Thread by @RemakingManhood

Gun violence by police and mass shootings are both rooted in our dominance-based culture of masculinity which, beginning at birth, strips boys and men of expression/connection leaving dominance as the only way to validate our masculinity. /1 medium.com/remaking-manho…

Our dominant culture of masculinity, also called man box culture (a term based on the pioneering work of Paul Kivel and @TonyPorterACTM ), enforces a performance of masculinity that has zero upper limits on the assertion of male dominance. /2

@TonyPorterACTM Man box culture is a bullying, hierarchical power structure. It trains boys and men to accept bullying from those above them and to dish abuse out to those below (or lose status increasing the number above us.) Victimize others or be victimized are our options. /3

@TonyPorterACTM How much bullying is enough? “Whatever you can get away with." And because man box culture rewards/glorifies bullying and dominance as the primary expression of masculine power and success, men in the man box are invited to daily test the limits of what society will tolerate. /4

Accordingly, we see dominance-based interactions play out in every aspect of our lives, from within our most personal interactions to the dynamics of our national politics. /5

Millions of men care about creating compassionate personal and professional relationships. They choose not to test the limits of men’s collective permission to be dominant. The fact that this choice is an opt-out, tells us all we need to know about what’s going so very wrong. /6

In making dominance-driven masculinity our default, we have normalized the cultural force which underpins predatory capitalism, environmental destruction for profit, catastrophic economic inequality, unending wars, and all the other abuses of power that plague the human race. /7

Man box culture has given us a world based on creating power over others instead of creating power with others. It is a formula for our collective demise. /8

If we fail to acknowledge that reliance on dominance is what we actively teach our sons (either by our action or our inaction), the violence perpetrated by aggressive and bullying men will continue to be framed by the poisonous and false assertion that “boys will be boys.” /9

Dominant and aggressive is not what boys are, it is what boys are forced to become. Beginning in early childhood, we actively strip away the powerful relational capacities for connection we are all collectively born with. /10

Read Judy Chu's When Boys Become Boys and Niobe Way's Deep Secrets. Their research clearly documents the process by which our sons are collectively shamed out of wanting or needing close meaningful friendships and relationships. /11

Our little sons' joy in expression and connection are denigrated as “girly or gay.” They are traumatized out of seeking connection/close friendships. They are stripping of their human capacities for connection, condemned to lifetimes of chronic social isolation and rage. /12

We do this to them. /13

Our masculine culture of domination is an iron-clad closed loop, an aggression trap, which leaves our sons, husbands and brothers doubling down on the very dominant behavior that isolates them. /14

The result for men is divorce, violence, addiction, stress-related illnesses and early mortality. The result for women is sexual assault, second class legal status, ongoing economic violence and a daily battle to assert their basic human right to autonomy. /15

Our culture, in failing to effectively challenge dominance as a central tenant of masculinity abandons us to individually set and enforce boundaries with every aggressive man we encounter. Which is exhausting. /16

With some percentage of men, we must reassert these boundaries daily because such men will never stop seeking weak points where they can push past our boundaries, boundaries which represent a direct challenge to their model of man box dominance. /17

A sexist or racist joke here. A small physical transgression there. It is a carefully modulated series of aggressions by which the rest of us are invited to take small steps backward and allow dominance obsessed bullies a bit further into our emotional and physical spaces. /18

Dominance-based masculinity always fails the men who rely on it. Sooner or later a crisis arises, born out of their drumbeat reliance on aggression and control. Marriages fail. Work evaporates. They fall ill. Which is when the most broken men in man box culture pick up a gun. /19

We live with a dominance-based culture of masculinity which teaches bullying as the central capacity for male survival/success. Then we turn away from the relentless playground and workplace bullying unwilling to challenge the deeply conditioned dominance it signals. /20

“You boys work it out.” This has been our collective response to the ugly pecking order violence of man box culture for generations. We abandon our little sons to it, assume it will all work out.
Well, I have news for you. The boys will not work it out.
They. Are. Children. /21

Instead, the alpha bullies are rising out of the vacuum of our inaction and failings, both as parents and as a larger culture. /22

When we, by our inaction, accept the stripping away of our sons’ joyful relational capacities for connection, and turn a blind eye to the drumbeat assertion of a masculine culture of bullying and dominance in their lives, we fail them in every possible way. /23

I do not condemn masculinity. Far from it. There are beautiful and transcendent expressions of masculinity playing out all around us. /24

But if we as men cannot step up, call out our bullying and violent man box culture, and create something better, then we are failing in our responsibilities to our families, our communities and to the millions of our brothers and sisters who are suffering, and dying. /25

For men who are tried of feeling isolated and alone, for men who are ready to create healthy authentic connection in our lives, organizations like @mankindproject, @_evryman, @HUMENorg and many more stand ready to do this work with you. /26

@mankindproject @_evryman @HUMENorg Wondering what healthy masculinity can look like? I hope you'll check out the new project I'm creating with @matheus_charles as we meet and talk with men who are crafting an authentic, connected, and powerfully compassionate version of manhood. /27 Here-> anchor.fm/remaking-manho…

If you are a man or woman who is committed to calling out sexism and bullying in the workplace, I invite you to join @SpeakUpAtWork's phenomenal global online community. Animah Kosai is building an amazing community for support and empowerment. the-speak-up-collective.mn.co/feed /28