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I am sitting in the waiting area of the mechanic, thinking of Sean. Sean and his damn VW bug with the rear-mounted, air-cooled engine that no one has any right to attempt to drive in the Phoenix heat. I can still hear my dad cursing that car which seemed perennially scattered in his father’s driveway.
Sean, I think, looked up to my father the same way I did, saw his busted knuckles as a badge of honor, the result of a victorious tussle with a carburetor, alternator, or some other mysterious and probably dirty car part ending in -ator. I was a little jealous of Sean, consulting with my dad, the sage of all things mechanical, working side by side, bonding with him in a way I never could, bleeding and cussing and finally, triumphantly, making the damn thing WORK!
From the day my dad taught me how to clean a carburetor—I think I was five—I have been hooked on muscle cars and gearheads like my dad. He smelled of grease and gas and WD-40, black grime in the whorls of his fingertips, burns and divots on his stubby, plump fingers. When he’d clean up, he’d carefully scrub his hands to the elbows like a surgeon, studiously comb his hair into place after a shower, emerging smelling of Brute and hairspray. Sean was a young, blonde version of him with tousled hair, a smear of grease on his forearm, but most importantly fluent in the language of car.
And, oh, what a crush I had on him. My ears pricked up like a bird dog’s every time my dad mentioned his name. Usually “Sean” and “that damn car” appeared in the same sentence. I never understood about that car anyway. It seemed so un-Sean-like, seemed like he needed something more muscular, like a Nova or a Chevelle. I’d say something more reliable, but the bug very reliably sat.
And now Sean sits, or lies more specifically, perhaps yet in a hospital bed, waiting for a surgeon to harvest his organs, much like he would have pulled a part from a dead car in a junkyard to give life to another. More likely this has already occurred and he is lying in the morgue while someone else is living for him, because of him, a life he no longer wanted.
Hard to say why, but I think he came upon a problem he didn’t know how to fix. I think he should have called another mechanic.
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I wrote the above words in 2010, after Sean died by suicide. Details of that day are sketchy, but I know there was a fight with a long-time girlfriend that forever ended when she found Sean hanging in a closet. That’s not the whole story, of course. People don’t end their lives over a fight with a girlfriend without some underlying issues.
Everyone was surprised, however. No one saw it coming. I think this speaks to the stigma of asking for help, particularly for men. Men, you know, don’t need help. They don’t have emotional problems. At least that’s what the male stereotype would have us believe.
But this is just another form of toxic masculinity. Not the variety that oppresses women that we hear so much about, but the one that oppresses men.
It’s ridiculous that male emotions, with the possible exception of anger, are so frequently equated with weakness. It saddens me that men like my father, who is a wonderful, kind, decent human being, are emotionally constipated as a function of essentially arbitrary gender roles.
From my limited perspective, Sean seemed to struggle, as many men do, with the “right” way to be a good man. He never really found his passion or, if he did, was not able to turn that into a career, something many men see as an essential component of the “good man.” I think this made him feel incomplete and unworthy, less than a man.
Rarely are men able to express that, at least not without confronting restrictive gender typecasting and the men, women, and institutions that propagate it. Sometimes, men are not even equipped with the language to express themselves. When boys are not encouraged to express sadness, loss, and hurt, they grow up to be men who don’t know how. Sean needed to be as fluent (at minimum) in the language of emotions as he was in the language of car. We need to teach them as boys. We need to encourage them as men.
Women have and continue to demand the right to cast aside these stereotypes in favor of being a whole, complete person, of being assertive and direct and not being called a bitch, of being sexual and not being called a whore—things traditionally celebrated in male gender roles—and we are right to do so. It’s well past time for men to have the same space to feel and express genuine human emotions, something previously acceptable only for women, and feel safe and valued and masculine while doing it.
The only right way to be a man is to be the man that YOU are, your best possible, most authentic, wonderful self. It angers me that men like Sean pay the ultimate price to accommodate some twisted caricature of maleness.
Sean was not the first to be sacrificed at the altar of toxic masculinity. But we should do everything we can to make him the last.
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I think there is one thing that needs to happen if men are to ever make strides in being fully expressive. We have to stop with framing the things that affect men as “toxic masculinity” as an end run around calling them sexism, oppression, misandry and so forth. That term carries a air of agency that is almost never applied to expectations that women fight against. It almost makes me sad when someone talks about a man and how being expected to suffer in silence as his burdens literally killed him just to have the acknowledgment cheapened by calling it… Read more »
Agreed.
As a culture we need to deal with the blatant sexism of our gendering of agency. The effect is toxic to both men and women though clearly much more damaging to men and boys.
“the blatant sexism of our gendering of agency”
Can you repeat that in English?
For the impaired, by assigning responsibility by the sex of the participants rather than by their action/choices. 2 drunks have voluntary sex, both are equally active participants. However current society sees Female/female and male/male parings as equally responsible for their actions yet in a female/male pairing fault is found with the male taking advantage….Why?
“no they are called sexism, misogyny, and oppression) and by that nature its sexist oppression.”
Or even just body image issues. No one has yet called anorexia a symptom of toxic femininity. My guess is people would call that a form of victim blaming.
But when a guy works out too much because he thinks he has to have a ripped body….toxic masculinity.
Society in general continues to discard men’s issues in general, if not discard, minimizes them. We continue to hear about “toxic masculinity” but in fact we live in an “anti-male toxic society.” What came to mind is “Earl Silverman Dead: Owner of Shelter For Male Victims Of Domestic Abuse In Apparent Suicide” http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/04/29/earl-silverman-dead-suicide_n_3179850.html Men who are abused and what they encounter … “Overall, only 8% of the men who called hotlines classified them as “very helpful,” whereas 69% found them to be “not at all helpful.” Sixteen percent said the people at the hot line “dismissed or made fun of… Read more »
You have brought up many important issues and interesting points here. I believe it’s very important to further these conversations for the betterment of our society. Thank you for taking the time to comment and for sharing this information with me.
Thanks for this article Lisa. I agree that the version of masculinity I grew up with, and Sean obviously did, which only accepts the emotion of anger as ‘appropriately masculine’ is toxic. It needs changing for everyone’s sake – men’s as well as women’s. I also agree with some of the comments that there is something significant about how dispensible men have been viewed. I think this may go back to the start of the industrial revolution, when men (and sometimes women and children) were treated as disposable ‘units of production’. This societal pressure would inevitable discourage any expression of… Read more »
“But this is just another form of toxic masculinity. Not the variety that oppresses women that we hear so much about, but the one that oppresses men.” If we are talking about the last hundred years in this country, the “oppression of women” is not, and never has been an aspect of “Toxic Masculinity”. That’s just another gender feminist canard aimed at holding men as perpetrators and women as victims. What you are describing here is the true essence of Toxic Masculinity, or better yet, a society that is toxic to and for men, as defined when the term was… Read more »
DJ, I, too, have lost 4 friends to suicide. I am so sorry for your losses.
it is a horrible thing. I still find myself questioning if there was something more I could have done, at least seen it coming.
There simply are no answers.
We need to have a cultural, social attitude of allowing men to become fully development with their feelings; however, that is going to take a long time for it to happen.
” When boys are not encouraged to express sadness, loss, and hurt,”
I always find it strange that when I read articles like this, one emotion is never on the list, fear. I think it’s because women can handle men who are sad or hurt, but they can’t handle men who are afraid. Men who are afraid are no benefit to them.
John, thanks for the feedback.I honestly just didn’t think of fear. I think it’s because I considered it a state of mind rather than an emotion. I don’t agree that women “can’t handle men who are afraid.” I certainly don’t sort men with respect to how much they benefit me. I find that comment odd.
@ Lisa Patrick It may be a state of mind instead of an emotion, but fear and doubt are two things which men are also not allowed to express. They are just as damaging and contribute as much if not more so to men not seeking help. The big issue with “progressive” positions when discussing men’s issues will never truly see men as victims. If the only thing preventing men from seeking help was self imposed (toxic masculinity) then men can be pitied, but no one has responsibility to assist them. Men could then therefore be demonized for their own… Read more »
No, it is conservatives who will never see that men are capable of having doubt and fear plus allowing men to express them and allowing men to seek help.
We’ve been living in a progressive liberal society for a very long tome …ya can’t blame the conservatives for this.
No we have not been living in a progressive society for the last 36 years and the conservatives can be blamed for this.
Again, thank you for your thoughts. I completely agree that there are a myriad of societal factors that prevent men from seeking help. Perhaps I did not adequately express that here. I don’t see anyone as disposable.
Privilege is a funny thing. The thing that is an advantage in one respect is frequently a disadvantage in other respects. I really hope, as a society, we get to a point where we can embrace all aspects of our true selves without judgment. I’m sure it’s a long way off.
Thank you very much for reading and commenting.
Tis a pity that he ever tallied with the she-widget. All of my friends that are gearheads are not attached to any woman in relationship to their ride. The majority, if pushed to make the decision would Keep the Jeep and Ditch the Bitch. Several of us have actually done it, myself included. Silly girl said that I had to choose between her and motorcycles. I stopped working on the motor in the living room only long enough to put her shit in a box. (Never let a girl move in ~ hard lessons learned)
I wonder what percentage of Male suicides can be directly linked to emotionally abusive women? When will we as a society accept that, in the same way women are more susceptible to physical abuse men are equally more susceptible to being emotionally abused by their partners?
That’s an interesting question, but I don’t know that it applies to this specific case. In any case, I never mentioned it in the piece and I’m wondering what made you think the relationship was abusive.
@ Lisa Patrick trey1963 didn’t mention that case specifically. I’m not suggesting that his comment was within the parameters of this discussion nor am I suggesting that it was out of bounds. There are a lot of things that probably factor in. If men are supposed to be strong (and women don’t have the same expectation making it a gender issue), then wouldn’t men be more reluctant to come forward of abused by a woman especially since society doesn’t provide men the resources to escape an abusive situation? “Hard to say why, but I think he came upon a problem… Read more »
Suicide is a complex issue, as most important issues are. I’m not suggesting that it is so simple as to just call someone. My point there was that we need to MAKE it that simple, to erase the stigma for everyone to seek help, to make mental health care a priority and cover it from an insurance perspective the same way the rest of health problems are covered. I agree that we all need to take an active role in the prevention of suicide. Having done that several times, I have to say it also takes a fair amount of… Read more »
Fight with a girl friend……Do you truly know that she wasn’t abusive when “fighting”. a fair number of women are…..about as common as guys who become abusive during an argument. As a culture we take certain gender expectations as normal…..even when the actual data shows a completely different reality.
I do not, based on what I do know of him and this relationship, believe this was the case. One can never be certain, of course. I was just wondering if there was something specific that triggered that thought, or if it was more of a general observation.
Thank you for reading and commenting.
Do you realise that if she’d killed herself he’d have been question about abuse, Yet reversed and it never was even a thought….Why? We know women commit domestic abuse at equivalent rates to men……Yet there is a persistent blind spot to it. The higher rate of male suicide is explained away without any deep analysis of DV.
I would not have assumed DV played a part in the story if she had committed suicide either. That may be because I knew the people in question or it may be that I am of the opinion that the biggest risk factor for suicide is underlying mental health issues. In either event, I do agree there is a blind spot where men as DV victims is concerned. Do you think part of that might be because emotional abuse is more difficult to define?
No, I’d more say we as a culture have a highly skewed double standard as to what is emotional abuse, Women are seen as sensitive and in need of protection….Men are expected to be stoic and take it without any lasting effect.
Yet for men living that life, leads to mental illnesses, emotional brittleness that increases the odds of overcorrection when it breaks……violence and/or suicide.
Very true. Men are expected to suffer in silence and society has proven time and again that it doesn’t care what men do as long as they don’t harm women and children. On the other hand even if women harm men and children they are still offered a wealth of empathy, sympathy, compassion, and support that men are denied.
From what I have been hearing, the police are getting more and more cases where men are becoming more victims to physical abuse by women
Which does not mean there is an increase i events but rather it’s being reported more And honestly, I think it’s happening because men who don’t report it are more likely going to be viewed as the aggressor later on. Nonetheless it’s good to hear that more men are reporting it. A natural follow question up is what consequences women receive compared to men.
And honestly, I think it’s happening because men who don’t report it are more likely going to be viewed as the aggressor later on. I wonder this too. Its pretty clear that when a story breaks about a man attacking a woman people will go out of their way to remove any aggression on the woman’s part to make the man look more guilty. Case in point, Ray Rice. Several witnesses reported that Janay was hitting and attacking him before he hit back. But as history shows us the focus was on the 5 seconds of video that showed his… Read more »