I try to think about the last time I did a masculinity check on myself. I can't remember. So either it has been internalized to the point where I'm enacting the script without noticing or I outgrew the need to judge myself against the perceived standards. Maybe some of both.

I can remember being a teenager and wanting to know if I measured up. It was all intermingled with being a new kid in seventh grade. I think I was concerned that I might be gay and that would be a problem because, at least in the 80s, being gay was dangerous.

Interestingly, whenever I did things as a teen that stepped out of the masculine role, I got positive attention from girls. So who was I conforming for?

Probably the other boys.

Generalization here: I think about the way that teenage girls put on make-up and style them clothes and such and I think they are mostly doing it for status within the girl group.

Perhaps masculinity and femininity are performed as part of a ritualistic marker system of social awareness for in-group and out-group. In our evolutionary environment being in the out-group was dangerous, so as teens we become hyper focused on fitting in.

Our society seems stuck in the teenage years - probably because we don't think well about adolescence. Adolescence is a critical period for finding one's place in society. Capitalism depends on people not finding their place because it needs an endless supply of insecure adults to become workers. So we lock people into their adolescent fears and they keep having to prove themselves.

Thanks for this essay - I look forward to more.