^ this ^ so much. It makes me very sad to see male masculinity being shamed and female empathy mocked as a weakness. The important differences should be celebrated, not viewed as a superiority contest.
We should celebrate people displaying traits that are well-adapted to the situation at hand, not the traits they "should" have based on some immutable identity bit.
The same applies with the genders reversed.
In fact this is a common form of sexual harassment - telling women they ought to make themsleves more attractive to you (smile, dress a certain way, etc) when you are strangers or colleagues.
You said:
> Being a sensitive man, an ambitious/aggressive woman, etc. is not and should not be treated like obesity.
My point is that being a sensitive man is treated like obesity, and I mentioned the most powerful driver behind men acting more stoic than they naturally would. Note that I have not made a single normative statement in this thread. I'll make the first one now: if you truly care about not reinforcing gender stereotypes, you should tackle the source not the symptom.
One of my favorite movie scenes is from the Matrix, where Neo is told, "Confidence, it means know thyself." This should be read as knowing both your strengths and your weaknesses so vividly, you can predict your performance and emotional state given a situation.
Practically, if you accept that you are sensitive [nothing wrong with that, a lot of talented artists and musicians are] and that your self-value is defined elsewhere that typical masculinity, then this whole discussion becomes pointless because your validation will come from within. If you're looking to define self-expectations by society and others, you'll struggle forever to be happy or confident.
For example pointing out that people with darker skin, which strongly correlated with certain ethnic groups, are more protected from UV radiation shouldn't make someone from that same ethnic group feel shitty if they happen to have lighter skin.
I suppose I would agree that terms masculine and feminine are pretty subjective and more culturally defined so one could more easily take offense.
The main problem here is that when you celebrate stereotypical traits, you ostracize people from the group who don't have the stereotypical traits.
citation needed... When is the last time you saw an action hero movie with a man who was shamed for being too masculine? Western Culture as a whole views male masculinity as a good thing. Being non-masculine is viewed as weakness.
On the other hand, if a woman is masculine, she's assumed to be a lesbian, and otherwise shamed. As a result, women are stuck between trying to be what society claims to like (masculinity) and what they are supposedly good at, but society doesn't value highly (femininity).
CEOs and other officials are congratulated for making tough calls, being aggressive, taking risks, outsmarting and defeating their competitors. It's generally discussed in terms of battles, and the tone is almost always in rewarding the "masculine" approach. This is why startup culture is often in the news as very unwelcoming.
Doesn't the popularity of single income families where the woman stays home indicate that men value having their wives around so much that they're willing to effectively lose half their income?
Unfortunately I don't associate the two.