People change. However, before someone can alter their behavior for good, they need to want to do it. It sounds simple, but think about it for a second. It’s basically admitting to yourself that your worldview is flawed. That you are flawed. Which takes guts.
Of course, these comments don’t mean that society is cured of sexism We still have a long way to go in regards to respecting women. But these are steps in the right direction and we should celebrate them.
It took me recognizing that I was addicted to alcohol, tobacco, and sex. I had been aggressive toward women and objectifying them since I was a child. I think this happened because I was exposed to sex at such a young age. I thought all relationships were supposed to be how the movies and shows were, so I just emulated what I saw. Once I got sober, I realized how much of a monster I was and took the necessary steps to really implement change in my life. Lots of therapy. Lots of crying. Self-reflection as to why I was emulating that specific behavior, and quitting my addictions. It’s been a journey, but I’m happy to say that I’ve been in a loving, committed relationship with proper boundaries for a year now.
Turns out, being sexist also sucks for men themselves. That was the conclusion of a meta-analysis published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology that aggregated the results of nearly 80 separate studies on masculine norms and mental health over 11 years.
After looking into almost 20,000 men in total, the paper titled Meta-Analyses of the Relationship Between Conformity to Masculine Norms and Mental Health-Related Outcomes found that men who adhered to such norms not only harmed the women around them but they also exhibited significantly worse social functioning and psychological health.
I wasn’t being actively creepy, but: I used to think cat-calling was just flirtatious compliments, and who doesn’t like those, right? >.> I never cat-called anybody, largely because that’s not my personality type. But now I live by the motto: “Never say something to a stranger that you wouldn’t want a big guy saying to you in prison.”
“Sexism isn’t just a social injustice,” Y. Joel Wong, a psychologist at Indiana University Bloomington and the study’s lead author, said. “It may even be potentially problematic for [men’s] mental health.”
The term “masculine norms” can refer to a whole range of characteristics but the researchers focused on 11 separate aspects of American masculinity in particular. They found that three specific traits associated with toxic masculinity were particularly harmful to men’s psyches: being self-reliant, being dominant over women, and being a “playboy.” Interestingly, some norms, such as putting work and career first, did not seem to have any negative mental health effects.
One of the most eye-opening adages that helped me immensely was, ‘Men are afraid women will reject them; women are afraid men will kill them.’ That helped me to change my interactions in a way that was less likely to set off alarm bells in a woman’s mind.
Jared Yates Sexton, the author of The Man They Wanted Me to Be, told Bored Panda there’s a whole array of reasons why toxic masculinity is so deeply rooted in our everyday life. “The problematic elements of masculinity are intertwined with the economic, political, and personal elements of society,” Sexton said. “It’s passed down from one generation to another in socialization, or physical, mental, emotional abuse and intentional and unintentional feedback.”
“It’s as simple as telling a young boy he can’t be emotional and as complicated as the signals and messages from culture, popular culture, and how products are marketed to men and women. It’s knotted into society, unfortunately, and so it makes it incredibly hard to root out.”
Hearing women complain about something and thinking, Oh s**t, I’ve done that. It seriously has helped me improve on a lot of things.
In The Man They Wanted Me To Be, Sexton describes it as a chronic condition. “A lot of people ask ‘how did you get out?’ but there’s no getting out, really. If you’ve been raised in this, if you’ve experienced the socialization, abuse, etc, it’s something you have to keep an eye on.”
According to him, men, even men who understand the pitfalls of masculinity, who study it, write about it, work against its problematic aspects, can still fall into its traps when things get hard or if they’re not paying attention. “It’s a daily struggle, honestly,” Sexton said.
I realized they weren’t laughing because I was funny, they were laughing because they were scared
However, Jared thinks there’s hope to be had in that we’re talking about gender as a construct and the surrounding issues. “That’s different, even as people try and weaponize it for political and economic purposes. I’m seeing so much advancement in culture, with this generation and the next, that I’m hopeful, but the work is far from over.”
When you think about it, the root of this problem probably developed thousands of years ago, when early homo sapiens used strength to exert dominance or take charge. And it wasn’t even a problem then. But contemporary society has led to such a shift in attitude toward these male behaviors, a “real man” today is something we must define ourselves. The good thing is more and more of us are trying to.
When I broke up with my first serious girlfriend, I was totally heartbroken. I called her all the time and cried on the phone. I even threatened to kill myself and told her so. This went on for some time. Eventually I threatened again to kill myself and went to bed drunk. I woke up to a voicemail from her, crying her eyes out and begging me not to do it. I was so ashamed about my behavior. I realized in that message what I had become. It was absolutely her right, as it was mine, to end a relationship at any time for any reason, without being hounded and traumatized by the ex. I was evil and toxic