I grew up in the late 20th century Norway, a Scandinavian country that had then made huge strides in promoting social welfare policies aimed at increasing gender equality. My parents divorced when I was five, and my mother raised both me and my little brother while at the same time taking a higher education degree in economics and working part time jobs in order to support us.
The notion that a woman should not be forced or hindered against her will, and how she should be empowered to make decisions free from constraints, could easily be inferred from looking beyond the surface of social interactions and wider cultural influences. There was simply not any doubt about what options a woman should have and the freedoms she deserves. For boys like myself and my little brother however, such a sense of inspiration and encouragement in the many ways we could lead our lives was not as easily felt.
Since my childhood, and primarily in the last decade, there have been a lot of changes in the public discourse relating to how we conceptualise sexual and gendered identities. While discussing gender during the last century has been considered important for social progress and equality, nowadays, it could be a can of worms that can potentially lead someone to want to cancel you. While some individuals experience what we refer to as gender dysphoria, which happens when there is a mismatch between their preferred gendered identity and their assigned sex at birth, others still can find it difficult to identify in accordance with the traditional dichotomous gender distinction.
Although the hardship and strain experienced by both women, trans- and non-gendered minorities is both real and important to take seriously, we should also not forget to discuss the challenges and strain that men overall can go through. Putting the scope on one group does not imply a relative importance.
As a privileged white CIS male writing this article, I notice myself walking on eggshells. I am afraid to express my thoughts for fear of being labelled insensitive, bigoted, or even worse, misogynist. I notice myself constantly self-censoring and second-guessing my own thoughts and words. I catch myself thinking that my lived experience as a man is unimportant and that I should instead consider the hardship of some marginalised groups. I feel like there’s little room for an open and honest exploration without fear of being met with hostility from either myself, social justice warriors, or any one feeling oppressed.
Although I can’t recollect personally having been confronted with hostility by any one in particular, I can easily recollect having observed other men who have been confronted by minorities who feel triggered and marginalised in what turn into increasingly polarised arguments. Although I might not have experienced such confrontations, I still feel oppressed for simply just being a man and writing about what that means. Whether this oppression is real or imagined is beside the point, and I believe that many if not most boys growing up today can feel a similar reluctance in communicating their own needs and aspirations.
The modern and academic “men’s studies” started as late as the 1980s, then as a response to the predominant sex role theory of the time, in which the male sex role would often be construed as a uniform, naturally given, and normative configuration of traits that most men did not conform to (Reeser, 2020). For a long time, and still to this day, everyday understanding of what it means to be a man could still assume the existence of some irrevocable and intrinsic aspects of masculinity, often emphasising specific traits such as aggression, emotional stoicism, and dominance.
In his pioneering book The Myth of Masculinity (1981) by psychologist Joseph Pleck, he not only criticise such an un-nuanced notion of a unified male construct, but he also goes on to suggest that everyone has an innate need to identify along socially constructed dimensions of masculinity and/or femininity as it is important for psychological adjustment and wellbeing. While the relationship between gender and behaviour was initially considered as unidirectional, where a gender identity affects behaviour, it increasingly became clear that aggregated behaviour in a society will shape our gendered concepts. Furthermore, Pleck suggested that while masculinity is usually considered in terms of what it is or ought to be, men will experience psychological strain and dissonance when their perceptions of themselves deviate from the cultural conceptions of masculinity. Therefore, we should instead focus on what masculinity could be, as a concept allowing for complexity and multiple variations.
As this new academic branch on masculinity continued forming, scholars conceptualised increasingly dynamic and complex concepts of masculinity. The sociologist Michael Kimmel (1992) stated that the historically and culturally situated concept of masculinity would be intertwined with that of femininity as it would reactively have to adapt to changing definitions of femininity.
A concept that has been highly influential borne out of the field of men’s studies is that of hegemonic masculinity. It refers to the dynamic in which men can inhabit positions of power and wealth, and how men’s power and position in society is legitimised and reinforced through oppression of women and deviating ways of being a man. Hegemonic masculinity also highlights relations of power between subgroups as important, and Connell (1995) highlights that one should also consider the many diverse forms of masculinity and the dynamic relations between them shifting over time: “relations of alliance, dominance and subordination”. With the lens of hegemonic masculinity, the concept of masculinity is understood as multiple and complex, but where only one group of masculinity occupies the hegemonic position, a position that is always contestable.
Being a man carries considerable health risks. Aside from physiological risks, men are disproportionately affected by suicide, accounting for over two-thirds of cases in 2023 (Chan & Lim, 2024). The disproportionately high suicide rates for men is true for both Singapore and globally. This may be partly attributable to men’s reluctance to seek help for mental health issues (Sagar-Ouriaghli et al., 2019). Traditional masculine norms are considered one of the main reasons for why men do not seek help for mental health issues like depression (Seidler et al., 2016).
What does it mean to be a man? Often, the traditional masculine norms of strength and independence can be quite debilitating. However, the strongest men I meet are those that are courageous in the sense of exploring uncomfortable and painful aspects of their lives.
Courage does not mean facing obstacles without any fear; it is doing the uncomfortable thing even in the face of uncertainty and when it feels scary. To be clear, enduring pain in the sense of suppression and “sucking it up”, is not what I think makes men strong. Choosing to talk to others and be vulnerable in sharing one’s challenges, however, can be both unfamiliar and scary for many boys and men. We men can fear being met with invalidating responses, along the lines of “It’s not that bad”, “Just let it go”, or “Others have it worse”. Often, these invalidating responses start within ourselves, and many men will be self-invalidating about their own emotional reactions and relational needs.
Many of the men that I see, if not all of them, will to a certain extent struggle with a negative self judgement in the initial process of seeking help through therapy. Self-devaluating labelling related to weakness reverberates in different forms throughout my sessions with different men. However, most men that do seek help, either through therapy or by sharing one’s struggles with loved ones, usually transcends this discomfort – becoming more self-compassionate, understanding and accepting their needs and boundaries, and able to identify and communicate their relational concerns and expectations with others.
To meet with a professional psychologist or counsellor, call The Other Clinic at 8809 0659 or email us hello@theotherclinic.sg.
References:
- Chan, R., & Lim, R. (2024, July 12). 322 suicides reported in Singapore in 2023; lowest in more than 20 years. CNA. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/suicide-deaths-lowest-samaritans-sos-help-mental-health-4473201
- Connell, R. (1995). Masculinities. University of California Press.
- Michael Kimmel. (1992). The Contemporary ‘Crisis’ of Masculinity in Historical Perspective. In H. Brod (Ed.), The Making of masculinities: The new men’s studies. New York ; London : Routledge. http://archive.org/details/makingofmasculin0000unse
- Pleck, J. H. (1981). The Myth of Masculinity. MIT Press.
- Reeser, T. W. (2020). Concepts of masculinity and masculinity studies. In Configuring masculinity in theory and literary practice (pp. 11–38). Brill.
- Sagar-Ouriaghli, I., Godfrey, E., Bridge, L., Meade, L., & Brown, J. S. L. (2019). Improving Mental Health Service Utilization Among Men: A Systematic Review and Synthesis of Behavior Change Techniques Within Interventions Targeting Help-Seeking. American Journal of Men’s Health, 13(3), 1557988319857009. https://doi.org/10.1177/1557988319857009
- Seidler, Z. E., Dawes, A. J., Rice, S. M., Oliffe, J. L., & Dhillon, H. M. (2016). The role of masculinity in men’s help-seeking for depression: A systematic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 49, 106–118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2016.09.002
- Teoh, S.-H., Ang, S.-B., Tan, B. Y., Lim, P. H., & Tan, C. Y. (2009). An overview of the status of men’s health in Singapore. Journal of Men’s Health, 6(4), 307–316. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jomh.2009.07.008