The Man They Wanted Me to Be: Toxic Masculinity and a Crisis of Our Own Making by Jared Yates Sexton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’ve been following Jared Yates Sexton on Twitter and other outlets for several years. Given his own background and my own, there’s a certain resonance that echoes loudly and clearly for me in his writing and works. His voice makes sense out of chaos, particularly since he’s living in a country which seems like a complete strange land filled with strangers to me after decades of living aboard despite always and first most being my home. It doesn’t hurt that he is an incredibly beautiful writer.
This book is equally informative and heart-breaking. I honestly just want to give him a giant hug and the offer of a shoulder because goodness me he has lived through some shit. I honestly had no idea.
But, I also want to place this book gently into the hands of so many of the men I’ve known in my life, beginning with most of those I grew up with, beginning with my uncle. Toxic masculinity does not merely hurt women — it’s just as harmful and dangerous to the men who must adhere to and live up to it. Perhaps even more so as evidenced by the self-harm and suicide they experience or rely on in order to ease their own pain.
I’ve long held the belief and attempted to live by the ideals that feminism is not simply a practice for women. If we as a society hope to live up to the idea of equality and justice for all — and I do mean all of us — then feminism must enfold men as well as women.
This books is not just a memoir or a survival tale, documenting and recounting one man’s journey through toxic masculinity, a journey he continues to traverse. It’s a treatise on how we might begin to heal very, very deep, festering, unhealing wounds. It’s a warning and an offer of hope of what we might lose if we don’t begin to unburden ourselves of ideals for men (and women) that relegate half of us to living up to standards which are far, far from possible and the other half of us as mere vehicles to reproduce a system and serve as shock absorbers for the inevitable rage that will bubble up from unending frustrations.
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Category Archives: women
We should all be feminists
We should all be feminists.
There’s a brilliant little book by the same name by one of my favourite authors, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She’s far more eloquent than I, and I agree with her every word. We should all be feminists.
Indeed. There’s nothing more that I really need to say about this, is there?
If I do, here’s what I have to say: More rights for you does not mean fewer for me. It means we all benefit and enjoy equal rights and protections for and of those rights. And, it might just mean that women will not receive less pay for equal amounts of work, not needing to pull double duty by caring for all things related to the home and childcare whilst also excelling in our careers. And, it might just mean that we are finally be seen as belonging in positions of leadership. That we are capable.
Because, we are more than capable. And, we do it wearing heals and whilst also taking on the primary household management responsibilities.
I’m not sure why ‘feminism’ as a word conjures up man-hating women with no tolerance for men. But, it does. And, that fundamentally speaks to the primary reason why we need feminism.
And, why we should all be feminists.
Intersectionality
Does the intersectionality of race, gender and sexuality really need further explanation?
Spend five minutes on social media and it’s clear that it does.
Perhaps it’s the anthropologist in me, or just a matter of my personality. I’ve long been interested in the interconnection between things, particularly the social constructs we humans use to inform our realities and world views. Specifically, how we decide who represents us versus who we view as them fascinates — and, at times, horrifies — me. But, those intersections and interconnections between categories, which place each us in various positions of privilege or groups to which discrimination and stigma are directed, are also used to divide us by the powers that be.
If we’re fighting one another, we cannot fight them. Hell, we might just miss what exactly they are doing to begin with.
My feminism is one which examines those intersections and attempts to empower those with the least power. It gives voice to the voiceless. Makes visible the invisible. Accepts the unacceptable.
I cannot divorce my ethnicity from my class from my gender from my sexuality. In my world, no one should need to. But, I can and try as much as possible to recognise where I fall along the intersectionality continuum. And, I attempt to work towards minimising the distance between categories along that scale for those less advantaged whilst aiming for the creation of an equitable, just and empowering society for all.
Pro-choice is pro-life
Today’s postcard is perhaps one of the issues that I feel most strongly about since for me it’s connected to just about every other aspect of my life and belief system.
One of the first national-level protests I took part in was the Women’s Rights March in Washington, DC in ’91 or ’92. The reason I took part was because I felt then and still believe today that no one has a right to decide what happens in my uterus or to my body besides me. My physician is naturally involved when medically necessary. And, my husband, of course, is apart of those conversations and discussions. But, the ultimate decisions and consequences are mine and mine alone to make and to bare.
Simply put: this is my body and this is my choice.
And, yet, here we are in 2020 continuing to wage war over women’s rights to do with their bodies what they want.
Women seeking refuge in the US from violence and war in their homelands have had their uteruses literally ripped out of them, forcibly and unknowingly and without their consent. Why? Because they are poor, vulnerable and other. Because they are considered unworthy.
That’s not pro-life — that’s limiting their reproductive freedom, and its tantamount to genocide. Persecuting Muslims because of the actions of some, murdering black and LGBTQI individuals because of racist and sexist and cisgender stereotypes are also not pro-life attitudes.
I am not pro-abortion; I’m pro-choice, because it allows girls and women the ability to make choices which have lasting impacts on their lives. I support allowing women to decide when and how they reproduce as well as how they prevent unwanted and unplanned pregnancies from occurring in the first place. And to me that’s always been a pro-life perspective,since it keeps abortion safe and ultimately protects women and their children from unnecessary harm. But it also allows for the means to prevent unwanted and unplanned pregnancies, thereby diminishing the need for abortion. Isn’t that the point? Minimising the need?
Against abortion? No one is forcing you to have one. Similarly, no one should force me or any woman to have a child she does not want nor feel she can care for. No one should be forced to continue a pregnancy and carry it to term if they do not want to. Women are not (yet) handmaids. I’ll fight like hell to make sure they never become them.
If you consider yourself pro-life, then do you also support and work to protect Muslim women and babies? Immigrants whether documented or not? Refugees? Black lives? And LGBTQI lives?
If the answer to any of those questions was anything other than an unqualified ‘yes’, then you are not pro-life. You are pro-foetus. But, what of that foetus once it is out of the womb? Do you still fight to protect it? Is that life still sacred?
It makes me incredibly angry that we still need to fight for this specific freedom. But I’ll continue fighting, not just for women in the US. But, for women everywhere.
Abortion should be legal. It must remain safe. And, it should be rare. But, that requires freedom for women to make decisions regarding their own reproductive lives.
It’s up to us now
I was already struggling with election anxiety and news cycles of unending madness and chaos.
From the upheaval at USPS at at time when mail-in voting is potentially life-preserving, to AG Barr’s desire to charge protesters and dissenters with sedition, to forced sterilisation of immigrant women in detention centres, to the non-stop lies and fabrications, to raging fires in both North America and Brazil, on top of a global pandemic as we head into winter, it’s too much, y’all. It’s simply too much.
And, then, Saturday dawns and the news of RBG‘s death greeted me as I scrolled through Twitter (fuck you, Mitch McConnell) whilst waiting for my coffee to brew.
This morning feels incredibly dangerous, not just for women’s rights and reproductive freedom, but for democracy in general. The fragility of the rule of law, immigrant rights, voting rights, environmental and labour justice and the simple idea that laws should not hinge upon the mad ramblings of an individual who would like to be king and a party that allows him to do so all feel just that much closer to disintegration. And the nightmare that is 2020 continues.
Yet, this isn’t some distant land; it’s happening in the United States. It’s just unreal and yet far, far too real.
At some point over the past year or so, I received a packet of 50 protest postcards to benefit the ACLU in a book hookup subscription from Strand Bookstore in NYC. Since my copy of Notorious RBG is currently with a friend, I flipped through those protest postcards looking for hope I suppose or something to give me solace as the tears flowed. I kept returning to this image:
For the next 50 days, I’ll be posting one of these images, primarily to remind myself what I’m fighting for. But, also, to remind us all that we must continue to fight for as long as we can, in whatever way we can and for as long as it takes to create a more perfect union for us all.
RBG provided us with a to-do list. That list is rather simple:
– Work for what you believe in
from Notorious RBG
– But pick your battles
– Don’t burn your bridges
– Don’t be afraid to take charge
– Think about what you want, then do the work
– But, then, enjoy what makes you happy
– Bring along your crew
– Have a sense of humour
So, today, I’ll honour the gigantically iconic yet tiny in stature, courageous righteous, brilliant woman who dedicated her life to making ours better. Then, tomorrow, I’ll dry my eyes, suit up and fight like I’ve never fought before, for myself and everyone else who suffers injustice in whatever form it takes. And, for the country that I love even in these incredibly dark times.
I’m doing this for RBG. She fought for all of us her entire life. Now, it’s up to us to fight for the legacy she forged for us and our children.
On ‘Born a Crime’ by Trevor Noah
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’ve admired Trevor Noah because he’s funny AF and also speaks about and advocates for policies I myself support.
But, reading about his life in South Africa as a child born into a world where he embodied an actual crime by simply existing is immensely powerful and profound. And, I’m not sure that I could admire him any more now, particularly after reading the last chapter of this book.
Central to this little gem is the story of a mother and her son. But, the richness of that relationship and the context within which it is lived is more than worth anyone’s time. That it’s beautifully crafted is all the more rewarding. Moreover, it’s a story we would all do well to read carefully and consider thoroughly given the times we’re currently navigating and the reckoning these times call for.
It shouldn’t surprise me that I finished this book laughing through choked-back sobs. But, I did.
What a brilliant, brilliant book.
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On ‘Never Rarely Sometimes Always’
We do not watch much TV. We opted not to connect a digibox to our fancy TV because we haven’t watched an actual TV programmes in real-time since we moved to Finland.
We are also a household divided. I will watch just about anything (except reality TV and extreme horror films). The Cuban is a film snob.
My husband’s taste in films is incredible really. I tease him about it, because his standards are exacting, and typically correct. And, I do not mind at all since he finds some true gems whilst scouring various databases and critic reviews. Thus, we tend to watch films which are relatively unknown to the box office, many foreign films and so many documentaries on topics ranging from the secret lives of cats to how foods are made and what’s actually in spam. And, naturally, politics. (I didn’t say my taste takes a complete back seat!) Typically, The Cuban selects what we watch each evening after dinner, and will throw in a silly movie just for now and again so we can mock it together. (I know: we’re awful. But, it works for us.)
Yesterday, there was no hesitation in what he cued up, something he had just discovered and read about very recently. We watched ‘Never Rarely Sometimes Always‘. And, I must say, it was truly brilliant. To me, it was perhaps a much more honest portrayal of the lengths a high school girl from a low- or middle-income family living in a parental consent state in US will consider should she find herself pregnant with very little perceived or real support from her family.
The acting is incredible, the characters and script are genuine and relatable, the direction and cinematography are both stellar and beautiful. More than anything, this film does not spoon-feed you every single detail nor dwell upon the political or social implications in the backdrop. It’s a portrait of a journey told from one perspective: a young 17-year-old girl who is pregnant and doesn’t want to be.
I have so many questions about the girls in this film and their circumstances, and can imagine so many routes via which they landed in these specific moments. Truly, I wondered what would happen to them next once the credits begin rolling.
A very tiny tagline on the movie’s website reads simply,
Her Journey
Her Choice
Indeed.
In this specific journey, the main character — Autumn — is accompanied by her cousin. I’m glad she had that companion along with her throughout. She did not judge, she did not chide and she did not question Autumn’s choice. She simply sat with her and stood by her on that journey, and occasionally held her hand to get her through the most difficult moments. From beginning to end.
This is stripped-down storytelling. And, it is beautiful.
On ‘Choice’
Choice by Karen E. Bender
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This was my first read during women’s history month, and with the full awareness that we are increasingly edging our way towards a reality in which choice no longer exists.
I absolutely think everyone — and I do mean everyone — should read this book. Make it mandatory reading in sex education classes as a minimum.
It’s no secret that I am staunchly and firmly pro-choice. And my life has largely been possible because I’ve been free to make decisions regarding my own desire to reproduce. Had I not had some options open to me, it’s very much unlikely that I’d have gone to graduate school or landed in Moscow or met The Cuban. What an astounding reality and one I’m so grateful I don’t have to contemplate for long.
I’ll never question any choices any other woman makes regarding what she chooses to do with her own body. Those are decisions she must live with as I live with my own decisions. And I will never stop fighting for the young women who follow me so that they will have all of the choices they need available to them.
Abortion should be legal, and safe and rare. And the only way that becomes a reality is if we stop trying to regulate women’s bodies. And my favourite bumper sticker is still this:
‘How can you trust me with a baby if you can’t even trust me with a choice?’
My body, my choice. Full stop.
#womenshistorymonth
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Just stop
I am so terribly weary from being a woman at the moment.
Last summer, a friend visiting Helsinki brought along pictures from the Women’s Rights March in DC from 1992, I believe. One of the signs from that day that my friends and I carried read, ‘US out of my uterus’. And, here we are
It’s not just the laws, governing and policing of lady bits going on. Or the pain and uncertainty that women living in those specific parts of the US or world will or currently feel given the limited options available to them. Or even the desperate measures they’re likely to resort to given their realities.
It’s primarily the vitriol and misogynistic context and tone to comment after comment after comment from men directed at women. To me, to women I know and to women I’ll likely never meet. It’s been seemingly constant since the fiasco and farce that was the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh.
And, frankly, I’m just tired of it all. Increasingly, I find that I genuinely do not like many, many, many men. [Thankfully, I married a feminist who gets this and shares my outrage, and call many other woke men friends. I do not dislike, y’all, if that wasn’t obvious already.]
Most of this rant will seem likely to the men feeling secure in their positions and who truly welcome equality with their uterus-possessing friends. We thank, y’all. Seriously. So, help us get this message out, eh?
If you claim to be an ally or want to know how to be one, here’s an idea: Just stop, listen / read our words, try to understand our despair and anger, and ask instead how you can help support the women in your life rather than tell them what they should feel or how they should act. [Mansplaining 101 from a woman’s perspective.]
And, if you feel it’s necessary to make snarky comments to someone you don’t know because of the safety of your keyboard, really? [Mansplaining 101 from a man’s perspective, because this is 2019 and women are still not taken seriously. And, hence, this post and my rage.]
Unless you have lived your entire life since puberty dealing with period shame,
Unless you have held your breath waiting for your period to come because various methods fail on occasion,
Unless you have watched as your idea was shot down or dismissed by someone in authority only to hear a man in the room say literally the same exact thing and be congratulated for their brilliance,
Unless you have been told stop being ‘so emotional‘ or ‘overly hormonal’ when you disagree with a man,
Unless you’ve been told on numerous occasions that you’re being a bitch so it must just be ‘that time of the month‘ [NB: this link is a fucking gem of an example of everything which induces rage in me at the moment in that sort of cumulative sort of way from a lifetime of it],
Unless you have had to wrestle and wiggle your way out of the clutches of *that* dude,
Unless you’ve been genuinely terrified that you won’t be able to wrestle and wiggle away *this* time,
Unless you’ve had to justify what you were wearing, or how flirty you were or weren’t or that no really does means no,
Just stop.
Stop telling me what I should say, what I should do, what I should feel or any other thing I do with my body or my mind. This is my body. This is my mind. And, these are my emotions.
And, I own them. All.
Image credit: Anne Lesniak.
Further reading:
Three books that I think every single person on the planet should read right now:
On ‘Not That Bad’, edited by Roxane Gay
Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture by Roxane Gay
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This should be required reading for every single man and boy, particularly for those who continue to objectify women and girls, who think we’re just ‘asking for it’ because of how we look or dress, or that catcalling and leers and unwelcome attention are simply their way of telling us we look good.
This should be required reading for all those who question women and girls who step forward and name their harassers and attackers. Who scream foul when we who have survived remember some details so, so vividly and others escape us. We lived through our nightmares, and we continue to do so years later.
And, this should be read aloud every single minute of every single day out loud to Brett Kavanaugh. Just play it in his inner ear and mind on endless repeat until he and those who enabled him get it. In fact, the same treatment should apply to all those who supported and voted for his nomination and confirmation to sit on the Supreme Court. Because watching Dr Blasey-Ford reminded all of us who do not need reminding that it was just that bad.
Here’s to the survivors.
A Tropical Fish Out of Water 