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Women, tackle these four points and rid your relationship (and your guy) of the man box forever! Men, did we get it right?
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The Man Box. It exists. And women deny it. Our social media is clogged with memes broadcasting the need for men to “man up,” referencing the number of guns a man might own, or how he will bury the guy dating his daughter. The worst ones poke fun at a man’s competence. We all suffer the goofy daddy meme, too. Some people may argue this is humor not meant to hurt anyone and so it should be okay. But even in jest, the man box is reinforced by men and women, particularly women who have not inherited the new man—a man who has somehow managed to avoid the man box altogether. This gent is in touch with his feelings; he doesn’t shoo them away, and he doesn’t feel shame for experiencing them.
So for the sake of loving men, as women we must learn how to bolster this new man (out-of-the-box) and those courageous enough to try and leave the box as well.
The man box, arguably has been identified as primarily belonging to this next, hipster generation. Baby Boomers may decry that a man box even exists, and a majority of them sure as hell don’t want to leave the invisible, predictable confines. Their partners, wives, gals; largely straight-laced and slightly more conservative, may wonder there’s nothing wrong with the surviving man who has risen up among the ranks of men through the ages…why are we trying to change them now?
As this generation of progressive women flank their men, receiving by a matter of course and growth new guys who fight for their right to feel, heal, open up and express without chastisement, it is not surprising these same women sometimes struggle with what to do half the time, as echoes of their fathers remain. The stoic daddio, clad in tank top underwear (unglamorous/offensive slang a.k.a. wife-beater), his cigarette hanging out as he pressed a spatula into the hamburgers spitting grease. This is the phantom father at odds with the man sitting across from her, or if he has a partner, his lover sitting over the breakfast table, perhaps both of them striving to slice up that man box…yet unsure how.
For this purpose, let’s go hetero as we explore four key points. I have traversed this road, and have since inherited this situation as have a lot of my female friends, so I can speak authentically.
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1. Women’s definition of a vulnerable man is one of supposition and is therefore incomplete. The meaning of vulnerability coming from the fairer sex may not be accurate, simply because while women can be empathetic, we lack the deeply-grooved history of living as a man. As such, we resort to suggestive truths that may not be accurate at all; assuming we know what a man might need and how he might feel. In reality, we are not qualified to define vulnerability in our men; we are not able to leap their tall feelings in a single bound.
Assuming so implies we know the inner workings of a man. The inference he is all sex, brawn, manly lather and pine fragrance, that he needs physical work and strenuous habits in his life. In reality, each man is different, each man a blooming wildflower, if you will. Inside and out, so complex, such a cellular marvel and as a result, each man possesses different and very individual needs which need to be met; a broad-brush application will not do the trick.
Once we permit our men to explain their needs and desires, it’s on to point two.
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2. Creating an environment where men can allow themselves to be vulnerable. As women, we need to listen to his cravings he announces are necessary. Several months ago, I pointed out in a prior The Good Men Project article: It’s Your Turn to Talk Men, Your Partners Are Listening, that it is vital to develop this habit. Yet as the context of the article sought to inspire such a practice, the men who read it, railed back! Flurries of comments rose up from disbelieving men hollering out their frustrations and the fact they had never felt safe enough to fully reveal their emotions in their relationships, to cry, to even in the time it takes an argument to tire, to feel as though they had been listened to.
Let’s revert for a minute: ladies, can you imagine if you were not able to settle into emotional comfort when you prepared to bare your soul? That you were shut down in a hot second, or worse, ridiculed? What must that do to men, who are forced to stuff their emotions right back where they came? What would that do to you?
Men require an accepting environment where they can pour out their feelings and get comfortable. Really, this goes for anyone–if you are a bottled up female, a transgender person, a lesbian, or gay male struggling in a relationship…however you identify. This is not an exclusive decree. It is applicable to all humans. To love and accept while offering encouragement.
Which is a super segue into bullet three.
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3. Understand what needs to be addressed to encourage vulnerability. What can you do as your partner is taking a risk to explore their feelings and ultimately testing you to see if you can be trusted with them? Listen. Listen. Listen. Then ask questions to facilitate support and love only when your partner has emotionally emptied themselves.
What made you feel that way? How can I help you get through this? What do you need in this moment?
Keep on pulling those feelings out and letting them shine in the light. Be prepared for the person sharing to want to shut down, to act embarrassed, or even ashamed at what they just confided. Likely, they are competing with years of guilt, regret and fear. You can put your hand over the top of theirs and look into their eyes, smile and let them continue to talk. It is not up to you, as the partner of this man, to determine when the conversation is over. Your role is to sit there and be an engaged listener for as long as it takes your guy to unload.
Yes…we have addressed and will continue to address listening. Might there be a theme?
When a person is learning to trust and taking that tentative step, it’s a crucial time of extreme exposure, so when he takes you into his heart and head, realize it’s an honor. You have the power in this moment to allow the ground to break open and shatter a stereotype, to satisfy the thirst in his heart, or to trample all over it. Remember, he knows how naked he is and he is telling you without saying one damn thing, that he hopes you will get him; that you will act as a safety net in what he may perceive as a moment of extreme weakness.
If you allow him to continue sharing his vulnerabilities, demonstrate he can trust in the security of the moment and coax him to convey his emotions, you two will emerge stronger. The next time you have the opportunity to listen, your reward comes in the form of increased devotion and a mate who will find it easier to trust you. Your conversations will flow. I have heard, I don’t know how to go deep in my relationship with my husband, and guess what? I didn’t either…until I shut the hell up. Trust begins to flower immediately, and soon it spreads like Creeping Charlie on the lawn.
If you are threatened at hearing such honesty, try to suppress your knee-jerk emotion. We spend so much time being offended, but a man confiding his deepest doubts and feelings has nothing to do with you. I said it. Nothing to do with you. He is asking you to be present. He is asking you to pay attention and take an interest in what he cares about and in what he holds dear. He is beseeching your friendship and love to show you that he needs you in a very specific way–to hold him up–and to permit him to emotionally trust fall in your presence. Your partner may confess secrets about you that hurt to hear. Resist a defensive reply! This is the time for you to grow emboldened on the inside. Tell yourself his is needed feedback and it will reinforce your love. Because it will. You need to listen when things are bothering him–even if you are the thing bothering him! You need to take in his observations and the ways you may be hurting him accidentally and incidentally. Just as he listens to you–and even if he doesn’t.
First, it is the right action to take, and second, if he is struggling to listen to you, you model what you need and what entails a healthy habit. When your guy tells you what pulls at him framed in a constructive discussion, it is not to cause you pain, but to help both of you. And if you don’t listen, be prepared for the snowball to come rolling into your life. Little offenses, when not validated, quickly turn into unwieldy and repeat issues that are harder to handle, and sometimes, they even morph into deal breakers.
It might sound silly, but your male partner needs the reassurance from you to continue spilling his inner secrets. You may need to state that he is safe and you are excited to hear from him, and you will do anything to support him. Then back it up and show him. Your man will start to transform. The moments when you worried if your life mate would ever get to that next level are going to start to happen. So get ready for greater fulfillment; prep for your own moments of vulnerability to become even more meaningful.
Finally…
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4. Women don’t understand that men have definite anxiety about becoming vulnerable. Why? Because all of their lives men have been charged with living up to a resolute stereotype. It is real. As a person who is all for urging a softer side from your male partner, it’s important that you grasp this fear is fact. Men, practiced in sucking up the tears, in deflecting their true emotions: panic, terror, anxiety, sadness, grief, frustration and all the other dwarves have become masters. They self-deprecate their skills: the funny guy who’s secretly sad inside: the tough guy: encountering a devastating situation who never works through tragedy, including everyday tragedies and disappointments; everyman: ignoring slights cutting at them. Men can turn it off, throw you off and shut if off in seconds. You might see a flash of regret as they eat another emotion—as they wrestle with staying in check, so comprehend it is there—this superhero emotional syndrome. If you ask leading questions and allow your partner to define their unique vulnerability; if you accept the real fear men dread, i.e. “caving into weakness” and if you listen while urging raw honesty, you will see a different man triumph. Know he can’t do it alone. He needs you as a deliberate partner, as any human requires support. He wishes for you to validate it is okay to let his guard down.
That is the start, accepting your role in destroying the man box, and then extending your hand to help him out of it.
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That is a great way of putting it Christy. Being true to oneself. Brokering our strengths and I think this is what the author was getting to. In other words every individual has their “box” I have boundaries I won’t cross because they’re uncomfortable to me. For some men it maybe not into traditional male activities and overt competition. Or warfare. Whatever. For others their box is “Madmen” traditionality. But do it because it’s you not because it’s fashionable no matter how many days it’s the right, or worse, only way to be. This goes for women too. But of… Read more »
Excellent, Hillary. Women are now more accepting of men being vulnerable. It’s a welcome sign to see that they can be not only attracted to, but supportive and loving of those men who are. #boldbetas
I think you missed the point David. Hilary was asking for 4 points to change. Which implies its not being done already. So women are not being accepting. Yet. Which is what Hilary is asking for. Whith this you may be right. Iys just mot happening yet.
Sounds good to me, Mark. My husband does most of the financial stuff because I suck at money. I clean the kitchen because I am so much more efficient at it than he is. I cook because I am a better cook. Are we kowtowing to stereotypes? No, just balancing our strengths. He is a pragmatic, scientific thinker but he’s also pretty emotional, and deeply compassionate. But the coolest thing about him is that he is rock solid confident in who he is. One of his clients (he is a psychologist) who was at a juvenile detention facility once remarked,… Read more »
This topic is so relevant today. With superficial observation of fashion and speech we make it a battle. It really doesn’t need to be. Looking at the responses you can see how it resonates. Some clinging and some letting go. Let’s just all accept what it ,ears to be human first. The differences can be debated after the fact. They are small, really.
I guess one other point I’d like to make about this subject is that I think everyone should maximize their talents so that it works for them and others. Especially in relationships. For example. My wife loves to work out every night after work. I’m a great cook. She is too but I’m the primary cook and trust me she’s happy about it. She on the other hand is creative and sees spatially much better than I do. But she’s scared of power tool because she has no experience with them. She tells me where to cut and I do… Read more »
Where to start…. I was raised by a cheating and whoring mother that got herself murdered by her last ‘Bad Boy’ while she was trying to monkey branch to a convict as a safe haven (wtf) then shuttled to a manipulative, abusive and sexually deviant great aunt that kills any stereotype that only men are pedophiles, attempted suicide nearly 20 times before running away from that hell at 15, joining the military at 16, and being deployed for EVERY Genocide from 1987 to 2005. I am very well in touch with my feelings, and highly aware of the shit that… Read more »
@ Boris, Damn…Now tell us how you really feel?! But, on a more serious note….I, like Tom, am not a proponent of the idea of the “Man Box”..However, there are some things within the “Man Box” that are both true and detrimental to men… Like Tom said above, I think the key is becoming better men. All this other stuff is really about social engineering. As we all know from history, social engineering, at least of societies, has never worked. The grandest experiment of all time was East European communism and its “new man.” Hillary is asking women to help… Read more »
Although I think you mean very well, I think you’re making a huge assumption. You’re assuming that women want and will support a “vulnerable” man. There is an old adage that says that when women talk about wanting a sensitive man hey mean that they want a man who is sensitive to their emotions not his own. Before anything women have to come to their own decision that this is something they want and are willing to support. They have to be willing to accept the results. If you don’t want to hear the answer, don’t ask the question type… Read more »
Great stuff though I do have one or two niggles about it. The problem isn’t that men aren’t allowed to spread our wings and be vulnerable, but that we fear losing our autonomy that has been ingrained since day one and a major attribute that women expect to have in a man (those who don’t have it are dismissed as “man child”). Most attempts by women to encourage men to be vulnerable feels self-serving. It’s not about him, it’s about placating her own fears and pushing her own needs. Aside from that one point, I don’t see why some of… Read more »
Frank, my problem is that women are being told and are buying into the so called “man box.” It’s a made up term that’s catching on in the feminist community … sorry but I’m not buying into it.
BTW, did you know some are calling it ““cult of masculinity” …. wow, men are screwed.
@ Tom Brechlin
I’m OK with the term if that’s what they want to use, but I’d like to get rid of it not increase it’s dimensions. Masculinity is anything other than traditional masculinity is just a bigger box.
Great point John, it just becomes a bigger box where there should be no box at all.
Indeed I feel the same way. Also I’d like to point out that most of the population doesn’t know vulnerability in it’s true form. Therefore how can anyone know it when they see it kind of thing, women fear it b/c they haven’t truly been vulnerable themselves. Brene Brown writes about what ” true” vulnerability is….. and many of us mistake emotion,weakness, victimization, amongst other things as vulnerable. However, since I woman up to my own emotions, and take responsibility for my own feelings, and have worked on my own wounds, healed, grown. I can sit with a man and… Read more »
If my man did research on my favorite mascara I’d be off the way happy and forget the comments, that is such a turn on and so masculine ( TO ME) . He totally would do that for me, he does research already on things for me and surprises me. Just had to chime in on that one…
Love is a very valuable gift. Thinking of someone, being concerned for the. I once reduced my mom to tears (felt bad about it, but tried to keep it in perspective that it was tears of joy) I won an autographed baseball. I could have any Cub player sign it. I asked my mom who her favorite player was and she said Mark Grace. Annual Rune Sandburh was the star of the team and future hall of famer. A lot of the guys thought I was foolish for picking Grace. Anyway, I gave it to ma and she just broke… Read more »
Agreed, but here we have a woman willing to face up to her own failings and that of her gender, in constructing and maintaining it. She may have made several errors of judgement in this article and the last, but at least the author is on the right path.
I don’t get the vitriol. One of the first statements made by the author is that we, as women, are not qualified to assume we know the inner workings of a man. Besides, every man is different. Perhaps I oversimplify, but the point appears to be, shut up and listen when your man is ready to be vulnerable, because it’s not easy for him to share it.
Kira, do you realize what you just did by stating that some of the responses were “vitriol?” You showed disregard to what “some ” men had to say because it didn’t fall in line with what the premise of the article is. For that matter, Katherine did the same thing.
I guess vulnerability only counts when it’s qualified. You said it yourself, “…every man is different” but when it comes to these topics, topics about the “man box” the only ones to be listened to are the ones that agree.
@ Kira “I don’t get the vitriol. ” I don’t agree with it, but I understand where it is coming from. It’s coming from the assumption that a man has to express his vulnerability in the same way as a woman and he has to communicate in the same way as a woman. Sometimes a guy just needs to be by himself. Sometimes he just needs you there. He doesn’t need you to say anything or do anything. Sometimes he needs you to flesh it out because he wants to talk, but can’t start. Like she said every man is… Read more »
@ John Anderson … “Every man has his own communication style” You have that right. Add the fact that many men have a sense of when it’s appropriate and with whom it appropriate. Men are not “chatty Kathy’s” who speak openly in groups, especially when it’s a topic that’s intimate.
I just went to a men’s gathering where 8 of us were just relaxing at someones home, we talked but there wasn’t anything of real substance. Half way through a couple of us went out for a smoke which made all the difference.
Btw. I think this article is foretelling the future. Nice overall job Hilary. You won’t live long enough to see it either. But it may move faster than even I think. Just last summer I got into a discussion about terrorism on American soul. I said within 5 years. The others said 20. I got 2 notes saying I was right. Too bad so. But even I didn’t think within 5 months. That’s how fast this is moving. Not just terrorism of course. But a species change. With the rise of women in the workplace is there anyone really left… Read more »
About terrorism, I knew it wasn’t going to be long. They would either realize that they can’t hit the long ball (no more 9/11 type highly coordinated, meticulously planned, attacks involving multiple teams attacking many diverse targets) or realize that there are no good targets (ISIS can’t effectively shoot down planes). How long could they go without any battlefield “successes”. It’s much harder to stop the “lone wolves”. It’s beyond me how anyone could have missed it. As far as traditional masculinity is concerned. What makes you think we’ll stop striving to overcome obstacles? You think we won’t try to… Read more »
I want you to know I agree with much of what you say John. I don’t think traditional masculinity is bad at all. Do I think non traditional men could build mars colonies? I sure do. My point is solely for each man to know himself and live to it. Defend it and tell others to take a leap of they don’t like him the way he is. Tjats it. My sole point. But when folks go to the level that only a traditional man is a real man, the only one who creates and stands for something then I… Read more »
Most of these men of whom you speak did certainly not raise their sons with empathy for their fellow humans. May have been your individual experience But look around and see the boomer generation. A carbon copy of their fathers and grandfathers. The men you refer too showed vulnerability to each other in a hellfire situation. They used the support of everyone’s gear to suck it up together and press on anyway. But when they got home most refused to ever talk about it. Certainly not their fears and vulnerability with their families and absolutely not with their wives. Tom… Read more »
Mark, I am interested in the same things you are. I want to see men expand who they are, tap into areas where they shied away from but that’s not to say that who they are now has little value. Men have always been vulnerable but their vulnerability has been overshadowed by stereotypes.
I’m not sure what you meant by castration being confused with vulnerability.
You used “boots on the ground” as an example. Perhaps it’s the group you hang with but in my circle, the majority would agree with us.
I have no idea why I’m having such a hard time posting. After hitting post it just sits there. Some do go through but this one like others just never connects
Au contraire….I think you do your readers a disservice by dismissing Baby Boomers as if we were all cut from the same mold – by doing so you’ve helped perpetuate the type of stereotypical thinking you’re ostensibly railing against in this piece. I can assure you that older women are not complacent women, and I find your dismissal naive and short-sighted. I can further assure you that we don’t wonder “why are we trying to change them now?” because we have been at the forefront of helping men ‘evolve’ for more than a generation. We applaud thoughtful younger women who… Read more »
“because we have been at the forefront of helping men ‘evolve’ for more than a generation. ”
oh please.
I actually agree with you here 8ball. Women have not been helping us to evolve except in a very indirect way. Its more about them than us. We’re just the afterthought of their own agenda and unintended consequences.
“indirect ways’ …. perfectly stated. Men have evolved through “survival” Stay at home dads for example evolved NOT because of a movement but because men have had to adapt, they saw the benefits of being at home with the kids and mom working.
…because we have been at the forefront of helping men ‘evolve’ for more than a generation.
And you’ve maintained that forefront by silencing and attacking men that don’t agree with your evolutionary plan.
Dear sweet jeebus – Luckily as Gen-X, I escaped ever being a wildflower that needs to blossom or bloom. wtf.
I do weep for the generation behind me – it all sounds like a Very Special Blossom episode on heavy repeat. I do hope they find their testicles …. with of course the approval and support of the ‘fairer’ sex.
*Orwell would be happy, it does seem the sheep are running the farm.
I always like reading comments before I get to the article … now I’m afraid to read the article
Sadly, I read the article and I’m not surprised at all. Men, we are now being shaped into what women expect us to be and it all falls under the veil of “I want to help you grow as a man.” Being a baby boomer, I can personally attest that much of the stereotyping of men is and always has been just that, a stereotype. Being a baby boomer who was raised by the GI Generation, I experienced and witnessed the countless stereotypes of their generation as well. All one has to do is look at historic footage from WWI… Read more »
Yes this is something that must be avoided. If you look at how masculinity is spoken of do you notice how its nearly always negative? And most of the time about how it affects everyone other than men themselves (or at least making men themselves last in the list of priorities)? I think your comparison to how women are helped is valid and shows a stark contrast. There is no “woman box”. There is no push to improve women for the sake of helping men and children. There is no “toxic femininity”. The framing is totally different for men. There… Read more »
I can’t help but think that you are exactly the type of guy the author describes as being fearful of vulnerability: so desperately fearful that you engage in denial. It’s not about becoming weak. In fact, it’s about being real, facing that fear, accepting valid emotions and strengthening one’s character. It’s about being a better person. Yes, there are good traits that are traditionally masculine: courage, strength, etc. These are not being criticized in the article; they’re just not being “demanded” of men, they’re being encouraged in a positive accepting way.