About the Masculine Mystique

The Masculine Mystique is the belief that a particular set of behaviors and powers are the embodiment of manhood. The Masculine Mystique has no basis in natural male biology. Rather it is a fabrication, grounded in tradition, that is used to maintain social inequity. The sole purpose of the Masculine Mystique is to preserve the power of elites at the expense of the poor, and especially women. In return for embracing the Masculine Mystique, society entitles men to the indiscriminate abuse of women. In return for dominance over women, men beholden to the Masculine Mystique must forfeit their own humanity, both through the unfeeling cruelty that they must embody to keep dominance over women, and through the surrendering of individuality to the relentless hierarchy that they in turn must obey.

In order to become fully human, men must reject the Masculine Mystique. Men must accept women fully into society as humans who are identical to themselves. Men must give up the entitlement of sexual access to any women they encounter, and take responsibility for the rape and abuse that they have wrought upon the whole of women across the globe.

In short, men cannot find intimacy, men cannot find feeling, men cannot feel good about themselves, men cannot be anything but afraid of other men, men cannot free themselves from the guilt of being monsters, men cannot free themselves from a life in which their only purpose is to kill and to die, men cannot create a new life that isn't circumscribed by obedience, fear, war, loneliness, and death until they defy the Masculine Mystique and unite with women to end the tragedy that they have created; by stopping rape and violence against women in all its forms.



Copyright July 2008 by F*ck M*sculinity