What does it mean to be a man?
Being a man kind of feels like someone else’s problem…until I stop and think about it and realise it is very much not someone else’s problem, it is my problem.
I have a real challenge with ‘gender’ as a way of describing the world.
When I use ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ as qualities that a person exhibits (when what I really think I want to say are words like ‘strong’ and ‘gentle’) I feel I unnecessarily box ‘us’ into being ‘a man’ with the traits of ‘a woman’ (or vice versa) and I think this is horse shit.
The tricky bit is that when I look around I can see on a surface level it can easily look like this is true. There is a man being masculine. There is a woman being feminine…
I think all of this is largely learnt behaviour.
Then, what does it mean to me to be a man?
Firstly, I am a human who is in pursuit of truth and who wants to live in a way that reflects that truth into the world so I can do some good.
I wish my description of manhood could stop there.
But it doesn’t.
Partly, for me, being a man is about having ‘male’ equipment. I look like a man because I’ve got the bits that make testosterone and all of that stuff.
I like how all this feels. I like my equipment and I like my sexuality. I have no questions about being male.
However, having this equipment means that ‘others’ look at me through a particular lens. They look at my ‘human who is in pursuit of truth’ and see ‘a man who is in pursuit of truth’. When they see that they then project onto me all of the things that they think equal ‘man’.
This is where it gets tricky…because what this means now is that I am a human in pursuit of their truth who is managing a world that has expectations that may or may not match what my truth is.
And that gets messy.
It gets messy for me to see what is really me and what is the stereotypes I have been fed about being me/a man. It is hard to see the unfair advantage that I have because I am male (rather than thinking that I just happen to be so talented that I get certain opportunities handed to me). Equally it is heart breaking to see that my very presence can be a barrier to some people’s personal growth because of their (very reasonable) response to the ‘man’ that I bring along with me.
To me, being a man, is to be in pursuit of my truth, to seek joy and generosity and community, as I navigate the fog of expectations and unfair advantage that are placed upon me because I am seen as a man.
Language really matters. It frames my interaction with the world.
I am both strong and gentle, powerful and kind, a leader and a listener, a rock and a nurturer.
Dividing these qualities into masculine and feminine means that when I would like to access qualities that are considered ‘feminine’ then I must, for a moment become something other than what I am (which is clearly, for me, male). I leave myself for a moment to be these other things. Which means I will, of course, soon come back to being who I ‘really’ am (masculine).
That is not my experience, it isn’t true to me. If I am being powerful and then a moment later I am being nurturing then throughout all of that I am just being myself. I don’t find it necessary to give these qualities a gender.
In fact, I find giving these qualities a gender a distraction from just getting on with being a human trying to live a life of meaning and purpose.
What a can of worms.
Love
Luke
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Know someone who would appreciate this letter?
