Masculinity cannot exist without femininity. On its own, masculinity has no meaning, because it is but one half of a set of power relations. Masculinity pertains to male dominance as femininity pertains to female subordination.

We need to begin to see hyper-masculinity as the disorder it is, and not as a strength.

We must dare to face the way in which patriarchal thinking blinds everyone so that we cannot see that the emotional lives of boys cannot be fully honored as long as notions of patriarchal masculinity prevail. We cannot teach boys that real men either do not feel or do not express feelings, then expect boys to feel comfortable getting in touch with their feelings.

But by far the worst thing we do to males — by making them feel they have to be hard — is that we leave them with very fragile egos. The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is.

No wonder then that men who cared, who were open to change, often just gave up, falling back on the patriarchal masculinity they found so problematic. The individual men who did take on the mantle of a feminist notion of male liberation did so only to find that few women respected this shift. Once the 'new man' that is the man changed by feminism was represented as a wimp, as overcooked broccoli dominated by powerful females who were secretly longing for his macho counterpart, masses of men lost interest.

Again and again a man would tell me about early childhood feelings of emotional exuberance, of unrepressed joy, of feeling connected to life and to other people, and then a rupture happened, a disconnect, and that feeling of being loved, of being embraced, was gone. Somehow the test of manhood, men told me, was the willingness to accept this loss, to not speak it even in private grief. Sadly, tragically, these men in great numbers were remembering a primal moment of heartbreak and heartache: the moment that they were compelled to give up their right to feel, to love, in order to take their place as patriarchal men.

Like many liberal men in the age of feminism, he believed women should have equal access to jobs and be given equal pay, but when it came to matters of home and heart he still believed caregiving was the female role. Like many men, he wanted a woman to be 'just like his mama' so that he did not have to do the work of growing up.

Men weren't really the enemy — they were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine mystique that made them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to kill.

Simon turned to Jordan, who was lying down across the futon, his head propped against one of the woven throw pillows. How much of that did you hear?Enough to gather that we're going to a party tonight, said Jordan. I heard about the Ironworks event. I'm not in the Garroway pack, so I wasn't invited.I guess you're coming as my date now. Simon shoved the phone back into his pocket. I'm secure enough in my masculinity to accept that, said Jordan. We'd better get you something nice to wear, though, he called as Simon headed back into his room. I want you to look pretty.

Dude, I don't want to talk about Lacey's prom shoes. And I'll tell you why: I have this thing that makes me really uninterested in prom shoes. It's called a penis.

What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.

The wholly manly man lacks the wit necessary to give objective form to his soaring and secret dreams, and the wholly womanly woman is apt to be too cynical a creature to dream at all.

The finest people marry the two sexes in their own person.

As vivacity is the gift of women, gravity is that of men.

In our civilization, men are afraid that they will not be men enough and women are afraid that they might be considered only women.

Neither sex, without some fertilization of the complementary characters of the other, is capable of the highest reaches of human endeavor.