What Does it Mean to Be a Man?
In our fight against sexism, we have to make sure we aren’t setting a double standard.
Jester showed me this clip on TikTok of a man answering this question, and it was so well-put and accurate that I wanted to post his summary of what it means to be a man for people who may not get to see the clip on TikTok.
The video was posted by @oneguysopinion and you can see the clip here.
So what does it mean to be a man?
It means that I am presumed to be the villain, that I am guilty of things that other men have done that I have never done and that they have never done in front of me for me to be able to stop them.
It means that at 18 I have to sign up for the Selective Service to be sent off to war that I might not agree with by a president I didn’t vote for.
It means that I’m supposed to provide, work long hours, work overtime, work in dangerous conditions and that my life is expendable.
It means that I’m supposed to protect and respect women but I’m told that that’s not enough, just to be a good guy. But in order to stop bad guys, that would require leadership, competitiveness, and aggression — things I’m told are signs of toxic masculinity.
It means that I address women as ma’am, but I’m told by a woman in her 20s or early 30s that that’s insulting, that I am calling her old, even though I call four-year-old girls ma’am.
It means I open the door for women and offer to carry heavy objects for them, but I’m told that that’s being misogynistic and that I am demeaning her as a woman, implying that she can’t do it for herself.
It means growing up I was taught almost nothing about raising children; and even if I’m in my 30s or 40s and have children of my own, my competency as a parent is questioned, and spending time with my own children is referred to as “babysitting.”
It means that kissing boo-boos, giving affection to my own child or checking for a dirty diaper could be misconstrued as sexual.
It means in divorce I’m almost guaranteed to lose custody of my children and my role as a parent to be boiled down to providing part of my income.
It means one of the main ways I am measured as a person is by how much I can earn, which can result in severe depression when I find myself unemployed or unable to earn enough — a depression, and feelings I was never encouraged as a boy to express. I was told to “toughen up” and “man up,” and that it was considered girly or weak to show those emotions.
And despite all those hardships, I am told that I benefit from a patriarchal society that I no more helped build than the person saying that to me. The examples I’m given that we live in a patriarchal society is that the 535 members of Congress are majority men, or that every president has been a man, or the majority of billionaires are men. But all those men added up is less than a thousand, and I’m not a billionaire and I’ve never been a member of Congress. And those less than a thousand men have very little in common with the other 160 million men in this country.
But most of all, what it means to be a man is that all the things that I was taught to be — strong, a leader, a protector — are now referred to as “toxic masculinity” by women, which confuses and troubles me greatly because everything I was taught as a boy it meant to be a man, was taught to me by my mother. Which was also true for my friends that were lucky enough to have a father in their life, they were mainly raised by their mothers.
Men, like women, are individuals, not stereotypes.
I am not posting this to argue that toxic masculinity doesn’t exist, or that rape isn’t a problem — God knows, I know it is — but we have to stop generalizing the majority of men as toxic. We have to stop demanding that men see us as human beings rather than sexual objects, and then turn around and view them as walking dollar signs. We have to stop nitpicking every little thing they do — and I am guilty of this one too, reminding Jester that I can do this or that without his help instead of just thanking him for being polite.
I know we’ve been hurt. I grew up in the purity culture — aka rape culture — and I have been objectified, demeaned, used and abused. But we are doing a disservice to the good men out there, and to ourselves, by viewing every man through that lens.
We believe that “innocent until proven guilty” is essential to true justice; why then do so many of us look at men as guilty until proven innocent?
Yes, it’s hard to find a good man. But when you do find one, don’t ruin it by putting expectations on him that you wouldn’t allow him to put on you. If you want a man to provide for you financially, you must be willing to provide for him in whatever way you both agree works for your relationship. If you don't want him to provide for you financially, you still need to see his worth outside of his paycheck and his ability to give you pleasure.
If you want him to let go of his anger when you forget something or mess something up, you must refrain from nagging him or getting upset when he does the same. If you want him to let you go out with your friends and text whoever you want, you have to trust him to go out without assuming that he must be fucking up in some way.
If you expect him to support you emotionally, you must be available to do the same for him.
The patriarchy marginalizes lower class men as well as women.
Yes, women have been oppressed for centuries. Yes, women are still oppressed in some cultures and belief systems. I am not denying that we live in a patriarchal society. Men generally have an easier time finding well-paying jobs, and plenty of men still operate under the archaic theory that women are to be seen and not heard. There are indeed countless men who minimize the needs, concerns, and voices of women.
But there are men who are just as oppressed by this patriarchal society as women, dismissed and minimized usually because of the size of their paycheck, and they are unfairly being accused of benefitting from a patriarchy that is stepping on them in equal measure. The men working in construction, in factories, in sawmills and in slaughterhouses don’t generally see the benefits of this patriarchy.
Many of them are subjected to verbal abuse at work and then are slammed with the message that men have unfair advantages by women who have never had to operate a jackhammer for six hours at a time, or watch cows hanging upside down writhe until the blood has drained from their bodies day after day after day. Women who have never had to watch a co-worker get sucked into a lumber mill or get their finger sliced off because of one second of thoughtlessness on the job (this happened to my brother-in-law). Women who have never had to come home with blisters covering their backs from the intensity of the sun beating down on them all day, and then have to go and do it again the next day (both of my brothers have dealt with this as roofers). Women who have never had to come home literally covered in shit from the knees down (as happened to my ex on numerous occasions. He was a plumber).
And no, men will never experience the pain of childbirth, but the thing about pregnancy and childbirth is that it ends. I have 5 children and I know how much work they take, but raising children is work that a man can also do. My partner does. But there is work that, no matter how far feminism has come in the past century, the average cis woman is simply not physically strong enough to do. It’s not a judgment on her intelligence or her ability, it’s just a biological fact.
Men who work in these types of jobs — where they almost never have females as co-workers — often stay in them for years and years and years on end. And even men who don’t work in jobs like these deserve to be treated as respectfully as we women deserve to be treated. Because they are all humans too.
The way to fix the oppression that women do experience isn’t to turn around and oppress our men.
True equality does not equal vengeance for all the hurt and oppression we have dealt with.
True equality means forgiving what has happened in the past, and moving forward together. Yes, we still have to carry mace in our purses when we go out and it is wrong that we should have to — but how many times have you actually had to use that mace? How many men have you passed on the street who didn’t harass you, cat-call, try to grab your ass as you walked by? We shouldn't minimize the fact that it happens or excuse the men who behave this way, but we have to acknowledge the efforts of the men who don't behave this way, and the men who are honestly seeking out and eradicating any internal bias they have.
We still need to be vigilant. We still need to be wary when going out on a date with someone we don’t really know. I am definitely not suggesting that we should trust all men.
But we need to be very, very careful that we aren’t setting a double standard.
Most men just want to be wanted for who they are and appreciated for what they have to give. They want to be thanked for their hard work when they get home at the end of the day, just like we want to be appreciated for doing their laundry or running after the kids all day or going out and having a career of our own. They want to be able to cry on our shoulders just as much as we need to be able to cry on theirs. They want and deserve to be loved and supported even when they are unable to generate income. They want to be seen not as a paycheck, not as a rock for everyone else’s emotional burdens, not as impervious to verbal abuse; but as human beings with their own feelings and desires just like us.
Most men aren’t out to hurt anyone. There are plenty who are; but until we can stop judging the entire male population by the actions of those who have hurt us, until we can stop looking for toxic masculinity with a fine-tooth comb and start employing humility and compassion when a man inadvertently over steps our boundaries (remember that our patriarchal society didn’t likely teach him how to recognize our boundaries) — until then, all we will be able to find will be toxic men.
Thanks to @oneguysopinion for the honesty of your TikTok video. I am not being compensated for this article, as I don’t feel it would be right to profit from your words.
