What is "acting like a man" or "male behavior"?

Question

I've seen several times (recently and in the past) it mentioned that people don't like when women "act like a man". I'm curious-- what behavior makes a woman "act like a man"? What are these traits that she might take on or act out that would make her "like a man" or be considered "male behavior"?

Answer 1

I have boy children and girl children.  Watching them grow up was fun.  The boys and their friends were very physically aggressive, and rolled and wrestled and loved the dirt or MUD,  and loved to "f**t" and talk about body parts, and see who could pee the fartherest.   And as they grow up, they tend to tone it down, but still, the things they find funny still comes down to basically body fluids.  All the kids were fairly good students and I was not aware of much difference there.  Even in what you might think girls would like or that boys would like.  I have one son who has read all the classics and wants to major in business, but have a minor degree in English.  And I have a daughter who takes calculus, statistics, and physics and chemistry and she just blows me away taking such a hard load of courses, which she doesn't seem to find difficult.

The girls liked physical things like dancing, ballet, tap, and ballroom, piano lessons (yes the boys took too, but left for guitar lessons first chance they got.).  The girls seemed to understand spiritual values sooner than the boys, although they finally understood, too, but much later than the girls.    And the girls seem to inately have a "nesting" wish, but the boys just seem to want to make their girlfriends happy.  "Well, if she wants kids, then I do, too " is the remark which has been made to me more than once.  

I know the lines are more blurred than we once thought, but still there are definite behavior differences and certainly thought pattern differences.  One definite thing is the girls have a biological clock ticking and women are certainly aware of it especially into their 30's, whereas guys don't have to think of such a thing.  Like that actor, Tony Randall, who fathered a child at 70.  Men seem to just keep going.  ;)  

It is hard to make a black and white judgement call on what is male behavior, but we all think we know it when we see it.   lol

Answer 2

Usually when someone says a woman is acting like a man they mean that she makes decisions for herself, doesn't take ****, is assertive or aggressive, may be open with her sexuality, etc.

It's odd because I hear people try to justify being upset by this without decrying masculinity itself. I guess it's ok for a man to be masculine (even if that masculinity is destructive and hurtful to others and to the man himself) but women are supposed to pretend to be "better" than men, more kind, compassionate, selfless, nurturing, etc.

What I'm really wondering is when we will be cool with people who embody the higher side of both gender stereotypes? I can work on cars, that's manly, but I think it's good because it's really useful. I can even reach into tight spaces that my guy friends can't. It's a positive thing and it doesn't make me love men any less.

On the other hand, I dislike the male player thing. Nothing against people who are sexual in a respectful way. I just think it's repulsive to use people as if they are masturbatory devices. If I wanted to I could have pretty much any man I like.  I could out play the "playaz," so what? Some things aren't worth doing, like the whole S****y male thing, like militarized masculinity (there is a difference between a warrior and a soldier, I'll let you think about that), pretending not to have emotions other than anger, etc. I also dislike the petty feminine c**p, shopping, fake nails, gossip, using s*x as a manipulation device, economic dependence.

So yeah... I'm wondering when we're going to rise above the negative aspects of both masculinity and femininity and  learn to really love ourselves and each other. That's what I'm working towards.

Answer 3

Not being a pansy ***.  

Answer 4

their just hating..its when your tougher

Answer 5

Male behaviour is generally (not always) associated with dominance, an acute aweness for their environment and specific individuals within it and a predisposition to be physically confrontational

edit: lotus no one says because male behaviour is natural that makes it morally right.. but thats not the point anyway. It would also be a natualistic fallacy in the same way to say that because generally women are nurturers that makes them morally better. It doesn't follow

Answer 6

the behavior where you try to act manly tough, like.. walking like a man, faking the deep voice, talking like a man,  --it's just won't work coz what's inside is still what's inside. i mean like..how can a sand clock shaped item force itself to be a cuboid?  

Answer 7

There's a lot of difference in this across cultures and even within cultures, of course.

But as a huge generalisation, from observation and study, the bottom line seems to be if a woman assumes dominance over men (as in becoming the decision making partner) or tries to beat men at their own power games (for example, in business), that is when the 'woman with b@lls' comments roll out.

Also, anything involving physical violence seems to be seen as women behaving 'like a man'.

A lot of male culture seems to be about power play and besting the alpha or his cohorts, and women who get involved in that do tend to get labelled.

This is generally, not within this forum, where any show of even very basic self confidence is regarded as unfitting for a female, lol.

Interesting question.

Cheers :-)

Answer 8

I think most people are somewhere in the middle and it's wrong to force them to behave in one stereotypical manner or the other. I know if I forced my girls to play with dolls, told them not to get dirty, and treated them as being fragile creatures that needed to be protected, they would have turned out to be very angry and confused young women. I know I would have if my parents had done the same to me.

Answer 9

Perhaps I'm old school but these sorts of semantic issues were simply irrelevant whilst I was growing up.  A guy simply behaved like a man, and a woman behaved like she should.  There was some degree of natural tendency to behave according to natural order.  It may not be PC or pretty or "proper," but it seemed to work out okay for most people.  If a boy was acting like a little girl, then his father would say, "hey, stop acting silly."  And that would be the end of it.  Now things are so convoluted that children are confused and don't even understand why or how they should behave.  Traditional values have fallen by the wayside and I'm not sure that it's been a positive thing for society.  There's normative behaviour and then there odd behaviour.  Natural order has seemed to keep the species doing well, via underlying biologic substrates and evolutionary constructs.

The fact that the definitions masculinity and femininity have to be debated and routinely revised to meet variable norms is odd.  It wasn't like this before, and most people turned out fine.

Basically, this whole new PC wave is so confounding to young people that we're seeing a rise in self-destructive behaviour and I'm of the strong opinion that it's the loss of traditional values that's a huge contributor to the alarming rates of suicidality and other forms of self destructive behaviour we see in children.  This is liberal stuff that's destroying natural order.

Answer 10

It depends on the culture but mainly being:bold,resolute.