Not to get too far off topic, but I’ve been trying to chip away at this my entire life. Have a group of men that regularly lunch to talk about things like gendered expectations, relationships, what it means to be a man in the 21st century, swapping relevant reading material, etc. I think US culture has (at least) three primary obstacles, and if you will forgive the sweeping generalizations:
- Men are not expected or encouraged to discuss much of anything beyond the superficial
- Men are actively discouraged from developing emotional awareness (stoicism! that should suffice.)
- Masculine identity is defined in opposition to the feminine and the feminine is defined as inherently weak. “Boys don’t cry.” “Don’t be such a sissy.”
I find the first to be the biggest stumbling block - without the ability to have these conversations with and among men, how can we hope to see the same sort of gains and contributions that feminist thinkers and writers have achieved in the last 100 years?
Two articles that have framed my thinking:
Do Men Suck at Friendship?
According to the Male Deficit Model, friendships between men function and falter within strict pragmatic categories: “convenience friends,” for example, exchange helpful favors but don’t interact much otherwise; “mentor friends,” who connect primarily through one man’s tutelage of the other; or “activity friends,” which Matt and I became by surfing in San Francisco.
Shockingly, every male friendship I’ve had has fallen into one of these three categories and been just as transient. Remove the frame and the friendship has withered over time.
What Can We Do About Britain’s Male Suicide Crisis?
Perhaps most worryingly, “some men reported that adherence to masculine norms meant that feelings associated with being vulnerable provoke greater anxiety than the thought of being dead.”
And how horrible, how completely tragic is that?
Start talking about it together as men is about as far as I’ve gotten with a solution.