My Internalised Misogyny Created an Unhealthy View of Masculinity
By: Laura Fox
Tags: Self, Women, Misogyny, Equality, Men

My Internalised Misogyny Created an Unhealthy View of Masculinity

As a woman, I was taught to see my own gender as inferior. It led to me developing a warped sense of what it means to be a man.

Photo by Magda Ehlers from Pexels

Growing up, I had never heard of anything to do with gender equality, feminism, sexism, or misogyny. It was in my mid-twenties that I began to understand these concepts and just how toxic my belief system was.

I was a product of my upbringing and culture. I was raised in a working-class family and we lived in a very deprived area. Gender roles were very traditional and there was no encouragement to question them. My view of my own gender was based on stereotypes and the views of the people around me. This in turn made me view men in terms of stereotypes.

Part of me is ashamed of myself for believing these things. But I know I am not alone. How many of us were raised to believe the following were true? And how many of us still find ourselves as adults being influenced by these deep-rooted beliefs?

Men want sex all the time

When I hit adolescence, I was warned that boys were “only after one thing.” Sometimes boys made me feel uncomfortable. When I queried this behaviour, adults in my life explained that boys can’t help it because they think about sex a lot. “Men will have sex with anything” and “Men need sex” were also things I heard growing up and learned from TV shows and films.

As I began sexual relationships, I believed sex was something done to me, not something I could be an equal in. And if a partner rejected me, I would assume there was something wrong.

Men want sex all the time. Men will have sex with anything. Men need sex.

I believed all of this to be true, so for a long time, I didn’t understand that sometimes men don’t want sex. I didn’t understand that sometimes a man may have a lower sex drive than I do. And I really didn’t understand that my worth didn’t correlate with how attractive a man found me.

When a partner said no to sex, I would be hurt and need reassurance. Now I realise this is far too similar to a man guilting a woman for saying no to sex.

Real men prefer curves

As a teen, the term “size zero” was all over the news. Pictures of underweight models and celebrities were splashed across newspapers under titles about them being too thin. The intentions were to stop young girls from hating their bodies so much and aspiring to be underweight. Unfortunately, its impact didn’t create equally healthy attitudes. In lifting up curvier women, they shamed women who were thinner.

“Real men prefer curves”, “Only dogs like bones” and “Men like something to hold onto” were phrases I heard a lot. I was lanky and flat-chested during my early teens, and I felt like my body wasn’t good enough because men wouldn’t like it. When you are taught that your worth as a woman depends on how attractive you are to men, and then society deems your body type as unattractive to men, it is devastating.

I came to view men as shallow. I was convinced that they didn’t care about personality at all and only wanted a specific type of woman. Although that may be true for some men, it’s true for some women too. Anyone can be shallow, it’s not specific to a gender.

It wasn’t until I was older that I began to see men as individuals rather than a group. They all have different preferences, and those preferences don’t dictate whether they are a “real man” or not.

Men can’t help saying the wrong thing

Sometimes my partners would hurt my feelings. When confiding in other women, I would be met with reassurance that “men are stupid” and “men can’t help saying the wrong thing.”

This led to me believing men were insensitive, and I would just have to put up with that. Unsurprisingly, this led to unhealthy relationships. I never communicated with the men in my life that their words were hurtful. I don’t think anyone had communicated that with them properly, and that’s why they never changed.

Men can be tactful. Men can be sensitive. I’m married to a man who is gentle-natured and can’t bear to upset anyone. Bluntness and insensitivity aren’t prerequisites of masculinity.

When men become fathers, they are more like an extra child

I believed this to be true until I had a child of my own. Growing up, I enjoyed sitcoms where the dad was clueless and like an overgrown child. I saw this theme reflected in real life too. Every family I knew of, including my own, had a father who was like an extra child.

This dynamic obviously hurts women, but it hurts men, too. What sort of message are we sending out to little boys? That when you become a father, you are going to be useless but you can’t help it? That more isn’t expected of you? That it’s okay to view your partner as your personal servant? Then the cycle continues. These little boys grow up and model the same, toxic example to their own sons.

For a long time, I would be overly grateful for my husband “helping out” with parenting duties. But he isn’t “helping out.” Fatherhood isn’t a hobby you and dip in and out of.

Fathers are capable of performing the same duties as mothers and to the same standard. It’s not less masculine for them to be responsible and nurturing.

Men are supposed to be the protectors

This is a belief a lot of people have. We are spoon-fed this message from a young age by the sorts of kids programs and films we watch. Men are supposed to be strong. They are supposed to save the day. They are supposed to be the protector. And female characters are sidekicks or damsels in distress that depend on them.

For a long time, I believed emotions were a “feminine” thing, and that made men who were emotionally expressive “less masculine.” And in believing that men were supposed to be “strong”, I believed I needed a man to be able to cope with life because as a woman I was “weak.”

Unfortunately, “men should be the protectors” easily translates to “men aren’t allowed to have emotions or be vulnerable or need help.”

In the UK, male suicides have consistently accounted for approximately three-quarters of all suicides in the UK since the mid-1990s. In an article by Helene Schumacher for the BBC, it is suggested that the way men are socialised as children contributes to their higher risk of suicide.

One key element is communication. It’s too simplistic to say women are willing to share their problems and men tend to bottle them up. But it is true that, for generations, many societies have encouraged men to be “strong” and not admit they’re struggling. It often starts in childhood. “We tell boys that ‘boys don’t cry’,” says Colman O’Driscoll, former executive director of operations and development at Lifeline, an Australian charity providing 24-hour crisis support and suicide prevention services. “We condition boys from a very young age to not express emotion, because to express emotion is to be ‘weak’.” -“Why more men than women die by suicide” By Helene Schumacher

Why should strength be defined by how much a man can bottle up their emotions? Isn’t strength found in being brave? And isn’t admitting you need help one of the bravest things a person can do?