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.
Thanks to all who proved the hashtag right. I find it funny that they think it’s ok to send rape and death threats and “joke” about women/girls/Femininity and say we should have thicker skin but if we joke about them then dang watch those mantrums tell me whose the sensitive ones who need to grow a thicker skin again?
If men who take part in the hashtag are only looking to get laid does that mean women and girls who “protect” men and boys are looking to get laid too?
To the people who use “emasculation” thanks for proving that misogyny exists and men are seen as superior and can have their “power” taken away.
If women and girls don’t deserve respect because they didn’t invent anything then I don’t have to respect certain men or boys especially you because they or you didn’t invent anything either. And also:
http://www.women-inventors.com
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/women.shtml
To every overreacting insecure misogynist guy and the women who are defending them
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6Lr7X7kVf5Y/UQZKMIKcvpI/AAAAAAAAGI8/hkyp9_Ln60k/s1600/shut-the-fuck-up.jpg
Ding ding ding, we have a winner!
Also, I love how they alternate between “hurr hurr hurr, wimminz so weak they can’t even open a jar or a door for themselves” and “help, help, I’m being emasculated by feminists!” Well, guys, which is it? Are women too weak or too strong for you? Because we can’t be both!
My typical response to the whole jar-opening/door-opening argument:
“In the past, before feminists killed chivalry, men opened doors for women, pulled out chairs for them, helped them put on their coats!” Let’s start with the fact that all these token gestures are confined to the period of courtship. Once the ring goes on (in a traditionalist, 1950’s-style relationship), the man stops being the woman’s “servant” and she becomes his. Let’s get real here. How many traditionalist husbands, upon parking the car at Target or whatever, get out, walk around and open the door for their wives while they regally wait? How many traditionalist husbands routinely help their wives get dressed — except on rare occasions when it is done for public display? Forget whether such “services” are even needed, how often are they actually done? And what is the value of all this crap? Let me see if I can understand the thinking here. A woman gets symbolically “waited on” for a few weeks of her life and periodically thereafter, and for these occasional and totally unneeded pulled chairs and held coats, she must show appropriate gratitude by flushing all her talents, dreams, aspirations and decades of hard work down the toilet in order to make steak, iron shirts and keep the kids from being a nuisance to their father. Full time. Forever. Oh year, that sounds like a GREAT deal!
“Men open jars for women!” Do you eat? Yes? Then STFU and open the godd-d jar when requested. How hilarious is this for your wife to struggle with a jar while making a meal for YOU, but for you to assist her in the smallest way is somehow an imposition and a favor to her? What churtzpah do you have to pat yourself on the back for opening a jar of something that, in all likelyhood, YOU will eat? Jesus Christ, you should fall on your knees and thank your lucky stars there is someone who actually puts up with you. Because if karma was real, and if there was any justice in the universe, you’d subsist on Chef Boyardee until the day you die.
“Men mow lawns! Lift heavy stuff! Fix the sink!” Traditionalist men only do that after being asked for MONTHS, and after giving their wives an earful about “nagging”, and then spend years complaining to their friends about the uppity sperm bank who wants them to use their superior strength to do something about the house. When traditionalist men and their troglodyte friends engage in that kind of talk, they usually fortify themselves with refreshments prepared by the aforementioned sperm bank. Traditionalist men give their wives so much **** about having to hammer in a nail, or take out the garbage, raise such a royal stink, that eventually their wives just give up and either leave or resign to doing everything themselves. So no, you don’t mow the lawn, you don’t lift heavy stuff, you don’t fix the sink. Once in a decade doesn’t count.
Bina
“Also, I love how they alternate between “hurr hurr hurr, wimminz so weak they can’t even open a jar or a door for themselves” and “help, help, I’m being emasculated by feminists!” Well, guys, which is it? Are women too weak or too strong for you? Because we can’t be both!”
Just whatever lets them bash us and make us take responsibility for their actions and pretty much everything else.
Also I don’t get “women wanting to be masculine”? Um no I don’t even know what else to say to this.
Off topic to this particular post but I have a BURNING QUESTION.
Why are there so many MRAs in this thread here:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/lovesick-cyborg/2015/09/17/a-call-to-ban-sex-robots/
Whyyyyyy?
I hate running into MRA-speak when I’m reading on Discover’s site. What drew them there? It makes me feel weird, like maybe there are way more of these assholes in the world than there actually are. I keep telling myself these guys are a minority, but I keep running into this shit when I’m minding my own business!
@amused
Ha, ha! I can see you’ve known a traditionalist man or two.
In my experience, these traditionalists all have the same mantra (“Men are superior to women”) but express it in different ways.
My much older brother — an MRA before there were MRAs, mostly because our father was enforcing a proto-MRA-style hierarchy — was determined to prove that he had the biggest muscles ever. So every jar he opened, he closed verrry tightly. (For all I know, he opened and closed jars at random while the rest of us slept.)
So I was a child trying to open jars closed tightly by a grown man. You know what? I figured out ways to do it. Hit the side of the lid against the wooden table. Run hot water over the lid. Hit the lid again. Never once did I ask him to open a lid.
I’m still pretty INTENSE in my approach to tight lids. But if I fail, nowadays I ask my boyfriend.
What makes me crazy is the notion that the wedding day is “her” day.
And all the other days are “his”?
Oops! I used the “crazy” word. So sorry!
shinyjoolie
How many are there? And they tend to flock anywhere that appears to be “misandry” glad they have better things to do than to actually help men and boys. I don’t quite get them blaming feminists for banning sexbots don’t they say that all feminists are lesbians? Why would we ban sexbots if they’re going to be female? And we be happy if they got their own sexbots so they would leave us alone. And not just female but some sexbots are male so wouldn’t that just be shooting ourselves in the feet?
I wouldn’t assume they’re all Mras but they’re definitely anti feminists/misognists. I run into those almost everywhere I go. If it makes you feel better I do believe they are a minority its just the loudest that scares us.
@shinyjoolie
Not to worry. My understanding is that you can receive notices (according to subject) about what shows up online.
So yeah, you might read Dear Prudence for weeks and not run into any MRAs. But if she gets a letter about a cheating wife or a woman who committed a crime or left her husband or some such, they descend on the comments board and yak about how if the genders were REVERSED, we would have a VERY different reaction.
Much predictable.
Many boring.
Much lies.
Kind of sad to see all those women demonizing feminists like that.
What is it with these people and doors??? Unless the door is covered in toxic waste, or maybe bees, I can open it myself (I’ve been opening doors since I was eleven). Why do they place so much importance on it? I don’t get it at all.
Pro tip! If you’re walking through a door and someone is right behind you or going through from the opposite direction, keep it open and don’t just let it slam in their face. That’s about it.
Well, yes. Very much this. No worries about men/women/children/whatever, it’s just rude to let the door close in somebody’s face, so if they’re close enough behind you that they’d get to the door before it closes by itself, hold it open.
Though I’ll make exceptions and hold it for longer if the person is a longer ways behind me but obviously either carrying an armload of stuff, pushing a cart, or in a wheelchair, as those make opening the doors themselves more difficult. (None of those require me to condescendingly hold the door open from halfway across a hotel room lobby, though. There’s being polite, and then there’s implying that the other person can’t do what you’re doing for them, and the latter is most definitely NOT polite.)
@Sarah
Well know I know that happened. Sure, there’s racism aplenty, but I find myself more fascinated by Day’s compulsion to leg hump his own purported genius level intellect in almost every blog post. Down boy.
They probably have a Google Alert for “sex robot”
@shinyjoolie you’re making the mistake of thinking that anyone who disagrees with you is an “MRA”. But in fact feminism is getting increasingly unpopular in the population as a whole. MRA is the loony extreme end of anti-feminism, just like radical feminism is the loony extreme end of feminism. But the population as a whole is getting less feminist as the feminist movement gets more and more batshit crazy.
A trick I’ve discovered for opening jar lids the first time – bang the lid (not too hard) against the edge of the counter until the seal breaks (and the little vacuum seal button on the lid “pops”). Once the vacuum inside the jar is broken, it’s a lot easier to move the lid.
(Oh, and to prevent jar lids from becoming stuck after you’ve first opened them, wipe the inside of the lid and the grooves around the rim to prevent build-up. Prevention is better than cure, after all).
The sorts of plastic or metallic lids where you’re supposed to be breaking perforations can be made easier to move if you just pre-score along the perforation line with a knife. (My personal horrors to open are the lids on the bottles of Bickfords brand cordials – very small metal lids which are supposed to be turned until the perforations break, but which don’t seem to be properly perforated by whichever machine puts them on). Alternatively, the plastic ones are often fairly easy to insert a thumb-nail into, and then pull down the little “ring” below the perforations, thus rendering the lid a lot easier to remove.
Corks get removed by corkscrews (although in these days of the screw-top wine bottle, this is less of a worry).
To be honest, the trickiest lid I have to deal with is the cap on the engine of our car (in order to pour in more oil). However, I suspect even that would submit politely if I just clean all the gunge off the edges of the cap and the slot it’s supposed to go into.
So, why was I supposed to worry about withdrawal of masculine labour in this respect again?
It took 91 comments for a troll to show up. And very classic troll name too. Hiiii Nobody. Points for a decently new tactic.
Anybody want to take on the ablist “Someone” MRA up thread?
It is only ever MRAs who say things like “…feminism is getting increasingly unpopular in the population as a whole.” They think if they keep saying it that it will function as a Jedi mind trick.
Feminism is getting more and more unpopular huh? Whelp, it looks like all those female celebrities who have stated they are feminists are getting more and more unpopular too…
Oh wait.
And of course our drive-by troll would pull the whole “everyone who disagrees with me is crazy!”/”Both sides are crazy!” card.
Because of course Troll-y-O’s is the only sane person on the planet.
Tell me, what’s it like to live with your head so far up your own ass?
The lurkers support him in email.
Beyoncé is pretty unpopular. You all have probably never heard of her.
http://33.media.tumblr.com/0b5c35111a2e5fa29e9741468d94373f/tumblr_naufb6OFwI1qc3ni5o1_r1_500.gif
– Paul Elam
If a basilisk has upper-body limbs at all, they’re wings, not arms, so how exactly would one walk a dog when it can’t hold the leash?
I have a jar opener. I think it cost me $3. I’ve had it for years. Ah, the miracle of levers.
“a basilisk is a legendary reptile reputed to be king of serpents and said to have the power to cause death with a single glance”
So feminists are basilisks, huh? No fragile male ego here, amirite?