The Cult of The Harmless Man
 

I have done some open-minded exploring on all kinds of different ideals for manhood and womanhood, for inspiration fuel. Related to this research, some time ago, I started reading stuff written by far-left feminists. I was reading the stuff these people post in the internet asking these questions while reading: "What are the ideals of manhood and womanhood for these people. How does woke manhood and woke womanhood look like?. If these people built a temple for manhood and womanhood, what would they be called?"

I won't bore you with the details of my journey in the woke-land, I'll just share the final conclusion I made. My conclusion was that, woke womanhood was actually a quite sophisticated ideal, full of positive things a woman can be and I'm pretty sure plenty of woke women are happy and proud women. Good for them. But on the manhood - side, the conclusion was rather depressive and disappointing. There were no heroic knights in woke fairytales, there were no proud gods in woke temples. Every single thing that was said about men or manhood was expressed in negatives "Don't be a patriarchalist, don't be a sexist, don't do bad things etc.". Or in summary, for a man, the entire far-left woke message is: Be harmless. A good husband is a harmless husband, a good lover is a harmless lover, and so on. Boys, being harmless is the best you can do! As long as you do no harm, you're being the best version of you. Inspiring, eh?

If the woke-feminist crowd built a temple for manhood, the society of the temple would be called "The Cult of The Harmless Man". I think it doesn't take very much to build a more inspiring one.

Feminists want men at their side. As equals going into battle or at the home hearth sharing equally in caring for the home and raising the children. Woke feminists don't want to feminize men, we just want men to be all they can be - masculine as well as nurturing.

I'll bet the stuff you read by far-left feminists were written by young women. Young people have fire in their bellies and are ready to take up the banner for the good fight. As we grow and gain wisdom, we tend to mellow.

I will say this about feminism though. True feminism wants equality of the sexes. We want body autonomy. We want a seat at every table, from the boardroom to Congress. We want our voices to hold weight and to be taken seriously.

Interesting post. I can follow what you are saying. Besides the far left ideals of the Harmless Man, I think many old stereotypes are also useless.

In the future, we'll have a world where being ''man'' or ''woman'' has become an unimportant part of life.

I think lots of Western hostility towards the concept of gender identity comes from the Christian past, where gender identity was associated with male dominance and strict, inflexible gender roles. In the Christian universe, God is masculine, Jesus is a man, the only woman in the close proximity of the cool kids was virgin Mary. It's a very unbalanced symbol universe, very male-heavy. I sometimes feel very sorry for the women who have to grow up in that symbol universe....

I have some past with Neo-paganism and I use the pagan pantheons as more balanced sources for gender archetypes: There are gods and goddesses, different kinds of gods and goddesses representing the many ways to be a man or a woman. I believe it's a much more balanced universe than the Christian one, when it comes to manhood and womanhood.

Personally I have rejected both, the old school, male-heavy Christian gender roles, and the new school gender nihilism. I think the pagan pantheon is a good third way: Strong gender identity, strong sense of manhood and womanhood, while not having strict, limited gender roles.

It's not just Christian though, it's really all the world's dominant cultures and religions.
But yes, I also like this 'third way'..

I've heard modern thinkers saying all gender stereotyping is wrong but that is too extreme for me. I quite like innocent stereotypes in spiritual teachings where the sun is masculine and the moon is feminine, for instance. At the same time, I also think it's good (even attractive) when men and women can leave the norm and develop their own path.

Based on my own experience, it tends to be the opposite. The young feminists tend to have a sense of youthful open-mindedness in their hearts still left, while the older ones have had far more years to dwell in their ideological man-demonizing and after drinking this poison for far more years, they have become the mean ones.

Do you understand why they're so angry? Can you not see that even though we make up 50% of the population, we are not equally represented in positions of power or even STEM careers. That our bodies are still being legislated against us. That we have had to fight for insurance coverage for mammograms, 48 hours of hospital stay after labor and delivery? And that we had to fight for insurance coverage for reconstructive surgery after mastectomies for cancer? That we still are not believed when we report sexual harassment or assault? That the Violence Against Women Act STILL is not permanent? It is not ideological man-demonizing poison they have been drinking. It is being discriminated against their whole life and being treated like chattel or worse by the men who are in power -- employers, law enforcement, legislatures, religion, etc. Men are not and never have been the victims. Men are the ones who have the power. Reading history will tell you that.

You'll find the same with men in other type of careers..
There are multiple reasons for this.


You are a groupthinker and an intersectionalist. *Deleted*. Individual men and women can be victims or not. Throughout history it's always been a minority of men that had the power. Most men were/are disposable. ''Reading history will tell you that.''

Yes, some of it, I do. I mean, obviously I haven't lived their lives so I might be missing a few things. I have lots of sympathy for women's issues but I have zero sympathy for left-wing feminist bigotry, it's bigotry, it's hate. I have no interest in putting up with bigotry against my sex. Not even if your mammograms are not covered by your insurance.

All bigots have justifications for their bigotry. Sometimes the justifications are convincing, sometimes not.


Let's take a step back here. I don't recall signing up for:

1) assuming a tribal identity based on biological sex.
2) having a victimhood-beauty contest based on that tribal identity.
3) having the prize of the contest be who gets to be a bigot against the other sex.

Welcome to the victimhood contest! Win the prize! As your prize, you will get to post grievance-rants against the other sex and they will have no right to point out that they are not participating in the things you are ranting about! They will have no justification for pointing out the obvious fact that you're a hater!

Since you seem to be so ignorant about men's issues. Please allow me to educate you about a big one that touches men all around the globe, including in my home country, Finland. No victimhood competition intended, just for education purposes:

When I was around my 20's, I was drafted to do a military service. My sisters were not drafted, neither were my female classmates, because the law only applies to men. The military service is obligatory. To be clear, "obligatory" means that I had no right to refuse, either I serve in the military, or I go to prison.

The service was an unpleasant thing, and it lasted for a year. No pay btw. But the least funny thing about it is that the service included a mandatory signing up for a future war. Please note that this duty does not include any right to refuse to fight if it turned out that the future war happens to be an unjust war. If there is a war in the future, my sisters will get to flee the country, if they want to. If they choose to stay, that'll be their choice, but I'll be told: Fight or get court-martialed. Do you know what being court-martialed means? It could mean facing either prison or even a firing squad.

In summary, I was subjected to open, legal, sex-based discrimination in a life and death - matter. I'm watching the news and seeing the conscripts fighting a war and thinking that could have been me. And I mean it could be me on either side. Because, as I mentioned earlier, a conscription does not include the right to pick and choose to only fight in the fun wars you really want to fight in. It's a package deal, they point, you shoot. And by "you" I don't mean you actually, because I know that you never got conscripted, because women usually don't.