I've got to say I was following right along with Tom Chiarella for his first few lines. But then it became apparent to me that Chiarella's exclusive club of manly men includes the characters played by Colin Ferrell, Matt Damon (not including Good Will Hunting because he cries), Brad Pitt, etc.
His view of manhood seems as equally distorted as Glamour magazine's view of femininity.
"A man stops traffic if he must." ? WTF?
"A man has had liquor enough in his life that he can order a drink without sounding breathless, clueless, or obtuse. When he doesn't want to think, he orders bourbon or something on tap.

Never the sauvignon blanc."
Really?
And his litmus test seems to exclude others who aren't quite men: Barack Obama, for example. He lines himself up as a liberal. He relies on explanations, categories and intellectualization. I guess he's been disqualified.
Seems to me a real man wouldn't need to read (or write) a list of masculine attributes. Seems to me he'd either a.) already know this stuff, and thus not need to read it, or b.) be man enough to be comfortable in his own skin and let his character—now how he orders a drink—be the sum of his masculinity.

My mother gave me a poem when I was 14 and told me to read it, memorize it. It's been years. But I substituted this poem for a lousy stepfather to serve as my model for manhood. Here it is:
If you can keep your head
when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
but make allowance for their doubting too.
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting.
Or being lied about and don't deal in lies.
Or being hated and don't give way to hating.
And yet don't look too good nor talk too wise.
If you can dream and not make dreams your master.
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim.
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
and treat those two imposters just the same.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools
Or watch the things you've given your life to,
broken and stoop and build them up again with worn out tools.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
and risk it in one turn of pitch and toss.
And lost and start at your beginnings
and never breathe a word about your loss.
If you can walk with crowds and keep your virtue.
If you can talk with kings, nor lose the common touch.
If neither loving friend nor for can hurt you.
If all men count with you.
But none too much.
If you can force your nerve and heart and sinew
to serve their term long after they are gone.
And so hold on when their is nothing in you,
except the Will which says to them, "Hold on!"
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
with 60 seconds worth of distance run,
yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And which is more, you'll be a man my son.

I think I'll keep relying on Kipling's version of manhood.
(By the way, that is from memory, so I'm sure I messed it up somewhere.)

Mr. Porter, I too love that poem, memorized it in high school, and have relied on it ever since in times when my character has been tested. Thank you for writing it out, and by wrote no less.

Exactly -- if you have to write out a list of stereotypical items that define your manhood, or if you feel you have to fit into a narrowly defined and under-inclusive set of traits, then are you really a man? Or are you using that list of traits to bolster your lack of confidence? In my opinion, real men don't have don't have to prove their manhood.

Lost my first try at replying:

I too encountered Kipling's poem in maybe junior high and was very affected by it. I took it as guidance for how to be. The only difference -- I'm a woman. Perhaps Kipling is speaking on how to be fully human in the world and we're more the whole than our gendered parts.

Two other similar pieces of writing that affected me were: The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, <link>

and Desiderata, by Max Ehrmann, <link>

All too often we get sucked into thinking that simple wisdom is corny. But all three of these pieces demand great things from ordinary people in ways that allow achievement to be seen as possible and worthwhile pursuing.