Thread by @garang_lester

WHAT IS MASCULINITY?
#Thread 🧵🧵

Because there is no shorter way to answer this question, allow me dive in this thread.

I'll draw analogies and put context where need be. Be my guest!
#MenCaveUg #MasculinitySaturday

https://twitter.com/Mepoho_/status/1563477739575050240

Before social order was established, Darwinism reigned. The strongest survived and the weak ones suffered or perished.

Man hunted and man was hunted. Survival was for the fittest and those that received protection from the fittest.
#MancaveUg

This cutthroat dynamics were both physical as well as otherwise. Physical in a way that the risks of physical harm were enormous and those unable to protect themselves or receive protection from the able were highly susceptible.
#MenCaveUg

On the other hand. To exist in such dynamics demanded some level of mental position and a view of life more practical and honest. There are things that were just incompatible with those dynamics.
#MenCaveUg

Things like;
- Laziness
- Cowardice
- Self-pity
_ Victimhood
- Emotionality
- Submission
And weakness among others.
#MenCaveUg

In a world where everyone was ready to pull you down if its what it took for them to get up, you won't risk possessing any of those traits.

But for some of them, some people just possess them as a matter of nature.
#MenCaveUg

For example physical weakness was and is common with most women, children and the elderly.

With physical weakness comes, cowardice, self pity, victimhood,, submission and at times emotionality.
#MenCaveUg

Consequently, most women, children and the elder were highly susceptible to exploitation and defeat in that darwinian space.

Most men on the other hand had physical strength and all the things that came with it.
#MenCaveUg

Many women, children and the elderly then relied on their men for protection and provision. To be able to provide then was to be able to compete outside in the darwinian arena and come home with something.
#MenCaveUg

Men hunted to find food for their families (read children, women and elderly).
Men fought wars to defend their people (again, read women, children and the elderly).

The success of any society then depended on the strength of their men.

You're about to ask, what of now? Read on!

So, when this was the reality, the way boys were raised into men was fundamentally different.

They raised boys to become strong men. Ones that could withstand the brutality of the then darwinian social order.
#MenCaveUg

To do this, some traits were just brutality suppressed in men:
- Emotionality through subjection to hardships (those who went through initiation rights can attest).
- physical weakness through rough physical games like wrestling and arrow games.
#MenCaveUg

- boys were taught not to cry because it signifies weakness, admission of failure and submission to other authorities and powers.
- boys hunted with their fathers to learn how to hunt the brutality of sourcing food.
- boys were introduced to warefare to prepare then to defend..

..their communities.
This training was an appreciation of masculinity and it built the innate masculine nature of men. It prepared men and societies prospered. Dynasties were build, empires were conquered.

Civilization was built and above all, women, children and elderly were...

...protected from harm and the predatory darwinian social order of things.

So, to now answer your question of what traits these are and how they are being suppressed.
1. Physical strength. To be masculine is to be physically strong. When boys are allowed to be boys:

Be rough, jumpy and at times violent as they play, they built this physical strength.
That's not happening today. Boys are kept in fenced homes and boarding schools. Discouraged from most outdoor physical games. They are weakened unknowingly.
#MenCaveUg

2. Emotional control. To lash out is to submit to challenges. Lashing out includes crying, outburst anger etc.
This is often misunderstood. It's not that men don't have emotions, it is that they should control them. Not let them flow out of them in any form.
#MenCaveUg

Currently, boys are being encouraged to cry when they feel like. Men are being encouraged to show emotions, to open up, to complain etc.

When you show your weakness to your enemy, it exploits it and wins you by it.

It's implied admission of failure.
#MenCaveUg #Masculinity

3. Authorities and dominance. Leadership is for the most able. You can't lead if you can't defend your position when it is threatened. That is why men lead because they always defend that position.

To lead is to be dominant and exercise authority. #MasculinitySaturday

But currently, the authority and dominance of men has been branded as toxic masculinity and vilified.

Men with authoritative and dominant tendencies are called out as being misogynistic and toxic.
#MenCaveUg

I said it today during the space that to expect men to exercise the responsibility of leadership without being dominant and authoritative is to be illusioned.

There is no leadership without authoritaty and ultimately not without dominance.
#MenCaveUg #MasculinitySaturday

These are some of the masculine traits that are being opposed and suppressed in men.
Boys are being raised as softly as girls. Arguments like raising kids equally are being made...sad!

Why not raise them all harshly like boys then?
#MenCaveUg #MasculinitySaturday

Conclusively
Emasculation of men and feminization of boys are threatening masculinity and a threat to masculinity is a threat to the fibric that holds society together.

"The greatest threat to mankind is absence of strong men" @Wizarab10
#MenCaveUg #MasculinitySaturday
End!

@threadreaderapp unroll