Be a Man!

“C’mon, be a man!” What a load of crap is packed into that statement! I think we can agree that being male is under attack and subject to revision in recent years, but don’t expect me to blame “women’s lib”. I’m convinced, men, that we are the agents of our own destruction (or at least, our own distress). Why would I say that? If there’s any truth to the assertion that we’ve tried to run things around here for thousands of years, then we’re more than a little responsible for the screw-ups as well as the triumphs, wouldn’t you say? So, let’s think a bit about where we went wrong.

Is there one best way to be a man? Hands up all you who’ve told a brother or been told by a brother to “grow a pair” or to “man up” … c’mon, you know who you are … wasn’t that fun? Shame as motivation! It doesn’t get any better than that! Every stereotype from every Boot Camp movie you ever saw is at work in the day-to-day lives of ordinary guys, maybe with less drama, but with more angst. “Be all you can be” somehow breaks down into “be more than the next guy” or worse, “be more than you are”. I’m sure someone’s already put his hand up to invoke the biological or evolutionary imperative: “survival of the fittest”. It’s true, there are powerful forces at work over long stretches of time, but, survival is predicted for those species and (to some extent) those individuals that are able to adapt to changing conditions. Not just dominate, oppose, conquer, win, brutalize, overpower, control and exterminate. Adapt.

“Grow a pair” essentially boils down to a prescription and a formula: more testosterone = more aggression = more manly. This is a great formula if you’re fighting a war or defending against physical threats; not so great if you’re trying to understand a problem and maybe, I don’t know … solve it. We are told in modern times that we have at least two brains: the “reptilian”, or mid-brain, and the “mammalian”, or fore-brain. The “fight or flight” response is the province of the reptilian brain and the ability to imagine consequences of proposed actions, to empathize, to problem-solve rests primarily with the mammalian brain. BTW, the reptilian brain and testosterone seem to be best buddies.

Men, adaptation makes use of the whole bag of tricks at our disposal, not just the weapons. Basically, that means it should be considered appropriate at times for a man to be empathetic, to be calm, to be a peacemaker, to show compassion, humility, love, joy and sadness. Men often hide emotions deemed more “feminine”, even from themselves, out of fear of being thought to be less manly. Clearly, if that were true, the old definition of manliness needs revision if we are to adapt to our changing world. It also must be said that, to date, our survival as a species is a conjoint affair with the other half of the population – and not just the carrying-the-babies part – the feminine-point-of-view-and-way-of-approaching-life part as well. We will, most likely, always be different from each other, but that should not seem to be an injunction to “specialize”. We need balance in our family units and our society, but also within individuals – a human quality, virtue or characteristic shouldn’t become primarily the domain of either gender. This being true, we could approach the challenge as a “cross-training” opportunity – we’re stronger as individuals and as a species if we honour both the distinctives and the commonalities of male and female experience. Dave Hallam, MSW, RSW