You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. — Inigo Montoya
The title of man is one that is often bestowed upon certain folks and with it, comes a variety of assumptions and ingrained values about how typical (read: white, heteronormative, cisgender) males are supposed to exist in this world. While the granting of and aspiration of such a title has motivated some significant things in our past, they have also perpetuated many toxic masculine practices in small and large cultural practices. Everything from bullying to hazing to domestic violence to genocide, manhood has roots in each of them.
Of course, that doesn’t mean at times in my life, I also didn’t aspire to acquire such a title. I wanted someone–particularly those I saw as “men” to identify my status. And that’s the tricky party about becoming a “man.” One can’t necessarily claim it without the approval of others. Even if one meets the merits of “man” claims the title, he claims it because he has accepted what society says it means to be a man. It’s interwoven into the cultural practices and expectations because it is not just a title but a brand both literally and figuratively. It is a style of acting and relating to others that is determined by our patriarchal society while at the same time, it is branded into the way we carry ourselves, the physical labors that mark our bodies, the expectations of how we will assert ourselves in confrontations of all sort.
But if this artifice of “man” does limit us, then how might we reject the idea of being a “man” for something different. How do we refute this idea of calling ourselves “men”? I’ve got a few ideas.
No one owns the reigns of man
How can we accept a term to elevate our gender when there’s no clear sense of who or what provides that definition? The academic in me emerges with this thought. There’s no central authority on what it means to be a “man”, rather there are innumerable different takes on what it means. Does being a man mean never crying or being “man enough” to cry? It depends on who you ask. If being a man is one of these instances of “I know it when I see it,” then I call foul and say that’s moving the goalposts. (And because my sense of self precludes much knowledge of sports–shame on my “man” status–I have no clue if I’m mixing metaphors or just knocked it out of the park).
It’s in the telling where the trappings of masculinity–toxic or otherwise–lay
We know that labeling has an impact on folks. Once given a label; especially if we normalize it and offer it as acceptable, we are unlikely to challenge it but rather embrace it. While our society has increasingly discussed masculinity and manhood, we still do it at the adult level; which means that youth have long absorbed concepts of manhood unquestioningly from society. And so much of those concepts of manhood are toxic or simply overrated.
My favorite example of this is Zach Morris from the 1990s show, Saved By the Bell. Without having a critical discussion about being a man in my youth, I looked at Zach Morris as a man to aspire to (at least in high school) and yes, it’s a rather ridiculous aspiration in hindsight. Not just because it’s a fictional show but because I could not see how the character’s manhood was toxic. I’m reminded of this often whenever I watch one of the episodes from Funny or Die series, Zach Morris Is Trash, where the creators lay out in very clear terms, how sketchy Zach Morris really is. Like many other males, we are never encouraged to reject manhood but rather reject things that might jeopardize our manhood. To extend the discussion of Saved By the Bell; we’re told, “Don’t be a Screech.”
Definition of man is constantly changing
“Man” is, at best, a crowdsourced concept from across time and culture, peppered with extreme depictions (celebrities, archetypes characters such as knights, cowboys and superheroes, modern warriors in the form of sportsball all-stars, and the like). It has no fixed meaning because it constantly changes. We know that there were times when boys wore pink, men were much more affectionate with one another, and that women were the original (but not nearly as obnoxious) tech-bros.
For males to stake our identity on something that constantly shifts, is to put ourselves at the mercy of something utterly meaningless. Because whatever fits into “man” today, could very easily be irrelevant at some point. That’s the problem of manhood. It is an unstable concept leaving us constantly trapped in upholding its ever-illusive tenants. We’re so busy trying to hold onto it that we lose much of ourselves in the process.
Defined by 3 Letters
I reject being called or calling other people men because it is so reductive. In a patriarchal culture such as ours, it is meant to be the achievement; the central status. Yet, it feels so damn limiting to expressing who and what I am. I invoke Whitman (who had his own ambivalent relationship with being a “man”) and say, “I am large, I contain multitudes”–and being just a “man” nullifies too much of me. Since I’m invoking Whitman, I might as well throw in some Melville and the implacable Bartleby and say, I prefer not to limit myself or others. We should have more meaning about our sense of being than this false dichotomy.
Who Says I Want to Be a “Man”
Why cling to a term that is ill-defined, constantly changing, and limits the fullness of our being? The term man puts us in boxes that are supposedly some ill-conceived culmination of identity. And because it is unstable, that culmination never stays there long enough. Forget being called a man; I’d so much rather be called a human and celebrate the fullness of all that I have been, am and can be.
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stock photo ID: 1698067453
“Man” is a crowdsourced concept (just like woman, of course). Yes, and there are many examples of how it can be a degrading OR an uplifting way to describe others or yourself. Do we need it? Maybe not. But we do need simple nomenclature for humans with different body parts, for many reasons. In other words, we can’t just call people “human” in every context. But maybe you meant that symbolically…