In the women's movement of the late sixties-early seventies, there was, I think it's fair to say, a vague general assumption that what we call machismo amounted to an exaggerated masculinity that was oppressive and often dangerous to women.

But among feminists there has also always been an ambivalence towards forcefulness, or daring, or competitiveness, or (you name the related qualities). Feminism has been as much a critique of what was traditionally considered feminine as it has been of any patriarchy, and there have been and are contexts wherein competitiveness, outright ballsiness, is considered the sign of the liberated woman.

Using your strength to be a bully who pushes people around merely shows cowardice and insecurity. There's a line in a Dropkick Murphys song that I really like: "It doesn't take a big man to knock somebody down, just a little courage to lift him off the ground."

[ March 28, 2002: Message edited by: Andy Social ]

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Are we still critical of machismo? Threatened by it? Attracted to it? In need of more of it ourselves?

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Most woman SAY they want a guy that will cry, a guy that's in touch with his femenine side, a sensitive man etc... But when it come down to it, inevitably, it's the confident, assertive "man's man" they're attracted to. No surveys, studies or statistics to back this up, just life experience.

[ March 28, 2002: Message edited by: QuikSilver ]

But there's something to be said for a certain forcefulness, or daring, or competitiveness, if approached in the right spirit (and please don't ask me what exactly that is, I have to think on it). In various political movements I used often to distrust those ostentatiously gentle, non-confrontational, "feminist" guys who'd oil around talking about "process" this and "consensus" that. Some, at least, were as full of it as the "patriarchal old boys" they affected to despise, just a good deal less open.

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Most woman SAY they want a guy that will cry, a guy that's in touch with his femenine side, a sensitive man etc... But when it come down to it, inevitably, it's the confident, assertive "man's man" they're attracted to.

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Y'know, the phrase "man's man" has always made me giggle... Sounds like he'd be pretty uninterested in women...

When women start talking about sensitive men who are "in touch with their feminine side[s]", it generally means "has learned the fine art of listening". Who won't trample over them aggressively. Not completely self-absorbed.

And that's just the problem with the archetypal so-called "man's man" -- they aren't assertive, they're aggressive. Self-centred. And we women are conditioned from day one that that's just the way it is and to accept it.

Personally, I always preferred men who were assertive rather than aggressive. Who doesn't hide feelings, and gives a shit about mine. And I found one. Keeping him, too.

I don't think women need machismo themselves... I know enough women who feel they need to be aggressive rather than assertive, and went through a period of that in my twenties as well. When you are aggressive rather than assertive, you run the risk of trampling others around you, and this is one of the things we hate about stereotypical patriarchal males. Why emulate what we despise? Makes no sense.

We do need to learn to be more assertive and to learn not to cave in to aggression. Even though the double standard still exists where an aggressive woman is automatically called a "bitch" or some other nasty epithet, and often so is an assertive woman.

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And that's just the problem with the archetypal so-called "man's man" -- they aren't assertive, they're aggressive. Self-centred.

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Thanks -- that's the distinction I was groping for, but you put it much more succinctly. Well, I'm a man -- I like to blather .

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Definitions, of course, differ -- I'm assertive, you're aggressive, he's a loud-mouthed schnook...

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LOL@'lance....

[ March 29, 2002: Message edited by: QuikSilver ]

a) That being locker room machiso (yuck)

What about classic mid-C20 "cool" as an expression of machismo?

I know this sounds paradoxical, but think, eg, of Hemingway -- or, as 'lance has above, some Marlon Brando characters, maybe more the young biker of The Wild One than Stanley K.

The cool male icons of my youth were, yup, strong and silent. They were allowed to have deep feeling -- but their very depth was signalled by their minimalist expression of thought, feeling, everything.

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I know this sounds paradoxical, but think, eg, of Hemingway -- or, as 'lance has above, some Marlon Brando characters, maybe more the young biker of The Wild One than Stanley K.

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It usually gets forgotten, but in that picture, in a moment of terrible fear, loneliness, and desperation, Brando's character actually weeps.

He's alone at the time, of course, but still. There's a bit more complexity to the character than is remembered in youth-culture lore.

To answer your question, skdadl -- the syndrome you talk about is not completely dated today, I fear.

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'lance is correct. I am also blushing.

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Careful, audra, there ain't no cure, and all...

[ April 01, 2002: Message edited by: 'lance ]

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The cool male icons of my youth were, yup, strong and silent. They were allowed to have deep feeling -- but their very depth was signalled by their minimalist expression of thought, feeling, everything.

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Thanks for the definition, Skd. I'll have to try that one on the missus the next time she blows her stack over my inability to communicate verbally.

Nope, I'm not emotionally stunted, I'm a minimalist!

But aha! That conversation still happens. Hmmmn.

I guess my next question is whether, especially in public or semi-public situations -- in meetings at work, eg, or in political meetings, maybe at dinner in mixed company, or maybe even in debates on babble -- women feel constrained in the things they say and the way they say them because they are aware of standards of public expression that are -- expressively repressed? or other things? -- and whose ideal form still looks a lot like Cool.

I've not yet mastered "cool". I think it may even be a socialization disability or something. My problem is, I find it impossible to engage in "small talk". I can talk about the weather for about 30 seconds. I don't watch popular tv shows, and my job is very political, so I always wind up asking people I meet about their opinions on everything from the meaning of life, to SETI, to GM foods. We had guests over a while ago, friends of a new aquiantance, and it was a disaster. They were really quiet people, and that makes me uncomfortable, thinking that they are bored, so I take it upon myself to try to spark conversation. I think I wound-up just bombarding them with things they hadn't given much thought to.

So, if that's the deffinition of "machismo" we shouldn't warm to it.

Clearly, we have to be ready to define ourselves as men. That's where the courage lies.

(in my worst John Wayne voice)

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Most woman SAY they want a guy that will cry, a guy that's in touch with his femenine side, a sensitive man etc... But when it come down to it, inevitably, it's the confident, assertive "man's man" they're attracted to. No surveys, studies or statistics to back this up, just life experience.

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Sensitive men aren't necessarily criers, nor are sensitive women. Personally, I'd rather set my hair on fire and put it out with a sledgehammer than cry in public, but that's just me. Some people are just more emotionally expressive than others. Doesn't mean you don't feel it - you just keep it to yourself.

(Warning: don't read on if you already harbour hostile or uncharitable thoughts toward males in general).

Shower at gym this a.m., one man relating to another how he had been pricing exercise equipment for the school at which he teaches (presumably phys. ed.).

I paid scant attention until he concluded: "Just like a woman -- cheaper to rent than buy." This said without apparent irony, or particular comment from his friend.

[ April 02, 2002: Message edited by: 'lance ]

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Nickson/Blatchford/Amiel Axis of Attitude

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Now to the topic. Maybe there's been some generational progress after all (or, hell, maybe it's my general queerness) but I rarely find machismo attractive. Courage and anti-conformism: sexy. Machismo - not sexy. First two are luckily not gendered any more, as women are gradually gaining their right to be anti-conformist and daring too. (Cynics would say that machismo has left the exclusively male sphere as well and spread "elsewhere", but I wouldn't. Among the roots of machismo are physical overbearance and arrogance of the Master, and those two will not be easily un-gendered any time soon.)

I'm not sure what my point is, but I don't really know what "Macho/machismo" means.

Personally, I'd like to think it is something like what I did last weekend in a hockey game: inadvertently blocking a shot with my forehead, then getting so "Berzerker" (I have Viking ancestry - and the shot hurt a bit) that I grabbed the puck, went to the other end of the ice, scored - and then crashed into the goal post.

There weren't any dames around, so I didn't do it as a facsimile of a mating ritual.

Is that machismo or am I some sort of Neanderthal?

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Courage and anti-conformism: sexy. Machismo - not sexy.

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Interesting comment, Tres.

I've never found anti-conformism sexy, I've always viewed it as another form of conformism, just with attitude. But non-conformism and courage go hand in hand -- you have to be courageous to just not care what people think.

Machismo is, in many respects, a conformation to an ideal that is expected of men. It isn't real, it is a cultural construct. The John Wayne/Gary Cooper thing... As much as we have been taught that barbie-doll shaped women are attractive, we have been taught that the macho male archetype is attractive -- and there are still many who are not media literate enough to question that archetype.

Personally, I have always found strenth attractive in men and women, but I don't necessarily equate machismo with strength. In a sense, it is more cowardly to hide behind an archetype than to simply be yourself -- which ultimately, in our conformist little world, is a true act of bravery.

[ April 03, 2002: Message edited by: Zoot Capri ]

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I've never found anti-conformism sexy, I've always viewed it as another form of conformism, just with attitude.

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...so we can agree to disagree on this. Real anti-conformism involves independent thinking in adverse circumstances; will to take flak for one's positions when they become largely unpopular; a bit of madness and "mad purity", for sure. Real anti-conformism, on the other hand, has nothing to do with infantile sticking-out-no-matter-what-and-just-for-sticking-out's-sake.

Now back to the regular programming... (no skdadl around here today, though)

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In a sense, it is more cowardly to hide behind an archetype than to simply be yourself -- which ultimately, in our conformist little world, is a true act of bravery.

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My words exactly.

[ April 03, 2002: Message edited by: Trespasser ]

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Is that machismo or am I some sort of Neanderthal?

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Oh man, when you get your bell rung there's a certain sub-routine in your brain that gets activated. It's a bit more primitive than Neanderthal.

I tend to go with the feeling when it happens: 3 billion years worth of evolution can't be all wrong.

In emergency situations that is: It's dumb machismo when you pull that crap in non-emergency situations.

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Some people are just more emotionally expressive than others. Doesn't mean you don't feel it - you just keep it to yourself.

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I was with someone on the weekend and we both witnessed the Palistinian Protest as it went down University Ave in front of the R.O.M.

I could tell she was upset; unerved by it, and truth be known so was I. I also felt a bit inadequate, not understanding the exact source of the emotion I knew she was keeping inside.

But then, I was feeling a lot of things too, some of them conflicting, and some of them I couldn't identify. Sometimes I keep things inside because it really takes time to sort them out. For example, it wasn't until today I realized what bothered me most was the cry of "Allah Akbar". Because it in that context it wasn't an acknowledgment of the greatness of god, but a war cry.

I have deep concerns for the future of humanity at times like that. And it took me a while to sort this out. Days, in fact.

Later, I found out that the person I was with was moved by the ages given of Palestinian dead. Many of them were children.

I'm not sure if it's reticence or repression of emotion as it is that some people need time to understand what they are truly feeling.

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...so we can agree to disagree on this. Real anti-conformism involves independent thinking in adverse circumstances; will to take flak for one's positions when they become largely unpopular; a bit of madness and "mad purity", for sure. Real anti-conformism, on the other hand, has nothing to do with infantile sticking-out-no-matter-what-and-just-for-sticking-out's-sake.

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Sorry, Tres, I'm not meaning to pick nits... But your definition is non-conformism. Anti-conformists are exemplified by groups such as bikers (an example rife with machismo ), or Goths, where although they are actively rebelling against mainstream society, they actually have a very rigid code of conformity in and of themselves.

The true non-conformist has no real "group" identity, but does just what you are describing.

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Oh man, when you get your bell rung there's a certain sub-routine in your brain that gets activated. It's a bit more primitive than
Neanderthal.

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Ok, now I'm interested....

Present day humans did NOT evolve from Neandertals. Neandertals resembled early humans but were quite different, they evolved from a common ancestor of ours, but they are NOT part of our evolutionary history. They are ancient cousins. Their tree only has a couple of branches and is seperate from ours.

Some scientists think that our ancestors fought with them and eventually "wiped them out" because they could not concieve of projectile weapons.

If you must refer to "cave days" when we were spreading out from Africa, you'd be accurate to use the term "Homo erectus" instead.

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What about when you hit your thumb (nowhere near the cranium) with a hammer, and as a response you punch a hole through the gyproc on the wall beside you? [a purely hypothetical scenario, you understand]

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Well, that is interesting. It's been found out (I'd love to quote sources, but I hear this stuff, and I forget where) that we can confuse the pain receptors by causing sensation somewhere else on the body, or on the site of the injury itself. That's why we punch a wall, or rub the spot that hurts.

Now, I've also noticed a phenomena that when, say, we bump our heads it often takes the edge off if we find someone to blame for it. Maybe we convert pain to anger? Maybe the anger brings out endorphines and such that dulls the pain.

Interesting fodder for speculation.

For the past twenty two years I've done studies and experiments at work that involve numbering steel parts with tool steel hand stamps. I've never hit my thumb in all that time. Until last fall. If I remember correctly, after I hit my thumb I smacked the cement floor five or six times with the hammer, and concentrated anger on myself for being so stupid. It helped.

*******

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Present day humans did NOT evolve from Neandertals. Neandertals resembled early humans but were quite different, they evolved from a common ancestor of ours, but they are NOT part of our evolutionary history. They are ancient cousins. Their tree only has a couple of branches and is seperate from ours.

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The jury's still out on that one.

http://www.ptvpromo.org/programinfo/109/nova_neanderthals.html

[ April 05, 2002: Message edited by: Victor Von MediaBoy ]

My point's just that scientists are far from agreed on their conclusions. Which I prefer. It makes life more interesting.

[ April 05, 2002: Message edited by: Victor Von MediaBoy ]

[ April 05, 2002: Message edited by: Victor Von MediaBoy ]

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Well, it's really hard to say. The debate is over whether Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens existed at the same time, and whether or not they were genetically compatible. It's not so much that we evolved FROM them. More like, we ARE them. Sorta. Or not.

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I think the fossil evidence is pretty clear that Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens existed together. There are Neanderthal and Homo Sapien cave sights cheek and jowel in the middle east, and the time line suggests both caves were inhabited at the exact same time, in the most dramatic instance.

The debate (and it seems to shift from year to year) is over the nature of the relationship between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens. Did they interact? If so how? Cooperatively? Or was it confrontational? Did the environmental changes favour us over Neanderthal? Or did we interbreed, and carry Neanderthal genes with us right now?

Last night I was feeling like a real trog - arguing with my teenager (exercise in futility - they really do eventually move out) I thought about what a rush it would be to pick up large household objects and throw them against the wall. But then my rational brain took over and began assessing how long it would take to replace said items, how much I would miss being able to use them, how annoying it would be to have to clean up the mess, etc. All this going on in my head while I'm TOTALLY LOSING IT on my teenager.

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Isn't it odd that a discussion of "Machismo" should take such a simian turn?

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Not on babble. *a semi-serious *

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All this going on in my head while I'm TOTALLY LOSING IT

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Yeeyeeyee. Boy, do I know this experience, if in a different context. But it always makes me think it's a good thing women have evolved as far as we have, no? Otherwise: given the provocations, think of the carnage!

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Boy, do I know this experience, if in a different context. But it always makes me think it's a good thing women have evolved as far as we have, no? Otherwise: given the provocations, think of the carnage!

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Evolution has its limitations.

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Evolution, shmevolution.

Pick up a large (not too heavy, mind you) and fling it against the wall. If it smashes into a multitude of pieces, good. If it makes a huge noise on impact, better.

You'll have a visceral/emotional release combined with dramatic flair. Your teenager will think you're dangerous and back off.

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Pick up a large (not too heavy, mind you) and fling it against the wall. If it smashes into a multitude of pieces, good. If it makes a huge noise on impact, better.
You'll have a visceral/emotional release combined with dramatic flair. Your teenager will think you're dangerous and back off.

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One might ask, who is this show of virility and courage meant for, and how are they expected to react? Taking a leaf from my own mid-seventies, adolescent page, I remember a brief time in which I affected machismo in order to attract girls, and to intimidate boys who appeared threatening. I simply assumed this behaviour would work, based on my rigorous assessment of Gunsmoke, war movies, and Sgt. Rock, who was perennially fighting WWII (it never occurred to me to question why he was also perennially single).

Did it work? Well, it made too many boys call my bluff, to which I had no appropriate response (Sgt. Rock had hand grenades). And the girls? Sometimes it worked, but not nearly as well as when I made them laugh. Which, to my embarrassment, was often on the same occasion. So, class-clown and crafty ladies-man that I was (enormous macho side-burns and all) I put one and one together and affected a grotesque, comic machismo, often at the expense of the real McCoys. I was bruised, but I had girlfriends. Thus did I first learn what modern women want.