It's fun to slag on teenage boys but IMO they're not so much ideologically right-wing as they are desperate for the approval and mentorship of older dudes a lot of the time, and we are letting them down on that score (either by trying to indoctrinate them or not interacting with them at all).
but for real i feel in my bones that there's good room for normal and healthy masculinity in dem politics. Just normal guys being guys stuff. Drinking a beer with the boys after work and heading back home to Gladys, my wife of 17 years type stuff.
I guess white male spaces just tend to be supermajority conservative but it’s probably not great that to the extent politics gets discussed it’ll be something on the spectrum from property taxes to straight up the turner diaries
My dad was a bodybuilder and owned a popular gym in 80s and 90s. Very guido, masculine, etc. If one thing could distill his character, it’s this: one day a member of his gym came to him complaining that another member was gay, and he didn’t want to share a locker room with a blah blah blah
So my dad immediately kicked out and banned the complainer. Who was he to try and get another member who did nothing wrong kicked out of the gym? And this was in the late 80s in a very blue collar city.
That’s always been my model of masculinity.
Same! Like anyone else he has his faults, but I consider myself lucky to have someone like him as a role model to look up to. Now if only I could have the emotional openness that he does, but fatherhood itself is bringing me around.
