Real Manhood
by Jim Burklo | 8 August 2024 |
There’s a lot of talk about gender and sexuality in the news these days, as people escalate the culture war to whip up enthusiasm of the voter base for the election. A lot of it is kind of bizarre. Can we really be having a conversation anywhere in this country about whether or not women should be able to vote? Can anyone even be thinking that women with cats but not kids have no stake in the future of this country, and should be disenfranchised? Can it be possible that anyone would question no-fault divorce, which liberated women from abusive marriages?
One senator, Josh Hawley (famously seen running away in panic from the January 6 rioters, whom he helped motivate to attack the United States capitol) wrote a book about his stereotypical vision of manhood. Another senator, Katie Britt, spoke from a spotless kitchen, making a pretense of the right-wing image of a stay-at-home trad wife that she, as a senator, cannot possibly mirror.
I’d like to say all this noise is just the last groans of dinosaurs sinking into the tar-pits of history—but it’s intentional and highly orchestrated noise. Some culture warriors complain about “gender ideology,” but they are the ones with a toxic ideology about men being real men and women being real women, and freaking out about trans people in bathrooms—a non-issue if I’ve ever heard one.
Gender panic
But gender panic isn’t news in America. We’ve been through this before. Theodore Roosevelt, a rich preppy guy from New York, was on a mission to get American men to be more manly—as he envisioned manliness. A short guy with bad eyesight, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he fought in the Spanish-American War and rode forth into the Dakota Territory to shoot buffalo. He advocated for football programs at schools and colleges to toughen men up. (Of course, now we know that far from toughening men up, football can destroy them.)
Teddy Roosevelt was by his own admission a bad shot with a rifle. He once said, “I do not shoot well, but I shoot often!” With equally questionable efficacy, he shot off at the mouth about manhood quite often, too. As do American culture warriors today. It was in Teddy Roosevelt’s era that images of Jesus started to change in America, from a dreamy-eyed, soft-haired Savior to a muscled Christ with a sculpted jaw. Americans have see-sawed between these two versions of Jesus for a long time. Fundamentalist Christian patriarchal ideology is manifested in iconography of a buff Jesus. I remember an image of a ripped Jesus breaking his cross to pieces—contrasting intensely with the idea of Jesus as the lamb of God, Jesus meek and mild, submitting to blood sacrifice to save us from our sins.
We can’t seem to make up our minds about whether Jesus is the mighty king of the universe or the nurturing, sensitive servant of all. But what if Jesus was just an ordinary guy? What if we all just lightened up and took a deep breath and let people be who they are?
So instead of grooming our kids to be somebody or something that makes no sense for them, just encourage them to be decent, kind versions of themselves?
There is a real problem in America with young men who have lost their way, lacking meaningful personal relationships, lost in video games and porn, isolated and socially inept. They’re ripe for manipulation by demagogues who play to their felt sense of personal insignificance. We need to go out of our way, personally and collectively, to draw these young men into healthy engagement.
Some years back, I wrote this piece about manhood that today might serve as a counterpoint to a toxic conservative gender ideology:
A real man
- Real men ask questions. When they are lost, they admit it, and seek direction—whether it’s about geography or about how to handle a challenge in a relationship. Real men spend more time asking questions of others than they spend talking about themselves. Real men show real and sustained interest in who their partners are, what they want, and how they feel and think. Real men aren’t afraid they’ll look dumb if they ask a lot of questions.
- Real men make commitments and follow through on them. They aren’t afraid of making a promise if they are sincere about delivering on it. If they say they’re going to do something, they do it. If for some reason they aren’t able to follow through on a commitment, they tell the truth about it in a timely fashion.
- Real men are righteous—and outrageous. Real men put fun into hard work, and they turn their play into service to others. Real men are uproarious in goodness, outlandish in kindness. They know how to have a wild good time while making the world around them a better place.
- Real men are loved as sexual partners because they love their partners. They take the time to ask their loved one what they want, and they try to make their loved one happy.
- Real men hang out with real men. They make extra effort to spend time with men they admire. They mentor each other. They share what they’ve learned with each other. They show up for each other in good and in tough times. They seek each other’s advice and counsel. They resist their inner urge to be “self-reliant” when they most need the support of their brothers. They go the distance to befriend younger men who could benefit from their experience and networks of relationships.
- Real men are servant leaders. They show humility. They aren’t afraid to let the world know about their skills and abilities, but they also recognize that they are fallible. They are rightly proud when they climb tall summits, but they are humble about the fact that they didn’t create those magnificent mountains. Real men lead by helping others do their jobs. They support the people who report to them. Others follow them because they show the way to serve. Real men aren’t full of themselves: they empty themselves into those who follow them.
- Real men are mindful. They know themselves. They pay attention to their thoughts and feelings. They acknowledge and creatively channel their emotions. They show their joy, their sadness, their grief, without being destructive. They don’t bottle up their feelings and then explode. They are proactive with their emotions. If they are getting angry, they take a break. They take a walk, do pull-ups, breathe deeply. They let the sharpness of the emotion subside, and only then deal calmly with whatever it was that got them angry. Real men practice mindfulness in disciplined ways such as meditation, journaling, and prayer practices.
- Real men are strong. Sure, they might be able to bench-press hundreds of pounds, but they’re even stronger than that: they have resilience. If they get beaten down, they gather their wits and their strength and stand up as straight as they can. Real men don’t whine. They express their frustrations, but they don’t hide behind them. They tell it like it is in the moment, but don’t act like that’s the last word. They keep going. If they run out of road, they make a new one.
I would like to think that these words apply to everyone, regardless of sexual preference or gender identity. We’re all in this together, in the quest to express our sexuality and gender in ways that are kind, caring, and life-affirming.
Jim Burklo is an ordained pastor in the United Church of Christ, Executive Director of Progressive Christians Uniting, and a long-time friend of AT editor Loren Seibold.
