Toxic Waste - The Stench of Toxic Masculinity
“Don’t show your emotions, that makes you weak.”
“Boys will be boys.”
“He just has to get that out of his system, then he’ll settle down.”
“Men don’t cry!”
“You’re an athlete, you can get away with things like that.”
These are a few phrases that myself and others like me grew up hearing. “Others like me” meaning, males.
From an early age, males are told that emotions or having emotions make you fragile, weak, less powerful, and less than a man. We’re told that acts we’ve always done, such as turning around as a lady walks by you down the street, is just what men do. We’re told that not telling your wife that you worry about your family’s future makes you weak, but you don’t say anything because you don’t want her to see you as less than the King, Protector, and Head of the Household that you are. We’re told that being a man only means “bringing home the bacon”. We inherently learn to live vicariously through our sons and push them to their limits just because we didn’t achieve the pro career that we so desired. We’re told that women are supposed to “give it up” when we want it and they only play hard to get because they really like us and not because they don’t want it.
TOXIC WASTE
Toxic waste is unwanted material that can cause harm. In the case of men, that waste is masculinity and the unwanted material is all of the thoughts, actions, and the preconceived notions about what we were told or presented with from an early age that are, to put it bluntly, wrong, untrue, and unfit.
TOXIC MASCULINITY
I recall a short time ago having a conversations with my wife, Janelle, and I revealed that I sometimes worry if we’ll be able to provide for Korri (our daughter) with the life that she deserves. It caught her by surprise.
She expressed to me that she didn’t think I worried about anything. My initial response was to tell her I don’t express my worry to her because I don’t want her to worry any more than she does, and if the two of us are worrying then it’s not solving anything. Although that was true, that wasn’t the real reason. I simply didn’t want her to see me worry because I was afraid that she would see me as less than the title given to me when we jumped the broom (Her King, Her Protector, and the Head of the Household). After revealing this to her, I felt immediate relief and she felt immediate joy. I showed her vulnerability, I showed her passion and I showed her a willingness to relinquish control – three things that I’ve struggled with my entire life simply because of my... masculinity.
My masculinity. The reason why I’m not inclined to tell my wife my feelings are hurt.
My masculinity. The reason why my best friends and I most likely add the words bro or man after we tell one another “I love you”.
My masculinity. The reason why I wanted a son before I wanted a daughter.
My masculinity. The reason why I rarely say things like “I’m hurting”, “I apologize,” or “I don’t know what to do about this..”
So what are the core ingredients that makes this deadly cake taste so good and so tough to refrain from eating?
CONTROL. POWER. VANITY.
Control. As men, relinquishing control means we can no longer dominate or command the situation.
Power. We’ve given the power to someone else, thus allowing them to have power over us. With no power, we see ourselves as less than. When that power is lost, especially to our gender counterpart, we have an innate feeling of being inferior and stripped of our “manliness”.
Vanity. Toxic masculinity has caused myself and other men to inherit this sense of excessive pride in ourselves that prevents us from revealing our true feelings and even allowing ourselves to truly express or act on how we truly feel.
But the toxicity of masculinity doesn’t have to overcome us. We can change the way we think. We can change our common actions. We can prevent this deadly disease from being passed to our young men. How do we do that?
We must first hold one another accountable. We must refrain from doing, thinking, speaking, and acting on certain things solely because it’s what men do. We must not be afraid to share our emotions to our loved ones.
To save ourselves, to save our marriages, to save our families, to save our friends, and to save our sons….
We must be men. REAL MEN.