Successful Masculinities and Femininities

~ Clarissa

The most sexually and romantically successful men I know are the exact opposite of the macho stereotype. They are sensitive, they like babies and puppies, cry in the movies, understand fashion and design, cook and clean very well, have good manners, know a lot of poetry by heart, enjoy traveling, are not very competitive, are not hugely motivated by money, and don’t highly value an opportunity to spend time drinking beer with other men. At least, not as highly as they do a chance to go shopping for salad bowls or used books with their female friends.

The loneliest and saddest men I know, the ones who barely manage to get rid of their virginity by the age of 40, are the closest to the macho stereotype. Their favorite topic of conversation is their most recent visit to a strip bar with their buddies, they eat with their hands, belch loudly, brag that they never bought a piece of clothing that cost more than $9.99, think that grooming is for sissies, enjoy calling women whores and sluts, feel very uncomfortable around small children, only watch movies filled with bloody corpses or rape scenes, and live to compete with other men.

(Both of these descriptions were created strictly on the basis of real men I know very well, so please don’t tell me these are caricatures.)

This works in the exact same way with women. The most sexually and romantically successful women I have ever known are the ones who are loud, brash, competitive, domineering, messy, and bray like horses. There are these two sisters I know who make me and my sister look like total wallflowers by their side. Both have very powerful, overwhelming personalities of the bulldozer type. And in spite of not being even remotely in possession of what one would call conventional beauty, they always had boyfriends and admirers coming out of every pore of their body, it seemed.

The loneliest, saddest women who barely manage to get rid of their virginity by the age of 40, are the closest to the Angel in the House stereotype. They are quiet, modest, bake perfect cookies and bring them to every occasion, cry often and easily, are perfectly coiffed at every point of their lives, don’t seem to know how to sweat or experience any other unpleasant bodily functions, are traumatized by competition and confrontation, and look like Charlotte from Sex and the City. They are the kind that make everybody around sigh, “I don’t know what men are thinking, letting someone this perfect remain lonely!”

I had this friend who was raised to embody every stereotype of patriarchal femininity. She batted her eyelashes, wore ultra-feminine little outfits, spoke in a very quiet, childish voice, treated every man she met like a deity, simpered and pouted all day long – and reached the age of 32 without ever going on a single date. Mind you, this is a very attractive woman with a figure everybody dreams of having.

We lost touch for a few years, and when we finally talked, she was a completely different person. The quite, whispery voice was gone; the modesty and the tendency to get scandalized by everything “improper” disappeared together with perfect little outfits. Now she loudly shared dirty jokes, brayed like a donkey, was irreverent, sarcastic, and the opposite of modest. She also had men slaughtering each other for her. I mean this literally: people were inflicting grave bodily harm on each other to win the opportunity to be with her. She didn’t value them very highly, though, because she prefers quiet sensitive guys who like babies, puppies, and cute salad bowls.

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Published by Clarissa

30 thoughts on “Successful Masculinities and Femininities”

  1. // she loudly shared dirty jokes, brayed like a donkey, was irreverent, sarcastic, and the opposite of modest […] people were inflicting grave bodily harm on each other to win the opportunity to be with her.

    Are we both talking about serious relationships here?

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    2. And the two sisters I described are also married and aside from very successful careers, keep having bunches of children. 🙂 One is married to a quiet sensitive lawyer and the other husband I haven’t met.

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  2. // know a lot of poetry by heart, enjoy traveling, are not very competitive, are not hugely motivated by money

    Are most of them university professors?

    Btw, if they are, we’ll agree to disagree about not competitive part. Aren’t most good scholars extremely motivated to become a name in their fields, in addition to simply loving them, of course?

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    1. We have crowds of loud, obnoxious brutes with hairy fingers and crumbs in their beards in my profession. And there are crowds of sensitive guys with salad bowls in sales. 🙂

      As for competitiveness, it doesn’t guarantee success and is not even related to it. For instance, my sister prohibits competitiveness in her company – which is unheard of in her field – and the result is really high sales.

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      1. Competitiveness is heavily related to success in zero-sum games, but the majority of situations humans find themselves into aren’t zero-sum games, or at least are zero-sum games where the players are groups rather than individuals and intra-group competitiveness may have a negative effect on the group’s effectiveness.

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  3. The macho stereotype thing sounds just like my older brother, he spends his free time drinking beer, playing Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, buying and shooting guns and is very macho, yet he has never had a serious girlfriend and hasn’t been on a date in years. My female friends think he is gross and that him being so macho is a turnoff, yet he sees nothing wrong with this. Is this culture-specific, though, my family is Cuban-American and many of the guys in my family are like this.

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    2. “Yet he sees nothing wrong with this”

      So he has to be everything YOU want him to be and have a girlfriend?

      Christ, god forbid a man acts *gasp* unattractively.

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  4. I am unsure that what you described as the macho stereotype’s failure is connected to being “too masculine” rather than “stupid, emotionally and intellectually lmited jerk with great hatred for women.” Wait, I understood. Your macho stereotype is simply a Loser: no money, no any kind of culture / manners, not attractive personality, etc. Btw, are they living with their mothers?

    And, “live to compete with other men” is probably stemming from the sense of inadequacy, not from the culturally seen as “right” kind of desire to achieve something of value. What can they compete for? Physical violence kind of competition?

    Sensitive lawyer is something. Thought lawyers had to be “sharks” to succeed.

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    1. Actually, the macho guy I described in my post is an academic with a bunch of degrees from superprestigious universities. So he is hardly a person of no culture or a loser. It’s just that his personal life is a disaster because of what I described. You are right in that such guys often are very into their Mommies, and this one is no exception. I think he felt he needed to play the role of Mommy’s “husband” as a boy since the father was sketchy.

      As for lawyers, most don’t work in a courtroom but spend their lives with papers in an office.

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      1. // I think he felt he needed to play the role of Mommy’s “husband” as a boy since the father was sketchy.

        Why would it make him hate women? Shouldn’t it, on the contrary, give a child a feeling of responsibility, even if he couldn’t do much then?

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        1. This is not a genuine role. Deep down one knows that one is being used unfairly, as a substitute, and this produces a lot of anger. Imagine a little girl who has to cook, clean and be nurturing to Daddy instead of being cared for in an age-appropriate way.

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  5. I bake terrific cookies and I love looking great when I leave the house, but that’s about where my “traditional feminine” qualities end; I’m loud, opinionated, and apparently “command attention” (other people’s words) when I enter a room.
    For a while, I thought I maybe had to “tone down” those qualities, because all of the meek, sweet girls I know are in relationships, but then I thought a little bit more deeply about what kind of people they were attracting and getting into relationships with, and decided, “Nah, I’m good.”

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    2. “but then I thought a little bit more deeply about what kind of people they were attracting and getting into relationships with”

      Like my cousin’s dainty friend who attracts people who enjoy condescending to her, bossing her around like a child, and rolling their eyes “good-naturedly” at how incompetent she is.

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    1. From the comments:

      1) Yes, this is a way that police officers can manipulate their stats, at least in the United States. And it doesn’t just happen to rape victims: one reason crime rates took a steep drop in the 90s is because police departments changed requirements for how they reported crime. My father worked for a large department (not naming because I’m not sure I’m actually allowed to share this information) that was able to claim a huge drop in their murder rate because they stopped recording gang-related homicides (or assumed gang-related) as murder–and they were far from the only department to do this. The NYPD is currently facing a big investigation into the way they’ve been recording stats, with evidence that they’ve been manipulating everything from robberies to rape and murder.

      This is also a huge problem in the armed forces. One reason they’ve had so much trouble with rape reporting and conviction in the military is that commanding officers were judged negatively for investigating and reporting rapes, so they had an incentive to force victims to drop charges or otherwise make it a hostile reporting environment.
      […]
      2) In response the people who have asked me why I haven’t made complaints, gone to the media, etc.: honestly, it’s because I’ve been terrified of the police. They didn’t file charges against me, but they could have. I don’t know what my chances in court would have been, but I don’t know how I could deal with that. (Straight up: I lived in terror for a year than any day the police were going to change their minds and come arrest me. I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it because I was humiliated, and the one time I tried talking to my dad, he brushed it off and made it very clear he didn’t want to discuss it. And I couldn’t think of any way out but suicide. Gradually, I realized that if it hadn’t happened, they probably weren’t going to, but the fear was–can still be, really–overwhelming.) I’ve already exceeded the first statute of limitations for a false report (1 year) and I’m coming up on the statute of limitations for a felony charge of lying to the police (3 years)–which would be ironic, really, as the only lie that I’ve admitted to is the lie they forced me into. Fear isn’t rational. I’m starting to lose some of that fear, and the more that I’ve talked about it without ending up in jail has helped to erode it, but there you go.

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    2. When I was assaulted, the attitude of the police officers was a lot more traumatic than the crime. After just one encounter with the police I dropped the whole thing because it wasn’t worth it to me. So I really understand people who don’t want to report.

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  9. IOW, overperforming stereotypical masculinity or femininity turns people off,

    Most stereotypically feminine thing I did today: Put on a dress.
    Most stereotypically masculine thing I did today : Trying to fix a major appliance myself — that I’ve never tried to fix before. I think it’s working because my food tastes fine.
    :-p

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  11. I am all for breaking gender stereotypes as long as it doesn’t leave a lack of basic life skills. People who say “I can’t cook” are not adults, just as those who say “I can’t use a hammer” are not adults.

    I am just hoping these quite sensitive men you refer to also have a full set of life skills. I know too many “hipsters” who display all the sensitive qualities you mention above but can’t hold down a job, can’t do basic DIY tasks and still aren’t adults at 30.

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    1. “I am just hoping these quite sensitive men you refer to also have a full set of life skills. I know too many “hipsters” who display all the sensitive qualities you mention above but can’t hold down a job, can’t do basic DIY tasks and still aren’t adults at 30.”

      That’s not attractive in any case 🙂 From what I gather in the comments, these are people who have jobs. The level of self-sufficiency isn’t the point here… plus with hipsters, many times their “sensitivity” is a pose, just like many other things about them.

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  12. I know too many “hipsters” who display all the sensitive qualities you mention above but can’t hold down a job, can’t do basic DIY tasks and still aren’t adults at 30.(Lamestllama)

    Yeah, but at least they are sexually and romantically successful men who like shopping for salad bowls or used books with their female friends, lol. 😉

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    1. “Yeah, but at least they are sexually and romantically successful men who like shopping for salad bowls or used books with their female friends, lol. ;)”

      Are they? I don’t see them being as successful in this regard as more conventional young men who go get a proper paying job rather than hope to be the next big thing in finger painting.

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