Do Men Have Women Heroes?

[lil devils x]

After reading this, it made me too wonder how our Escapist feel about this topic.

Men are sharing why they don't have female role models and it's sparked a debate about masculinity

Men are claiming they don't "see women as heroes" after a woman sparked an online debate about female role models.

www.indy100.com

"Some men admitted they don't have women heroes because they see women as "antagonistic to men" or "less likely to do heroic things".

"Other people agreed that whether men admit it or not, they probably don't have women heroes.
Women role models just aren't held up with same reverence and respect as their male counterparts. "

Then you have the people who think that only gay men have women heroes:

Do guys here think of women when asked the questions of :
"who do you most look up to and/or admire?"
"Who did you wish you could be like when you grew up?"
"who is your favorite Hero?'"
Or others, but you get the idea.
Do guys generally view women as people they look up to and emulate or ever think, "I wish I could be more like her"? As children do guys look at women as " I want to be like her when I grow up" or would that be weird? Women and girls have plenty of male heroes, but do men do the same thing to women in the same way?

Keep in mind Admiring a quality or a set of qualities doesn't mean you can't be critical of them for other things or see them as perfect. You can like something about them and dislike everything else as well.

 

[Baffle]

I don't think I have any 'heroes' -- I just don't think that level of uncritical admiration is normal or healthy. That said, I have a great deal of respect for Shirley Manson: says what she wants (and gets it right) and a strong and vocal advocate for social justice when she could just say nothing at all. Also a great singer.

Edit: I don't remember ever wanting to be 'like' someone else growing up (I had certain jobs I wanted, none of which I've even gone close to doing, but no specific people).

 

[BrawlMan]

I don't throw the label, hero, a lot, but there are many men and women I have high love and respect for. Those who cannot admit that or the other way around, suffer from some type of insecurity and blame their shortcomings on others. Like that douchebag and the Twitter post.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I don't think I have any 'heroes' -- I just don't think that level of uncritical admiration is normal or healthy.

Second that, reading the title I assumed it meant fictional heroes, can't think of any real people I'd see that way.

 

[Satinavian]

Of course men have female heroes/role models. At least for me sex/gender is pretty irrelevant for that. But i don't care much about gender anyway.


Overall, I probably identified more with female protagonists than with male ones over most of my life. Mainly because there are some very pervasive male character archetypes in entertainment that do nothing for me while there seems to exist more variety for female roles.

 

[bluegate]

I don't think I have any 'heroes' -- I just don't think that level of uncritical admiration is normal or healthy.

Edit: I don't remember ever wanting to be 'like' someone else growing up (I had certain jobs I wanted, none of which I've even gone close to doing, but no specific people).

This also goes for me.

 

[lil devils x]

I don't think I have any 'heroes' -- I just don't think that level of uncritical admiration is normal or healthy. That said, I have a great deal of respect for Shirley Manson: says what she wants (and gets it right) and a strong and vocal advocate for social justice when she could just say nothing at all. Also a great singer.

Edit: I don't remember ever wanting to be 'like' someone else growing up (I had certain jobs I wanted, none of which I've even gone close to doing, but no specific people).

When I was a kid, I wanted to be like a lot of people, both male and female. I don't think it is a level of uncritical admiration, but rather something about them, their personality, their actions their job something they have said or done that you admire and used to help form part of your own personality. You can do that and still not like anything else about them. It doesn't mean you aren't critical of them in other areas, reminds me of when Dolly Parton said when she was a kid she saw a prostitute and loved her hair and clothes and defined her own style based on a prostitute but that in no way implies she was promoting or admiring prostitution herself. HAHA!

There were people I liked their style, hair, clothing, shoes and then like nothing else about them. Liked how another person walked or talked, liked how others carried themselves and their actions, liked and admired actions of many but not ALL of their actions. I think of it more like that rather than meaning you see nothing wrong with them at all.

 

[lil devils x]

Second that, reading the title I assumed it meant fictional heroes, can't think of any real people I'd see that way.

It can be fictional or real.

This also goes for me.

Admiring a quality or a set of qualities doesn't mean you can't be critical of them for other things or see them as perfect. You can like something about them and dislike everything else as well. I can admire and look up to The Rock, for example, for braving being able to talk about things that other men would ridicule him for, risking fans and jobs to speak up about things like Toxic masculinity , racism and other things but then completely NOT relate or want to be, or have anything to do with a giant muscle bound bald guy wrestler dude who has terrible taste in music. LOL

 

[Shadyside]

I don't think I have any 'heroes' -- I just don't think that level of uncritical admiration is normal or healthy.

Edit: I don't remember ever wanting to be 'like' someone else growing up (I had certain jobs I wanted, none of which I've even gone close to doing, but no specific people).

This

 

[lil devils x]

This

Admiring a quality or a set of qualities doesn't mean you can't be critical of them for other things or see them as perfect. You can like something about them and dislike everything else as well.
( Adding that to the OP so people understand that as it is often misunderstood that admiring one thing about someone somehow means you can't be critical of other aspects, it doesn't mean that at all really)

 

[09philj]

I don't really have heroes either. I find certain people's skills and achievements impressive, but it's generally in a dethatched "well that's interesting" way. The true stories I like best are the weird and wild, and as such tend not to centre on particularly admirable people. The only thing I attach any kind of quasi-religious significance to is music, because it's something that I can connect with in a very intimate and emotional way, and being a kind of quiet white guy it's kind of unsurprising that the people making the music I can feel seen in most are also kind of quiet white guys. (Bob Mould, Dinosaur Jr, Protomartyr, Leatherface, etc.)

 

[Agema]

I admire people to greater or lesser degrees, but I don't really believe in "heroes".

I can't say I have any problem admiring women for their accomplishments. Any man who does have a problem admiring women for their accomplishments (or vice versa) is effectively just telling you how much of a twat he is.

 

[SupahEwok]

There are women, both that I know personally and that I don't, whom I admire. Can't say that I've ever wanted to emulate any woman, though, unlike some men I also admire. I'm honestly not sure if the thought's ever crossed my mind.

 

[Catfood220]

Buffy Anne Summers is my hero, she kicks ass.

 

[Shadyside]

I admire people to greater or lesser degrees, but I don't really believe in "heroes".

I can't say I have any problem admiring women for their accomplishments. Any man who does have a problem admiring women for their accomplishments (or vice versa) is effectively just telling you how much of a twat he is.

This

 

[Asita]

Heroes are something I don't think I've really had since I was a kid, and even then I think I only ever had one or two people that qualified as such (Dr. King being the only one that comes to mind, as he's the one I most sought to emulate while growing up). Unfortunately, back then I didn't exactly have a lot of exposure to women who'd done extraordinary things.

I was vaguely aware of Florence Nightengale, for instance, but mostly for "the Florence Nightengale Effect", making it easy to assume that the effect reflected why she was famous (ie, falling in love with a patient). I didn't know that she was a statistician who applied those skills to medicine and thereby identified causes of death that were being overlooked, most notably piss poor sanitation. I certainly didn't know about her emphasis on sanitary reform, nor that the government actually sought her out for advice regarding field medicine during the Civil War, much less what a damn impact that made. Honestly, my conception of her would have been more 'excusable' as a bastardization of the usually completely overlooked Mary Seacole. That's how little I knew about her.

Similarly, it wasn't until after college that I learned that common perception of Cleopatra was warped almost beyond recognition (thanks in no small part to our old pal Billy Shakespeare). Contrary to popular opinion, she wasn't her generation's Helen of Troy. She was a damn polymath, polyglot, and apparently brilliant conversationalist and politician.

On a related note, I'd never even heard of Anna Komnene until maybe a year ago. Byzantine Princess, physician, hospital administrator, first (known) female historian? Passed over for succession by her father who favored her little brother, much to the protestations of both herself and her mother? Got exiled for trying to depose said brother after her father's death? Why the bloody hell does Guy Fawkes and his almost comedic failure of a Gunpowder Plot get to be famous while Anna Komnene gets sidelined?

Hell, even Jeanne D'Arc hardly got a passing mention (really, by my memory it was practically just a name drop), and I don't think I learned even the most famous exchange in her trial until I looked into her on my own volition. "Do you know whether or not you are in God's Grace?" "If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me. I should be the saddest creature in the world if I knew I were not in His grace" I'm not religious, but damn do I love that response! The question was designed to be a "heads I win, tails you lose" trap, wherein affirmation would be heresy and denial would be admission of guilt. And she - a literally illiterate peasant - gave such a brilliant response to the question designed to force her to admit to either being a heretic or unrepentant sinner actually ended up being used as exemplifying why she deserved sainthood. That is one hell of a turnaround!

In case it's not clear, I am pissed that these women weren't part of my history education because damn if they weren't interesting and accomplished figures that we should have learned about. That being said, it is perhaps a bit unfair for me to expect otherwise considering that the my history education largely took a very "memorize these names and dates" approach which does a disservice to everything it touches on.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that these women were my heroes - in my mind that implies the speaker is indulging in a form of emulation most seen in the formative years - but they do have my utmost respect and admiration for their intellectual prowess and accomplishments.

 

[Worgen]

I don't think I ever did role models. The closest I remember doing was back when I was a kid and pretending to do stuff on the playground swings in elementary school. I remember pretending to be Samus Aran, but I would go with Samus being a guy since in the instructions for the first game it say 'he' so I ignored the 'she' she actually was and I didn't want to be a girl.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I've always admired Björk; she's role model of mine. She is herself regardless of company, and I've always loved that about her. Sure, the likes of Lady Gaga might be more popular, but Björk has been that way for decades, a trend-setter.

 

[lil devils x]

My brother once ran out into the yard with his sword and said " By the power of Grayskull I am She Ra!" so maybe she was his hero?

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I'm just wondering when Mardav Jain was elected spokesman for all straight men.