Turn Your Lights Down Low

This Esquire article, "What Is a Man?" details how the author went about de-manning himself. He goes about stripping himself of all things male -- the things he thinks society expects of a man. No more opening doors, no more fixing things, no more trying to outdo everyone, no more sports. He also tried to substitute more smiling, more listening, more eye contact, and more attention paid to taking up less space when occupying space.

Reading through the article, I'm like, "This guys sounds like a total douchebag." Except he's probably not. He's more likely just a typical American guy. It wouldn't be fair to label him a douchebag at all. Yet I was just revolted by him. (My indignation waned a little after Googling him.) I'm having difficulties articulating why I felt this way except that anything having to do with "this is what a man/woman should be like and thus I'm that way" just sets off general alarms.

Of course, now that I think about it, I'm constantly saying things like "Oh, it's because she's a girl" or "He's such a guy" when talking about friends' actions and motivations. Which really amounts to the same sort of thing the article talks about right? That's gotta be some sort of sexism involved in partitioning actions down to gender -- even colloquially. I probably need to examine why I do this.

And I can't believe it, but I think my stance on the Roots vs Michelle Bachman thing is with Bachman. It was hilarious -- but wrong.

I have this friend who is in love with all the sorts of things I'm in love with. Cheesy ballads, softie movies, dancing along to pop starlets. But he always sort of makes the "we're so gay" comment after he partakes in those actions. I guess I understand why he says that (ok, not really) but I'm curious why he doesn't just own what he likes without having to box it into anything.

Then I read a line on Theresa's blog that said: "I find the whole concept of etiquette and chivalry to be sexist and classist." And then I'm like, it's true, chivalry can be sexist! And I realized that my aforementioned friend is also one of the most chivalrous guys I know. This is probably a point we should discuss at some future date.

What Woody Allen's movies tell us about the male identity:

"All the business about peace and love, social conscience, the brotherhood of man, the stopping of this or that war, all the terrain of cultural crises that Allen traverses, is shown to be, in the essential mind of the male, subsidiary to the one true crisis, the sex crisis. What is a political rally to Allen? It’s a place much like a museum or a gallery or a book party, where available women leave their sanctuaries and expose themselves as though on the savannah."
-Alone at the Movies (2008)-