I was reminded recently of the idea that masculinity is hegemony. It is just about being dominant. It’s just about getting your own way. It is not. it never has been and never will be. It is true that the Taylor Swifts of the world will talk about destroying patriarchy. The patriarchy is seen as some sort of dictatorship of men. That is not what it was and that is not what masculinity is about.
The first most obvious thing you see when you look at masculinity is that it’s not just confined to the human race. This surprises many who talk about masculinity as if it’s only confined to men.
In order to discuss masculinity I need to discuss what is masculinity, male, and femininity, female? They are the two halves of a sexual species. Reproduction can be either sexual or asexual. A considerable number of species on the planet are asexual. The simplest and most well know examples of that are microbes, such as the amoeba. The amoeba’s method of reproduction is to grow larger and then to split in two, whilst copying over the all important DNA. This process is known as fission. It is, in fact, the same process used by larger creatures when they want to grow a new bird in the egg or a cub, kitten or baby in the womb. In these cases this goes on until they’ve created something that in the case of a baby is over 2 trillion cells. All from one original cell. But there are other asexual methods.
The most common asexual method for larger animals is parthenogenesis. This is basically laying an egg or producing young where no male in involved. Quite a lot of insects use this but not all. Some even switch between sexual and asexual reproduction. Amongst larger species the zebra shark and the Komodo dragon are know to do this. When there are no males around they will simply produce young (zebra shark) or lay an egg (Komodo dragon) that are clones of themselves. The new young are identical to the mother. Since they can do asexual reproduction, so why, when males are around, would they switch back? Since most sexual species are usually 50/05 male/female, why have half the species that cannot produce young or lay an egg?
The whole point of having sexual species are gene exchanges. If you have a species when one individual has long legs and one has a better eyesight it would be good if you can get the better eyesight and the long legs together. The only way to do this is sexual reproduction.
Two individuals with their useful traits get together. If they are not opposite sexes then it may be their children get together. It follows that if one has the long legs and one has the better eyesight then on average a quarter of the offspring will have neither, another quarter will have the long legs, another quarter would have the better eyesight and a quarter will have both the long legs and the better eyesight.
If the long legs and better eyesight make them better at surviving then they will live on to have more young and eventually they will increase whereas any other members of the species without these traits will diminish. Eventually to the point where the entire species were now have longer legs and better eyes.
That’s fine, but how does this become masculine and feminine?
Why don’t you just have species where the males and females are identical apart from being male and female some species are? Why is it that the brighter birds are male? Or that male birds sing more?
Darwin said that males are larger than females in most mammalian species. This is disputed, It turns out it is true for 45% of species whereas 39% the sexes are equal in size and for 16% the females are larger (link blow). amongst primates male chimpanzees are larger than females, male gorillas considerably larger than females and this is true for a lot of primates, including, of course, human being.
This is often true because males get to defend the grip. Men, in particular, get to be the bodyguard partly because that is what women want. They get to be protective towards females. In some sense they become Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard, a1992 film, with Whitney Houston in which he has some say in which where she goes because he’s trying to protect her safety. This has been expected and continues to be expected all the time by women. When they were campaigning for the vote just before the first World War, the Suffragettes took time off to hand out white feathers to suggest to men not in uniform that they were cowards. There was no movement to get women into uniform.
In early human history we were hunters-gatherers. Men did the hunting and women did the gathering. Women had to stay back to look after the babies. Human babies are very helpless, even compared to young of other species. Most young mammals can walk in 24 hours. It is dangerous not to be able to walk but baby has to be born quicker than might be good for it because women’s hips are smaller than they might be if we were not a walking upright. Nothing has essentially changed in that women have not become hunters for the most part. They still expect men to be the main provider for them often when they themselves are working. When patriarchy existed it did give men control however it was more about him being the shepherd of the family than being the dictator of the family. He was meant to look after, provide for and protect the family. She was meant to nurture and encourage the family.
Many refer to men as being hegemonic and dominant. It is used to suggest that all men have power. This is clearly not the case for most men. Men need to be dominating in one respect. They have to provide and therefore have to be successful. The successful men are appealing to women because he can provide for them.
Women don’t have to provide. They can usually find a man who will provide for them. It can be claimed this gives men power, but they only have power as long as they satisfy the women.
We have to satisfy them by being the ones that provide for and protect them. This is especially true in bad times including wars.
Masculinity in always about serving. If we cannot serve a woman we’re not seen as attractive to her. This is why you get women getting off the Titanic. Actions like that are very difficult to explain if you think men are about dominating and dictating to women . It’s true in some cases they might try and do that however. Women however retain the upper hand and deciding which men have children.
If he appears strong and successful, he is appealing. If you do not wish to provide or protect a woman he is unappealing. Masculinity always was and always will be about doing what women need. Masculine and feminine are strong together. They were never meant to be enemies.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/males-arent-larger-than-females-in-most-mammal-species
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_dimorphism_in_non-human_primates
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