Another dire piece from Ally Fogg of The Guardian. Grayson Perry is the artist who gave a keynote speech at a ‘Being A Man’ conference while wearing one of his trademark pink party frocks.
Fogg denies he’s a feminist, yet writes feminist nonsense like this:
Masculinity is a political construction.
No, it’s not, it’s a biological construction. And this:
As a society we find it really easy to understand that women are products of the culture that moulds them – consider all the concerns about Disney princesses, pinkification, gendered toys etc. We find it really easy to agree that women need help and support to be liberated and fulfilled, to have full opportunities in their life, education and careers. We find this easy because we are steeped in patriarchal values. [my emphasis]
He ends:
I welcome Grayson Perry’s careful consideration of modern masculinity. It is helpful that what he says can be heard. However we must recognise that what he is doing is identifying problems. Developing solutions is not a matter of art or psychotherapy, but of politics. [my emphasis]
The final sentence makes sense, but any ‘solutions’ which are driven by feminists are inevitably doomed to fail.
Most of the problems facing men and boys today in the UK result from state-driven assaults on their human rights, usually to advantage women and girls. We outlined 20 such areas in our 2015 general election manifesto. There are no areas in which the human rights of women and girls (specifically) are assaulted by the state’s actions and inactions in the UK. None.
Back in the 80s I noticed how readily men adapted their personal attitudes to accommodate the feminist-inclined women they associated with. I felt then – and still do – that this behavioural adaptability is largely driven by sex and the desire for it. Men too easily define themselves by how women might view them. Maybe once that made sense. Today, we have nothing much to gain from this. Masculinity, insofar as it is a ‘thing’ apart from being a man, must be defined by ourselves. Personally, I am not the most ‘masculine’ person. I hate sports, love language, am fond of babies, and so on. But all these traits are the traits of masculinity for the simple reason that I am a man.
There is truth in the saying about a boy of eight can show the man. So consider who is the main carer and teacher of that boy to eight. Of course it is women, even if its less the mother these days and more frequently childcare or teacher. So boys and the men they become to a considerable degree reflect what women believe they should be. Certainly the deeper personality traits that are learned will be formed very early and it will be women who are the formers. There is a load of evidence that the self sufficiency of males is to a large degree a reinforcement or product of women’s reactions. Right from mother’s different reactions to a baby’s cry according to if she believes the baby to be male or female. Frankly if women really did want men to be different its always pretty easy for them to engineer it. It is after all in the interest of the women and children who rely on him for “their” man to think of his body as a machine to be quickly patched up to keep going.
I too found myself entertained. But as always with such stuff one has to remember that even in the Northeast very few men are actually Cage Fighters, it is after all an “extreme sport” . Sunday Footballers might have been a more general example to find more representative thought , though much less exiting to sell to programme commissioners.
Its the old trick isn’t it, find something pretty “out there” and extreme and present it as relevant and representative of the usual.
Would a piece of entertainment based on talking to Burlesque performers seriously tell us much about femininity? Or just the story of the latest fashion in entertainment? I would guess feminists would be outraged if the be-frocked potter had done that and passed it off as being about all women.
I don’t disagree with anything you say, so I’m not sure if your last sentence, John mws, is a criticism of me or a warning to us all. If the former, then I don’t see how what I’ve said would lead you to believe I ‘want to live in their [feminists’] view of the world’.
And aren’t we allowed to take any positives from the Grayson Perry programme?
People appear to be so confused what masculinity means because of feminism. There is the natural biological traits and there is the separate socially constructed role based on these traits. Men always try to adopt any role society gives them that lets them express these traits so it is never 100% fixed what there social role is. I do not view this politically correct role as the same as thing as masculinity.
The historical view of masculinity was based mainly on the most typical, admirable traits of men and how they applied themselves in the world. Feminists have taken the most negative things a human being can be capable of. many things being self projection, and invented that as a dominate current view of masculinity, actually divorced of any specified social role, just reduced to a toxic thing to be controlled. Both views are idealized but the former is vastly more truthful than latter, and does allow for real positive social roles to be developed and archived.
At the same time gender feminists have also devalued the meaning for femininity and what it is to be a woman. Woman are reduced to ineffective victims, men to violent monsters. If you want to live in their view of the world you are welcome, but I think Mike has a concrete grasp of what real men and women are capable of and prefers the positive traits of both over the nightmare that is the feminist view.
Personally, and perhaps surprisingly, I enjoy Grayson Perry’s documentaries more than I should. At least he stressed the difficulties a) if the former macho, hard-grind culture and b) the difficulties of adapting to its demise. AND he made a big deal of the high male suicide rate, picked up by many females on Twitter.
What was not clear (nor is it ever) was how much of the ‘inability’ of men to ‘open up’ is down to a female unwillingness to listen.
I also feel that ‘masculinity’ is more politically constructed than you, Mike, and I think women have a huge hand in this.