The myth of “Be a MAN”
Deconstructing masculinity; the other path towards equal genders
“Man up”, “ real man don’t cry “, “ act like a man”, “ toughen up”, “be strong”, “play football”, and the list goes on. Those were the words my father told me, when I was a little kid, whenever I break the rules of conduct of manhood, whenever my voice is not too thick, my steps are not too firm, and my body language is not manly enough. Those words had shaped, and continue to influence, almost the life of every boy and man living under the dictatorship of conformism and the social norms of masculinity.
When I think about my childhood, I think about it as a process of constant confrontation between what I wanted to do and what others waited for me to be. All the aspirations and hopes that I carried on my shoulders only because of my sex had put me in a position where I needed to make concessions about my freedom and dreams not only to fit within the social mainstream but to survive as a social animal. And this state of confrontation made me always wonder about the origin of the status quo of both men and women and those who do not fit within any profile and the relationship between the suffering both genders are encountering at the expense of social acceptance and survival.
The first thought that might come to one’s mind when trying to understand the concept of masculinity is the social code of conduct that everyone should agree upon in order to be admitted as part of the group. This contract is solemn in a way that breaking it would entail the immediate exclusion of the breacher from the group who dominate the definition of “what is masculine”. However, this perspective is narrow as it always ignores a crucial constituent part of the notion of masculinity; its relational aspect. Masculinity in itself has no inherent meaning without putting it in the relation between a group of men and with its opposite; femininity.
Throughout history, being a man has been a synonym of certain criteria; strength, responsibility, and emotional detachment. Strength, in its primitive definition, derives from the physical ability of men to fight for a meal and for a partner as all animals do while women are considered passive in this process and should be waiting for the male to be fertilized. With the development of the human brain and capacity to conquer and control the ecosystem with the emergence of trade, some form of organized authority and the creation of the military, the notion of strength has enlarged to include intelligence, leadership, wisdom, and also physical capacities as violence remains an important component of human relations. It is true that this development has allowed some women to earn some rights and to be included under the strength umbrella as the human brain has become the real source of advantage rather than muscles and hormones but it remains a strongly masculine notion and it failed to break with the stereotypical images. And because a man holds strength, he is the most eligible candidate for leading the group whether it is family, a tribe, or a nation. And in order to succeed in doing those responsibilities, men should be emotionally stable. Stability here means not showing or sharing feelings, it is considered degrading.
“ Gender exists precisely to the extent that biology does not determine the social ” — R. W. Connell
As we saw, Defining man and attributing those criteria had not been a separate sole operation but it was inextricably linked to the other part of the equation: women. So on the one hand, by assigning strength to men, society, on the other hand, assigned weakness to women. And by describing men as responsible, women were considered passive. In this context, we can understand that defining man was a constant attempt of negation of what is supposedly “feminine”. Thus, in a nutshell, the word “be a man” is a form of saying “don’t be a woman”.
The development of our perception of gender is as old as humanity itself. it is a journey where several factors were involved to draw the lines between the two genders, eliminating any possibility of refusal of both profiles. And because it is old and primitive, this process was not based on our intelligence, critical thinking, or a deep understanding of what gender is. It was rather an assignment based on what we see; so if you have a penis you are automatically a man and if you have a vagina you are a woman and the misery starts. This perception is responsible for building what we call “man superiority”. And because men are at the top of the animal and social pyramid, every person who falls under the category of Manhood, should perpetuate this superiority and preserve its interests by controlling the opposite gender and protecting it from threatening masculinities. And this takes us to the second relational nature of masculinity: masculinity by nature is conflicting.
Masculinity is not an abstract concept that can be defined or studied alone. It is directly and explicitly in vital relation with femininity and with sub-masculinities. All of them are in a constant conflict of interest. Masculinity confronts femininity because the two concepts are evolving and masculinity is losing its core meaning with the emergence of movements defying the authority of man and the theory of “man’s superiority”. This existential crisis is also real within masculinity itself with the threat imposed by other masculinities which are considered inferior to the hegemonic one like“gay masculinity”. One of the reasons why Gay masculinity is not equal to other masculinities is because it is feminine. A gay man is always considered inferior because he is having a female role in sexual intercourse. And as explained previously everything that is feminine is inferior and degrading. That’s why even in our society gay couples are always encountered with the question “ who is playing the male role?”. And it is automatically considered superior and more powerful because it corresponds to the role played by the man in a heterosexual relationship. Even the culpability thrown upon the top in a homosexual relationship is less severe than the one on the bottom only because it is seen as a feminine act.
The entrenchment of gender definitions and the idea of who is a man has played a major role in perpetrating discrimination against women and the perpetual marginalization of minorities and even the non-recognition of the non-binary identity. The basic ideas upon which masculinity is built are misogynistic and degrading to the women’s image even unconsciously. The problem is that we are still passing the same images and ideas to the next generation of men and even women who are an integral part of preserving masculinity and its hegemony.
So questioning masculinity can open windows towards equality and the liberation of both sexes from the tyranny of social norms and the rigid definition of gender roles and identities, paving the way towards the recognition and integration of other identities in the social structure. And it may be the other way towards a more egalitarian society.
