You know what drives me up the wall? I mean what truly makes me want to lose my religion? Stereotypical ideas of masculinity and femininity. Just thinking about it makes me want slap someone. As a guy who doesn't fit the traditional masculine ideals, I have strong opinions. But first, a disclaimer, I'm not saying that having what are considered masculine traits are wrong. I want to get that out of the way before we move on.
This society has this idea that activities, emotions, and even personality traits are either masculine or feminine. To cry is to be feminine, to show strength is to be masculine. One of the issues is that society has these examples they look to and say "That is a man." But by doing so, you create a standard that can't be reached by the majority of society. What you also do is take a world full of different people and force them to try to fit in a mold. It's like taking a world of different shapes and forcing them through square holes. Not only does that marginalize everyone who doesn't fit, it also celebrates only those few who can fit.
Then once that barrier is created those who don't fit try so hard to change themselves in order to fit. This mentality is highly destructive because it squashes originality. It dictates that you must fit a mold and to stray from that means you're abnormal, so everyone is scared to stray from the norm. As a result all the little blocks are cutting themselves into pieces to fit through the hole. Teenagers starve themselves in order to fit a body type. Guys suffer silently afraid to show what is perceived as weaker emotions.
Once again I'm not accusing anyone who is a man's man of anything, because having stereotypical masculine traits aren't the issue, it's when you try to impress those traits on every guy that's the issue. We need to remember that emotions and personality traits aren't masculine or feminine; they just are.
I'm an overly-emotional guy. My passion is acting and costume design. I enjoy sewing and singing. All of these things aren't considered masculine. I've dealt with my own feelings of inferiority because I'm not considered masculine. If you consider strength to be sign of masculinity then I'm very masculine because I find strength in myself. The strength to say I am who I am, and I'm not going to change to fit your ideas of masculinity. They are your ideas, not my own. Frankly if everyone thought the same way and acted exactly the same, that'd be rather boring don't you think?
