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I was home for Christmas in Dallas. My mom and I were standing in the kitchen talking and the subject of parenting came up. I do not have children nor am I looking to have any at the moment. I have no experiential education in parenting and many would balk at me even taking a stance on the subject.
However, during our conversation, I made one remark that I will attempt to adhere to should I ever be fortunate enough to bring life into this world:
I told my mom that the only thing a parent should ever be to their child is their whole self: Stable, broken, wealthy, poor, excited, ashamed, convicted, confused.
Everything they ever are.
Why? Because that is reality. And the more any parent tries to mask reality, the more their child will follow suit.
There is no ’protection’ from life. There is no physical stature that can shield a child from the truth of the metaphysical world like a parent might against a deranged person in the tangible one.
Truth vs. Physicality
We all stand equal and without physicality when it comes to the truth.
If you would like examples of this, refer to any domestic abuse case or violence toward another in the heat of the moment. A glimpse of actuality is not something many of us are equipped to absorb at times.
So, we swing at a another person trying to extinguish an absolute fire that will forever burn. And in those moments we trigger more truths that cannot be undone, no matter how hard we punch or hold someone down.
The truth is relentless.
If the truth cannot be overcome by physicality — why, as a society, do we encourage the continuance of dominance, especially in the physical form?
Why did a trainer come up to me at my gym and ask if I wanted to stay skinny forever or if I wanted to pack on some manly muscle?
Why, in a world where I wager that maybe .000001% of us will ever have to fend off a bear or a lion, are men encouraged to show their value through size, dominance and a misconstrued version of stoicism that comes off as unintelligent more than it does powerful?
Our society, as it is currently accepted, will never free us. It starts with the ideological enslavement of young boys and gives way to the oppression of women.
The pressure for a male to remain masculine in the eyes of society when any human’s natural disposition is anything but ‘masculine’ and everything about expression, connection and love, can create some horrific realities for women.
You read the news.
And now, like the strong ‘real men’ we are, we’re watching women step up to fix the problems we’ve created.
The root of feminism lies in man’s misguidance of young men and boys through the directionless and false map that is masculinity.
A philosophy gone wrong
Paraphrasing Bill Nye: Our sex is biological and our gender is the way we identify ourselves and our experiences.
So then, what does that make masculinity, objectively?
It is not a sex nor is it a gender, necessarily. Someone born a woman can practice masculinity — regardless of the gender they relate to.
Masculinity, to me, is a leaderless, decentralized cult. It employs a genius acquisition strategy where the evangelists and preachers of its message are spread across the globe as heads of households, coaches, and political figures.
Let’s look at it logically:
In traditional homes, the patriarch reports to work for the day. If he has a young son, he presumably leaves that son to spend the majority of the day with their female mother. Then the father gets home and expects the son to act masculine, like him.
That doesn’t make any sense.
The child, as a human, and a boy raised by a female, will naturally be disposed to act more human and less like a modern stereotypical male. He will be expressive, and will get along with females.
This will be his base.
He will be male, but he will not naturally practice masculinity as it is practiced today.
Boys do not organically grow into modern day American men, they are conditioned to arrive there.
There are no preordained male activities.
Any human will gravitate toward any environment that within which, they can express themselves.
Imagine a man cheering as he watches his favorite team score on Sunday. Why can’t that expression be applied to other areas of his life?
The day comes when a boy will be told to ‘man up’ — that he ‘lost his man card’ because, God forbid, he cried or showed outward emotion for another.
He will be humiliated and then strike back harder in his masculinity to show just how ‘strong’ he really is.
He will continue to display his strength and dominance through activities, organizations, vocabulary, and acts that are widely accepted by others in the cult of masculinity.
He will be initiated.
In the cult of masculinity, no male ever wants to be told that he does something like a girl…
This in itself is very telling of how boys are taught to value girls.
Recent events make more sense now, right?
An equal future
I am overgeneralizing the sickness of modern day masculinity. It is a spectrum — just like everything else in life.
I actually think that deep down a lot of men get it.
However, what many men want to say or do is maimed within them and filtered out.
Masculinity, at times acts as a quasi immune system, working to protect against feelings and vulnerability. There is no greater pain for a male quite like a third-party’s proclamation of emasculation. A man will avoid that feeling at any cost.
So, many men live in disguises, suits, body armor. Anything that helps repress and withhold their true human self — their actual thoughts, words and desired actions.
But, the brain is just like a bladder. It cannot take in what the body needs for survival and not be expected to purge itself of the unnecessary.
The wanting, the shame, the mania will embody otherwise healthy thoughts and taint them.
All we take in and all we repress will make its way into the world somehow.
It is on us to decide if that is through constructive expression or destructive rupturing.
For starters, men, we need to stop diminishing anything associated with the feminine. If you, as a male, believe there are fundamental differences in men and women, great. But difference does not equate to inferiority or superiority. Men and women are complimentary humans and we grossly overlook this simple fact.
If we as men, claim to possess these values of ‘bravery’ or ‘courage’ then why don’t we start exercising them and embark on an introspective expedition?
I know it sounds crazy, but what would you really like to say? What would you express if no one would judge you?
Understand that everyone is connected and everyone is equal. Societal constructs are only the reactionary spirit of a fearful and confused humanity.
Yes, this may challenge everything you’ve ever learned or have been told by people you respect, but that’s okay. There is no judgement in enlightenment.
Men have objectively been in the wrong for centuries, but now that we’re becoming aware, let’s not consciously continue living there.
Feminism is not the death of men. It is only an equalizer.
Today, the body of humanity is trying to fly with very unbalanced wings. We are tired from wasted energy; we are hurting — women and men alike. Eventually we’ll crash. Some might argue we have. Sensibility tells us to make the wings of woman and man equally as strong.
As the sociologist Michael Kimmel says, “We cannot fully empower women and girls unless we engage boys and men.”
There lies our real “duty.”
It was stated back in 1915 during the Women’s Suffrage Movement that, “Feminism will make it possible for men, for the first time, to be free.”
I fundamentally believe in this statement. It may have taken us a century to value the above words, but it is never too late.
Men are trapped in a box that allows for zero growth.
We are judged singularly by a masculine spirit of judgement that together, we can dissipate.
We are allowed to express, to be vulnerable, to take care of our bodies, to wear anything that makes us feel confident inside, to embrace community, to live as many years as women.
Let’s stop bottling up the beauty we should be bringing into the world. It makes no sense to take something to the grave that should be left for the living to appreciate.
Let’s stop leaving behind icy and misrepresented legacies.
Let’s withdraw from masculinity and enter humanity. We will gain self-respect and the respect of others at a level far greater than we’ve ever known.
Let’s be vulnerable.
Men are allowed to be seen.
This article was original published on Medium, and is reprinted here with permission of the author.
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Many excellent points here. In my mind, “masculinity” (as typically defined and performed by people in society) encompasses two distinct concepts. The first is a set of customs, expectations, and actions which I call “manhood” – generally I include here all of the personality traits one would admire in their father or any other man they admire. In a man, these are the things for which he can justifiably commend himself when he looks in a mirror, the things which contribute to his OWN assessment of himself as “a good man”. Examples could include “treating others with dignity and respect”,… Read more »