Daniel Dale – by reputation, so mild-mannered a reporter he is a Clark Kent manqué – chose to run instead of getting punched in the face by the fat-fuck mayor of the biggest city in Canada. Well, good for him. He lives to fight another day.
But then came the armchair quarterbacking from two wymmyn who I’m sure don’t even like football, Hamutal Dotan and Emma Woolley. The real issue, we were too male to understand without help, was stereotypical notions of masculinity. Whatever might Dale’s story teach us about effeminate gay boys and “transwomen,” Woolley mused? (As I keep telling you, to a certain class of people every issue is really about transgenderism.)
Neither of these writers would ever defend a man who everyone agrees is conventionally masculine. They wouldn’t even be able to pick a guy like that out of a police lineup, which is probably where they think he deserves to end up. They’re personally unfamiliar with that type, just as they are personally unfamiliar with suburbanites or Ford supporters. Men in their social circle are not effeminate but are not conventionally masculine, either. Yes, Dotan’s cherubic bf unit loves baseball, but he’s an intellectual type, as, I surmise, are all the men both these writers know and live with.
Downtown intellectuals are the type of people who talk about “our notions of masculinity” because that’s all masculinity is to them: An idea. Masculinity is something that women and epicene gays of good conscience fight, not something men can actually aspire to and live. But the minute the conversation turns to masculine women, won’t the story change?
Once these writers actually spend some time with masculine guys, they might finally know what the they’re talking about. It’ll be a long wait. Dan Dale was still right to get the fuck out of there.