Transcriber: Róża Salti Reviewer: David DeRuwe
I meet with Death a few times per week,
and Death asks me: “Why so many men?”
And it’s a good question.
It’s a question that has many potential explanations,
but a question that needs desperately answering.
You see, to me, we’re experiencing a crisis of masculinity.
There is a cultural expectation of what men should be,
coupled with this personal realization that this expectation comes with a cost -
this cost being individuality and authenticity,
often exchanged for acceptance.
But what good is acceptance when you don’t accept yourself?
What good is acceptance
when you know you are living a life that is shutting away truth?
Now, I’m observing within my work that most men share a common trauma.
It’s the moment they realized for the first time
that they couldn’t express authentically, without consequence, without judgment,
and like most festering trauma, it tends to hit them when they are young.
And in this moment,
a young man’s masculinity is perceived as a game with rules,
with these rules often going against what this young man truly feels,
what he truly wants to say, what he truly wants to do.
In this moment begins a lifelong journey of shutting down truth
in exchange for acceptance.
Now, as a culture,
we don’t do enough where masculinity is concerned.
You see, we gesture towards openness and acceptance.
We say things like:
“It’s OK not to be OK,” “Men cry too,” “Express yourself,”
while simultaneously upholding a structure of beliefs and behaviors
that creates and perpetuates a world
where difference, originality, and authenticity
are laughed at, not loved;
memed, not marveled;
denied and not discovered.
And this is because there is still this toxic template of masculinity that exists
that gestures towards this gold standard of male
that undermines the various other versions of masculinity
that are equally valid, beautiful, and meaningful.
You see, masculinity is not seen as this kaleidoscope of difference,
blending and meshing together to produce this gorgeously varied but unified whole.
Because deep within our structural discourse lives a fungus.
This fungus slowly infiltrates the minds of our young men,
and, gradually over time, molds them into what they believe they must be
but know deep down they are not.
This fungus that I speak of is called “patriarchal masculinity,”
and it is one of the biggest killers humanity has ever known.
And the men within my work - their pain, their mistakes, their anguish,
their conceptualizations of masculinity can be traced to moments in their life
where they’ve come into contact with patriarchal masculinity,
but did not know what it was nor where it came from,
but it’s things like man-ups:
“Men don’t cry,” “Men don’t wear makeup,” “Men don’t paint their nails,”
and it’s acts of minimization like these that over time compound
and give death its meaning in relation to masculinity.
Some men perceive death as the viable way to deal with their pain
because at least in the silence of forever,
the shame is absent.
This fear of being judged, or outcast, removed.
And we don’t view authentic, truthful masculinity as masculine,
because this patriarchal fungus that I speak of,
it eats away at these conceptualizations of masculinity.
Now, perhaps an uncomfortable truth,
but in order for masculinity to survive or thrive even,
we have to give our men permission to live,
to be who they feel they are
and to support them in their expression and articulation of their truth.
Because men who paint the nails, who wear makeup,
who unapologetically, intentionally blur the lines between gender and sexuality,
archetypes that have choked us all for years,
as part of their masculine presentation.
They are men -
men who chase muscularity and feel safest within this idea of size and stature
as part of their masculine presentation.
They are men -
men who feel, who cry, who may experience anxiety, who may experience depression,
but honor these experiences and these emotions
as part of their masculine presentation.
They are men.
Regardless of its presentation, masculinity has no mold.
So why are we trying to shape our men?
Now, the only remedy for this patriarchal masculinity that I speak of
is unconditional love, acceptance, and critical compassion.
We must give our men space
to contact, explore, experiment, and project their magnificence.
We must teach them about the structural discourse,
this patriarchal masculinity that tells them who they should be,
more than it sees them for who they actually are.
To save masculinity,
we have to feel safe within our authentic magnificence as men.
But to feel safe within that magnificence as men,
we all have to do one thing, and one thing alone:
We have to give our men permission to live.
Thank you.
(Applause) (Cheers)