Proud to be a man

Really? Together with “proud to be a woman”, surely this must fall under the category of “weirdest declaration of pride ever”. You are born as a woman or a man, albeit sometimes in the wrong body. Always remember the transgender. But how is something you are born as something to be proud of? Isn’t pride something you feel for something you achieved? It’s like being proud over being heterosexual (or homosexual for that matter, even if the concept of Pride can be hard to explain here, but I do feel Pride is more about being proud to be true to one self and dare to challenge societies’ norm rather than the basic fact that you are a homosexual) or human. I say be proud of the person you are, if you have a problem with that, well, then it’s time to take a really good look in the mirror.


In Sweden, the debate for gender equality still rages on. As it should, we are nowhere near equality between sexes yet, but we continue to make progress. Sometimes, it’s agonizingly slow; sometimes it’s by leaps and bounds. The headline and the first sentences in this blog entry came to me when I came across another chronicle in a major Swedish newspaper, written by a guy that tries to describe how he loathes many things that are synonymous with being a man today. The culture of violence, how men are supposed to be tough, take what they want, be aggressive, compete and, especially concerning this subject, treat women as sex objects and solely there to provide the man with pleasure. It’s really no use trying to debate whether this is true or not. It simply is. This attitude/culture unfortunately exists. Not everywhere, but it is common enough, the fact that it exist at all is all the proof we need that this is something we need to adress. Now reading the comments to this article (I KNOW, you are not supposed to do that if you want to stay in a good mood, what can I say, I have compulsive curiosity sometimes, some people watch “The Bachelor”, don’t judge me!) you immediately see that most comments are from guys that have taken this entire article as an attack on them personally on account of them being men. Taking it from their perspective, naturally they are pissed off and more than just a little defensive. Some comments are from people with a certain amount of common sense, but they tend to be drowned or dealt with using very questionable rhetoric’s.

Now the problem that I’m starting to see here is that this is starting to happen much too often. This type of articles serves a certain purpose in creating reactions and making people aware and start discussing. But they are starting to become too popular in the main media. I would like to see more about how we are to come about these changes that we want. Less of the “just stand up and say NO!”. Some men are starting to become more aware and they are frankly getting tired of being painted out as animals, rapists or murderers simply because they were born with a penis. As a response, they get defensive. A bit immature and a sign of some insecurity, sure, but this is a common reaction nonetheless, and if change is going to happen, these men are needed.

We need more debate concerning how we are to accomplish this change. More specific actions we can take. We also need to start looking at younger generations, is the chauvinistic behavior something that is still present in younger generations to the same extent? If not, perhaps we need different approaches towards different generations. Otherwise, the entire debate possesses the risk of alienating many people that could make the change come that much faster.

Almost completely off topic, I have this weird notion that your behavior should have nothing to do with your gender. It comes down to choices and learnt behavior. On the other hand, I do believe that your gender can play a role when finding your interests and hobbies. See, my main idea is that women and men are same, same but different. Frustrating, but no one ever said it was supposed to be simple.

This subject can be discussed for years on end, but those are my two cents for today.