Masculinity and Femininity as proscribed by popular thought and advertising has become a problem mainly because so much violence and abuse is treated as natural.
But I think ideology including gender has been designed to serve the system of class and nationality.
I am not saying that violence is a construct of our natures but that is has been massaged to serve those at the top of a hierarchy.
Telling young boys that boys don't cry, is not just telling them that feelings are sissy, it takes away the ability to feel and to learn from feelings.
In war terrible things are done to men and women in the cause of 'winning'. Centuries of this have achieved such a vacuous sense of greatness, masculinity, isolation and trauma — that people who have built societies are stuck back to the Roman Empire.
Misogyny ultimately enables men to do destructive things to their society, because to think and feel is ridiculed as sissy (feminine). It enables the abuse of daughters and sons. It alienates men from their sense of worth as part of family a caring with complex natures.
So I wrote this poem. It is a troublesome poem but the point is to repeat an idea from Spinoza (“The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.”), as well as women who are thought leaders today— that masculinity is responding to the moment with presence and awareness.
To make America great again is not to force every other nation to kneel in fear or submit to it.
Britain was not made great by 'conquest', killing the natives of land that it wanted for its exploitation. Civilisation is not made by punishment and threat.
The aristocracy is not made great by keeping the majority in poverty.
Power that demands submission is not an everlasting power. Life that is diminished by military rule is not sacred.
Sacred Masculine
Even though gender is a construct beyond
the reproductive organs — I need to respect
the hero, the sacred masculine
as it has been witnessed here.
The man who builds a wooden box
for tomato stakes come summer
who takes an afternoon nap
before he prepares supper
who knows when I am sick before I do
who keeps the TV volume down
when I take a nap.
Who held, fed and changed our first born
while I went to the theatre,
who survived highway-to-office battles
endless sales calls, belly skirmishes,
insight to quit the manager’s chair
before slipping into an alcoholic night.
Who never wanted to be a stranger
to his children.
The sacred masculine holds the ability
to fix gate or vacuum cleaner, find best hotel,
weed garden, cook supper, coach soccer kids,
listen to friends’ wars (won and lost)
buy birthday cards, potatoes or eggs
allow the ‘other’ a seat on the subway
without spreading. The sacred masculine
adapts to the world as it informs
the warrior of weapons required.
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