I am a man. I live, work and play, as a man.
But what does that mean?
It means that I cannot go to work wearing nail varnish, colourful trousers and express my emotions to my co-workers for fear of being labelled 'an attention seeker'.
It means that if I don't follow the mono-syllabic monochromatic march of my speech I am labelled as an 'excessive talker'.
It means that if I express vulnerability I am labelled as a 'drama queen'.
It means that if I express weakness about anything then I make other men uncomfortable and am labelled as 'a bit odd'.
It also means that if I do not repress my emotions, participate in the performance of indestructibility then I marginalized and put into the corner as a problem.
It means that if I cry in front of other people than I am labelled as having 'mental health issues'.
It means that if a female friend upsets me, my male friends cannot acknowledge that I am upset by a female and cannot therefore offer emotional support.
It means that I I cannot actively fix a problem then I am a failure and I am talked about as 'not the most reliable.
It means that if I don't persistently crack jokes then I am blamed for creating an awkward silence.
It means that if I talk about women in the same way that I talk about men then I am disrespectful and don't 'treat women the way they should be treated'.
It means that when I go to a gig I must sway and nod rhythmically and not make eye contact with other men whilst I watch groups of girls living in the moment and letting themselves go and submitting themselves to the euphoric tides of the audio-aesthetic immersive experiences of transitory acoustic bliss.
It means that when you start a new job, enter a new social circle,both men and women expect you to have an interest in sport, in a world that revolves around the pursuit of a William-the-Conqueror come Predator envisioning of sex, in TV and in pints of beer at the pub whilst you sit and debate and assert your opinions whilst the women are expected to giggle, laugh and talk about all that emotional women baggage that they 'av (this is a quote that I will never forget that I heard).
It means that I am raised within a r#pe culture and I am not permitted to call out this culture because it is 'inappropriate' and 'offensive'.
It means that if I express a desire for alone time to work on my own mental health I am allowed to be ridiculed, laughed and accused of as being ridiculous and extreme.
It's the reason that I can't attend a wedding and tell the bride how fabulous their dress is and
It also means that I am most likely to die by suicide.
The phrase 'toxic masculinity' is something that I only heard last year on Twitter and 'boy' am I glad I had. I felt like suddenly the chains of oppression and the masks of masculinity that I wear became visible, I felt unplugged and I could see the code of masculinity infected everything like a virus round me. It is very hard to describe. It is an invisible virus that slowly infects you from your formative years of schooling and stays with you through college, university and at work. It is a code of conduct that you sign and subscribe a membership to that enables you to ascend the hierarchy of employment and social status. It ensures that you 'know your place' in society. You can only break free from the chains of toxic masculinity if you are an artist, a musician famous or have a 'reason' to 'perform' in a more effeminate manner. Toxic masculinity it the gender equivalent of cultural theorist Richard Dyer's 'absent white centre'. In other words, being a slave to masculine gender roles is the normative default setting and anything is a deviation from this norm that requires justification and explanation. It is a restrictive state of existence that ensures men are in a continuous state of loneliness and alienation where a true spiritual and emotional bond between you and another male is continuously denied because it is an intimacy that is too extreme and unbecoming. In order to understand exactly how the micro-mechanisms of toxic masculinity it is useful to consider cultural philosopher Michel Foucault's definition of repression, or how toxic masculinity ensalves men into crippling corsets of conformist masculinity:
these are the characteristics of repression...it operates as a sentence to disappear, but also as an injunction to silence, an affirmation of non-existence, and, by implication , an admission that there is nothing to say about such things, nothing to see, and nothing to know'.
Michael Foucault (1978) in 'We Other Victorians'
The 'injunction to silence' describes the underlying assumption in male homo-social spaces that expressing emotions with no concrete or quantifiable output or visible result is not-productive and therefore a waste of time, a non-exchange and as an investment that in way improves upon the silence. Instead what is permissible as a voice is the discussion of objects, specificities, nothing vague and abstract and statistical data than can be challenged and argued. Reinforcing this is (some not all) women's expectation that all men are likely to say very little and certainly nothing about emotions. If men do give heartfelt answers that expose vulnerability and weakness then they are dumbfounded and perplexed, unabe to respond, paralysed by the observation of deviancy. Culminating in this 'affirmation of non-existence' is the expectation that men are not going to express their emotions to you and if they do then there is a serious mental health issue or a wider and deeper dramatic issue. Indeed, such an 'event' is discussed time for many week after it has occured. With men and fragility there is 'nothing to see, nothing to hear and nothing to know'.
It means that I I cannot actively fix a problem then I am a failure and I am talked about as 'not the most reliable.
It means that if I don't persistently crack jokes then I am blamed for creating an awkward silence.
It means that if I talk about women in the same way that I talk about men then I am disrespectful and don't 'treat women the way they should be treated'.
It means that when I go to a gig I must sway and nod rhythmically and not make eye contact with other men whilst I watch groups of girls living in the moment and letting themselves go and submitting themselves to the euphoric tides of the audio-aesthetic immersive experiences of transitory acoustic bliss.
It means that when you start a new job, enter a new social circle,both men and women expect you to have an interest in sport, in a world that revolves around the pursuit of a William-the-Conqueror come Predator envisioning of sex, in TV and in pints of beer at the pub whilst you sit and debate and assert your opinions whilst the women are expected to giggle, laugh and talk about all that emotional women baggage that they 'av (this is a quote that I will never forget that I heard).
It means that I am raised within a r#pe culture and I am not permitted to call out this culture because it is 'inappropriate' and 'offensive'.
It means that if I express a desire for alone time to work on my own mental health I am allowed to be ridiculed, laughed and accused of as being ridiculous and extreme.
It's the reason that I can't attend a wedding and tell the bride how fabulous their dress is and
It also means that I am most likely to die by suicide.
The phrase 'toxic masculinity' is something that I only heard last year on Twitter and 'boy' am I glad I had. I felt like suddenly the chains of oppression and the masks of masculinity that I wear became visible, I felt unplugged and I could see the code of masculinity infected everything like a virus round me. It is very hard to describe. It is an invisible virus that slowly infects you from your formative years of schooling and stays with you through college, university and at work. It is a code of conduct that you sign and subscribe a membership to that enables you to ascend the hierarchy of employment and social status. It ensures that you 'know your place' in society. You can only break free from the chains of toxic masculinity if you are an artist, a musician famous or have a 'reason' to 'perform' in a more effeminate manner. Toxic masculinity it the gender equivalent of cultural theorist Richard Dyer's 'absent white centre'. In other words, being a slave to masculine gender roles is the normative default setting and anything is a deviation from this norm that requires justification and explanation. It is a restrictive state of existence that ensures men are in a continuous state of loneliness and alienation where a true spiritual and emotional bond between you and another male is continuously denied because it is an intimacy that is too extreme and unbecoming. In order to understand exactly how the micro-mechanisms of toxic masculinity it is useful to consider cultural philosopher Michel Foucault's definition of repression, or how toxic masculinity ensalves men into crippling corsets of conformist masculinity:
these are the characteristics of repression...it operates as a sentence to disappear, but also as an injunction to silence, an affirmation of non-existence, and, by implication , an admission that there is nothing to say about such things, nothing to see, and nothing to know'.
Michael Foucault (1978) in 'We Other Victorians'
The 'injunction to silence' describes the underlying assumption in male homo-social spaces that expressing emotions with no concrete or quantifiable output or visible result is not-productive and therefore a waste of time, a non-exchange and as an investment that in way improves upon the silence. Instead what is permissible as a voice is the discussion of objects, specificities, nothing vague and abstract and statistical data than can be challenged and argued. Reinforcing this is (some not all) women's expectation that all men are likely to say very little and certainly nothing about emotions. If men do give heartfelt answers that expose vulnerability and weakness then they are dumbfounded and perplexed, unabe to respond, paralysed by the observation of deviancy. Culminating in this 'affirmation of non-existence' is the expectation that men are not going to express their emotions to you and if they do then there is a serious mental health issue or a wider and deeper dramatic issue. Indeed, such an 'event' is discussed time for many week after it has occured. With men and fragility there is 'nothing to see, nothing to hear and nothing to know'.
But there is...
In 2017, 5,821 suicides were recorded in Great Britain, of these 75% were males10. Suicide represents the largest cause of death for men under 5011.
In England, men have been found to be less likely to access psychological therapies than women, with males making up only 36% of referrals to Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) .6 Men may also be less likely to disclose their mental health issues to family members or friends2, and more likely to use potentially harmful coping methods such as drugs or alcohol in response to distress5. However, there is research to suggest that men will seek and access help when they feel that the help being offered meets their preferences, and is easily accessed, meaningful, and engaging3.
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/m/men-and-mental-health
In 2017, 5,821 suicides were recorded in Great Britain, of these 75% were males10. Suicide represents the largest cause of death for men under 5011.
In England, men have been found to be less likely to access psychological therapies than women, with males making up only 36% of referrals to Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) .6 Men may also be less likely to disclose their mental health issues to family members or friends2, and more likely to use potentially harmful coping methods such as drugs or alcohol in response to distress5. However, there is research to suggest that men will seek and access help when they feel that the help being offered meets their preferences, and is easily accessed, meaningful, and engaging3.
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/m/men-and-mental-health
So what is toxic masculinity? It's a straight jacket and believe me it is suffocating...I know because I have been trying to take it off for 30 years.
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