Daily Inspiration Quote by Agnes Smedley

A line that sounds like permission is really a trapdoor for lazy masculinity. Agnes Smedley begins by disarming the listener: no objection, be a man, be as masculine as you like. The phrasing mimics the tolerant posture men often expect from women and political comrades alike, a kind of social “allowance” granted from a position that’s presumed to be irritated by masculinity. Then she flips the premise. If someone needs reassurance that their manhood is acceptable, the problem isn’t masculinity itself; it’s how often “being a man” is used as a pretext for dominance, entitlement, or emotional illiteracy.

Smedley’s context matters. As a journalist moving through early 20th-century radical politics, anti-imperial struggles, and male-heavy activist circles, she would have seen how gender performance becomes a credential. Masculinity, in these settings, can function like a uniform: proof of toughness, seriousness, leadership. Her line punctures that costume without taking the cheap route of mocking men for being men. It’s not a critique of maleness; it’s a critique of the moral free pass attached to it.

The syntax does the work. “However masculine that may be” carries a dry, almost clinical detachment, suggesting she’s heard the same defense too many times. The subtext: go ahead, be masculine, but don’t mistake that for virtue, or for a license to take up all the oxygen in the room.