Masculinity

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.