"Man Cop"

My fellow dudes, I'd like to talk with you about some things.

Things like this:

"That's a pretty girly ______, dude"

And this:

"That's not a very manly _______."

And this:

"You need to man up."

And this:

"REAL men like/hate/always/never ______"

Those are examples of masculine gender policing, which is basically just what it sounds like - playing "manliness cop" for other men.

And doing that? It marks you out as someone concerned that other people are doing manliness "right" in some kind of platonic-ideal way. Not "right for them", because if you're saying things like the above, it's totally obvious you don't give a shit about the person you're talking to, but right for.... Tradition. Or society. Or maybe, probably, almost certainly, just right for you.

It's always been a jerk move, always, but it wasn't something people could call out *as* a jerk move a lot of the time. And that.... That's changing. It's changing enough that in a few decades, if you're still spewing those lines?

Eventually - maybe a decade from now, maybe three or four depending where you live, you'll be in the kind of social position that's presently occupied by Kinda Racist Uncle Frank types. Tolerated, sure, even half-humoured because there's no point trying to correct you, but left behind with a sigh of relief and studiously avoided online.

If you're louder, and have whole rants on How To Be Manly, then the position you're likely to end up in is more like that of Really Racist Grandad; someone people are basically ashamed to know.

I leave it to you to decide if that end state is a price worth paying for whatever fun or sense of power or security or whatever it is you get out of playing "Man Cop".