The #MasculinitySoFragile hashtag took off yesterday after a Buzzfeed article highlighted a bunch of products being marketed to men with some of the most cartoonish evocations of old-school masculinity you could possibly imagine, from grenade-shaped shower puffs for men to Man Chocolate.
The point of the hashtag was fairly obvious: to look at, and mock, the ways these ads try to capitalize on male insecurities and suggest ways men can free themselves from destructive stereotypes of masculinity.
Because, as these ads make clear, masculinity and femininity aren’t inscribed in our genes the way eye and hair color are; they are to a large extent cultural constructs, ways of seeing, ways of thinking, ways of acting that we learn from parents, peers, and, increasingly, the media — hence the insecurity many men feel about their masculinity, and the ease with which advertisers are able to play on these insecurities to make money.
Talking about these constructs as constructs can help us to free ourselves from aspects of masculinity and femininity that are toxic or unnecessarily restrictive.
The #MasculinitySoFragile hashtag, like the Buzzfeed article that got the conversation going, broaches the subject in a funny way, telling guys that, yes, it’s ok to buy yourself a pink shower puff for $3 instead of shelling out twice that much for an Axe Detailer Shower Tool that looks like it came straight out of Gears of War.
So, naturally, the hashtag was quickly flooded by antifeminists and anxious men who saw the whole thing not as a deconstruction of the sort of toxic masculinity that’s making them anxious in the first place, but as an army of evil feminazis calling them a bunch of wusses.
Not realizing that the feminists were talking about the surprising fragility of cultural definitions of masculinity, the critics of the hashtag assumed the feminists were accusing men of being fragile. I don’t know the last time I saw such a colossal outbreak of not-getting-the-point.
As one observer sympathetic to the original aim of the hashtag noted,,
If you want to lol at dudes comically misunderstanding the premise of a joke, then check out #MasculinitySoFragile
— John Dagen (@JohnDagen) September 23, 2015
How did the “critics” of the hashtag get it so wrong? Let me count the ways.
1) They declared that it wasn’t MEN who were fragile, but FEMINISTS so there.
https://twitter.com/Bayonethics/status/646646983617175553
https://twitter.com/alWPWtom/status/646657930574569472
https://twitter.com/Luisedgm/status/646657724852342784
2) They offered to fight any feminist comers, to show the world just how unfragile they are.
I challenge any female tweeting unironically with #MasculinitySoFragile to last three rounds against me in a fight. We'll see who's fragile.
— Mech of Justice (@MechofJusticeWZ) September 23, 2015
3) They accused feminists who weren’t shaming men … of shaming men.
Men made women 2nd class for centuries, to make themselves feel powerful. Today, feminists do exactly what they hate. #MasculinitySoFragile
— Rebecca K. (@Rebeksy) September 23, 2015
Tell me feminists, how does tearing men down build up women? #MasculinitySoFragile
— Caroline Craig David (@CarolineCDavid) September 23, 2015
https://twitter.com/The_Extrange/status/646646321563176960
Dear smug feminists: Maybe #MasculinitySoFragile cuz you spent the last 40 years emasculating men.
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) September 23, 2015
4) Meanwhile, others in their camp tried to shame women for being (allegedly) inferior to men at pretty much everything.
#MasculinitySoFragile NEVER in history will "ANY 5 Woman" equal or beat the Los Angels #Lakers in a series of 5 games – Females never equal
— Mr Jeffery Stone (@MrJefferyStone) September 24, 2015
https://twitter.com/subhamlawrence/status/646804483133976576
5) Sometimes they forgot to make an argument and just said “suck it.”
#MasculinitySoFragile any Bitches this Uses this HashTag can Suck My Dick you #FeministFuck
— Gregory Carter (@cgrgry) September 23, 2015
6) Others fell back on random insults.
https://twitter.com/scrowder/status/646664405124521984
https://twitter.com/matthewhummel/status/646783223867965440
https://twitter.com/_Jiggz/status/646830406885507072
#Masculinitysofragile – a mocking hashtag made by #feminist morons who claim to want equality-but bleat "misogyny" when mocked. #Waronstupid
— AgentofGaytriarchy (@PoliticalCynic) September 23, 2015
I like how feminists lecture men about behaving like men.
Soon, the only ones listening will be your 52 cats. #MasculinitySoFragile
— I Am Leah (@Bossy_Leah) September 23, 2015
7) They cast aspersions on the motivations, and the masculinity, of feminist men participating in the hashtag.
https://twitter.com/PolitiBunny/status/646816129902510080
https://twitter.com/AVoiceForMen/status/646843565478309888
https://twitter.com/LucasTemple/status/646832952702140416
8) Some of them decided to take the opportunity to cast aspersions on Barak Obama’s masculinity as well, because isn’t he like a feminist or something?
https://twitter.com/HensleywkAo/status/646664691146694656
9) A few used the hashtag to promote white supremacy, because why not?
https://twitter.com/UncuckTheRight/status/646887485566377984
https://twitter.com/ElStatelo/status/646752815168233472
10) They warned feminists that if they kept talking about how men are fragile — which, again, they weren’t doing — well then, these women wouldn’t be getting any more help from men with stuck jelly jar lids, and they could forget about having doors opened for them ever, much less having dudes treat them to dinner!
https://twitter.com/NotOne2bPC/status/646831693643542529
#MasculinitySoFragile. Because you can't open the door for a feminist without issues. Only a real woman would thank you for the respect.
— George (@stevets) September 23, 2015
https://twitter.com/ThinkingWeasel/status/646769296899764224
https://twitter.com/juhawh/status/646829131175448576
Ladies: You have lost a POWERFUL ALLY today.
Never again will you have a nice dinner. Or eat jelly.
Tauriq Moosa probably did the best job of summing up the whole parade of nonsense.
https://twitter.com/tauriqmoosa/status/646799858293194754
https://twitter.com/tauriqmoosa/status/646800819707342849
Yep, that pretty much covers it.
I have never in my life, not even once, been worried about being “emasculated”. Does this only happen to Supermen or something? The only way you can be “emasculated” is if you’re really nervous about other people not thinking your masculine enough. And they still can’t see what’s toxic about being constantly nervous over some made up ideal?
My trick for opening stubborn jars is to put on one of my thick leather and wool winter gloves.
Regarding Elam’s tweet, I’m wondering what a bigoted basilisk is? Are they the
boyfriendsbeta orbiters to the feminist morays?Holding the lid under the hot tap can work well too.
Incidentally, when the outdated fuses blew in our house the other week, guess who it was who knew how to fix them? (I used to do it for my mum when I was a kid). We can do anything we’re taught to do, male or female.
Oh my gosh they(as in Sargon of Akkad and chums) think that when someone uses the term “toxic masculinity”, they’re talking about masculinity in general? That’s just… precious.
By that logic, you can’t complain about rotten eggs without complaining about regular fresh delicious eggs.
I have found that if I give a jar a few good hard slaps on its bottom, it will be much easier for me to open the lid. I can’t explain why that is though.
Here’s the sad thing about one of those statements: What makes him think that women are going to miss the self-involved, condescending, bullsh** civility he practiced anyway? Some of us women NEVER got such treatment from men like him because we weren’t considered “hawt” enough to warrant being treated in a civilized manner.
So by his logic, the only women who should be treated with the respect given to human beings are Hawt women he’s like to f***. Except they don’t actually want to treat the Hawt women with dignity or respect either, since men like him all advocate for abusing such women, at every opportunity.
Yeah, I called it yesterday. I knew there’d be a bunch of dipshits reacting to this and just proving the whole point. Yes, yes, let it all out… let that butthurt FLOW!
Has anyone mentioned just getting the jar lid warm yet? Then it expands so is easier to get off.
You can either run it under the hot tap or just use the friction from your hands. That probably explains the old “I must have loosened it for you” thing.
You know what makes me very sad?
How many women were featured in those captured tweets.
Just smash the jar like it’s made of patriarchy!
It turns out we are tool-using hominids and feeling the need to brute force something is kinda silly.
I find that pretty often I have better luck opening my jars if I get a towel or something to provide a better grip.
I don’t remember when was the last time I couldn’t open a jar. I’m not super strong or anything, maybe I’m a man after all?
Maybe I live in a place where only ridiculously easy to open jars are commercialized?
Maybe no one opens jars anymore? Maybe we don’t even exist?
My dad, who’s nearly seventy and decided it was getting too difficult to open stuck jar lids, applied his usual logic to solving the problem and picked the most efficient jar opener he could find. It’s a plumbing tool used for tightening or loosening fixtures and it now resides permanently in my parents’ kitchen drawer. I’ve tried it myself and it’s very effective. Lol, I love dad logic 😉
BTW your footstool comment reminds me of a passage from Michael Moore’s book Stupid White Men where he basically says that women don’t need men anymore – they just need an aluminium* stepladder.
(*because it’s light but very strong.)
OMG, ninja’d myself by not reading all the comments first! A strap wrench IS what my dad uses for opening stubborn jar lids.
Somebody responded to the challenge from that “mechofwizard” guy and he backpedaled, apparently on the grounds that she wasn’t an “organic” user of the hashtag. Pretty sure she was serious on taking him up on his three rounds challenge, too. It was hilarious.
I have a copy of that book (I wrote a paper on the Japanese and Aleutian Indian internment for a history class and I cited it) and it is, in fact, hilariously awful. Another fun fact: Vox Day ripped into Malkin over this book; his posts on the subject are an object lesson in how right-wingers and libertarians will fling racism at their supposed allies while making their points. If you’d like to see it for yourself, do a search for the phrase “me so Michelle” on his blog.
I do the same thing. A couple of good smacks on the bottom with the heel of my hand usually works.
If not, then I get a paper towel to get a better grip on the lid.
________________________________
As for the topic at hand: Actually, it’s all about ethics in masculinity.
A gentleman friend of mine who has a chronic itchy bum uses the $3 shower flower. Blessed relief!
I didn’t know the Axe Detailer was a thing but, having just looked it up, all I can think of is my friend’s bum and how that thing should never get near it.
Ikeke35: I think the reason slapping the jars around works is that a lot of the time when a jar is stuck it’s because the lid was well enough sealed that it created a vacuum. Slapping it can make the lid jiggle just enough to let air in.
You missed The Amazing Atheist’s ridiculous tweet that “Feminists creating the #MasculinitySoFragile hashtag is the equivalent of the KKK creating the hashtag #BlacksSoRacist”
As a guy I keep 2 strap wrenches in the kitchen to open jars(one to grip the jar one to grip the lid), sadly not pink ones
http://uedata.amazon.com/IIT-88310-Ladies-Strap-Wrench/dp/B00J4WSXEK
GamerGate?
for some reason, as Wonkette loves to remind us, somehow this requires a payroll of 9.
Oh my god. No, I don’t think I will.
The weird commercial divide starts early. My son (8) refuses anything pink. I’m not a pink person, but I don’t hate it either. I bought myself a nice pink toothbrush when I discovered my son was using mine on a regular basis. I love my boy, but I don’t want to share a toothbrush.
I have a pair of rugby boots that are *bright* pink (they are technically men’s football boots) Another coach (male) saw them once and said “Y’know you’re not fooling anyone with those boots right?”
(Not quite sure what that meant)
@Falconer, it seems she’s in the habit of using the Royal We a lot:
http://malkin-watch.blogspot.ca/2005/11/ghost-blogging-redux.html
Most of the stuff on her is five to ten years old, so it seems that’s been forgotten/swept under the rug/too boring to pursue at length anymore. She’s not the media darling she was; guess she’s hit The Wall or sumpin’. I dunno.
Personally, I have trouble believing that any one person is that energetic, even if all she does with her prodigious energy is churn out mounds of drivel. She’s had help, and plenty of it, from the mister.
(I also refuse to believe any one person on her own can be that spectacularly stupid, but I’ll cheerfully admit I could be wrong about that. At the very least, though, in this case, I’d say it’s probably folie à deux. One person’s stoopid feeding another’s, IOW.)