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What Is a ‘Man?’
The Left has recently been quite rightly mocked for not being able to answer the question, “What is a ‘woman?'”
But it is also quite apparent that they can’t answer another question, “What is a ‘man?'”
Certainly there are a number of qualities of men that the Left just doesn’t understand (or at least pretend not to understand.) These aren’t necessarily admirable things about men, but they are things that used to be common knowledge. These were even qualities that feminists of a previous day made quite a fuss about, decrying these qualities in men. But these qualities are quite conveniently forgotten by the Left of today.
Consider these things:
- Most men are competitive – Men really like to win games and competitions. They are even, and this will come as a shock to some of you, willing to cheat to do so. There were these fellows (Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa…) that were willing to use dangerous steroids for better performances in baseball. There was this bicyclist (Lance Armstrong) who took performance-enhancing drugs to win his championships. I think the most interesting story is the case of Heinrich/Dora Ratjen. Upon his birth, in Germany in 1918, the midwife had difficulty determining his gender. A doctor examining his genitals confirmed to his parents he was a boy. But he grew up dressing like a girl. He competed in the high jump and did quite well. When the 1936 Olympics came around, the German National Olympic team had Heinrich bind up his genitals and compete as a woman for the glory of the Fatherland. Those Nazis were pretty competitive.
- Many men are willing to cheat to get stuff – Alright, maybe this is more of a ‘people’ thing rather than a ‘man’ thing. There was a fellow named Rick Singer who masterminded a $25 million college admittance cheating scheme. People paid him large amounts of money to get their kids into prestigious universities. Students cheated at admittance tests. Could it be possible for men to pretend they are women in order to get into the right school with athletic scholarships?
- Some men are willing to do most anything to see a naked woman or have sex – This is something viewers of 1980s sex comedies know well. Viewers of Porky’s, Bachelor Party, Zapped, and Hardbodies know that there are guys that are willing to do quite unethical things for sex. Men might even be willing to pretend they are women.
These are things we all used to know about men. Even as recently as the #MeTo Movement. But I guess it’s all been forgotten on CNN.
FYI – This was a man.
If comes to mind.
The Biden administration sure as heck doesn’t know:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-admin-gives-international-women-of-courage-award-to-a-biological-man
A real man is not a woman.
I don’t think that you’ve given an answer to the question, “what is a man?” You have given a list of some common characteristics of men.
There is a biological answer, of course, with a simple general rule that applies to almost everyone, leaving us to deal with the few exceptions. In general:
I don’t know the prevalence of adults who are incapable of such things, due to some congenital defect, disease, or injury. Some men and women are infertile for such reasons, but can be easily classified in one category or another by their overall characteristics, such as the type of gonads and genitalia that they possess.
As I understand it, there are a very small number of “XY females” who have male chromosomes but are morphologically female. There are an even smaller number of people with other chromosomal anomalies, such as a triple sex chromosome like “XYY.” Further, there are people with other birth defects that caused their gonads or genitalia to develop in an abnormal way.
There might be a categorization challenge for a very small number of such people. I find it strange that this would be viewed as undermining the existence of the categories themselves. I do not think that the motivations of the people who make that argument are genuine, in a scientific sense. Rather, I think that their motivations are to undermine the traditional social rules governing male and female behavior, which I view as a rejection of the divine order established by God in the creation of the human race.
As an analogy, think of how you would define a “horse.” A horse is a quadruped mammal with certain other characteristics. But guess what — there are horses with fewer than four legs, due to birth defect or injury. These exceptions don’t undermine the usefulness of the categorization, because we do want to be able to distinguish, say, horses from cattle from dogs, for a variety of reasons.
It wasn’t my goal to give the definition of a man in the post, or even a definition. I was just pointing out that the Left currently is (or is pretending to be) oblivious to some wide spread qualities, one might even say defects or sins, in men (and people in general.)
A man is derived from the ‘measure of a man’ which is a societal consensus somewhere between ‘now there’s a real man’ and ‘unmanly’.
What a woman is is even more vague but that doesn’t keep us from making bold claims about it. In that sense I have some pity for the newest scoat, in that the question is singular but the answer is in the billions.
A poor excuse for a man is still a man.
I’m personally more invested in what constitutes a male.
In the sense of ‘unless you’re the janitor and you’ve closed the restroom for cleaning, you and your penis are not allowed in the one marked “women”‘.
I will have to defer to the Dude on this one.
So yes. All that and testicles.
Well, the Dude abides, so…
And what, if I may ask, is a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri?
A tribble?
They are Real Small Furry Creatures from Alpha Centauri.
And all dared to brave unknown terrors, to do mighty deeds, to boldly split infinitives that no man had split before–and thus was the Empire forged.
…In these enlightened days, of course, no one believes a word of it.
–The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Oddly enough, I think the left does not express similar confusion over the question “what is a man” as they do “what is a woman?” This is because men—especially the white ones—must continue as a recognizable category if they are to be righteously and reflexively condemned for all that ails the world and planet.