How we can heal male trauma and the resulting illnesses it creates.
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The traditional rules about how to be a “real man” in America are breaking down. Economic upheaval has shifted wage earning from men to their wives or partners. The rise of men as primary caregivers of their children is challenging our most fundamental assumptions about gender. The gay rights and trans rights movements are creating expansive new definitions of masculinity. Millennials are leading a much broader acceptance of diversity.
This generation is witness to a collision between traditional masculinity and a new wave, one that values intimacy, caregiving, and nurturing. But many of us have spent our lives under immense pressure to stifle emotional expression of any kind. And we’re learning there’s a cost: Men are suffering higher rates of life-threatening disease, depression, and death. Simply put, the suppression of emotional expression in men is damaging their health and well-being.
If you’ve grown up in the United States, then you’re familiar with the Man Box, the longstanding rules of how to walk, talk, and sound like a man in America:
1. Real men don’t express a wide range of emotions. They limit themselves to expressing anger or excitement.
2. Real men are breadwinners, not caregivers.
3. Real men are “alphas” and natural leaders.
4. Real men are authoritative and make all final decisions.
5. Real men are physically tough and sexually dominant.
These rules take hold early in our lives. Boys 4 and 5 years old are told to shake it off, man up, don’t be a crybaby, and, worst of all, don’t be a girl. This is because the Man Box devalues any form of emotional expression traditionally deemed to be feminine. A devastating result of this anti-feminine bias is that women, gays, and trans people face epidemic levels of bullying, rape, misogyny, homophobia, and violence.
The Man Box robs our sons of a lifetime of opportunities to develop their emotional capacities. Instead, they grow into emotionally isolated men who wall themselves off from the social connectivity central to healing and creating community. The resulting health effects are undeniable.
One in three men aged 45 or older reported himself to be lonely or socially isolated, according to a 2010 survey conducted by AARP. The consequences of that social isolation can be fatal.
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One in three men aged 45 or older reported himself to be lonely or socially isolated, according to a 2010 survey conducted by AARP. The consequences of that social isolation can be fatal. Between 1999 and 2010, suicide among men aged 35–64 rose by nearly 30 percent, as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although rates have been rising for both sexes, the study found that middle-aged men are three times likelier than women to end their own lives—27.3 deaths versus 8.1 (per 100,000).
But the risks of social isolation are not just psychological; the absence of robust social relationships has a direct measurable impact on men’s physical health. A 2004 medical study based in Sweden showed that for middle-aged men, having a strong social network and sense of belonging lowered their risk of heart attack and fatal coronary heart disease; inversely, low social support predicted a risk.
The study further confirms that the risk of mortality for poor social relationships is comparable to risk factors like smoking and alcohol consumption, writes Niobe Way, author of Deep Secrets and professor of applied psychology at New York University. “This point underscores the fact that friendships are not simply a feel-good issue—they are a life-or-death issue.”
Add to this epidemic of emotional isolation the physical impact of unresolved trauma in men’s lives, and the combined effects are devastating. In The Body Keeps the Score, psychiatrist and PTSD researcher Bessel van der Kolk explores his decades-long work treating victims of catastrophic trauma. In 1978, he joined the Boston Veterans Administration Clinic as a staff psychiatrist. There, working with veterans of the Vietnam War, van der Kolk began to see the patterns that mark our modern-day understanding of trauma.
He learned that the human body, when confronted with trauma, can etch horrific memories in the brain, literally reorganizing our perceptions and imagination. The most harmless sounds can trigger flashbacks. One veteran, upon hearing a baby crying, “found himself suddenly flooded with unbearable images of dying children in Vietnam.” He was stuck, in effect, in a terrible loop, revisiting the events over and over again.
One of the many physiological responses to trauma can be seen in a region of the brain called Broca’s Area, which freezes up during flashbacks. This region of the brain is where we construct language to define and interpret our experience of the world. Is it any wonder people find it deeply challenging to put their experiences of trauma into words? Our own physiology is telling us it’s better to remain silent, making trauma all the harder to share or process.
And what exactly qualifies as trauma? Is it only present after catastrophic events or can it also take hold in the smaller brutalities of daily life, on playgrounds or in locker rooms? How much unresolved trauma do men carry after decades of emotional suppression?
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And what exactly qualifies as trauma? Is it only present after catastrophic events or can it also take hold in the smaller brutalities of daily life, on playgrounds or in locker rooms? How much unresolved trauma do men carry after decades of emotional suppression?
I can recall, as a 7-year-old, seeing my home disappear out the back window of a car as a bitter divorce and my mother’s new marriage drew me away. I recall my brother taking out his shock and rage on me for 15 years afterward. I still flash back to the suffocating bullying and violence that ran rampant throughout my years of school and Scouts. And yet, when is any man encouraged to share such stories? For generations, talking about such things was antithetical to our culture’s insistence on male toughness. Thankfully, this is changing. As an editor for the Good Men Project, a website devoted to modern masculinity, I see thousands of men’s stories being told. But we need to hear more. Millions more.
Trauma and the Man Box are mutually reinforcing. If, as men, we do not share our feelings, we will accrue decades of painful hidden stories, some of which will play over and over, triggering depression, fear, and unresolved anger toward ourselves and those we love.
Van der Kolk writes, “Everything about us—our brains, minds, and our bodies—is geared toward collaboration in social systems. This is our most powerful survival strategy, the key to our success as a species, and it is precisely this that breaks down in most forms of mental suffering.”
If we are to empower our sons and improve men’s lives—and their health—we must tear down the walls of the Man Box, encouraging boys and men to express their full emotional range. The path forward begins in our homes. In small, ongoing daily conversations, we can encourage our sons to explore their internal emotional landscapes, sharing those profound discoveries of life. The result will be countless authentic human moments, strung out across decades, each one growing the rich tapestry of human connection and capacity.
The cost of failing to do so is incalculable. Without the robust social networks that emotional expression creates, men will continue to suffer social isolation and shorter, sicker lives.
Van der Kolk defines humans as powerfully resilient and resourceful creatures, able to move beyond the challenging events of our lives and heal. But to do so, men must collaborate, connect, and share our stories, no matter how difficult they may be to tell.
And everyone else? They need to listen.
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YES! illustration by Pablo Iglesias
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Get a powerful collection of Mark Greene’s articles, in his book, REMAKING MANHOOD–Available now in print and on Kindle Reader for Windows, Macs, Android, iPhones and iPads
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Remaking Manhood is a collection of Mark Greene’s most widely shared articles on American culture, relationships, family and parenting. It is a timely and balanced look at the issues at the heart of the modern masculinity movement. Mark’s articles on masculinity and manhood have received over 100,000 FB shares and 10 million page views. Get Remaking Manhood IN PRINT or on the free Kindle Reader app for any Mac, Windows or Android device here.
Read more by Mark Greene:
A Manifesto: Relational Intelligence For Our Children
The Ugly and Violent Death of Gender Conformity
When “Check Your Male Privilege” Becomes a Bludgeon
Why Are Death Rates Rising for Middle Aged White Americans?
When Men Keep Demanding Sex From Their Partners Over and Over
How the Man Box Can Kill Our Sons Now or Decades from Now
Why Traditional Manhood is Killing Us
Why Do We Murder the Beautiful Friendships of Boys?
How America’s Culture of Shame is a Killer for Boys
The Culture of Shame: Men, Love, and Emotional Self-Amputation
The Man Box: Why Men Police and Punish Others
The Man Box: The Link Between Emotional Suppression and Male Violence
The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer
Touch Isolation: How Homophobia Has Robbed All Men of Touch
Boys and Self-Loathing: The Conversations That Never Took Place
The Dark Side of Women’s Requests of Progressive Men
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OT – Mark, I wish to heck GMP would go back to what they used to do when someone would respond to people who responded to articles and notify people in their email. Had I not been checking through these article, I wouldn’t have known you’d been responding.
Bullying is a “hot button” issue to me. In other words, when I deal with this issue, sometimes my emotions outrun my intellect. I also get angry at people who defend bullying, and there are more than a few of them. I agree that bullying is a product of insecurity. But I also believe that some people just enjoy hurting other people. I also believe that a spirit of extreme competitiveness can lead to bullying, especially in those situations in which the competition is forced. Just to make sure I’m not misunderstood, I don’t consider machismo and traditional masculinity to… Read more »
I don’t blindly follow feminists anymore than I blindly follow any other political movement. In fact, I gave up on politics about 30 years ago. Today both of the major parties are dominated by a “My way or the highway” mindset, and their respective political ideologies are a sort of false religion. Both conservatives and progressives are incapable of admitting their side has ever been wrong about anything. The problems I experienced as I was growing up were caused not by feminists, but were caused by adult males in one form or another — men who were “traditionalist” in one… Read more »
Bill, I understand what you’re saying and yes, there is a connection between traditionalists and bullying in some situations but I don’t believe it’s the norm. There is a dynamic in the “bully” household that has something to do with a dysfunction and not traditional. Traditional is not dysfunctional and my gripe is that it’s being painted that it is.
Tom, I love how you show up and generously admit that, “yeah, these a little bullying going on.” Dude, its an epidemic. Bullying is a right of passage in traditional masculinity. What else would you call the rampant hazing that takes place over and over at every single frat house across the US? Its not household dysfunction, it’s a cultural assumption. You want in? You have to accept abuse. Bullying is going on in every schoolyard and back alley in America. Its how boys express when they have no other skills or tools to communicate, express emotions and manage anger.… Read more »
Mark, I wish you could spend a week with me at the facility I work.. “Bullying” is a daily event. Between the kids in treatment and the HS students in our alternative school, I see various forms of bullying. The difference is that we identify bullying as having nothing to do with traditional masculinity but more importantly other far reaching issues in these kids lives. Mark, you know me well enough to know that I have no problem and in fact encourage boys/men to identify with a spectrum of emotions. But I am not going to down traditional manhood because… Read more »
I agree with you that “traditional” doesn’t necessarily mean “dysfunctional.” It all depends on whether the “traditional” attitude, custom, or practice is moral/morally neutral or immoral. After all, antisemitism in Europe and Jim Crow in the United States were, in fact, quite traditional — but also utterly evil.
Bill, you do realize that bullying is not something that only boys and men do, right? Girls bully each other all the time, with just as much frequency as boys do. The only difference is that with girls, it tends to be verbal, rather than physical. But any psychologist could tell you that words can hurt just as much as fists.
Bullying isn’t a product of traditional masculinity, it’s a product of insecurity. And that is not exclusive to men or masculinity at all.
Darren, if you had grown up gay I think your view of girls and boys bullying would be a bit more real world. Girls rarely, if ever, beat up boys for being gay. Men and boys, on the other hand, kill gay kids. They beat them to death. And they do it because they want to enforce a narrow culture of masculine conformity. As defined by traditional masculinity, in fact.
That isn’t what he said though, is it? Nobody is denying that people get beaten up for being gay. Nobody is denying that homophobic attacks are largely by straight men against gay men, what he said was that girls and women also bully each other. Why is that so difficult to believe or accept? Girls bully each other (physically and verbally) for being pretty, for not being pretty, for not being pretty and attracting the attention of the most sought-after boys in school (as in “how dare she be plain and get to date him!!!!!”), basically for presenting a threat… Read more »
Mark, as FrankS excellently put it, I never said anything about boys not getting bullied for being gay. My point was that traditional masculinity is not the only, or even the primary, reason for bullying. Also, gay men and boys are not the only people in the world who get bullied. If you don’t believe me, ask the women you know who it was that was bullying them when they were young. I’m pretty sure they will tell you it wasn’t homophobic boys. I don’t know where that comment about gay people came from, but I’d appreciate it if you… Read more »
@ Darren, I mentioned this in an earlier response to Mark and that is “bullying” is not representative of traditional masculinity. And I feel that there is a movement to make it so because there is a clear intent to demonize traditional masculinity. So what I see happening is a negative behavior of a few is being labeled as a masculine behavior to discredit traditional masculinity. GMP eats stereotypes yet there are countless articles that stereotype men who hold traditional masculine roles. My six brothers and I, as well as our dad were/are traditionally masculine, We’ve never bullied anyone. A… Read more »
I don’t know about you, Mr Greene, but our experiences growing up must have been very different. I was not taught to repress my emotions but rather to control them so that they do not control me, because no one wants to be around a man who cannot control himself. Frankly I’m tired of traditional masculinity being admonished as this terrible blight that has populated history with an endless stream of emotionally mutilated, domineering, status-obsessed, lonely sociopaths. Traditional masculinity produced the Goldberg Variations, the Taj Mahal, the poem of the Charge of the Light Brigade, the Imam Mosque and the… Read more »
My hats off to you Red … I have tried for some time now to relay exactly what you’ve perfectly stated here. THANK YOU!!!!
“Merciless bullying is not within the purview of any definition of ‘traditional masculinity’ that I have seen, and indeed runs ag)ainst the very idea of controlling ones emotions, something your brother, sadly, failed to do when he took his frustrations out on you (and again, my condolences).” I disagree. For example, how do you explain the rampant bullying in our nation’s junior high and high school gyms? Generations of nonathletic students, especially boys, have had good reason to dread sports-centered mandatory P.E. (as opposed to genuine fitness classes). Machismo, properly defined, actually condones bullying in the schools with empty platitudes… Read more »
I don’t think anyone is saying that there isn’t any bad references to what’s perceived as traditional masculinity but what’s happening is the purposeful degradation of said masculinity. Men continue to be under the feminist microscope. Look at the articles here at GMP. If you throw them all in a pot, what you have is men are broken and society (liberal feminist) needs to fix them. Sorry to say, MOST men don’t need fixing. It’s interesting but the feminist movement never said women were broken. What they did was take what they had and expanded it. But when it comes… Read more »
Tom, if you have to bring feminism into a conversation about my work, you’ve already lost me. And why in god’s name do you read my articles and reduce them to me advocating for an army of men crying. Its creepy.
Why would I lose you? Feminism has played a major role in the development or lack of development of men in our society. Much of how men are perceived today are through the eyes of feminist motivated views and wrongful characterization of traditional males. but that’s not what I said … I referenced feminism as a mechanism that provided women the opportunity to expand, an expansion that didn’t (in most cases) demonize traditional roles of women.
Creepy….There is that damn word again..
Creepy is the new N word used to disparage men.
Preach!
Its laughable that being “cool under fire”, providing for your family, being a leader, and being physically robust is “the worst thing you can do.” I find it curious that its better to collapse into tears when faced with stress, failing to provide for the people who look to you for support, failing to inspire and being fragile.
So that’s your range of options, See Dubya? Be “cool under fire” or “collapse into tears”? This is exactly what I’m talking about. If those are the two options you see for yourself, then you are missing the vast range of emotional connection, options and capacities you, by all rights, should have access to. By the way. I said “Manning up” is the worst thing you can do. Being a leader or providing for your family is not the issue. Its only when you do these things at the expense of expressing your own aspirations/authentic self that its gets messed… Read more »
Ah Red. My point about social isolation is simple. Learning to communicate emotionally is a powerful and necessary part of growing up to be a complete and fully authentic man. It is the solution for every challenge men face because it is through emotional connection that men can engage in the kind of widespread communities we need to get through hard times. I have no doubt that to greater and lesser degrees traditional masculinity produced “the Goldberg Variations, the Taj Mahal, the poem of the Charge of the Light Brigade, the Imam Mosque and the Mona Lisa, among many, many… Read more »
Mark, you said, “What puzzles me to no end is the degree to which those who defend traditional manhood are so opposed to a call for more emotional expression for men. Frankly, it makes no sense to me. You want to play your cards close to your chest? ” I don’t think there is a man that responds to these articles that doesn’t believe that men should avail themselves to a wide range of emotions. What I see is that when these articles surface, there is always a degree of demonizing what’s viewed as “traditional.” You also said “My work… Read more »
1) For close to two hundred thousand years men have loved their wives, showed affection to their kids and solidarity with their friends and empathy with their community. The crisis of masculinity, of which social isolation is a symptom not the cause IMO, is only a recent development of the past few decades, and in the West. 2) I’d mark that up to a lack of opportunity and education, rather than a conspiracy. 3) You put an opinion piece up with a proposition that I strongly disagree with. I’m perfectly entitled to voice that disagreement. 4) I find it odd… Read more »
Dear Red and Tom, Here is the fundamental challenge of our conversation. Tom, seems committed to insisting that I am attacking traditional manhood. I have said many times that I do not oppose what is called traditional manhood. What I oppose is the enforcement of traditional manhood as the only acceptable way to be a man. In our culture of emotional toughness, we force boys, (whether they like it or not) to shut down the expression of their emotions and instead present confidence and toughness. We are very hard on boys who express emotions publicly. As such, boys are unable… Read more »