Frankly Put: A Question For My Masculinity
Picture this, you are in primary school. In a senior class, in a private, all-boys school, heck, the graduating class. One of the teachers is giving a talk to the class and in the middle of it, terms you and your classmates as “boys”. Chairs shift. Looks are exchanged in discomfort and the teacher notices before he corrects himself. “Young men,” he says and the bubbling tension dissipates. Approval nods and grunts of testosterone are given in response.
Why though? What is it to this term that we were chasing? What was the spite to being referred to otherwise? Weren’t we actually just boys? Did we create this image of being anointed a “man” where we say that word and suddenly chests were puffed up, suddenly standing taller, flexing muscles that weren’t quite there just yet? Perhaps.
I remember it. That feeling at that young age, as if being called a “boy” was a jab at my very being. I remember in high school, having teachers who were ladies, watching them calculate where to call us “men” or “young men” or “boys” and that uncertainty created this need to prove… but what exactly was being proved kusema ukweli? Fights about how long we could keep hair. Fights about shaving the beginnings of a beard or in some cases, peach fuzz.
Where enforcing of the “school rules” was often salted with a “ We don’t need to have students looking like old men” (read, at the time, as “we prefer you look like boys”) joke. I now look at the very students, who fought so vehemently about keeping long hair and beards, shave them down themselves. The students would have sagging ties and pants, button-up and wear suits, a belt and well-tied ties.
Thinking this image we painted of being “men” maybe wasn’t what we met kwa ground. Maybe it didn’t mean being loud. Maybe didn’t mean being rowdy. Maybe didn’t mean long hair and beards. Maybe didn’t mean beating chests at authorities trying to tell us how to do things. What was it behind that title? What did it mean? What does it mean? What does it mean to be a “man”?
There is this response to the question that has slowly come to miss the mark, in my opinion. Admittedly, I have found those very words slip out of my mouth too at least before I began to sit and think about what it is I was saying. “It is up to you to make your own definition of what a man is.” Is it something I was saying to justify my shortcomings and make myself comfortable in my mediocrity?
However, when I began saying it my thought process was that we all sat before an easel and painted this silhouette in our own style. A little while back I looked to my sides and realized maybe that wasn’t the case for those who sat beside me. Yes, we sat in that class together but our canvases all held broken compositions of images from our minds and like broken telephone it got more and more lost with each canvas next to it. Not realizing that we are the ones who mould the image ourselves. Where did we lose it?
Admittedly, this is geared primarily to my male audience, young and old though I think a few thoughts can be picked from here. Repeatedly, I have heard it said that a woman can not raise a “man” in the argument of the need for father figures in the growth of boys. How, though, would boys be raised into men if that very thing they are to be looking to is some distorted blotch of paint if to continue the analogy? These “father-figures” we adopt might be that distorted silhouette that fuels our broken telephone reception. Maybe.
I would question it the same, that we get defensive but can’t our ladies tell what a “man” is? In that question, I am reminded of a conversation with my youngest sister that stirred a pot. What does it mean to say “like a lady” or “like a man”? To some extents, we approach the statements with jabs, admittedly with great reason. Why should a man tell a woman to “act like a lady”? What does he know about being a lady? Why should a woman tell a man to “be a man”? Who told her what it means to be one?
The connotation in many cases can be negative but hear me out, perhaps we are not completely stepping out of line when we say these things (In the right context, to the right people, with the right intention). Even an untrained eye can see when you have messed up your painting and question it. Yes, a woman doesn’t have the blueprint for what makes a man but intrinsically she may be aware of what that silhouette looks like. I mean she has probably seen that silhouette somewhere in a successful gallery of men in her life. The same goes vice versa but I have to ask, “Do I even know what it means to be a man? Do I know what it means psychologically, physically, spiritually? Do I understand the value systems, the character, the principles?”
Having the male genitalia does not give you a direct acceptance pass to be a “man”. Being of a certain age does not acclaim that title either. Being muscular or tall doesn’t automatically equal “man”. Being loud and boisterous does not by virtue put your name in the same sentence as “man”. Being a womanizer. Being an extravagant spender. Being dapper in the latest fashions. Having certain stereotypical features. All this you can have but you still miss the mark of what a “man” substantially is.
See that title we chase has a value beyond the measures of this watered-down understanding we paint. When the question is asked, “where did the real men go?” I have found myself subconsciously omitting “real” because the weight of what I see as a “man” is in and of itself “real”. It is almost like saying “the honest truth”. Perhaps, that is a point we as men need to culture. Trying to understand what it means to be a man and the respect that comes with it and it really starts with us in our circles. At that point, I think I am well within my right to hold those around me accountable and they, me. ‘Iron sharpens iron.’
The ladies can call out where they know a man is lacking but she shouldn’t have to on fundamentals. This isn’t to say she is not in a position to, having that co-pilot on the journey is awesome, heck, encouraged because it can get tough. Far be it from me to say, when you have the best type of ladies for you in your life, they will call you out when you drift a little from the road. When you sleep at the wheel and you swerve but your driving school is the “men” around you. Where are the “men” in your life? Do they surround you? Do they keep you in check or do they just tolerate? Do we all check ourselves? Do I check myself?
I say all this to ask, “Where is that value I once chased and does it still exist? Can I still find it?” to put it Frankly.
