Three Hundred Ways It Can Hurt to Be a Man — Conclusion
[This post is part of a longer series; see the Index for an overview.]
In short, then. Women feel dehumanized because their agency is rarely recognized. Men feel dehumanized because their suffering is rarely recognized. Women despair because their strengths go unrespected, and conclude that the world does not respect them. Men despair because their weaknesses go unloved, and conclude that the world does not love them. Women and men all over the world, seeing primarily their own side, perceive a war between the genders.
But let us not be at war. Because we all need each other. Men cannot live without women; women cannot live without men. We are too different to live without the wisdom we offer one another; simultaneously we are too closely intertwined for any of us to hurt the other without hurting ourselves. People and tribes and countries may yet destroy one another; but there is no separating men and women. (God knows that anno 2022, culture has tried; but it has failed.) We really are in this together; men’s hurt hurts women, and women’s hurt hurts men.
The movement for gender equality has brought and is continuing to bring many great things. But it can be denied no longer that it has failed in many of its goals. In gaslighting men and women about men’s suffering and rejecting the notion that men deserve to be fought for too; in robbing men of the freedom to practice being, and to be, men; in refusing to grant men greater space to explore femininity; in failing to notice the deep vulnerability that comes with the masculine role of holding power; and in holding men responsible for all of women’s suffering; it has failed men. And in missing that power inherently implies responsibility and that wielding this responsibility must be taught lest it destroys the powerful; in reifying masculine virtues and thereby robbing both women and men of an understanding of the spectacular value of femininity; in claiming to fight for all women while viciously excluding women who disagree with any part of it; in claiming to humanize women while refusing to accept women’s weaknesses and evils; and in contradictory attempts to increase women’s perceived agency while simultaneously firmly maintaining and enforcing in women a status of inherent victimhood in which not they but those around them are responsible for women’s experiences, and in which women could never be responsible for any part of men’s; it has failed women. In truth, much of the movement is little more than old gender roles enforced ever more strongly, where men are perpetrators with perfect agency who are thus wholly responsible for everything, and women are powerless victims who aren’t responsible for anything they feel or, in feeling, do. This framework does great violence to men and women both, profoundly belying the fact that — and even in 2022, this still requires articulating — men suffer, too; and women have agency, too. A truly radical gender framework is thinkable, and might even be possible. But it is not something that most modern gender movements are capable of, or indeed at all interested in, reaching. New frameworks are needed; better ways of relating to men and women; better ways to access, embody, and express the glory which masculinity and femininity are capable of.
For a long time I was jealous of and angry at women. Being a man has hurt me, and there are many ways in which masculine norms — enforced by women and men both — have fit me badly. For a long time, there was a profound sense in me that the love of this world’s people was conditional on the ways in which I laboured for it; that my worth was defined wholly by what I could offer others, and that without this, indeed insofar as I was ever less capable, less strong, and less confident, I was worth nothing.
For years I’d internalized the masculine framework that I, as a person and in particular as a man, was wholly responsible for all my bad outcomes in life. If you’ve never felt this way, it’s hard to understand how alienating it can be. It constitutes a deep separation from what is around oneself; a total separation from the universe at large. A life extended to the borders of one’s body and no further. No connection, no closeness, and no intimacy were possible. If a man’s actions determine his lot in life, and mine was filled with hurt, then what did that say about me? No matter the situation, one can act better, speak better, think better, feel better. A real man knows what he wants, knows how to get it, and gets it. This internalization of one’s outcomes comes paired with a disconnection from the world, indeed from others: even if you could get what you want through help from others, being incapable of getting it yourself in the first place is already the thing that makes you lesser. If you are responsible for everything, and all the best men are able to do incredible feats on their own, then there is but one thing that could stop you from being capable of everything: your own weakness; your inferior character. Poor outcomes in the external world, as well as poor outcomes in one’s internal world, are all necessarily the result of your own failings. In everything you lack, the world shows you you are falling short. One’s life really is of one’s own making. To live within the unintegrated masculine is to never be good enough.
This is not false. But it is not the whole truth.
Victimhood culture grants a different story. It shows how one is at the behest of more powerful trauma, more powerful people, more powerful systems; a world of danger, hurt, and oppression. In everything you lack, the world shows you it has robbed you of it. One’s life really is never under one’s own control. To live within the unintegrated feminine is to never be safe enough.
This is not false. But it is not the whole truth.
Three hundred ways in which it can hurt to be a man. The necessary substrate for each of them is, of course, a victimhood framing. In this, I risk leaving the reader drowning in what might seem like its ultimate implication: that society, and indeed women, in truth loathe men-as-beings; that because we are so invisible, our pain and weakness so deplorable to all who see it, we are simply doomed to suffer ever more.
It would not do to leave men in a position where they feel all their suffering is proof of their own insufficiency. But a list like mine may be viewed as achieving little more than to make men feel it is proof of the world’s, instead.
The list is not false. But as you read this, you are witnessing me at my most hurt, my weakest. And you are still here with this most shameful me, nevertheless receiving me fully. In this we discover together that victimhood, with its implication of harm allowed by all, is not the whole truth.
And though being known in my vulnerability so fully still engenders some fear in me, I am aided more than anything by the openness of brave men before me, as well as by the support of the many kind-hearted women, past and present, who have seen fit to know and love them, and me, when we showed our weaknesses bare. I have seen many women still willing to receive men’s vulnerability and weaknesses, who deeply see and wish to support men; who truly love men.
Being a man has been really fucking hard for me. I’m deeply tired of getting this neglected and denied. But recently I’ve come to also take great pleasure in being a man, through the grace of those who gifted me the space to love it and to be loved within it. To the women who have so bravely loved men, and to the men who have so bravely trusted women, I owe my deepest gratitude.
Six roads now show themselves. I will describe them for you.
1) The fully unintegrated is a faint wisp of fire, easily extinguished. Trusting neither itself nor the world, it is wholly disassociated from its own desires as well as from its own boundaries, and lives in complete disconnection from itself and the world. With no trust in itself, it masks itself for those around it, feeling too powerless to show itself at all; thus it fails to move the world. With no trust in the world, it cannot take even love into itself, and instead reasons that other people’s love for it is surely as fake as the love it shows others; thus it fails to be moved by the world. The fully unintegrated has disavowed all vulnerability and power, and through this has become wholly untethered from life; it yet breathes, but barely lives.
What vestiges of connection yet remain inside of you? Can you yet let yourself be nourished by the love you can give yourself? A soft touch, a hot shower, a cup of warm tea? Can you yet let yourself be nourished by the joy that is being shouted into the world by singers, dancers, actors, artists, lovers everywhere? Both you and the world are multifarious; neither fully lacks goodness. Your lack of trust may have good reasons, but ultimately guardedness procures not goodness, merely time. The journey will be long, but all that you gain, you may use to gain more still.
2) The unintegrated feminine burns with a hatred for the world around itself. Its trust in the universe has been broken by betrayal from a world harsher and more hateful than it could bear. Its natural inclinations remain oriented towards the world, but now that it views the world no longer as capable of receiving the trust and love it once wished to grant it, it finds only the desire to impart annihilation unto a universe which cruelly taught it not to trust and not to love. The unintegrated feminine seeks to destroy what is external.
What is it that your anger desires? What is it that would soften your body? What is it that would ease your breath? You are much too good to be helped by the suffering of others. When the world offers no love, you may yet discover it in yourself.
3) The unintegrated masculine smoulders with self-doubt. It is sure that it is still mistaken; that its suffering, amidst a society unwilling to face it, must be no more than a trick of the light. Spurred by its deep fear of claiming power against others, it denies the possibility of ever being superior to others, and instead seeks to surrender itself wholly, ready to offer up all of its own frames and experiences and values to what it hopes will be blissful annihilation. The unintegrated masculine seeks to have what is internal be destroyed.
What is it that your frailty needs? What is it that would straighten your spine? What is it that would open up your chest? There is much too much good in the world to sacrifice yourself for what is not. When you have no strength to offer yourself, you may yet discover it elsewhere.
4) The integrated feminine is ablaze with trust and love. It embraces its own limits and weaknesses, because it trusts in the virtues of the world. It recognizes that the greatest value lies in those things that cannot be gained through force, which one may only ever be granted by what is around itself; thus it understands that ultimately nothing is worth being separated from the universe for, and with it, from the love and beauty that the universe may offer those capable of receiving it. Bearing great pain, it keeps itself open towards the world, existing and showing itself in the greatest vulnerability it can muster. In doing this, it inspires those around itself to make a better world, and through its example, shows others how they might receive this better world for themselves too.
Have you ever experienced the deep vulnerability of trusting others? Have you ever claimed the power of trusting others?
Have you ever surrendered your own power to someone? To the world at large? Have you ever let yourself follow others? Have you ever given yourself deeply to something or someone you sought to receive from? Have you ever felt the pain that comes from having your trust in others broken? But let me ask you: have you ever felt the deep lovedness that comes from having your trust be lovingly rewarded by the world?
5) The integrated masculine is aflame with righteous power. It embraces the limits and weaknesses of the world, because it trusts in its own virtues and values. It recognizes that all that is within its own control, and all that could truly guide itself, comes from within itself; thus it understands that ultimately nothing is worth separating from itself for, and with it, all the good that it may grant the world. Bearing great pain, it strengthens itself, rising to meet all challenges it faces. In becoming ever stronger and wiser, it creates a better world.
Have you ever experienced the deep vulnerability of trusting yourself? Have you ever claimed the power of trusting yourself?
Have you ever asserted power over someone? Over the world at large? Have you ever let yourself lead others? Have you ever stood up firmly for something or someone you sought to give to? Have you ever felt the pain that comes from being incapable or insufficient? But let me ask you: have you ever felt the deep love which being powerful enough lets you express into the world?
6) The fully integrated I leave for you to discover in the world, and for the world to discover in you.
Plainness, by Jorge Luis Borges:
The garden’s grillwork gate
opens with the ease of a page
in a much-thumbed book,
and, once inside, our eyes
have no need to dwell on objects
already fixed and exact in memory.
Here habits and minds and the private language
all families invent
are everyday things to me.
What necessity is there to speak
or pretend to be someone else?
The whole house knows me,
they’re aware of my worries and weakness.
This is the best that can happen—
what Heaven perhaps will grant us:
not to be wondered at or required to succeed
but simply to be let in
as part of an undeniable Reality,
like stones of the road, like trees.
With your generous presence and your loving attention, you give me this. For years I barely dared hope you’d exist. But there you are.
I'm grateful to @DarbraDawn and @lisatomic5 for their helpful feedback on drafts of this work.
Recommended further reading:
Because It’s 2015 contains a wealth of well-researched and well-argued points related to sexism against men. Highlights include:
Baumeister’s Is There Anything Good About Men? is a great explanation of a framework positing men as being not the better, but the more variable sex.
Hotel Concierge’s We Need To Sing About Mental Health is a passionate examination of how men talk and relate to suffering.
Hotel Concierge’s Don’t Become Elliot Rodger is a thoughtful and incisive look at the ways the infamous school shooter was influenced by harmful ideas of masculinity.
Queer writer Silver and Ivory discusses ways feminism denies men’s suffering in But What About Teh Menz — an Intersectional Analysis of Misandry, Men’s Rights, and Feminism.
Silver and Ivory moreover writes about some progressive cultures’ hatred of a particular type of cis-male sexuality, namely one directed at transpeople, in Scrupulosity, Objectification, and Trans Obsession, Part 1: In Defense of Chasers.
Scott Alexander discusses gendered differences in interest in Contra Grant on Exaggerated Differences.
Scott Alexander writes about men who have trouble finding romance in Radicalizing the Romanceless.
Scott Alexander considers men whom culture views as feeling entitled to romance, in Untitled.
Scott Alexander’s nine meditations on Privilege, Creepiness, Superweapons, the War on Applause Lights, and Meta:
Unsummarizable person AellaGirl discusses the disadvantages of being male in a highly patriarchal society, in The Blame Game.
AellaGirl examines consent and desire in Why I Can’t Say Yes to Sex.
AellaGirl writes about power imbalances and sex in Power Imbalances and Sex.
Jacob Falkovich writes funny and insightful articles about several topics related to this piece:
Queer journalist Kelsey Piper writes about how negative messaging about male heterosexuality hit women like her as well, here and here. She discusses, with an emphasis on how men suffer from this, how this phenomenon is largely sourced in feminist messaging, here.
Duncan Sabien writes a fantastic manifesto against calls to curtail one’s own behaviour in response to cultural knowledge of forms of micro-victimhood, in In Defense of Punch Bug Or, Against Social Ownership of the Micro.
Duncan Sabien analyzes the pattern of negative stereotypes which enforce themselves because they are sufficiently strong that anyone negligent enough to risk fitting them, gets automatically viewed as deserving to be viewed as fitting them, in It’s Not What It Looks Like.
Ozy’s Law proposes that all misogyny has a mirrored form of misandry.
Jennifer Coates writes passionately about how being a closeted transwomen opened her up to great misandry in feminist communities.
Anonymous men open up about ways it’s been hard for them to be men, here and here.
Towards a Gentler World writes about patriarchy being not a system that rewards men, but a system that rewards people who fulfill gender roles.
Towards a Gentler World writes about privilege being a nuance-destroying framework.
To all the men, women, and queer people who have been wronged in these ways: thank you for being here. I, and many others, fight for you. You do not stand alone.
extraordinary. thank you