My governor famously asserted that his Democratic opponents in the state legislature are girly men, and this morning I read the following quip from Jonah Goldberg:
Take the two leading liberal columnists at the New York Times, Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman. As we all know, one's a whining self-parody of a hysterical liberal who lets feminine emotion and fear defeat reason and fact in almost every column. The other used to date Michael Douglas.James Taranto and Jim Geraghty find this enormously funny, as do I, and these jokes prompt me to wonder how women feel about the issue. There's no doubt that much of the present manly-man posturing (real or not) stems from our President's attitude and image, but deriding a man's masculinity is certainly not a new form of insult -- it's primitive, and visceral, and resonates (I think) with members of both genders. Are women offended that most men find it incredibly insulting to be viewed as feminine?
I don't think the insult is nearly as powerful in the reverse case, so it's not simply a matter of gender differences. Men who exhibit feminine qualities (in reality, or merely attributed by insult) are certainly perceived to be less than they're supposed to be. Obviously, the next connection to make is to homosexuality, and I think that perhaps that leap leads to a gut-level understanding of the situation.
Trying not to be overly graphic, men penetrate and women are penetrated. There's something fundamentally more powerful (and therefore primitively superior) about the first than the second (and note, of course, the Latin root). Penetration has negative connotations in almost every circumstance, setting aside sexuality, and I think there's a very basic desire for all beings to maintain their structural integrity. Bodies are designed to keep the inner stuff inside, and the outer stuff outside, and penetration defeats that. Sexually, across mammalian species, females attempt to maintain strict control over who they mate with; among humans, sex is widely regarded as something over which to hesitate, particularly for women.
So the girly-man insult really comes down to -- perhaps -- the insinuation that the insultee cannot even protect the physical integrity of his own body.
I don't know about that. What I see is more of a general aversion to being what one is not. Men aren't supposed to be too much like women, and women aren't supposed to be too much like men. Remember when Will Ferrell used to play Janet Reno on SNL? Reno was the quintessential reverse-girlyman.
X: I thought of that... and maybe I'm wrong... but tomboy-ish girls/women aren't generally viewed negatively. Ugly people, such as Ferrell's depiction of Reno, are derided no matter what their gender, but certainly ugly women more than men.
I don't think it was just an ugly thing; it was also a none-too-ladylike thing. There's a reason why they cast a male actor in her role.
Hi Guys:
Hey, you guys know me a bit and know that I'm not exactly the proverbial sugar and spice and everything nice (and I like it that way). Be that as it may, I probably wouldn't like it too much if a guy got dressed up in order to imitate me. (Granted, he wouldn't have to work too hard in the hair and wardrobe departments; I'm rarely seen wearing a dress. The padding issue is a different story, however.);-)
But there is no real stigma for a woman who isn't all sweetness and light. A woman who is less than "feminine" is considered "strong"; an admirable trait, a step up taken (as long as she doesn't over-do it and--realistically speaking--as long as she's not too ugly).
Conversely, a man who is less than masculine is considered "weak." He has traded "strength" for "weakness" Remember, women are the physically weaker sex, are often hampered by their reproductive reality, and often have less of a leash on their emotions. (Whether that last is a true weakness is debatable, considering that men often let out their emotions in far more lethal ways than women do.)
Oh, yes, and all that stuff you said too, Michael. :-) These phenomena are just more of the many (terrific) differences between the sexes.
'Trying not to be overly graphic, men penetrate and women are penetrated.'
Funny, I always thought women absorb and men are absorbed
endO