What It Means To Be a Man

Probing the meaning and origins of patriarchy proved utterly fascinating. At once there is a focus on power and the abuse thereof. Then another issue creeps in. Is there something about insecurity which is conditioning the system. It really should not surprise anyone that men often may be uncomfortable with their masculinity and be insecure. It is easy to overlook this question because of who tends to wield power. It is a rather large group of older white men. Being a part of that group but not the power elite led me to raise even more questions along with some recollections.

Assertive Males

It seems it is often taken for granted that men are assertive if not just plain aggressive. That is, until we look around. Even on either of these issues there is an observable bell curve. Some men are very assertive, some not. And some men are aggressive and some are not. No matter what issue we look at there are typical bell curves. Even on these issues women have their own bell curves. We are finally learning that in military service. Women can be excellent, even superior pilots if they are given the opportunity and can serve on the battlefield although there may be fewer interested than men in such service.

Insecurity and fear

In fact there are image problems and it is more than conceivable that many, many men suffer insecurity about their masculinity—whatever that is. That may be the point. Other than having male physiology, what is it that makes a man? A lot of things and many of those may serve for women as well. But generally we are not permitted to question these issues. Discomfort and insecurity is problematic in many places and represents a battle to be fought and won especially now that we are examining the role of women.

Shortly we will get to the matter of fear.

Making Decisions

We tend to assume that there is something unitary about our sexual identity which is quite curious since it obviously is not the case. In fact, we have lately opened our eyes to the differences as we have admitted homosexual and transgender people (among others) to open positions in our society. In fact, people are complex but we often seem to deny that fact.

Whether you are a man or a woman or “other”, what decisions have you had to make about your role?

To be Continued.

Please let me hear your thoughts. roger.burt@earthlink.net

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