With a past that has been marked by an exclusionist definition of what it is to be a man; Christian Clifton thinks it is time to rethink an outdated set of ideas.
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There once were two men who appeared to have little chance of getting along. In the world of machismo underscored by homophobia the men each fell into very different categories and thus varying levels of acceptance by their peers.
The first man was sensitive in the world’s eyes, he could be found crying at movies, cooking, cleaning, he is a lover of poetry, and extremely sentimental. The list could go on of these qualities which many would deem as being contrary to stereotypical masculinity. At times in his life others would label him as gay or queer because, in their minds, these labels were polar opposites of being a man.
The second man lives a very different life with very different qualities. It is not unnatural to find him talking about or off shooting guns, brewing and drinking his own beer, tinkering on some project with a wide range of tools, or smoking a fine wooden pipe. Again the list of traits similar to the ones previously listed could go on, and the summation of them could easily paint a picture of what many would deem as quintessentially masculine.
So here we have two men who are extremely dissimilar for every reason that has been ingrained in our collective psyche for the past several hundred years concerning masculinity and what a “real man” is. However the relationship between these contrary beings is quite troublesome; they are the same man, in fact they are me.
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I grew up in a small rural town call Buckeye in western Arizona. The majority of kids I grew up with had families that worked in farming or on ranches stretching back countless generations. They had all been raised by fathers who treated the classical understanding of masculinity as gospel. For many of them any departure from the stoic figures they found at home was treated as undesirable.
At the same time that many where hearing the messages at home, the media was continuing to pour words of affirmation into accepted norms and connotations of fear or disdain for anything that fell outside the box that for the last few centuries humanity has created around the idea of manliness. Sitcoms generally had the sports-star son as the hero while the intellectual or theatre kids where maligned and often used as background humor. Adult male characters appeared as silly caricatures with unsettling proportions of being sex crazed and ignorant to emotions, showcasing physical strength or technical knowhow, and sometimes all of these at once.
All of this has bred a generation that, while being leaps and bounds ahead of the last, still relies on incredibly outdated and simply wrong definitions of what a man is. This has far reaching consequences not only for those that challenge bits and pieces of the preconceived notions but shapes large portions of how the world reacts to those radically different from the current norms.
My past experiences have given me a strange position within the world as I never fully fit into the old world category of what makes a man. I carry with me too many of the undesirable traits. For years I sought to eradicate those parts from me in hopes that I could one day be unchallenged in my declaration of manliness. It didn’t take long to realize the impossibility of this task, that in succeeding I would have to destroy my very being and rebuild it from scratch. What I could change without nearly as much damage were the notions and false stereotypes I had learned so long ago.
The process is nowhere near done; in fact I fully expect to still feel hints of doubt creep into my mind until the day I die, such is the reach of things we bring with us out of childhood. There have been a few major points that arose from hours of thought, prayer, discussion, counseling, reading, and desperation; points that have utterly devastated my “old world” thinking and brought a glimmer of hope that a new world is possible.
1.) There is NO activity that makes you less of a man, nor is there one that makes you more.
It is easy to fall into the trend of lambasting men for certain activities while uplifting others. Knowing how to throw the perfect spiral pass or fix a car does not somehow make you manlier than the guy with an eye for fashion or who enjoys cooking.
2.) Joking about the matter only adds to the problem.
We all do it or have done it. We’ve made fun of a guy for something he does or the way he does it. Sure he may know full well you are only joking but the ability to mock something speaks volumes to our true feelings. If our minds are so quick to pick out something that makes us go to a humorous response, what do we really think about the topic? Usually we joke in moments where we want to express an opinion but are trying to soften the blow.
3.) There is only one opinion of being a man that matters, yours.
Ultimately what the world thinks about you will not matter as much as what you think about you. This applies to so much more than this one topic but its importance is very much apparent here. If you spend your life uncomfortable in your own skin there is no telling what you will miss.
It would be nice if a simple article could rewrite millions of minds and remove unhealthy thoughts about masculinity and put an end to the damage that can be don’t. It can’t, however, but it can be a start. Admitting that a massive rework of the system is needed has to be the first step, and it isn’t something that can be done by a single individual. Nor is it something that can be done by simply agreeing with the words. It takes action and purposeful thinking. To remove prejudices and faulty notions from our world will require a lot of work, but we can do it. We can liberate “man” from the dusty old definition and give it the freedom that it truly deserves and, by extension, the same freedom to the millions of men who hide who they truly are.
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Photo: stevenlaurie / flickr
I’m ready to go the opposite direction. Is it possible to define masculinity in a narrow sense and define being a man broadly? That way you can be a masculine man, a feminine man, a childish man, a noble man, a blue collar man, a hipster man, or whatever other flavor of man you feel appropriate at the moment. That way the adjective actually means something descriptive. If being masculine is being whatever you want to be, and being feminine is whatever you want to be, and being any other -ity is whatever you want to be, then they are… Read more »
I agree with you there, I just think we have to be careful and mindful of the stigma that surrounds the term “masculine”. As it stands now that adjective holds a lot of weight when it is applied; it is often meant as a compliment when used for a man but comes off as negative when we use it for a woman. I guess I could have better worded my thoughts on the matter in the article but we don’t necessarily need to redefine traditional “masculinity” but rather our perceptions that it is the only measure of a man’s worth.
Bravo, Christian. Well said. I am a twin of yours. Not fitting in in either world. Renaissance man comes to mind, but there is little place for that in this either/or small minded world we live in today. This is below a posting I did shortly ago that might explain my thought process: Misogyny is alive and well in this culture, and is why we still bang on men for not being manly enough. That is, to each individual male to take their place as a male first, probably implied white male, then comes white female, then black male and… Read more »
This is a great post. It is awesome to read more voices regarding on challenging the old molds and stereotypes. The one fits alll masculinity must be replaced by a tailor-made one. I would love to hear more about how you have faced resistance to your changes by your friends or people that disagree with your perspective.
I’ve been tossing that very idea around since I finished up this article last week. Trying to figure out how to compress it to be readable while still having meaning.
Great perspective Christian. Seems like I followed a similar path although I’m not the best tinkerer.
I wholly agree that we need to lead ourselves to be the man we are meant to be. To compare ourselves with others is not that helpful as we are all different.
As I learned to be more open to that part of my life I found myself unexpectedly surrounded by more and more great guys who shared a similar back story, not a bad place to be in my opinion. Learning that I didn’t have to be just like every other kid/man is something I hope to have mastered one day because the moments of clarity ,being able to sit comfortable in my own identity, are truly some of the best of my life.
Thanks for posting this, Christian. Great points. As I became a father of 3 girls, I found myself becoming more like the alternative, and less of the “manly-man” I was in my younger years. And I like it. I still go full testosterone a lot, for sure, but I enjoy my more sensitive side and how my girls connect with it. I’ve found that I gravitate toward friends who are capable of the same. Seems so much more of a balanced life.
Thank you Jeff! I agree completely that the balanced life is by far the better of the options. It opens up a world of possibilities that would be missed if we tried to minimize or ignore one of the sides.