Masculinity Quotes

Fulfilment of masculinity is often sold on the strength of peak experiences: winning battles, pulling women, pure adrenaline, moments of ecstasy. But life ain't like that. We rarely, if ever, take our car (masculinity) on to a racetrack, so maybe we need a version that works doing the everyday things. We need a masculinity that's easy to park, with a big boot, child seats and low fuel consumption. Men need to learn to equip themselves for peace. ~ Grayson Perry

I had a romance novel inside me, but I paid three sailors to beat it out of me with steel pipes. ~ Patton Oswalt

There's a great sense of achievement, testosterone, fun, being able to live out your masculinity when you play an action role or an action-adventure or a real tough-guy role. ~ Gerard Butler

Without strength, masculinity becomes something else - a different concept. ~ Jack Donovan

Boys often have permission to become men without the forfeiture of their desirability. And so these men write stories that grasp at girls who are ghosts twice over: first by being dead and second by being shallow shadows of actual girls, the assorted fragments of men's aging imaginations rather than the deep and dimensioned creatures that real girls are. ~ Alana Massey

When you say lone gunman, everyone talks about loners and guns, but not about men ~ Rebecca Solnit

The American idea of sexuality appears to be rooted in the American idea of masculinity. Idea may not be the precise word, for the idea of one's sexuality can only with great violence be divorced or distanced from the idea of the self. Yet something resembling this rupture has certainly occurred (and is occurring) in American life, and violence has been the American daily bread since we have heard of America. This violence, furthermore, is not merely literal and actual but appears to be admired and lusted after, and the key to the American imagination.

All countries or groups make of their trials a legend or, as in the case of Europe, a dubious romance called 'history.' But no other country has ever made so successful and glamorous a romance out of genocide and slavery; therefore, perhaps, the word I am searching for is not idea, but ideal.

The American IDEAL, then, of sexuality appears to be rooted in the American IDEAL of masculinity. This ideal has created cowboys and Indians, good guys and bad guys, punks and studs, tough guys and softies, butch and f****t, black and white. It is an ideal so paralytically infantile that is is virtually forbidden - as an unpatriotic act - that the American boy evolve into the complexity of manhood. ~ James Baldwin

At the heart of the matter of masculine excess is a great longing for the love and approval of a father, a man who can tell another man that his masculinity is splendid enough and he can now relax. ~ Frank Pittman

A man who finds his masculinity threatened by a powerful woman is no man at all," he says. "You want someone who lifts you up, not tries to bring you down. ~ Tricia Levenseller

I asked her if she believed you could ever truly understand another culture. I told her the longer I stayed, the more asinine the attempt seemed, and that what I'd become more interested in is how we believed we could be objective in any way at all, we who each came in with our own personal definitions of kindness, strength, masculinity, femininity, God, civilisation, right and wrong. ~ Lily King

He had just reached the time of life at which 'young' is ceasing to be the prefix of 'man' in speaking of one. He was at the brightest period of masculine life, for his intellect and emotions were clearly separate; he had passed the time during which the influence of youth indiscriminately mingles them in the character of impulse, and he had not yet arrived at the state wherin they become united again, in the character of prejudice, by the influence of a wife and family.In short he was twenty-eight and a bachelor. ~ Thomas Hardy

There are plenty of days when I don't hear anything like that, but there aren't too many days when I don't feel as though . . . I don't know. It always feels like other guys want me to disappear. Every day. I can tell they just wish I didn't exist. ~ Kenneth Logan

Scientists can test only what they do not take for granted. That can make studying familiar phenomena particularly challenging...This may be especially true of masculinity, femininity and sexuality, because certain ideas abut gender and sexuality are so broadly shared in our culture ~ Rebecca M. Jordan-Young

Here in the United States, why do black performances of masculinity, compared to white middle-class performances of masculinity, elicit different responses from the mainstream media? How is covert 'whiteness' in the United States maintained by sensationalizing and reprimanding DMX and Michael Vick for animal torture and cruelty, while ignoring the 'animal gaming' pastimes of white privileged males, casting them as nondeviant 'normative' behaviors? ~ A. Breeze Harper

The bonding of women that is woman-loving, or Gyn/affection, is very different from male bonding. Male bonding has been the glue of male dominance. It has been based upon recognition of the difference men see between themselves and women, and is a form of the behaviour, masculinity, that creates and maintains male power ... Male comradeship/bonding depends upon energy drained from women. ~ Sheila Jeffreys

The most gentle people in the world are macho males, people who are confident in their masculinity and have a feeling of well-being in themselves. They don't have to kick in doors, mistreat women, or make fun of gays. ~ Clint Eastwood

When women act on behalf of our own sexual desires, we get blamed for being raped, for the demise of modern masculinity, for men's cheating, for getting cervical cancer, for street harassment, even for earthquakes. ~ Jaclyn Friedman

Relieved of moral pretense and stripped of folk costumes, the raw masculinity that all men know in their gut has to do with being good at being a man within a small, embattled gang of men struggling to survive. ~ Jack Donovan

Thirty years later he could not come to any other conclusion: women were indisputably better than men. They were gentler, more affectionate, more loving and more compassionate, they were rarely violent, selfish, cruel or self-centred. Moreover, they were more rational, more intelligent and more hardworking.
What on earth were men for? Michael wondered as he watched sunlight play across the closed curtains. In earlier times, when bears were more common, perhaps masculinity served a particular function, but for centuries now, men served no useful purpose. For the most part, they assuaged their boredom playing squash, which was a lesser evil; but from time to time they felt the need to change history - which expressed itself in leading a revolution or starting a war somewhere. Aside from the senseless suffering they caused, revolutions and war destroyed the achievements of the past, forcing societies to build again. Without the notion of continuous progress, human evolution took random, irregular and violent turns for which men (with their predilection for risk and danger, their repulsive egotism, their volatile nature and their violent tendencies) were directly to blame. A society of women would be immeasurably superior, tracing a slow, unwavering progression, with no U-turns and no chaotic insecurity, towards a general happiness. ~ Michel Houellebecq

No need to continually insist upon your unshakable masculinity. ~ Veronica Roth

I actually chafe at describing myself as masculine. For one thing, masculinity itself is such an expansive territory, encompassing boundaries of nationality, race, and class. Most importantly, individuals blaze their own trails across this landscape. And it's hard for me to label the intricate matrix of my gender as simply masculine.

To me, branding individual self-expression as simply feminine or masculine is like asking poets: Do you write in English or Spanish? The question leaves out the possibilities that the poetry is woven in Cantonese or Ladino, Swahili or Arabic. The question deals only with the system of language that the poet has been taught. It ignores the words each writer hauls up, hand over hand, from a common well. The music words make when finding themselves next to each other for the first time. The silences echoing in the space between ideas. The powerful winds of passion and belief that move the poet to write. ~ Leslie Feinberg

You can hardly say of your soul what sex it is. But if you pay close attention, you will see that the most masculine man has a feminine soul, and the most feminine woman a masculine soul. ~ C.G. Jung

You're supposed to be a spirit of intellect. I don't understand why you're obsessed with sex."
Bob's voice got defensive. "It's an academic interest, Harry."
"Oh yeah? Well maybe I don't think it's fair to let your academia go peeping in other people's houses."
"Wait a minute. My academia doesn't just peep -"
I held up a hand. "Save it. I don't want to hear it."
He grunted. "You're trivializing what getting out for a bit means to me, Harry. You're insulting my masculinity."
"Bob," I said, "you're a skull . You don't have any masculinity to insult."
"Oh yeah?" Bob challenged me. "Pot kettle black, Harry! Have you gotten a date yet? Huh? Most men have something better to do in the middle of the night than play with their chemistry sets. ~ Jim Butcher

We spend a lot of time talking about the unfairness of how our toxic musculine society forces us to be ashamed of embracing romance novels. Yet we buy our books in secret. It's time we practice what we preach. ~ Lyssa Kay Adams

There was something aggressively masculine about Toloose ... perhaps it was the look in his eye. Or the way he was holding his billiard cue. It was amazing the way a man in an embroidered coat could take on the air of a dockworker. ~ Eloisa James

Put a pair of high heels on a fellow and just look what he was reduced to. ~ Celeste Bradley

As heroes, we should be secure in our glory and masculinity while recognizing the strength and nobility of women, as well! ~ K.M. Shea

He made her feel out of kilter, wholly off-balance. The other night in his arms, it had felt so good to lean on him, if only for a while. To forget the load she had borne for so long now.
And she could see it, God help her, she could, an erotic vision that ran through her mind, filled her world; her hands running over his shoulders- dark and burnished as his face. His form, long and muscular and naked, all fluid masculinity as he raised himself above her.
Heat seemed to gather at the place between her thighs. Her breasts were swelling, as if her nipples sought to stab through every layer of stiff, starched cloth. She knew that if she looked down- there would be no hiding the sight of her nipples standing pebbled and hard beneath her gown. She wanted to clamp her hands over them; better still, she wanted him to clamp those strong, masculine hands over them both and... ~ Samantha James

This is, indeed, an insightful observation. The Archbishop [Joseph L. Berardin] insists that the natural resemblance between Christ and his priests must not stop merely with the fact that they share a common masculinity. Our question is, 'Why must it BEGIN there?' If the faithful cannot see Christ in a male who exemplifies no godlike virtues - humility, gentleness, and self-effacing service - can they not see him in a female who does? Indeed, if the priest acts 'in persona Christi,' not 'in masculinitate Christi,' then 'NATURAL resemblance' between Christ and the priest, it would seem, does not entail PHYSICAL, that is SEXUAL resemblance, but a resemblance which is natural to the SPIRITUAL order with which the worshiping congregation has to do. And in this order there is neither male nor female, even as there is neither Jew nor Greek. We would, therefore, conclude that since the Word was made flesh, as the apostle John has declared him (John 1:14), we rightly heed those who, in the flesh, symbolize his presence as they speak and act in his name. But we see no reason to add to what the apostle said by insisting that the Word was made MALE flesh, for both male and female are equally bearers of the divine image. And since God created humankind in his image, male AND female, we can only conclude that women as well as men should be ordained to the priesthood, because femaleness, like maleness, is a fitting symbol (sacramental sign) of Deity. ~ Paul King Jewett

Father didn't want to seem weak in front of us and that itself was a weakness. ~ Maddy Kobar

Your feelings come from your thoughts, as you master your mind, you'll need to matter feelings too. If an emotion starts to take control… your best weapon is truth. It's ok to feel. Not okay to be controlled by feelings. Don't follow your heart. Follow truth. ~ Josh Hatcher

These were the things that built the world. Not to know or care about them was a betrayal of fundamental principles, a betrayal of gender, of species. What could be more useless than a man who couldn't fix a dripping faucet - fundamentally useless, dead to history, to the messages in his genes? I wasn't sure I disagreed. ~ Don DeLillo

Perhaps I am a rose-picker and a breeze-sniffer. ~ Sam Wazan

Manhood coerced into sensitivity is no manhood at all. ~ Camille Paglia

The sacraments infuse holiness into the terrain of man's humanity: they penetrate the soul and body, the femininity and masculinity of the personal subject, with the power of holiness. ~ Pope John Paul II

But, as in American Sniper, the effect of depicting violence in such a gruesome, realistic way amplifies the sense of awe around masculinity: a man is defined by his willingness to use violence when he must, an even more serious duty when such violence is shown in an unsanitized, realistic, gruesome way. ~ Anonymous

Don't underestimate him, Morgan. Many, especially men, see the rise of minorities as a threat to their cultural and economic dominance. White men are losing their jobs to women, minorities and people at the other end of the supply chain in third world countries. Beleaguered voters will support him in the hope that he will restore their vanished status."
"People won't take him seriously. This is the man that said on national TV that a woman's place is in the kitchen."
"That may indeed be his biggest strength. ~ Jamie Le Fay

There's three things: there's masculinity, there's intelligence, there's sensitivity. You've got to bring those three things to a leading man's role: masculinity, sensitivity, intelligence. In some people, there's a little too much in the mix of one or the other. ~ Alec Baldwin

Coexisting with the radiant masculinity of Apollonian Keats is a lunar poet of enchanted night in thrall to the goddess Hecate. ~ Nicholas Roe

The idea that gentleness isn't masculine or the dangerous idea that grown women shouldn't have body fat are sinful distortions of masculinity and femininity. These distorted ideas aren't what our good God intended for us when he gave us sexually differentiated bodies...It can also help us to recognize that growing in holiness as a son or daughter of God sometimes requires defying social rules about men not being gentle or women needing to eat so little that they cannot thrive. ~ Beth Felker Jones

An alpha man is confident, fully centered in his masculine core, sure of his self worth and what he brings to the table in dating and relationships. He doesn't seek the approval of others and is repulsed by women who don't recognize his value, no matter how attractive the woman might be. An alpha man knows that he fully deserves a partner who mutually chooses him and makes a mutual effort to be together. If a man doesn't recognize himself to be valuable, then women will not see him as valuable either. What you feel, you attract." (Coach Ricioppo Parra) ~ Alessio David Ricioppo Parra

There seems to be a fear that if men are raised to be people of integrity, people who can love, they will be unable to be forceful and act violently if needed ... We see that females that are raised with the traits any person of integrity embodies can act with tenderness, with assertiveness, and with aggression if and when aggression is needed. ~ Bell Hooks

He, after all, had no standards of manliness, of virility, to complicate his pride. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

our objective as moms and dads is to transform our sons from "immature and flighty youngsters into honest, caring men who will be respectful of women, loyal and faithful in marriage, keepers of commitments, strong and decisive leaders, good workers, and men who are secure in their masculinity. ~ James C. Dobson

The socialization of boys regarding masculinity is often at the expense of women. I came to realize that we don't raise boys to be men, we raise them not be women (or gay men). We teach boys that girls and women are "less than" and that leads to violence by some and silence by many. It's important for men to stand up to not only stop men's violence against women but, to teach young men a broader definition of masculinity that includes being empathetic, loving and non-violent. ~ Don McPherson

Most sailors weren't observant in that fashion. Pity she wasn't most sailors. Jinan Seton was a fine specimen of masculinity. ~ Katharine Ashe

For Hitschmann and Bergler, 'frigidity' had a single criterion: 'absence of the vaginal orgasm.' The standard was unqualified and absolute. A woman who did not enjoy intercourse: frigid. Women who derived sexual pleasure from acts other than intecourse were frigid too. Nothing else mattered, only whether a woman had an orgasm because a man's penis was inside her vagina. Sexually agressive women were labeled 'frigid' because of the association between masculinity and aggressiveness. Womanhood that was not passive was not properly womanly. "Frigidity," as Jane Gerhardt points out, "thus became a label and a diagnosis that defined how much sexual desire a woman must have and in what kinds of sexual behavior she must engage to be 'healthy'. ~ Hanne Blank

My whole life long I have done nothing but interpret my dreams of ultimate masculinity, and draw them. ~ Tom Of Finland

[On Female Attraction to Men in Uniform] That male military persona feeds a subconscious, passive-aggressive female desire to dominate the warrior as he is perceived an iconic example of masculinity (particularly amongst traditionally warlike cultures). The damsel in distress theme always struck me as embodying this: the hapless, innocently beautiful woman unwittingly enraptures the heroic male so completely that he would risk all to submit to her at his own peril, and quite in spite of it. ~ Tiffany Madison

I never trust a man who tucks in his shirt by choice or neglects coffee in favor of tea. ~ Brian D'Ambrosio

Kasta looked from one of them to the other, the two of them shaking hands, understanding each other's concern. She didn't see where Giddon came off feeling insulted. She didn't see how Giddon had any place in it at all. Who were they, to take her fight away from her and turn it into some sort of understanding between themselves? She would knock his nose from his face. She would thump them both, and she would apologise to neither. ~ Kristin Cashore

In my profession more generally, it's not an exaggeration to say that masculinity is viewed as the root of all evil. If you were to take a literary theory course, you might think it would be about literature, but it's really not. It's about all the various forms of oppression on earth and how we can see them playing out in literary works. And behind all these forms of oppression is a guy. ~ Jonathan Gottschall

So much of Hollywood is this kind of overly machismo, nonsensical view of masculinity, which I just don't find honest. I think it's this idea of - you know, we're told, well, 'Be a man, be a man.' But what does that mean, exactly? Does that mean you can't carry yourself with any fear? That you can't acknowledge that you're scared? ~ Joe Carnahan

The gender of God, God's presumed masculinity, has functioned as the ultimate religious legitimization of the unjust social structures which victimize women. ~ Sandra Marie Schneiders

After Jericho's illness crippled him and his parents had abandoned him to the state, it was Will who'd stepped in as guardian. He had sheltered Jericho, fed and clothed him, and taught his ward what he could about running the museum and about Diviners. For that, Jericho supposed he owed him a debt. But Will hadn't given Jericho the parts that mattered most. He hadn't given himself. The two of them had never gone fishing in a cold stream early on a summer's day and shared their thoughts on love and life while they watched the sun draw the curling morning mist from the water. They'd never discussed how to find one's place in the world, never talked of fathers and sons, or what makes someone a man. No. He and Will spoke in newspaper articles about ghosts. They conversed through the careful curation of supernatural knickknacks. And Jericho couldn't help but feel cheated at how little he'd gotten when he'd needed so much more.
Why was there so much silence between men? ~ Libba Bray

Complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable. ~ H.L. Mencken

The term "FTM-Butch Border War" just sounds like an alien land of yore. How is it that the gravitational pull of my beard and low-voice should hold [my lesbian friend's] masculinity in deferential orbit? That when standing side-by-side we are supposedly read in comparison, rendering her unalterably more feminine - shorthand, in patriarchal societies, for "lesser than"?

Masculinity has more than enough space to spare. But sometimes its flesh-and-blood vessels act as if we have to wound each other for it, like dogs fighting over too few scraps. Anyway, [she] and I know without speaking that in reality, right here and right now in our present moment, that she and I are two different sides of the same coin; two keys sung for the same tune."

- from "Snapshots: "Sharing Space with Women," Original Plumbing Magazine 2014 ~ Mitch Kellaway

I'm confident enough in my masculinity and sexuality that I can say that Ryan Gosling is just dreamy in this movie. ~ J. Lynn

The majority of colored men do not yet think it worth while that women aspire to higher education ... The three R's, a littlemusic and a good deal of dancing, a first rate dress-maker and a bottle of magnolia balm, are quite enough generally to render charming any woman possessed of tact and the capacity for worshipping masculinity. ~ Anna Julia Cooper

Every film comes out of an intuition, where I'm at, at that moment in particular. But looking back on my work, somehow I get back to masculinity and how men are taught to avoid showing how fragile they can be, or to people who are in constant movement. ~ Omar Zuniga

If the KKK was smart enough, they would've created gangsta rap because it's such a caricature of black culture and black masculinity. ~ Jackson Katz

Who can give a man this, his own name? ~ George MacDonald

And if all womankind banded together and took the male path, the world would turn into one huge brothel. ~ M. Ageyev

No matter how exotic or seemingly different another man is, there's always some reflection of self in another male. ~ Jack Donovan

In those rare individual cases where women approach genius they also approach masculinity. ~ Otto Weininger

For some reason, these days we tend to downplay the importance of aggression, of taking risks, of barreling forward. It's probably because it's been negatively associated with certain notions of violence or masculinity. But of course Earhart shows that that isn't true. In fact, on the side of her plane she painted the words, "Always think with your stick forward." That is: You can't ever let up your flying speed - if you do, you crash. ~ Ryan Holiday

When a man and woman have sexual relations, who gets the
most out of the deal? The man, or the woman? Since we live in a society
full of tricks, the man thinks he gets more out of the encounter.
But what do men really get out of it? The reality is that women have
the potential to get more out of it than the man, especially if the
man's seeds have accumulated a certain amount of value. ~ Tariq Nasheed

Masculinity varies from time to time and place to place. But it doesn't exist just in the mind of a single guy: it is shared withthe other guys. It is a code of conduct that requires men to maintain masculine postures and attitudes (however they are defined) at all times and in all places. Masculinity includes the symbols, uniforms, chants, and plays that make this the boys' team rather than the girls' team. ~ Frank Pittman

[The skeet tournament] It's a competition that I've entered – and won – every year since I was thirteen.
And here's the thing – it really pisses them off. All these hunting boys and their daddies show up decked out in camo gear, determined to beat the girl who has the audacity to challenge their masculinity.
And, okay, I'll admit it … I like to needle 'em just a bit. I purposely wear the girliest outfit possible – little flowery sundresses with cowboy boots, most years. Drives 'em nuts. If they're going to be beaten by a girl, they'd rather it be some tomboy wearing overalls and a flannel shirt, you know? Stupid sexist pigs.---(Jenna Cafferty) ~ Kristi Cook

The men who are messing up their lives, their families, and their world in their quest to feel man enough are not exercising truemasculinity, but a grotesque exaggeration of what they think a man is. When we see men overdoing their masculinity, we can assume that they haven't been raised by men, that they have taken cultural stereotypes literally, and that they are scared they aren't being manly enough. ~ Frank Pittman

If gender attributes and acts, the various ways in which a body shows or produces its cultural signification, are performative, then there is no preexisting identity by which an act or attribute might be measured; there would be no true or false, real or distorted acts of gender, and the postulation of a true gender identity would be revealed as a regulatory fiction.That gender reality is created through sustained social performances means that the very notions of an essential sex and a true or abiding masculinity or femininity are also constituted as part of the strategy that conceals gender's performative character and the performative possibilities for proliferating gender configurations outside the restricting frames of masculinist domination and compulsory heterosexuality. ~ Judith Butler

Sometimes I forgot our age difference and sometimes it was hard to ignore. Like right now. He radiated a masculinity, a maturity, a confidence, even in his sleep, that other guys my own age just couldn't even compare to. Maybe that was less about his age and more about him. Either way, it was incredibly sexy - he was incredibly sexy. I kind of loved the fact that he could snap me in two and the fact that I knew he never would. ~ Sarah Darlington

Yes, it was rape, but only technical, brother, only technical. Above the waist, maybe she was worried about the sacrilegio, but from the waist down she wanted me, bad. There couldn't be any doubt about that. ~ James M. Cain

Sometimes Marlboro Man and I would venture out into the world--go to the city, see a movie, eat a good meal, be among other humans. But what we did best was stay in together, cooking dinner and washing dishes and retiring to the chairs on his front porch or the couch in his living room, watching action movies and finding new and inventive ways to wrap ourselves in each other's arms so not a centimeter of space existed between us. It was our hobby. And we were good at it.
It was getting more serious. We were getting closer. Each passing day brought deeper feelings, more intense passion, love like I'd never known it before. To be with a man who, despite his obvious masculinity, wasn't at all afraid to reveal his soft, affectionate side, who had no fears or hang-ups about declaring his feelings plainly and often, who, it seemed, had never played a head game in his life…this was the romance I was meant to have.
Occasionally, though, after returning to my house at night, I'd lie awake in my own bed, wrestling with the turn my life had taken. Though my feelings for Marlboro Man were never in question, I sometimes wondered where "all this" would lead. We weren't engaged--it was way too soon for that--but how would that even work, anyway? It's not like I could ever live out here. I tried to squint and see through all the blinding passion I felt and envision what such a life would mean. Gravel? Manure? Overalls? Isolation?
Then, almost without fail, just about the time ~ Ree Drummond

The root of heterosexual fear of male homosexuality is in the fact that anyone might be gay. Straight men aren't threatened by a flamboyant faggot because they know they aren't like that; they're threatened by a guy who's just like they are who turns out to be queer. ~ Vito Russo

Embracing you against the chest,
Pressing dicks in each other,
Sucking your pinkish lips
Titillating balls with love
Kissing your body with my dick
Pressing against the tightest hole of your ass
Making you suck my dick with utmost pleasure
Inebriating in youthfulness
Soaking in desire of sex
Sucking dick in the fun
Oh! My Ethan, come,
Satisfy the thirst of my masculinity
Make every evening flavorsome and young nights colorful ~ Delicious David

If anything has made men more effeminate in the past half-century, it's been the running feminist critique of masculinity. ~ Jack Donovan

For me, it's a real shock to see American mainstream films. I can't see these films because it's always the same thing to me. This is very American. Violence is very American, and I can't understand these films. Why do they use violence? To show what? Masculinity? To show fear? Defense? What are you showing with all this violence? ~ Javier Camara

Society at large can't make up its mind about men. Having spent the last thirty years redefining masculinity into something more sensitive, safe, manageable, and, well, feminine, it now berates men for not being men. ... "Where are the real men?" is regular fare for talk shows and new books. You asked them to be women, I want to say. ~ John Eldgedge

The fear had precedent. Toward the end of the Civil War, having witnessed the effectiveness of the Union's 'colored troops,' a flailing Confederacy began considering an attempt to recruit blacks into its army. But in the nineteenth century, the idea of the soldier was heavily entwined with the notion of masculinity and citizenship. How could an army constituted to defend slavery, with all of its assumptions about black inferiority, turn around and declare that blacks were worthy of being invited into Confederate ranks? As it happened, they could not. 'The day you make a soldier of them is the beginning of the end of our revolution,' observed Georgia politician Howell Cobb. 'And if slaves seem good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong.' There could be no win for white supremacy here. If blacks proved to be the cowards that 'the whole theory of slavery' painted them as, the battle would be lost. But much worse, should they fight effectively--and prove themselves capable of 'good Negro government'--then the larger war could never be won. ~ Ta-Nehisi Coates

Everyone has a spectrum of masculinity and femininity inside them. In every individual, a war of misogyny is raging. Every man is repressing and oppressing the femininity within themselves, raising up male values as governing values. Because that's what we've been taught to do, just as every woman has. Misogyny isn't just something that affects women. It affects men. ~ Antony Hegarty

I've known men who fought in wars to liberate the Jews from Hitler. I've known men who sewed their own buttons on their clothes. I've known men who talked with a lisp and wore paisley shirts, and men who could chop down trees, and run heavy equipment. Other men were more comfortable in a suit and tie, with soft hands, and a penchant for math, or words. Some men are adventurers, others prefer comic books. Masculinity has never just been one thing. ~ Josh Hatcher

Sophia shielded her eyes with her hand and peered up at the Irishman's face. His hard eyes wandered form her hand, to her face, to the sketch in her lap. He made a gruff noise in his throat-the sort of noise men make when they're working up to saying something and don't quite know how to get it out, but want to keep up the aura of brute masculinity in the midst of their indecision.
He was making Sophia nervous. He meant to ask her something, and she was afraid to learn just what.
"Yes?" she prompted.
"The crew…We had it out between ourselves, Miss Turner. There were a bit o' scuffling, but I came out on top." He suddenly crouched before her, transforming his silhouette from tree-trunk to boulder in an instant. His craggy face split in a devilish grin. "I get to be first. ~ Tessa Dare

In order to live as we were designed to live, we must be in pursuit not simply of manhood but of godly masculinity. That begins by being men who are rightly related to God, who understand what it means to fear him, and who respond to that fear by being alert, standing firm in the faith, and being men of courage. ~ Bob Lepine

Because society places a value on masculinity, gay men aspire to it. If you go to a gay club and the doorman says, 'You do realise this is a gay club, don't you lads?' you get all excited because you think, 'Wow, he thought I was straight!' ~ Graham Norton

But if we start raising children differently, then in fifty years, in a hundred years, boys will no longer have the pressure of proving their masculinity by material means. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I can only approach it as a woman. Masculinity has been depicted in very black-and-white terms. There never seems to be a wide range of emotional definitions of men. ~ Collier Schorr

Negotiating these expectations as female-socialized men, transmen can develop a gender "double consciousness" (Du Bois 1903).3 They simultaneously inhabit social space as men and maintain, to varying degrees, an internal repertoire of female-socialized interactional strategies. This double consciousness can generate culture shock as they struggle to synthesize two identities-a female history and a male social identity-that natural differences schemas position as opposing. To gain gender competency, transmen study the idealized qualities that make up a hegemonic understanding of masculinity. As ~ Kristen Schilt

Our goal should be not to redefine masculinity, but to abolish it. ~ Robert Jensen

The masculine voice was low but clear, capturing the senses, running along the back of her neck like a caress, making her shiver in delight. Artemis very much feared she was gaping. The Duke of Wakefield had a voice to make angels - or devils - weep. It wasn't the type of male voice currently admired - for the high, unnatural voice of the musico was the rage of London at the moment - but his was the sort of voice that would always seduce the ear. Sure and strong, with a vibrating masculinity on the low notes. She could sit and listen to a voice like this for hours. ~ Elizabeth Hoyt

In a world where masculinity is respected and femininity is regularly dismissed, it takes an enormous amount of strength and confidence for any person, whether female- or male-bodied, to embrace their feminine self. ~ Julia Serano

Purpose answers the question, "Why do I exist?" And as we ask it and explore it, I encourage you to study and look at the purpose statements of others, and of organizations, to fully understand the idea. Remember that your purpose is transcendent, and it is permanent. It doesn't sway with the seasons of life. It is something that brings you fulfillment at every part of your life, and guides you. ~ Josh Hatcher

My father learned his disinterest under the guise of masculinity. Boys don't cry. There are whole disciplines, institutions, rubrics in our culture which serve as categories of denial.
Science is such a category. The torture and death that Heinrich Himmler found disturbing to witness became acceptable to him when it fell under this rubric. He liked to watch the scientific experiments in the concentration camps ~ Susan Griffin

Christianity is saving truth and it's sanctifying truth, but we believe that it's Total Truth. It is the truth about every aspect of life from economics to masculinity to marriage. God has the right view on all of these things. ~ Nancy Pearcey

The difference between the butch and the queen is rooted in the system of male supremacy. Gay male camp is based not simply on the incongruous juxtaposition of femininity and maleness, but also on the reordering of particular power relationships inherent in our society's version of masculinity and femininity. The most obvious cause for the minimum development of camp among lesbians was that masculinity was not and still isn't as incongruous as femininity in twentieth century American culture and therefore not as easily used as a basis for humor. Concomitantly although individual women might be able to sexually objectify a man, women has a group did not have the social power to objectify men in general. Therefore, such objectification could never be the basis for a genre of humor with wide appeal. But why didn't camp develop and thrive within the lesbian community itself? Because the structures of oppression were such that lesbians never really escaped from male supremacy. In lesbians' actual struggles in the bars or out on the streets, authority was always male. For queens to confront male authority was a confrontation between two men, on some level equals. The queen was playing with male privilege, which was his by birthright. For women to confront male authority is to break all traditional training and roles. Without a solid organization of all women, this requires taking on a male identity, beating men at their own game. Passive resistance or the fist is most appropriate f ~ Joan Nestle

This is not the last time he will get himself in trouble with bravado that cannot be backed up. He ends up dying that way. ~ Tanya Tagaq

I do not like the killers, and the killing bravely and well crap. I do not like the bully boys, the Teddy Roosevelt's, the Hemingways, the Ruarks. They are merely slightly more sophisticated versions of the New Jersey file clerks who swarm into the Adirondacks in the fall, in red cap, beard stubble and taut hero's grin, talking out of the side of their mouths, exuding fumes of bourbon, come to slay the ferocious white-tailed deer. It is the search for balls. A man should have one chance to bring something down. He should have his shot at something, a shining running something, and see it come a-tumbling down, all mucus and steaming blood stench and gouted excrement, the eyes going dull during the final muscle spasms. And if he is, in all parts and purposes, a man, he will file that away as a part of his process of growth and life and eventual death. And if he is perpetually, hopelessly a boy, he will lust to go do it again, with a bigger beast. ~ John D. MacDonald

It just seemed so unmanly – just like his poetry. He'd rather fight the biggest guy in the club than submit to that much scrutiny. ~ Jim Lowe

Roughing it builds a boy's character, but only certain kinds of roughing it. ~ Margaret Atwood

Cassio is a ladies' man, that is to say, a man who feels most at home in feminine company where his looks and good manners make him popular, but is ill at ease in the company of his own sex because he is unsure of his own masculinity.
[…]
Cassio is a ladies' man, not a seducer. With women of his own class, what he enjoys is socialized eroticism; he would be frightened of a serious personal passion. For physical sex he goes to prostitutes and when, unexpectedly, Bianca falls in love with him, like many of his kind, he behaves like a cad and brags of his conquest to others. ~ W.H. Auden