I was at one point researching and writing about the construction of masculine identity. A couple of the more ardent feminists of my acquaintance had a bit of a bird about that, but I think it was because I was early on in my investigations and not able to articulate what I was doing. They took it to be an anti-feminist inquiry. This is natural in our world where we seem to run to adversarial stances when trying to deal with the issues we struggle with. It is kind of ingrained.
It's ingrained enough that in one acting class I took the instructor made a point that we introduce our comments during discussions of our observations with the word "and" rather than "but" so that we would be adding our contributions rather than offering alternative views. And that's not a bad idea when we are investigating matters of the human spirit.
My study was based on some threads in contemporary research about how identity, who we are, is actually constructed in a narrative that we tell about ourselves, and that in the case of men, that it evolves over a lifetime. I'm sure the same thing happens with women, but as much as I would like to I don't know women's experience from the inside. I know my own and I happen to be a man, perhaps a bit atypical, but a heterosexual white male of a certain age.
There's a lot of injunctive stuff about "being a man." We have the "stand up guy" phrase. We have the macho images from popular culture. We have layer upon layer of role expectations much of which we as men impose on ourselves as much as anything. We have the reactions that my feminist acquaintances were expecting to be part my inquiry, the unwillingness to appreciate the lot of women that was much of the male response to second wave feminism. And of course we have the jokes. Men don't come off well in the cartoons or in sitcoms.
Then, of course, we have the demonstrated stupidity of men in the behavior of prominent figures who have their sexual peccadilloes exposed for all to see. Funny how that doesn't seem to happen with women. The women who get negatively exposed are exposed for bitchiness, like Leona Helmsley.
I think part of this has to do with the injunctions. Be in control. Be strong. Be brave. Be smart. Be capable. Be rich. Take care of your woman, your family. Impregnate. Don't back down. Be tough. Do I need to go on? The result is the cartoonish character of a "Rambo," all muscle and craftiness, inarticulate, bent on payback and getting even.
In parts of our city this year "being a man" has been about having a gun and being willing to use it to settle disputes regardless of who happens to be in the line of fire. For those who know who the shooters are, it is about not ratting out someone. For our cops it appears to be "kicking the Mexican piss" out of someone down on the sidewalk who, it turns out, was an innocent bystander; and then stonewalling the Department of Justice investigation into whether the local police force exhibits racist behaviors.
I am coming to believe that all those testosterone ridden, macho stereotypes of "manliness" are in fact not "manly" at all. They are the straight line extension of the bullying ethos of male adolescence into adulthood. It is playground bullshit, if you'll pardon the phrase.
What has driven this conclusion to the front of my consciousness--it has always been there, but in the background--is what has happened recently and over the last several years to a special friend, someone I have considered to be one of my two best lifetime friends.
A number of years ago, six or seven, my friend had an aneurism that paralyzed him and almost killed him. He was in his fifties but arguably in his late prime years. He made a commitment that he was going to run again and ski again and set about the hard work of rehabilitating himself. I hadn't been in a lot of contact with him. The call where I found out about his stroke was over a year after the event, but we started talking about once every month or so after that.
What was so about him was that he never wavered in his commitment to heal, and never seemed to me at least to get down on himself about it or to claim any kind of victimhood; and he remained the kind of friend who would listen to what was going on with you and offered support and clarity in the conversation.
For the last few weeks I had called and left messages for him on a few occasions and not gotten a response. I was beginning to worry and I had no other way to get in touch. He's single and lives alone. On the off chance I sent an email last night.
Today I got a call from a friend of his. She let me know that he had had a series of difficult medical events--a spinal bleed that required reducing blood thinners, then another stroke--but that he was alive but in a round the clock nursing care facility. His leg is paralyzed again but he can move his arm and is able to speak. He has lost so much core strength that he cannot move himself and requires assistance and a hoist to get out of bed for physical therapy. He is extremely unlikely to ever live independently again, which is my worst nightmare.
What she said next is what prompted me to write this. First she said that he told her to find my name in his rolodex and to call me. She was about to do that when she saw my email. Then she was at pains to make clear that despite everything he was in good spirits, and I could almost see his shock of red hair and a smile on his face as she described him and how alert and present he was.
I thought to myself and said to her that "he has always seemed to me to know how to be a man even in the most difficult of circumstances."
It's ingrained enough that in one acting class I took the instructor made a point that we introduce our comments during discussions of our observations with the word "and" rather than "but" so that we would be adding our contributions rather than offering alternative views. And that's not a bad idea when we are investigating matters of the human spirit.
My study was based on some threads in contemporary research about how identity, who we are, is actually constructed in a narrative that we tell about ourselves, and that in the case of men, that it evolves over a lifetime. I'm sure the same thing happens with women, but as much as I would like to I don't know women's experience from the inside. I know my own and I happen to be a man, perhaps a bit atypical, but a heterosexual white male of a certain age.
There's a lot of injunctive stuff about "being a man." We have the "stand up guy" phrase. We have the macho images from popular culture. We have layer upon layer of role expectations much of which we as men impose on ourselves as much as anything. We have the reactions that my feminist acquaintances were expecting to be part my inquiry, the unwillingness to appreciate the lot of women that was much of the male response to second wave feminism. And of course we have the jokes. Men don't come off well in the cartoons or in sitcoms.
Then, of course, we have the demonstrated stupidity of men in the behavior of prominent figures who have their sexual peccadilloes exposed for all to see. Funny how that doesn't seem to happen with women. The women who get negatively exposed are exposed for bitchiness, like Leona Helmsley.
I think part of this has to do with the injunctions. Be in control. Be strong. Be brave. Be smart. Be capable. Be rich. Take care of your woman, your family. Impregnate. Don't back down. Be tough. Do I need to go on? The result is the cartoonish character of a "Rambo," all muscle and craftiness, inarticulate, bent on payback and getting even.
In parts of our city this year "being a man" has been about having a gun and being willing to use it to settle disputes regardless of who happens to be in the line of fire. For those who know who the shooters are, it is about not ratting out someone. For our cops it appears to be "kicking the Mexican piss" out of someone down on the sidewalk who, it turns out, was an innocent bystander; and then stonewalling the Department of Justice investigation into whether the local police force exhibits racist behaviors.
I am coming to believe that all those testosterone ridden, macho stereotypes of "manliness" are in fact not "manly" at all. They are the straight line extension of the bullying ethos of male adolescence into adulthood. It is playground bullshit, if you'll pardon the phrase.
What has driven this conclusion to the front of my consciousness--it has always been there, but in the background--is what has happened recently and over the last several years to a special friend, someone I have considered to be one of my two best lifetime friends.
A number of years ago, six or seven, my friend had an aneurism that paralyzed him and almost killed him. He was in his fifties but arguably in his late prime years. He made a commitment that he was going to run again and ski again and set about the hard work of rehabilitating himself. I hadn't been in a lot of contact with him. The call where I found out about his stroke was over a year after the event, but we started talking about once every month or so after that.
What was so about him was that he never wavered in his commitment to heal, and never seemed to me at least to get down on himself about it or to claim any kind of victimhood; and he remained the kind of friend who would listen to what was going on with you and offered support and clarity in the conversation.
For the last few weeks I had called and left messages for him on a few occasions and not gotten a response. I was beginning to worry and I had no other way to get in touch. He's single and lives alone. On the off chance I sent an email last night.
Today I got a call from a friend of his. She let me know that he had had a series of difficult medical events--a spinal bleed that required reducing blood thinners, then another stroke--but that he was alive but in a round the clock nursing care facility. His leg is paralyzed again but he can move his arm and is able to speak. He has lost so much core strength that he cannot move himself and requires assistance and a hoist to get out of bed for physical therapy. He is extremely unlikely to ever live independently again, which is my worst nightmare.
What she said next is what prompted me to write this. First she said that he told her to find my name in his rolodex and to call me. She was about to do that when she saw my email. Then she was at pains to make clear that despite everything he was in good spirits, and I could almost see his shock of red hair and a smile on his face as she described him and how alert and present he was.
I thought to myself and said to her that "he has always seemed to me to know how to be a man even in the most difficult of circumstances."
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