There’s a lot of talk about “man rules” and things that men need to do in order to hold onto their “man cards” – work with your hands, know how to use power tools, win fights, all the usual “manly men doing manly things” chest-thumping. What we don’t talk about when it comes to manliness is simply…
Masculinity
The New (And Impossible) Standards of Male Beauty
Over the last couple of weeks, some news stories were brought to my attention that illustrate a problem I’ve been observing for a few years now. The first was the latest in a long line of Photoshopping scandals. What made this interesting was that rather than some already-stick-thin female model being slimmed down even further…
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Nerds and Male Privilege – Nerds Behaving Badly
We’re two weeks into the new year and it seems to me like the perfect time to talk about an old topic: nerds and male privilege. Last week I talked about MIT Professor Scott Aaronson’s emotionally vulnerable comment about being terrified of women growing up. While this was an excellent example of the problematic Nice Guy attitude, there…
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The Fear of Being “Invisible”
When I wrote about the Hollaback Project’s street harassment video, the comments section was deluged with men insisting that they’d love to be harassed like that. I was willing to disregard these complaints – after all, most men who talk about how they’d like to be cat-called change their tune when other men are doing the holla’ing –…
Invisible Victims: Men In Abusive Relationships
Right off the bat: we’re going to be talking about abusive relationships. This is a subject that can be touchy for some people, so proceed with all caution. So with all that said: I write a lot about men behaving badly. In fact, I’m regularly accused – with some accuracy – of being much harder…
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The “Problem” with Male Virginity
On Monday, I talked a little about the toxic culture surrounding masculinity and how it hurts men. Today, I want to start the conversation to help dismantle it. And one of the best places to start is to talk about sex. Specifically: male virginity and the shame in not having sex. One of the things that I’ve…