An essay on masculinity.
I’d like to think everyone knows the bell hooks quote about patriarchy. But I don’t think that’s true. In The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love bell hooks examines how patriarchy affects men, and how we, as men, must overcome patriarchy ourselves. The reason we must do this is because “[t]he first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutiliation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to exact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem.”
Patriarchy must first subjugate men before it can subjugate us all. Because, as bell hooks wrote, patriarchy requires proselytizers (like Andrew Tate, or whatever men are having y’all call women “females”), enforcers, rulers, etc. It is an entire hierarchy of enforcement. That is the point of bell hooks’ last line—men who adopt the dogma of patriarchy will do the harm onto others until they conform.
This performance, and conformance, however, harms us men because, if the way to be a “man” is to suppress all emotions, then the way to be a “man” is to not be human. Humanity, and life, is about emotion, about experience. Yet, the kicker is that we begin to encapsulate this false masculinity and entrap ourselves in our own prison of patriarchy. Or, as Emma Goldman wrote, the “internal tyrant” of our minds enforces patriarchy once it is instilled in our brains. To quote Emma Goldman fully, here is an excerpt from her essay titled The Tragedy of Woman’s Emancipation” where she writes:
[Women] thought that all that was needed was independence from external tyrannies; the internal tyrants, far more harmful to life and growth–ethical and social conventions–were left to take care of themselves; and they have taken care of themselves. They seem to get along as beautifully in the heads and heart of the most active exponents of woman’s emancipation, as in the heads and hearts of our grandmothers.
These internal tyrants, whether they be in the form of public opinion or what will mother say, or brother, father, aunt, or relative of any sort; what will Mrs. Grundy, Mr. Comstock, the employer, the Board of Education say? All these busybodies, moral detectives, jailers of the human spirit, what will they say? Until woman has learned to defy them all, to stand firmly on her own ground and to insist upon her own unrestricted freedom, to listen to the voice of her nature, whether it call for life’s greatest treasure, love for a man, or her most glorious privilege, the right to give birth to a child, she cannot call herself emancipated. How many emancipated women are brave enough to acknowledge that the voice of love is calling, wildly beating against their breasts, demanding to be heard, to be satisfied.
Emma Goldman, of course, is writing about the internal tyranny inside women’s minds. But this analysis applies to men, too. All the tropes about men, i.e., “men don’t cry,” are reinforced in our minds. Women, as hooks noted, also enforce these tropes upon men. We are all co-conspirators and collaborators in our madness of patriarchy.
The question, of course, is “why?” Why must we subjugate ourselves to emotional distance; we have a phobia of vulnerability, and a phobia of non-performance of “traditional male gender roles.” Because, in order to have patriarchy, we must subjugate the non “male” performances in our lives; that way men are superior beings, who are “rational,” “forceful,” or “decisive.” These traits are positive in men. Because men are angry and cold. (Yet, when a woman has these same traits she’s “bossy” and “emotional”–as my girlfriend has said, the case study for this is, funnily enough, Hillary Clinton, who, despite my dislike of her, has these traits, but is seen as a, what I’ll call, “bossy bitch”).
Sports is always a great barometer of how greater society views certain issues. For example, NFL QB for the Chicago Bears, Caleb Williams (Lisan Al’Caleb), wears fingernail polish. He gets ruthlessly criticized for being too feminine… because he wears fingernail polish. God forbid (despite my atheism) that a man enjoy painting their nails, or getting a manicure. Or, for an NBA example, future GOAT–if things work out–Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio Spurs wears his emotions on his sleeves. He cries when he wins a major game, or loses a major game. He is emotional about his greatness and calling in life. And, for that, he gets ridiculed by these so-called “true masculine men” for being emotional. These men on the biggest stages who have accomplished more than most of us will in our lifetime, at least in terms of their legacy, are scrutinized for not performing masculine gender roles in the way that “real men” would. Because it is illegal for a man to cry. Or to enjoy painting his nails. Or to do anything but to be the equivalent of Don Draper, who is an “idealized,” miserable man.
Every man who reads this, and men generally don’t read so probably not many (because, I guess, reading is feminine?), can remember a moment where they wanted to do something men don’t traditionally do. There are many times in my life where I’ve told myself I can’t cry. Because it’s not what men do. There are many times in my life where I’ve told myself I can’t sing out loud, because that’s what I believed men couldn’t do. Basically, any moment of vulnerability, where we be who we want to be, is met with the internal tyrant telling us: “well, do men really do that?”
It’s a shame. Because I struggle to make friends with other men. Not because I necessarily dislike them, but because so many men accept having hollow friendships. There are friends in my life who have never expressed a vulnerable thing to me. And that’s okay. They are still my friends. But it limits what our friendship can be. Because they do not trust me to not enforce the rules of patriarchy nor do they trust themselves to be considered a “man” if they express the vulnerability. This is not to say that men need to begin expressing their deepest, darkest secrets and vulnerable thoughts with everyone. But it’s to say that men often don’t do this. Yet, an enriching relationship requires vulnerability and trust. If we cannot trust each other in our moment of need, who are we to reach out to?
It’s also not surprising that men are, on average, more “conservative.” In order for us to achieve freedom and liberty, our mind must be free from tyranny. If our mind is muddled with patriarchy and oppression of the self for a faux performance of “masculinity,” it is logical that we begin to believe oppression is only natural. And when we believe oppression is natural, we believe we are to be oppressed or oppressor. In this dichotomy, it is preferable to be oppressor, rather than oppressed. It’s how men, unfortunately like my brother (and yet I still love him), justify extreme anti-social beliefs that the world is out to get them. Because the world is, but not in the way these warped beliefs manifest themselves. Rather, the world is run by patriarchy, and thus, even your fruits of being oppressor collapse like a house of cards if you begin to even think to contravene the established social order.
If this essay were to go out to a wide audience (it won’t), I’d get ridiculed for this next part for being a “performative male,” but I don’t give a shit.
How do we begin to change things, however? Can men change themselves? Or must men be changed by another? Paulo Freire provides the answer in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, writing that “the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed [is] to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. The oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both.” Thus, the healing must come from the oppressed, which, in this case, are non-men. Because men are both oppressor and oppressed, they live in a duality where they are fully ensnared in a negative feedback loop. The greatest irony, however, is that non-men are being asked to bear the emotional weight of men, which they already do. Now, they are, arguably, tasked to assist in liberating men from their own oppression. Of course, men could liberate themselves, but it requires us to spend more time as the oppressed rather than the oppressor. It is the dual nature of our insidious patriarchy. We build the cage around ourselves, but also own the key to get out.
Even “feminist men,” however, still wield the power of patriarchy. There are many radical men who strive for equality between genders who are grossly patriarchal in their thinking. It does not have to be about treating women as a lower class in the sense of skill and ability. This sword extends even to how we view women. Women are hypersexualized, as a consequence of patriarchy, in our own minds (and as reinforced through society). You can believe women are your equal, yet not treat them as your equal; by this I mean, if you view women as sexual objects and first evaluate them by their aesthetic value or sex appeal, you still practice patriarchy. And, again, even if you do value sexual freedom and sexual experimentation, oftentimes that same value is used against women. It is the classic contradiction: A sexually experienced man is idealized, but a sexually experienced woman is a whore.
Our patriarchal values are a web which both men and women are stuck in. And both are enforcers of patriarchy. Yet there is no guide on how to escape. There is, of course, feminism, which liberates both men and women, but feminism is not a GPS on how to achieve liberation, it is an ideology. To state the obvious, the only way we can tackle male self flagellation is by instilling better values in men. That starts first and foremost with role models who reject, at least partially, patriarchal values. It starts with learning about feminism. And it starts with learning how we harm ourselves to elevate ourselves, as men, up the social order.
The sad truth, at least of our contemporary moment, however, is that men like being oppressed, and like being oppressor. So much of our contemporary politics is dominated by the false notion that white men are losing their social status to minorities. It’s not shocking that the mirror of our society reflects mediocre un or undereducated white men who hate highly educated black women. And seek to punish women, who, in our “meritocratic” society, are rewarded by the “meritocracy” through programs that help them achieve success in a world dominated by white men. Ultimately, and as I’ve written before, I value a different model, one of mutual cooperation and benefit, where both men and women, are coequals and work together to make a better world possible.
Because it will take all of us. Us men must stop harming ourselves for the false promise of success under patriarchy, and women must stop collaborating in this harm by passively, or actively, enforcing patriarchy. I don’t know the answer on how to conjure that into reality, but I do know it starts with us taking a step back and asking “why?” Why must boys be boys, when a real man knows that the world is more complex than the flat, boring, and miserable nature of patriarchal masculinity?
As always, thank you for reading.
David Gross.
P.S.: Women, ladies, please stop calling yourselves “females.” To quote Howard Beale from Network “[You are] a human being, goddammit! [Your] life has value!” You’re not a biological animal (well, you are, but so is everyone), but a human, and you only reduce your humanity by referring to yourself in the biological term, and not the human gende