We Need to Stop Blaming the Patriarchal System for Toxic Masculinity — It’s More Complex Than That
It’s popular to blame the patriarchal system for everything these days, however, the roots of toxic masculinity come from a deeper place
In the pre-Industrial Revolution world, the patriarchal system made a hell of a lot of sense and benefited men and women alike, which is why it lasted so long in the form it did, only changing when the world changed, which led us to change with it — rightly so, it’s no good clinging to the past system when a better system for the new world is staring us in the face.
However, misunderstandings about the way the old world worked and its links to toxic masculinity are holding us back from progressing.
The patriarchal system does not need the idea of male superiority to keep functioning
In Ancient Egypt men and women were equally revered but in different ways, which is why they had so many male and female gods, and in Ancient Egypt, women earned just as much as men if they did a job, and often ran the businesses for their husbands when the men were away, divorce was also legal, and the terms per the laws were more favourable to women than men, yet ancient Egypt was a patriarchal society.
Many patriarchal societies have been similar, so there was no idea of absolute male superiority in them per se.
It should be noted many have had this idea i.e. of absolute male superiority, but even in the ones that did, it was often a lot more complex than the popular narrative makes it — not always, but more often than not. This is why it is foolhardy to link toxic masculinity and the idea of male superiority to the patriarchy.
For example, the system could work fine even with the idea that females were superior, it could work fine with the idea that men run society and provide for the “superior” woman — one wing of toxic masculinity sells the idea that this is the story of history, and men have been the forever oppressed.
It’s a load of rubbish of course, men and women have never oppressed each other, but the patriarchal system could operate perfectly fine under these conditions.
Fundamentally speaking, the patriarchal system is literally just the idea that men take most of the leadership roles and act as the main providers, whereas women focus primarily on childbearing and raising children along with looking after people and managing the inner workings of society.
That means we could have a democratic patriarchal system where everyone was allowed to vote. If there were more women than men, as there are today, women would then technically have more influence on the leadership than men — despite men’s apparent economic advantage.
What I’m saying is the patriarchal system even though it is outdated for the modern world, cannot be blamed for toxic masculinity, which could exist in a matriarchal world, it could exist in any world — the same as toxic femininity.
This is why if we are to start taking the fight to toxic masculinity, it’s not the patriarchy we need to be fighting against, that’s a different fight, to take down toxic masculinity, we have to look deeper into its roots.
Change comes only when you look at the roots of the problem
Let’s talk about the idea of manning up. In toxic masculinity, men, when they are in pain, should not be wimps and should just man up and get on with it, and it is men’s apparent ability to do this that is supposedly meant to mark them as superior. This belief is often linked to the patriarchy and argued as one of the many reasons we need to bring it down.
However, this form of thinking has nothing to do with the patriarchy per se, it is actually linked to the fact that in the past, if you got hurt, you had to keep going — this counted for both men and women.
For example, the idea of the overemotional woman is likely born from the fact that when women suffered emotional problems, which considering the number of pregnancies women used to go through, and how often women were widowed, they likely suffered a lot, they were told to suck it up. Not because people were cruel or sexist, but because there was no choice, you either sucked it up or died — this counted for men and women.
Here is why, in the past there was no medical help if you got hurt, at least none of worth to the everyday working person, even the rich didn’t have much help because the knowledge needed to provide it did not exist.
To go with this, there was also no sick pay, no foodbanks, no holidays, there were no mental health support systems, physical health support systems, there was only one thing, if you want to stay alive and keep your family living, you have to keep going, no matter what.
In many societies even today, something similar to this status quo remains, but nowhere is it anywhere near like it was in the past.
The old world was not for the faint-hearted
Ever heard the quote it is not how many times you get hit that defines you, it’s how often you get back up? This is deeply rooted in our past where everyone spent their lifetime getting punched in the face by Mike Tyson, and yet everyone had no choice but to just take it on the chin and keep going — to a level that none of us today could even hope to comprehend.
Men were the main earners because the majority of the work in the old world was hard labour, which women could not do, and women were the ones looking after the children, because they were best suited in the old world to keeping those children alive, even down to feeding them — boiled milk and baby food are modern things, in the past, there was only breastmilk.
Men and women alike in these roles got punched in the face a lot, men’s bodies being broken through hard labour and wars, women’s through repeated pregnancies, and men’s and women’s minds both being broken endlessly by helplessly watching so many of their children die one after the other.
But to survive, they had to take it all on the chin and keep going. Kudos to them for doing so, if they had not, none of us would be here.
Thankfully due to the healthcare revolution and the advancement of technology men’s bodies don’t get broken through hard labour as much anymore, women don’t die anywhere near as much through pregnancy, and we have miraculously nearly eradicated the child mortality rate — at least in the developed world.
However, whereas we have worked hard to liberate women from the old-world notion of grinning and bearing it — which made sense in that world — we have not done the same for men.
As such, despite there still being a long way to go, women no longer fear being hurt and suffering emotional problems to anywhere near the level they used to, but men, they near enough still do. That’s a problem.
Toxic masculinity is largely rooted in our failure to introduce men to the world of healthcare
Over my life, something that has surprised me — though perhaps it shouldn’t have — is just how much the idea of men needing to be men and manning up is not just ingrained amongst the male population, but also amongst the female.
For example, the number of times I have heard a female acquaintance or client or even friend say they would never date a man who cried is just sad — my closest friend actually still says this, that she just finds men who cry and talk about their feelings a turnoff, she says she wishes she didn’t, but she just can’t help it.
Not all women are like this of course, I like to think I’m not, but a lot are. So guys, I actually hear you on this point. This is not just a male problem there is a problem on the female side as well, meaning this is a societal problem rather than a gender-specific problem per se.
Any hint of male vulnerability is still persecuted at near the old-world level
You’re a man and you’re in pain, don’t be a pussy. It makes sense why we still hear this far too much, in the old world it was absolutely imperative that men did man up when hurt.
For example, after the birth of agriculture, the vast majority of our food came from farming, if men when they got hurt elected not to work the fields, then the crops would be finished and everyone would starve — and men got hurt a lot working the fields.
But it wasn’t just working the fields, it was every part of our burgeoning societies, from building our cities to maintaining them to everything. Ever since the dawn of agriculture society has become completely reliant upon men working non-stop to the point that if the men stopped, society would literally collapse. Because the majority of the jobs were backbreaking, the idea of men pushing through the pain barrier became completely normalised — it still is.
In different ways it was the same for women, they had to keep popping out child after child and then fight to keep those children alive — after going through three pregnancies myself, I cannot imagine the strain that would put on their minds and bodies.
Then there is war. If a soldier got hurt and stopped fighting, the enemy would win, as such men, no matter how hurt they get, have for thousands of years, probably longer, had it drilled into them by both men and women to keep fighting until there is no breath left in their body.
This likely explains why men who present an ability to act as a good protector even to this day are most often seen as the most attractive men — because for so long men like this were imperative for survival, in many ways they still are, especially in developing societies.
This reality, the need for men to do the hard labour and not stop no matter what to keep society going, and the need to fight to the death in war, has ingrained in all of us — men and women alike — a deep fear of men getting hurt to the point that we as a society, on a subliminal level, attack them in the hopes that by attacking them they will act like they are not hurt and keep going.
So, we educate men through group persecution when they show vulnerability to ignore pain, more than that, to fear it.
Men do this to themselves, they do this to each other, and women also get in on the act. We all do it as a society. We used to do the same to women but for different reasons and in different ways, and in many ways we still do, but we are making progress in changing this — slow progress, but progress is progress.
We are not doing the same for men. That is the reality that needs to be changed. Bringing down the patriarchy won’t change this, only proving to men and women alike that male vulnerability is no longer something to fear will.
That’s why it’s not the patriarchy we need to bring down to stop toxic masculinity, it’s our deeply ingrained fear of male vulnerability.
Final words
Toxic masculinity is not deep-rooted in the patriarchy, it is deep-rooted in the idea that if men don’t suck it up and keep working no matter what, their families will die and society will collapse — which until recently, wasn’t far from the mark. That means toxic masculinity preys on our fears, both male and female fears, of male vulnerability and its outdated links to societal collapse, and we are letting it.
This is why something that I try to teach my son as a pre-emptive measure against toxic masculinity, is that he can’t help his family or anyone unless he looks after himself. I tell him that this is why if he gets hurt, the best way for him to help his family is to get support so that he can become better and healthy again, because the more healthy he is, the more able he will be to help his family.
This is the message we need to start selling, that the greatest man is not the one who can take the most pain and keep going, the same with the greatest woman, the greatest men and women are the ones where whenever they fall, they do whatever they need to get healthy again — even if that means reaching out for support — because we now live in a world where this is possible.
We didn’t use to, we do now. Only once we start selling that message, can we start creating a better world for all of us, a world where we all can be truly vulnerable.
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