How Many Roads / Must A Man Walk Down / Before You Can Call Him A / Kitchen Utensil?
So! Is a Toyota Prius "more" of a car than a Honda Accord? Is an oboe "less" of a musical instrument than a bassoon? Is a potato more of a vegetable than a carrot, or a squash, or a scarlet runner bean?
Those might seem like ridiculous questions but a) I'm certain they're not and b) I'm not the only one raising them.
Jess McCabe of The F-Word Blog, reflecting on a 1954 "masculinity rating" quiz from It's A Man's World, a history of mid-20th-Century men's magazines, says
OK, so this dates from some time ago. But I thought it was an interesting example of how men's adherence to masculinity has been hysterically policed. It's all set out there - 'real men' don't sew, hate dirt or sleep with other men.Read the rest of her post and check out some of the questions, and required answers, here.
It was fun coming downstairs to find this post in my newsreader while the coffee machine was heating up. That's because as I was waking up I'd been thinking about the notion of masculinity again and how... *peculiar* comparison inside gender is.
Because what, exactly, makes one individual "less" of a woman, or another individual "more" of a man?
It would be silly to ask questions like what makes a spatula more of a kitchen utensil than a slotted spoon. And yet we *do!*
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