On Masculinity

A Fuller Gaze At Men

Margaret Fuller, American Transcendentalist and Early Feminist

For the past decade or so, the topic of what place masculinity has in our society has been under scrutiny. Masculinity, it would seem, is little more than a collection of traits that all can agree are toxic: A contempt for emotions, misogyny, a propensity for violence, the inability to sit still in a classroom, the entitled spreading of legs on the subway, the obtuse and boorish hijacking of conversations, being condescending to women who are more qualified and knowledgeable on specific topics, unearned overconfidence — the list goes on and on.

Whenever I read attempts to provide a more aspirational list of traits for men to exhibit, I’m left wondering why those traits couldn’t also be available to women. For example, leadership, competence, reliability, physical prowess, the urge to protect or care for others, come to mind. My mother certainly displayed those traits, as does my wife, and every woman I admire.

When I was a boy, masculinity was policed by other boys and men, and I did not like it. When I expressed my feelings, or ran in a weird way, it earned me beatings. My father was quick to call me “Alice” whenever I didn’t live up to the standard. I was called “gay” a lot, and it was meant to be a slur.

But I also loved doing the manly things. I enjoyed fishing and hunting. I was obsessed with the guns my father gave me every holiday. I traced pictures from an encyclopedia of all the American fighter planes that flew in World War 2. My father, ironically, wasn’t really a very manly man despite his habits: He smoked cigars, drank whisky, and was a relentless womanizer, but those traits did not impress me. There was something hollow about it all. My parents divorced.

My mother was left, like many single moms in the ‘80s, to fill both parenting roles. She was the breadwinner and the disciplinarian while she cooked, cleaned, and did everything else. I was not an easy boy to raise, and she did her very best. My mother is, and was, a strong feminist. That word gets a lot of heat these days, but I still believe in the feminism my mother practiced when I was growing up.

That said, as capable as she was, she was in no position to correct the signals I was getting about what it meant to be a man. How could she? I was repulsed by what I saw as my father’s weaknesses, and I did not want to treat women the way he did. What else was there to say? I had a negative example of masculinity in my father and a positive example of humanity in my mother. To me, that meant that masculinity was inhumane in itself, a message that I think permeates our culture these days. It’s easy to see why. But that is not the whole story.

When my son was born, I tried to model for him what I learned from my mother. But I took pains not to trash masculinity, nor to offer the parody of manhood that my father aped for me. I believe that I learned from raising my son what real masculinity is. He loved to wrestle, and he took comfort in the fact that I could always physically overpower him. When he came home from a particularly stressful day, he would look at me and say, “Get on the bed!” and we would run to the bedroom and fight.

Our matches were primal. He would give it all he had. He’d push and punch and twist and grab. He and his friends wrestled like this on the playground every day. It unnerved the mothers who sometimes complained. But I knew it was harmless. They were working things out.

If he got to be too much when we wrestled, I’d pin him down, holding him until he calmed down. Afterward, he’d be in a great mood. He just needed to work it out, physically, with someone he could trust, on a level beyond words. When he grew too big, around middle school, I had to stop him. He blows began to land with force.

“Hey kid, you’re too big now for this to go on. You’re kicking my ass.”

He looked so sad.

“I don’t want to,” he said.

“Don’t want to what?”

“I don’t want to be stronger than you.”

My heart broke a little bit. But it was good. And I think that’s the heart of masculinity right there, and it’s got something to do with strength — with being strong, and with not being strong. Both are a kind of strength.

I’m not talking about the kind of strength that is the opposite of weakness. I’m talking about something else. Masculinity is the possession of a gentle, kind, loving, powerful, solid, force that can hold down a thrashing son and also let him up when he’s old enough to break free. Masculinity is not about the application of violence, it’s not about knowing everything about trains or guns or cigars. True masculinity is the ability to hug the world in a loving embrace and to let the world hug you back.

I know many men who exhibit this in some way. My mother married a wonderful man who loves her like a gentleman. I have male friends who have an easy laugh and are ready to listen. My son has grown to be a gentle, thoughtful man. He is unmistakably masculine, but never hesitates to be loving, kind, and considerate.

Women can be all these things as well, of course. Perhaps these human qualities to which we should all aspire are not solely the domain of masculine or feminine, but their expression can be flavored in some gendered way. Or perhaps not. I do not know.

Sometimes I feel like the problem is not in defining masculinity, it’s in thinking we need a definition at all. As the often-overlooked American Transcendentalism writer, Margaret Fuller wrote, “Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But in fact they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens to solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman.”

If that is true, and I believe it is, then perhaps we should stop concerning ourselves with what is or is not masculine, and instead let boys and girls aspire to virtues that transcend gender: Truth, beauty, kindness, strength, and love. If we embody those traits, then our masculinity, or femininity, will never be toxic.