"The end of men!" Soy Boys, Himbos, and baby girls unpacked | Khadija Mbowe
Вставка
- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- Link to resources and Works Cited
docs.google.co...
Creator, Producer, Host
Khadija Mbowe
Production Assistance
Adam Mbowe
Editing
Costanza Polastri
Khadija Mbowe
Research
Antonia McClennan
Khadija Mbowe
Fact checking
Reina Cowan
Spanish & English CCs
Raul Alcazar
French CCs
Sosena Tilahun
Theme animation
Alice Gaboury-Moreau
Herby’s channel
tinyurl.com/2p...
I've always like the Tumblr definition of himbo as being "pure of heart, strong of body, dumb of ass ".
George of the Jungle by brendan fraser.
@Cristina DeCisneros Basically any character he plays
@@samarchist74 and we love him for it.
❤ exactly
@@samarchist74 omg is this why i love Brendan Frasier?!
as an aspiring himbo, there's a crucial thing beyond "haha pretty but airheaded" that is integral to himbo culture. Himbos are generally so carefree and airheaded because they are just wholesome by default; they are usually emotionally mature and secure in themselves, and are willing to enjoy non-masculine things with friends because it would never embarrass or make them feel less. They're wholesome to the point of obliviousness, because they don't get why you'd be shitty or worry about what other people thought of their behavior. Gotta love a solid himbo
Feel like himbos are too busy enjoying life to be hateful to women.
Or they just don't put a higher value on academia. There are smart himbos, they just don't centre their specific academic interests in every conversation and are open about their ignorance to other things.
Also just like Paris Hilton, it's an act because it's fun to not overthink everything all the time. Why make life miserable and boring by being smart and serious all the time, when you can intentionally not dig into everything and can just laugh at the silly things in the world?
Himbos without the compassion en wholesomeness would be like Gaston... who is clearly not a himbo
Edit... and there is the diagram that makes my point
thiiiiiis
Omg aspiring himbo, I love you already
I audibly gasped when I saw Shan! Love when my faves do crossover episodes.
that was such a nice surprise aaaa
I let out a happy squeak!
Herby ate that up too
Same
I audibly gasped when I saw that blond wig at the beginning of the video
17:11 oh God it's back
calling grown men (both fictional and real) babygirls is one of my favorite things ever, actually. humans really popped off coming up with this one.
Like changbin from stray kidz
I literally call any buff-ish to athletic dude who I would deem attractive in my high school as babygirls...I hate being called that by men because I have a history of being called that by pedos trying to "slide in". Like ANY DUDE I think is cute is an automatic babygirl to me (if their personality fits because I'm not that type of person to find you attractive based on only your looks) and if I had the confidence to do it, I would call them "babygirls" if I know them well enough to do so. I always mean it not to degrade but as a jokingly way of saying they are attractive. Then again, a dude doing things deemed "fem" peaks my interest.
@@TehMomo_ I disagree. I'd argue that Felix is more of a babygirl !
@@HopeRele as a changbin bias, binnie is THE babygirl of skz
Not really lol. Typical walk feminist de-gender in tactic that does work on men lol. Other women sure, men aren’t gonna start calling themselves or other men baby girls because if bitter women doing it to annoy lol.
i remember when i was a kid and my gma was complaining about how emotional my gpa was. and i asked her, like, wouldn't you want him to show his emotions in front of you? and i was so taken aback when she was like "hell no, i don't want an emotional man" and i hope this sort take dies a thorough death within my lifetime.
I still have to fight some of the socialization that tells me that men can only express anger and its derivatives as valid emotions.
i feel like it mostly has, but there's a whole market of incels ready for the picking if it hasn't lol
@@andrejg4136 men always expressed their emotions. its thew women who go thru trauma and then stop being able to express themselves (baby daddy played me so now i hate my kids face or a dude was creepy now im gonna walk around with a stank face all day) that then teach their kids that . sooo many people are raised in houses where their mother was a tyrant that was always mad or annoyed.
bc she looks at him as the leader. so why would she want the man of the house to be emotional? do u wanna be in a timeout with 2 seconds left and the team leader is panicing?? do u wanna be in the trenches and ur captain is nervous? no u wouldnt. talk about it after shit is done
@@RobinXlone there are 2 people in a relationship and believe it or not people can make rational decisions when openly expressing their emotions. Not expressing your emotions causes you to bottle them up and it affects your decision making so it's actually worse. Also you have to keep in mind that this is entirely an aesthetic thing, even if they are straight faced they are still feeling those emotions they're just hiding it from their families who are the people you're meant to trust and love, if you can't do that, you don't love your family at all.
saying you want to hold a man isn't infantilizing at all, at least in my eyes. that desire is based in appreciation of and kindness towards men. and while i don't speak for all of us, i for one wouldn't mind being held every once in a while.
One thing I always thought was interesting about the “soy causing feminized men” thing was that the molecules that can bind estrogen receptors from soy can cause EITHER weak estrogenic effects OR anti-estrogenic effects in models that aren’t even human. So it’s so inconclusive, yet eggs and milk have tons of actual mammalian estrogen but those just seem more manly so it’s overlooked? I think the Nords of Skyrim knew though, which is why “Milkdrinker” is such an offensive insult to their men.
I mean, I think it's actually supposed to be like calling people "babies." In most species, only babies drink - and can digest - milk.
@@Acidfunkish yes it is most definitely that babies drink milk. I was making a joke. No way Nords in Skyrim knew estrogen was in milk and eggs. I just happened to be playing Skyrim while listening to this and was called a milk-drinker. Thought it was funny.
Thanks you, my friends recently brought it up. I went down on a research rabbit hole and there is no conclusive evidence. And even those who experienced a mild "symptom" were technically overdosing on Soya compared to the diets of Japanese men for example. Yet my friends still think they'll get man boobies from traces of soya in butter
@@Acidfunkish no this legit started with guys believing that because soy contains phyto(plant)-estrogens, and some random study observing feminizing effects it had... on sheep, that they started to spread this rumor, and it was initially done through like bodybuilder influencers who genuinely believed this stuff, like bro science basically.
It's the same thing with them being obsessed with testosterone levels, which if you actually dig into the science literally doesn't matter because all bodies have their own balance of hormones, and the only thing that matters is you have enough. Hormones also have no effect on your personality(not one that is based on gender roles anyway), or behaviors and feelings and whatnot. Not how it works, lot of it is made up by the manosphere. Estrogens and androgens aren't like a Skyrim character slider that goes from feminine to masculine and that determines what that person is.
Another plant full of “phyto estrogens” again science isn’t supportive that these have estrogen if effects is hops. And hops have them at much higher levels than soy. By the “soy boy” logic an IPA has this effect way more than tofu.
Himbos and bimbos and thembos have a different kind of intelligence which strikes me as really intuitive. Like…they know it’s important to be nice and enjoy things. They’ve got a wisdom of how to be alive and enjoy pleasure. What an essential kind of intelligence for humanity, in a world where everyone takes things so seriously and are so cut throat and competitive, it’s so nice to know himbos who are improving the social environment through being non competitive and pleasure loving and adding hotness to the group. I love them forever!
alll of this!
people tend to think there's only street smarts and book smarts, but there's also (as i like to call it bc it rhymes) heart smarts! or emotional intelligence. 'bos are stereotypically not very academically intelligent, but very emotionally intelligent.
@@DumplingDoodle Heart Smarts. I love that.
@@dravendarkmatter rolls off the tongue way better than emotional intelligence lol
@@DumplingDoodle Emotional Intelligence: far too many syllables. Who has the time?
As a man with a hyper masculine presentation (I look like a Russian bodyguard mixed with Jason Momoa with a shaved head) who works with tools, likes guns and all that, I get annoyed when people are surprised to find out I’m progressive.
Most men want to be masculine, as it aligns strongly with our gender identity, so the right selling this idea that will be less of one has been weapon to keep young men, who haven’t developed political ideas yet, scared of becoming progressive.
This type of toxic masculinity (a term we’ve marketed poorly) is used to control men because it’s a way to strip men of an important part of their identity in a social sense.
Let’s also not forget that being masculine, but being masculine in the wrong way makes you threatening to people. Men of color learn this a lot, unfortunately
I don't know what isn't masculine about wanting to throw off the yoke of corporate servitude and fealty to dead men's traditions that you always hated but felt obligated to continue for no reason.
@@andrejg4136 Yeah, I feel like patriarchy in it of itself is emasculating. Maybe this is why Jesse Ventura, a professional wrestler and Navy SEAL, hates capitalism and treats his wife really well and is public about it
huh. good point, actually. never really considered that but it makes a lot of sense. if you can't win people over with your platform, win them over by preying on their insecurities.
@@DumplingDoodle Pretty much. A lot of conservative and patriarchal propaganda doesn't sell what's good for men about their brand of masculinity, but rather a fear of what the other side will turn you into by playing on insecurity. Get guys rabid, frenzied, and hateful enough about what progressivism is and what it will turn them into and othering and demonizing and dehumanizing progressive males (often with a cheap strawman stereotype that doesn't represent men like brutus here, or even entertain he could be among the "weak feminized soyboys".), and young insecure guys will never stop to question why the brand of masculinity they're being sold is good or healthy or beneficial to them in the first place.
I think it would help a lot of those young guys to know that more power for others doesn't mean less for you. Batman isn't suddenly less cool because Wonder Woman exists, ya know?
In defense of Kronk, he is bilingual, has multiple hobbies including being an accomplished cook, even though it took him a while, his powers of observation were accurate to find Kuzco, something Izma was not able to do. Can we really call Kronk a himbo? He is pretty talented imo and though he may come off as distracted, he is complex.
He's not a himbo, because hes not dumb, he just has adhd, lol
its not really about being dumb, someone else in the comment section described it really well as air headed and seemingly carefree.
That's the paradox of the himbo! They're "dumb," but not actually stupid, just lightheartedand unconcerned with adhering to gender norms. Kronk is the ultimate himbo!
All himbos r smart,
Dumb/stupid should be replaced with "simple"
When my husband (a cancer lol) was a kid, he used to cry when he saw someone excluded or bullied at recess but as he got older, he was teased for his emotions so he stuffed them all away. It's been a beautiful process of helping him get back in touch with those feelings without feeling shame. I also love that he's surrounded by friends who openly talk about their struggles and emotions.
Aww that’s so sweet
@@adanice49 Is it? How did that help those being bullied or excluded?
the whiplash I experience going from one online community to another in 2 clicks and thinking you were calling your husband cancerous as in, a deadly illness
Ah yes, because "real men" are supposed to bottle up their emotions until they explode in violent rage, which in no way has any negative consequences on society as a whole. Totally healthy.
@@rejectionisprotection4448 bro is criticizing a 7 year old for not making the best choice in the moment lol
“maybe there’s some babygirl in all of us” YES
maybe the real babygirl was the friends we made along the way
@@DumplingDoodle and finding babygirl was all with the power of friendship
What kind of stereotypes?😐 Why "girl"?
@@notwwwansik i have a question nd im not a right wing grifter do trans people prove gender essentialism and also with the person i replied to said is calling another man babygril not gender essentialism and stereotyping
@@JaimeareRainey being trans is 100% abt gender stereotypes, but so is being cis so like. you lose either way
The pure delight from seeing Shanspeare and Khadija working together, I love it
The wigs and skit killed me, excellent analysis as always Khadija and if you see this Herby your section was great 💜
Thank you so much 🥹
Herby- you legit killed it. I subscribed to your channel because I need to hear more from your beautiful brain honey!!
Loved
As a therapist, the hardest part is helping men identify emotions because they numb out or can only recognize anger. And they think anger is a stand alone emotion. Then I tell them it's superficial and there's loads underneath there.
It isn't that we only recognize it, it's that anger is the only emotion people take seriously. Too often people think you're BSing until you're red with anger and beating them over something the other person should have had emotional intelligence to not goad out. Since at least from my perspective happiness, sadness are undercut for not being "real" enough until it's rage. When that happens people are upset it came out. So it feels like you gotta let people get away with shit or you're an inch to beating everybody up
I’ve definitely encountered some people* that felt it this way. Out of the ones I knew, most developed this because their parents wouldn’t give them any form of attention except to correct them when they acted out in anger. Sadly, most of them went on to marry people that also ignored their wants & needs unless they showed anger.
*some were women
@@crackle6875 or parents told them to bury their emotions or they didn't have emotionally safe homes. I also had people pleasers or peacekeepers who denied their feelings because for survival they had to manage other people's emotions
That thing of anger basically being the only "acceptable" emotion for men to show or admit to has been a huuuuge problem here in our local cultures in Aotearoa/NZ, even more so in my parents' generation? Basically AMAB people are actively discouraged from developing any other coping strategies, because they're constantly pressured: "just suppress all your emotions except lust & aggression".
Unfortunately the results (borne out by demographic stats) have largely been rampant DV, male suicide, and workplace bullying? Really, really hope we can shift this going forward... 🤞
One of my best friends is a proud Himbo, I think it's kinda hilarious that we are finally creating healthy role-models for men and some people's reaction is: STOP IT, WE LIKED THE UNHEALTHY ONES!
It baffles me that people actually like hyper masculine men I thought that was just a stereotype. I like to think I let my boyfriend touch into his more feminine side with me by letting himself grow his hair out Instead of cutting right away like his friends and being able to cry with me as were both emotional people. Little things like admitting he likes fashion and pretty art+ flowers. His personality in itself isn’t inherently masculine and that’s okay because we’re all just people??? Why do people want to be with emotionally stunted men in the first place.
I think I like them in my head, but in reality there’s a strong aversion for me towards it
@@joelle4226 why do u think that is? Genuine q
Some people will like them, some people won't.
I can definitely see how one of the partners not having emotions would make a relationship easier, if less fulfilling.
😐
I find hyper masculine men very scary to be honest. Like I once met a guy who said he didn't like kissing bc it was too girly and I was like so confused bc who is trying to date a dude like that 😂
Funny this video dropped today, because just yesterday I was on the court side watching the girls play basketball and my friend (who's a guy and plays the sport) was talking about how he doesn't see one of the girls as a girl because she was playing so well and aggressive - an example of traits seen as inherently masculine.
At another point, another of my friends (a newer one) was talking about something and somehow the conversation turned to me. I don't know what my basketball friend said but she was talking about how I walk a certain way and talk a certain way now, probably implying I was acting more feminine and he had this joking look of dismay like "is this what you've become?" And I didn't know what to say actually. It was odd. The reason I gave this anecdote is that even with younger people being freer in their expression there's still lot of policing, calling boys "gay" pejoratively and using strength to mark who the real guys are, and with people like Tate and co it's gotten worse at the same time that more people are getting freer with expression. So for those in less liberal communities or places, it's kind of difficult because people are freer, but at the same time there's a limit to how free you're allowed to be still, if that makes sense. This ties in to general homophobia, but I hope the point makes sense
to be honest, while i'm sure a lot of them are just insecure men trying their best to feel "manly", i feel like the majority of people that bought into tate are not well intentioned, they're just kind of gullible.
As a dude who openly embraces a lot of "femininity" down to proudly wearing bright colors and skirts in my off time, I've often wondered how any dork who'd question my masculinity would respond if I offered to punch them in the face to confirm my masculinity is there for anyone who's concerned.
@@DumplingDoodle most are impressionable young people, but even those who say "I know he's a fake" still end up nodding along to some of what he says anyways because some misogyny is relatable
@@that_viewerguy kinda true, but also kinda not. i've known a few tate fans in my day, both young teens and grown adults. they all kinda just buy into the shit he says without question and then sputter out a weak ass argument when confronted. god forbid they actually pay for the guy's courses.
@@DumplingDoodle I think what we need to do is point out more often how people like Tate are literally just making all of their money by selling you something low effort, which you probably can't or won't get a refund for when it doesn't work out, and that's their actual business model; that's how Tate is getting rich. It's just Masculine Pyramid schemes but using the Self Help/Hustle boom instead of ugly stupid tights.
As transfemme, I can say I've done my part in reducing the amount of men in the world lol
made me chuckle hahah ty
I’m a cis het guy but… thank you for your service maam. 😅
Lol thank you!
doing your civic duty 🫡
Herby’s point about black men’s relationship to masculinity was SO enlightening and eye-opening! Amazing video through and through💕
Your expression in the thumbnail is simply iconic. It’s not a mood, it’s the Millennial Aunty Lifestyle.
When I was younger some of us couldn't even wear sandals, earrings, or jewelry in general lol Just earthy tones and boots. And God forbid you wear your watch on the "wrong side" It's was all so ridiculous. So many so called grown men too concerned with what other men do. Like dude just mind your grown business. 🙄 But they have to create these dumb standards in their head to validate all of this projecting of their insecurities. Herby was great!!!
Never knew about the watch thing until my mate told me. I could give two sh!ts. I wear whatever I want wherever.
Yeah my dad thought I was gay when I was a kid because I wore a watch on my left wrist. Fucker hit me for a good 15 min before he remembered I was left handed.
@@nutterbotter8308I'm sorry that happened to you, hope you're doing better now.😊
@@nutterbotter8308wow.. sadly in this world, there’s a lack of good empathetic fathers but there’s a deficient dad overload 😔
You must be from a cold country. In hot countries, men are always in sandals. Personally I think that covered shoes and clothing are more feminine because they are more modest. Revealing clothing is more masculine
This kind of hatred of anti-masculine expressions of masculinity has been around for centuries. During the Viking Age, European historians noted with disgust that Vikings had a complex and thorough self-care routine (mostly about bathing, with some other stuff) that was likely to steal their women away. I think that might also be at the heart of this behavior: that women will be waylaid by men who "aren't real" rather than the "real men" like patriarchy teaches us they need to be.
Well yes, this is actually what's happening here 🤣👌
That's the heart of the issue, women prefer these men to the "real men", and as result the latter variety have a very poor chance of ever "getting p_&sy"...
love this theory and i agree. it’s funny how a lot of men will feminize themselves exclusively to attract females, yet in the same breath demonize that same behavior as inferior and embarrassing. clearly they’re not doing it for women like they claim, it’s for patriarchy, and they’re super threatened by the notion that a man who goes against all the social conditioning they’ve been condemned into suffering is actually more fit for society
@@samf.s.7731 nah the real problem is that those women will eventually see the fakeness and yearn for that real man to bring her things she didn’t value when she was younger.
@@samf.s.7731 right? I don't want smelly, skid marks Mike. I'm 12 years in with my lavender man who feeds me the best food.
Hot take: People aren't all the same and different women prefer different types of men.
There's more to attraction than just sexual orientation and gender.
A woman can be attracted to men generally but not to a specific man without that having any implication for how "manly" that man is.
This is genuinely some golden work right here.
I'd like to add that I've felt aversion to terms like "babygirl", in the same way I've felt some aversion to people going "awwwwww" when I share something personal. There's been experiences in my life where if people see you as soft, they lose respect for you. So sometimes I'll get this defensive posture that automatically kicks in when someone describes me with softer adjectives, because it feels like I'm in danger.
This kinda sticks around even if it's fully not the intended message of the person I'm talking to/interacting with.
Anyway, that's just my two cents, thanks for the video :)
I'm glad you self reflected like that. Very interesting.
that defensive posture is an amazing way of describing that feeling of misdirected vulnerability . thank you
As a transmasculine person from a very accepting family I didnt really get subjected to toxic masculinity as a kid but when I started socially transitioning at school and getting kind of bullied (mostly) by the boys I guess i subconsciously thought that that was what i was supposed to be like. I started hiding my more feminine side so I could pass better and became kind of a toxic person myself. Eventually I got so socially anxious (not entirely because of that but partly) that I transferred into a smaller special needs school and only after that I feel like ive become more myself and realized how toxic I was in the past. Im still kind of scared to be perceived as too feminine especially to doctors who I cant transition without but Im a lot more comfortable with my friends and family. Sorry for the unasked for life story ;-; have a good day everyone.
no need to apologize for sharing, that's what the internet and comment sections are for!
it's important to show that masculine gender roles/expectations aren't inherent to humans born or perceived as male, but instead learned behaviors and thoughts that can be changed. helps go against bioessentialist ideas about human beings
Thank you for sharing! You are in the right path since you recognize toxic traits you learned and actively try to let them behind. It it good that you are now in better place.
It can take years to unlearn some habits we learn because we get bullied, but there is always hope and ways to evolve.
Thank you so much for the kind replies
Many cis men with softer sides go through the same too, becoming a monster or a bully to simulate they can fit "men", be sure you are not alone in this struggle of concocting your own flavor of masculinity and that we're all glad you were able to find a safer place to grow and mature your persona and finally are finding peace of soul.
❤
Soy boy is me!! 💜
Took it as my online name for everywhere after someone tried to insult me by calling me soy boy but I immediately went “hell yeah! Soy boy is me!”
That was in 2018 by now basically all of my online names are a variation of soy boy 😅
so... not exactly related, but i had a similar experience with someone on call of duty calling me, not a soy boy, but a squirrel boy???? no fucking clue, the way they said it was clearly meant to be derogatory, but it just made me laugh my ass off and change my name to squirrel boy in almost every online game i play
@@DumplingDoodle I want to be called a squirrel boy 😭
@@DumplingDoodle
Urban dictionary says:
A white suburbanite basic bro who is in to whatever else their white suburbanite basic bro friends are in to. Typically BMX Bikes, Skateboarding and the like. Generally intimidated by intelligence which contradicts and surmounts their own.
Devoid of philosophical knowledge and tend to resort to group ostracism rather than poignant discussion when confronted about how ignorant they are. Often making jokes about, or calling others gay/fag. Usually skinny wearing volcom t-shirts and flat brimmed caps, especially common among those who do not participate in any extreme sports. Blue collar, male version of a basic bitch. May also be seen wearing Tapout gear.
May I ask if a black person said this to you? It basically means bland whyt boy
So, the whole section on men being raised to be emotional cripples I think is such an important point. I'm trans, so that means I was socialized male, and regardless of how uncomfortable I felt about it, I was raised to believe that I had to be a boy, and someday become a man, and that came with a certain, let's say, aesthetic.
And yeah, even though as the "son" I was given over to our dad who, as many other dads, were not emotionally there, and definitely not to the extend of ever being able to perceive a trans child, in fact I doubt he even know believe such a thing exists, my mom was definitely also pushing a lot of patriarchal masculinity onto me. It's not so much what she said or did(though she did say and do stuff), as much as what she allowed to be directed at me when she was present. I was not allowed to be even the slightest bit concerned with my appearance, I was taught to not have certain interests, I was taught to not have certain emotional reactions to things, and I was quietly shamed for wanting more attention from my mom than from my emotionally unavailable dad. These were specifically things my parents and my sister helped perpetuate aimed directly at me, but it absolutely existed everywhere else as well.
Where I'm getting at is that 1) this is real, and 2) male socialization is something that is done TO you, not something that specifically happens to men because they want to be men and this is what a man must be. Because what happens to a trans kid robbed of the capacity to feel anything because it gets repeatedly denied and shamed out of them? It doesn't make the dysphoria go away, but it puts a heavy lid under it, and like a pressure cooker under too much pressure it starts spilling out the cracks. Derealization, depression, anxiety, perfectionism, rejection sensitivity, eating disorders, substance abuse, self-harm, suicidality, self isolation, anger, apathy, or just, nothing.
We do this by taking away the language used to express emotions and explaining the world through a very simple lens, and this lens is one that believes in the simplicity of gender essentialism. You cannot truly know if you're legitimately in pain without the language to even begin to describe it. And I cannot begin to describe how much worse that is than actually being able to feel something.
Jessie Gender just put out a big two-parter about this that’s been super interesting.
@@salyx Oof yeah, I think I'm aware, and I absolutely adore Jessie and respect her immensely for a lot of the really tough and personal topics she makes great videos on, but I have to skip on a lot of them just for how close they hit to home still.
I cracked open the lid on my issues years ago, but transitioning(at least the one I ended up getting) did not create a meaningful dent in solving them as they do for what appears to be most other trans people, so I'm still far from out of the woods.
It's basically going through your entire life having some undefinable illness that just makes you feel miserable and out of place every day, and one day you finally learn that it's an incurable disease that will suck all of your will to live, and that it would have been curable 10 years ago if you'd just been smarter, braver, luckier, less caring about what others thought, and so on. Finally learning what the illness was all this time didn't really made it easier going forward, and in a lot of ways made it harder to ignore.
Just to be clear, the illness is dysphoria, not being trans itself, I'm not doing an internalized transphobia. It's also a bad analogy but it's the one I got.
I'm so sorry Gwen, thanks for sharing this 🙏
@@samf.s.7731 Appreciate it ❤. I know there are lots of people out there who've been through a lot worse than me, and what I really wanted to focus on was the silenced pain resulted from forced male socialization, not because of its severity, but because it is so uniquely poor in the language available to describe it, even within progressivism. We can really only say "it's there", but because it's a story that's so rarely shared we haven't really found enough commonalities to create a shared narrative to reflect ourselves in in order to foster empathy.
@@gwen9939 Oh yeah, I get that it’s important to not dig too hard into certain topics for the sake of your own mental health! I also get the comparison to illness you’re describing, only in a very very literal sense. It’s so hard to navigate these weird meat sacks of ours, especially when they’re doing something our brains are not aligning with.
i love this!!! i find it funny how last night my friend and i we’re playing hot topic, and they pulled a card asking if it’s okay for men to cry, and everyone (all dudes) agreed yes! we all then lol’d bc we all thought about how we all have grown a LOT as people.
I’m living for this crossover. ❤️
the crossover we need, the crossover we deserve
"You can never fail when you're in a constant state of practice." I love this! The guests on this video were fire 💕
Thanks for the video! I’m so glad we are entering the “positive masculinity” era of the feminist movement to shift away from toxic masculinity and patriarchy
Absolutely. It’s a breath of fresh air. I feel so heard as a man 🥰
there will still need to be conversations about toxic masculinity and the patriarchy, since those things still exist
U mean being a feminine ass nigga and actually thinking ur an equal partner to a person u have to protect and provide for??? Lmao 🤣
@@sainttheresetaylor2054 if the patricarchy doesn’t exist what will?? We both know matriarchies never work. And we both know that u can’t be communitarian and have 2 leaders. So what’s gon be there?
@@sainttheresetaylor2054 I’m referring to countering toxic masculinity and the ways it upholds patriarchy with positive masculinity or a better term “tonic masculinity”. These structures still exist I agree guess I worded it wrong making it seem like I think we shouldn’t address toxic masculinity and patriarchy in our discourse. I’m just saying it’s nice to finally have the feminist movement realize the issues men face under the toxic masculinity that patriarchy promotes.
4:53 The way that nerds in the collective imagination went from the lowest social class, to sweet and desirable in the early 2000s, to toxic incels now in the the course of under 40 years has blown my mind. Jocks have gone from shitty frat boys to redeemable cutie-pies (the himbos and baby-girls of present topic) in the same period of time. That is utterly wild how just a little bit of cultural power through the tech bro boom has almost completely flipped the two stereotypes. Thanks for this amazing video!
Yeah nothing has ever changed in terms of the behaviours of men or women, it is simply that the medias idea of what women like has altered. Nerds have always been sweet and desirable or toxic incels, Jocks have always been shitty frat boys or "redeemable cutie pies". Sidenote, i feel like calling nice jocks "redeemable" implies there is something wrong with that attitude to life. There isnt, just like theres nothing wrong with being a nerd. These things dont actually matter, it always boils down to good ppl are good, bad ppl are bad
@@robrs1732 Oh certainly. Thanks for clarifying that we're talking about cultural perceptions, not reality!
@@robrs1732 nI eaten soy milk allmy entire life bc I cannot have the cow one and Im fenboyish now so the soymilk did it? Well I like who I am and wouldnt trade my indeviduality or personality for anything elce fuck it life it too short to be all like that for nothing, wasted energy n lame af.so I wear a crop top Im wearing one right now!talk kinda flamboyish and like girly stuff and perfums n have skinny arms n soft through present as an androgenous man with my hair grown out and even do my nails, IDGAF whaht ppl wanna shit on me anymore
Your thumbnails are amazing
Thanks!
Amazing video! (as always) I especially loved the part about emotions. As a cis woman, It took me 2 therapies to finally realised that my anger can be valid, so I can only imagine how difficuld having to supress "soft emotions" must be...
Another great video. Thank you so much for the effort you put in. Growing up as a guy who tried to help out around the house, i got the comment "oh, he's good like a girl". it was actually kindly meant, but there was absolutely the idea that men were expected to be selfish and generally unhelpful. It was truly effed up.
I also think that the labels and categories are more and more just going to go away. As men can be anything and women can be anything and anybody can be anything in between (if there is a between), then what use are the labels? We can see how unhelpful they always were.
Am cis dude 😎 soft boy. I really enjoyed this and am happy your video included those snippets of interviews with men. 10/10 would watch again 👍
Great video! There's so much to unpack when it comes to masculinity and new male archetypes like himbos and stuff.
Ah its great to see a fine Irish lad speaking about the matters of masculinity ❤ hehe and also everyone else did such a great job and brought something insightful. Brilliant work 👏
Khadija and Shanspeare is the duo I never knew I needed😊
I really enjoyed your show! It's quite refreshing in these very trying days. Anyway, what I wanted to say is that I truly appreciate when people can accept someone as an individual and not pass judges automatically. People tend to think that I'm somewhat feminine, but that's just an aspect of my personality and I see absolutely nothing wrong with it. My lady friend thinks it's girly that I have a skincare routine and might groom myself extensively, but it's what I'm comfortable with and that's what really matters. We're given one life to live. We should use it to honestly explore who we are, unapologetically.
man here. thanks for the video. i shared it to my social.
I really appreciated this video. I am on a continuous journey to undo my patriarchal programming. Thank you for all the work you do.
This is a great crossover! I love you both!! 😂😂❤❤❤❤
What gets to me about male vulnerability is when 1) they don't accept yours and 2) they will be vulnerable, but then disgusted by your sensitivity towards them confirming something other than strong and almost resent you. Like you were meant to be a void, not reflective or echoing in nature.
KANDACE WITH A K MBOWENS IS GENIUS
I think society functions to edit out the natural inclinations of individuals. In women it presents as girls being socialized to be less sexual, less loud, less bossy. And boys to be less emotionally reactive. I have worked with children more than 20 years and if there's a child crying it is usually a boy well into teen years, an out of control boy cries and feels a lot!
Bc it mitigates risks..
The woman is the weaker sex so being loud and bossy and esp sexual with strangers can bring on problems that are they can’t handle.
Boys are taught to be less emotional because an emotional man is very violent . These are the dudes that will slap a bossy bitch
Yeah, the whole gender thing often feels to me like people made wrong assumptions at some point and are now trying to make the data fit the model rather than admitting their simplifications weren't accurate and updating the model.
@@gewreid5946 you can see that in how it was always assumed that in prehistoric human tribes that men were the hunters and women were the gatherers. However, recent data proved that interpretation false and that women hunted around the same amount as men did.
I think it's also shaped by the economic system too. Capitalism relied on women providing a space for male bread winners to have a reprieve from the pain of the workplace/social life and ensured that his wealth was passed on to his progeny. This model simply doesn't work in the modern day anymore but instead of changing, it makes slight adjustments that aren't good enough like allowing more women into skilled jobs. But the system still needs a SOMEONE in the home to do the unpaid domestic and emotional labour. It's because of that, that young men are left in this nebulous space of not really knowing where their place is because traditional displays of masculinity i.e. paid labour have been exported to other countries. Their fathers (if they didn't abuse/neglect them) did not socialise them into a world where women aren't dependent on them and that it's no longer a reward for being successful.
Sorry, this was a massive ramble.
Public School does that most because it makes kids well-rounded instead of isolating where they shine and sharpening it. Being well-rounded isn't that great because it isn't really teaching people. SInce I remember my time in school it was basically resetting and reteaching the same shit over and over until late middle/high school. Boys and Girl were too socialized to be rivals and have a weird ire for each other until high school where they're expected to have "healthy relationships with no sort of negativity at all..."
I like to think of myself as a man who is comfortable with my masculinity and enjoys some feminine behaviors. I love flowers, dressing up, taking care of myself, romance, loving on my friends, etc
The pressure to fit into the stereotype is pretty sucky sometimes. As someone who already fits pretty well in most aspects, it is very easy to see that some people struggle deeply under pressure when it is unnecessary.
The evening of playing fields amongst groups of people across the world will hopefully push and eventually eliminate these societal expectations that exist and are perpetuated both maliciously and passively across societies.
wow that herbyxrevolus segment made me reflect that I am a man hater. I’m not as progressive as I thought. when he said the thing about us allowing some men that they too do not dream of labor. I was disgusted. I will unpack this on a later date with friends lol
respect for this comment
Love this collab with Shanspeare, Herby, and Khadija!
You and Shan are GOLD together 😻❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥🙌🏽. Also, I love every second of this discussion. My spouse was in here listening to some of it and he actually got upset. He often complains about society not caring about men’s feelings, but then will disrespect any man he perceives as feminine, or acting like a “ B word” I truly believe emotional intelligence is the key for all humans to be more compassionate with one another. Without that emotional insight, we are pretty much all like my spouse. Not able to connect the dots to see how all these systems work cohesively together to oppress us all 🙏🏽💔
The collaboration I’ve always wanted let’s goooo
This is a great conversation to have. Keep up the great content!
This is so well put together and I enjoy the segments hearing others opinions. Your videos are going from strength to strength Khadija 👏💕
This exploration is EVERYTHING. The surprise guest speakers??!! I gasp. Thank you all so much for your research, analysis, insight, and willingness to look inward to challenge yourselves as you ask us in the audience to do the same. So grateful for this channel. Thank you, Khadija.
I LOVE this video 💖💖 especially love how you interviewed the men towards the end-I’ve been trying to figure out how to bring up my perspective of gender to a friend who has very gender essentialist beliefs, and it’s really helpful to hear all these different people’s thoughts and experiences!
When H said 'what we are all searching for is humanity' i felt that. I have personally held the view that no matter the label or the group a person chooses to associate themselves with, they are all searching to be treated well like human beings, be it feminism, or the red pill movement, it all stems from wanting to be treated well as a group in a way or perspective that they think being treated well means. Our needs as humans are very similar, and that is something that makes us the same somehow
I see all this as a significant but positive shift. I'm speaking as a guy closer to the nerd thing. The himbo isn't the locker stuffing jock, and as long as the bullying jock dies with me I'm content to simply fade away. We nerds had our day, we even had a good day. It's best to simply give way.
Pedro Pascal in the thumbnail, i am SITTENING SEATED SEATICITY SATTED
One of the best comments I’ve seen! You made my day 😂
I’ve Always Loved The Insight You Provide In Your Videos, Khadija!! Another Great Reflection On A Topic That Seems To Plague A Lot Of People 🫶🏼
The book behind you need my besties review of the book printed on the cover: "It helped me not hate men as much." Instant subscribe to Herby, and instantly imagining them speaking with FD. Loved this take and will be rewatching for sure!
thank you to everyone in the video, this was really very good
Great video....I especially related to value being equated with toughness in the black community...I raised a caring gentle funny sometimes sarcastic and handsome son and he was constantly getting friend zoned for not being "hard" enough or "too nice" it says a lot for what traits as a man are considered valuable in our society and in Particular the black community
yeah as a bi dude I can relate to that experience a lot
I’m pretty sure I’m dating someone just like your son, and he is the sweetest, kind, thoughtful, insightful man I’ve met. I’m so thankful he has a mother like you. 💙
Tell him go date black Carribeans and black Latinas. Cuz These regular African Americans aren’t Normal in their head.
It really sucks. The black community is pretty sick and twisted.
As a Blk woman, I don't think there is a lot, very little room allowed actually for Blk men and boys like your son. Blk males are taught their main focus is survival, like Herby said about Maslovs hierarchy of needs. We don't allow them often to have or express higher needs than that. They are mainly taught that being hyper masculine, hyper aggressive is the only way to be safe or respected as a Blk man, and we as Blk women often uphold this too in romantic relationships with Blk men. I think we fall into feminity being a dangerous state to be in because Blk women are not protected in society like other women, even when we express feminity. Feminity does not keep us safe and so seeing even a drop of it in Blk men we're with makes us feel even more unsafe, it scares the crap out of us. Because for Blk women and girls, expressing feminity, softness, etc can get you ass*ulted, taken advantage of or seen as a target. And that's because for the majority of us, let's just say in the US, that has been true, both for Blk men and women. I also think, bc Blk womens' "strength"(read, conditioning to endure more than other women without complaint or show of exhaustion until death, thank you legacy of slavery) is so drilled into us the only way we truly no how to feel feminine is often only in relation to our man. So if deep down my feminity is always questioned and I'm internalizing that, then the only person I can trust to see myself as feminine with is my partner, so he must express absolute masculinity at all times. (God forbid his voice raises even one octave even during an orgasm, that level of rigidity). It's like how can I as a Blk woman trying to do feminity feel feminine if you, for even one second, make me feel like I'm more "masculine" than you. The whole thing is sad.
Not saying I've got all this right or it pertains to all Blk women or men. But I'll probably get eviscerated for writing this just because I spoke about it at all.
Khadija this was EXCELLENT. And i really enjoyed Herby's take on this. And i especially liked hearing from the men. 10/10.
the reason the term himbo is mostly not deemed derogatory is because men's basic capacity for reason and competency are not as easily questioned as women's are. there is a very clear, very important difference between the behavior and validity of a himbo and a bimbo in mainstream culture's eyes
Khadija I just want to thank you so much for all the hard work you put in to these videos! I’ve been watching for years and value your nuance, intelligence, and grace so much, thank you!!
when people say himbos are "dumb" i never thought of them as not being book smart, just ditzy in small ways, or distracted/a little slow on the uptake. They can be intelligent, or even knowledgeable, but they are inclined to miss things or not connect two things that other people might find obvious. And in that way, as a person with ADHD, I find himbos very relatable lmao.
Shan giggling thru her lines was all I needed ❤
12%! yay! Loved the video! Insightful and engaging as usual! Mad respect for owning up to your mistakes. We all make em. We're all human. And like you say, we can always change our minds :)
Another excellent commentary and now I have another creator to follow! Those wigs were HILARIOUS
I swear these videos just keep getting better and better. I love how you bring people into conversations to and encourage this constant state of practice. I find myself changing and expanding my mind thanks to your channel, always!! Cheers to you and all who contributed! this video is a monument!
This was very eye opening. I don’t know why I underestimated the depth of the conversation. Great to hear from experts beings.
One issue I think was unfortunately ignored in this video is that patriarchy encourages selfishness in men, which can sometimes show up when they “express their emotions”. What I mean to say is men are often encouraged to place their own desires over others, and their ability to enforce that is a representation of their status. As such, I think is important to note that men should feel their feelings but also that they learn to explore and esteem other people’s emotions. Walking over other people is violence to one’s own conscience, and I think this is another way in which men’s humanity is stripped from them, by trying to embody a default. Softness is not just being gentle with yourself, which is hard for women too, but also to learn softness for others, which tends to be regarded as feminine labor.
yes!
Most men aren’t really encouraged to only care about themselves and be selfish as much as people who believe in patrarchy think we men are, but I find that people only want men to “open up” IF it benfits women in some sort of way, only if he’s opening up to fixing something for women, or fixing patriarchy…if it’s patrarchy dealing with women’s issues or only want men to open up to women again, not for the male’s sake, but for women’s sake of thinking that the male will be violent to women if he doesn’t open up. It cannot be something that a male is facing, nor can be something he disagrees with women treating him badly, only if other men are doing something wrong, and it certainly cannot be any awareness of “um hey we tend to deal with that issue too can you not ignore it!”
I want me and other men to open up without people trying to lecture men every 3 seconds for doing so, and not assume that if we open up, then we are just being selfish, but that’s usually the thing that people assume if a male opens up, comments like this use generalizing theory to assume that if we do open up, then we’ll be selfish about it.
@@anotherrandomguy8871 well, I suppose that is your experience. I hope you can find people in your life who can make space for your experiences- this is something I have and continue to struggle to find in my own relationships, and the lack of it frequently makes me feel like an outcast. I imagine this is a relatable experience.
I think when I hear people talk about men and women as demographics it can blur individual experiences, making them into blocks of information. Men in my life do not engage in equal levels of vulnerability with me, and they do not hold space for mine. This leads to a shallow relationship, one where I have to beg in order to connect at all. That’s obviously not good for either of us.
I worry for the men in my life, but because I grew up surrounded mostly by boys, I know that many of the ones I know don’t want to take care of themselves- they won’t go to the doctor, they don’t grieve personal losses, they avoid honest connection. Before they marry, they rely on their mothers and sisters for this, and after they expect their wives to figure it out for them. As someone raised a woman, observing them, I don’t think this is sustainable.
I do not think men should primarily look to women’s acceptance of their emotions as the healing solution, and I don’t think women should make it top priority to make men open up. A big part of growing is learning to care for your own emotions, recognizing them and treating them seriously. Most men struggle to mature in this area, and so it’s used more compassionate explanation for why the statistics of male violence are and have been high throughout history.
I think it’s structural oppression rather than an individual responsibility, but individuals contribute. A lot of ideas about how things ought to be formed our expectations - men were given a lot of expectations about what they are owed and deserve, but if we want to live in an equal society, those ideas have to change, and so must gendered ideals. Of course, internet discourse makes these things pretty dramatic and polarized, and most of what I’ve written might be kind of run on and opaque. I’m literally always thinking about this.
@@krystafae Im not on the right, but a lot of stats, people on the right, and progressive folks on the left, assume that the entirety of every male’s life is us being taught to be malevolent, or like on the extreme right on YT, think us men SHOULD be taught that way.
A lot of the time men are taught the opposite to be strong for others, help other people, especially women, and to work for thing they want, a lot of people think we just all have ideals of deserving and owning everything, but I question how much these people interact with men as a whole, men who have way different experinces and opinons than what they assumed every male has based off their own ideology and politics.
I do think men should be at least allowed to look to women and men to accept their emotions to at least *help* their mental, especally because people expect and demand help from those men to help with equality in some way (despite being 1-sided about it), but men expecting women to take care of their health is way too far and will only lead to those men getting themselves stunted because they over-rely on women to fix them.
I don’t think women should make it their job to get men to always be emotional either, I just notice that some women who do make it about trying to get men to be more emotional, do it solely because they somehow think it’ll help other women, not because they are concerned about helping men, hence why those women choose not to listen to men, and when men do admit to having an issue, those men are accused of being selfish, and I think just assuming that men will be selfish when desplaying their emotions, doesn’t help if people do want them to say something.
Not as many people care for men’s wellbeing as much when they do actually say something, apparently not even within mental health circles. At most I’ve seen men be accepting of other men being vulnerable, but men’s wellbeing is not a huge concern to a lot of people’s ideals of progressing, not unless it somehow helps women.
I hope at some point you meet better men in your life who do care for themselves and others, and are more open, at least by their own choice are open to you and you back to them.
Herby's commentary in these videos is so thoughtful and illuminating and complementary.
Khadija thank you!!!! You have a great way of explaining, well, everything lol I appreciate you!
I lové this video, you always go above and beyond. Seeing Shan was such a wonderful surprise, love when my favs unite. Thanks also for the interviews and introducing me to @Herby !
I started working over this summer in a very blue collar work place. I also recently moved states so I used the word soyboy to kind of describe myself to my coworkers in comparison to them (mostly masculine men). It was odd because of how they immediately thought of it as some sort of bad word or something with rude underlying intonations. Thanks for better informing me of the meaning. I stand by my statement that I feel more like a soyboy where I live now than most other men.
Just FYI, we women mostly find soybois VERY very attractive.
@@samf.s.7731 idek what soyboy means anymore man 😭
@@DumplingDoodle That's probably because it doesn't have much of a definitive meaning. It's a derogatory term macho manly alpha male men use to try and tear down any guy they deem "non masculine" enough, but they're personal definition doesn't always allign with another individual man, so the label is kind of meaningless.
I've heard soyboy refer to men who:
Eat fast food
Are vegan
Have casual sex
Watch porn
Masturbate
Love women
Respect women
Don't have a lot of hair on their face
Make silly faces in photographs
Aren't straight
Care about the environment
I'm sure I don't need to go on for you to see how arbitrarily the label is thrown around. Basically, just assume if someone's called a soyboy, they can only be doing something right and that the accuser is a massive tool themselves.
@@gregvs.theworld451 oh absolutely. it's just so funny how people mold that one term to fit their narrative, completely obliterating any actual meaning it may have had in the past. like if you're gonna sling dumb insults at least make them fresh and creative, sheesh. soyboy beta and cuck are getting kiiiinda old.
@@gregvs.theworld451 label me somewhat toxic but I still physically cringe whenever I see guys making silly faces in photographs. I've had this problem with adults from a very early age and it just comes off as a fake smile. Unless you're hyper animated and just like that most of the time, it comes off as a false representation. What's funny is that I reflect on this on how I never liked to smile even when adults used to tell me to do so. It's all made up.
Herby was WONDERFUL! I really loved his choice of words and phrasing, it added tremendously to the actual content of what he was saying.
Thanks for talking about this topic. I honestly think that there is a trend for men to be able to show more emotion and live out their "softer" tendencies, but there's also still SO. MUCH. WORK to be done. As long as there are fathers and mothers out there that reinforce patriarchy and there are institutions that only talk in patriarchal language, the labour will have to continue. I say this as a guy that had the chance to, at least somewhat, deprogram myself. Others don't have this chance, or get it taken away from them by their peergroups.
love to hear my favorite workout song "just breathing" in the background! Great Video❤❤❤
Thank you for making this video! From your content and others, it shows that we are in a time when men are deciding between two paths: doubling down on patriarchal norms of masculinity or opening themselves up to their full humanity. I love the comment from the interview of "adding more colors to the palette."
🙏🏽 have this conversation with my therapist about the lack of places to express vulnerability outside a relationship. Been able to do the work and find communities to do so, but most haven’t challenged the structures to allow the menz to develop the vocabulary to express outside of the limited categories men are subjected to.
Love being a part of the 12%. I like your perspective on how these should be fun, gender is just silly and fun!
gender fr is silly
i dunno, gender is kind of edgy and cool. like being goth
12%? sorry, not entirely sure what you're referring to.
@@DumplingDoodle Did you watch til the end? ;)
@@lumirueluv Could you recap for me too? I was playing Tears of the Kingdom and listening in the background and I think I missed what 12% is referring to. (I got most of the video.)
The beginning of this video is EVERYTHING. The blonde wig perfect. omg hilarious! i LOVED it. TYSM for sharing your videos. Love you! You're SO beautiful a
& Talented. ❤❤❤
Loved this video! I always love and appreciate the nuance of these videos and how these significant topics are handled so delightfully.
I’m glad you kept popping up in my feed and in the videos of other channels I’ve started watching (FD, Foreign, and Andrewism) because every time you popped up I kept thinking “okay I really gotta watch their stuff” more and more. No regrets lol. Really grateful to hear more perspectives different from my own. Thanks for your work!
24:00 Thank you for saying this. Many times in my life, from family to romantic partners (though thankfully not close friends), "C'mon, tell me what your feeling" has actually meant ""You'd better be feeling strong, stoic, confident, attentive, and motivated. Otherwise fucking pull your socks up and be a man. Patriarchy is only bad when it effects me, after all.""
The man who was talking about being emotionally vulnerable and how it's like a muscle that you need to keep exercising really hit home with me. I was raised in a house where showing emotion was interpreted as manipulation and so being vulnerable with anyone (even my husband of 13 years) is so incredibly difficult and I am just beginning to get comfortable with that as an almost-40-year-old woman.
This is such a thoughtful essay, thank you to all those who contributed. One point of nuance in a point Herby made that is outside the scope of the video is that when the Bible talks about humanity as a whole, in the original languages it's not always "men." Sometimes the Hebrew and Greek words do indeed use male words for all humanity, because those cultures were also patriarchal. But sometimes the words in the original are non-gendered, and the King James Version (i.e. the most common English translation of the Bible from the 1600s through the mid-1900s, still used by many fundamentalist churches) translated them as non-gendered. In other words, Christians made the Bible MORE patriarchal than it already was, and then fundamentalists take that and dial it up to eleven, and claim that they're only doing "what the Bible says." So, yeah, the Christian--and specifically White fundamentalist--roots of a lot of this is absolutely important to talk about.
How great is this video? Someone give this human a youtube oscar. Pure gold. They are so smart, funny and talented.
Hello! Cis man, big fan, pump the jam, etc.
I’ve been on a journey in the last several years to try to understand transgender and female and non-binary experiences, and that’s led me right back to trying to understand my own gender experience.
Just for me personally, gender is not a thing I sense internally, at least not consciously. It’s something that’s been put on me since the day I was born, because my body is pretty typically male. My male peers, my education, the media I’ve been exposed to, and so on, have all contributed to this socialization in different ways. I’ve always been told I am a man/boy, and that dictated a lot of what I believed society expects of me, which affects how I present myself, which reinforces people’s automatic assumptions in seeing me as a man. There are also aspects of my personality and what I consider my innate vibe-flat emotional affect, high libido, physical strength and toughness, “rationality” oriented-that dovetail with traditional male archetypes to a point where I can fit in to maleness without too much trouble. All that to say, although internally I DO NOT “feel like a man”, I choose to identify as a man because it conveniently aligns with people’s assumptions more often than the alternatives, it affords me certain privileges (some of which I happily use and wish everyone had, others make me extremely uncomfortable), and there is nothing within me that feels “wrong” about it, even if there’s nothing that feels “right” about it either.
I’ve come to understand that many people, particularly trans people, experience gender very differently. There’s something true and real about it to them that I’ve never felt. I’ve seen some of the studies on neurological underpinnings of gender, and while it’s definitely interesting and potentially useful for helping people with various gender experiences understand and deal with their sht, I’m far from convinced there is any biological mechanism that fully dictates someone’s gender. Which means it’s got to have a lot to do with your cultural environment no matter who you are.
I’ve started to think of gender as sort of similar to religious faith. I’m an atheist, but I’ve heard people tell stories of feeling connected to their God(s) that is absolutely real and powerful to them, and I don’t feel right telling them it’s just their imagination or something. I suspect feelings about gender are not that different. Somehow, the way many people’s biology and culture combine lead to this undeniable sense of identity, regardless of whether there is a “real” material thing inside them you could point to as the source. Like religious faith, some folks feel that in the deepest part of their being, others are comfortable riding along in a surface level metaphorical way, others play along because they just don’t know any alternatives, and others reject the doctrine on their deepest level.
With that in mind, I advocate for a soft gender abolition, where anyone who wants to can keep their gender and identify with it in the way they want and form their clubs around it, but the default for gender is opt-in, not opt-out. Separation of gender and state, full gender freedom, no gender discrimination. Your parents can take you to gender church as a kid and teach you about it, but they can’t force you to go once you’re old enough to make your own decision. Interpretations of the gender scriptures would only be limited by our imagination, and new scriptures could be introduced at any time.
It makes me uncomfortable how, even though leftist people tend to pay lip service to allowing people to live their truth, there still seem to be too many who believe their understanding of gender can and should be applied to everyone. Even though I’ve never tried to resist being genderized as a man, I wish it had never been put on me in the first place. I find it particularly demeaning when people say things like “cis people don’t understand their gender because they’ve never been misgendered”. I don’t have time to listen to people who casually 😢invalidate my experiences because they see me as more privileged. I have a different set of experiences and feelings, and I love to share notes with people, but I hate when people assume they understand mine better than me.
All that to say, I think humanity’s done a pretty decent job striving toward different religious faiths coexisting, and that makes me optimistic about different gender interpretations doing the same in the future.
We already know that gender is purely a sociological construct and not a biological one, infact, this has been the accepted consensus by sociologists since the 1930s because of Margaret Mead's research study. Please read it, its available one hundred percent free on the web in multiple places. It confirms what you describe in your comment and your observations about society. Im going to be real with you for a second; The fact that the biological essentialist narrative still exists is one of the most infuriating things on the planet to me, it only serves to harm people. Especailly queer people, so when terfs play into it I only see red, by reading Mead's study and spreading it around (its very famous within the academic community, outside of that, though, hardly anyone knows or cares...)you would be helping to directly combat terf propaganda and is one way you can show your allyship to the trans community.
As a trans man who def connects to gender in some ways, i think full gender abolition should be the goal but does need to happen in the "soft gender abolition" way you described. Theres no good way to enforce gender abolition, you have to slowly introduce it by first cutting off the obviously nasty bits, and in that way, i see the comparison to religion. I dont think religion is inherently harmful (unlike gender as we know it), but I do think most major religions have some rlly bad ideas that are major components of the religion (like blind obedience and loyalty to god).
If you have a gendered society, you're bound to have ppl like me, who connect to this vague concept of gender in some way, and thats not rlly smthn you can undo. I dont think or feel like theres smthn true or real about gender, but rather, i associate certain things w certain genders, it rlly hard to explain, esp to someone like yourself who i suppose you could gender-apathetic. I actually know a cis woman who feels v similarly to you about gender, and whenever we speak about it, its hard for me to explain why i connect to certain genders, just cause we have v different experiences w our own gender identity. Point is, Im not going to explain how i feel like a man, as i know i wont succeed, but personally, i dont actually think there rlly is such a thing as a man, only what ppl percieve a man is or isint, though i suppose you could argue that for everything. But considering what you said, i think you probably have some idea of what i mean.
And you're kinda right about those neurological studies on gender. They dont prove gender is biological (its not), what they show is that trans men are more likely to have similar brain patterns (idk the terminology) to cis men than to cis women, and vise versa for trans women. Basically trans ppl are more likely to be neurologically similar to the cis ppl of their gender, than to the cis ppl of their agab. Which doesnt suprise me, but it def doesnt prove gender is biological. Im not gonna be able to fully explain my theory on why that happens rn, but basically; i think its cause we associate certain things w certain genders and what we associate w ourselves is neurologically based. Most things about us are neurologically based, but that doesnt suddenly mean that our social contructs are somehow natural to our neuroology.
Unfortunately, these studies are often misrepresented as proving a "male" or "female" brain which is complete bullshit. And its very bioessentialist and often leads to transmedicalist ideas.
Oh and about the cultural enviromental factors, i personally feel like part of the reason i identify as a genderqueer man is bc i grew up as a girl, if i had grown up as a boy, maybe id be a trans girl, who knows. I know thats not true for most trans ppl, but everyone is a different person partially due to their experiences, and for some ppl that can include gender identity.
I get why you wish you had never been gendered. Gender can be extra or more obviously traumatic for trans ppl, but i think that it is often in some way traumatizing to everyone, even if they're cis. Im a man but i wish Id never known what one was. Its not just cause i grew up as a girl; i also had more masculine gender roles pushed onto me as a child and those didnt hurt any less than the femenine ones. We cant just suddenly get rid of gender but i think itd be good to slowly phase out of it, and start raising the next generations without gendering kids.
@@idonotresidehere.5709 I totally feel all of this. my (nonbinary) autistic brain sees this soft abolition like a mosaic that's infinite - but there are similar iterations. like there are so many different genders that when you zoom out it all blurs together.
This is the feminine men we be talkin about. You’re a grown ass man calling himself a “cis man” as if trans men (women)are real men and u aren’t🤦🏽♂️you weak emotional dudes be conforming to anything. Letting anything slide. How tf can gender be like religion? U are either born man or woman and u stay that way unless u have a mental illness/condition. Also Why u even care to spend several YEARS of your life trying to understand sexual deviants
Just wanna say this thread was really interesting to read. Commenting to see if anyone adds on
Thank you for making this video!! Very informative and I think many men and other people can gain a lot of information and validation from it.
there is an actual decrease in testosterone levels but not due to "TV" or "liberals" not even due to "less wars" like some people think the decrease is so universal even in countries with wars
it's due to pollution world wide and other health factors like increase of body fat and lack of healthy carbohydrates (yes carbohydrates are proven to be more important for your hormones than proteins)
Herby is FABULOUS- nice one Khadijah!
Loved this video as a certified man who grew up getting called the names!
what an awesome video, loved all the different perspectives shared. Khadija is such a great creator, very grateful for their videos
i absolutely love the analogy of masculinity being more diversified as adding more colours to the palette. everything is a spectrum and not at all one-dimensional, including masculinity.
I actually love your acting skills in this 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 you’re so creative
The greatest crossover we never asked for! 👏👏😂😂
I freaking love this channel. omg the hair is ☠I scrumpt!