Toxic Masculinity... A Response

Naturally we feel ashamed when we’re punished for a crime we did commit. But the far more common shame we feel when we’re punished for a crime we didn’t commit is much worse. And this happens frequently in a man’s life.

We men are blamed for relationship failures, for parenting failures, for moral failures, for management failures, for DIY renovation failures, for environmental failures, for getting us lost, for losing our game – you name it, there’s a man at the centre of almost every failure!

OK, I’m exaggerating, but you get my point.

Let’s look at the typical, “Honey, we need to talk” conversation at home, for example. “Women want to talk because they’re upset and want to feel better. Men don’t want to talk because talking won’t make them feel better. In fact it will make them feel worse!... The real reason the man doesn’t want to talk about the relationship is that her dissatisfaction with him makes him feel like a failure. On a deeper level, he feels ashamed.” (Love & Stosny, 2007) [1]

Now, at that moment, the typical male can see only two ways forward, if he can think at all: masculinity or femininity. And he knows inherently that he will be scorned for both, and so he is stuck.

I have never felt more depressed and suicidal than when I was going to marriage counselling. In my experience, also validated by everyone else I know who’s been there, relationship counsellors try to make men become more feminine so that they can be more acceptable to women. Now, men can be effeminate but not feminine, and so they fail, again.

The shame of being told that your masculinity is the cause of everything that’s wrong in your relationship with your best friend, soul-mate and life companion, who in truth you would lay down your life for, is the worst. It’s a killer! Enough to tip a man over the edge.

Every male wants at some point to be seen as masculine, because we’re told by society from an early age that masculine is what you want to be, and definitely not feminine! But the pursuit of masculinity and the scourge of shame are directly related and so, to address the problems of masculinity we have to first confront shame.

A police officer I know once told me that, when he turns up at a domestic violence call-out, usually the male is alone in the corner or outside with his head low, dark glasses on (even though it’s night-time) and often with a hat or helmet on to protect himself from flying projectiles and his fingers in his ears to block out the verbal tirade. He’s feeling so unjustly accused, inadequate, a total failure and, as a result, so dreadfully ashamed that he cannot even speak. “This is whether he’s done anything wrong or not.” So he hides himself under a blanket of shame.

He said, “On most occasions there is little evidence of his violence but heaps of evidence of hers” (verbal abuse, psychological abuse, and sometimes physical violence against the male).

Why shame? Why not anger, indifference or something else?

Shame is the result of seeing ourselves as inadequate failures and shame is a male’s core vulnerability, according to acclaimed therapist and researcher Dr. Patricia Love and specialist men’s therapist Dr. Steven Stosny1. “Your relationship can fail with neither of you doing anything wrong, if you do not understand the extent to which fear and shame drive your disconnection from each other… Research and clinical experience also tell us that marriage and committed love relationships are more important to the health and well-being of men than women. Divorced men do not work as well or live as long or ‘survive’ with anything like the quality of life enjoyed by married men. They are at considerably higher risk of alcoholism, suicide, physical and mental illness, unemployment, and car crashes or other accidents. They lose contact with friends, stop going to church or social groups, and eventually isolate themselves completely, except for whatever company they can find in a bar. In short, they lose mean and purpose. Without a partner, men just go through the motions of living.” (Emphasis theirs.)

Does masculinity offer any hope of long-term peace and joy in life?

When I was in Year 7 the school bully accosted me in the playground one lunchtime. Of course he had his 2 or 3 flunkies half a pace behind him on either side. After trying to intimidate me to extract some kind of servitude from me, which I refused on principle, he punched me to the ground and sat on me.

Now you’re probably envisioning the rest of this story, some of you with an Eye of the Tiger theme song, or maybe violins playing in a minor key. I envisioned it ending in the Principal’s office, a black mark on my record, and shame heaped on me for a whole year by all the other year sevens as they went on to year eight leaving me to repeat Year 7.

Whaaat!? Yes, because it happened to me in Year 1 – I went to school to eat my lunch and have fun and I “failed” my school work. Even though my mother tutored me over summer to catch up I had to repeat my first year of school. This put me a year behind all my friends and made me the “big” kid in my class, sticking out like a sore thumb in the centre of the back row in every class photo, for the next 12 years. Shame!!

Back to the guy sitting on me… I felt feminine but I wanted to be masculine and so I turned my shame into anger and chose the Tiger theme for a couple of minutes. I beat that guy so hard he never came near me again for the rest of the year. But the shame of letting him sit on me hung around in my soul for a long time even though I was a hero for a day or two.

I’ve told my tiger story a few times in the odd social situation where I’m feeling less of a man than I want to be and I need a little bit of a masculinity-boost. It works for a moment. However, while the guys get it and they laugh with that bravado we all know is so shallow, the girls look at me like I’m a psychopath. One woman told me, “You were no better than the bully!” Then, no doubt responding to the look of hurt on my face, she added, “That poor kid was obviously disturbed, and you beat the snot out of him!” Another time a woman said to me, “You should never resort to violence!” and she walked off to the bar to buy another margarita. But here’s the sucker punch: “That wasn’t very Christian of you!”

Clearly they didn’t get it.

The male world’s pressure – more than that, our own internal drive – to be masculine is so powerful! It’s instinctive in males and creating rules to crush it and allowing boys to behave like girls doesn’t help at all.

So why doesn’t it work for us? Well, if you’re the PC type, then it’s highly complex and so deep that you need a Ph.D to understand it. But actually it’s very simple. Masculinity is all about externals – physique, emotional detachment, aggression, superiority, trophies, appearances. It’s about standing out, being unique or different. It’s about being better than the other guy at something.

Masculinity offers us nothing to help us build connection with others, to create healthy marriages, families, workplaces and communities. Nor does it help us get through life when it’s being a bitch. In fact, it disables us. It isolates us, and the Good Lord himself said, when he made Adam, “It’s not good for a man to be alone.”

Masculinity is a crutch we lean on when what we really need is a fully functioning leg. So let’s park that and stop fantasising about being masculine. It only leads to more shame.

We’re stuck, though… There’s only two choices: masculinity or femininity, right? Is femininity the answer, then?

Yeah, right! Dream on!

So we try other forms of masculinity – like providing for our families with a home of our own (but failing because we can’t afford it). How about working harder and longer and take every promotion we can get to have more money and more debt so we can pretend to be successful (but failing as a parent or partner because we’re never there). We take up sports so that we can win at something (but we also lose). Create a fake persona on social media and chase likes and followers (and get none). Get a new wardrobe (that nobody else likes). Go travelling (alone). Start a business (4 out of 5 will fail), build our bodies (well that will never work for me!), go on a diet (again), spray on the tan (that turns orange)… anything to not be that person anymore.

Some of those things are not bad in themselves but if it’s to stop feeling ashamed, they’re all doomed to failure and that brings more shame. So what now?

Modern life is full of paradoxes and dichotomies, and masculinity and femininity are opposite ends of just one of those bi-polar scales. But I’m a believer in the third way. There’s almost always a third option.

Have you considered manliness? Nobody ever talks about manliness, not even in church where you should expect it, so I do.

Manliness has its own scale, on its own, from low to high. And all of us who have both an X and a Y chromosome are on that scale somewhere.

Isn’t manliness the same as masculinity? No! For a start, manliness sets a man free, while masculinity ties a man in knots.  Manliness is about the internals, not the externals – you can be a weed physically and still be manly. You can have no plaques or trophies, never be chosen for the team, completely overlooked by all the babes, and have sand thrown in your face every day, and still be manly.

When I was a teen I read a biography about a guy who, on one occasion, was threatened in a dark alley by this huge dude with a big gun who wanted his wallet and his watch. Instead of being intimidated, the guy calmly said to the thief, “I’m a child of God and you can’t touch me unless he says so” and he walked right past him, leaving the jerk looking like a complete idiot in front of his gang.

When I read that true story, I thought, Mate! That’s a man!

Let’s compare masculinity with manliness. Masculinity is exemplified by The Terminator (1984) - that strong, muscular, unbending, emotionally cold, indifferent, irritable, self-righteous, judgmental, and frankly annoying self-made god type.

Manliness, on the other hand is exemplified by One who is not the opposite but different. Not some soft, weak, skinny, tearful yes-man, but a guy who is emotionally warm toward others but not co-dependent; considerate of others but sensible; compassionate and self-sacrificing out of love but not exploited. He’s patient and kind but doesn’t wait forever; confident and resolute on the vital things and teachable on everything else; gentle-spirited but not easily manipulated.

A manly male acknowledges that he is not a god. Instead he places himself under the One who is. He recognises who and what he is by design and purpose. He values his life as a gift and yet gives it away to his whanau and community every day. He is strong but harnesses that strength and uses it for good.

As a result, a manly male rides the waves of life all the way to the beach and then heads out the back again for the next set. And when a wave takes him under, he’s calm and resolute in his faith in the One who made the waves, and rises to the surface. When he stumbles, he gets up and goes on. When he falls, he bounces. He loves his wife, his kids, and his neighbours as much as he loves himself, taking care of them as he takes care of his own body. And a manly male forgives when others fail him and asks forgiveness when he fails others, knowing very well that we’ll all fail sometimes.

In America right now there is a staggering increase in suicides among their most “successful” people – celebrities, super-models, sports heroes, business giants, start-up billionaires, the rich and famous. Why? Because all the external symbols of success failed to remove the shame that lingered and prowled around their souls before eventually leading them to the precipice.

New Zealand has a dreadful record of males who take their own lives and experts argue endlessly over the causes and how to stop the carnage. Meanwhile the statistics do little to move most of us to compassion. It’s only when someone close to home chooses death that we feel anything about this problem.

Then there are all the Kiwi males in therapy, and the others who self-medicate with alcohol and drugs and very loud music and sex and pornography and exercise and sport. I’ve talked to lots of these and the consistent theme is shame. It’s driving them insane.

Of course there are many factors at play, but in the end it is deep shame and worthlessness and rejection and isolation that leaves even a masculine male – maybe especially a masculine male - believing that death is the only option left.  I know; I’ve stood on the edge, heard the voice, and felt the pull.

At that point, I chose life. A very different life, though: a life of freedom, with responsibility, through manliness. It’s way easier than you think, much easier than masculinity, and it’s awesome, most of the time!

Ngā mihi.

Ross.

[1] How to Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It, p.2.  Love, P. & Stosny, S. 2007.