Toxic narrative

Dan Silas
Nov 19, 2018
3 min read

Updated: Mar 6, 2019

It's International Men's Day.

“You become more ‘lad-ish’ when you’re around guys”.

My friend and I recently had a conversation about how we have these different personas around different people.

I mentioned that a lot of the time we don’t even realise we do it,

and so I took a moment to enquire - “have you noticed any particular times where my persona changes?”

To which she boldly interjected her observation, “You become more ‘lad-ish’ when you’re around guys”.

At first I was slightly taken aback and questioned her logic, as personally I don’t see myself as a ‘lad’.

But, we began to recall my recent interactions with other guys and analyse them and it didn’t take long to realise that she was 100% right.

As much as I believe that I am confident and secure in who I am as a person, there is still that inherent toxicity that comes from my need to be accepted, to be “one of the guys”.

It’s an insecurity I hadn’t even recognised in myself until she pointed it out.

There’s a negative stigma currently surrounding masculinity.

It made me think specifically about ‘lad culture’ and how individually, each of the ‘lads’ may be lovely people, but there is still this unspoken t o x i c i t y that when guys get together, there is still this persona that each one puts on -

to act like more of a man, to be more of a man than the others.

"I’ve been pretending to be this man my entire life. I’ve been pretending to be strong, when I felt weak. Confident when I felt insecure and tough when really I was hurting. I think for the most part, I’ve kind of been putting up a show, but I’m tired of performing. And I can tell you right now that it is exhausting trying to be man enough for everyone all the time." - Justin Baldoni

Until recently, there’s been an allowance,

maybe even a societal expectation

for men to behave ‘badly’ - as if it were the 'natural' way of being.

It has been written off countless times as ‘boys being boys’,

‘locker room talk’

and more recently, ‘ladish banter’

and if you were a man who didn’t talk about sports or engage in sexualising banter, then other men might question the adequacy of your masculinity and question your sexuality.

It’s all too commonplace to hear homophobic slurs tossed around, as if being gay would somehow make you any l e s s of a man.

As boys, we are told to ‘man up’. From boyhood, we are told to be STRONG - all the important traits of ‘manliness’.

As a child, all I wanted was to be accepted and liked by the other boys. But that acceptance meant I had to acquire an almost disgusted view of the feminine, and since we are told that feminine is the opposite of masculine, I either had to reject embodying any of these qualities or face rejection myself.

It’s interesting to note how women, in general, can speak to others openly about their emotions without risk to their femininity, yet when men share their emotions - it is often at the detriment of their masculinity.

As a result, most men suffer alone. It’s no coincidence that men die by suicide 3.5 times more often than women.

I was once told, “as a man, you keep things inside so you can use them as a weapon”

and it is this toxic narrative that we are teaching boys that results in many men never learning how to release their emotions without using force - for most men, it feels safer to get angry than to express sadness or vulnerability.

How often do we see a man who is angry? and in comparison how often do we see a man crying or a man expressing his emotions openly? RARELY.

Whilst I have no desire to fit into the current broken definition of masculinity, I've often struggled to reconcile

who I am

with who the world tells me

what a man

'should' be.

Recently, I've been calling myself out. Redefining my thoughts around masculinity and using that to start conversations with other men, to use the same qualities that make you feel like a man, to go deeper. Redefining what it means to be a man - redefining 'masculinity' and the traits it is associated with.

To be strong enough to be sensitive. Brave enough to be vulnerable. Tough enough to call out injustice. And most importantly, confident enough to listen to the women in your life - to use your privilege as a platform & not only figure out how to be a "good man" but a good human.