What Do We Do When Both Men and Women are Trying to “Man Up”
“Fuck, I did that?” I said.
I was recalling the time I tried to angrily intimidate a bank teller because she wouldn’t let me withdraw as many U.S. dollars as I needed for my vacation.
I sometimes act like a know-it-all, do-gooder, “feminist” speaking out against violence towards women, but I’m also guilty of being abusive towards women on more than one occasion, and it hurts to know this about myself.
I’m reminded to be extra vigilant and wary of being a jerk in more subtle ways (Acker 2013), like being impatient with people who are just trying to help.
Jeff Perera wrote, “in the classroom of ‘being a Better Man’ there are no teachers, only students”. He founded the annual “What Makes a Man” conference, has spoken to thousands of people on manhood, delivered two TEDx talks on masculinity and men’s troubled pursuits of identity, and facilitates an online space for exploring questions of manhood called Higher Unlearning.
I interviewed Jeff with my many burning questions about the concept of the “better man.” Something tricky to achieve in a world entrenched in ideals of success and domination. Below is the interview:
Joan Lee Tu: Why is the question of being a better man a difficult one for so many men?
Jeff Perera: We’re taught as men to compete, we need to be the best and dominate. I use an analogy called the ladder of manhood. It represents men striving for an unattainable idea of manhood: strong, perfect, having all the answers… being the solution, not the problem. Being anything less is considered soft and ‘feminine’. Everyone wants to be the top dog, the alpha male, a winner, not the loser. The more access to power, wealth, and privilege you have, the higher up the ladder you are. With less access to these things, you feel less of a man and have to compensate.
When I say I “wanna be a better man”, I mean better than the man I was yesterday, in terms of personal growth. But some people won’t even listen to my presentations because they don’t want to hear this. They believe they need to be aggressive, even violent, to be successful.
JLT: I’m torn because I have a son… I want him to compete and be successful too, but there’s a lot of talk about violence being linked to toxic masculinity. What do we say to men and boys (or also women and girls) about violence?
JP: As far as male allies and men’s movements fighting to help end violence against women or organizations creating healthier ideas about manhood, good work has been done (for the most part) by people with integrity and good hearts. But as a movement we’re failing. As individuals, male allies, as movements, there’s so much more we could be doing to be more meaningful and more real.
Men can say, “I’m a male ally, a healthy masculine person. I’m talking about things,” and pretend to be a good role model as an elitist who is at a higher level, an ‘evolved male’. But we’re all trying to figure this stuff out and it’s okay to not have all the answers. Instead of saying “I have no problems”, we need to acknowledge that “this is affecting me too”. We’re peeling the layers of an onion and we think we’ve got it figured out, but we’ve just scratched the surface. It’s a long way to go in this life’s journey to be a better man. I see it as addressing my own issues and helping others. As men, we can come to places of healing, not just for ourselves but for all genders.
JLT: Even though I’m a woman, I also struggle to be a “better man”. I once read a book in which a corporate executive describes screaming at a hotel attendant because “a woman needs to know when to be a bitch”. Why isn’t there a space for women to talk about “What Makes a Woman”?
JP: When it comes to the conversation of gender, women are ready to have this conversation and they’re already having it. People who have lacked power and privilege from our lived experience have had to scream out or boast their accomplishments with a lot of bravado to rebel against the message that they are “less than”. The fact that they have to do that is the problem.
And women also feel the pressure to “man up”. But you don’t have to be “the man”. We think the world is a man’s space, a locker room for men. At the same time, it’s hard to find safer spaces where men get together and talk about stuff, as rituals, talking about their own issues and talking about accountability to others and to themselves. We need to come together and do the emotional labour together, be vulnerable and open up to each other. Men are hungry to have this conversation and relieved that they can actually talk about it. I want to encourage safer spaces for people to shatter narrow ideas about what it means to be who they are.
JLT: In your talks, you mention your father. What about your father connected you to the work that you do?
JP: I grew up in a home where my father was physically abusive towards my mom, throwing furniture and openly hitting her. The only way my dad could communicate or release his frustration was through violence, but it stopped when I was about five years old. I remember vividly being in the backseat of the car, my mom was sitting in the passenger seat, and my dad was arguing close to fists outside with a man who was drunk. My dad got in the car and slammed the door behind him. He was holding the steering wheel and shaking. This guy was smacking the windows and calling him racist terms. My dad was sitting there, not in rage. He was afraid. And for me, I started being very conscious of this issue. I started questioning these ideas of gender and was challenged by it.
So many of the problems and the pain in the world can be traced to our relationships (or lack of relationships) with our fathers. My father passed away suddenly in 2003 after being laid off from his job of over 30 years and diving into a deep depression. There was so much left unsaid in our relationship.
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Like Jeff, it was pain in my relationship with my father that brought me to my work. My father was also violent, he also stopped being physically abusive, and I also saw him afraid.
Perhaps healing ourselves and our relationships with our fathers is one place we can start to resolve our pain and change our approaches to the conversation on gender… because if our fathers don’t feel safe asking for help when they need it, other men certainly won’t either. No pursuit of power, wealth, or privilege will change that.
According to Jeff, it’s time for an awakening to be a better man, to do better.
And it’s also time for women like me, feminists and survivors of violence, to recognize that we need to re-invent our approaches. We’re all in this together. We haven’t got it all figured out yet either. We don’t have all the answers, and we can do better.
References:
Acker, S.E. (2013). Unclenching our fists: abusive men on the journey to nonviolence. United States: Vanderbilt University Press.
Read more by Joan Lee Tu on the ManTalks Blog
How I Got The Dad I Always Deserved
Why [Some] Men With Violent Pasts Deserve a Second Chance
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Joan Lee Tu created The Brave Man Book, a social impact book project, based on her personal story. She is soliciting personal stories of men who were violent and chose to change their ways to publish into a book in an embracing and compassionate manner. She lives in Calgary, Alberta with her husband and son. For more information: www.joanleetu.com
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