People always talk about toxic masculinity, but I want to know what you guys think is positive masculinity.

33 comments

  1. Healthy or positive masculinity is the idea that men can be emotionally expressive, have female friends or mentors, and express their emotions without feeling emasculated.

    …and we sit down when we pee. But that’s mostly because we are lazy and too tired to move the fucking seat anymore, nor clean up the puddles of pee we supposedly leave, even though when we clean it there isn’t anything. Not even a smell.

  3. Being proactive and encouraging.

    Leading by example.

    Building positive habits.

    Sharing the fruits of one’s labors.

    Protecting and providing (not just financially) family.

    Planting trees.

  4. The term it take a village to raise a child. Men being active in their communities whether active or passive. Being a positive role model and showing there is a wider world and many different things to experience. Cars, sports, hobbies. Doesn’t matter what it is but being an example of what it mean to be a proper positive example that doesn’t resort to aggression, anger, or ignorance as the first step to solving a problem.

  6. I’ve seen men rush to help out for everything from a car accident to a lost child.

    I’ve had men tell me that they are struggling with something, takes some guts to admit that.

    My sister’s BF does his best with my nephew from her previous marriage even though he isn’t really a “kid” guy in general.

    If I pop my hood in a parking lot or side of the road I’ve always had several guys swing by to see what’s up and ask if they can help.

    I helped a guy out at HomeDepot the other day. He was doing a chain link fence project and was confused about what he needed.

    I tell my bros I love them. Can’t get much more positive and masculine than that now can ya?

    I basically treat my pregnant wife like a princess and cater to all the weird pregnancy stuff without a second thought.

  9. So my Dad did these two things his whole life.

    1. Visited family or friends in hospital
    2. Gave Blood

  13. My son and I helped 4 different families put their snow chains on their tires this weekend while heading up to ski.

    One of the cars had a single mom with two teenage daughters who had decided they would just watch a youtube video of how to put the chains on when they needed to rather than learning how before they left their home. They had apparently not accounted for the bad cell phone coverage in the mountains so they couldn’t upload the video, meaning they were stuck.

    Positive masculinity means I refused to put their snow chains on. Instead, I stood back, looked over their shoulders and taught them how to do it so they would be able to do it in the future without asking someone else.

    In the old days I would have put the chains on for them AKA white knight syndrome but now I think it’s more important to help people help themselves.

    Give a woman a fish, feed her for a day. Teach a woman to fish, she eats for a lifetime.

  14. Not putting people down but uplifting them. Healthy competition, where you strive to be your best while helping your peers. Being protective and caring. Help people when you can but draw the line if you sense one is taking advantage of you

  15. When I was 10 or so, my mom and I got a flat tire in the middle of the road. Two men in a passing car stopped and put in a spare. They also walked me through what they were doing so that “next time the young man will have you sorted”.

    That.

  17. Ill say a pretty unique one.

    Being a youth sports coach.

    Teaching hard work
    Fair play
    Winning well
    Losing well
    Building relashonships
    Team building
    Physical fitness
    Etc etc

  18. My colleague is very masculine and oddly enough he validates the emotions of others and doesn’t make fun of mental health problems at all. It’s nice 🙂

  21. Accountability for your actions and the actions of your male friends.

    It’s so important that we stand up for our values and don’t let our friends get away with socially dubious behavior. So many men I’ve known will simply abandon their friends if they find out they did something taboo, instead of making them own it and make amends appropriately.

    I’ve done this with my guy friends and have even gotten into fist fights over it because they couldn’t handle being forced to face the consequences of their actions.

    More men need to know their friends can be inside their inner circle of support when shit gets real. And we need to be okay being vulnerable like that, too.

  22. There is no such thing as negative or toxic masculinity. There are good men who do good things and bad men who do bad things

  23. Driving in a safe, controlled manner. Not being a dick to other drivers. Ensuring you drive safe to keep your passengers safe, other travellers safe and pedestrians safe. The boy racers who think they’re good drivers cos they speed past other people are cunts. The aggressive drivers who think they’re journey is the only one that matters are cunts. The drivers who go over the speed limit cos they can handle it are cunts.

  24. Feels like the idea of being a positive male figure is going to be a alt-right nazi term. If it isn’t already.

    Sacrifice, courage, honor and strength

  25. I won’t repeat what others have said.. I’ll just toss this one in.. We go to work. By that I mean, we dominate hard laborious fields, we dominate the least desirable fields, and we dominate the most dangerous fields. It should concern people that men are being taunted, which is mostly undeserved (aside from the bad apples that other men don’t even like), when men quite literally keep society running. Don’t get me wrong, I get that women are obviously extremely important to and produce the people in society, which cannot be understated.. but if men decided to say “fuck this, if you don’t want us around, do it yourself” drop our tools and walk away, there would be no society..

    Honestly, “toxic masculinity” is just a way to make it seem like being a shitty human being can be gender specific. I lost my job 1 week before Christmas in 2021.. within a few days, my fiance (32F) told me “if I’m paying the bills, you’re cleaning, cooking, taking care of the kids, etc no questions asked, understand?”… She said that as if I had been doing nothing. I looked at her and said “my my my, 3 days of being the breadwinner and you’ve already joined the patriarchy, eh?”

    Between states ruled by kings and states ruled by queens, queens were found to be 39% more likely to wage wars than kings, historically speaking.

    My point is, sure, there are annoying things that both genders do, but I don’t think that they’re gender specific.. it’s more so just human nature.

  30. Not being afraid to show your love for others,

    Having healthy coping mechanisms to deal with anger and frustration,

    Crying, taking breaks, asking for support, etc. when you need to,

    Treating everyone as an equal,

    The list goes on…

  33. I don’t find discussions of either “toxic masculinity” or “positive masculinity” to be helpful. People basically define them broadly enough to mean “anything men do that I don’t like” vs “anything men do that I do like”.

    And then depending on the person there’s a lot more wrong with how they define those terms … like there are people who define “toxic masculinity” to mean pretty much any stereotypically male behavior, and “positive masculinity” when men lean more in the direction of stereotypically female behavior.

    Or defining “positive masculinity” to just be any positive traits, having nothing to do with men or masculinity (and it’s always a bit weird when they define “toxic masculinity” to be bad things that men specifically do).

    Or defining “toxic masculinity” as not having “emotional intelligence”.

Leave a Reply
You May Also Like