Comme nous pouvons le constater dans cet article, les Etats-unis subissent aussi les obligations féministes. La présidentielle américaine en est évidemment concernée. Je rappelle que les Etats-Unis adorent le féminisme et ses obligations. Que ce soit pour l'école et ses programmes, ses entreprises et leurs objectifs de féminisation, les forces armées avec ses objectifs de genre, son cinéma, etc.... Il existe des lois quotas, par exemple pour les emplois manufacturiers et ça commence pour les conseils d'administration. Les lois s'accompagnent et sont la suite de sensibilisations et d'adaptations de féminisation. Le féministe définit l'égalité ou les droits suivant le nombre ou le pourcentage de femmes c'est discutable. Il n'est pas acceptable pour le féministe d'avoir un nombre d'hommes supérieur à 70-80  % dans de nombreux domaines, c'est ainsi qu'il impose des adaptations au nom d'une égalité de droits et surtout de représentation. Ces méthodes ont uniquement pour but d'augmenter la présence de femmes et de filles au nom d'une justice sociale. Cependant, ce mode de procédé est totalement critiquable négativement. Les normes de réussite féminines et masculines ne sont pas les mêmes. Les normes de réussite et la société qui est une construction sociétale, "objectifs de féminisation" sont des normes féministes et féminines. Ces normes ne sont pas criticables par stéréotype et par inégalité de genre. L'homme et les garçons ne sont pas identiques aux femmes et aux filles mais doivent s'adapter, accepter et se limiter aux normes féministes. C'est un droit des femmes d'imposer des mesures spécifique pour les femmes et les filles, des recrutements, un soutien spcécifique (par exemple des activités de codage) et un nombre de genre dans tout ce qui compose la société.

Nous ne considérons pas la construction sociétale basée les femmes et ses normes comme une égalité, le nombre ou le pourcentage de femmes ou de filles dans un domaine ne signifie pas une égalité de droit ou le même soutien.

Nous voyons plus le culturel féminisme dans ces différentes normes.

Soft-Censoring the Male and the Masculine in our Culture

Sean Kullman

Ruth Whippman’s article in the New York Times “We Can Do Better Than ‘Positive Masculinity” partly falls into the category of shadowy interpretations of the masculine that do not touch on the nature of the male. By masculine, I’m referring specifically to the social constructs of the masculine and by nature I’m referring to the inner-workings of the mind and body that are particular to a male’s specific XY nature. By constantly focusing on explanations of the masculine, which are important, without also looking at the male, we find ourselves attempting to explain male behavior without digging into the impetus for that behavior that is rooted in biology as well. This is really not Whippman’s fault; she is merely writing from a particular viewpoint. It is the Times that is not insisting on another view—one particularly about male— in other articles. Whippman does, however, grapple with this when she writes that “we still see masculinity as something innate and immovable, rather than a limiting social construct.” It’s her use of the word “limiting” that made me sit up and pay attention while taking in other viewpoints as well.

It was fairly recently that I was talking to one of my boys about Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and the way the shadows cast on the wall of the cave, interpreted properly, serve as a cautionary tale about the practices used by those in authority (our institutions) to undermine a common morality, the rule of law, and even the quest for truth. The allegory is a warning about censorship, the way information is presented, not presented, or contorted to fit a prescriptive narrative. Truth and what we see are blurred to the point of being unrecognizable.

Over the past several decades there has been a type of soft censorship in our contemporary social narratives that have seeped so deeply into the pores and crevices of our institutions that it has created a more serious and deteriorative condition eroding the very foundations of humanity and morality. This is evidenced—perhaps most profoundly—in the way issues around maleness and masculinity are being reshaped to conform to a “new truth” that is confusing and displacing the nature of boy and man, quieting his very complex existence.

Ruth Whippman’s article in the New York Times “We Can Do Better Than ‘Positive Masculinity” partly falls into the category of shadowy interpretations of the masculine that do not touch on the nature of the male. By masculine, I’m referring specifically to the social constructs of the masculine and by nature I’m referring to the inner-workings of the mind and body that are particular to a male’s specific XY nature. By constantly focusing on explanations of the masculine, which are important, without also looking at the male, we find ourselves attempting to explain male behavior without digging into the impetus for that behavior that is rooted in biology as well. This is really not Whippman’s fault; she is merely writing from a particular viewpoint. It is the Times that is not insisting on another view—one particularly about male— in other articles. Whippman does, however, grapple with this when she writes that “we still see masculinity as something innate and immovable, rather than a limiting social construct.” It’s her use of the word “limiting” that made me sit up and pay attention while taking in other viewpoints as well.

In the comment section of Whippman’s New York Times article was a response by Mark Sherman, Ph.D. who has spent more than 30 years on these issues.

"One of the most read blog posts I have written for Psychology Today was in 2018, and titled “Feminizing Boys As We Masculinize Girls.” In it, I discussed research that had shown that both men and women who scored high on scales of masculinity had more self-esteem and were more successful in their work than those who scored high on femininity or a mix of both (androgyny). This surprised researchers, who felt that androgynous people would do best. But it is certainly relevant to today, and to Ms. Whippman’s piece, which is truly a thinly veiled attack on masculinity in males. American boys and men are in big trouble, and politicians, especially the presidential candidates, should take notice of this and make it abundantly clear that they care."

Sherman wrote several years earlier in his Psychology today piece:

“Given the association of masculine traits with self-esteem and success, something which our society has now at least tacitly recognized for our daughters, and given the many ways in which boys and young men are lagging behind girls and young women in their education as well as many other ways, it seems unwise to feminize our sons while we encourage independence, self-confidence, and competitiveness in our daughters.”

Sherman’s observation of a “thinly veiled attack on masculinity” makes some sense and we discussed it briefly on a call while also talking about his article “Feminizing Boys As We Masculinize Girls,” that is an engaging piece with over 100,000 reads.

But when something is thinly veiled again and again, it becomes something else—a type of soft censorship we see in our media that purposefully shapes the conversations regarding boys and men, what they represent, and what seems like a bombardment of dos and don’ts, as if they are in a socially constructed tug-of-war that does not allow them to win or lose.

Whippman partially makes this point by explaining that VP candidate Tim Walz has a requirement “to constantly prove his masculine credentials. It is only by presenting as a man’s man and a veteran who loads his speech with sports metaphors and gun references that he earns the social leeway for his more feminist sensibilities. After all, only a “real man” is secure enough to fight for tampons in the grade school bathrooms.”

She goes on to refer to former President Trump and the Republican candidate for president as a “cartoon supervillain” and his VP candidate J.D. Vance as a “smarmy misogynist.”

Is it possible Walz is not playing on masculine credentials and is simply acting as he knows how? (Most men I know use sports metaphors.) The presentation of Vance, a man dedicated to his highly successful wife and a dedicated father to his young children, as a misogynist stands in stark contrast to the media’s acceptable form of masculinity presented by Jen Psaki in her interview with Doug Emhoff, a “wife guy” and the media’s new representation of “masculinity”—despite concerns regarding his behavior with women.

On a more serious dialectical observation, why does he have to be a wife-guy? Is Jill Biden a husband-gal? Is J.D Vance a wife-guy? What does all this mean?

Is it possible Walz is not playing on masculine credentials and is simply acting as he knows how? (Most men I know use sports metaphors.) The presentation of Vance, a man dedicated to his highly successful wife and a dedicated father to his young children, as a misogynist stands in stark contrast to the media’s acceptable form of masculinity presented by Jen Psaki in her interview with Doug Emhoff, a “wife guy” and the media’s new representation of “masculinity”—despite concerns regarding his behavior with women.

On a more serious dialectical observation, why does he have to be a wife-guy? Is Jill Biden a husband-gal? Is J.D Vance a wife-guy? What does all this mean?

In order for men to truly fit in, at least in the eyes of the media, it seems they have to subjugate themselves at the altar of a particular rhetoric that leans left and can never lean right, what Plato refers to as the puppeteers’ visions of “truth.” This may explain why Trump is liked by some and loathed by others—but there is no denying Trump is his own man, warts and all—as are all men and women who carry their own blemishes, some more and some less.

Where Whippman focuses on the masculine, it would be nice to include the inner-workings of the boy and young man that more deftly explain male behavior, like a Piaget reboot that there is something stable about sex-differences that is critical to development. For instance, when Whippman mentions that a young man “shattered a vertebra lifting weights in an attempt to achieve the kind of hyper-muscled physique he had seen from masculinity influencers on social media,” she offers up one socially constructed explanation where another explanation is equally compelling. The fact that more young men are out of shape and overweight than ever has inspired some to improve upon themselves. Might the example Whippman used above be interpreted another way: In an attempt to become muscular, strong, and fit—all wonderful aspirations—this young man pressed his limits in an attempt to achieve too much too fast. This explanation allows us to think about the ways we can nurture a boy’s nature and attempt to understand his behavior and motivations. After all, how many of us see how quickly boys try to get through so many tasks, whether it’s cleaning their rooms, doing their homework, or trying to become more fit? These are not masculine flaws; they are hard wired reactions to particular activities and their levels of importance to the boys and young men acting them out. An important fact, in all of this, is that males are wired to be risk takers, and families and society have a responsibility to help direct—not inhibit—their risk taking. The amygdala and its interplay with the pre-frontal cortex partly explain the different ways males and females assume and take risks and why males are more likely to have negative outcomes as a result, whether they are attempts at healthy habits, becoming fit, or associated with the engagement in unhealthy habits, going too far with drugs and alcohol.

It seems as though Whippman is attempting to unravel this masculine/male ball of yarn, albeit from a feminist perspective reaching into something often neglected by feminist narratives: “All humans, regardless of gender, have the capacity and the need for toughness and fallibility, gentleness and emotionality, wild courage and tender nurture. If we really want to help boys break free and find more expansive and healthier ways to show up in the world, it’s not “positive masculinity” that they need, but full humanity” (bold my emphasis).

Where Whippman uses the term “gender,” I might use the term “sex” because of the recent dialectic in our culture to confuse sex (sexual dimorphism) with gender (a social construct) and gender with sex. These are not interchangeable terms and need to be used more specifically, something Michael Gurian and I discuss in our upcoming book, Boys, A Rescue Plan: Moving Beyond the Politics of Masculinity To Healthy Male Development to be released in February of 2025. While all humans have the capacity for toughness and other attributes associated with masculinity, men are hardwired to do so—in varying degrees perhaps but still hardwired to do so

From my viewpoint, the media leans so heavily on a particular narrative that is–at best–misleading and–at least–irresponsible when it comes to male despair in general and in other areas like education as it pertains to boys and men. Too many publications suppress male suffering, place males into a masculine box, and focus on female suffering—often while shackling the truth about male suffering and male nature. In truth, this does not need to happen. We can talk about female mental health, for instance, and acknowledge the male disparity and the greater difference.

The frustrating presentation of teen suicide in two major publications, the New York Times and New Yorker Magazine—that leaves people like me and Gurian and Farrell and Sherman and Hoff-Summers and Whippman and Reeves and so many mothers and fathers feeling like we are banging our heads against the wall—reminds all of us why it is critical to expose this type of misleading storytelling in our major publications to the public, in our classrooms, to our policymakers, and to the newspapers and magazines we subscribe and do not subscribe to. “It’s time to call them to the carpet for this type of reporting,” a line Gurian and I incorporated while editing our book.  

In our exploration to find truth, it is critical to address the many filtered layers of media influencing, academic conjuring, and political maneuvering that marginalizes the boys and men in our culture. It’s no wonder boys and young men feel like they are at the center of nothingness, that they are a political football, the media’s masculine trope, and an academic piñata.

There is a line from a William Butler Yeats poem, “He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven,” that comes to mind when I think of the contemporary filtering that gets in the way of understanding the male’s innate commingling of reason and desire, when Yeats describes “The blue and the dim and the dark cloths / Of night and light and the half light” where visions are impaired, seen, and distorted in the quest for something grand. Although this is a love poem, it is majestic in its adoration of the thing all boys, young men, and men long for—love and acceptance—not for being the product of some form of social engineering but for a raw and rugged openness to accept them for who they are and their willingness to put love, acceptance, and rejection on the line. “Tread softly,” says the narrator, “because you tread on my dreams.” And—how can they dream, if, they are not seen?

This is where our culture is right now. It is a place where our males are only shown in the night and the half-light and not their full light, as young, powerful, and purposeful boys; all little Icaruses desperately in need of an army of Deaduluses.

Un petit lexique pour comprendre le culturel féministe
plan mixité = plan de féminisation = plan de discrimination contre les hommes et les garçons
Quota sexué, objectif de féminisation, index de féminisation, index de l'égalité femme/homme = plan de féminisation = plan de discrimination contre les hommes et les garçons
Aucune différence entre les sexes = sauf pour les femmes et les filles = plan de discrimination contre les hommes et les garçons
Plus d'égalité = égalitarisme = plan de discrimination contre les hommes et les garçons
Plan diversité = plan de féminisation = plan de discrimination contre les hommes et les garçons
Épreuve mixte = épreuve de féminisation = plan de féminisation = plan de discrimination contre les hommes et les garçons
Les hommes se mettent d'accord entre eux = les femmes ces les réseaux et associations féministes
Un monde d'hommes par et pour les hommes = les femmes avec le féministe ses obligations, sa doctrine c'est un monde de femmes par et pour les femmes