Two days ago, Tino published an article on our platform; an article that he had come across 10 years ago. I cringed when I read that article and felt all sorts of uncomfortable. It wasn’t the article that made me uncomfortable, because I knew from the audacious and hyperbolic tone that it was out to provoke and that the whole thing should have been taken 'au second degré. It was how our audience was going to react to it that made me cringe.
Also, I have had many brushes with my feminist friends, enough to know that it was only a matter of time before the words “toxic masculinity,” a word that I had long muted on Twitter, was going to make itself seen in the comment section. And it did… quite soon enough.
Toxic masculinity is a term that I am weary and wary of. I don’t like to see it, because in my personal experience and in the experience of many others I have spoken to, the tone and diktat of what is defined in and constitutes toxic masculinity has been set by… women. It’s always curious to see how some women (feminists, in particular), do not want men to define what they are as a being, but yet want to do that for men. In effect the substrate of what we can consider the feminist fight against toxic masculinity is to make men become more emotional beings; with the obvious end goal of fighting patriarchy, the Normandy Battle of every worthy afro-feminist.
Some men will say the feminist's fight is to turn men into women. It is a tightrope but with a little bit less tugging and flaccidness on your core opinion, you can see how they could have knotted themselves into that position.
Far from being a macho or alpha male or whatever moniker you prefer, we need to maybe sit back and ask ourselves; is masculinity really that bad a thing? Especially in this day and age when bare masculinity is easily and very readily equated to toxic masculinity? Hold that thought for a second. I’ll be back.
The one article that I have written and shared here on this platform more than 3 times is entitled “Do You Know How To Read?” A quote from that article reads thus:
‘Most of us learn to read in school, and when we do, it’s for one of two reasons: to memorize or to critique—both with the intent of choosing right or wrong…This works in school, and it teaches in its own way, but unfortunately, when reading in the real world, this kind of mind-set cheats us out of knowledge. That said, anytime you read something with the mind-set that you are there to extract what is right and what is wrong, you are by default limiting how much you can get out of a particular piece of writing…Reading isn’t about jumping at details. It’s about incorporating a perspective.'
So, we should ask ourselves if we read that article with our minds made up as to what our responses would be or if we did so with openness, giving some leeway to incorporate a different perspective.
That said, if many of our female readers yesterday had read the comments of the male readers, they would have seen that our male readers, for the most part, agreed with most of the article. Now, someone could say they only agree with it because that is toxic masculinity at play, but I would argue that that argument is very tenuous. Maybe its men just seeing how they have been misunderstood recently.
Now, release that thought I asked you to hold.
I remember once when I was 7 years old and my mother took me to the hospital. I was sick and I had to get an injection. I didn’t want to cry. I felt that I didn’t need to cry. And when the doctor injected me, I didn’t cry. Some very radical feminist will tell you that was toxic masculinity at play, but the truth is, I felt that I didn’t need to cry just because I felt so. I was with my mother and she is the most compassionate person I know and would have felt comfortable to cry but I didn’t feel that I could. It was just the most natural thing to me.
Could it be that I was just being (God forbid some feminists hear this) a boy?
Boys will be boys. And boys can learn to relate better with girls and while still being boys. We don’t have to, heaven forbid, wear a dress like Billy Porter to assert our masculinity. That’s just pure madness.
So when you hear some men pull that famous rope tight and say women want to turn men into sissies, you begin to see where they are coming from. It’s not that they can’t be emotional or more compassionate it is because they feel that that innate essence that makes their constitution as a man and as a human being is being watered down by other humans who do not feel and cannot understand the full spectrum of what makes a man a man, from a multi-perspective.
Listen, you won’t find more feminist than me, although recently I have rejected that cloak. My last article on KO-C’s song “ça à cuit” is basically in support of what some pillars of feminism hold up. I’m all for women’s rights, girl child education, reviewing gender roles to a certain extent and all the other little truffles that come in the feminist basket of goodies. I just don’t take that title anymore. I think the spectrum of feminism that goes from Gloria Steneim to Leymah Gbowee, to Aunty Ngozi, to Rose McGowan, Wangari Maathai and to Djemi Njiki is just too confusing in our society. It makes us uncomfortable about what the other side wants for the simple reason that we are yet to understand what the other side wants.
I think we haven’t really understood and defined quite well what works for us and in our context and until we are able to (and even have ALL women on-board) going the full extent to tell a little boy that he should cry when HE feels like he should not have to cry (because toxic masculinity) is not helping to make things better for the movement. We still have a lot to learn about and from each other.
So, should we really all be feminists? Maybe not. At least not fully until we figure a lot of s**t out first.
. - WandjI WIlfred