Too Masculine, Not Masculine Enough

This past week, there was a good deal of buzz online after conservative pundit Ben Shapiro proclaimed that the US military was on the verge of ruin (!) because it had abandoned "traditional masculinity." His statement was roundly - and appropriately - ridiculed. I believe his comment was worth paying attention to, however, because it expresses a very real and pervasive anxiety in the United States about masculinity. In a way, of course, there has been anxiety about masculinity as long as there have been men. Masculinity is just a cluster of performed behaviors that vary from culture to culture, and from era to era. Because it's not a stable or fixed idea, men will always have the Goldilocks problem of worrying if they're too masculine, not masculine enough or just right.

I also found Shapiro's comment a little sad, though, because it reflects such a simple fallacy that could be cleared up in a just a few minutes. Conservatives seem to believe today that the woke Left wants to destroy all masculinity, or is somehow against masculinity. Conservative media is full of hyperventilation to this effect. To be fair, maybe it's true that progressive types have let this falsehood fester because we haven't been clear enough with our language. In this essay, I want to clarify our terms. Here is what I believe to be true. The illness in our culture isn't masculinity but rather hypermasculinity. Moreover, we should be talking about hypermasculinity instead of "toxic masculinity" because it's a much more useful term. Lastly, we need to really understand how hypermasculinity develops so we finally embark on the important work of healing men in our culture.

I. Some Notes on Toxic Masculinity

It might be an unpopular take, but I believe we should move on from “toxic masculinity” for three main reasons. The first reason is my simple conviction that no human being is toxic. Let’s assume that “toxic masculinity” is a problem having to do with the personality or character of men in America. Now consider other personality or character problems that people experience in our culture: being unassertive, being greedy, being overly dependent, for instance. Consider more serious mental illnesses such as substance abuse, Bipolar Disorder, and depression. People with all of the above conditions experience some deeply pervasive problem and may engage in behaviors that impact others negatively. But we would never label any of these conditions toxic. We would never say that an individual with Bipolar Disorder, or an addiction is toxic. We would simply say that they have a problem and need help. Men in our culture are simply ill and need help.

The second reason we should stop saying “toxic masculinity” is that it comes across as shaming and, therefore, is less likely to be received by the men who need the feedback. If we have learned anything from Brene Brown’s seemingly endless supply of TED talks it is that shaming is an ineffective tool for motivating people to change. If you tell someone that they are just "toxic", they will most likely shut down and get defensive. They will be less likely listen. Research indicates as well that, receiving a perceived attack, men shut down emotionally ("stonewall") much more quickly than women, and take longer to recover. In the field of conflict resolution, one of the fundamental principles is to "speak in such a way that the other person will listen." Let's speak in such a way that men are more likely to listen.

The third reason we should stop saying “toxic masculinity” is that it is too vague. What do we even mean when we say “toxic masculinity.” Do we mean that all expressions of masculinity are toxic or only some? And by saying that masculinity is “toxic,” do we mean that it is somehow poisonous and we should only approach it with a Hazmat suit on, or can men with toxic masculinity be helped? The issue here is that the phrase “toxic masculinity” does not actually say anything about the specific problem with masculinity that we need to resolve. It only says – vaguely - that masculinity, or some aspect of masculinity, is bad. This gives us no guidance for how to fix it.

II. Instead of “toxic masculinity,” let's talk about “hypermasculinity”

To illustrate the actual problem with masculinity in our culture, let me tell a brief story, a story of a boy’s life, from birth to death. In telling this story, I am indebted to the work of the psychologist Terrence Real, a pioneer in the field of masculinity research.

A boy is born. For the first year or so of his life, he is nurtured and cared for. His parents do everything they can to simply make sure that he is safe, clean, well-fed, loved and happy.

As the child becomes a toddler, however, it begins. Without even being fully aware of what they are doing, his parents and then later his teachers, begin to cut him into two pieces. They do not cut him literally but - just as bad - they slice his psyche in half. Overtly and covertly, he is told that he is “good” if he is one way and “bad” if he is another way. Here is an incomplete list of adjectives that describe how the boy should be: successful, always winning, independent, strong, stoic, logical, hard. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these qualities. The boy is told though, that he must embody them at all times. If he's not a winner, he's a loser; if he's not strong, he's weak. Life becomes a zero-sum game with no room for error. Additionally, other important qualities in a human being are not encouraged or permitted: relationality, connection, empathy, listening, love.

When the boy is hypermasculine, he is praised. When he tries to be caring, he is mocked with terms like “gay” and “soft.” So he becomes hyper-masculine. He becomes extremely competitive in athletics and in school. He uses supplements that impact his health badly as he gets older. He wants to win - no, he needs to win. And he does. He succeeds in high school and in college. After college, he achieves a successful, elite career and attracts a partner who becomes his wife. They buy a big house and start a family.

Everything may seem fine on the surface so far. As the boy has been growing and developing, however, something deeply problematic has been happening within him. Let’s call it an allergy. The boy has developed a very bad allergy, an allergy that he will suffer from his entire life. Terrifyingly, he is allergic to a whole host of experiences that he will not be able to avoid as he navigates the rest of his life: experiences of feeling weak, losing, feeling out of control, feeling inadequate, needing to depend on others. He's developed an intolerance for all of these experiences that inevitably accompany us on the normal journey of life.

When, inevitably, he has an experience of feeling inadequate or out of control, he does what most men do: he flips from "one-down" to "one-up." He becomes grandiose, arrogant, controlling. Men seek to escape their woundedness with dominating behaviors. This dynamic is even more present when the family system has been especially wounding (i.e. if there has been physical or emotional abuse, persistent criticism or invalidation).

Here are some ways that his allergy might play out in our character's life. He is drinking with friends at a baseball game. A bystander makes a comment to him that wounds his pride. Instead of being able to brush it off, he punches the bystander and is arrested for assault.

He has a brilliant idea for a new start-up company. It will likely succeed if he launches it. He does not launch it, however, because he is too fearful of the chance – however small – that he might fail.

At work, his boss attempts to give him feedback to improve his performance. He cannot bear to feel at all inadequate, so he ignores the feedback and continues to make the same mistakes.

Here is, perhaps, the most dire cost of the hypermasculinity developed in the boy. He is lonely. He does not know how to connect with his male friends except when they are watching sports. He avoids the emotional demands of his family by becoming a workaholic (and doesn’t our culture glorify men who are workaholics?). He wakes up at 55 and he is horribly lonely. His wife is contemplating filing for divorce. His children barely know him. He knows how to win, but he never learned how to love.

Very likely, he’s depressed as well. But he doesn’t seek professional help, of course, because asking for help is for wimps. Research indicates that men seek help for depression at half the rate as women (even though they die by suicide at three to four times the rate as women). So instead of seeing a therapist, which would mean admitting he needs help, he drowns his sorrows in his work, or Scotch, and watches his life fall apart.

III. Talk about how hypermasculinity is present in your family and in other parts of your life

What the above story has hopefully made clear is that improving the men in our culture is going to require a deep and sustained conversation about how we promote hypermasculine values in our culture. It will be uncomfortable. It means helping men to learn to sit with feelings of shame, inadequacy and helplessness, and overcome their allergy to them. It means looking critically at how we as a society praise men who know how to win but not men who know how to connect. It also means that women need to own how they reinforce and promote hypermasculine values, as well, because they do. Calling out women in my life I’ve heard use the term “softboi”…

We need to remain clear that there is nothing inherently wrong with traditional masculine values such as strength, success, independence, etc. What has become pathological is the degree to which these values are promoted in our culture. In the same way, being energetic is not pathological, but if it exists to an excessive degree, we might diagnose that person with mania. Feeling blue is not pathological but, to an excessive degree, it might be depression. Being independent and strong are absolutely useful traits, but to the degree they are currently promoted in our society, they are pathological. We need look no further than fascist cultures like 40s Germany or Italy, or modern-day Russia to see what happens when hypermasculinity infects an entire culture. They self-destruct.

If I've conveyed anything here, I hope it's this: men in our culture are not hopeless and toxic. They are not radioactive swamp creatures that are beyond repair. They are humans who have been broken by a culture that split them in two. If we’re willing to have the difficult conversations required, a great deal of healing and hope is possible.