Patience

Calmness 

Objectivity

Resilience

Thrift 

What a fantastic post

Defiantly agree with strong, capable and calm under pressure and helpful to add

A great sense of humour 

Kindness

Understanding

A brilliant mind

Warmth

Definitely*

Defiantly also works tbf

Happy to go out to restaurants etc but equally happy at home in front of the telly with a takeaway and a bottle of wine? 

• empathetic
• speaks as efficiently as possible
• appreciates his good fortune and realises that he didn't in fact pull himself up by his bootstraps
• can hold a drink but not in any way dependent
• physically strong
• has hobbies and interested in sport

Is not a dick.

Earns. 

Athlete. 

Superbly funny. 

Gets investment. 

Someone like Muttley I would say.

Physically brave

Can ride a horse

Can handle a gun

Can take his whisk(e)y

Tips his hat to ladies

3 Ducks has a crush on Timothy Oliphant in Deadwood

Lots of appalling women too. 

Not being a dick is a good trait for men and women. Some empathy, curiosity, resilience, intelligence or willingness to learn, sense of humour are also much appreciated.

Others have already covered almost all of the male virtues, but I would add:

•  Can throw and take a decent punch
• Willingness to defend one's country/family/freedom if necessary,  to the point of kill or be killed
• Charity to those less fortunate
• Honesty
• Fidelity/loyalty (whether to friends, family, spouse etc.)
• Calm and decisive in a crisis

Can be serious,but does not take himself too seriously

Hugh's "earns" jars with me

quite a lot of men I admire don't earn very much. One thinks of farmers, people in the armed forces, builders, artists, musicians. I have some friends/acquaintances with the positive traits I mentioned who are married to high earning women who are happy doing a lot of the supporting stuff like picking kids up from school. 

in fact, the desire/need to be a high earner, or the bread winner, or the financial provider, has quite a lot of baggage associated with toxic masculine traits: the men who want to be "alpha" but are actually just dicks

Wang - you may jest, but there's a lot we can learn from the 1870s American West.

"A brilliant mind" is asking too much.  As long as he is clear-thinking and decisive; he doesn't have to have read and understood "A Brief History of Time".

I generally find it more admirable if someone can avoid coming to blows so the ability to throw or take a punch is rendered unnecessary.

I generally find it more admirable if someone can avoid coming to blows so the ability to throw or take a punch is rendered unnecessary.

That's yellow belly talk.

And I don't mean the denizens of Lincolnshire.

Spiritual heir to Segovia. 

Loves EVs. 

Massive China bull. 

Strong, protective, calm, pragmatic, practical, capable.  

All of Hgs ones are what one might expect.....

I generally find it more admirable if someone can avoid coming to blows so the ability to throw or take a punch is rendered unnecessary.

Agreed. Violence is to be avoided wherever possible, but it is not always possible and there are 1000s of people alive today because brave men "got stuck in" - I have in mind in particular:

• In 2015, American servicemen Spencer Stone and Alek Skarlatos, along with university student Anthony Sadler, disarmed and overpowered Ayoub El-Khazzani, a terrorist armed with an AK-47, on a high-speed Thalys train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris. The quick thinking and bravery of the passengers helped prevent a mass shooting and led to El-Khazzani being subdued before he could carry out the attack.
• The passengers of United 93 who prevented the terrorists in control of that plane from crashing it into a building.
• The various men who fought the 2017 Borough Market terrorists.

The good man knows how to fight but avoids fighting unless absolutely necessary.

Kind and considerate are really the only ones that matter

We don't want to fight, 
But by jingo if we do, 
We've got the ships, we've got the men, 
We've got the money too.

in fact, the desire/need to be a high earner, or the bread winner, or the financial provider, has quite a lot of baggage associated with toxic masculine traits: the men who want to be "alpha" but are actually just dicks

Agree Heff I know this from experience - controlling usually.

I like protective too but sadly that usually (from my experience) merges with the above.

HD those are very different scenarios to the far more common drunken brawl on a Saturday night and things like road rage.

The ideal man should be riddled with contradiction - tis the true nature of the beast

Never starts a fight but can quickly end one.

Good male traits

• Flag: held firmly aloft
• Hair: shaved
• Skin: tattooed, pinkish white
• Loves: west ham, mum, tommeh
• Hates: muslamics, Starmer, Sadiq
• Flare: up bum

Ponces about in a balaclava. 

Parachutes on to yachts carrying naff chocolates. 

Definitely goes home to cock. 

Hmmm

A very interesting thread, Heff, and something a father should be asking himself as he and his spouse, or he alone, raises his children.  With the rise of toxic masculinity role models we must raise our game to ensure values pass down the generations and are not disturbed by other influences. 

BUT

I am not sure that my answer to this is a gender specific thing.  I think all the values I think are important are as important in women as in men. 

Here are the things I sent my son, on the recovery journey, about what an esteemable life looks like, which came up on another thread here and I shared with him.

• To be considerate and kind to others.
• To deliver something - anything - in your name that increases the lot of mankind, however small, that could not or would not have been done by anyone else, whether or not it is recognised or you gain from it.
• To love and be worthy of being loved in return.
• To gain knowledge and experience patiently but, crucially, to provide that to others so they can stand on your shoulders or, at least, not make the same mistakes as you.
• To take pleasure from things surrounding you - birdsong, music, laughter of others, a beautiful day, trees, plants, flowers, to enjoy a meal, concert, play, the company of good people, art, something on the radio, and just to feel that your soul has been refuelled by that experience - mark that moment. Your generation calls it mindfulness, I think it is just taking time to consume what's there. It changes perspectives.
• To enjoy being you. To achieve self-assurance.  Nobody can love someone who is not at ease with the person they really are or who cannot accept the truth of themselves and try to be something else. Social media is working hard to disrupt this goal. We must work harder to defeat it with honesty.
• To work to put energy into the quantum universe - not to be the one who does everything in the world as a show-off or over-stretched leader but to create energy and positivity that quietly and invisibly causes goodness. Be the one who gets the vortex churning so that people around you do things without knowing you are an underlying cause. Create the society you want around you without making a big noise about it. To do that you must know yourself and give all of yourself, not try to be something else or play politics with people.  The only energy you can bring to the quantum universe is from the true you. Be that person and don't feel you have to build everything yourself brick by brick.  This is the true meaning of "influencer".
• Do the small stuff brilliantly. Start there. Everything else will follow, as will other people.  This is the true meaning of "followers".

I have other biases based on my own views of what makes a good husband, father, male friend:

Make unfussy principled decisions and give others support to achieve that. 

Know your way around the contents of a car's engine bay. 

that is excellent advice, mutts, but I think there is some use in trying to define positive male traits, not just reduce everything to being a good person 

yes, fair, but I would start with the good person baseline, then refine with the "what is a good male trait" debate

"The ideal man should be riddled with contradiction - tis the true nature of the beast"

Absolutely not.

A man should play with a straight bat.  He should be consistent and principled.

Being complicated and mysterious is for the distaff

What a lot of blowhards. 

Kind? Considerate? Being a good person? 

These aren't masculine traits, they're just rules for being a normal person. 

indeed...well done...and? why must it be exclusive? in fact I would say that part of the problem is that men tend to think they are under some duty or entitlement to emphasise some behaviours and pass on the basic principles of "normal / good person" qualification.  It seems to be ok to be an absolute k hunt if you can demonstrate exceptional performance in terms of income, muscle, arrogance...

• To work to put energy into the quantum universe - not to be the one who does everything in the world as a show-off or over-stretched leader but to create energy and positivity that quietly and invisibly causes goodness. Be the one who gets the vortex churning so that people around you do things without knowing you are an underlying cause. Create the society you want around you without making a big noise about it. To do that you must know yourself and give all of yourself, not try to be something else or play politics with people.  The only energy you can bring to the quantum universe is from the true you. Be that person and don't feel you have to build everything yourself brick by brick.  This is the true meaning of "influencer".

This is very much 1 Thessalonians 5:11 ("Therefore encourage one another and build each other up...") and is excellent advice. 

You boomers should go and turn this thread into memes and then post them on facebook at each other

@Grey Area:

HD those are very different scenarios to the far more common drunken brawl on a Saturday night and things like road rage.

I did also say "knows how to take a punch" - even if one avoids violence at all costs, one may unfortunately become the victim of it - the ability to take a punch and stay standing is important - almost all the "one punch kills" occur not at the moment of impact of the punch on the head, but the impact of the head on the ground, as the victim topples rigidly like a felled tree - often that is not because they have been knocked out, but as a result of shock.

Getting used to getting hit via sparring increases the chances of dodging or mitigating a punch, even thrown unexpectedly, and reduces the chances of falling over rigidly in shock.

The way this thread has gone is informative.  There seems to be an acquiescence to violence underpinning some of the answers - ability to take a punch, ability to stop violence escalating by erm being violent.

To misquote the Stylistics: Stop. look. Listen to yourself, hear what you're saying.   

Getting all aroused by violence (Hotblack this is a world you live in: overexcitement about retribution, death in warfare, the above) is not a good male trait.  Instinctive inclusion of violence in a discussion about what is a good male trait is not a good male trait ffs. 

Realises football is dull. 

Doesn't care whether he's popular. 

Rates Asian talent. 

FFS hotblack

To the extent there is an answer to this it is be gained by watching Rio Bravo (and if you think I’m talking about the bits where people get shot you’re missing the point by miles)

And also basically what dux said. 

This is an appalling thread. 

Sorry, Mutters, but controlled aggression is a beneficial male attribute. A man needs to be ready to deploy it. Because the world is not perfect and that still needs to be confronted.

Milk sops will change nothing.

Understands the offside rule and LBW. 

Knows how to use tools

Knows how to play the banjo, but doesn't 

We need to get rid of these male or female traits. It's bullshit. Other than biological/hormonal differences, both men and women can be:

• appalling
• ambitious
• strong
• high earners
• gossip lovers
• toxic
• whatever

"controlled aggression" Please. What are you going to do? Thump someone on their upper arm? When is aggression ok? Maybe in self defence, which means that statistically it is more likely that women need to be ready to deploy it.

And even I understand offside and LBW ffs.

You are not helping yourselves or women with this way of thinking. Just don't be a dick. I don't care if you have or had one.

Would bang a hot transphobic.