A Quote by Stephen Marche

What we're seeing now is not just a backlash against feminism. When you look at guys like [Jesse] Helms in the '80s or even Reagan and Bush, there was a real political backlash against feminism. This is different. This is a parodic recreation of the destruction of traditional masculinity. Look at these hollow men. Look at Steve Bannon who wears sweat pants, who doesn't shave. Or Yiannopoulos who is just a clown. This is toxic masculinity. It's new. To see it as a return to the past is a mistake. It's the breakdown of traditional masculinity, rather than its retrenchment.

Stephen Marche

Quote Topics

Against Backlash Breakdown Bush Clown Destruction Different Even Feminism Guys Hollow Just Like Look Masculinity Men Mistake New Now Pants Past Political Rather Reagan Real Recreation Return See Seeing Shave Steve Sweat Than Toxic Traditional Wears

Quote Author

Stephen Marche
Canadian - Novelist
Born: 1976

I think male authors who want to try to tackle these issues of representation of women can generally do a better job if they try to question traditional notions of masculinity and the sort of toxic nature of traditional ways of presenting masculinity.

Ken Liu

Actually the family is still the core social unit. Culturally, traditional masculinity was a removed father. That was a false conception of masculinity and the proper relationship between a man and his children.

Stephen Marche

One thing you can say about Trump is that he is not a traditional patriarch. He has a wife who's not even in the White House. And you could say the same of Duterte in the Philippines and of Putin. They're parodies of masculinity. They're hyper-masculine, but they're also totally unsure of their masculinity, and they parade it around.

Stephen Marche

You had a generation of women, of which I'm part, where it was a stigma to be associated with feminism; there was a backlash. Now you have a generation that is clearly embracing feminism because, at the end of the day, the definition of feminism is just equality.

Nancy Dubuc

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

Men talk about masculinity through sports and clothes. They don't talk about gender, they talk about LeBron James and whether it's okay to wear lipstick and eyeliner. They're not getting to the question at hand, which is, "What does it mean to be a man when the traditional values of masculinity are eroding incredibly rapidly?'

Stephen Marche

We're in a world where masculinity, especially with these big spectacle movies, is often pushed by rippling six packs and forcing an image down someone's throat trying to prove masculinity. Whereas I think true masculinity comes from having a strong sense of self.

Theo James

We are in the midst of a violent backlash againist feminism that uses images of female beauty as political weapons against women's advancement.

Naomi Wolf

Masculinity is what you believe it to be. I think masculinity and femininity is something that's very old-fashioned. There's a whole new generation of people who aren't defined by their sex or race or who they like to sleep with.

Johnny Weir

I had a real come-to-Jesus a couple of years ago when I started to see the direct line between feminism and everything else - feminism and climate change, feminism and poverty, feminism and hunger - and it was almost like I was born again and started walking down the street and was like, "Oh, my God, there are women everywhere! They're just everywhere you look. There's women all over the place!"

Amanda Palmer

Masculinity cannot exist without femininity. On its own, masculinity has no meaning, because it is but one half of a set of power relations. Masculinity pertains to male dominance as femininity pertains to female subordination.

Sheila Jeffreys

Watching the progression and backlash against feminism even since 1970 will give you a serious case of whiplash.

Kameron Hurley

... 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

I get so many questions in interviews about feminism, and I think the second you start separating femininity and masculinity and giving one more power than the other, that's like - everyone is a person.

Banks

The crisis facing men is not the crisis of masculinity, it is the crisis of patriarchal masculinity. Until we make this distinction clear, men will continue to fear that any critique of patriarchy represents a threat.