Masculinity is a Life-force
That’s what masculinity was always meant to be until it got misinterpreted in the name of progress. The men of Western history confused momentum with brute force a very long time ago.
This led to conquering lands instead of just exploring them, which led to dominating people instead of learning about them. Yes, perhaps an overly simplified assertion about a large chunk of history but essentially, true masculinity was traded in for the power-hungry traditional masculinity that we all know. The ‘boys don’t cry,’ silent, and at times angry masculinity of our grandads.
The mission of our time isn’t to squash masculinity though, it’s to reawaken it at its core.
The way we do this is through believing in, appreciating, and embracing the mature masculine man. Who is he? He’s strong and assertive as well as kind and compassionate. He’s grounded in who he is and his heart’s desires. This makes him confident about his maleness and unapologetic in his unique contribution to the world.
He leads others to freedom because he has found freedom in himself.
This exists within every man, but for many he is buried under the pain and confusion of the past.
Though people want to associate destruction, violence, and greed with masculinity itself, that’s a misplaced association. Instead those things are the products of what happens when obsession strikes. In the example of western masculinity, the obsession was with power and the result was the patriarchy.
THE PROBLEM IS OBSESSION, NOT MASCULINITY
Masculinity is a life-force like food or health. Most people can’t argue that food and health are good things. We love, embrace, and enjoy them and also need them to live. But what happens when obsession strikes? A sweet indulgence turns into a slave-master when a foodie quickly becomes a glutton. The joy in feeling sexy in a dress turns into anorexia when an avid runner becomes obsessed with the number on a scale.
We can say that the “power obsession” equivalent for the foodie was sweets and for the runner it was weight. Suddenly the joy, passion, and enjoyment there once was is gone - the relationship is toxic. This is not food or health’s fault, it’s the trigger that caused the obsessions fault.
The solution? Not to throw out food and health of course, but instead to understand the triggers that led to the obsession and heal them.
This is how we need to think about “toxic” masculinity (and femininity for that matter) but instead our culture has tossed out the baby (masculinity) with the bathwater (toxic results of power-hunger) and the results are not good - we’ve created passive men. While we may think passive means ‘good,’ it actually means apathetic. And here’s the thing about masculinity, apathy is its biggest killer. We see all see the statistics, men are more depressed, anxious, and suicidal than ever before.
Men are stuck in a masculinity purgatory, they are in limbo between the angry manhood of the past and a passive non-manhood of the present.
With no other options, until now.
THE SOLUTION
Simple, we need more masculinity and not less. Only true masculinity, not the misconceptions we’ve grown accustomed to.
For starters we can create a separation between masculinity and the inflated ego 2nd cousin of masculinity that causes toxic behaviors like violence, greed, and destruction. Let’s call the 2nd cousin machismo.
Machismo Associations:
Real men don’t cry
Only allowed emotion is anger
Never be empathetic
Always retaliate any insult
Anything feminine is bad
Masculinity Associations:
Tuned into all needs, including tears
Experiences full range of emotions
Creates safety and comfort for others
Doesn’t need to prove himself, stays grounded
Respects and honors the feminine deeply
As you can see, these are not the same.
We’re in one of the biggest cultural transitions of our history - moving from the hegemonic masculinity (machismo) to a new place, one that has never been written for us. Something brand new is on the horizon and outstanding men are stepping up every day to leave the limbo behind in order to forge a new path.
One amazing man doing this work (and helping thousands) is Traver Boehm, the founder of Man UnCivilized (watch his TED Talk here). He is helping men all over the world embrace their masculinity in the way it was always intended. He does an incredible job of describing the either-or pitfall that our culture puts men into. He describes the emotionless and controlling guy of our past as the Marlboro Man and the passive pushover guy of the present as the N.I.C.E guy - neither of which work. His mission is to ‘UnCivilize’ men so they can get back in touch with their instincts, their heart, and their life-force energy.
This makes sense because when I think of true masculinity, I think of indigenous societies. I think of men bravely protecting their communities, teaching wisdom and honor to their boys, respecting and adoring their women, and courageously leading with love.
As women, if we want this new modern man to understand us and protect us at the same time then it’s our responsibility to care for him and to encourage his manhood - not dismiss it.
Masculinity is life-force not just for men, but for women also. Masculinity is like the sun, it powers our world. Without it, we are stuck and it’s my mission to support men so that we can get unstuck together.