But, I want to talk about masculinity a bit before I return to my experience in that conversation the other day. There is a lot of buzz about toxic masculinity right now, especially as it relates to school shootings (US school shooters being an unfailingly male group). That historical cultural standards of masculinity have been harmful to men (especially young men) should come as little surprise to most people. As a sensitive boy growing up in the deep south who wasn’t exactly conforming to the sports-playing, gun-shooting, big truck driving standards in my community, I was well aware of it.
I was a sensitive child. I guess you could say that I cried a lot. When I was in Kindergarten, I remember crying almost every day as my mother or grandmother put me onto the bus, which led to no shortage of teasing from the other children. I learned that boys weren’t supposed to cry. I did my best to “be a man” like everyone around me seemed to be able to do so effortlessly, but I wasn’t very good at it. In the 5th grade, our class watched “Where the Red Fern Grows.” It was too much for me. I sat there openly crying about that incredibly sad movie while some of the other kids immediately started making fun. To their credit, not everyone did and I do remember some of the girls showing sincere concern, which was comforting at the time. It was also comforting when the teacher took up for me by saying to the class something along the lines of “You shouldn't make fun of him for being sad. Girls, as you grow up, you’re going to wish you had a sensitive man as a husband.”
Looking back now, both things are somewhat troubling. Why should those girls be concerned that I was crying? That movie is heart-wrenching, and I’ve nearly teared up just thinking about it as I’m writing this. That a human person, regardless of gender, would be moved to tears by something so sad shouldn’t be a cause for concern. If anything, blank-faced stoicism ought to be a more troubling reaction. In the case of my teacher, I’m positive she was trying to disarm the teasing boys with her comment and to reassure me that my reaction was acceptable. At the same time, it bothers me some in hindsight that she chose to highlight a sensitive man’s value as a potential mate as the most important reason that a boy or man might want to embrace his sensitive side.
People who know me well know that I am a sensitive person whose feelings bruise easily. When I was a young man, hurting my feelings often caused me to have angry outbursts. I can’t say for sure that it was social pressure that pushed me that direction, but I can say that it felt like aggressive emotions were “safer” to show as a young man.
Over the years, my skin has gotten thicker (I would never have lasted as a public school teacher had it not), but it’s still not all that difficult to hurt my feelings. I do my best to avoid angry outbursts, but I still get hurt and I still get angry. One of the best ways to hurt my feelings is to make me feel as though I am not valued.
This was exactly what was happening in my discussion about Black Panther with those women the other day. In the course of the conversation (two of the women were what I would have called friends at the time, the other two were strangers), I did my best to remain civil but to be pretty firm that I did not agree with them. At one point, I became frustrated and exited the conversation by deleting my original comment. We were getting nowhere and my feelings were just getting more hurt as they kept reiterating that my perspective on the movie was not valuable.
I returned some time later to find them all still talking about me, mocking me, and posting screenshots of a Facebook post that I made out of frustration. I was being called things like “whiny” and “fragile.” I jumped back into the conversation and owned my hurt feelings. I admitted my sensitivity. I apologized for my imperfection and for offending them. They continued to mock me and try to explain to me why I was wrong that my opinion had value.
How is it that they did not see their actions as hurtful? In the first place, to be told by a friend that one’s opinion about something is irrelevant because of your race and gender is upsetting. It’s also upsetting to be mocked and disparaged for the sin of having hurt feelings. These women, based on their comments to me, likely see themselves as progressive. They likely decry toxic masculinity as a problem in modern culture. At the same time, they quickly descended into the same kind of mocking that I experienced as a schoolchild.
Am I allowed to be a “fragile” man in this brave new world? Can I openly be the sensitive person that I have always been, or is that still going to get me called names and devalued?
The whole situation still bothers me, and not just as an encapsulation of how antiquated notions of masculinity still sneak up on us. It’s hurtful to be devalued, especially by friends. It’s also hurtful that people that I thought were friends of mine would so quickly write me off over a disagreement like this.
I do not write this for sympathy. I have been hurt before and I will be hurt again. I’m fine. (And I'll be the first to admit that I may be oversensitive.) I’m also not trying to overstate the plight of men. I am well aware of the advantages that my gender has given me in my lifetime. I write this primarily for my own catharsis, but also because we need to change the conversation.
If we are going to acknowledge that traditional notions of masculinity have been destructive and have led to generations of young men who don’t know how they ought to express themselves or act, we need to stop using language that disparages and demeans men when they seem to be upset.
***
Addendum:
After apologizing for being imperfect and wishing everyone the best a second time, I stopped replying. The abuse continued for a time. Upon checking one of those notifications, I decided to go back and “like” every post in the thread besides the ones where I was actively being disparaged. I “love” reacted to those. I admit that it was a snarky thing to do, but at the time it felt good to call out their ugliness in that way.
This turned out to be the final straw for my former Facebook friend. She accused me of being creepy and compared my behavior to that of a school shooter. Then she blocked me.
This, from a woman who had earlier talked about changing her profile picture to a screengrab of a comment she thought did a good job of putting me in my place that a friend of mine left on my post.
