Toxic Masculinity: The Networks of Power and Gender Subversion
I still remember the first time I saw my dad crying. He was still sitting at the dining table, at lunchtime, when I walked in; glass of wine in his hand, TV on. I don’t know what prompted it; a passing thought, a scene in a movie, a diaper advert on TV. He grabbed my arm and looked me dead in the eye, and told me: “Promise me you won’t die again.” Before I could reply he told me that when I was born, my heart stopped. And even if not literally, his did as well. He told me they felt like the longest minutes in his life, and that he had never felt that scared and powerless before. He asked me, amongst his tears and my confusion, to promise to never scare him like that again, because he still hadn’t forgiven me.
At the time, I was too shocked to say anything. I remember pushing back my tears, afraid of making the situation worse, and I went straight to my room. I still can’t cry in front of other people.
I was nervous and uncomfortable, and not only because his wording implied a willingness on my part, but because I could tell he was crying out of anger. He wasn’t upset because he was feeling vulnerable, he was upset because he was showing it, like he showed it in the delivery room many years prior. And I was angry he prompted that conversation out of the blue, and that I had risked crying in front of him.
Despite not being socialised as a man, growing up, masculinity has had a central role in my upbringing. I didn’t have lots of men in my life, and having to learn “how to be one” was way different than I expected. The challenges weren’t learning how to change a tire or how to throw a punch. They were understanding the loneliness of those silences, the toxicity behind closed doors, and the compromises to fit in. Embracing the confusion about whether I will ever be part of that, whether I want to, and how to shape my masculinity. How to celebrate it, how to make it part of my life. How to love being a man without feeling like I’m not “man enough”.
Despite growing up “as a girl”, I’ve seen toxic masculinities. I’ve seen it through the eyes of my father, of my brother, of my friends. Reinforcing the idea that “men don’t cry” has led to years of confusion processing our emotions. Any time I’m in therapy with my partner, I see him struggling to open up. In various occasions, I’ve realised he doesn’t understand the difference between anger and frustration, between relentlessness and resilience.
It is not by accident I constantly refer to myself as “trans man” instead of “man”. And while this doesn’t deny my validity, it stems from the necessity to distance myself from the idea I could be perceived as a cisgender man. I have a complex relationship with masculinity. I love being a man. As I love my father. As I love and have loved many people that have hurt me.
But while from a legal and medical standpoint my transition - up to this point - has simply been a name change, there have been years of exploring the kind of man I wanted to be, and if that man can be considered a man after all.
Especially in queer spaces, what does define a man? It is certainly not the assigned gender at birth, nor the outdated social roles. And as a minority, victim of power imbalance, it feels odd to “turn into an oppressor”, especially since this is the rhetoric trans-exclusionary radical “feminists” love to push.
So does parting from toxic masculinity, from those behaviours I tried so hard to mimic to fit in - rooted in misogyny, sexism, violence, homophobia and transphobia - make me less of a man? Does it make me better?
The truth is, I don’t have an answer.
It definitely leads to those accusations, the idea I’m not man enough. I have seen my sibling being called “gay” for having slightly longer hair, I’ve seen sexual assault victims being mocked for saying “no” to sex, I have seen violence replace dialogue even in schools. But if this shows something, it is that toxic masculinity harms men in the first instance as well.
And what I have learned is that it is hard to rewire your brain against what society expects from you. I am proud of being trans, and despite the struggles and the dysphoria, I recognise the advantage of having an outside perspective.
Of course I’m only talking from personal experience, as our stories are individual and subjective, but I have often been asked about why gender is still relevant. Being as gender is a social construct, what defines it? Who defines it? And what can be done about it?
Gender identity and gender roles are often conflated, and I am not a gender abolitionist. The fact that gender is a social construct doesn’t make it less real. As a binary trans man, being referred to as a man is validating and an incredible source of gender euphoria. But a concept that I really like is “gender subversion”. While I am not a fan of the implication there’s an opposite of gender, “subverting” comes across with a strong political connotation.
For years, as a trans person, I have fought against the concept that my very existence is perceived as a political statement. My existence is up for debate. People are asked to vote on my existence. And passively witnessing my gender being treated as an abstract concept is probably what triggered that change. I wanted to embrace the political side of my identity, my gender and take control of that narrative. Understand on all levels what it meant to be a man. And to do so, since I had started from the “opposite” starting point, I shifted the focus from learning to unlearning. I went back to that starting point. In an approach similar to Gordon Matta-Clark, if you allow the cockiness of comparing the two processes, I started seeing deconstruction and subversion as a learning tool, rather than an attack.
And my conclusion led to a better understanding of why masculinity can be toxic. Because masculinity isn’t an identity. It’s a network.
Masculinity has been ingrained for so long into society and perceived as a dominant position (patriarchy) that its very definition seemed impossible to separate from its power structure. Even without relating it to the historical subordination of women, toxic masculinity appears defined by the relationship an individual has with its network. This is why spaces dominated by the presence of exclusively cis men seem to boost toxicity rather than disperse it. The network in which you interact forces certain structural roles. And this varies depending on the network; for example it translates in gatekeeping in the trans community, transphobia in the gay community. But it can also be positivity in support networks, empathy, growth, depending on your relationships. This is why my father felt somewhat comfortable opening up at home, where his power wasn’t questioned. This is why my partner managed to seek therapy, despite the communication difficulties. This is why I have cisgender heterosexual friends, who grew up in the same conservative town I come from, who are exempt from those toxic behaviours, and have steered away from them even more after entering inclusive spaces.
Being transgender, I am familiar with the concept of defining your identity comparing and contrasting it to others: “I am not a woman, despite”, “I am not a cis man, however”.
My journey in discovering my identity has been constellated by “this is not me” moments rather than “this is me”, and those negations were equally affirming. But there is something interesting in arguing the gender and class that has dominated history cannot be defined in its individuality. And this circles back to the harm of toxic masculinity. We have put so much pressure on reinforcing and enforcing those behaviours, that conformity was no longer the aim, but the starting point. We have put so many expectations on individuals, that we haven’t given them the space to affirm themselves outside of their close network.
As individuals, our identity will always be seen as political. Because we are embedded in the threads of society, but that’s why subversion doesn’t start as an institution. And sometimes even if it sparks as an individual choice, it can risk burning out.
Toxic masculinity needs to be fought in the inner circles, in the closed spaces behind closed doors. What needs dismantling are those networks that create a domino effect of oppression. We need to find the concealed overt toxicity and subvert it, replacing it with positive spaces that allow individuality. Because the truth is, as soon as we step back and we can distance ourselves from those behaviours, we are scared. My father was scared of the implications of crying but at the same time felt the pressure of not being able to do it. My partner wanted to communicate and articulate that pain but was frustrated by the lack of understanding he had of his own emotions.
As soon as we are able to look at those spaces from outside, we become scared of that hegemony and we are equally scared of losing the network that defined ourselves.
And that’s why subversion and change, not abolition, is the key. We are not removing a network because that will just leave people vulnerable and exposed. We need to replace it with a different one.
As men, we owe each other that. Because we are someone else’s network. Someone’s boss, someone’s role model, someone’s father. We are that joint, that step between allowing identity and enforcing conformity. We are someone else’s support and someone else’s obstacle, and by embracing that and stepping in the right direction, we can free that path from external pressure. And as we do that, the pressure on ourselves will become lighter as well.
Written by Ramses Oliva
In addition to working 9-5, Ramses can't seem to stop writing, even if it means scribbling on a notebook overnight. He loves talking about queer identities, diversity and art and when he's not writing - or sleeping - he collects antique books and succulents.
You can find him posting overpriced selfies on Instagram at @queer.discart, venting on twitter at @goldendrella or crocheting on the sofa.