Image via Jordan Whitt on UnsplashI’ve always hated stereotypes. I hate feeling boxed in, like if I leave the imagined space laid out for me by others’ current understanding of me, then I’ll be leered at and questioned until I step back in. When I was in middle school and first started taking an interest in art and writing, I was careful to keep it as hidden as I could, because I knew my classmates didn’t think of me as an artistic kid. It didn’t mesh with the version of me that existed in their heads, and when that happens people demand you explain yourself. I didn’t want to have to defend why I was suddenly interested in this new thing — I should just be allowed to get excited about things, to explore new avenues. This fear of scrutiny frequently kept me from pursuing my interests as much as I would have liked growing up.
Even more than that, though, I hate how much of others’ understanding of me is initially built on sweeping assumptions. Growing up, to give a basic example, I harbored a dislike for anything stereotypically Texan or southern. I didn’t want people to associate me with that imagery and assume that I’m simple-minded, or racist, or what-have-you. As I got older, I became afraid that my Christian upbringing would lead people to assume I’m bigoted or judgmental. (Not as much as I was afraid of actually being bigoted or judgmental, but still.) And then there was my gender.
A lot has been said about the concept of “toxic masculinity” in recent years. To put it briefly: it’s the belief that our current cultural understanding of what it means to be a proper man is rooted in harmful ideas, namely aggression, emotional detachment, and a rejection of anything perceived as feminine, among others. Personally I’m glad toxic masculinity is being talked about more frequently, especially since these male stereotypes and the (largely unspoken) cultural rules that keep them around have been a source of frustration, fear, and shame for me since I was very young. I feel like I gave up on trying to fit into any sort of masculine ideal years ago, like middle school even, as it never seemed worth the effort or the suffering to try and fit myself into someone else’s shape. If the goal of conforming to gendered cultural standards is to avoid being rejected, scrutinized, or mocked… well, I learned pretty early on that all those things are gonna happen anyway.
I think there’s a common set of assumptions among many people about how men think and feel, and it is frequently infantilizing, judgmental, and callous. I know these assumptions happen because they come up frequently whenever I’m reading about mental health. Many authors of books and articles on anxiety, depression, perfectionism, trauma, and any number of other psychology subjects are women. And in my experience, self-help books, even ones that based on the title and cover you would assume are un-gendered, are frequently written for women specifically, and treat men as an “other” rather than a potential reader. Which is fine! Women absolutely deserve to have their specific experiences written about and advocated for. I would just rather those books be labeled as such, instead of pretending that it’s a book for everyone when really it’s by and for women. It’s as if they didn’t even consider that men could be dealing with panic attacks, or have trauma that needs processing, or just want to feel like their experiences are seen and heard and recognized as legitimate. I know this because, repeatedly, I’ll read female authors saying things like, “I thought men didn’t have feelings, but it turns out they do!” And I’m only barely exaggerating here.
For example: recently I picked up a book on sexuality and gender, whose stated audience was “Everybody! No matter your sexuality, gender, religion, or race.” And the first chapter I decided to turn to happened to be the one on masculinity, wherein the author relays an anecdote about talking to college-aged men in the course of her research on sex and relationships:
“Before I talked to them, I assumed that college men would tell me something like the following: They love not having to care about their partners. They have no interest in loving or being loved. They have no interest in a committed relationship. Guys are invulnerable and immune to feeling… But when I talked with guys in private, they told me a completely different story… Guys care a lot. They long to be loved. They’d like to have emotionally connective, meaningful sex… Guys are not jerks.”
This is a college professor and professional, published researcher, who specializes in sexuality and gender, and even she started out assuming that men were selfish, emotionless animals. And all I could think when reading this was… how? How could even someone who ostensibly thinks about gender for a living have given so little thought to the experiences of half the human race? Granted so little empathy to their fellow human beings that it took a formal interviewing process for it to occur to them that maybe men are just people like the rest of us? Maybe she was being hyperbolic, sure. But all I could see was how well it fit the pattern I'd become used to.
I was recommended a book on perfectionism by a friend of mine recently, and the way she spoke about it immediately made me excited, thinking it sounded exactly like the kind of book I needed to read right now. So I went to Amazon to buy it, but I scrolled through some of the reviews first to see what other people were saying about the book. Most of the reviews were glowing, four or five stars. But then I saw one with a lower rating, and the review amounted to essentially: “This book has a lot of great content in it, but I’m a man, and it’s clear this book wasn’t written for me.” And immediately my heart sank, because I knew exactly what he meant.
Anecdotally, it sounds like this isn’t an uncommon issue. I vented about this to a group of friends recently, and a couple of the men chimed in with similar grievances and frustrations.
Men are regularly excluded from spaces of empathy, reflection, and healing. And it’s not just a matter of men self-selecting out of these spaces (although no doubt that can be part of it). They are actively being treated as if they don’t belong, or wouldn’t need or want said spaces. And when people consistently feel rejected or dismissed or treated with contempt, they’re forced to go elsewhere to feel seen and heard. It’s a small part of a larger issue that leads men down unhealthy, toxic, and radicalizing paths. This is where extreme, hyper-masculine, misogynist influencers find their audience — their targets.
I’m not even asking for men-specific books on these issues. I’m just asking to be included in the base conversation. To be treated as someone worth listening to and caring for, just as much as anyone else, without being talked about like I’m an animal or an alien. I always try to assume the best of people. I’m just tired of feeling like no one ever assumes the best of me.
The assumptions go like this: Men are simple. They are driven by their basest animal instincts — they act before they think, and they prefer to solve their problems through competition and aggression rather than talking things out. Men are emotionally two-dimensional — they lack the ability or perhaps even the desire to engage with complex feelings. Anger is their dominant emotion. Men can be booksmart, but when it comes to emotional intelligence they are like toddlers. They invariably see women as objects of sexual conquest, and don’t understand how to view them as full human beings — therefore, men and women can’t be friends.
These assumptions are so incredibly far from my own lived experience. Certainly some or all of these can be true for other men — I’ve met plenty for whom that might be the case — but they’re just not me. I’m in my head all the time. I feel things really hard, whether I want to or not. And I often care far more about the people around me feeling comfortable and safe than any of my own desires. Additionally, my friend groups have almost always been pretty evenly split across genders, and some of my closest friends are women. The idea that men and women are incompatible in friendship is just absurd, and it hurts to think that we treat each other as though that’s true. It’s dehumanizing and cruel, and makes the world more lonely and divided for everyone.
To be clear: these are sweeping generalizations I’m making here. This is all written from my perspective, based on my own subjective experiences. I don’t expect all men, or even a majority of men, to share these experiences. I know I’m probably an outlier in some ways — I tend to be very emotional and sensitive, and I’ve spent my whole life on the outside of whatever traditional masculinity is supposed to look like. I also don’t for a second think that all women, or even a majority of women necessarily, think about men in this way. But I also understand that many of these stereotypes come from real, legitimate experiences — men are far more likely to be the perpetrators of sexual violence than women, for one thing. I absolutely don’t blame women for feeling unsafe around men. And we should change our society to be one where everyone can feel safe, and a lot of the responsibility of that falls to men.
The way we talk about people affects how they see themselves, which in turn affects how they behave and orient themselves towards the world. And these masculine stereotypes are so pervasive that they affect how I see other men, and how I see myself. I’m frequently distrusting or judgmental towards men before I’ve ever even spoken to them — I’m much more likely to assume the worst of men than of women. I have a hard time treating myself with compassion, or seeing myself as valuable or desirable. I feel like in some ways I’ve spent my whole life running from this fear that I’m an animal, or a monster — that somewhere beneath the surface lurks a violent, selfish, aggressive being, and that if I let my guard down for even one day, it will escape. And so I’ve spent essentially my whole life trying to be the absolute best version of myself, not out of a desire to be great, but out of a fear of otherwise scaring or hurting people. I have to be constantly aware of how I act, speak, walk… so I can appear as non-threatening as possible. I have to make sure people know I’m a good listener and empathetic and understanding, so they don’t dismiss me as a selfish ingrate whose only intention is to get something from them.
Of course there’s nothing wrong whatsoever with trying to achieve any of these things. Making people feel safe and heard are just good and decent things to do. The problem is that I’m doing them out of fear as much as out of a desire to do the right thing. I’m genuinely so scared of hurting someone, or of being perceived as something to be feared. Trying my best isn’t good enough — I have to do this right, or else I’ll prove people’s assumptions correct and no one will want to spend time with me or listen to me.
One day earlier this year I realized: I hate being a man. But not the literal identity of it -- I hate all the expectations, the stereotypes, the assumptions. I hate being associated with the gender that has done so much to worsen humanity. I hate feeling like I’ve inherited this legacy of patriarchy that I need to fight every day of my life to dismantle, or at least not support. I know that being a cis man affords me massive privilege in our society, and I don’t want to take that for granted — I am not at all saying that I’d have it better if I were a woman. But gender essentialism, and patriarchal society more broadly, hurts everyone, not just women. Women and gender-nonconforming people have certainly bared the brunt of this harm throughout history, no doubt, but I don’t believe we can meaningfully solve the problems presented by patriarchal society without also acknowledging the harm it does to men, too.
I consider myself very fortunate, in that I was never really explicitly told to “man up” or fit a certain masculine archetype, at least not most of the adults I spent time with growing up. Most of that messaging made its way to me through cultural osmosis, or grade school classmates or their parents, or the occasional teacher. While I may have felt self-conscious and boxed in at school or out in the world, at home I never really felt pressure to be anything other than myself. And I think it’s from that foundation that I developed a sense of ownership over my gender. The world may have tried to push a strict definition of masculinity onto me, but I knew that wasn’t me. I decided pretty early on that no one got to define what it meant for me to be a man other than myself.
But I know plenty of other men and people assigned male at birth haven’t had such luxury. As much as I want more mental health conversations to include male perspectives for my own sake, I also recognize it as a desperate societal need. Because in a culture still largely ruled by toxic masculine ideals, it’s not enough to simply recognize those ideals as toxic — we still need to give men the space, the empathy, and the patience to allow them to move past those ideals, and form new ones. There need to be spaces where men can feel safe to make themselves vulnerable and feel recognized. Even if those spaces are, at first, only inside books.