A comment on men and love
Many men I know have stated that they would never cry about a girl. They go as far as labeling the women getting emotional over a heartbreak as silly, irrational, or, my personal favorite, boy-obsessed.
Why would showing one’s pain over the end of a romantic connection be regarded as something negative to be suppressed or justified under judgmental eyes? Isn’t it beautiful when someone touched your life enough for you to care and grieve them as a consequence of their leaving in order to heal?
When men have told me statements such as the one I opened with, I wonder if their not being able to see the point of caring about love is a symptom of the emotional starvation they suffer under the imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy we live under (I know it’s a mouthful, but as the feminist icon Bell Hooks showed in her book The Will to Change, it is necessary to address not only one issue influencing patriarchy, but all).
While feminist movements over the last decades highlighted the injustices patriarchy has caused women economically and with regard to their rights, the contemporary movement has disregarded one root factor that is keeping the imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy flourishing despite the progress made. The aim of the movement was for women, particularly already economically privileged white women, to have the same access to power as white men.
But is that what will solve the humanitarian crisis patriarchy has caused, which we can see with ever-increasing violence against women and femicide? More power for already privileged people?
Power and subsequent domination of one group over others, women or not, is not what I believe we should want feminism to achieve. What the current policies do is add a few female actors to the stage of patriarchy. In order to bring about lasting change, we must make a space for men in feminism—a space which men must enter and actively participate in, not only for the benefit of women, but for themselves.
Men commit suicide four times more often than women do, and the primary cause is the ideals the patriarchy continues to instill in men.
Many of us are disregarding our own desires, constantly stuck between the dichotomy of what we want if our desire was all that counted, and what society has made us believe we need to be. For women, this would traditionally be creating a family, and for men, and more recently women as well, to follow capitalistic pursuits. Love of any kind (and am not referring to marriage and starting a family, but the emotion in itself) as a priority in the capitalistic scheme is often looked down upon.
Patriarchy has shaped two very different mindsets toward relationships for women and men, particularly for heterosexual relationships. According to Bell Hooks: “Sexist roles have always given women support for emotional development, it has been easier for women to find our way to love. We do not love better or more than men, but we do find it easier to get in touch with feelings because even patriarchal society supports this trait in us. Men will never receive support from patriarchal culture for their emotional development.”
“Contemporary feminist movement created a socially sanctioned space where girls can create a sense of self that is distinct from sexist definitions; the same freedom has not been extended to boys.”
Psychologist John Bradshaw, moreover, said that the traits conveyed to men by the patriarchy are that “relationships are based on power, control, secrecy, fear, shame, isolation, and distance.” Boys are taught to keep their emotions in as they become men, ever playing a part and having to wear a mask in order to keep up the internalized ruse of what the patriarchy requires to be their emotional reality.
“Much male rage covers up this place of suffering: this is the well-kept secret. Often when a female gets close to male pain, penetrating the male mask to see the emotional vulnerability beneath, she becomes a target for the rage,” wrote Bell Hooks in The Will to Change.
Yet, women too have to take responsibility for the closed-off emotional state most men find themselves in. Whether a woman considers herself a feminist or not, many still have the idea of wanting a strong man to take care of them and protect them. What some women do not count on is emotionally being there for a partner that is opening up and showing “weakness.” If men do attempt to open up, they are often met with contempt and ignorance.
While feminism often focuses on the fact that men continue to see us as objects, refusing us our bodies and our femininity—which I understand fully, as these are experiences that put women into danger on a daily basis—if we want men to change this mindset, we must extend the same humanity we crave to men’s emotions. Men should not go into recluse or blind rage when they feel emotions, and I believe this would not be the case for the majority if they were taught that all of their emotions are valid and they have a right to feel and express them.
We have to support feminist masculinity, where feeling does not take away from one’s masculinity, and enable men to be more than a ruler and patriarch, who serves the family but therefore, never truly is a part of it.
In order to rewrite their place in society, men need to change their approach to masculinity. They have to learn to feel and be aware of their feelings, not only to live their lives to the fullest and experience joy but in order to be able to love.
To do that, men have to realize that loving a woman and changing in order to do so is not a weakness, but natural. We can’t love if we don’t let someone in, and we can’t love if we see relationships as having a dominant and a submissive part. Love can only exist where there is equality.
For men, in order to achieve this, means letting go of patriarchal values that keep them emotionally and spiritually entrapped. Desiring, fighting for, and changing (to a degree) for love does not show weakness. It shows the opposite, in fact. Creating a healthy, equal relationship requires strength and work. Teamwork.
If we want to leave the imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy in the past, we have to change the relationships we have with each other. Equality doesn’t mean white privileged women having the same power and access to economic gain as white men, relying on the continuation of dehumanization and exploitation of people of color and people from lower-income classes.
Equality starts with people and the real relationships we have. It requires a change in mindset of the role we see ourselves playing in society on the basis of our sex or gender. In order to do that, we need to put in the emotional work into who we are. Through emotional authenticity, we can shape, albeit slowly, a new society where we can be people, no longer reduced to women and men, who love and who enjoy life on their own terms. Not on those patriarchy has whispered to us for way too long.