Straight Men in Straight Jackets

I wrote this a coupla months ago and for some reason didn’t post it…it’s a good time right now i guess.

My mind of late has been on this topic of MEN more specifically Straight Men.   They sure are interesting creatures. And in many ways, I do have compassion for all the roles that they are shoved into being.  Us women, sure we got roles up the wazzoo but straight men don’t seem to have as much progress as women do in terms of breaking their own gender stereotypes, for obvious reasons. But just because their stereotypes are positioned on top, (pun intended)  those stereotypes still stifle the freedom of these funny creatures with organs hanging from their crotches.  In this way, I kinda feel sorry for them.  Especially the ones who completely and absolutely reject the idea that there could be parts of themselves that don’t match with the stereotypes.  Especially the ones who don’t even realize they are simply taking in and putting out the same old boring set menu of manhood.

Personally I love the straight man who can talk feelings.  Who isn’t afraid to discuss real human issues, who bring them up on their own initiative (gasp, is it possible!?…yes! Yes, it is!!) and who are willing to be vulnerable as a result.  This is true strength in men.  Yes, I love a man who can cry, because this is a man who allows himself to feel and express; this is what genuinely makes a man a MAN in my eyes.  Any other time, I just see a scared little boy who runs away from his powerful feelings.

But let’s face it, although the tide is turning, many straight men still won’t allow themselves to cry, to feel their deepest emotions and to be soft and mushy.  It’s an old pervasive paradigm of seeing suppressing emotions as being ‘tough’ or ‘manly’.  Women do this too, in order to play in the old men’s clubs, we all know this too.

Being a Mom, I see where it starts, in unexamined beliefs of parents, in the behaviours that are generally seen as acceptable and unacceptable in boys and girls, it seeps out of the mouths of women and men alike who make excuses for the behaviours that perpetuate the stereotypes that boys and girls have to deal with.  Oh, girls have better verbal skills, boys are slower in that department blah blah blah. I’ve had mothers literally laugh in my face when I ask them if their boys talk about their feelings. BOYS DON’T TALK ABOUT THEIR FEELINGS!!  They will if you teach them how, you stupid cow.  Get over it people, these are dumb ass ideas that stuck but they’re just ideas, NOT the truth.  Oh, but it’s been proven by these studies done a million years ago.  Actually have you done any reading in the last decade or two about brain plasticity and about how synapses are created and grown by repitition and how easily this occurs if you just put a little effort into it?  But no, I generally see very little effort in teaching boys to talk.  We expect SO much from our girls, and yet boys just slide through not having to speak up, being excused from talking about their feelings.  And let me tell you what I see.  These boys feel STUPID.  These boys are treated as less able than our girls to verbalize what is going on with them and so, instead of taking the time to teach boys a vocabulary of emotions and giving them the sweet time to work it out, hand are thrown up and declarations are made,  Boys will be boys!  And they are dismissed.  But these boys who are dismissed, though they may feel initially triumphant and powerful in not having to reveal themselves, will eventually feel inadequate, and stupid because it’s a skill they aren’t practicing, and DAMN they are way behind those girls.  IT’s JUST PRACTICE, girls are trained and encouraged by society to practice far more than boys.  And can you think consequentially, that these boys who feel stupid may one day grow up to be mysogonists?  Hmmm…

Let me also tell you, that although this is still the norm, there ARE parents who are breaking the stereotypes for their boys.  I have witnessed some amazing parents in action out there,  who serve to inspire me;  I see parents who actually insist that their boys talk, give their boys enough time and a safe environment, who teach their boys HOW to talk.  And guess what??!!  Their boys DON’T SHUT UP.  These families have such a high degree of intimacy and closeness with their boys and it’s SUCH a breath of fresh air.  Seriously please, please examine what you are modelling for your boys, people, and what kind of models your boys are surrounded by.   We have a golden opportunity in raising our sons as young men who don’t feel the need to hide anything or to prove anything, who are confident about talking about what they are interested in and how they are feeling.  Who question all the channels they are generally shoved through.  Like sports.  Notice how straight men use sports to connect to one another?  It’s like they have no other safe language.

Thankfully I know a good handful of pretty evolved straight men now who could care less about watching team sports; Grant’s one of them and  i praise Allah every day for this gift.   I love hearing the stories my husband tells me when he tells other men this little fact about himself and the responses are so very interesting;  there are cajoling peer pressures:  But it’s the PLAYOFFS, subtle accusations of being gay, sheer disbelief, or men who try to convince him that he must be mistaken, and then give him a blow by blow descriptions of plays that they think will ignite his dormant passion for watching sports on the tube.  Grant’s final silencing response is: I DON’T CARE.  It horrifies them into silence and they back away like he’s grown a second head.  It’s like a betrayal.  The delicious icing on this cake is that he’s in a supadashi macho industry; renovations and construction contracting.  Uhhh hammers and drills and you like to talk about your feelings???? I just imagine the looks on all these men’s faces and I wish I were a fly on the wall.  And Grant is the sexiest man I know.  Because he’s powerful and he’s a gentle man.  He’s sensitive and he can speak his mind. He cares about himself, our family and he knows; he really SEES and acknowledges the work that I do in raising our kids when he’s working away from home.   He gives so much love in this way and he allows me to shower him with the same love back.  All by accident you ask?  Hell no.  Lots of hard work digging into his own personal beliefs and history.  When I met him he was the typical Anglo WALL.  Shut down.  And he certainly does go back into those patterns from time to time, let’s face it, he’s no perfect human, but  he’s WILLING to learn…as a grown ass man, how to BE a man.  Now that takes balls.  Most men don’t take that route.  Too scary to look inside.  Too fucking scary to face themselves.  Too scary, keep yer mouth shut, simmer in the resentment and then when they go senile and are about to die alone, all they can shout is : Goddammit!  GODDAMMIT!!!!   Is that why so many old men are so pissy???  mere conjecture, mere conjecture…

I know I’ve got to school myself more in how to raise Max.  I don’t know, sometimes I wonder what will be more challenging: raising a boy or a girl.  Everyone I speak with almost always unanimously agree that it’s girls who are harder to raise, but I don’t know about this.  I don’t know…