Thread by @RemakingManhood

THREAD: Why Our Culture of Shame is a Killer for Boys and Men
A few summers ago, @thinkplay and I were swimming in the Frio River in Texas. It was a beautiful sunny day. There were a hundred or more people hanging out on the river. (Photo: Shame by Steffen Sameiske) /1

@thinkplay In front of us, towered a thirty foot high slab of rock jutting up vertically out of the water. Kids were using a rope line tied at the top to scale the steep incline of the slab and jump off the other side into a deep blue swimming hole. /2

@thinkplay One boy had climbed up but could not bring himself to jump. Each time he tried, he would start toward the edge, involuntarily sit down and then scoot back. He tried over and over again, but he could not jump off. Kids were lining up behind him, going past him, and jumping. /3

@thinkplay His father began to call out to him from below. Encouraging him to be brave and jump. His dad was supportive and encouraging, but his voice carried all across the river. More and more people were watching as the boy would take a few halting steps and then panic and back up. /4

@thinkplay His fear became a public spectacle. Climbing back down the way he came was also a frightening prospect, the sheer face of the rock where the rope dangled would have been very difficult to descend. Jumping was likely the safer option. /5

@thinkplay After a few minutes, a single boy below in the water yelled out. His voice, high pitched and clear, rose and echoed off the cliffs around us.
“What are you, a girl? You’re just a scared girl!”
When the boy above heard this, his expression shifted from fear to total despair. /6

@thinkplay The shaming moment had arrived, held in check thus far, by the number of adults interspersed among the kids in the river. The boy above was deeply ashamed of himself for not being able to master his fear, we could all see it in his face. /7

@thinkplay But now he was like a hunted animal, trapped suspended between his fear of getting hurt and his fear of being publicly shamed. His dad began to climb the rock face to get to him. /8

@thinkplay Another man from the boy’s family group, began to call to him from below. “Just jump! Just count to three and jump!” Was he feeling shame at the boy’s fear? Or was the man genuinely concerned about the emotional impact the boy would face as the seconds dragged on? /9

@thinkplay When the boy in the water called the boy above “a girl,” I immediately was aware of how many girls were watching and listening. Perhaps a few of the girls on the bank smiled at the ruthless efficiency of this taunt. But the dozen mothers, faced upturned, were not laughing. /10

@thinkplay In moments like this, shame moves in ripples through a crowd in different ways, depending on one’s age or view of the world. Clearly, someone had regularly shamed the boy in the water. Was it his parents, his teachers, or kids at school? Who knows. /11

@thinkplay But the boy in the water had learned how powerful a tool shame is, and he now casually employed it in a very public way against another boy who was in distress. He not only shamed the boy on the rock, he denigrated every girl within hearing. /12

@thinkplay He presented every adult in the area with a struggle: Do I remain silent or call out something supportive, or what?
We began yelling encouragement to the boy above, but it seemed to only make him more aware of how public this humiliation had become. /13

@thinkplay The boy’s father made it to the top of the rock and took his son’s hand. They got ready to jump together, hand in hand, then the boy balked. He was still too afraid. His father decided that dragging his son over the side by the hand was too risky. /14

@thinkplay He picked up his son, spoke to him quietly, and then tossed him off. As the boy fell, I could see he was going to hit the water badly. He pitched forward into a belly flop. His body made that hollow pop sound when he hit the water; blinding pain to go with the humiliation. /15

@thinkplay The boy’s father jumped right after him. The boy lunged up out of the water yelling, “oh my god!” over and over, gasping for air and weeping. It was a train crash horrible moment. /16

@thinkplay Slowly everyone went back to their conversations. The father took his son aside and sat with him as he cried it out. I looked away, trying to give them some kind of privacy there on the muddy river bank. /17

@thinkplay What keeps coming back to me is how masculine shaming was operating all around us that day.
To begin with, the boy in the water, the boy who taunted the kid on the rock, was clearly taking pleasure in employing shame. It was a glory moment for him. /18

@thinkplay He looked around excited and proud as he taunted the other boy, looking for acknowledgement from the other boys. The implication was, “We're all thinking it, right?” It was as if he expected others to acknowledge his shaming as appropriate, even as an act of leadership. /19

@thinkplay For many boys, shaming and bullying are central tools for climbing higher in the pecking order of man box culture, accruing authority, and confirming their dominance. This boy learned it; now he was using it. How much shame of his own he was burdened with, I don’t know. /20

@thinkplay I was acutely aware of how familiar this all felt to me. And probably to other adults who were watching. When I was a boy, witnessing some kid being publicly shamed was so commonplace as to be a daily or even hourly occurrence. Shame was the language we all spoke. /21

@thinkplay The cruel machinery of a masculinity of domination. Back came the childhood nausea I had always felt, watching victims being force-fed their own self-loathing. It might be about their bodies, their clothes, their lack of a girlfriend. Always something they had no power over. /22

@thinkplay It was always something completely unfair or vacuously irrelevant, which just made it all the more humiliating. The trick was not to be the target of a public shaming. NEVER be the target. Even if that means shaming others. /23

@thinkplay Meanwhile, what about the boy on the rock? What about him? When I saw how quickly his struggle to jump collapsed into self loathing, I knew he had had long practice at being shamed. Maybe not by his father, but absolutely by his peers. /24

@thinkplay He stood suspended in agony between his fear of getting injured and his fear of failure. Failing at what? What made this moment so powerful a trap for him? He did not have the confidence, the self esteem, to simply say, “Nope, no thanks. This is not for me.” /25

@thinkplay I’m also left wondering, did he automatically assume our contempt as he scanned our upturned faces? Sadly, the answer is probably yes.
Once we have been trained to be ashamed of ourselves, we don’t need active confirmation from others. We supply it on their behalf. /26

@thinkplay When our internal narrative is about shame, we assume others are disappointed in us, even those we love. We fill in the blanks between us and others with the most damaging possible messages; even when those messages are not their intention at all. /27

@thinkplay It is this willingness, this need to fill the blanks with self-condemnation and shame, that collapses relationships and destroys marriages. /28

@thinkplay It leads to all manner of self-destructive behaviors and violence towards others. Shame fuels itself, becomes its own self-fulfilling prophecy. And no one, no matter how kind or supportive they are, can sustain support for someone who has succumbed to the voice of shame. /29

@thinkplay Our dominant culture of masculinity, man box culture is built on the bullying and shaming of our sons beginning at an early early age. We shame boys for emotional expression, for uncertainty, for wanting and needing connection. We construct a male culture of shame. /30

@thinkplay Male shame often gets performed as anger or violence. It leaves us with a hair trigger propensity for anger whenever our actions are questioned. It makes us shame others. But at a deeper level, it most certainly strips us of the connection created by authentic expression. /31

@thinkplay When adults or children succumb to shaming, we surrender our power to choose what is right for us. We buy into the idea that we are not good enough, smart enough, or successful enough. Millions of men both feel and hide this dirty secret. We feel shame all the damn time. /32

@thinkplay Our bullying man box masculinity is a bullying, isolating trap designed to keep us trying desperately to make enough money, get enough sex, display enough power to prove we are men. But in our isolation and anxiety it's never enough. And so, we fail, to our endless shame. /33

@thinkplay Shame strips us of our natural sense of self-preservation and replaces it with a willingness to do anything to get off the arbitrary and hateful hot seat as defined by whatever bully might seek to shame us. Even if that means bullying others, harming women or children. /34

@thinkplay And because we Americans are so prone to using shame to get our way with others, it has infused our public and private lives. It is so universal, that we simply can not grasp the vastness of it. It is the forest we can not see for the trees. /35

@thinkplay AND NOW FOR THE GOOD NEWS: The one beautifully simple way we can combat shame in our families and our relationships? --> Talk about it. /36

@thinkplay Dr. Saliha Bava, @thinkplay, a couples and family therapist with a practice in New York City, has a simple and powerful answer for dealing with the culture of shame: talk about it. /37

@thinkplay “Shame thrives on confusion and misunderstanding. When you illuminate shame by talking about it, its power diminishes. When we talk about shame, we can share how we intend to be heard, because so often, others can hear statements as shaming that are not intended that way." /38

@thinkplay "Shame is deeply personal. We can not know what others might view as shaming unless we talk with them about it. And this includes our friends, wives, husbands, parents and children. When we talk openly about the culture of shame, the activity of talking shifts the culture." /39

@thinkplay "As couples and families, we can create these conversational spaces in which we talk with curiosity about what shame is for us as individuals. We can create spaces for listening. Create spaces for difference. These are meant to be ongoing conversations, that weave in and out" /40

@thinkplay "As part of this, we can help ourselves and the children in our lives learn to spot shame when it appears. Once we see shame for what it is, we can identify it throughout our lives and guard against letting it have a hold on us.” /41

@thinkplay "So let’s start pushing back against the culture of shame by bringing it out of the shadows and into the light. Let’s make the choice to talk about shame, and lets start by talking with the people we love most." - Saliha Bava /42

@thinkplay This thread is a chapter from Remaking Manhood. Want more? Get your copy at Amazon, worldwide--> amazon.com/Remaking-Manho… /43

@thinkplay Please consider following the amazing @thinkplay! Her work on relational intelligence and play is transformational. She is my creative, thought and life partner. I have said it before and I'll say it again. Without @thinkplay, my body of work simply would not exist. /44