over the masculine role.  When you say that you've never observed a loss of femininity in a feminist, what the heck do you mean, exactly?

And as long as we're making general remarks about people in this forum, I'm going to go ahead and add that a lot of people in here don't know the difference between sexism and feminism...