Intro to Masculinity
WHAT IT’S NOT
Well, it has nothing to do with muscles and pushups, though that’s what we’ve been taught to believe for centuries. Masculinity is ever expansive and has many layers of depth just like femininity, yet if you google “What is masculinity” right now you’ll see this:
Handsome, muscled? An angry man pointing his finger? Let’s throw in good at grilling meat while we’re at it…
It’s such a small box and it’s in this narrow space that many young boys come into their manhood. They are told to never show emotion and always be tough. They are also told to be a rock and to be useful (which are beautiful aspects of masculinity), but when they are devoid of humanity and emotion, they grow cold and empty.
And men are feeling empty right now - this is not an opinion or a hunch, this is a crisis.
4 out of every 5 suicides in the USA are committed by men
All time high suicide rate this decade in the UK
75% of all suicides in Australia are committed by men
The western world is suffering and while movements like ours are growing more, talking about men’s health is still pretty niche.
HOW WE GOT HERE
Western society created an unhealthy worship of the masculine such that we devalued and demonized the feminine. For centuries boys have been called ‘sissies’ for being emotional, all while watching heroes in films fight battles and go on adventures driven by a deep feeling in their hearts. Imagine William Wallace in Braveheart or John Snow in GOT not in touch with their emotions? They would have nowhere to go and nothing to fight for because they wouldn’t know who they are and what their purpose is.
Society expects men to be brave and strong, yet won’t let them get to know who they are a deep level. Society hasn’t given men the space to get in touch with their heartfelt desires and express them freely - this is the rejection of the feminine.
Femininity is not being a woman, femininity is the following:
Being in touch with intuition
Openness and depth
Feeling and expression
Creativity and play
Embracing femininity every once in a while is imperative to healthy masculinity. What a man feels in his heart drives his sense of purpose and heroism and without it - there will always be something missing. In comes the booze, porn, drugs, gambling, greed and with it depression, anxiety, and as we’ve seen clearly, suicide.
Women too reject their own femininity. There are forms of uber or neo-feminism which is not feminism at all, but misunderstood masculinity with a dress on. It’s a continuation of toxic behavior, but performed by women. True feminism is the empowerment of women and all things femininine. It’s the adoration and respect of the feminine as different and complementary to masculinity. It’s the understanding that women can do and create anything in the world - their way, without acting like men.
Once we can do that, we can start to love masculinity for what it is and how much we need it:
Protection and safety
Devotion and passion
Empathy and kindness
Leadership and direction
NOW WHAT
It’s time to fix the division between men and women by healing the relationship between masculinity and femininity. We must respect them as opposites and complements and we must adore and love the other both within ourselves and in other people.
We can think about this in the context of other complementary elements:
sun and the moon
night and day
fire and water
One is not better than the other - they must work together to create balance and harmony. They must work together for the sake of humanity within all of us. A man is a human being first and to love him is to love his masculinity.
Here’s another way to look at how the feminine and masculine integrate:
Using power to help others
Being gentle with strength
Having passion behind acheivements
This is fulfilled masculinity because it values the feminine attributes within it - instead of empty power, scary strength, and passionless achievement. When there is no purpose and love, there is control and greed.
SO MASCULINITY IS GOOD THEN?
Yes. Hell yes it’s good. The world needs strong, assertive, and driven men with goals and dreams. The world needs men to step up into leadership. The world needs men to leave those limited ideas about what being a man means behind and start to redefine them from their hearts.