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For the record I don’t believe Chartrand ever suggested there’s any problem at all with bloggers who are also mothers. As for the “mommy blogger” genre, well, fair or unfair that gets a lot of criticism from most quarters. —fl

No. That’s not an accurate description of what Chartrand was up to. There are fair criticisms to be made of mommy bloggers, but that’s not where Chartrand is coming from. Nor does s/he cut any slack for feminists, or women bloggers in a generic sense, because she sees them all as shaving men’s balls. (Still wondering if the shaving trend is gendered? :-) I just wrote a long post on this nonsense. If you read it and still think Chartrand didn’t sell women bloggers collectively down the river, then let’s talk.

I’d say more but I’m only up because I’m tending a sick kid. Which Chartrand wouldn’t want to hear about – motherhood is so messy! So unprofessional!

I don’t condemn Chartrand’s gender swapping, but oh my, the hypermasculinity and misogyny she/he/ze employed is a whole ‘nother deal.

[Hey Sungold! I stand corrected and I’ll amend my post. Also “I don’t condemn Chartrand’s gender swapping, but oh my, the hypermasculinity and misogyny she/he/ze employed is a whole ‘nother deal.” Nicely put! —fl]

You always make it sound like it’s hurting men to measure themselves to masculinity standarts. Well, you know – it does not. At least for those who are natural at it. Like you are saying “why those singers bother to stick to their notes, and even take pains rehearsing for hours, if lots of people in jungle keep singing without those notes just as fine”. You see, for some men it’s not a bother and they like their way better.

[Agreed. I’ll go one better and say for all men it’s easy to do what comes naturally. The problem arises when someone else says “no, what you’re doing is not natural.” Then you get Matthew Shephard crucified on a barbed wire fence. Or, less dramatically, in George Carlin’s most crucial phrasing, someone calls you a fag if you don’t beat up homos. In this case I’m not worrying so much about the people being beaten up (bad as that sounds!) Instead I’m worried about what influences men or boys who otherwise wouldn’t give a crap if someone else was gay feeling intimidated or pressured into pretending to care. At least in moral/philosophical terms if it’s worse to do wrong than be wronged then the “homos” might go to the hospital but the guys who send them there for fear of being labeled “fags” are going to Hell.

And finally, as for the singing analogy, the comparison isn’t to singing in key or not — those would be covered by any rules of singing. Instead it’s like saying the only singing that will be tolerated are polkas. There’s nothing wrong with polkas, sure, and people spend hours honing it too. (Seriously! Oompa music is highly underrated.) But the downside of that comes in when they start patrolling and saying that’s the only legitimate music there is. Hope that clarifies where I’m coming from. Thanks, Me. —fl]

I have to say, I’d rather gouge out my eyes than read a mommy blog, but that’s because I don’t find the subject matter of child rearing interesting, being a child ambivalent single person, but instead of bitching about them existing, guess what I do? I just don’t read them. Gosh, the internet is HARD! :)

Regarding masculinity, while I definitely gravitate towards more “butch” guys (I don’t know how else to put it), I dated a guy who was a little less so for two years. Okay, a lot less so. When we started dating him, I teased him about having played the flute, maybe about a few other little things. But then I started reading some Katz and Kimmel, among other things, and I realized how stupid it was to categorize instruments by gender, let alone to mock someone because of it, and I apologized to him for calling his masculinity into question, even though I’d just been “teasing,” I felt bad and like, jeez, I should have known better anyway.

My brother was a pretty active kid, but he was very sensitive. I was more stoic, like my father, so I used to tease him about crying sometimes. I wasn’t too mean, but by the time he got into high school he was running late on puberty and he was sensitive, and he got just savaged by the guys at his school. He’s since become tall, broad-shouldered, and charming, but I sort of wonder sometimes if his guy-dude-bro front isn’t at the expense of that sometimes sweet and sensitive person I knew once. Sometimes it comes out, of course, but he’s buried it pretty deep, and, older and wiser, I think that’s a shame.

I think there are lots of kinds of ways to be masculine. I’m tired of it just sort of being anything not feminine. For an analogy, it’s like pegging or anal sex — if you’re doing it with a girl, it’s not gay. To me, masculinity is that — if you’re a man, and you’re doing it, I think it should be masculine. Hopefully that made sense :)

[Made sense to me, twg. And just to be clear there’s nothing at all wrong with being, or liking, guys who are butch. Or military. Or short and roly-poly. But as you say it’s not cool to tease them for what they’re not. Also “I sort of wonder sometimes if his guy-dude-bro front isn’t at the expense of that sometimes sweet and sensitive person I knew once.” Yup, that’s the most common consequence and the one I’m most worried about overall. If “masculinity” means “does what’s needed to avoid taunting,” and it very often does, then it means masculinity is amputating not freeing. Thanks! —fl]

The whole idea of “emo” as the obvious alternative to being stereotypically masculine, is for the most part nonsense. Very like labeling Alan Alda (smart but a very specific personality type) or worse Woody Allen (King Dork of the Universe) as “the new man”, “the sensitive guy” or something like that. In my experience there are loads of men who have “masculine” hobbies and interests, but don’t come across as “macho men” if you actually talk to them. For example the karate teacher (three time combat veteran as well) I had a teen, was the gentlest man I ever knew. But a lot of men who are emo rockers, hippies, and 60’s spiritual gurus, are macho assholes once you scratch the surface-and often their core gender attitudes are pretty backward. In my experience, there just isn’t much of a correlation.

[Bingo! And to the extent there is correlation there isn’t much in the way of causal links. (Compare what was considered “manly” to Alexander the Great vs. Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh would have called Alexander a girly boy for crying, and a cripple for his torticollis and… Alexander would have taken one look at his “womanly” obesity and his shaven face and dismissed him as… well… a girly man.) Point being that except maybe at the abstract level of dismissing people who don’t fit the mode du jour there’s no standard of masculinity because… it’s just people making shit up. Thanks, Red. —fl]