On Gus, Tim, and Toxic Masculinity

Do you want to know a person's makeup and character? Do you want to truly get a window into who a person is, deep down in their soul?

I think you should look at the people making fun of Tim Walz's son Gus and his relationship with his father.

People are mocking a neurodivergent person for loving their father and openly showing their love, unfiltered, in a moment of familial pride.

People are mocking Tim Walz for having a son whom he has showered with so much love, support, and affection that his son has no qualms about showing the world how decent of a person his father is.

If you somehow find Tim and Gus' relationship funny, meme-worthy, or a target of mockery, rest assured that it says so much about who you are as a person that you need not mutter another word.

I wish for you healing for the dark places in your soul that have never seen joy and love. I hope that one day, you get to feel what true, genuine, unfiltered, unconditional love, empathy, and compassion with another person feels like because you're obviously bereft of it.

On Whiteboards, Learning, and the Fragile Male Ego

Image description: two pictures of the whiteboard on my office door. The second picture shows the quote of the week from Huey P. Newton (“Youths are passed through schools that don’t teach. Then forced to search for jobs that don’t exist and finally left stranded to stare at the glamorous lives advertised around them.”) and the word of the week, weaponized incompetence (definition: strategically avoiding responsibility by pretending to be incapable or inept at a task so that someone else helps, takes over, or stops delegating tasks to you. This creates an entrenched level of imbalance in relationships. Weaponized incompetence is regularly seen in relationship dynamics driven by patriarchal, heteronormative societal "values" and "norms.").

I have a whiteboard on my office door at work. It has my on-site hours listed, as they vary from week to week. It’s also the home to my chosen quote and word of the week. I started doing this a couple of months ago, and it's been interesting watching my on-site colleagues’ reactions to what they see on my office door. This week's word of the week - weaponized incompetence - has been a real crowd-pleaser for everyone who isn't a cishet male. For the few cishet men in my office? Not the same level of enthusiasm.

Yesterday, I came into the office to find the whiteboard mostly wiped off.

What did I do?

I rewrote the entire whiteboard and put it back on my door.

I'm not that easily deterred. But, more importantly, everything can be a learning moment, even for the scallywag who used their fingers to wipe off my board.

Hopefully, they’ll learn that next time they decide to wipe away a message that brings them discomfort, they should use their sleeves as an eraser so their fingers aren't covered in low-odor, dry-erase ink. I mean, work smart, not messy? But I hope they eventually learn that just because someone doesn't want to see a message doesn't mean they don't need to. Maybe they'll learn to check in with their feelings the next time they get the urge to not sit with and unpack their fragility and make something "go away."

Also, last week’s word of the week was structural racism, but weaponized incompetence was the word that sent someone over the edge?

People never cease to amaze me.

[Image description: two pictures of the whiteboard on my office door. The second picture shows the quote of the week from Huey P. Newton (“Youths are passed through schools that don’t teach. Then forced to search for jobs that don’t exist and finally left stranded to stare at the glamorous lives advertised around them.”) and the word of the week, weaponized incompetence (definition: strategically avoiding responsibility by pretending to be incapable or inept at a task so that someone else helps, takes over, or stops delegating tasks to you. This creates an entrenched level of imbalance in relationships. Weaponized incompetence is regularly seen in relationship dynamics driven by patriarchal, heteronormative societal "values" and "norms.").]

This Week's Opening Thought: May 13, 2024

Trigger warning: Mentions of sexual assault, misconduct, homophobia, and misogyny.

This week's opening thought: I saw a lot of mind-numbingly fragile takes from cis men during the "Bear or Man" debate. And when I say a lot, I mean A LOT. But one of the dumbest "hot takes" I stumbled upon was from a cis man of pallor who wrote a whole dissertation around arguably the weakest "not all men" stance possible:

Not supervised men.

Yes, you read that right.

This dude wrote a whole diatribe stating that cis men aren't a danger to women and femmes when other men are around to check them on their behaviors.

Does anybody want to tell him, or should I?

The deluded belief that the majority of cis men stop other cis men from harming women and femmes made me want to take a nap. In a country founded through cis men of pallor-driven lynch mobs, where cis male-perpetrated hate crimes have reached all-time highs, and where those who have been sexually harassed and assaulted by cis men rarely get the consistent levels of justice they deserve for their assailants, to think that somehow a group of cis men standing nearby deters the dangerous and toxic nature of masculinity is so off-base it makes my brain hurt. One, the idea that we need to "supervise" grown-ass men to stop them from possibly harming someone speaks volumes about our societal culture. Two, I grew up in a woman-led household with a father who modeled how not to treat women and femmes. I've spent my whole life checking cis men on their behaviors. I've gotten into physical altercations over this sh--.

And other men were standing right there, either saying nothing or participating in trying to shame me for "not being a bro."

I worked in human resources for a college a few years back whose maintenance department was ripe with sexual harassment and intimidation. One team member, a woman, had to leave the college after team members sexually harassed her and made lewd passes at her all the time. One cis man came forward to state his discomfort with cis men in the department simulating acts of sexual assault toward other cis men in the department, himself included. When I addressed these issues with the department directors, they chuckled and said, "You know, boys will be boys," I swiftly said, "No. No, they aren't. I've never thought I should come to work and simulate sex acts or harm others. I don't know any 'boys' that do that." The room went quiet, with a few men holding their heads low or avoiding eye contact altogether. At that moment, I knew they had all witnessed these things for months and years and decided not to speak up or speak out.

A week later, they requested that I no longer be one of their primary HR contacts.

So, no, "not supervised men" ain't gonna fly.

Hell, I'm a cis man, and I'd rather deal with the bear.

[Image description: a comic panel of a bear embracing a woman. The woman shouts, "My hero!" as the world burns behind them.]

Image description: a comic panel of a bear embracing a woman. The woman shouts, "My hero!" as the world burns behind them.

On Cis Men, My Father, and Self-Regulation

As a cisgender man who has learned and continues to learn ways to self-regulate and practice mindfulness in a world that constantly attacks my intersectionality, let me say that I am EXHAUSTED with dealing with cisgender men who refuse to learn how to self-regulate and the apologists in their lives who coddle them and defend their toxicity. Where? At work, in the community, everywhere. I’m exhausted with this nonsense. And I’m exhausted because I’ve been dealing with this and fighting against how effortless it is to fall into this toxic and dangerous societally structured complacency my entire life in what feels like a losing battle.

I grew up with a father with no self-regulation skills who could not take in feedback or differing perspectives outside his own. He couldn’t take someone holding him accountable for his actions. He was not in touch with his feelings, emotions, or mental states, and we all suffered. My mother indulged him and defended his actions too many times, leaving my siblings and me to live in a home with a man who was constantly angry and lashing out at all of us at volume twenty over things as simple as taking out the trash. I left home at 16 because I was tired of dealing with his energy and constant threats of violence over every little thing. I’ve spent my entire adult life deprogramming myself so that I would not be a man like my father, only to find myself in a profession that gives me nothing but “opportunities” to protect and support people who have to work and live with men like my father.

And so many of y’all are like my father in how oblivious or uncaring you are about how harmful your unhealthiness is to those around you in all aspects of your life.

I’m tired of it, y’all. I'm tired of conversing with men who push back against the notion of being healthier and place the burden of their mental and emotional well-being on everyone else in their lives. I’m tired of cis men talking down to me or treating me like I’m “not man enough” because I lead with empathy and concern, even if I’m calling them in over their actions and impacts while they continue scaring everyone in their lives at least once a day. And I'm tired of how often these conversations and situations have white cis men at the center of the storm, placing themselves in the victim role while victimizing others.

We need legitimate accountability like yesterday for all cis men, melanin or none. And that accountability has to start with cis men holding themselves and other cis men accountable, followed by a dismantling of the codependence and ingrained toxicity of people who defend cis men's unwillingness to be more mentally and emotionally healthy as acceptable and “not a big deal” even when it puts them in danger.

Cis men: it is not OK to lash out at everyone and everything because you're having a "bad day" or had an interaction this morning that didn't stroke your ego or align with your narrow worldview of whose voice and opinions matter.

Cis men: it is not OK to escalate your voice and physical actions to threatening and possibly violent levels over any conversation or situation that doesn't go your way or leaves you feeling like you're being undervalued or your thoughts are disregarded. People have the right to disagree with you, not place you at the center of the universe, and expect you to be able to deal with not always getting your way or work to find some compromise. Do you know how many people and communities feel disregarded, undervalued, erased, and invisible and don't proceed to intimidate, scare, harm, or kill others? You need to get in touch with your emotional and mental centers just like everybody else.

Cis men: it is not OK for others to have to constantly share space with you, walking on eggshells because they feel that they have to be vigilant and tuned into trying to soothe and regulate you because you're unwilling to do this for yourself, and not burden others with your unwillingness to take care of your emotional and mental stability.

Cis men: you are not "victims of a changing world." If anything, you've been victimized by societal norms and familial systems from an archaic time that has bred you to believe that your behavior and unwillingness to regulate your anxiety, anger, and frustration in even the most mundane situations is somehow acceptably masculine and that being in touch with your mental and emotional health and well-being is considered the opposite. You've been victimized by the ingrained generational patriarchal belief that you don't have to change and that the evolving world should bend to your needs. But the victimhood in these matters ends there. It is up to you to learn and unlearn so that you can regulate, self-soothe, and not threaten others because cis men who don't have these skills threaten so many intersections and communities. At this point, the overwhelming number of cis men who have harmed or killed others because of the toxic societally accepted "norms" of masculinity is too astounding to ignore.

And if the cis man I'm describing is your husband, partner, father, son, or close friend? You owe it to them and yourself to stop defending their vitriol, hold them accountable, and unpack your codependence so you can be healthier too.

It doesn’t have to be this way today and cannot continue being this way in the future.

Little cis boys deserve better modeling and support around being mentally and emotionally healthier than their fathers, grandfathers, and uncles.

We all deserve this.