So I see a Newb has decided to :stickpoke Bruce.

:corn:

High school attention whore with a penny on her hip.:rolleyes:

Penny on her hip?

Is that like a chip on her shoulder? No seriously, I've never heard that expression before.

Well there was Christine de Pizan for a kick off, in the middle ages :P Not to mention the later Mary Wollstonecraft. Worth recalling though, that when Wollstonecraft was writing in the 18th century, she was referred to by some as 'a female politician', an 'Amazonian' and 'an Unsex'd Female'.

Somehow men managed to carve themselves the twin roles of introspection and silence, philospher and plain minded speaker, sensitive romantic and unfrilled defender.

Men can be introspective and still retain a sense of manliness which relies on a lack of the same. There is little about our sense of gender that is not problematic in some way.

The mods and the admins here pretty much want to be treated like everyone else, so they don't advertise the fact that they are mods. If you are worried about it, you should assume that everyone is a mod or that nobody is.

What being a man means to me
 

To answer your question more directly, it means embracing his differences, emphasizing chivalry, courage, honor and trustworthiness.

There are few if any role models left these days and it is up to fathers to teach and inculcate these values in America's youth. The Boy Scouts try, but fail.

On the other hand, you asked what manhood means to ME.

To ME, it means a lifetime of enslavement, repression, misery, loneliness, sadness and tears. A prison from which I will in all likelihood never escape.

Manhood is as much a societal construct as it is a state of being.

Defining manhood is a difficult thing, any more than defining womanhood is. Manhood means more than the mere possession of a penis and testicles. It is a state of mind as well as being.

Ask any veteran who has lost his to a land mine if HE'S still a man or not. Cancer causes many men every year to lose their testicles. Are they any less a man than an intact one is? What about accident victims? Burn victims?

For that matter, is a woman any less a woman for undergoing a hysterectomy? Or Bilateral masectomy?

Is it the package, which can be altered? Or the state of mind, the personal identity that defines one's gender?

No. I'm not a moderator.

Welcome to the Cellar, by the way.

A man's true greatness lies in the consciousness of an honest purpose in life, founded on a just estimate of himself and everything else, on frequent self-examination, and a steady obedience to the rule which he knows to be right, without troubling himself, as the emperor says he should not, about what others may think or say, or whether they do or do not do that which he thinks and says and does.

-Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.

Ole Marcus said it much better then I, and he said it first.

What should being a man mean to you (one woman's perspective):

Being honest, being gentle but not a pushover, being strong but not a bully, being caring but not a pansy-ass. Oh, and honest. And, honest.

(Did I mention honesty? You know, it's hardly ever heard.) ;)

Because that construct is a moving target, that's the rub... balancing what's currently expected, what's politically correct, with what I feel is right.
State of mind defines me, gender is only one of the things affecting that state of mind.

The package can definitely be altered, from the external events you described, to simply aging, and the contents also changes. ;)
While my perception of right and wrong, my "core values", probably remain pretty much steady, my behavior will change. Behavior in relation to society, is more reaction, than action.

Being true to One's self whether male or female is the ultimate beginning of shaping a person into who they are.