The strange conflation of masks and masculinity
That the coronavirus pandemic would be shoehorned into our perpetual culture war was all but inevitable, but that masks would be a major point of contention has come as a surprise. That they would occasion a new discussion of masculinity is a stranger plot twist still.
The advice of wearing a mask in public to limit COVID-19's spread may be the most innocuous of the standard retinue of mitigation efforts: It doesn't interfere with our work or limit our movement, keep us from worship or separate us from extended family. In many places, you can get a mask for free. And as it reassures strangers we're acting responsibly, masking is a step, however counterintuitive, toward normalcy.
Yet since masks became widely used, they acquired symbolic meaning for their skeptics. Among those skeptics is R.R. Reno, the editor of the conservative religious journal First Things, who argued masking signals unmanly cowardice:
There are two grounds on which to reject Reno's framing, which lionized President Trump and a group of elderly World War II veterans who met with the president last week, none of them masked.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-strange-conflation-of-masks-and-masculinity/ar-BB144mv1?ocid=msn360
Or maybe it's common courtesy. Like not coughing or sneezing on someone.
= new reply since forum marked as read
... "less open" than liberals (true), but also more CONSCIENTIOUS! 
That doesn't align with my years of personal experiences at all!
