What Does Masculinity Mean to Us?

As I have noticed myself starting to grow and mature as I get older, I’ve begun to bring more awareness to certain types of behaviors; specifically with the males I’m surrounded by. The more classes I take and the more people I talk to, I’ve started to see our definition of “normal” behavior for men is really not as normal as we like to think. I’m becoming more able to see how unnatural so many of these “rules” our society has set for manhood is. For example, it no longer makes sense to me that males must suppress so many of their feelings - with the exception of anger, lust or aggression. It doesn’t make sense that we’ve set so many restrictions for our boys and men. Soon after I started thinking about these concepts in more depth, I watched the documentary “The Mask You Live In.” The documentary is centered around how we socialize males in our society and how deeply it affects them, as well as everyone else. Because of this I decided to talk to my 13 year old brother, Spencer. I wanted to talk to him in order to get a perspective from a middle school boy who’s still trying to figure out what being a man means to him.

Let me just start out by saying that this interview went nothing like I was expecting. The answers my little brother gave me blew me away! I started out by asking him simple questions. For example, “What would you do if one of your guy friends came to school with his nails painted?” Without skipping a beat, the answer that exploded out of his mouth was, “I’d ask him if he has another bottle for me to paint my nails too!” Spencer continued to laugh while he explained, “The other day I wore a freakin fanny pack to school, I’m in no position to judge!” We talked about his ability to discuss his feelings with his friends. He told me that there’s no way he can keep certain things inside, and his friends understand that. Then, I asked if him and his friends ever talk about menstruation, he replied, “Of course, it’s a human thing, my girl friends tell me about it all the time.” All of his responses caught me off guard because I truthfully didn’t believe a 13 year old boy would have such an open-mind and be so welcoming towards seemingly feminine/less masculine behaviors.

Ever since Spencer was little, him and I have always been very close and we’ve been able to talk about many kinds of topics. Especially helping him navigate certain situations, I can see my influence in him. The conversation opened my eyes to see how one step to fixing hypermasculinity can be solved just through talking and teaching boys it is ok to be confident and also respect women as well as themselves.

By: Eliza Kern