Kinda hilarious coming from someone who posts on several characters in these threads, isn’t it, Tenebros?
i’m sorry for this mistake, it was not an intended pun but rather due to the fact english is not my native language.
i’ll correct this asap!
Nowadays even women is not inclusive enough word, apparently the correct one is “menstruating persons”
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Nah it ain’t.
Although if we’re going absolutely old skool, ‘Man’ means a person of either sex, going back to original English, and was a synonym for ‘One’ as in ‘One may alight the tram at Picadilly’ or ‘A singular person’ (Still actually used that way in German I believe)
The correct term back then (Good hundreds of years back) was ‘Wer’ for a human of the male persuasion, and ‘Wyf’ for a human of the female persuasion. Hence ‘Werewolf’, ‘Wergeld’ ‘Wife’ and ‘Midwife’
If I do seem perfectly capable to deal with that to you, I’m glad. However the potential effect it can have for women “behind the scenes” goes unnoticed. The consquences of gang-bashing are somewhat a topic barely talked about. Some women might secretly tell you that it comes pretty close to collective abuse from an emotional point of view. And you can be certain that I have no doubt about men being confronted with such tactics feeling quite the same.
Is really ironical how the same people frequently argumenting “Yeah, but we men have feelings, too” would go as far as bullying men for exactly that, being empathetic towards women for very well understanding their sensitivity. Hurt people hurt people I guess.
That entire labelling culture from SJW to wokeness is pretty sad minding that it aims to give values like empathy, mindfulness and tolerance a negative connotation. And the fact that usual subjects are eager to throw said terms into every discussion is proof of how they are solemnly made up for utilisation and forced opinion making in a political context. It is easier to create the image of a common enemy if you generalise and avoid ambivalence.
There is some sort of strange perversion going on about the term emancipation. A movement that originally started due to women getting oppressed for centuries in sense of empowerment is now transformed into a movement that is aiming to fight male oppression by women fighting against said oppression. I am not saying men don’t get oppressed. And as much as I dislike Freud, a man’s mother often does play a role there. She is setting the course to how men perceive the female gender from a very young age. But that doesn’t erase the part a father plays in a man’s upbringing. Nor does it erase the influence of a man’s social environment and active self-determination. Same for women, though I dare saying that centuries of systematic oppression, being burnt at stakes and sexually abused during slavery by a men-favouring society adds a bit of another dimension of challenge to the table.
It’s quite the dilemma really. While girls in general are often brought up more emancipated these days, a lot of boys still enjoy the old-fashioned, male stereotype catering education at home and by society. And by the time they step out into the world, confronted with a horde of women not fitting their image taught at home, by the media, in schools and male peer groups, they’re confused beyond measures. “I’m not needed to provide for a woman? My manly man features aren’t important anymore? But what defines me as a man then?” Most essential conflict for men nowadays and as you say, the frustration about said inner conflict then often is projected at women for them being the irritating variable not fitting into the concept they were taught to believe in.
The coping mechanisms to that are then quite amazing. And you can see a society in which casual dating and reducing the contact between men and women to the “only common need” of sexual interaction become a new standard. Like “If we can’t make any other use of each other anymore, just stick to the only urge we both need each other for”. Very much like a loveless and dysfunctional relationship. “Don’t take that from me as a man and let me at least sexualise you to for once feel like a man again and find at least one positive aspect that is left about female existance I can appreciate without having to question myself”. Because what else would re-establish the male idea about being in control other than defending the last territories of subjective male dominance?
On the other side, there are women watching this circus from the side line thinking, well, emancipation has failed. It’s taking a wrong course and I am presented with a choice: Either I sacrifice my boundaries and give into that game of “no strings attached” and promiscuous bait to appeal to a man, running risk to feel abused if things go wrong. Or I’ll stick to my convictions and risk getting a walking target for male frustration, probably bound to die alone because I’m the projection surface for male frustration. What to do? In both cases, female dignity will get hurt. But only with one option you will at least choose to not betray yourself to cater male ego.
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Powerful post, a great read. Thank you for sharing.
I agree what you speak of is perhaps the biggest issue facing men; the “male identity crisis” given the revolution of society. With no longer required to be the breadwinners, or the “leaders”, there is a crisis of sorts as to what men are “meant to be”, and whereas women had the feminist movement of the late 20th century to school them on how to take autonomy for their lives, men haven’t had that.
Yes, they have enjoyed some freedoms for sure, but always under the veil of “be in charge, lead, be a man” etc. To a degree, they’ve always “been led” by societal pressures as to what to do. Those pressures are being relaxed, but no movement has swept in to help them reorient themselves, and for some reason, they’re angry at the feminist movements for that.
What they should be asking is “where are the masculinist movements?” but instead of seeking to construct a new narrative which seeks to perhaps identify new ways of conducting maleness, they instead seek to retreat back to the familiarity of the old system, which comes with the reversal of the work of feminism as a necessary consequence.
This is a very important issue facing men and it does need attention, but men need to be willing to explore it themselves and not to label such as “snowflaking” or “manning down”, it’s a real dilemma but it needs doing, they can’t just scream at other groups carving a new identity in this era and demand they “stop, because out workable identity is dependant on you not exploring yours!” that won’t work anymore. The lack of this, the lack of “what other ways to be a man?” is a problem and probably goes some way to explaining the increase in mental health disorders and suicide rates in younger men in the turn of the millenium. SOme of these young men cling to these old values and find they don’t make for a successful man anymore, they;re not needed. They experience anomie. Anomie that goes to a dark place. They believe society is wrong and the people resistent to their version of being a man are incorrect, because (for some reason) they believe this idea of being a man is eternal and outside the auspices of time rather than consider perhaps they may need to rethink things and question what their parents and elders taught them.
But the fundemental point is it’s not the fault of women for wanting better, and men can’t seek to “keep their identity” as oppressors and leaders at the detriment of other people, just because carving a new narrative “is hard”. It needs difficult conversations, a lot of work and importantly a focused coherent effort which doesn’t fall into the trap of the other movements that defines themselves as masculinist movements but ultimatley are conflating their movement with reducing the gains of other movements.
And continually hawking back to the same old tried and tested values and methods of older male archetypes that were dependant on the lessened representation of other groups (women, gay men) isn’t the way to do it. For example you can’t say to be a man is to be a “necessary leader” in a society where you’re claiming everyone is equal and has equal participation. You have to rethink that. Being prepared to lead if asked? Being confident in oneself? Being respected by others so they ask you to lead consensually? Maybe these are alternatives.
Personally I feel like the idea of a “male narrative” or even a “female narrative” are nonsense. My personal view is people are people and people do what they do. I should follow my own judgements and perferences rather than defer to some script of how I ought to behave, especially now society is opening up to such ideas; so if I want to wear nail polish for example that is just an individual behaviour I do, it’s not me being feminine, it’s just an objective behaviour.
This would be ideal for men, just letting them “be” without needing to redefine a new masculinity, because the problem with traditional notions of masculinity is almost all of them require a second (oppressed) party in order to be illustrated. All leaders require followers, all breadwinners require dependants and all warriors require enemies to conquer. In a society that seeks to eliminate inequality and advocate for peace, these values are of little use, but the historical overtones of them may plague future efforts to redefine masculinity.
So to me, it’s more sensible to just do away with such labels altogether. Behaviour is behaviour. Outside of the (limited) varying biological functions of different sexed bodies, fundementally there is no reason to treat different sexes or gender differently or to “gender” behaviour in alignment with them.
This isn’t me advocating for a society where “there are no men and women” at all. Rather, those terms don’t mean anything in particular beyond their relatedness to identifying two distinct sexes relating to sexual attraction (be it different or same) and some limited biological functions. So for an example, i’m a heterosexual cis man. All that serves to define me as (for me) is that i’m attracted to women, and have the biological functions of a man. That’s it. It doesn’t define me further regarding any of my other behaviour and nor should it (and believing it should is harmful and would be a limitation i’m imposing on myself for accident of birth)
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This. Times 100
When was basically treating people decently decided to be a bad thing?
I think that is necessary to be honest, if you believe in something, you have to sometimes fight for it. Oddly the Rap band Public Enemy said it best in their song ‘Harder thank you think’ which has been adopted by less able bodied people in the UK “You stand for something or you fall for anything”.
Women -should- still be fighting for equal rights, because we’re still not there. Yes, the situation is better in Western countries than some oppressive regimes, and to an extent religion has played it’s part in this, you do get some shining examples, Queen Rania of Jordan. She’s Muslim, in a country where Islam is the dominant religion, she wears what she likes, she speaks out about women’s issues internationally, her husband, the King absolutely backs her in this, but then Jordan seems (mostly) like a fairly chilled place under the last two monarchs. As I understand it, if the King dies(They’re both -fairly- youngish, so unlikely), she becomes ruler.
But…
Jordan is an exception in many cases.
Not as much as women do, to be sure. There are societal pressures, but these are much less pronounced than the day to day sexism women will face. They’re there, but less blatant.
I think I lucked out when it came to my parents, neither were sexist, racist, homophobic or anything of that ilk. As a result, neither me or my little bro have turned out there. We were lucky, some aren’t I guess.
Puts on Historian pedant hat
Another myth. Burning was for Heretics and both men and women burned at the stake, (and in two horrible instances, a child, and a cat) and even then, about 12 of them in centuries. Witches were hanged. (May have a witch in his genealogy who was hanged for witchcraft, documented in the Pendle Witchcraft museum 
)
Their -Corpses- may have been burned, but burning at the stake was not the standard punishment for perceived Witchcraft.
That pretty much certainly did happen, Which is frankly just horrific, even on top of the concept of being taken as a slave by a rival tribe and then sold to white folk.
True, I did get a lot of stick for describing myself as a ‘Househusband’ (By other men)just because my wife had a higher paid job so I looked after the home. I didn’t resent it, it was just -weird-. “Uhh, yeah, I look after the house? I mean I keep it in good nick, and ‘defend’ it whilst home, what’s unmanly about that?”
That’s the whole Toxic masculinity thing again, which still exists. It damages everyone, male and female, and frankly is a stupidly outdated concept.
Very much this. I don’t question my masculinity, I’m pretty secure with that, perhaps that is why I equally don’t regard some things as ‘women’s work’ I find ‘jokes’ like “Shut up and get me a sandwich” to be a bit of a sign that someone is weak. If I want a sandwich, I will go to the kitchen and make myself a damned sandwich… I have the skillset, the means to do so, and know what I like better than any female partner (Especially my Ex-wife, she was veggie, I emphatically am not).
Completely all of that.
Like, Completely.
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Exactly, so for me, being comfortable with my masculinity (if i humour such a term for the sake of it) is that i’m content being who i am, with how i am. So for example I have no problems entertaining my behavioural choices with my biological state. I see them as compatible; therefore i’m comfortable with the “masculinity I have been dealt”.
So yeah I have no problem having baking and sweet making as a hobby, doing the vast majority of our household’s cooking, being the principle caregiver for the children (and their contact and advocate for schools), knowing bugger all about cars and disliking beer. I am comfortable with these things, I don’t hide them or “explain them”, they just are. I’m comfortable with my masculinity therefore.
And it clearly can’t be a completely whack way of doing things because i’ve been married for close to a decade now with no signs of decline and (prior to meeting my wife) never had problems attracting and interacting with the opposite sex.
So in a way i think there is probably one trait only, that is probably central to a new masculinity (if we need it) and I think that is one being “self-assured” of themselves.
And I will say (through my interactions with them in my line of work) many young men today are not self-assured at all. They are anxious, they lack self-esteem, they are very self-critical and they imagine the world can see their flaws and imagine their judgements well in advance. No amount of “fake tan masculinity” such as muscles, a gym membership, a beard, fixing cars, will cover up for the fact that ultimately they don’t value themselves or see their “true selves” as having value, which is really sad.
But rather than fix it or try to learn to love themselves, they opt to get angry at everyone else and demand they love them instead without having to self-reflect or adjust their own behaviour. This is disasterous. It is very difficult to love and value people whom continually don’t value or love themselves (and remind you that they dont).
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That. You can’t be ‘comfortable’ with your masculinity if you feel a need to widdle on someone else’s bonfire to make yours burn brighter. Besides, who the heck decides ‘Masculinity?’ I mean you see it on Forums. “hurr hurr, Blood Elf males look girly” Do they? Really? I mean they have the build of an Olympic Athlete, or an MMA cage fighter? You want to call an MMA fighter ‘Girly?’ (Whatever that means) then good luck with that!
Never good at either, though I can do amazing things with sausages and pasta (No, really, It’s lush) and my Omelettes are to die for, seriously, I am a Domestic God when it comes to Omelettes. Milk in with the egg, and what I find works a treat is a dash of Paprika, gives it a kick without being overpowering. I frequently get asked to make breakfast after a boozy night out clubbing, and whilst I have a limited repertoire, what I do, I do -Damned Good-!
Cars are like…ehhh. Tornado F.3 Interceptor jets, different matter, Cars are just meh. Beer however I do like, probably too much to be honest.
Same as. Was with my ex-wife for 11 years, 5 of them married, Now back dating which is actually going well…
I think that is a good rule of life for anyone, regardless of sexuality.
Be who you are, as hard and fast as possible. Life’s too short to not be you.
I can’t quote this enough. Well said.
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Like a painting in the wall inside of the game, haha, give me a break…
I wonder…i it wasnt pinholded on wowhead and mmochampion …how many ppl would even notice the change?
I mean yes…its stupid…but cmon dont act as if it sone end of the world…nobody would even care.
I’m pretty sure most people never knew it existed in the first place. It’s just the usual faux outrage again.
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Surely the issue isn’t whether or not it’s an immediately apparent change or a subtle one. It’s the principle of the matter.
Ridiculous change, this.
I honestly had never really paid attention to these in-game paintings. I might have glanced at them in 2006, but never thought of them as anything offensive.
Cancel culture has gone completely bonkers.
By the way, is this also changed in Classic?
Then why change it?
What really is being achieved here?
What will be if they start changing things that people “know exist”?
It’s not even cancel culture. It’s Blizzard being entirely tone deaf and, apparently having no idea how to handle the backlash caused by scandal that is the sexual misconduct allegations, are grasping at whatever might seem the least bit controversial and preemptively nuking it from orbit.
Except this is a non-issue. The women in the paintings aren’t real people. Instead, all Blizzard managed to do was tick off quite a few players and making it seem as though the female body is something that should be hidden away or replaced by something as entirely harmless as a bowl of fruit.
They’re covering their rears in advance of what they, apparently, estimated to be content that might one day put a target on the company. To my knowledge hardly anyone even noticed these paintings until now, underlining how entirely pointless the exercise has been.
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This so very much. I don’t mind representation for minority groups, and I would love companies actually leading the charge in being ethical workplaces. But the recent changes leave an extremely bitter taste in my mouth because - like all the changes of this sort in the past - they are purely performative. This is just to cover up bad PR, and I am so sad that people just gobble it up and are even happy about the censorship of what ultimately is a bit of harmless cringe-y dad humour.
But it’s a sign of the times we’re living in. People cheer at the loss of artistic freedom because this is what needs to be done for the Greater Good ™. It’s a brave new world after all.
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Because it’s part of their cleaning up campaign related to the frat boy culture that has led to sexual harasment etc. It has nothing to do with us really.
Surely turning the game puritan will solve this frat boy culture.
I think you haven’t understand yet what everyone is saying about this: None of this will help resolving this.
Empty PR moves that don’t change anything but are really good at fooling those who actually believe these changes are helpful.