Masculinity is like pulled pork

 

This post is by Daniel Mack for the series Behind the Mask of Masculinity hosted by Gender Across Borders.

Masculinity is like pulled pork. There’s really no one right way to make it.  There are a few basic ingredients and lots of variations and opinions.  The pork shoulder of this is that men do not bear children. Oh, some men do seem more disposed to facts, stats, motors, machines, largeness, teams, competition, noise, sweat, achievement and quick decisions.  But not all men.  And even the noisy men know that masculinity can and must be constructed  and re-constructed as needed.  The masculinity of 18 is not best-suited to 35; the masculinity of 40 is ill-fitting on the 60-something male. There are at least three ways to help with this revising :

First, let’s try to look beyond the confines of  the Hero as the only model for the masculine. The story and journey of the Hero has dominated culture for several centuries. Besides the culture-building capacities, the  Hero is often driven, critical and righteous.  A lot of damage has been done with the emphasis and obsession with The Hero and his cousin The Warrior.  Many other masculines have been waiting  patiently, and impatiently, for a moment in the light.  These other masculine ways are non-heroic.  They involve brooding, caretaking, sadness, deceit, curiosity, change of mind and blessing.  Most importantly, they can involve the nurturing Father. He is not essentially the Hero. I am not dismissing the importance of the Hero, just wanting to add more to the conscious masculine toolkit.

The second way is to notice that men are often in already in the process of making and re-making.  Making things can bypass old stuck ways.  As we make and repair our things, we get re-made.  I’m talking about something quite old.  It’s  alchemy — that fusion of the technical, intuitive and spiritual, the head, heart and hand.  It’s a way men have confronted the inevitable need to change, to transform materials, and themselves.  It’s still happening today in the garage, the basement, the studio, the shop, the garden, the quiet room.  It’s where things are fixed, mistakes made and corrected, where tolerance and forgiveness appear.   A man can recognize and honor the making, fixing, ordering  and caretaking he is already involved in.  He can ask in what ways he is an alchemist, that “priest-scientist-magician”  all in one. Masculine and Feminine are shared qualities.  My first craft 40 years ago was braiding rugs from thrift shop suit coats.

The third way is to appreciate contact with the anima.  “Anima” is the female tendency in everybody.  Anima energy waits, watches, holds, studies, appreciates ambiguity.  It is slow to judge.  Sometimes we need logic and clarity and the explicit; other times, only the intuitive and the spirit will do.  Families are big stew pots of these energies.  I grew up with grandmothers, a great-grandmother, many great-aunts and then shared with my wife raising three daughters.  I got steeped, not whacked, in anima. The evolving masculine figures out how to blend evermore bits of anima into his emerging self.  It’s not easy but certainly not impossible. To be forceful and accepting; clear and ambivalent; persuasive but not explosive.  It’s hard to know when it’s time to thrust and when it’s time to hold back but with the help of the anima it can be done. The anima is the softener, allowing for continued contact with what might like seem like polar opposites,  Something happens in this chemistry, or perhaps alchemistry.

Behind the mask of masculinity there are many ways of being masculine. Men and women can look for daily opportunities to recognize and support these new forms, new storylines of masculinity.  We can all practice small ways of tolerating that situations may be both this and that; black  and white, The Irish have a perplexing phrase for the heroic ear: “Well, it is and it isn’t.”.  That’s the crooked path to the expanded masculine.

About the author

Daniel Mack now carves anima figures from bark he collects along the Hudson River. He is a teacher at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies and father of three capable daughters. He and his wife, Theresa, live in the Hudson Valley  He has been a documentary maker, journalist, university professor, furniture maker and architectural consultant. Time moves on.  For more information visit www.danielmack.com.