Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Interlude and Inquiry

This is an honest question, presented with no snark or agenda: at what point does masculine pride become sexism and/or misogyny?

13 comments:

Haute Corbeille said...

Probably the point at which masculinity becomes defined in the negative as that which is "not-feminine," and where the pride is then derived from being "not-feminine."

Jason said...

That's a good one. I would also say that when your feeling of pride goes form being proud of being "different" from the ladies to being proud of being "better" than the ladies.

Anonymous said...

on a related note, when does white pride become . . . what? what are you looking at? i'm just saying what we're all . . . oh, crap.

Tom Foss said...

There's no pride in not being able to dance :).

Mens Vaga said...

In addition to what Dan Jacobson said probably the point when masculinity, coupled with male privilege, encroaches upon female rights and femininity.

Mens Vaga said...

Oh and you can dance if you want to
you can leave your friends behind
because if your friends don't dance
well if they can't dance
well they're no friends of mine...

Tom Foss said...

J, you're rapidly becoming my favorite new reader.

Not to say I play favorites, of course.

Be careful, though. The Safety Dance is actually much less safe than you might believe. Every year, more people are injured doing the safety dance than by elephant seal attacks. Don't leave your friends behind; when you dance, dance with a buddy.

*The more you know*

inkdestroyedmybrush said...

presumably at the point when a line is crossed by the second party in which they feel encroached upon. when the "pride" portion of the statement moves from bringing one up to bringing one up at the expense of the other.

there has to be two to tango here.

Mens Vaga said...

*pours some liquor for the homies lost to the safety dance*

LurkerWithout said...

I'll echo others, by saying that pride becomes bigotry, when celebrating aspects of your self or heritage are used to denigrate dissimilar things in others...

Derek said...

I don't really get how you can be proud of anything that ultimately amounts to a biological accident.

Pride comes from actions and achievements.

Anonymous said...

Pardon me, Tom, but what exactly is "masculine pride", in the context of your question? Is it some sort of irreducible "male-nature" pride, pride-in-maleness, or is it a more generalized self-love that just happens to be inflected by gender, so as to lead specifically to an anti-female sentiment that by definition only men can hold?

Whichever of these you may mean, I'm not sure I'd automatically agree that pride is self-evidently on a continuum with misogyny and sexism: no offence to Lurkerwithout, but I'm not convinced that bigotry is merely garden-variety pride grown hypertrophic all on its own. And equally no offence to -J-, but while I understand what "male privilege" is intended to signify, I still don't know precisely what's meant by "masculinity", "femininity", or "female rights". Please understand that I'm not trying to be controversial at all, here, just saying that there are different ways of parsing "female rights" (for example), and I'm not sure what interpretation fits best with the speaker's intended meaning, and so I'd hate to take a liberty.

Well, thanks for sitting through the boilerplate -- now for the brass tacks. Although as I've said I'd question whether pride truly is the main driver of misogyny and sexism, if it were then I suppose my answer to your question would be: when it is sufficiently wounded that a loss of self-esteem results, and a remedy is sought by assigning a routine blameworthiness to others.

As to the inculcation of anti-feminine values in a society, I wouldn't call that the result of pride-in-maleness, but rather the feeder of it.

Anonymous said...

I second dan jacobson's comment re: positive vs. negative definition. Well put, sir.

I think it also has to do with how you define masculinity and to what extent that definition includes patriarchal priviledge.