These spoken words explain my feelings on masculinity and its toxic concepts. |
Dear toxic masculinity,
I am writing this letter to tell you how I feel
You rattle my bones and tear the skin from my body
But not for all the reasons you may think
Not only because I am queer
Because I will not bend to your ways
Acting as if every person is like a binary computer code
Made of the same numbers
1000111100110101
Putting our friends, family
Sons and lovers into closed up boxes
With no breathing space or room for escape
Teaching boys - don’t cry
Don’t complain
Toughen up
Fight with your words and your fists
That it is okay to bare your naked body
But if a woman does the same, well she is a fool
A harlot and a whore
You swoop people up with your facade
Of being the perfect man
But what does being the perfect man mean
When it is dusted in violence
In loneliness
In the sordid inability to connect with anything
Unless it means putting your genitals into it
See, I just think it’s funny how
You can act like you are all encompassing
That your lands are open spaces for all men
To walk through hand in hand
When in actuality
What you mean to say is
Your lands are for the white man
The straight man
The cis man
The white, cis, straight man
Someone once asked me
“How would you define masculinity?”
I said
“Where do I start?”
Do I begin by saying that
A man never has to fear for his life when walking down the street at night
If he can blend in with the walls
That encompass him like a 4x4 panic room
The only thing keeping him alive a flame
That stays lit from the ashes of all the fellow men he has put down
Banging on their faces like a mantra
Spelling out ‘YOU WILL NEVER BE A MAN LIKE I AM A MAN”
Do I begin by saying that
A man’s actions will never be equated to what’s in his pants
He will never be called a bitch
A whore for not returning a kiss
Needy or clingy or “too sensitive”
That he will never feel the burning of eyes on his back
A hand up his skirt
A breath on the nape of his neck that makes you want to burn yourself alive
Do I say that
He will wake up every morning
To find that men exactly like him
White, cis and straight
Are in his newspaper while he is drinking his coffee
Taking up so much time and space with their words
Commenting on things they know nothing about
That he will turn on the TV
Play a video game
Open up any history book
Seeing only a mirror image of himself
Why is it that
You act like a weight on my chest
Even though I am not a man
Is it because I bare your repercussions?
Because you teach a man
That it is his responsibility to tell me how to feel
So when I walk down the street
I have to resist the urge to slit the throat of the person who said
“Smile, baby! You’re too pretty to look so down!”
Why is it that
When I scream and shout
I am a shrew
A “bitch who needs to get fucked hard”
But you are just a person
Taking charge
Men say that women love masculinity
They love a manly man, one who can take care of the family
Pay the bills
Put in the bare minimum effort for his kids
Not beat his wife
Forever for his consumption
A man who knows how to take charge
But what I would love
From all men
Is to be left the hell alone
References:
Kivel, P. (2009). The Act Like A Man Box.
Deutsch, B. (2009). The Male Privilege Checklist.