APA says "traditional masculinity" is a disorder

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Certaily brings to mind that Nietzsche quote: "If you truly wish to punish someone, punish him for his virtues..."

The APA has caught up with Macbeth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCYcHz2k5x0

"Traditional Masculinity" As Defined by the APA as a 'Disorder':

"anti-femininity, achievement,
eschewal of the appearance of weakness,
and adventure, risk, and violence."

Alpha Male Versus
Anti-Alpha Male as Defined by Presidents:

Obama: Graceful Cool Calm and Collected
And Obviously Caring; there is no Question who is in Charge
when He Walks into the Room; Assertive And always A 'Gentleman'.

Trump: Little Man Syndrome Through and Through Always Blowing
Smoke Trying To Hide THE FACT He Never Achieved 'Manhood' on His own.

I'm From the South; the Deep Deep Malignant Patriarchy South Where Killing
Emotion and Empathy for Others Less Fortunate Is a Way of Life; at Least When
I was Growing Up and Threatened With Bodily Violence If I Dared to Smile and
Additionally; Additional Passive Aggressive Threats Working With the Military
For 25 Years; if i Dared to Care About the Less Fortunate and the Weaker among us then;
and to Be Clear that Didn't Come from the Active Duty Military or Retired Military Part of
the Job; it came Directly From the Civilian Employees Who Never Actually Made it through an Active
Duty Military
'Man'
Career.

[Edited for length by mods]

I had a good laugh at the idea of Obama being "caring"; he was more bellicose than Bush and further in the pay of Big Business than Trump. I have to think he's the worst US president in my lifetime - it's a tough one between him and Trump.

Obama worked to Get My Sister Affordable Health that
Allowed Her to Retire at age 55, instead of 65 out a Very Stressful Job (Career).

That IS Caring. Giving the Right to Marriage to Homosexual Folks also allowed My Sister to get married.

That IS Caring And That is Real World Results That Make A Difference When Caring is More Than A Facial Expression.

You do not Have to Look Pretty or even Smile to Care. Ever Seen a 'Silver Back Gorilla' Hold a Kitty Cat; Yep i do that too..

Trump Did His Best to Take Health Care Away away; but he failed As A 'Real Man' Voted Him down (McCain);
Against the Rest of the 'Little Men' in the Republican Party too, who have no 'Real Nuts' stored either for
Anything
of what
it Means
to be A 'Real Man' Now.

There is No comparison
in the Scale of 'Manhood' that's Real.
Trump Doesn't Serve any Title of 'Real Man' at all; Human is pending.

hmm. a 21st german philosopher who's quite vocal about the education system (in germany) says that competitiveness must be paracticed in teams, not individually - he advocates starting to teach project based competitive teamwork very eraly on in school. because individual competitiveness leads to stress, and the stresshormone cortisol is a killer (I'd like to point to Robert Sapolsky's work on stress in monkeys).

the question what is and isn't a disease or a virtue depends on the society - in tightly bound groups, where males generally work together, competitiveness can be harnessed for the common good. agressiveness can be contained and used against rivals.
in modern societies, physical aggression just gets you in jail, and individual competitiveness may be a virtue for the one at the top of the hierarchy, but it creates fierce battles and eventually, groups are busy fighting each other rather than having each other's backs in competition with another group - the modern workplace, for example.

I think we're just incentivized to be a***holes to our colleagues, and it's not doing us any good. In sich an environment, it's a good idea to discourage being an egoistical, aggressive and competitive man - except, the systemic incentive is pointing the other way - the diagnosis is right, but the cure is applied to the wrong place, in a society where the way to get reward is to crush both your competition and your employees.

As a guy who hated group assignments in school because all the way up to Uni I frequently ended up being the one to one carry the "team" and then have my work assessed by the standard of a group effort, I disagree. At least, unless the competitive teamwork thing can have a function to evaluate individuals as well.




But even in tighly bound groups, individual aggression in inevitable. It's how small boys learn bodily control, physical boundries and empathy. It's one of the ways older boys and younger men compete against each other socially within the group. And how do you expect the men of the group to be able to harness their aggressiveness against rivals if they never learned how to use it and how to relate to it while growing up?




Except if you're a soldier. Or a policeman. Or a security guard. Or any number of other professional, competitive or even just everyday situations where a degree of physical aggression is required. And what do you mean "groups are busy fighting each other rather than having each others back"? I thought groups competing was the point.


I think this idea that you can separate out the "bad" aspects of masculinity and somehow just clamp down on them as hard as possible and somehow end up with healthy individuals who only embody the "good" parts of masculinity is a naive and very shallow analysis.

I don't believe that gay "marriage" is of any benefit to society and, while I support a universally free healthcare system on the model of the NHS in Britain, Obama's healthcare system is a travesty which has only benefitted big pharma (which was his conscious intention).

(Quoted edited by mods)

Other than 'Faux' News, there is No Record of Intention of Obama Intending to Benefit Big Pharma; If You Can Cite A Source that indicates 'that' is not 'Faux' News; You are surely Welcome to Present it; if it is From a Reliable and 'Respected' Source.

I See that in Your 'Failure' to Recognize the Benefit of Gay Marriage to Society that You have Highlighted 'Marriage'
as to likely Make it Clear that You are referring to the Marriage Benefit and not the overall Sexual Orientation that
comes as both a Package of Nurture and Nature as Assessed Currently, by the State of the Art of Science.

The Value to Society, Overall, by Folks with Different Sexual Orientations (Homosexuals) is Substantial
As Highlighted, Specifically, in the Ted Talk Link Below that Should Make Loads and Loads of Logical 'Sense'.

Back to Obama Care; some care is better than no care; as no care can and will Result in Pre-Mature Death.

I agree Your Health NHS Health Care is Better as Universal Care Where you Live; but still Some Care is Better than
no Care; and the Conservative Side of the House then was not willing to Entertain any Possibility of Universal
Health Care; So They (Dems) Bargained for What We got; and we got it by the Very Smallest Thread of Potential
for any Health Care Expanded at all; My Sister Pays 25 Dollars A Month for a Bronze Plan; not bad; not bad at all.

Edited for length by mods

WTF!

yes, definitely - the guy wrote a book about how schools need to be reformed, I guess my one sentence didn't manage to sum it up in its entirety. -
and yes, group assignments in the current system don't work. Think rather: teams have to come up with their own solutions to problems, like, build a machine that does something.



sorry. not my first language. groups need to compete with each other, wheras members within a group need to cooperate.

soldiers are a bit of a special job, aren't they ... or rather: the battlefield is not really a part of modern society.
Policemen -in the US- could probably do with a little less aggression - over here, I only ever get headlines of black people getting shot while taking a nap in a car....
security guards and bouncers, actually, you're right about those professions. Regarding competitive everyday situations: well, yeah, it'd still be a good idea to foster an ability for teamwork in education, and not focus on individual competitiveness so much, don't you think?
About everyday situations in which a bit of aggression might be required: well ... where I live, when you punch someone, you'll end up having to pay damages... so ... knowing how to de-escalate situations is probably a good idea.




but right now we sort of a re doing that - just the other way round.
we're fostering the bad version of competitiveness, the version of stoicism that gives men heart attacks and depression, and we're telling kids that aggression is always bad, rather than teaching them self-control.
Don't get me wrong, please: I don't think "toxic masculinity" is in any way a useful concept - there need to be much more things done differently, and it's going to be a clusterf**k if all we're changing is how we raise young boys.

Do you think the same way about heterosexual marriages who can't or choose not to have children?
And what is your position on single individuals?
What do you have to do/be to be a productive member of society?
Off topic but I am interested...

As a default, I have a problem with societal mind rape...
While I understand the need of guidance for children who don't have the capacity for cohesive/informative rational thinking due to their undeveloped brains (if they have more than one) and life experience, some social memes are detrimental...
Consider the indoctrination of children drafted into the Hitler youth...

Fair enough.




Interesting, but seems perhaps a bit too radical a change to be aiming for in the short term.




No worries, asked because that bit was confusing. And I get what you're saying (I think), but I don't think you can get rid of interpersonal aggression nor do I think even an environment that heavily emphasised cooperation would want to. It'd be beneficial not to have people maim and kill each other, but short of that, interpersonal aggression plays a useful role in testing each others mettle, fostering trust and testing boundaries. Maybe introduce some form of ritual combat? Like, boxing or wrestling matches?




The battlefield is not a part of modern society, but soldiers aren't apart from modern society. They're fostered and trained within the society, and counted on by society to help maintain it. Even in peacetime, soldiers have to train and maintain their skills, and I can't imagine physical aggression not being a part of that.




The problem I see with US policing is severe under-training with an alarming emphasis on knee-jerk reactions with deadly force. For comparison, police training in the US is 6-9 months long. Over here it's 2 years, followed by a probationary period to assess suitability in real life circumstances. And our police is still far from perfect.




Absolutely, I just think it'd be much more useful to use our tendency towards interpersonal aggression and competitiveness to foster cooperation than to pit them against each other.




Well, paying damages and the like comes rather a long time after the fact. De-escalation is a wonderful first line of defense, but should that fail when someone is violent to me or someone I'm with, I'll not sit quietly by and tell them they'll have to pay damages.

I went to a very violent primary school, and I've done years of martial arts training. I've been punched and kicked a good bit more than the average person. And I think this is why I'm a lot more likely to try de-escalating a potentially violent situation; I know first hand how much it sucks to get punched and kicked. A person less familiar with violence won't have that aversion.




Agreed whole-heartedly.

Can't we just let people be who they are without shaming them for it?

Humanity is a disorder...

Some of those are just fine like integrity, courage, perseverance, love of family but Idk why they would be 'masculine' virtues.

Hard work and love of country can be taken a bit too far, but those can certainly be good things. But loving your country to the point you're blind to any flaws in it and can't criticize the government when they are wrong is never good. Also there is a such thing as too much work, some of the people who promote 'hard work' don't seem to get that. Again though why should those just be 'masculine' virtues?

What would feminine virtues be based on this? and why should those be considered feminine.

Also in modern times we don't need the man to be the 'provider' so much, women are allowed to work now. What we should do is give parents maternal leave like they do in scandinavia so both parents can raise their child while providing. If some couples choose the dynamic of having one provider why should it have to be the man, what would be wrong with a working woman and a stay at home dad? So why should it be pushed on men 'you have to provide, your value is soley based upon what you earn.' doesn't seem like a healthy messege. Its unfair to, what expect men to do all the work when women are perfectly capable of work to.