Lately, I've been doing a significant amount of contemplation around how the toxic masculinity of our society has affected my personal identity as a woman and how that toxic undercurrent has held me back from enjoying my life.
The Internal Infection of Toxic Masculinity
In Western culture, toxic masculinity is inescapable. I was raised in a home that epitomized this culture. The dominant male was aggressive, volatile, violent, and selfish. The primary female was passive, depressed, negligent, and selfish.
Growing up I saw that women didn't have a voice and were ridiculed, shamed, and/or assaulted for speaking up. Women's sole benefit was to be used for the pleasure of men and the male ego - they must be pretty, meek, fragile, and subservient - a trophy. Any woman who held her own differing opinions or had a job outside of the service industry was shamed by the society of my small Southern town as having renounced her femininity. As a young girl, I was in a no-win situation. The two options presented to me - either becoming a stay-at-home mom or working a decent job - still led to the same result of being ridiculed, shamed, and assaulted for being a woman.
In addition, I noticed, any man who didn't conform to this dominant paradigm was seen as having the undesirable qualities of a woman - weakness, submissiveness, and inconsequentiality. THese male outliers were frequently insulted in ways that use women as the brunt of the joke. The two most popular insults being slang for female genitalia or slang for a man who (like women) sleeps with men. These terms (which we are all familiar as they are still commonly used today) illuminate a dominant hierarchy that clearly puts women and anyone perceived as having the qualities of a woman at the bottom. Toxic masculinity is entirely black and white with no room for any shade of gray.
While my personal experience in my youth here may seem like a simplified version of reality - there were, of course, exceptions - the feeling behind these generalizations is how, as a child, I internalized the world around me. That naive internalization is what colored my feelings about myself as a woman and what I was capable of achieving (or not achieving) in my life.
What Toxic Masculinity Is Not...
Within this binary paradigm, there is no place for the clear purity of the sacred feminine or sacred masculine. However, these two absolutes do exist - independent of gender, inseparable from each other, and are indestructible. They are intangible qualities we can only point at, not definable characteristics we can label. Masculine energy is active, but not aggressive. Feminine energy is accommodating, but not submissive. Feminine energy holds the space within which the action of masculine energy takes place. Masculine energy is the bursting of a sprout from it's pod. Feminine energy is the perfect conditions of soil and water and sun to allow the seed to grow. Both energies are present in every person, regardless of gender, and reflected in the natural world all around us.
What Toxic Masculinity Is...
Toxic masculinity, however, is the perversion of the true nature of masculine energy. It tries to separate, solidify, quantify, and name what it is to BE an alpha male in our society. Unfortunately, due to their inseparability, this misunderstanding also perverts the true nature of feminine energy. As a societally created construct, toxic masculinity forces into creation an overly passive feminine energy as it's equally toxic counterpart. Simply put, toxic masculinity suppresses both the natural feminine and masculine energies while giving rise to the creation of toxic femininity (examples of which are loss of boundaries, co-dependency, and the adoption & perpetuation of the Madonna/whore complex).
So what is the motivating force behind toxic masculinity and how can we release its poisonous grasp in our personal lives and, to a greater extent, in our culture?
If we take the fictional character Don Draper of Mad Men as a physical manifestation of toxic masculinity, we have a relatable example to identify the motivation. Being an educated, good-looking, intelligent, wealthy, white male in the 1960's, Don has every asset to lead a successful life that embodies the American Dream - the house, the wife, the kids, the job, the money. However, instead of feeling satisfied with his life achievements and resting in a content and joyful life, Don is constantly tortured. His toxic masculinity leads him to view the people in his life as objects and trophies, an attitude that disconnects him from experiencing joy with others. So to feel something, he dives deeper into a hedonistic pursuit of pleasure - smoking, drinking, vapid sex, power - and winds up completely depressed and miserable. So why, when someone is handed a "perfect" life, with all of the societal to-do's checked off, does he end up so desperately unhappy?
How Do Pleasure and Joy Fit In?
One thought is that toxic masculinity is, at its core, empty and narcissistic. No joy can arise in this paradigm. In our society, we consistently believe that pleasure and joy are synonymous when they are, in experience, nothing alike. Pleasure is an enjoyable feeling that is felt by an individual alone. Pleasure is very personal and not everyone enjoys the same pleasures. There is nothing wrong with pleasure, so long as it is seen for what it is - a fleeting moment of enjoyment to be felt, enjoyed and released. However, when we try to hold onto and solidify that feeling, we destroy the original beauty in the experience. Pleasure, through a toxic masculinity lens, is distorted into indulgences, vices, consumerism, and chasing power - which inevitably leads to a feeling of empltiness after the "high" has faded. People and the natural world become objects that either hinder or help the pursuit of pleasure and must then be either used or abused.
Human beings, by nature, long for genuine connection - to other beings, the natural world or the divine - and a sense of purpose. Connecting with close friends & family, engaging in creative pursuits, helping others and our environment are all important ways that most people feel a genuine sense of joy. A simplified explanation of the difference is that joy is of the heart/spirit realm while pleasure is of the body/mental space. However, in our culture we often confuse that joy and pleasure are the same thing.
An example might be - Imagine going over to a small backyard gathering of close friends (don't worry, in this scenario everyone is vaccinated!). There are great appetizers, delightful drinks, and the ambiance has an edge of magic to it. Conversation and connection abound and there is a great deal of laughter amid the meaningful exchanges. The next day, you look back and remember all of it as a truly wonderful experience. Both pleasure and joy abounded, but what parts of the evening created each feeling? When you think about eating the food and drinking the wine, these are pleasures. They are you personally experiencing these tangible delights with your body. When you think of the conversations & laughter, these are joyful moments. Your heart feels tender and warm from the emotional connections. Both are beautiful experiences, but one is individual and the other is shared.
By recognizing the differences and experiencing the genuine feelings of both pleasure and joy we can begin to unravel the tangled confusion that toxic pleasure creates - longing, addiction, & the obsessive pursuit of selfish enjoyment - and engage more in activities and situations where joy has the ability to naturally arise. Having the house, the car, the stuff, the body, the hair - all of this solidifies an identity of who you think you are. Buying into the belief that these things will create a joyful life is how the toxic masculine culture perpetuates unhappiness. Things don't create joy. And they aren't intended to. A culture that sees other people and the natural world as friend or foe is a setup for isolation and depression. Joy is related to connection, not subjugation & fear.
How Has Toxic Masculinity Affected My Life Choices?
Personally, having bought into the pervasive paradigm on an unconscious level has created a split within me. There are the beliefs (some with evidence to back it up) that toxic masculinity beats into us as women (i.e. women can't make as much money in a job as men do or that a woman must behave & look a certain way to get a "good" mate). The two areas where I recognize having the greatest personal struggle, which are also intimately entwined in this culture, are in creating a career and finding a loving partner.
Not having had the role model of a strong, empowered woman who held a job was a complete disservice for me in creating a career. (Interesting to note, I was also never taught to be a trophy wife like my mother so that avenue was also closed.) I chose to work in minimum wage jobs, waiting to find a partner to then have 2 incomes to raise me out of my paycheck to paycheck lifestyle. Instead of going back to school or intentionally pursuing a career path, I puttered around in the "failure to launch" dynamic just waiting to be swept up by Prince Charming and for my life to begin.
Of course, once I found myself pregnant and alone, this illusion was harshly shattered. I snapped out of it and managed to pull myself up, with the support of friends, from a single mom on government assistance to someone financially comfortable. I may never be able to own a home and my retirement account is pretty dismal, but I do have everything I need and most things I want. And I've done it all by relying on myself - no second income needed!
The second area of struggle has been finding a partner. Within the toxic masculine paradigm, all heterosexual women must have a man to take care of them because they are incapable of caring for themselves. Single women over 30 were to be pitied, shamed, and viewed as incomplete. Lacking the role model of either a satisfied single woman or a loving, supportive couple growing up instilled in me an unconscious belief that what I was looking for in a partnership was only true in fairy tales and movies. The reality was much more cruel. As a child, all I could see was that men dominated women in relationships. Rather than believing that all I could have was the reality of an unloving, cold marriage, I tried to put all my faith into the fantasy. Clearly, this was a setup for failure as an adult.
If I had only been able to let go of the fantasy and believed in my own self-worth as a woman and a partner, I do feel that a couple of the relationships I had in my 20's might have worked out... But I didn't have that confidence, and as I got older I began dating more abusive and toxic people in my desperation to not be single. This cycle would have continued had I not been able (with some very deep soul searching) to make these invisible adopted beliefs visible and learn from my past abuse that I feel emotionally safer, creative, and more prosperous as a single woman.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Understanding this external societal setup and how it impacts us individually is a great starting point. Looking deep within at our own prejudices, biases, habits and tendencies either adopted from or as a result of a rejection of the paradigm of toxic masculinity is how we can start to shift our beliefs and actions. This allows each of us to not only see our own stories more clearly, but also develop the compassion needed to become allies to those who have been marginalized.
As a meditation, I would invite you to sit and contemplate any part of this essay that really grabbed your attention. Here are some ideas to explore with an optional follow up question to get you to go deeper:
- The interplay of the sacred feminine and sacred masculine. How do you see them in the
world around you?
- Your personal beliefs of how a man and woman should express themselves. Growing up,
how did your parents, friends, spiritual community, etc. influence these beliefs?
- How do you experience pleasure and joy in your life? Do you have a filter of hedonism,
addiction or obsession obsuring your experience?
- In what ways does toxic masculinity show up in the world around you? How does it affect
how you perceive yourself? Have you made any life choices to fit into that paradigm?
In this society, the individuals pushing the toxic masculine agenda all have something to gain by keeping these exploitative beliefs in place. The ones who have created and benefit the most from the power and privilege of toxic m
asculinity in Western culture are white males. While we cannot escape toxic masculinity in our culture, we can embrace the movements happening right now that illuminate the historical dysfunction and are working to break the patterns of abuse that this unjust system creates. The Me Too movement shines a light on the centuries of rape and assault by individuals in positions of power (physical power included). The Black Lives Matter movement expresses the injustice (and invisibility) of racial oppression by those in positions of privilege.
Many people and organizations are working hard to expose and transform this toxicity at the root. The importance of this work cannot be underestimated. If you feel inspired, please donate money or time to helping out nonprofits that focus on various issues that are direct outcomes of toxic masculinity. i.e. Sex Trafficking; Domestic Violence; Black Lives Matter; Stop AAPI Hate; Voter Suppression; Gun Violence
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