Traditional Masculinity.
By: Mahon Mccann
Tags: Mental Health, College, Men, Masculinity, Tradition

It is no secret that young Men have had a tough time adapting to the modern world. Men are less likely to go to university now (35% in 2015) and the ones that do are nearly twice as likely to drop out as their female counterparts (this year alone 30,000 more women graduate than men). At the ages of 20–24 the rate of male suicide is five to six times that of their female counterparts, more men in the UK have killed themselves in 2019 than British soldiers died fighting in wars since 1945. But this isn’t just isolated to the Western world, for example in India Male suicide is growing at a rate of 9 times that of the female. In my own personal experience, within five miles of my house I know five men who have killed themselves, I know this isn’t uncommon for most young people, the real question is; why?

In my research on this topic, I read an article called the ‘Engaging Young Men Project’ which I had hoped would tell, on a larger scale, what charities and governments were doing to respond to what I saw as one of the largest crises of the 21st century. To say the least I was disappointed but not surprised. Whenever I ask anyone about why young men kill themselves, there is a stock answer ready go. This canned response takes different forms but generally it’s that our generation of men need to somehow be different. That the world has changed and we can’t go on to be like the father’s and grandfathers that came before us, that we need to escape the traditional prism of Masculinity to the promised land, but what does this promised land look like? Ye, I don’t know either…

There is an image of traditional masculinity as a rock that modern men are yoked to and if only we could unbuckle ourselves from the deadweight, we would be open, happy and free. To articulate the idea, young men are socialized to be pathologically masculine by other men. Awhile ago I would have agreed with you, when I was in secondary school and basically all throughout college, I would have said ‘yes absolutely!’ If you had asked me why we Men suffered, I would have said the expectations to be strong and tough were too stringent and our traditional gender roles were tyrant which destroyed our individuality. But I would have told you this, while cripplingly depressed, suicidal and sliding off the edge of a cliff. I’m not like that anymore, I got myself in order, and my beliefs changed with me.

Before I begin my argument, what do I mean by traditional masculinity? I looked it up on google and here is the definition I found: traits traditionally viewed as masculine in Western society including strength, courage, independence, leadership and assertiveness, I would also add to this responsibility. So traditional masculinity is an ideal, an expected code of conduct for a man, for his betterment and the betterment of the world. However, what I think people commonly associate traditional masculine values with is stiffness, aggression, dominance and a facade of strength i.e. pretending to be strong when you are actually not. Note that this definition is of strength, and not pretending to be strong when you are not. This is the basis of my argument, that we do not understand traditional masculinity anymore and have thus made it into a boogeyman when actually, it holds the key to freeing our young men.

I believe we as a generation of men have had our masculinity defined by women, and while we have been vocally told what not to be, there has not been a proper definition of a good masculinity for some time. (if you want to find one — read Dr Robert Glover No More Mr Nice Guy). I do not mean that masculinity has been defined by women in a derogatory sense but more as a statement of fact. Divorce rates spiked in the 80s, 90s and early 2000s and in these cases, the children would be raised by the mother with the father living externally. This caused a lack of men in the home and with women becoming the main breadwinners and child rearers, left a purpose void for young men growing up in these generations. They saw women who could apparently do anything but it wasn’t clear exactly what men should be doing anymore.

The boys would then leave the family to enter the education system (primary school) which is also a female dominated hierarchy (80–90% female in Ireland as opposed to male). This coupled with a changing tone in the women’s liberation movement of the 70s which, due to the spike in divorce, started to represent mothers interests rather than the interests of the children, left boys growing up without any access to masculine role models. The fact that huge generations of men were wiped out in two world wars also did not help and the radical changes to socialising boys the same as girls in the 1970s.

Boy’s traditionally had been socialized differently to girls. They were socialised by a group of men to condition their testosterone driven responses and naturally aggressive energy into creative and socially responsible endeavours rather than destructive bad habits. Notice that the aggressive, chaotic energy is first and the civilised, peaceful man comes after, a process of transformation is necessary in between. This is why the ideal we present for young men is so very important, while we do not have a physical tribe anymore in the traditional sense, the ideal acts as a psychological bridge (or guide) to take young men from adolescence to manhood, it is a target they can aim at and without an aim, they cannot mature.

So, why have we fallen out with the aims of traditional masculinity in the first place? I think because of the blood and excess of the twentieth century, we have come to see men and masculine energy as intrinsically dangerous and untrustworthy. Nowhere is this more clearly exemplified than in the idea ‘toxic masculinity’, which is so often conflated with traditional masculinity that they have basically come to mean one and the same thing.

I generally do not use the phrase ‘toxic masculinity’, this is because the behaviour to which it refers has nothing to do with being intrinsically male and implies a gender based system of guilt similar to the biblical idea of original sin — (just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned…) While I do not agree with toxic masculinity, that doesn’t change the fact that I do know the particular pattern of bad behaviour to which the term refers i.e. uncontrolled aggression, sexual domineering behaviour, substance abuse, destruction of oneself, property and others. But is this because of traditional masculinity? Or is it because of something else?

In Warren Farrell’s book The Myth of Male Power, (1993), he shows how men manifest depression differently to women. In the past depression was thought of to be a women’s disorder, but when the symptomatology was changed from low energy, suicidal thoughts etc to include things like anger, substance abuse, risk taking, self destructive behaviour, gambling, and workaholism, the metrics actually evened out at about 33% for each gender, showing there was no real disparity; men and women manifest depression and depressive symptoms differently. While Women turn inward and destroy themselves, men turn outward and destroy the world. So this is the toxic masculinity, part and parcel of the complaints against traditional masculinity (the facade of strength, unwillingness to share emotion, aggression, conflict, substance abuse) are part of how men actually act out when they are in trouble. We have no problem reprimanding men for not being able to understand women’s body language and non-verbal communication but when men communicate with their actions we don’t always listen. We don’t see the motivation for the behaviour that is right in front of us and this is my point, that the situation is more complicated than simply an outdated philosophy of what a man should be, it’s deeper than that.

The is no more so shown than in the case of Rape. I think you would be hard pressed to find anything that is more toxically masculine than this crime and that the rapist is the epitome of the male who has gone wrong but the reasoning for why he has gone wrong is not always clear. The proponents of toxic masculinity might say the rapist has been conditioned by a rape culture to disrespect women, to be a brute and a bully, objectify and destroy and dehumanise the other, but when I looked into the facts I read a very different story. In Warren Farrell’s book, the boy Crisis, I was stunned by one fact in particular, one which echoed through so many other issues, that it caused a turning point in my mind: 80% of convicted rapists came from fatherless homes.

The gears started turning, but if men were being socialised by other men to be pathologically masculine, why were the homes with no men in them producing the most pathological men? This information linked to other 23/24 of America’s last school shooters came from fatherless homes, ISIS recruiting stations were described as homes for fatherless youth. In every case, suicide, rape, murder, drug addiction, abuse — there was a trail of young boy’s who never had a stable male role model, they had never had access to traditional masculinity. So I realised that this problem was not being caused by masculinity but rather the lack of it. The single biggest predictor in long term criminality and delinquency for young men is: fatherlessness. The problem is the absence of men.

So what happens when you tell a boy who is growing up not to be like the men of the past? Because it’s all good and well to talk about traditional masculinity but what that really means is don’t be like your father, don’t be like your grandfather and every other man in the community, what is a boy left with? Even a boy who has a father can be rendered fatherless by this perspective and as a consequence, given a void of purpose. His future becomes a fear riddled and empty place, his social group becomes his guiding compass, drugs, alcohol, foolish tests of endurance, women cannot be his partner because they are sources of validation, and social responsibility is only a trap to lure him into being like the men of the past. No wonder he stays home and plays video games. He is stuck in his adolescence between the dull pain of conscience and the numbing effect of his amusements, yet deep down he knows something is missing. Society tells him to be different but when he looks in the mirror he is male? How can he ever really be different? He is the bad guy in this story after all isn’t he? Thus begins, a slippery, unconscious slope of self loathing and self negation. Maybe he rebels by not taking care of himself, wasting his time and fighting against authority, what’s the point? Nihilism is his operating system and suicide becomes the logical option. Why go on?

“Women constitute 75 % of those who seek professional help to prevent suicide; men constitute 75% of those who commit suicide.” — Warren Farrell, The Boy Crisis.

Here are some of the core beliefs of a boy who commits suicide:

1). No one loves him who knows who he really is — both his best and worst selves.

2). No one really needs him.

3). There’s no hope of that changing.

4). If he shares what he is feeling or things he is ashamed of, whoever he talks to will lose respect for him, which will only increase his shame.

It breaks my heart to think there are men out there taking their own lives because no-one has told them they are important, that they matter, that we need them far more than they know. The internet has given us a new opportunity to draw from mentors online (Jordan Peterson, Warren Farrell, David Goggins, Jocko Willink to name a few) but this just isn’t enough. In order to turn the tide on the crisis, each man now has a social responsibility to become involved in their community, to bring their strength, courage, leadership, assertiveness and responsibility to the next generation. While we have grown up in this particular crisis and been the victims of the void of purpose, we have to put aside ourselves to be the ones who can fix it. There are no excuses.

There are many social projects you can get involved in — men’s shed, local sports clubs, charities. I would also encourage any young men to look into teaching, caring or mentorship professional roles, to become involved in the community anyway you can. The Traditional Masculine ideal of the warrior is still true, our fight is different. We fight with our time, our compassion, our attention, our competence. We are not going to war or slaving in a factory 24 hours a day, but the principles are the same: you use your time to improve for the people of the future. This is the tradition, the tradition that build the house you are sitting in, the roads you drive on, the lights you use to see in the darkness, people gave up their lives in the hope we would have a better time of it than they did, and while things are better than they have ever been, I think the most meaningful life we can live is to take on responsibility just as they did. We have to believe in ourselves and taking action is the best way to begin that process. So if you believed in your strength, your courage, your leadership, your assertiveness, your responsibility, what would you do? How would you help the young men of the future?