I’ll be honest with you. I began writing this article in 2014. It’s been the oldest thing in my “drafts” folder for a very long time. I never could finish it, because I couldn’t figure out how it ends. But today – when right-wing misogynist avatar and white-supremacist.
Tucker Carlson called out CNN’s Chris Hayes as “the kind of man that every man would be if the feminists ever achieved absolute power” – I finally realized something: it never ends. Or so it seems. And that’s the problem.
We all know that once upon a time Man lived in caves, and that in order to be a provider he had to be a good hunter, he had to be strong and aggressive and he had to be tough. He didn’t necessarily have to be so great at expressing his feelings, but inventiveness and Stone Age ‘street smarts’ sure helped.
And that, we know, is the traditional archetype of man, of maleness, the societal expectation for what defines a man and masculinity. There are standards and expectations of traditional “male” behavior. Some refer to this as “The Man Box.”
As my colleague Mark Greene has written:
A real man is strong and stoic. He doesn’t show emotions other than anger and excitement. He is a breadwinner. He is heterosexual. He is able-bodied. He plays or watches sports . . . This “real man”, as defined by the Man Box, represents what is supposedly normative and acceptable within the tightly controlled performance of American male masculinity. He dominates our movies and television. He defines what we expect from our political leaders. He is the archetypal sports star. He is our symbol for what is admirable and honorable in American men. And if he happens to get aggressive, belligerent and violent sometimes, well, that’s just the price of real masculinity.
Certainly, there are both strengths and weaknesses in “traditional” masculinity. As the writer Tiffany Madison has said:
For all of their perceived wrongs, over centuries they’ve moved entire civilizations forward, nurtured the human quest for discovery and industry, and led humankind from inconvenient darkness to convenient modernity. Navigating the chessboard that is human existence is quite a feat, yet one rarely acknowledged in modern academia or media. And yet for those monumental achievements, I love and admire the balanced creation that is man for all his strengths and weaknesses, his gifts and his curses.
If we take some liberties, zoom forward in time, and locate ourselves, say in Portland, Oregon or hipster Brooklyn, we see a very different scene, some would say this is where the sensitive more modern guy was born.
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The hallmark of modern masculinity is its diversity.
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Of course not all modern men are Frappuchino-slurping, mocha-sipping well-coiffed hipsters.
A modern man can love sports, but also appreciate art and beauty. He can be gay or straight. He can be self-aware and navigate a world of feelings, and he can also be competitive. Or not. He can be physically strong or weak. He can be attractive because of his six-pack or because of his sense of humor or way with words, or all of the above. He’s not afraid to feel, or cry, or be sensitive. The hallmark of modern masculinity is its diversity.
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But the institutional forces of the ‘Man Box’ never quite seem to recede. In 2014, news items of the day raised the issue of whether the cultural pendulum was swinging back towards a harder more traditional masculinity. There was – to some – newsworthy evidence of a backlash against the expanding definition of masculinity that threatens to break outside the so-called “Man Box.”
I thought it was news at least. Turns out it’s the same old news.
For example, back in 2014, Fox News Channel’s Brit Hume’s defense of then- New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in the wake of the BridgeGate controversy raised the spectre of a “feminized atmosphere,” an unfortunate anathema to “the old-fashioned guy’s guy,” “tough guys,” “guys who are masculine and muscular”:
In this sort of feminized atmosphere in which we exist today, guys who are masculine and muscular like that in their private conduct, kind of old-fashioned tough guys, run some risks.
Men today have learned the lesson the hard way that if you act like kind of an old-fashioned guy’s guy, you’re in constant danger of slipping out and saying something that’s going to get you in trouble and make you look like a sexist or make you look like you seem thuggish or whatever. That’s the atmosphere in which he operates. This guy is very much an old-fashioned masculine, muscular guy, and there are political risks associated with that. Maybe it shouldn’t be, but that’s how it is.
Hume’s point of view found favor in some circles, and was roundly mocked in others.
But here’s the thing. I don’t dislike Chris Christie because he’s “too masculine.” In fact, I don’t consider him to be masculine at all, just because he was mean and was a bully.
Are those really the defining traits of traditional masculinity?
In yet another 2014 Fox news segment, Fox and Friends’ Elisabeth Hasselbeck interviewed author Nick Adams to discuss the problem of the “wussification of men” in America. She questioned whether the rise of feminism has resulted in men being on the decline: “society seeing men that are not as masculine and men that are as masculine being kind of demonized?” Adams gamely responded that men are no longer allowed to be men, explaining that “we have gone from wrestling with crocodiles to wrestling with lattes” and that phenomenon is very dangerous for America. He further explained that, in his view, “feminism has resulted in angry women and feminine men.”
That was all five years ago.
But on it went. In 2016, Donald J. Trump was elected as President of the United States. If toxic masculinity were to take the form of a person that person would be Donald Trump. There can be no disagreement that these behaviors are toxic: Being a bully. A liar and a cheater. Whining when he doesn’t get his way. Misogyny. Bigotry. Lacking empathy, a sense of humor, and any moral compass.
And yet, as Trump rose to the presidency, “masculinity” again came front and center. Our news media seeking to explain him wrote articles such as ‘How Donald Trump Appeals to Men Secretly Insecure About Their Manhood’ or books like Jackson Katz’s ‘Man Enough? Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and the Politics of Presidential Masculinity.’
And now, in 2019, we have Fox News’ Tucker Carlson trying to bully CNN’s Chris Hayes in a “Quien es mas macho” throw-down for the ages, or at this for our age. Carlson is a small-minded bully, known misogynist and white supremacist, who talks over his guests to drive towards his Trumpian talking points. Hayes is a thoughtful left-leaning journalist.
The thing is, unless we have a completely warped conception of what toughness means (and perhaps we do), none of the characteristics of Trump (or Christie or Carlson) embody masculinity – traditional or otherwise – in any way. At best they each engage in a substance-less performative version of what a weak man might believe a strong man should act like if pretending to be masculine.
For example, Trump bullies and calls people names, rather than being a leader who can convince others to follow him. What is masculine about that?
He is heralded as being “tough enough to get the job done.” In other words, he wholly lacks empathy and is transactional in all affairs. Is that masculine? As my wise friend Kevin Keller says, “Empathy does not equal weakness. Real men use all of their talents to stand up for what’s right and protect others from mistreatment. Strength of spine, not strength of muscle, is what makes a ‘real’ man/woman.”
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If we allow this type of behavior to be considered “tough” or “masculine,” we allow the abusers to co-opt masculinity. And that is really what has happened. The abusers and the bullies – the Christies, the Trumps, and the Tucker Carlsons – are pushing this perverted version of masculinity as some sort of strength, and criticizing their opponents for choosing a better value system, a value system in which the bad guys lose.
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If we allow this type of behavior to be considered “tough” or “masculine,” we allow the abusers to co-opt masculinity. And that is really what has happened
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Presenting this as a binary choice between toxic masculinity and being a sensitive new age guy is a strategy and it is a lie. And if we keep letting these guys lead us by the nose, we will never be happy with the men that we are.
Because in the real world, men are complex three-dimensional beings, not two-dimensional muscle-bound caricatures. We as men are not slaves to “traditional” aggressive cave-man masculinity. Nor should any of our revealing that we are sensitive or have complex emotions doom us to a life of being a hapless powerless “wuss.” As my good friend Dave Matos says, “Only misogynists think “feminine,” lobbed at a man is an insult.”
It’s long past time to push back against those advancing the concept that bullying is masculine and that cruelty is cool. They are front and center every day. We can see through them. And we can see the damage they are causing.
Now is the time to take back “masculinity” so that we can ensure it reflects the diversity and complexity of men, rather than some grotesque simplification that only serves to alienate and harm the vast majority of men.
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