Worthless social constructs

I wouldn’t say worthless.

Like many ancient cultural traditions that have survived to present day, they only lasted so long because they have some usefulness to them, despite their baggage. (The fact that they survived even with so much baggage should actually give a hint that there’s something useful there.)

It’s useful to be able to guess at some traits of a person based on appearance, or from knowledge of a few traits they have that tend to be correlated with others. (Yes, it’s reductive, and subjective, and the very definition of stereotype. But as long as there is a channel for potential communication, humans will make use of that channel — on both ends, even listening for meaning when there is none.)

Like how characters in team-based video games tend to generally fall into the categories of tank, dps, and healer, and their appearance and skills generally reinforce that categorization. It gives a shared landmark that the entire team can reference and allows you to navigate collective action problems more easily.

Constructs like “manliness” work in a similar way. A loose constellation of traits like strength, willingness to physically protect others, usually valuing rationality over emotionality, etc. along with some appearance tropes like facial hair that aren’t really intrinsically connected but help people identify each other more easily. (Note that I’m not making a value judgment here. I think it’s useful to have a bundle of traits with a name as a landmark. That does not mean I endorse all of the traits or the specific way they’re bundled.)

The problem, as you know, is… basically everything else.

That it’s tied to gender and hormones, implicitly asserts that this is the only valid (or at least the “best”) way to perform this gender, creates a rigid binary where there should be multiple mix-and-match options, promotes certain undesirable traits as “part of the package”…

…and the galaxy-sized elephant in the room: the fact that this construct doesn’t exist in isolation, but is deeply intertwined with patriarchy. It’s not simply a bundle of traits for easy shared reference points, it’s also a social currency with some very cult-ish or pyramid-scheme-like mechanics to it.

I don’t know if the concept of “manliness” can/will/should be saved. If/when it fades away, a large part of its current footprint will have faded away for the better. But I think some part of it is worthwhile.

Maybe we reclaim that territory by evolving the concept of “manliness”? Maybe we replace it completely, with 15 different, more nuanced and healthier concepts. But I think we do ourselves a disservice by acting as if there’s nothing worthwhile in there.

The ability to perform gender in a better way and reclaim that territory is kind of the essence of trans rights. If we want to build a verdant city on that land, we should acknowledge the land itself even as we criticize the ways it’s been misused.

Edit: Btw, if anyone’s wondering where all of this came from: this was right after I listened to a podcast about the concept of “common knowledge” and how it functions in linguistics, and it blew my mind, and this was the first concept I encountered afterwards and seeing it with new eyes was fascinating, so I had to write about it and now you get to enjoy the whale-carcass-sinking-in-the-ocean-depths that is me figuring out how to describe it in my own words.