what is toxic masculinity really? pt.1 (anger and control issues)
We’ve all heard the phrase “Toxic Masculinity” tossed around to criticize people’s behavior. I’ll be honest, I didn’t quite understand what it meant for the longest time, and it felt like a way for people to decry things that they just didn’t like. With time and truly listening to voices of those who were affected, I’ve come to my own understanding of toxic masculinity, and how it can truly hurt and push away the very people we want close to us. I’m tackling a pretty large subject, so let’s start breaking it down piece by piece, in no particular order. (I’ll be referring to Toxic Masculinity as TM)
One common trait of TM is anger and control issues. What is anger? As an emotion, it’s the feeling that you want to inflict hurt upon someone so you can retain a sense of control, space and even safety. It’s completely okay for anyone to feel anger, and you shouldn’t feel bad for having that emotion and needing to protect your space. Acting on that emotion is, however, completely within your control and is your responsibility. This is where TM comes into play. I’ll give an example from my own experience with someone with a fake name Alex.
Working with Alex, I began to feel that I had no space to be myself, and my opinions were minimized. If working on a certain project was important to me, it was only given lip service, but never given real time and attention. We’d only focus on what was important to him. Relationships need work and I wanted to go through the hard work of improving our relationship. I spoke to him privately about my feelings, only to have them dismissed even more with excuses and false promises. I completely understand if he feels minimized by the conversation, and we can talk about that, but he just turned the conversation into arguments that no longer had anything to do the real issues he created. TM says you need to attack the other person back even harder to prove that you can control the situation, and that’s just what he did.
Attacking me kind of just ruined the friendship even more as he resorted to name calling. He eventually created a radioactive crater where the relationship used to be. I understand where Alex was coming from. He had his own sense of the relationship that was in jeopardy of being lost. It’s true, and there’s no way around that truth. Our relationship could change, maybe for the better, worse, or just different. But we have no control over that, and fighting for control kind of just ensures that it ends up worse, never better.
He thought he could retain control of an unfair dynamic by a show of faux masculine prowess, but it only made me feel more distant and worse than before. Eventually I had to completely leave the relationship behind. I feel much better because I finally have the space I need and deserve, but his attempt at trying to control other people only made him completely lose a very meaningful relationship.
If you feel hurt, thats a very valid emotion and there are ways to tackle the wrong in an effective way. Talk to your friend in private about how you feel and what can be done so the situation can be addressed and improved in the future. Acting on anger will only worsen the relationship, and attempting to gain more control will only lead to you losing any control you had before.
