John Money made that disctinction but his words are not suddenly set in stone..and again that disctinction is something that the feminist movement pushes. I prefer the native American view here that gender is more like a gradient or a circle. They are not gender neutral but the are completely open and accepting to anyone being anywhere along that gradient. I dont want to argue linguistics too deeply though it is a pointless endever. I think I stated my opinion clearly enough for people to get the gist of it.

Well, to make any progress I guess we must agree upon some form of communication and I take the definitions seen in those dictionaries I have checked out, and the culture i belong to, to be my default source of linguistical tools.

Also, from the beginning I think I made it really clear that I was intending to vent some thoughts and feelings on masculinity, and femininity, and not the biological functions of sex per se.

I am also skeptical of the way the feminist movement have played itself out the later years, but your view of it seems like a borderline conspiracy theory, man!

I think it's time to stop cracking the whip.

"but your view of it seems like a borderline conspiracy theory, man!"

It does yes, but that's how I view it. Why would the CIA have infiltrated all these counter culture groups(including feminist groups) and funded/supported them? Whenever this comes up it is either completely sexist men who want to find any shred of evidence to support the sexist agenda they have or it is from feminists who just call anyone who brings it up a sexist. I dont want to have any part of either sides of that. Of course the feminine has been done great injustice. You only have to look at what our culture does to nature to see that. It is an attack of the goddess culture that was waged by the patriarchal Abrahamic cultures. That's in part how far back this goes IMO. I will always be devoted to the goddess because for me that is gaia. The environmental movement is IMO a neo-fertility cult and it is the most important movement of our time. It inevitably addresses the suppression of the feminine energy, as the root of so much of our problems.

All I wish is for this issue to actually be addressed..what role did the CIA play in the feminist agenda, why did they play that role and what was the intended outcome..and how is that outcome beneficial for them?

Agreed.

One of the hardest lessons I have learned as a result of my own meditation practice is the importance of accepting even that which we despise. There is no balance and harmony so long as we hold onto any hate, no matter how justified it may be.

As Buddha taught, "We are not punished for our anger, but by our anger."

We can only ever hope to have balance as individuals and as a culture when we choose love and respect. We need to take the individual in front of us and treat them with dignity and compassion.

This can be really difficult when dealing with those who are seriously out of balance. But, there is no chance to help them make positive changes if you get mad at them for their madness.

I don't see much value in labeling some things as masculine or feminine. Strength is strength regardless. I've met plenty of women who are physically stronger than men. The idea that strength is a masculine trait is ridiculous. So what if the average man is physically stronger than the average woman? Average doesn't matter, the individuals that are involved in the current situation matter.

Likewise compassion is compassion. I'm sure that there are many compassionate men here. I personally find labeling compassion as feminine to be destructive and to promote imbalance.

Labeling any valuable trait as masculine or feminine actually promotes imbalance. Men and women should be strong. Men and women should be able to express emotions or suck it up as the situation demands. Men and women should be compassionate. And, the reality is that everybody has the traits to some extent or another.

Would that fix anything? The harm is already done. The ideas have already spread through society and done their damage. The most you could really hope for is a brief media storm before people get distracted again.

It may be beneficial if their role came out in terms of promoting wisdom; but, honestly, we can promote wisdom, balance and harmony regardless. We can have thought-provoking conversations regardless.

Most of the people I have talked to about issues like this have agreed that the feminist movement got out of hand and that hard-core feminists tend to be extremists and at least a little emotionally disturbed. So what if the CIA played a hand in this? Most people, when they take the time to look, can spot imbalance and ego. The issue is not that the average person is stupid, as so many people think; the real issue is impulsiveness and not taking the time to think.

Even if the CIA played a role in the counter-culture movement they cannot fight Truth. The good, well thought out ideas that spurred the movement have still been disseminated through society. Selfish individuals may have slowed down the evolution of society, but no one can stop it.

If you can speak sincerely as to the power and importance of love to create balance and harmony, people will listen. I have never had anyone disagree with me about the value to the individual and society of cultivating love (that said, I'm pretty good at spotting when people are in a receptive mindset).

It may take time for our societies to fight off the old, imbalanced ideologies; but, in time, love and light and truth will triumph. Falsehoods always fall apart under careful scrutiny and Truth endures.

Sometimes it's best to forget about the "evils" that others have committed and just focus on spreading love. Their evil will not endure. Only love endures.

^ I don't disagree with any of that. I think it is good for us to acknowledge all of the contributing factors that have brought us to where we are currently though, so we can make fully informed decisions.

Stupid is probly the wrong term..I don't necessarily think that most people are really stupid..but often people act as if they are. I don't think most people really even try to utilize the full intelligence that they possess.


"Even if the CIA played a role in the counter-culture movement they cannot fight Truth. The good, well thought out ideas that spurred the movement have still been disseminated through society. Selfish individuals may have slowed down the evolution of society, but no one can stop it."

To really value truth means you value the duty of us all to stand up when we think a truth is not being told. You don't get to the truth by avoiding the truth. There is a process that has to take place where all aspects must be brought to light and integrated into our next steps. Without that how can we really evolve towards a higher truth?

"Sometimes it's best to forget about the "evils" that others have committed and just focus on spreading love. Their evil will not endure. Only love endures."

There is a reason why we have a saying we call "tough love".

Why? They"ve only been breaking our balls for the last 40 years. Which isn"t that long in the grand scheme of things. Some of them are probably a little pissed off at the centuries of subjugation.
Can you give me an example of barbaric, stoneage masculine behaviour and how being described as such actually affects you? I"ve been torn down by feminists, sometimes justifiably, sometimes not. The radicals are just nutters blowing off steam and the others sometimes have good points.

Agreed. We aren't going to ever have a peaceful society if one sector of the population is constantly at war with the other side over things that happened in the past. A great example of this is racial tension here in America. A lot of black Americans are taught from an early age to resent white people for slavery. I think this is wrong for several reasons:

1) You're placing blame on "white people" who didn't commit the crime of owning slaves
2) You're fueling racial tension
2) You're perpetuating the idea that we are seperate, when in reality we are all one



As far as the dialogue between Jamie and Kensho, I think there is a middle ground here that hasn't been discussed (though it may have been, and I missed it. If so, apoligies). I agree with Jamie in that these experiments that let kids decide their own gender is a bit twisted; if you're a boy, you're a boy. Dressing in girl's clothes instead of boy's clothes and playing with dolls instead of action figures does nothing to change this. We stand to gain nothing from confusing these kids into thinking they can decide their gender. They can't. It's already been decided for them, whether they like it or not.

However I do agree with Kensho that it is wrong to beat children if they don't confirm to what the parent's idea of a child of their gender should be doing (boy playing with Barbie dolls, girls playing with race cars, etc). Some children are just going to be more open to doing things that the other gender does. There's nothing wrong with this. As a male, I would often sneak in to my sisters' room and play with their dolls and try on their clothing. It was innocent curiosity. When I was done, I went back to my room to play with all my "male toys" and thought nothing of it.



So in summary:

Let kids be kids, and don't confuse them. This planet is confusing enough already.

I could hardly call it a war. Maybe there is the odd freakazoid nutter but feminists don"t go around bombing people.

I don"t want to go into slavery but a lot of black people are pissed because there is a massive socio-economic hangover from what they have been through. When you live in a project on welfare i would imagine that the feeling "that we are all one" isn"t too high on the agenda.
There are still plenty of bigots, racists, homophobes and sexists about to keep peoples backs up. Maybe rather than moaning about feminists we should be moaning about the people that keep them that way.

We have the emotion of anger in us. It is a very natural and the suppression of protest (it doesn"t have to be violent) is oppressive.

Being a man is bumping with the feminine.

I don't know about the CIA, but i do know about the Rockefeller Foundation and their involvment in the feminist aganda.
The reason is simple: Population control.

1. They couldn't tax half of the population
(remember till the 80s it was easely possible for a man with a standard job to bring enough money home so that he could pay for his wife, kids, house, car AND holyday)
2. When the mothers are at work, the children have to spend more time in school/kindergarden and there they are easier to indoctrinated into accepting the state as the primary family, breaking up the traditional family model.


Regarding masculinity, for me its simple. I reject any and all demand from whoever, be it individuals or the society, that i have to be like this or that. I simply don't comply.
I believe in myself and my abilities, i don't hold back my intentions or emotions, and i speak and do what i think. I have control over my ego, i don't indulge in that fake and stupid peacocky masculinity so many men confuse for the real thing.
Feminist hate me, but thats only natural because i am the personification of their worst nightmare.
No woman can control me, group pressure doesn't work on me, i don't give a flying fuck about reputation/prestige, i am disgusted by materialism, i am anarchistic, anticapitalistic and an anticonformist.


Why? Because collective punishment is illegal and unethical. Not my fault when men before me where behaving like assholes.


There is a phenotypic difference between males and females of the same species, the human species is sexual dimorph.
Thats a biological FACT. And it says VERY clealy that the male is stronger.
I don't see flocks of young woman storming into traditional male jobs wanting to express their physical strength, i see lots of princesses who demands that the male is doing the hard work, while she enjoys her traditional female privilegues.


If equality really means something, and if this gendermeinstream propaganda bullshit would be true, then i demand to see woman who go mining, work on oil plattforms and build skyscrapers, fighting wars and generate the wealth they take out of the system.
In Germany over 60% of the social security contributions are payed by men, over 60% of the money gets payed to woman.
Men do the hard work and then they die 7 years earlier then woman. You think that the mortality rate is normal? Or do you dare to consider that men die earlier BECAUSE the hard work wears down the body faster.

I can see the degenerating effects of feminist activity in our society.
The rights of fathers are continuously weakened, it has become impossible for a father to see his child if the mother doesn't want to, while he has to pay of course.
The sole custody ALWAYS gets to the mother, (even if she is a proven bad mom), the judges involved have obviously no problem to follow a traditional(patriachaic) gender role model.

Its proof enough for me to come to the conclusion that it is obviously intentional to devide men and woman and destroy the family as a means to control humanity. So it is basicly a secondary conflict. Remove the corrupt elite with their fake economy and their eternal nazi terror war machinery and the gender problem will solve itself easely.

Perfect example of this right here! *raises hand*

The crap that's been forced on me as a child and young adult...it's almost unbelievable. I can't think of any better word than torture for what I experienced. If I acted at all feminine, showed any interest in anything deemed "girly" I was physically and psychologically assaulted by so-called friends, family, even teachers.

These preconceptions and rigid definitions of these gender roles are more detrimental to our society than helpful. I see the masculine and the feminine energies as something beautiful, something that should be harmonious. But more often than not they're so opposed, so distant. Very strong boundaries are spelled out between the two and you must be either one or the other, depending on your sex. It's just wrong.


I've always tried my best to be this way with my own child. And I'm very glad that I am because recently she's confided in me that she has been thinking about transitioning to male. It was quite a shock when she told me...she told me about having feelings for females about two years ago but I didn't realize she felt like she was born into the wrong body. She absolutely cannot stand the fact that she's female and is having a very hard time dealing with day to day things.

Why is she having such difficulty? Because all the people she knows, at school, outside of school, even her mother, have tried to define what kind of person she is according to these ridiculous notions of gender roles and "normal" behavior. Even if she was only homosexual and didn't have gender issues these problems would be no different. She hasn't confided in anyone other than myself about the gender issue, not even her mother. So imagine how much worse it will be if she begins taking steps towards transitioning to male...

That's something she's terrified about and makes her very hesitant to seriously consider it even though she says she has known since she was in early grade school that she should have been born a boy.

I think issues of sexuality and gender should be a personal choice and absolutely not decided by society. Can it ever really be that way? Maybe not. But at the very least tolerance and grudging acceptance should be "the norm".

^that's a symptom of our culture only. It has NOTHING to do with not being gender neutral..it has to do with our culture being so entirely fucked up and that's it. Many many pre-Christian cultures accepted gay and transgendered people etc as a third gender or w/e and even thought some of these people were special and sacred to them. These cultures were still not gender neutral though. They still have genders..they just have more than two. Those models still IMO beat anything I hear people coming up with in western culture.

Diversity always wins. Homogenization, whether cultural or gender is just sterile and dead. Why people always push the gender neutrality instead of gender diversity I don't understand.

We also have this idea in our culture about what the male(or female) gender really is, and I don't think that is what it is. Maybe we should just explore that deeper. Obviously homosexuality and bisexualit etc are part of the male gender, otherwise we would not have gay or bisexual men. Doesn't mean all men are gay, but it doesn't mean all men are not gay either.

Can you give me an example of how you have been treated unethically and illegally?

In the uk custody rights for fathers are better if they are married and usually end up with joint support in the event of divorce. So i would say that it actually encourages the family unit. Bad mothers do not retain custody in the UK either. Maybe the German legal system is different but i do not see what that has to do with feminism.

You are right about physical strength in the case of men but i think you are missing the point of feminism and the idea of strength in particular. I really think that a lot of people who are replying in this thread have some sort of cliched idea that all feminists are a bunch of butch, testicle removing, uber dykes. A lot them just want to be stopped being treated like shit.


If i ever have kids and i was asked by my partner if i wanted to become a house husband i"d be in there like a rat up a drainpipe. I really don"t see how me taking over the traditional woman"s role detracts from the family way and i would say that it was the opposite of divisive.

I have been emasculated and told to "tone down" my true nature since I was a child, has suffered because of it, and are you saying that I should accept this behaviour towards me just because because some idiots up in history, that coincedentally were born with the same sex organs that I was, have treated women badly?

I am an adult and can now take steps to get to know myself better, but I don't think children and young adults deserve to be socialized into the role of people deserving punishment, all we did "wrong" was to be born.

In the "grand scheme of things", as far as I am concerned, pain leads to pain, conflict leads to conflict, and reconciliation leads to reconciliation. I don't believe in your premiss of things "leveling out" by punishing innocent people, especially children.

Can you expand a little more on this? By whom were you told to tone it down? I think when we are young we are all influenced and told how we should be by our elders and "betters". It"s part of growing up.
And i don"t think it was just some idiots in history. It was the way that it was. Period. So yes we are paying the price. Get over it and grow into all that you can be.

I"d love to carry on with this debate tonight but my new girlfriend (who is very feminine) has just flounced through the door and i have to go and be a man to her.

Hey Ryusaki, thanks for that, I'm just curious how you got to that point? I mean, it's beautiful in theory, but I know I find difficulties in freeing myself from expectations that were placed before me while I was a child. Children are easy to influence and truths can get "stuck" in them for life even if they intellectually know that they are false. So I guess what I am curious about is if you felt you had to do any work regarding this, and how you worked with it?

Get over it, and grow into all that you can be? A definitive oxymoron! I find this way of talking to people, and telling them what to do with their painful feelings, disrespectful. I've never gotten any mileage out of the "get over it"-strategy, either, so please don't tell me to use it. I don't really see why it would be interesting for the discussion to explain in greater detail, I think the level of detail is sufficient for the discussion.

The "get over it" mentality enrages me. So now I feel I must unburden myself even further

You know how many times people said that to me growing up, and still do to this day? Simply because I'm (admittedly) overly sensitive about certain things and have experienced a lot of pain and suffering in my life.

You know how I "got over it"? I was a pathetic drug addict for almost ten years. I completely screwed my life up because I was trying to follow their advice and just "get over it". That what I was feeling was something inconsequential and I just needed to "get over it". This is more than just about my sexuality as well, it's about the person I am inside and how I view the world around me.

I was charged with assault when I became extremely violent with a guy who started a discussion with me which equated to "get over it" "you're a pussy, just be a man".

This thread exposes a lot of the cultural programming we allow ourselves to buy into. I've always been the contrarian and questioned things taught to me but even so, I know I'm not immune to this kind of societal indoctrination. No one is perfect, obviously myself included. But males in particular need to begin to question the bullshit they're fed while growing up.