A blog
titled “The First Asian Man: The Story Behind the Jeremy Lin Story” inspired me
on what is indeed masculinity, especially for contemporary Asian men, who are
considered the most desexualized male group in the world (maybe). What is masculinity?
What are the differences between Asian masculinity and Western masculinity?
What are in common? I will give my opinions based on different times,
perspectives, and cultures.
Through the
History
Through the
history, masculine is defined a little differently in various periods of time. In
the ancient, before civilization is set up by human beings, males’ jobs are
hunting, collecting, and sometimes fighting. There is violence in all of these
activities so that men have to be physically strong to meet their duties. When
civilization was established, the duties of men were no longer limited in those
less-intellectual activities. There are jobs like trading, calculating,
designing which call for intellectual power. Therefore, Courage and wisdom is
added to the “checklist” of masculinity. With the development of civilization,
human beings then had culture, technology, religion, which request more
elements for masculinity—creativity, generosity, discipline, self-control, etc.
In today’s world, with physical work being replaced by machines, the definition
of masculinity tends to focus more on intellectual power. Mohandas Gandhi would
not be regarded as a hero if he is put in ancient time in that he rejects
violence and looks physically skinny. To summarize, I divide these qualities
into two categories: outer and inner. Outer qualities include muscly, tall and
strong. Inner qualities include brave, wise, creative, generous and
self-controlled.
Different
Perspectives
Even though
natural selection determines those who are stronger than their competitors can
survive, with human societies getting more complex, the conception of
masculinity by female and male is changing. For thousands of years, the world
at most time is dominated by men, and therefore masculinism flourishes and
women are less influential than men. Men consider masculinity as domination,
authority and desire to control. After feminism, women began to realize their
roles in this male-dominated society. As a result, women began to work in key
positions and play a much more influential role in the society. Meanwhile,
their definition of masculinity changes overtime. Women now take equality into
consideration of their definition of masculinity, which means men are masculine
if they have the sense that women are equal to them. But this trend sometimes
goes even much further. In Asian society, some girls began to appreciate the
so-called “white face niche”, which refers to those desexualized men. As a
result, since women and men are mutually affected, men began to accept this new
conception and follow the trend. The bias makes considerable Asian men forget
the traditional concept of masculinity, and thus become desexualized.
Culture
The cultural
difference between east and west are so dramatic that makes many different
views on masculinity. The East cultural circle is largely influenced by
Confucianism. The central ideas of Confucianism focus on “Li” and “Ren”, which
advocate love and resilience within a male. Meanwhile, western culture is
individualism culture which promotes courage and strength. With the concept of love
of human and resilience, Asian men tend to be more patient, peaceful, humble
and self-controlled. In contrast, western men are muscly, confident,
adventurous, and cowboy-like. There is no inferiority or superiority within them;
instead, they are just different approaches to masculinity. The problem existed
here is that Asian version of definition of masculinity are really harder to
realize than the western one in that it requires more practice—for both inner
and outer qualities. Lacking any of these qualities will lead to desexualized
image. For instance, Asian men are taught to be humble and patient, but if they
do not have a strong body and mind they will look unconfident and craven. So do
the other qualities, they make up a complete system which will not work if any
parts are missing.
How to gain
respect?
It is hard
to convince others to believe the conceptions we believe in as for humbleness,
resilience and patience. But there are common qualities in the definition of
masculinity: courage, generosity, wisdom, integrity and strength. In order to
gain respect, it is vital that Asian men are qualified for these common
elements through their own approaches. It is not necessary to give up
tradition, but it is hard to really carry it out.
