TMI: Traditional Masculinity Ideology

By Elaine Gilmartin

I believe most of us can agree you either love Tom Brady or you hate him. Having witnessed him defeating my beloved New York teams over the years, I fall into the latter camp.

However, a recent article from USA Today has altered my perception.

Many people praised Brady for showing his love for his son with a kiss on the cheek. Others expressed some discomfort. The mixed reactions are a stark reminder about differing views on masculinity and the roles of fathers today.

Brady is, in many ways, a classic “manly man.” He plays football. He’s conventionally handsome. He’s a seven-time Super Bowl champion. That’s part of why when it comes to his parenting style — he’s affectionate and is frequently emotional when talking about his children and fatherhood, people grow uncomfortable.

Quoted in this article as well is Dr. Ronald Levant, professor emeritus of psychology at The University of Akron and co-author of “The Tough Standard: The Hard Truths about Masculinity and Violence.”

In my profession as a therapist, I continually need continuing education credits. This week, I had the opportunity to sit in a live webinar given by Professor Levant entitled, Whither Masculinity: Man Up or Human Up?

Traditional masculinity ideology, TMI, he asserts, is what is truly at play culturally, not what we call toxic masculinity, precisely because our standard definition of masculinity itself is toxic to men’s mental health and to respect for women.

TMI is a set of beliefs foisted upon boys despite their own diverse personalities, is oppressive to women because it ‘otherizes’ them, and is directly associated with violence whether to others or to themselves through poor health habits. The norms about how boys and men should think, feel and behave;

Avoidance of femininity

Negativity toward sexual minorities

Self-reliance through mechanical skills

Toughness

Dominance

Importance of sex

Restrictive emotionality

Professor Levant uses the term, alexithymia, which means the inability to recognize or describe one’s emotions. Research shows this is strongly linked to depression and suicide. He further asserts studies indicating women have higher rate of depression are inaccurate, that men just don’t know how to accurately name how they feel.

Most men can give any number of adjectives for the emotion of anger, but not when it comes to connectedness or vulnerability. We haven’t taught them. And social norms restrict its overt expression.

So if they feel sad, lonely, unsure of themselves, depressed, they may drink or engage in other risky behaviors to mask what they have been taught to see as weakness.

Couple this with the American ethos of the stoic, rugged individual, along with the imposition of role models who are superheroes, taking a bullet without a whimper and still killing the bad guy, we have set unattainable standards.

None of this is especially startling, but what Professor Levant goes on to share is that despite violence being overwhelmingly committed by men, most men are not violent. He found through his studies that those most likely to engage in violence, mass murderers, school shooters, domestic abusers, rapists are those most affected by discrepancy strain.

Discrepancy strain is identified by Professor Levant as those boys/men who harbor great shame by falling short of this masculine ideal. Unable to reconcile this painful emotion with societal expectations of masculinity, they lash out in rage and desperation, a gun the symbol of the power they feel they lack. The flip side of shame is rage.

If you ask a man his most deeply buried fears or shame, most, according to Professor Levant, will point to a childhood incident in which great shame was felt. Public bullying, running from a fight, being ridiculed in front of his peers, the shame amplified by expectations of what it is to be a ‘man’ already internalized in their young minds.

So how do we alter this deeply-ingrained belief system of what it is to be a man? Fathers.

If a boy can go to his dad and tell him his shame and his dad listens, encourages him to open up with his emotions and welcomes his tears, commiserates, tells him how he went through something similar, hugs him, then validates the worth of his son just because he is his son, then we are off to a good start.

If a boy tells his dad his shame only to be ridiculed, told he should have taken a beating ‘like a man,’ maybe even hits his kid a few times so he can ‘toughen up,’ then maybe some of the groundwork is being laid for the next mass shooter.

If we tell boys that anything related to girls is weak and is to be avoided, that to associate with them is to question their masculinity, then it sets up the next lonely teenager or young man to simmer with resentment because he has no clue how to relate to girls or women, because he doesn’t understand they are people, too, every bit deserving of respect as any man.

If we resist efforts to show boys how to embrace and display empathy, to relate to and show care for another human being not from a place of domination or aggression, then we close the doors to their emotional vocabulary and sense of connection.

So Tom, I may have rooted against you for years as a Giants/Bills/Jets fan, but I can let that go. You are a true role model to men everywhere when you hug and kiss your sons, not just your daughter. And now as you officially, officially enter retirement, you will truly embody the title of GOAT and I am not referring to football.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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