CULTURE

…It All Started in Kindergarten

Seeds of toxic masculinity are planted early.

I am one of those ridiculous sentient beings who dared to start his life out as a child. I find myself navigating through life as if I am dragging around the remains of a damaged, younger version of myself. Every damn therapist, healer, and spiritual leader wants to talk about me as a child. It all goes back to our childhood, doesn’t it? Maybe we need a Younger Self Anonymous group. “Hi, I am Rudy, and it has been three days since my last tantrum.” Through the years of therapy and self-realization, I have made a few changes when it comes to being a man. But first I had to look…and I found that it all started in kindergarten.

By today’s standards, it was a stripper pole that had been erected, floor to ceiling, in my kindergarten classroom. This was incredibly exciting for a bunch of 5 and 6-year-olds. Then the teacher explained that we were all going to climb the pole and ring the bell hanging from the ceiling. It was like 1000 feet high to me. I was afraid of heights. When my turn came, I quietly explained to my teachers that I was scared of heights. “Nonsense…” she said loudly enough for everyone to hear. “…boys just do this stuff. It is in their blood. Girls are the ones that will have trouble due to a lack of upper body strength.” I was terrified, but she knew what a boy was supposed to do, so I was forced to take my turn at the 1000-foot death pole. As it turned out, I didn’t have the upper body strength to even get off the ground!

But boy, oh boy, did Gregory get the accolades! He was the fastest in the whole kindergarten class, and the way the teacher spoke about him, he would be in the Olympics. She asked me if I wanted another try, and I shook my head, “no.” Then I began to cry. Embarrassed, scared, and 5-years-old, I learned that I was less than. Even worse, I was in the girl’s group calling. My teacher said, “You’re fine. Be a little man and toughen up.” I wasn’t a little man; I was a little boy. Can’t a little boy be afraid, show pain or tears?

“No!” Cries John Wayne Culture, “All boys can climb a pole and girls can’t!” So, what did that make me? I was the boy who couldn’t climb the pole. I have never climbed a pole. I could never throw as far as my friends, run as fast, or climb a tree very well. I never measured up. I never hit the mark. How the hell could I? I never understood what I was aiming for. As a result, I began my school experience feeling less than. That pattern continues into my adult life. All that damage, self-hate, and feeling like something was wrong with me. All this pain because a teacher thought that I knew what I was supposed to do.

Call it what you want, John Wayne mentality, Mother culture, or toxic masculinity, but our culture still produced this. If culture has decreed, “boys don’t cry,” what do we expect? Not to mention the other unbelievable lessons like real men don’t eat quiche, we are from Mars. To be a man, one must shoot Bambi, go fishing, and work on cars. “More power!” cries Tim the Tool Man Taylor, hardily grunting, “Ohh, oh, oh!” But…I don’t think so, Tim. We hear this kind of manly crap from an early age — if a boy is emotional or shows pain, it is a sign of weakness, and the damage is done.

A few years later, I got into a fight at school with a kid named Mikey. I didn’t know how to fight, but I stood there fists up as I’d seen in cowboy movies. All we did was shove each other around, and the teacher broke us up but not before Mikey popped me in the right eye. Embarrassed, scared, and 9-years-old, I was beginning to learn what it meant to be a male version of what a culture of toxic male superiority dictated.

We always played tetherball before school started. Of course, I picked the line where Mikey stood, waiting his turn. I didn’t know what I was going to do. Did I mention that this was the kid that was still pissing his pants in 5th grade? I had my butt kicked by the school’s Stinky kid! He always smelled of urine and Pop Tarts — like a blueberry urinal. I just had to undo the heinous injustice done to my reputation, but I was unsure how.

Then out of nowhere, Mikey said, “Hey, how did you get that red eye?” and laughed at me.

The rage that pulsated within my 5th-grade body felt like the spirit of an ancient warrior possessed me. I took that fateful step forward, fists balled up so tight I thought that my nails would sink into my palms. The warrior spirit spoke in its ancient tongue, roughly translating to, “Hey, Mikey — How did you get this red eye?!” I delivered a blow to his left eye socket. Then 3 more, clean rocksteady blows. The kids cheered and sang my praises. I did some man shit, and I liked it. Tetherball…making men manly since 1976!

I had done what culture told me I must do to be a man, but at what expense? Now that I am an adult, I realize that Mikey was from a difficult home situation that most likely was abusive. A pervasive culture of primal bloodlust that forces children to play gladiators as the world cheers them on.

This is at the cornerstone of what some call Toxic Masculinity. A study of men in prison, conducted by psychiatrist Terry Kupers, defined toxic masculinity as “the constellation of socially regressive male traits that serve to foster domination, the devaluation of women, homophobia, and wanton violence.”[i]

I told my teenage girls that “all men were pigs,” totally forgetting that their dad was also a man. By demonizing boys/men, I would ensure that my teen girls would never have sex which, shows you what I knew about the female libido. I was perpetuating the same toxic ideas about men that culture was telling me to. But why? Because I knew what it was like. Just because my friends and I were not objectifying women didn’t mean that I did not know. I am in the “man club.” Some boys learned one thing, like what not to do, from this toxic culture, while other boys grew up to repeat and spread that toxicity. Trauma breeds trauma, and the cycle continues unless the men want to take an honest look into themselves. If not, guys, you will vomit that toxicity all over your world. We can all see why there is a #metoo movement. I know what created the Bill Clintons, Brett Kavanaughs, and Harvey Weinsteins of this world. If you are a man, you probably know a Bill, Brett, or Harvey — you may be one yourself, but that isn’t who we are supposed to be. Yes, boys will be boys. But that is never an excuse for the abuse and violence of rape culture.

Does this toxicity exist because men are evil at their core? Or did a broken system produce broken men? I think it is the latter. It is culture that has incorporated toxic and unacceptable behaviors. In that case, we can bring it back to something that looks like mature masculinity. We have to pick up the responsibility for changing who and what we are as men. I don’t believe that certain “rites of passage” should be in any way canceled but improved. As fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and brothers, we need to improve what we teach our boys safely and as individuals because not all boys can climb up a pole. As mothers, grandmothers, aunts, and sisters, you can help reshape “the narrative,” too. There is power in a feminine voice speaking into our young men. By not propitiating the old misogynistic, sexist “boys don’t cry” narrative into something that allows for showing emotion and love. We should all save space for each other and enable men to face their trauma without the hindrance of difficult macho, machismo, misogynistic, manhood’s voice. I had to face my own failures as a man. My daughters have steered me into a better way. But I had to choose to look within, which took me back 50 years to my kindergarten classroom. It is an exceedingly difficult thing to do. However, when you take the time to get the hell out of your own way and have only the willingness to look at yourself, you won’t be able to look away.

I am not an expert. I am only a man trying to share his experience. This is bigger than us, but we can be bigger than the toxic masculinity that glamorizes violence, sexism, and misogyny. Men have earned a disparaging reputation. It will be up to us to turn that around. I want my grandkids to be able to tell their teacher that they are scared, and no one cares that you are him or her… or they. What matters is what is happening to the human race. We reserve safe space for all our children to be scared or shed tears. We show our kids that it is perfectly acceptable to walk away from a fight as well as defending yourself. We can teach all our children that there is no such thing as “less-than” people. “Love thy neighbor” will be the tipping point that transforms us into one race…human.

Thanks for reading!

[i] Journal of Clinical Psychology. Volume 6 Issue 6, page 713 through 724.

©Rudy Trussler 2021