What's So Toxic About Masculinity?

09/11/19 • 32 min

Behind The Mask-ulinity

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You hear the argument quite a bit these days:

"Masculinity is not toxic! What's so toxic about being a man?! We can't teach our little boys that being a man is wrong!"

I hear you, and I don't disagree with you. There is nothing wrong with being masculine or being a man, nothing at all. What's wrong about providing for your family? What's wrong with protecting your family? What's wrong with being tough, brave and figuring stuff out on your own without any help? Nothing. Could we come up with a better term? Probably.

I believe the interpretation of "toxic masculinity" is what is a bit skewed. Those who speak up about it aren't saying that masculinity as a whole is bad... at least I hope they're not. What they are arguing is that teaching our young boys that this is the ONLY way to be a real man is detrimental to their emotional health. By burdening them with these essentially unattainable expectations, we fill them with the sense that if they fall short of our expectations of what a man should be then they're not good enough to call themselves men.

Telling someone they're not good enough just the way they are can do nothing but harm.

Masculinity is not toxic, even females embody some masculine traits... and men embody some female traits. Surprise!

What is toxic is imposing our will and expectations on these young men and sticking them in these "man boxes" that hinder their true growth rather than promote it.

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You hear the argument quite a bit these days:

"Masculinity is not toxic! What's so toxic about being a man?! We can't teach our little boys that being a man is wrong!"

Telling someone they're not good enough just the way they are can do nothing but harm.

Masculinity is not toxic, even females embody some masculine traits... and men embody some female traits. Surprise!

What is toxic is imposing our will and expectations on these young men and sticking them in these "man boxes" that hinder their true growth rather than promote it.

Previous Episode

Vulnerability

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If you Googled "vulnerability" you may come across definitions as follows:

"capable of being physically or emotionally wounded"... "open to attack or damage"... "open to moral attack, criticism, temptation, etc."

After reading these definitions, who in their right mind would ever willfully WANT to be vulnerable? As a human being, evolved from animals and other living things, our main goal in life is to survive. To survive so we can procreate and keep populating the world with our offspring.

When you read a definition like this, your mind may go to an animal in the wild having to fight for it's life, worrying about every sound and every movement because it could be the difference between life and death.

You think about soldiers in war who, with one vulnerable mistake, can be killed if they're not constantly protecting themselves and on the lookout for enemies and danger.

Luckily for us, we're not animals in the wild or soldiers at war that constantly need to be vigilant for the sake of our survival. We're not even cavemen anymore who also needed to worry about every possible threat whether it was a lion, disease, poisonous mushrooms or rival tribe members wanting to kill us in our sleep.

We're living in 2019, most of us in developed parts of the world where we can afford to let our guard down a bit and not constantly have to be on a stressful lookout.

Now, let's look at another definition of vulnerability, this one from Brené Brown:

"Vulnerability is not winning or losing: it's having the courage to show up and be seen where we have no control over the outcome; vulnerability is not weakness, it is our greatest measure of strength."

This is the definition I adhere to.

Being purposely and mindfully vulnerable has not weakened me, on the contrary it has strengthened me and filled me with a sense of courage that I never had before!

How? Because every time I open myself up to fear, failure, ridicule, disagreement, disapproval, shame and other negative outcomes, I come out the other side alive and realize that being vulnerable didn't kill me.

How can you be more vulnerable?

Next Episode

From Caveman, To Brave Man with Dr. John Schinnerer

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Yes, it is true, we evolved from apes and animals. Yes, it is true, we learned how to behave and think in certain ways in order to survive and thrive and make sure that our genetics carry on when we're gone.

But, it is also true that we are almost in the year 2020! We have evolved as a species and as a culture, but we haven't evolved as much as humans and as individual men. We no longer need to be on the lookout for the dangers that once plagued us. We no longer have a need for the irrational fears that plague us on a daily basis.

There are so many men out there--I used to be one--that feel they still need to solely be that tough, macho, protector, defender, hunter, fighter that we once all were expected and needed to be. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with being all these things, but why can't we be more?

Why do we just have to be relegated to what someone decided men are supposed to think, speak and act like? Why can't we evolve just like all forms of life do over time? Why can't we dig deep into who we really are and bring that truth to the forefront instead of living a superficial life?

Join me as I have a conversation with Dr. John Schinnerer about how we can all dig a little deeper, be a little more honest, mindful and vulnerable, and be better men.

Dr. Schinnerer graduated from UC Berkeley with a PhD in educational psychology. His areas of expertise range from high performance, to stress and anger management, to positive psychology, to creating happy and thriving relationships. He wrote the award-winning book "How Can I Be Happy?" He was an expert consultant on the Academy Award-winning Pixar movie "Inside Out". He is the host of the Evolved Caveman podcast.