Masculinity and Effeminacy

Been noticing these terms a lot lately, and they've been bothering me.  I think in part it's because masculinity is typically seen as a positive and effeminacy as a negative.  And masculinity itself is often times wrapped in an ideology of violence, certainly of power.  The two terms end up being opposites in a grander ideology of gender, but effeminacy is not exactly peace, definitely powerlessness, but more weakness.  So strength is directly related to power, and more particularly to violence in opposition to weakness.  The implication is that there is a link between violence and weakness, a sort of yin-yang, which is kinda fucked up.

And then there is the notion of emasculating, which I've also seen lately.  This also has negative connotations, which I also have issues with.  The implication, again, is that power and manliness are one and the same.  It turns out that masculine as a word only entered the American English language in the late 19th century as part of the imperialist project, which had it's roots in gender and racial domination.  It's not surprising then, that the term has violent connotations.

Is there a more accurate way to talk about the issues, then?  Well, yes and no.  No, as far as people who are making a claim for a gender-specific power that includes violence as a means of wielding such power.  This is an ideological issue that p.c.-ness will not cure.  Rather, the ideology itself needs to be challenged, not the use of the language, per se.  On the other hand, I think it sometimes is used to describe a more general grievance about power inequality that gets framed as being specifically male-centered, but is rather centered on other issues - in which case, the issues should be more carefully deconstructed and a non-gendered response to the power inequality can then be crafted.