So @Lilith recently had a good shitpost on the emotional stunting men experience under the patriarchy.
Most days I would laugh and scroll on by, but today I really felt it and wanted to perhaps start a discussion. As a straight, cis male who has recently started seeing someone, I have noticed a lot of the emotions seemingly ingrained by the patriarchy popping back up in recent days. I have felt possessiveness, jealousy, and fears of inadequacy (am I really good enough, or MAN enough, to be with this person?)
It seems like the patriarchy effects all men differently. I personally found it much easier to get over the immediate instinct towards rage rather than sadness or other emotions, but the feelings stated above have stuck with me despite my best efforts.
Some things I have wondered about when pondering this topic:
- Can these deep seated feelings, whether they be rage or jealousy or anything else, ever go away entirely with effort? Is the best we can do to suppress them? If we do suppress them, is that not further playing into the patriarchal push to suppress emotions? Is this a contradiction that can only be solved with the liquidation of the patriarchy?
- How can men, while still working through these emotions, still be the best possible allies to women and enby folks?
- In a similar vein, what can we do as men to hold other men accountable for these attitudes? Obviously we can call out blatant misogyny, but more deep seated attitudes can be harder to detect.
Some things I've found that have helped and continue to help me deal with these deep seated attitudes:
- Listen to women! This one is pretty obvious so I won't spend much time on it, but your female comrades will know better than you when you're doing harmful shit.
- Read feminist theory. I'm currently reading Revolting Prostitutes and it's helping me to get over some attitudes towards sex work that I now realize were fairly reactionary. Theory works, and it's always helpful to have a better understanding of the world
- Organize organize organize. Theory is useless without organization and vice versa. You will 1000% learn more about overcoming these attitudes through direct work with female comrades and within orgs working towards women's liberation than you will anywhere else.
Over the last five years or so I've done a lot of work to process through the patriarchy's effects on my understanding of masculinity and my own existence. A lot of this was done in the context of exploring my gender, but as an amab non-binary man I feel like I can still contribute to this even if my perspective is coming from that of someone who isn't quite a man in the way cis men are.
While the patriarchy effects all men differently, the ways in which the patriarchy goes about affecting men can be generalized to some extent. While your experience of the patriarchy is unique from any other man's, we often find the patriarchy says similar things to all of us. Those feelings of inadequacy are centrally ingrained in how the patriarchy informs the experience of those it sees as men. The patriarchy first tells your sense of validity in the context of your gender is dependent on its approval. You've probably seen this manifest in more toxic men making comments about things being too effeminate for them or not manly enough. A man telling another man not to feel emotions other than anger is essentially reminding the listener that he is failing to meet the standards outlined by the patriarchy and is therefore not a man. It takes time, and it's not always easy, but it is possible to develop a sense of masculinity that isn't dependent on patriarchal approval. I know that because I have a strong, healthy relationship with the ways masculinity intertwines with my identity even if the things that make me feel euphoric in masculinity would be disapproved by the patriarchy. For me this process started with considering what parts of masculinity I liked and didn't like. I don't like, for example, the emphasis on physical strength that the patriarchy ties to masculinity. I stopped trying to embody this aspect of a standard I didn't choose to impose on myself, and instead focused on the bits of masculinity I did enjoy - eventually adding my own personal experience with gender on top of the patriarchy to synthesize my own understanding of my masculinity. It took time, but over the course of this process I've been able to see myself as a man not inspite of the aspects of the patriarchy I fail to identify, but rather because of them. To expand on this for a moment, I don't see myself as less masculine because I paint my nails or take estrogen, those things are actually foundational to how I personally am a man. By examining what I did and didn't like about the patriarchy's definition of manhood and the way I attempted to embody that definition, I was able to slowly start working towards a version of myself that was a man how I wanted to be a man. Instead of relying on the approval of the patriarchy, an approval that requires conforming to a narrow box, you can decouple the sense of validation in gender you get from external to internal. Trans people are often not accepted by society and invalidated in their gender where cis people are often validated in gender so ambiently they don't notice they often forget they are gendered constructs. Part of dismantling the patriarchy in cis men, in my opinion, will come from cis men learning to construct their own understandings of masculinity and learn to validate themselves, just as we trans people have had to learn throughout our lives. Once you build a version of your masculinity that you feel comfortable in and are able embody, I think you'll find those feelings of inadequacy and forced-anger melt away.
As someone who has never and does not currently experienced misogyny I don't feel my best use in this conversation would be answering your second point. Homophobia and transphobia are still aspects of patriarchy and I still experience them, but I think this is something best left up to someone who can speak from a direct experience where as I cannot. I will say that in terms of calling out other men, the work should be slow and gradual. If someone does something horrific and extremely harmful then yeah, fuck slow and gradual, deal with that shit immediately. But generally, the patriarchy manifests in an omnipresent way in the lives of cis men. In that sense, pushing back on other men in a gently, patient way is really helpful. I've been able to do a lot of work unhooking the brainworms of my close cishet male friends by giving them space to feel emotions or earnestly taking an interest in their lives. Express kindness to the men you know and try to establish yourself as someone they can be vulnerable to emotionally. That alone will do a lot of good to those individuals, and leave them susceptible to talking about the patriarchy and the harm it causes them.
Thanks for the reply, I really appreciated a view on this from someone who experiences masculinity in a different way from myself.
Trans people are often not accepted by society and invalidated in their gender where cis people are often validated in gender so ambiently they don’t notice they often forget they are gendered constructs. Part of dismantling the patriarchy in cis men, in my opinion, will come from cis men learning to construct their own understandings of masculinity and learn to validate themselves, just as we trans people have had to learn throughout our lives.
This really stuck with me, and I think gets at the heart of a sort of weird, I don't want to say envy, but maybe admiration for GNC people. Myself and many of the men that I know have spent so long getting that validation that once we step outside of gender norms the lack of validation is almost paralyzing. Obviously it's nothing compared to the struggle our trans and NB comrades go through, but I think when someone who has spent most of their lives conforming to these roles steps outside and feels that discipline it is even more effective simply because we are not used to it. Something along the lines of that quote about how equality feels like oppression for the privileged.
Express kindness to the men you know and try to establish yourself as someone they can be vulnerable to emotionally. That alone will do a lot of good to those individuals, and leave them susceptible to talking about the patriarchy and the harm it causes them.
This to me is super important. One of the major breakthroughs I had was with a college roommate who was simply willing to listen to my issues and empathize. He never talked to me about patriarchy, and wasn't even a leftist of any stripe, but I think that helped me organically realize how unhealthy my coping mechanisms were and really started my turn leftward.
A bit on validation: I found that stepping out of that passive validation made me realize that a lot of it was validating parts of me that I didn’t enjoy or respect
:100-com:%. See: the weird internalized possessiveness I feel towards partners and how many people seem to see that as totally normal or even a good thing.
That in particular is such a strongly ingrained urge. I know what you mean. A lot of polycules will recreate patriarchal structures because of a few masculine people exercising that exact insecurity. I think a lot of American communes in the 60’s had similar problems
... I think [this] gets at the heart of a sort of weird, I don’t want to say envy, but maybe admiration for GNC people. Myself and many of the men that I know have spent so long getting that validation that once we step outside of gender norms the lack of validation is almost paralyzing.
I really empathize with this. I don't think it's weird to be either envious or admirable over this aspect of the trans experience. I don't mean this in a superiority-complex kind of way, but I often think about how the relationship I have my masculinity is generally much deeper and more euphoric than what a lot of cis people have. And that's broadly true for all trans people and cis people in my opinion. Trans people, by being alienated from patriarchal gender norms and our cisnormative society, have necessarily had to develope a deep understanding of themselves and what they find joy in where cis people have not. Essentially, it's my view that part of being cis as a social classifier involves surrendering the euphoria that comes from gender in exchange for social privilege.
Something that will be necessary for cis people to realize is that they have a role in dismantling the gender binary, and not just in terms of being a good trans ally. Every cis person has the ability to reconstruct their own gender just like we trans folk had to. Cis people can choose to explore gender and even if they still remain cis, they will likely walk away with an understanding of themselves that does cause euphoria - an understanding of how they contextualize their own individual identity regardless of what broad category they belong to. This is, in my opinion, the real work cis people can do to destroy the patriarchal gender binary and free themselves along with us.
This is a very concise look at the importance of intersectionality IMO, gives me strong :leslie-shining: vibes. While gender roles don't impact me or other cis men as much as you or our trans comrades, it's still an oppressive force placing us into a box and scolding us when we step out of line.
Just one more reason we need to fight for the liberation of everyone, including our GNC comrades :flag-trans-pride: :flag-non-binary-pride: :flag-genderfluid-pride: :flag-agender-pride:
This turned into a way more rambly post than expected and is kinda a weird combination of self crit, questions, and advice but I hope it can perhaps spark discussion.
