I've been wanting to talk about masculinity for a while

Specifically, about changing definitions/cultural understandings of masculinity and how it's becoming slightly more okay in some places to be a man who is not "macho," just as it's becoming okay to be a woman who isn't excessively feminine. I think both of these things are wonderful, but I think that the not-particularly-feminine woman is something we see a lot more often (particularly within the realms of people of color and/or low income groups) than the not-hegemonically-masculine man. But I'm one of those crazy liberals who wants to rip gender norms to shreds and promotes egalitarianism in partnerships and shit, so maybe I'm more attuned to this kind of stuff. I don't know. I know that I want a man who isn't afraid to have and share his feelings. Who can appreciate art. Who can cook and clean and will split these responsibilities with me when we're on that grown shit level. Who reads. I don't give a damn whether he likes sports or video games or if he can change a tire (though I'm not gonna lie, handyman-ness would be convenient). Who is at least somewhat fashionable. I guess what I'm hinting at is that I am attracted to "other" masculinities. Quiet masculinities. Some might even go as far as to call them androgynous masculinities, but I'm not really a fan of the "androgyny" movement because it seems a far cry from simply ceasing to associate certain traits with certain categories of the [far too narrow] gender binary. 
Okay I'm devolving into a tangent. Back to the point here. I've been wanting to talk about masculinity for a long time now, since that Sociology of Gender class I took last semester, and more acutely since a conversation I had with a very dear friend of mine a little over a month ago about what kind of a man he is. This conversation included me listing some of his traits that I think align to "masculine" ideals in quiet ways, and I had the sneaking suspicion that he felt unconvinced. It made me want to do something, because other masculinities shouldn't feel illegitimate [nor should other femininities, other racial identities, other LGBTQQ identities, other anythings!]. And so the day after that conversation I clicked the "New Post" button and stared at the blinking cursor for a while, feeling totally uninspired as to what I wanted to say. I would start typing things and then delete them, and eventually I just deleted the post and figured I'd try again later.
But later never really rolled around, and I have come to realize that I just felt like it wasn't my place to be trying to write about masculinity. And I'm not one to usually let myself be put in places, but it's like, you know, there are few things I hate more than when someone who is not a Black woman tries to tell me about myself as a Black woman. Hell, I don't always take to other Black women telling me about myself as a Black woman. So who am I to try to talk my way around and through something I can only ever be an outsider to? The first rule of writing is to write what you know. So I let the talking about masculinity thing go for a while. It was still something that I knew needed addressing, but I just didn't quite know how. 

This man's thoughts are a really good place to start.