I was about 38 years old in 2002, had been married for about 17 years, a Dad for about 13 years and all four of our kids were in school. My partner was focused on the kids and developing what was to become her decades long profession as parent educator, author, teacher and parent and family coach.
Around that time I read a new book called ‘Toxic Parents’, years before the notion of ‘Toxic Masculinity’ had become the wedge issue it is now. I was quite effected by that book and it’s assertion that it is possible for some approaches to parenting can create a very unhealthy (or toxic) atmosphere in a home and can have long term, detrimental effects on the lives of their children.
Reading that book made me feel excited, I could see myself on its pages and while it didn’t offer an easy solution, it did give me some level of awareness of my own issues.
I have believed for a very long time that ‘awareness comes before growth’, it reminds me of a similar business maxim ‘If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it’. Both are true and both are easier said than done.
RD
The weird thing about that book and the excitement I felt from reading it became apparent when I started telling people what I was reading and how helpful is was. I am a bit of an over sharer including when I’m reading anything I like. So here I am, excited and telling people what I was learning and to a person they were either disinterested or expressed a kind of cynical response. It only took 6 or 7 of those kinds of responses before I got the message, loud and clear. That message was, ‘That book is bullshit pop psychology, don’t talk to me about it’. I was disappointed and couldn’t work out why they had such a negative response, I’ve learnt a little since then.
So all these years later, when discussion about ‘Toxic Masculinity’ came to my attention two things didn’t surprise me. The first was that I agreed with the general idea the way some men move through life and how they express their ‘maleness’ can create a very unhealthy atmosphere in a home, a workplace, a church in public places and that atmosphere which can have long term, detrimental effects on the lives of their children, partners, colleagues, parishioners, friends and even strangers.The second thing that didn’t surprise me was that a lot of people hated the idea of Toxic Masculinity (TM) and seemed defensive and dismissive of it immediately. A particular tactic has been to deliberately misrepresent the core understandings of what toxic masculinity actually is, so I thought I’d make my understanding as clear as I can and in my own words as I currently see it.
First, this is what it isn’t:
Masculinity itself is not toxic and neither is parenting and no credible proponent of Toxic Masculinity ever says it is.
RD
Of course there are some people who do say those things but keep in mind that a certain percentage of people are going to have poorly informed yet immovable positions on pretty much any subject I can think of. (I will resist the temptation to mention 5G chips being put in vaccine injections. Oops, I mentioned it).
If this is your way of seeing TM, then we have very different understandings and I would like to attempt to help change that. I’m going to use my words and my learnings rather than just link to someone else’s argument.
The first point of clarification might alarm some people especially if they are generally conservative thinking and particularly conservative religious people.
So the first brick in the foundation is I don’t think there are many, if any traits that belong to a particular gender.
RD
To be clear and perhaps a little defensive of my attempt to be a parent, it’s not like I ever said “Big boys don’t cry”. That’d be a hard one for my children to take seriously. To this day I still get shit from them about crying in an episode of Neighbours, not because I’m a boy but because Neighbours is hardly what you’d call a well crafted narrative. Anyway, I’ve always been a bit of a cryer, privately and publicly, my emotions are always close to the surface and I experience no embarrassment from crying. I will say on occasion I have found it frustrating when I’ve been give 5 minutes to speak to a crowd of people about an important topic and, because of the nature of the topic keep finding myself unable to speak due to being a bit teary.
When I was a young person the subject of gender wasn’t really a thing being talked about. In high school we did a week on Sex that from memory was called Males and Females and used a book as the lesson plan. Interestingly we did this week of sex education in our science class and our teacher made the Student Teacher lead it while he sat in his little office playing with his own little ‘masculinity’. What an arsehole to dump that on a 20 year old student teacher.
It turned out that she was up to the task and did a brilliant job leading it and answering our questions, most of which were purposefully designed to cause maximum embarrassment. Her trick to deal with a class full of raging hormones and underdeveloped prefrontal cortexes was to just be honest. When the questions steered the class to how erections worked she, turned red, smiled widely and said something like ‘well this is a bit embarrassing but that’s a very good question’. At that age, first year high school we were about 13 years old I guess and we, or at at least I thought about little else other than girls and mates. I fell ‘in love’ with that teacher instantly. That wasn’t unusual for me, I fell in love with most of my female teachers and once or twice with a male teacher.
At this point I need to get something ‘straight’, you would be mistaken if you assume I fell in love with the bodies of the teachers and imagined them naked. I had no way of explaining it then and even now it’s a bit of a struggle. Sure I got the odd glimpse of a cleavage or two and when my Social Science teacher wrote on the chalkboard, with her back to the class I could not take my eyes of those fairly tight and thin material slacks she mostly wore. It was a sight to see and honestly mesmerising. I wasn’t imagining having sex with her or touching her or anything like that, I was simply in awe of how beautiful her behind looked while it gently wiggled around as she wrote on the chalk board.
I don’t thing there was anything toxic about those staring at her at the blackboard, although this is a good example to think about and has helped me understand a little about TM and how it can at times develop in a young man. So here’s what staring at my social science teacher taught me to think about:
Who gets to say which behaviours and attitudes are toxic and which are not?
RD
Frank Luntz, an American political and communications consultant, captured my point in the title of his book, ‘Words that Work’: It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear’. I’ve heard Frank in interviews a number of times and I think he knows what he’s talking about, at least on this topic. (He’s also pretty right wing and if I’m not mistaken coined the term “Death Tax’ instead of Estate Tax and that simple change of words caused devastating political damage to the Left Wing Democratic Party).
Using this understanding that, ‘communication is not about I say, it’s about what people hear’ I learnt that I don’t get to tell you how my behaviour and attitudes are experienced by you.
RD
For example, if my words are heard by another person as sexist or racist it doesn’t necessarily mean I am sexist or racist but it does mean I at least have a communication problem and at worst it may indicate that I do have some sexist or racist attitudes. It’s tricky to be certain but my current position and has been for a fair while now, is that what I communicate is my responsibility. It’s my responsibly to understand who I’m talking to, what I want to communicate and how best to go about that. There is very little value in being hostile with how your words are being heard, far better to reflect on how I’m going about it and, if I am hoping to grow and become a more complete person, perhaps reflecting a little on my own attitudes in case those attitudes are not who I want to be.
There’s no escaping it for me, I have some sexist and racist remnants from a time when that was accepted my many. There’s also no escaping that I don’t like this and I want that to change.
RD
So are those attitudes toxic? Do they produce an unhealthy atmosphere? Could that atmosphere cause harm to others? The bottom line is I don’t get to say how my attitudes and behaviours effect you or others, I can only reflect on my intent and learn to do better which is going to include the painful discovery that I have some pretty shitty ways of seeing the world and the people in it and that may well contribute to or create a toxic atmosphere. I do not see this as a bad discovery, I see it as an opportunity to be a better person.
When it comes to masculinity and my identity I have to own that over the years I have become aware of some pretty unhealthy attitudes that have, at times led to people around me being effected, even hurt and if nothing else, if nothing else, this post is really about me working that out.
The ‘anti-toxic masculinity’ people will have you believe that the goal is to make little boys feel bad about being little boys. They will want to convince you that “Toxic Masculinity means a boy can’t run and jump and play with things that are traditionally seen as ‘male’
RD
Of course this is absolute and deliberate deception. Sure there are some people who do want that but it’s a few and it’s not what I’m talking about. Children should be encouraged to play in ways that develop their bodies, minds and social skills. Games and experiences that develop their physical, emotional social and spiritual intelligence (not religious) so as they get older they are able to understand themselves and how they can participate in society finding meaning and purpose and live to their full capacity. One thing I notice with people from my generation is the acceptance of certain behaviours as being Gendered when, in my experience they are certainly not. So many males of around my age have a lot of difficulty understanding and communicating their emotions, so many in fact that it seems to be proof that Men are less able to understand and talk about their emotions. ‘You can’t argue with the evidence’, ‘A fact is a fact’, ‘this just how men are’.
I could not disagree more and it’s this kind of thing that, from my perspective is part of the foundation of what becomes Toxic Masculinity.
RD
How many married people have lost their way in their relationship because a man’s emotional intelligence was never developed to its capacity from when they were a boy all the way through to a lonely adult struggling to connect deeply with themselves or others. That is what I would call an ‘Underdeveloped Person’ and that underdevelopment will often lead to toxic behaviours and attitudes effecting themselves and others.
Over the years I’ve known blokes who feel very threatened by women, especially women who they perceive as being strong, ambitious and powerful. I have sat in a circle of middle-aged men who complain about women they work with and feel those women have been promoted because they are women and not because they have earned it. Not so long ago I came in late to one of those circles and the complaining had already begun. I reacted and said ‘don’t do that guys’. No-one appreciated my attempt at intervention and rather than us being able to talk and reflect on the attitudes we simply moved on. No doubt I did a poor job but I felt sad that we were missing an opportunity for self reflection, personal growth and gaining a better and more effective understanding of our our prejudice. It is almost as if accepting that we have prejudice is too scary for many people to deal with, which is another example of how an underdeveloped man can produce a toxic environment where we are not safe to say out loud, ‘Hey, do you think I might be feeling a bit threatened by that woman?’.
I can’t change how I was raised nor can I change how I felt and what I thought yesterday. What I can do though is learn how to reflect on these things, I can ask questions and spend time sifting through the memories that have shaped who I am now. Even better than that I can grow and change, I can become a more aware person and I can develop the skills and abilities that were once assigned as feminine or masculine that I believe are better described as human traits.
Why should I accept that certain human traits are only for women to have and why would I want to live what time I have left feeling profoundly isolated from myself and others.
I don’t believe masculinity is toxic at all but I have seen and experienced and I do believe the way some of us blokes have been trained to think and act has stolen from many of us some of the most exquisite and wonderful experiences and joys a human being can have.
When I was in school the two worst ‘insults’ a boy could receive from another boy are very telling. They were: You’re such a girl and You’re so gay (usually a more derogatory version). If either of these ‘insults’ were used it would elicit an aggressive and sometimes physically violent reaction such is the absolute shame of being seen as either of those two things.
This alone should be a flashing red light to every person who can recognise those ‘insults’. If a person can’t see how those ‘hyper-masculine’ attitudes go on to produce poisonous and destructive behaviours that then produce fear and anxiety then I think that person has a problem.
‘Wilful Ignorance’ means we deliberately ignore those facts that don’t align with our current beliefs. Cognitive Bias is the more technical term and means ‘through this bias, people tend to favour information that reinforces the things they already think or believe’…Same same.
Yes, in the same way as almost everything there is Toxic Expressions of Masculinity in our society and perhaps dropping some of the old ways of seeing gender is one of the ways forward. I for one do not need to be seen as a strong male in order to feel comfortable in my own skin. Far better that I become known as a compete human being able to experience all that my body, mind, soul and spirit have to offer rather than the sad and underdeveloped version of humanity that men were once forced in to.
PS: There are examples of Toxic Behaviour everywhere I look and are usually a tiny minority of any area of life. Some people in professions like: Teaching, Police, Corporate, Social Work, Doctors, Nurses, Politics, Arts, Sport and so on. Surely we have all experienced the effects of a person with destructive attitudes and behaviours that effect whatever area they are involved in. These folk are known or have been experienced by every person I know. It is the same with Men. It’s probably a combination of influences but we men have a problem, not all men and not even most of us but there is a significant number of underdeveloped men many of who are leaving damaged people in their wake.
Boys and men are more likely to engage in risk-taking behaviour – reflected in higher rates of road accident fatalities, accidental drug-induced deaths, and higher rates of smoking tobacco. They have extremely high rates of suicide – six men suicide each day. And they are almost always the perpetrators of violence. 95 per cent of victims – whether women or men – report experiencing violence at the hands of a man.
The Mens Project
Every person who identifies as a boy or man has the innate capacity to be a good man, to have respectful and safe relationships, contribute fully to a better society and find a sense of purpose that reaches beyond simply what was drilled into them by all those influences that stunt our growth.