Masculinity. Is it demonized? I say yes: Here’s a smart guy’s thoughts
Boys, like all children, are curious creatures. They tend to want to explore the world around them. Duh statements, I know but there is a point. Boys tend to challenge the structures and boundaries of the world directly, as opposed to exploring the world indirectly through social structures that already exist. This is expressed in things like banging a toy against different surfaces. Not to be ‘bad’, but simply to follow his instinct to test the physical attributes of said toy.
To observe this behavior and help him understand what it is he’s doing, and providing the information he’s seeking, is what I personally consider to be the nurturing and therefore ‘right’ way to assist this boy. Simplifying his behavior and giving him a negative reaction, with labels like, destructive, naughty etc, is to hinder his growth. It also serves to penalize and discourage what, for him, is natural and productive.
I want to be clear in what I’m saying. Boys are kept from maturing psychologically and emotionally because some of their natural behaviors are demonized. For a lot of males, this becomes a self fulfilling prophesy where they were discouraged from emotionally maturing because the way in which they explore such things is atypical to the female way. Being atypical it’s considered wrong and so boys will conform, abandoning these behaviors causing them to be emotionally stunted. In other words, being masculine is a perfectly natural thing and some expressions of masculinity are discouraged. I’m here to point out a few manly things that are spoken of sometimes as abnormal or less valid. You may not be guilty of these behaviors. Great, let other people know about them and maybe we can continue to reach toward an equitable existence.
Lets begin.
Boys break things. Its just what boys do, you’ve said it. You’ve even offered it as an explanation. The way it usually goes is a boy gets his hands on something, he pulls at it, he separates the parts and then you walk in on him with your favorite clock on the ground. You freak out. What are you doing! We don’t break things! We take care of our stuff! Maybe you don’t yell, maybe you just calmly say “we don’t break things. We respect property”
All of that is the wrong answer. He wants to figure out what his physical capabilities are, and what the boundaries and capabilities of physical objects are. The better response would be to explain the limits of the object and tell the boy that it cant sustain his curiosity. He’s not bad, he’s just learning. He can very much be taught to patiently study things, to use manuals, and seek out experts and expertise to better ensure things don’t get damaged permanently by his quest for knowledge.
Boys will be boys. Again, its a common phrase. That’s why i opened this paragraph with it lol. Seriously, i want to mention rough play and sports. Little boys rough play. We wrestle, we play fight, we play tackle football, hockey, rugby, do penny drops off the monkey bars, we jump and roll and flip and slide and you get the point. We’ve all encountered that little boy that just has so much energy it’s ridiculous. Not only that, but he wants to wrestle and push you and hit you and run etc. All day! You tell him to stop, to be still, its bad/not nice to hit people. Has it ever occurred to you rough play is natural and is often guided in productive manners? It seems obvious to some of you but you’re obviously not who this article is for. Put these boys in sports, martial arts, etc this not only will provide them an outlet for their physicality it will validate it and give them the discipline to reserve that for acceptable venues/situations. This ties directly into the next thing.
Men like sports. We like them because it gives us group identity. A common friend, and common enemy. We like being secure that we have at least one thing in common with a large group of people. We don’t love sports more than we love our significant others. We love them different. We cherish them and seek to have time to enjoy the various things in our lives without them bleeding into each other too much. Instinctively we know that it is messy to mix your hobbies, work, significant other, and family. Instead of mixing these things we seek to have time allocated to it all.
Boys are also aggressive and direct. We tend to argue and even physically fight for our beliefs, and social standing. We have a natural affinity to be direct, partly because we have a hard time communicating subtly via body language, eye movement and energy. Like everyone else we seek to self preserve and we do so by seeking to recognize and subvert that which would hinder our safety and/or growth. Due to this and other things…..
Boys are emotionally distant. Our compliments are often awkward and even coarse. It is suggested that we don’t feel, implying that our lack of overt emotional expression makes us less human. This could not be further from the truth. You don’t hear us though you listen. You listen but you don’t understand. We express our love and joy and hatred and pain. We feel things. We are just more reserved in our expression because we intuitively recognize how dangerous it is to be vulnerable. When someone knows your secrets, what excites you, what scares you, they can adopt these attributes to control your behavior or even just simply hurt you. We are capable of expressing openly how we feel, but first we must trust the person we express these things too. To the feminine readers of this…they may not have told you because they don’t trust you to take them seriously.
I want to briefly make a concluding statement. In my opinion, males are treated like children especially when it comes to social behavior. We have our bad behavior rewarded by people defending us or refusing to stir the pot and consistently call us out. We have people excusing our behavior with phrases like ‘men are men’ or ‘boys will be boys’. This is terrible because it treats being male the same as being a child. We are not trained and socialized to consider the impact of our behavior.
We are not socialized to have pride in ourselves and patience and understanding for others. The result is confusion and disdain for things that we don’t understand. Is it possible for boys and men to learn these things? Yes! The problem is that most of us begin in adulthood. We end up 18–24 with the emotional intelligence of someone 8–16. We have to start treating masculinity with respect. What we have now is the equivalent to the emperor having no clothes. Everyone objectively can see the issues in behavior and treatment, but people get shouted down for pointing it out.
I’m not paid for this content so, I’m going to end it here by asking for your thoughts?
