So keep in mind nothing here is negative about either gender. The base natures of both are rough, dangerous, corrosive, and vicious, but good people turn vice into virtue. Things may seem negative but in the end what is negative becomes positive over time given the right direction and structure, just as greed can become the basis for either avarice or industriousness.
I will also say that a lot of masculinity and femininity are cultural constructs that arise through necessity. They are products of history and necessity, due to the fact that men and women are differently situated in relation to having and raising children.
Historically in agrarian, non-industrialized times, men and women both worked but the work was different. Men's work was far more solitary. Men would be plowing the fields alone. Women would get together to beat flax, spin, weave. Gossip, scheming, and meddling have always been the way women have asserted power. Similarly domestic power meant power over economic production, domestic power was worth a lot more than today.
In Relation to Women
In more traditional societies, identity is relational and productive. We are our connections to other people and we are our works and our deeds. Masculinity is thus tied to being a husband, a son, a father, a friend, perhaps a soldier or a craftsman, or a farmer. Femininity is tied to being a mother, a daughter, a wife, also possibly a craftsman (it's worth noting that -man was a gender-neutral suffix in Old English and hence it survives at the end of "woman"). A man might plow the fields, but a woman might make cloth. A man might be a father and a woman a mother. A man might be a tavernkeeper, and a woman might be a beer-brewer. Both might be shopkeepers. However in the interest of family business, both would work together, producing a family business, and having and raising children would be integrated into the family business.
In this environment, then, most cultures end up with a dichotomy in power and responsibility. Women's power is officially local and private but in practice collectively exercised and orchestrated through social connections, gatherings, and so forth. Women typically controlled power not only over house and home but also, critically, over the space where business was actually carried out. In essence women formed the family and the family business, and effectively ordered it on a day-to-day level. Major personality assets associated to women were sensibility, practicality, industriousness, and so forth.
On the other hand, men's power was traditionally public and diplomatic. The man was the public face of the household, and the individual responsible for going out into the world and defending the interest of the family and family business. A man had a responsibility to defend the family honor and in particular the honor of his wife, his mother, and his sisters and to conduct business in a way that edified the family. Major personality assets associated with men were constancy, loyalty, steadfastness, and an ability to keep promises.
A woman forms the family, and a man's honor encapsulated and shields the family from harm, as well as goes out and helps ensure that the family business thrives through conducting public business. A man is his word.
A simple way to phrase this is that the woman is queen of house, of home, of business, and her husband is her emissary. The business deals then constrain and provide stability around which practicality can take hold.
In Relation to other Men
The public, contractual space where men traditionally operated is effectively an interfamily space where deals are formalized or where collective community action took place (for example warfare or public councils). In these areas the man's role is to defend the interests of his family vis a vis other men and other families. Hierarchies are more simple and less fluid, and honor goes a lot further. To a large extent, men's relationships with other men are secondary to their relationships with women.
What We are Losing regarding Identity
Where we no longer see identity as relational and productive, identity becomes a purely internal, fluid state with little inherent meaning or stability. The ability of men to stand up, make deals for the family and represent the family in public life is eroded. Much of that erosion is due to women no longer having leading roles in family businesses or collectively working out political issues before men get to it through gossip etc. but much more is due to the loss of the sense of place in relation to other people, to women, and to what we make.
Recapturing this identity is one of the more important tasks of our time.
