Masculinity that’s NOT Toxic
Audio version now available.
At the opening of the holiday classic, A Christmas Carol, the narrator insists that we accept the fact that Marley is dead. “This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.” As a kindred spirit to Ebenezer Scrooge, I have always wanted to use that quote. In the spirit of the season, and because it fits the point I shall attempt to make, now is my chance.
When I talk of the critical necessity that men adapt and evolve into Emotional Masculinity, I am not misogynistically suggesting that women embrace femininity as some sort of retro, throwback, stone-age counterbalance. And yet, when women I know well–women who have weighed my pros and cons and decided to trust me–when my closest female discovery warriors hear me talk of Emotional Masculinity, they instinctively bristle.
The Wikipedia definition of femininity includes behavioral traits such as sensitivity, sweetness, gentleness, and passivity. I can see why the badass women I encounter push back at anything that even suggests that they are passive or overly sensitive. They have been through the depths of hell and survived, and the traditional manifestation of masculinity best described as authoritarian, insightless, brutish, and increasingly toxic brings their instincts for self-protection automatically to DEFCON 5.
And the blaring sirens of people with nervous systems on red alert make hearing anything else I have to say impossible.
So this is important if all that I’ve learned–through formal education, personal experience, and the stories of hundreds of people–is going to amount to anything. Femininity is not the opposite of masculinity. Femininity is not the puzzle piece that fits together with masculinity. Femininity is not the yin to masculinity’s yang. When I urge men to adopt Emotional Masculinity, it is not a dog whistle for women to find their rightful place in the kitchen or the bedroom being sweet and passive.
This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.
The instinct that is mutually complimentary to Emotional Masculinity is to nurture. And nurturing humans is anything but passive. To the badass females who tune me out like my toxic brethren oozing through the manosphere, please understand the sincerely with which I celebrate that in my lifetime, women have earned educational superiority, financial independence, sexual autonomy, and intellectual equality, all while maintaining the nurturing instincts to keep the whole species alive. I’m on your side. I’m jealous. You have accomplished so much without ignoring your instincts while we men flounder around playing video games, watching porn, and drinking and smoking in our parents’ basements complaining that no one swipes right on our shirtless selfies. Or in our own basements complaining that our wives don’t give us enough sex.
Women, you have accomplished so much. You have gained independence without abdicating your responsibility to grow the next generation. Now it is time for us men to adapt to your progress, not by demanding that you be sweet and gentle, but rather by pointing our masculine instincts in a new direction. One that doesn’t leave an entire gender of evolved women saying and thinking, “Don’t you point that thing at me.”
We must ourselves evolve into Emotional Masculinity.
We can still heed the evolutionary masculine call to lead, provide, and protect, but we must grow beyond providing financial resources, protecting from physical dangers, and leading all of the important decision making in the relationship. Archie Bunker is both figuratively and literally dead.
With emotional maturation, we can provide emotional safety for our partners and families, protect our partners and families from comparison, critique, and criticism inside the home, and lead resentment processing and emotionally intimate conversations. In addition, we can be of service without scorekeeping or whataboutism, and without expectation of reciprocation. We can also be accountable by owning our mistakes and taking responsibility for our part in the solution no matter who is to blame. And we can be resilient. Let’s show some fucking grit.
That is Emotional Masculinity. There’s nothing toxic about it. Emotional Masculinity is not about being the primary breadwinner or keeping hungry bears out of the cave. It is not the warped, retro, 1950s version of masculinity the manosphere is longing for a return to. Emotional Masculinity is not about taking away the glorious advancements of women, and then telling them, “You’re welcome. Isn’t it easier when I’m in charge?”
If I don’t want the controversy of a stigmatized word like, “masculinity,” why not just choose another word, you might be wondering. Because masculinity is not a behavioral trait to be learned. It is not a role to be played or an identity to fake until we make. Masculinity is an instinct. Instincts don’t go away.
Have you ever suggested to a mother that she stop worrying about her children? I have. I have made that mistake and wasted those vocal-cord vibrations. It would be easier for her to stop breathing. The nurturing instinct is as powerful and undeniable as gravity.
Likewise, after thousands or millions of years of genetics and conditioning, we cannot be expected to ignore our masculine instincts. Ignore? No way. Adapt to meet the moment and be an asset in a culture that does not resemble our nostalgic childhood memories? Absolutely. We must. We have no other acceptable choice. And dismissing Emotional Masculinity because it sounds faintly like the toxins spewed in the manosphere is a miscalculation we make at our own peril. That of men, women, and all gender identities.
In the year I was born, 1973, my eventual mother-in-law had to get her father to co-sign on a checking account. She was newly divorced, and, as a woman, could not possibly be trusted to not bounce checks all over town. Her father did not need to be emotionally stable. He had something she didn’t. A penis, and apparently, a manly grasp on how to do subtraction. It is hard to believe that was merely a half century ago. So much has changed. When it comes to gender roles, the change is unequivocally positive because it is grounded in independence, respect, and freedom.
Those of us with predominant masculine instincts are free to choose, too. We can adapt, and become emotionally masculine, or we can be stubborn, and learn through experience about left swipes and the reality that 69% of divorces are initiated by women.
Emotional Masculinity is nothing to be feared. Not by women who feel their claws protrude at the faintest whisper of the “m” word, and not by men who think if we pout long enough it will go back to the way it used to be. Change is inevitable. Change is why we have a much better life expectancy than Scrooge or Marley or Dickens. Women no longer need us. Change is what will ensure women want us to be part of their lives, part of their cultural revolution.
Change is what lets us find a new yin for their new yang. Change is necessary to fit the puzzle pieces together to ensure the survival of our evolving civilization.
Change is Emotional Masculinity.
If you’ve left alcohol behind, and you are ready to embrace the change that is Emotional Masculinity, please consider joining us in SHOUT Sobriety.