I grew up during the fun times of the cold war. My single digits weren’t so bad since Carter was way into this Peaceful Coexistence (Мирное сосуществование) thing. (There’s an old Vulcan saying, Only Nixon could go to China. ) But this is where I learned about masculinity more or less: You may have the capacity for terrible violence, but you keep it locked in a safe behind two keys and launch codes.

Later on, Reagan got elected, and he resumed escalation, secretly hoping the evil Soviet Union would launch a first strike ( The ownership class will tremble, etc! etc! ) so he could launch a retaliatory strike and bring about the eschatological events that Second Adventists like him were expecting. Sadly for Reagan, the Soviets never attacked but Alzheimer’s did, as did Iran-Contra scandals. In high school, being manly was about taking responsibility. To man up was to pay your bills (similar to pony up ) and to do the necessary tasks.

By the aughts, being responsible was just adulting and everyone was expected to do it… except, for some reason, our elected officials, who were already acting like immature, uncoralled children. At this time boys action figures featured Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker ripped like He-Man, and Barbie was getting criticism for looking like less than 1% of women in the world. In cinema, the Schwarzenegger / Stalone action hero was being replaced by the everyman counterpart… who still engaged in impossible action stunts. Except Tom Cruise who insisted on doing his own stunts. Tom Cruise was getting weird.

Also by the aughts, I had escaped my childhood and was no longer being expected to fight back bullies. (I remember myself being a wimp, but mom reminded me I was outnumbered by boys twice my size and sometimes twice my age. Dominance hierarchy was in full force in the 70s and 80s as much as it is now, which means faculty, administrators and dads did zilcho about curbing bullies. Ergo I was a disappointment as a boy. Also as a late bloomer, I was ace while the rest of my peers were swooning about proms and boy bands and getting simultaneously high and laid at the prom. I missed all that and listened to Yes playing Trevor Rabin, and FGTH playing Trevor Horn.)

In the 2010s – when the man-o-sphere was rising in full force on the web, when we were refusing to confront that We [the United States] tortured some folks, when consent was still not being taught in sex-ed… or in social ed, for that matter, and we were all signing click-wrapped EULAs and TOSes longer than King Lear in circumstances too awkward to read them or be advised what they say, when Christian nationalists being elected and appointed as officials and making disturbing policy choices allegedly informed by their faith – I realized I just have no investment in manhood. I don’t identify with any of these people who assert they are men or what men should look like. As The Chad meme rose to prominence, I didn’t understand the appeal.

(in my time Chad, short for Chadwick or Charles, was the name of an Izod-wearing fraternity-member sailboat-racer who lived on trust funds, loads loans (maybe loads too) from family and a lot of cocaine. He also tried to get women drunk or unconscious before having sex with them. Think Brock Turner, including getting a no-show job at Dad’s company.)

Then there’s the thing that I played more women characters then men in my career as a tabletop gamer, which continued into my video gaming career once games gave me choice in the matter. I blame the latter partly on the surfeit of generic male bros that were the default protagonist. Gordon Freeman would have been more identifiable since I hung with the JPL / CalTech crowd as a kid, but he never does any actual science in his adventures. ETA By the time the Saints Row series gave me serious customization options over my character, and all clothes were available regardless of designated sex, I became the total fashion diva I never knew I wanted to be.

In my late forties I have zero interest in representing as a man… as being masculine or feminine. All the stuff that self-proclaimed alpha-males say on media sounds terribly dysfunctional. My therapist finally comes to the conclusion I’m ASD (which typically has gender ambiguities) and can I please give her permission to be her PHD case study.

I’ve posed a question to the world: Are there any character features we want men to have and women to lack, or vice versa? Because it seems we’d be way better off trying just to be ourselves, and to Hell with gender norms.

**Edit, 2024-04-17: small corrections, some previously-missed details.