Between the vampires and the drug pushers: masculinity & self
Look, I know I have a resting bitch face that can read ‘axe-murderer’ or ‘radiantly angry asshole’—and when I smile too hard, it can seem like I’m channeling de niro’s Max Cady in ‘Cape Fear.’ I blame genetics, right?
But I’m AWARE that my visage can be stormy, or ‘expressive.’ So I have a responsibility or obligation toward others to cut through that, with excessive smiling or purple earrings or a unicorn logo.
I’m trying to limit my time online, because look in almost any direction and it’s easy to be bombarded and overwhelmed with depressing noise or overwhelming powerlessness or infuriating fuckery. Much as I appreciate gaining insight, knowledge, and perspective from the various folks doing the good, hard work of putting their thoughts and feelings into this high-tension ether, I see the endless reductive tendencies, the missing-of-the-larger-point while celebrating a quick zap or delicious riposte.
We miss the nuance, the texture, the granular and macro-connections, because things zip past us (or we scroll incessantly). Long-form conversation, discussion, reflection is getting smothered by microdoses & factoids. It helps, absolutely, to have access to pithy and smart and funny bits. But the tendency to take the surface as the whole isn’t great. The remaining ‘news’ outlets suffer from this, of course: they are not permitted the depth or time to actually examine or explore ideas, so we get ever-shorter, definitely -shrifted superficial pieces.
How can we dismantle the burgeoning bomb & exploitative weaponizing of male insecurity? How can we break the wall of noise that seems ubiquitous and onmipresent? What can we offer in its stead? THAT seems a bigger challenge. Generations of women have suffered at the hands and mouths of unthinking, coarse and crass men. When enough women reached positions to attempt to stop it, to redress the harms, to re-form the conversation, we did not have enough nuance in our culture, and certainly not support for this change, to navigate the complexities.
We’ve had progressive schools, with largely white female teachers, attempting to dismantle the patriarchy by pointing out to the male students their white and male (and straight) privilege. It was certainly true. But we hadn’t shaped a larger plan, what to offer them in place of shame or defensiveness. I struggle with that: telling guys to get over themselves and seek a means to find and accept healthy interpersonal existence. That’s vague and empty, and I see how poor a sales pitch it is. I understand the inclination and vision of challenging grade school boys to reconsider what they think of as masculinity—one issue is, many don’t think about that word at all, and once it’s brought out in a class lecture, the connection to real life is lost. I think of my own school days, in the early 80s, what pricks we were, and how frustrated many of our female teachers were—before there was language and structure to address any of it. But what can we offer instead? Often, ‘awareness’ and little more, or chastising and some degree of shaming. And that seems to have backfired, as a lot of those once-boys are now defensive and defiant men, the lads drawn to the shilling of the manosphere.
I’m not saying the teachers were wrong. I’m saying it is complicated, and attacking the problem from the bottom might be a waste of ammunition. I had a coworker, about a decade ago, whose three sons were in a progressive liberal school, 2nd, 4th, and 6th grade. He said the boys were coming home night after night, stung and confused and frustrated by what they felt were their (white, female) teachers’ attacks on them. He told me the youngest and the oldest were differently struggling with being labeled ‘privileged cis-het white men’ as accusation. What can we do about it? he said they asked him.
We revisited his frustrations with the boys’ school. And he said something that struck me: ‘I think boys need to learn how to be better, to not-be bullies, to treat girls better. My boys are trying. But what they’re getting in the school is a weird message: they’re getting blamed for what is everywhere in adult life. Making them feel bad about stuff they don’t have access to (yet) is a mixed message. The older one said he is getting sick of being told he is the cause for the teachers’ frustrations. That’s how it sounds: they’re blaming their societal issues on him and the other boys in his class. I try to say that’s not it. But—I don’t have much to offer. He’s smart. He says they’re being hypocritical. The school won’t hire any Black teachers but all the white teachers are patrolling everyone else for racism. I worry my kid is going to become more right wing, more angry. I worry he’s going to seek things that don’t bombard him with blame and shame. Isn’t that what schools should do? Raise questions, challenge assumptions, show a path to learning?’
That was more thoughtful and nuanced than I expected. This same coworker had fretted about false assault accusations: ‘I worry my boys’ lives will be ruined by a girl who regrets fooling around and accuses them of rxpe,’ was the gist. No amount of stats or discussion could sway him from that fear. Finally I said, ‘Look, I guarantee you: both of my daughters will experience harassment, if not assault, before any of your boys is falsely accused. That is a certainty.’
And I couldn’t help him with either. His protective love of his kids, I understood. His frustration with how the school seemed to be singling out the boys, without providing anything actionable to help them figure out a better way to be. I understood. White supremacy & compulsory heteronormativity & male chauvinism are baked into this nation’s foundation. I could see the teachers’ attempts at course correcting for generations of casual and aggressive chauvinism, patriarchal idiocy, and misogyny. Start young, right?
Those boys are now old enough to choose what they listen to, follow their preferred pipers. I wouldn’t be surprised if some or all of them might be classified now as new-chauvinists, denizens of the manosphere. It’s messy and complicated.
I’ve been doing a lot of revising and editing of writing—about EMS and about the fire service. I think frequently about the various forms of socialization and social cultures. I think a lot about the received ‘wisdom’ passed down to young firefighters, the culture and cant and nominal truisms. So much is empty, is aspirational, is bullshit: noise without substance. Self-soothing onanistic impulses; ‘fireman is a calling, not a career.’ Much has changed and improved over my career, as the larger culture has changed. Yet, like the larger culture, the deadenders of wishful traditionalism are a throaty, hypocritical, craven bunch. As David Mura writes, ‘Lies Whiteness Tells Itself,’ except for firefighters.
I’ve loved my career, and the harmful parts have been overwhelmingly unnecessary, products of a dysfunctional culture. The damage done—to each other, to individuals, to the impressionable and insecure—is unconscionable, and bullshit, contrived.
The below piece is a thoughtful reflection, something I ponder on multiple levels. Not having sons, I ask, Would I encourage my daughters to join a department? And, there are ways it’s a better career than many, with aspects of public service, and generous benefits. But it cuts at us in many ways, and the resistance to women’s presence remains an ongoing issue in many departments and stations. Not all. But it’s a real paradigm issue, a reflection of a culture that tells itself lies about its identity, about who belongs, and what the job is—and how to do it.
We know everything that burns in a house these days is toxic, cancerous, noxious, and we as a culture, a profession, are too invested in looking tough to take seriously personal safety, as if by acting tough and flinty, not only will we impress those around us, but we will remain impervious to fire, smoke, cancer, and gravity.
That delusion gets lacerated badly. A lot of us are struck with cancer, often 20 years or so after we start. It’s too late to go back and mask up at a garage or car fire, or during overhaul, or to wash the carcinogens off our gear. We needed to look tough. Or something. There is no duty to die. We play dice games with our own lives. There’s always someone on line or at a station who talks shit, who offers social snake oil or crack, the addictive and seductive ‘cool’ posturing. So many callow young men wake up five to fifteen years later, having fucked themselves, having lost who they were, having run out of bravado.