I was having an imaginary conversation with a friend of mine the other day (the friend is real), about the relationship between femininity and masculinity. My closing statement was, 'I think real masculinity is much closer to femininity than those so-called machos think; and so men should aim to be like women if they want to be worth anything.' It was something like that, anyway. I was explaining to her that I think the guys who go around, pretending to be tough, wearing knives and guns, aren't masculine, as they think they are, at all. They're just cowards.
What started me off thinking along these lines, was reading Ernest Hemingway's book, Death in the Afternoon. Before I'd read any of his writing, I had been warned by various sources that his writing is extremely masculine, and I thought it might not be all to my taste, because I consider myself fairly feminine. But through reading his writing, I don't really see him as extremely masculine, the way he is commonly viewed. He may have done very 'masculine' things, such as duck shooting, he loved wine, he was a great admirer of bullfighting, and he was very unsentimental in his approach to life, and didn't find many people with whom he shared a great deal in common (at least, I think I'm right about most of that). But reading his books, he comes across as a very astute, observant and sensitive artist: mainly feminine qualities. And the best way to judge an artist is on his artistic qualities, not on his everyday character. For example, Beethoven could have been taken for mad, and sent to a 'suitable' place, if people didn't see the genius in his music. Most people wouldn't have, of course, but the musicians who did, they most certainly saw his genius.
It's a shame, I can't remember the entire conversation, because it was a very interesting one, and I would love to write it up in it's entirety; but I will try my best, and see if things surface.
I'm quite a big fan of scales (the ones that go from 1 to 100, those sorts of scales), and plotting philosophical ideas along them. In thinking about this relationship between femininity and masculinity, I had my scale starting at 0, with masculinity going up to about 75%, and femininity carrying on from that, up to 100%. Meaning, that the more masculine (proper masculinity) you get, the closer you get to being feminine, until you are feminine. I'm finding it very hard to explain this, because I can't remember all that I was thinking the other day - I really should have written this up then. I'm not expecting much feedback on this, but if this sort of thing interests you, please leave a comment: it may jog my memory.
