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THREAD: As a white man, I primarily threat track other white men. They are the ones I watch to see if they are going get angry, to bully or hurt others. A lifetime spent around white boys/men taught me that. The most damaged among us become white nationalists or mass shooters. /1
I’m a white man who grew up in Texas. I understand right down to my bones how hard it is to be a boy growing up in America’s man box culture. How we are supposed to be tough, make all the money, have all the answers and be the top dog every damn day. /2
We are punished brutally for showing weakness or emotions. Called “sissy” or “girl” or “f*g” if we stray from our culture’s obsession with dominance and rigid self control. We literally are punished for being fully human or for wanting connection. Who wouldn’t end up angry? /3
By the time we become young men, we have been stripped of our ability to express who we are or to connect in authentic ways with others. We play a surface level character designed to keep us from being targeted by the bullies who enforce the man box. /4
When man box culture finally punishes our need for connection out of us, we are left with no choice but to rise in the pecking order of the man box by bullying those below us. Our ability to connect shamed as “girly,” our ability to dominate others affirmed as manly. /5
And so, we track the boys and men around us. Looking for the most dominant, aligning ourselves with their bullying performance of manhood. And all emotions are forbidden except one. We are encouraged to show anger. We are invited to be angry as an expression of our manhood. /6
This is the man box machine of male domination and emotional isolation. Cut off from authentic human connection, forced to perform a narrow and bullying version of manhood, much of which doesn’t even fit for us, our anxiety grows. It becomes our constant companion. /7
We track the men around us to see who will call us out next. Who will belittle us or challenge our manhood. We come to distrust the other men in our lives, convinced we must dominate them before they dominate us. So we brag about sex or money or drinking. But we don’t connect. /8
Cigna did a study last year that says that 1 out of every 2 Americans are feel “sometimes or always alone.” Chronic isolation is equal to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. It will kill you dead, increasing the likelihood of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and much more. /9
Social isolation fuels anxiety. Lack of community is deeply stressful. Man box culture encourages boys/men to vent any stress or anxiety they feel through the expression of anger and dominance of others. That is the only acceptable expression of emotion they are allowed. /10
So even the smallest failure to properly perform man box culture’s rules for manhood, can unleash violence and bullying against us because bullying is THE release valve for male isolation anxiety. This is why I track men as the threat. Because we all do it. We all go off. /11
Men, denied authentic human connection, face deeply anxiety inducing levels of social isolation. They double down on man box bullying and dominance in an effort to vent that anxiety, becoming more isolated. It is this iron clad closed loop that is killing us and those we love /12
Men *know* something is deeply wrong with a masculinity that judges us based on what we produce instead of who we are as human beings. We feel cut off/alone, but we don’t know what to do about it because we are bullied into believing that admitting our pain is not what men do /13
As a white man, I have lived this, seeing how easy it can be for any of us to slip into the resulting anger and bias that our culture of manhood inflicts on us. As we age, we eventually fail to meet the expectations of man box culture. /14
Maybe we loose our jobs, or maybe our health starts to falter. We can’t compete in sports as well or our one liners start to fail us. Whatever the reasons, sooner or later man box culture kicks us to the curb and barrels on, younger men racing past us. /15
This is why older white men are vulnerable to such high rates of suicide. We never developed a capacity for self reflection because it turns out our man box culture doesn’t care who we are as individuals. Unable to look inside ourselves, we look instead to blame others. /16
Defaulting yet again to anger, we seek to blame women, or immigrants, or politics or society. But what slowly dawns on some of us is that we were robbed of the warmth of authentic human friendship and connection by our bullying man box culture of disconnection. /17
Men of color face similar issues. Men of color struggle with aspects of the man box. But it is not men of color who commit mass shootings. It is not men of color who overwhelmingly support Trump’s political violence against immigrants and women. /18
The key to our collective gender bias and bigotry is hidden deep in the ugly machinery of man box culture. When we shame little boys for failing to live up to the rules of the man box, what do we call them? We call them girls. We call them fags. /19
The shaming of boys via the denigration of the feminine happens not weekly, or daily, but *hourly* for boys and it goes on for decades as they grow into manhood. It’s a deep seating programming that shames boys’ need for human connection even as it defines women/gays as less. /20
When you program into very young boys a masculinity of inequality, when you teach boys to feel good about themselves by putting down girls or gays, you open the door to all forms of bias. "Immigrants are less." "Blacks are less." "Liberals are less." And so on. /21
For men like myself, this deep anti-feminine programming which begins when we are infants, is the source of our lasting struggle with sexism, bigotry and racism. In man box culture we are punished for seeking connection *especially across difference.* /22
This programming is the source of some men’s anger against gays, immigrants, anyone that is different. Because of it, many human beings are simply not an option for us for connection. Thinking we are better is the source of our isolation. We’re not better. We’re just alone /23
It doesn’t have the be this way for us. /24
If you are a man of any color or sexuality who is tired of isolation, there are many men's organizations like mankindproject.org or evryman.com can help. Step out of isolation. Come in from the cold. Create real community. This is the work we all need to do. /25
For those troubled by what I’m saying here about men, understand, any of us can break out of the man box. It's only a life sentence if you make it one. We have to admit to the culture of masculinity that formed us. Then we have to actively make a better one. /26
To any man who is struggling: Ask yourself what it is you really want from the rest of your life. For me, it was always friendship and authentic connection. And when I made the choice to break out of the man box, it was right there waiting for me. It’s waiting for you, too. /27
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