(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Masculinity and Respect are not Mutually Exclusive [1] ['Dan K'] Date: 2026-08-18 I got another question for men (not all, just those who wish to answer IYKYK). How do you define masculinity? If I look to the founding fathers of the United States, one thing stands out to me, those men were thinkings, philosophes, they were not “warriors” for the most part. So how did we go from thinkers to maxlooking? A lot of times it seems to me that the kind of men who are into the “mannosphere” so to speak, are trying to imitate or import what they perceive to be masculinity from countries where machismo is a thing but in a superficial manner, because their perceptions are just that perception, what the see either via media or watching said machismo from afar. What I never see talked about is the contradiction that is machismo, while those men may act all though and gritty outside of their homes, inside the home guess who rules? The women. Especially the mothers or grandmothers. There is an underlying respect that feeds the men of latin/Hispanic countries towards women, especially women in their family. American men who aspire to be Top G, et cetera, lack this basic respect of/for women and that’s why they bathe in toxic masculinity as opposed to being masculine or macho. They have no distinction of rude vs strength to them strength is brutish, it’s being rude, crude, mean, that’s what they think strength is and ironically it is the opposite it is weakness. Even the phrase “toxic masculinity” sets them off “not all men!” Real men know the difference between masculinity and toxic masculinity. Just like everyone knows saying I don’t like mushy food, doesn’t mean I don’t like food. But yet, thousands will rile up every time they read or hear someone talk about toxic masculinity “masculinity isn’t toxic!” duh, we know that’s why we say toxic masculinity and not masculinity is toxic we know the difference. For me no matter where you stand on the spectrum of femininity to masculinity (and everything in between) what makes you stand out (appealing / attractive) is what you project. Are you comfortable with who you are? Are you competent at what you do? Do you have self-esteem? Are you authentic (real)? These are the kinds of qualities that project charisma and charisma is what draws people to you. Someone who spends their time demeaning others women in this instance is by definition not self-assured. For example if you’re with someone and they screw up a dish for dinner, a weak person goes berserk and starts demeaning the other “you can’t even cook” “you can’t do anything right” etc… while a self-assured one, would say “let’s see if we can fix that” “let me help you fix that” “let’s see what happened”. Respect is (or should be) at the core of every relationship be it with friends, family, children or even work relationships. And that’s the thing the men of the manosphere and other men who decry toxic masculinity don’t understand. They want to dominate their partners, be the boss in the household, and a bunch of other superficial things that contribute nothing to a healthy relationship and then they don’t understand why they can’t find the kind of women they want. Because you’d think that type of men would automatically be attracted to women who are naturally submissive, quieter, softer (in a way), but nope, in general they want they very kind of women they claim to despise, because they don’t really want healthy relationships they want to prove their dominance by crushing women they see as strong. (I say “see as strong” because submissive women aren’t necessarily weak, that’s another misconception for another time”. The problem for this type of men, is that society is an ever evolving dynamic, it is not stagnant and if you refuse to move with the flow you will be left behind and that is partly what is happening now. These men are being left behind, but instead of realizing they must change also, they are trying to use their last remaining options to build a dam to stop the evolution of society, to keep it in a place where they still have some relevance amongst others of the same mindset. They forget that water erodes though and no matter how high the dam is water will eventually burst through. In the end toxic men are their own worst enemies. #TheAmericanHaitianPoet Muriel Vieux – Aug 19th, 2026 – ©All rights reserved Paypal.me/murielvieux [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/8/18/800086320/community/masculinity-and-respect-are-not-mutually-exclusive/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/