A Better Man

by Michael Ian Black

  Women have always worked, of course, but their access to most kinds of modern employment was limited. That began to change in the first half of the twentieth century, when two world wars cracked the factory doors open for women. With so many men fighting overseas, women were needed to run the nation’s industrial floors, disproving the widespread belief that they were not capable of doing the physically arduous work of men.

  These new opportunities, coupled with women winning the right to vote in 1920, began a new phase in the fight for women’s equality. That new phase fully emerged in the 1960s as a massive movement. This “second wave feminism” focused on a broad range of issues, including reproductive freedom, workplace rights, and pervasive sexism. It was during this time that my mom found herself open to the possibility of falling in love with the woman down the street.

  Mom and Elaine thought of themselves as fervent feminists, but I’m not sure how much work they actually did for the movement. In my household, I understood feminism as mostly being about getting Ms. magazine in the mail every month, listening to my mom and Elaine talk about what a genius Lily Tomlin was, and sitting in silence at dinner as they unloaded about what some asshole man did at work that day.

  Though obviously incomplete, women’s progress over the last sixty years has been extraordinary. Women are now in a far better position to control their own lives, including their sexual and reproductive choices. With greater access to all kinds of work, they are better able to provide for themselves and others. No longer tied to a man’s ability to earn money, they are better able to be independent, to enter relationships as equals, and to exit unhappy relationships without as much fear of financial or social ruin.

  The white men in this country who once dominated the paid labor force are now competing on a more level playing field with women, minorities, and workers from around the globe. Even the nature of work has undergone a transformation, moving from the physical to the cerebral. Education, creativity, and analytic thinking have replaced brawn as the chief qualifications for employment.

  The result is that now we’ve got a bunch of dudes—and in particular white dudes—trying to figure out who they are because the things that used to define us as distinct from women no longer do. Men’s sense of identity, community, and purpose has blurred.

  When you combine the rise of women, technological disruption, and the demographic inevitability that white people will soon become a majority minority in America, the question about why we are having this conversation about “toxic masculinity” now answers itself: This is the first time this conversation could happen. It is the first time that white male dominance has been under serious threat.

  What happens when men are no longer the only ones out there doing “man stuff”? How do men react? I think there are two possible answers, and we’re seeing both of them play out in real time.

  The first option is retreat. This is the Mar-a-Lago approach, in which white guys huddle behind castle walls yelling at Fox News. It’s a way for white men to insulate themselves against their own fading relevance, a way to preserve a time that was. It may also mean trying to hang on to the rigid masculinity of our fathers and grandfathers, a masculinity that seeks, above all else, control.

  The second option is to adapt. When I was a kid, there was this videogame I used to like where you were in a skateboard park and had to perform increasingly difficult tricks to gain points. If you failed to land your tricks or didn’t travel far enough, a swarm of hornets would attack you and a booming voice would call out, “Skate . . . or die!” That’s kind of where I feel like guys are right now. Skate or die.

  You’re entering adulthood at an incredible time for men. You have the opportunity to be part of a conversation about the new shape of manhood. If you want it to, your generation of men can become pioneers, reinventing masculinity the same way women continue to adapt femininity. We men have an advantage that they didn’t, though, which is that women have already shown us what’s possible. For the last hundred years, women have led the way. Now it’s time for us to confront a stifling view of traditional masculinity and figure out a new, more productive way to exist as men. There has to be a way to retool masculinity for an age that demands something more from men. There has to be a model that prizes empathy and cooperation as much as strength and independence.

  Empathy is so important because it’s the door we have to walk through to find compassion, understanding, altruism. Children of both sexes start displaying empathy around the age of two. It just bubbles out of them like snot. Why push against who we already are? We should work on empathy with our sons at least as much as we work on their batting stances. Empathy doesn’t make a man weak; it gives him a compass to follow when he needs to be strong.

  Yes, men are flawed. Because people are flawed. We’re also scared. Not just because of the external world, but because of our internal one. The great unacknowledged truth about men is that the traditional masculinity meant to project strength often masks terror. Men feel isolated, confused and conflicted about our natures. Many feel that the very qualities that used to define men—strength, aggression, and independence—are no longer wanted or needed; many others never felt strong or aggressive or independent to begin with. We don’t know how to be, and we’re terrified.

  But to even admit our terror is to be reduced, because we don’t have a model of masculinity that allows for fear or grief or tenderness or the day-to-day sadness that sometimes overtakes us all. Too many of us are trapped in the same suffocating, outdated model of masculinity, where manhood is measured in strength, where there is no way to be vulnerable without being emasculated, where manliness is about having power over others. We don’t even have the language to talk about how we feel about being trapped, because the language that exists to discuss the full range of human emotions is still viewed as “feminine,” and above all else, traditional masculinity rejects femininity. We’re trapped and we’re terrified and it’s killing us. That’s why we have to change.

  I think it’s important to acknowledge that straight dudes, and especially straight white dudes like you and me, have had it easier than every other group in America and continue to do so. We can point that out and still recognize that straight white dudes are suffering, too, and that our problems relate to the same problems other groups face. But they are also distinct in a lot of ways, resulting from our historic position of privilege in America.

  This privilege sometimes expresses itself in the most grotesque ways. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that school shooters are nearly always male, their ethnicity almost always white. Why? I think it’s because school shootings are the ultimate manifestation of white male privilege. These guys aren’t content to merely destroy themselves; they want to destroy the entire world. That thought process, and the level of self-importance required to see one of these massacres through, requires astonishing arrogance. Here in America, that arrogance is most commonly associated with one demographic: the straight white male.

  It would be easy to lay the entirety of our nation’s problems at the feet of its straight white men. That’s not my intention. Instead, I’m trying to tell you why I believe it’s way more complicated than that. Not because, historically, we haven’t caused most of these problems, but because we, too, are now suffering from many of these same problems, and we, too, need a way out. The relentless American marketing campaign of the Real Man has fucked a lot of us up.

  The problems with our men can’t be viewed in isolation from other massive problems we have as a nation. A lot of it boils down to this: despite all of its self-congratulatory, flag-waving exuberance, America is not a meritocracy. Yes, anybody can make it here, but it doesn’t mean they will. One of the most determinate factors in where you go in America is the zip code in which you were born. According to the Economic Policy Institute, among wealthy nations, the United States is close to the bottom in socioeconomic mobility. You’ve got a better shot at living out the American dream in Japan than you do
in America. We’re starting to see the American dream run right through our fingers. And not just the dream, but much of what we already have: home ownership levels are declining; even if it’s available, affordable health insurance is threatened; job security is practically nonexistent. So when you hear about American voters experiencing “economic anxiety,” there’s a good reason for that. They are. And if you think “economic anxiety” is also sometimes used by politicians as racist code to cast the blame for these large-scale economic changes on immigrants and those born into less fortunate circumstances than the vaunted (white) “middle class,” congratulations, you speak American.

  Men, all men, fear their entire way of being is threatened because it is being threatened. Men do not know whom to blame, so we often cast a suspicious eye on groups who seem to be making progress as we seem to falter. A good friend of mine, a guy you know, said he supports more women moving into his male-dominated profession but worries: “I’ve worked for women, and I’ve had women work for me and I’ve never had a problem with it,” he told me. But now he thinks maybe it’s going too far. “It might cost me a job,” he said.

  “You’re right,” I told him.

  Progress brings change. Change brings tumult. America is in the midst of a deep, fretful conversation about nearly every aspect of our national character. It’s a conversation America has had in fits and starts since its founding. We’ve fought about who we are from the moment we became a nation. Are we wild pioneers or pious parishioners? Cowboys or corporatists? The roles of women, African Americans, immigrants, gays and lesbians, rich and poor have all been analyzed. Now our attention is turning to America’s men. Men are bedrock, foundational. But even foundations crack, and now this one has, too.

  For those who have suffered under that system for centuries, it’s no doubt tempting to say, “Welcome to the club. Deal with it.” And I don’t blame anybody who says that, but if I am going to have empathy and compassion for those who have historically suffered, I also need to have empathy and compassion for those who are feeling that pain for the first time. That might mean you. If we can figure out a way to deal with these issues together, we’ll all be better off. Besides, you’re my kid and I love you—even if you are a straight white male.

  four

  A Useful Engine

  You’re a Real Man

  I remember the first time somebody told me I was being a boy wrong. I was very young, three or four years old. Mom and Dad were still together. We’d been invited to a neighbor’s house for dinner, a rare event, and we must have shown up late because the house was already crowded when we arrived.

  As we walked in, the family’s giant black Labrador retriever scrambled over to greet us in the traditional manner of Labrador retrievers, which involves a lot of physical contact and an excess of sloppy dog kisses. Being three or four years old, I was unfamiliar with this custom. So when the dog jumped up on me, its enormous paws clamping on my shoulders, its wet and monstrous face in mine, I naturally thought it was trying to kill me. I screamed, terrified: “Get it off!”

  The dog reacted in the same manner that our own Lab, Ole, reacts to my commands today—it ignored me. Worse, the adults expressed no urgency about my situation. Did they not see my face was being licked nearly down to the bone? I swatted at the beast, hysterical: “Get it off! Get it off!”

  Finally, somebody took the dog by the collar and shooed it from me. It trotted happily away, tail swishing the air like a fly swatter. Scared and embarrassed, I began sobbing.

  My mom bent down, assuring me the dog had meant no harm. “It’s okay,” she said. “He was just happy to see you.”

  She could say whatever she wanted. I knew a mauling when I felt one. “I want to go home,” I choked. “I want to go hooooooome!”

  My poor parents, with three children under the age of six, probably hadn’t had a night out in months. Maybe longer. Here, finally, was an opportunity for them to be among other adults, and their “sensitive” child was threatening to ruin the evening before it even began.

  I remember planting myself on the floor and shrieking to get my way. As a middle child sandwiched between an older brother and a sister with demanding medical needs, I felt no compunctions about throwing the occasional fit to be heard. My high-pitched screams must have been annoying to the adults, but I hope they blew out the eardrums of that fucking dog.

  We were now drawing attention. Faceless grown-ups gathered in a semicircle around our family as my mom tried to soothe me, my dad just behind her, that familiar sheepish smile on his face. Finally, I heard a male voice reach across the thrum of adult murmurings and say, not unkindly, “C’mon . . . be a man.”

  I’d never heard that phrase before, but I understood exactly what he meant: not only was I behaving like a baby, but I was acting like a girl baby, the worst kind of baby I could be. An immediate and awful shame washed over me, humiliation now mixing with my terror.

  I started crying harder. “I . . . want . . . to . . . go . . . home,” I sputtered.

  We didn’t stay long.

  The message—“be a man”—stuck with me. What exactly did he mean? What exactly was I supposed to do to be a man? First and foremost, I suppose he wanted me to shut up. I get it. When you were that age and threw your own fits over what appeared, to my adult eyes, to be innocuous events, I wanted the same from you. So much of parenting young children is simply trying to persuade them to stop screaming.

  So, does “being a man” mean “being quiet”? In a certain way, yeah. One of the first things we learn about being men is that we’re expected to suffer in silence. Actually, we’re not really supposed to suffer at all. Whatever pain we experience is meant to be handled with minimal fuss. All the better if we can just grit our teeth and bear it.

  Oddly, though, while men are meant to be stoic and quiet, boys are meant to be boisterous and loud. So while “being a man” indicates a certain amount of restraint, “boys will be boys” suggests wild abandon. When I was growing up, the boys who ran around yelling, wrestling, and beating each other with tree branches were looked upon with approval or, at worst, bemused tolerance. Loud boys were thought to exhibit good manly behaviors like aggression and competitiveness. Quiet boys were viewed with some suspicion. They were seen as passive and submissive, qualities that were thought to be feminine (and therefore bad).

  It’s weird—nobody ever tells a girl to “be a woman.” They might tell her to “be a lady,” but never a woman. Being a lady implies behaving with a decorum not demanded of girls. Every girl experiences a moment when she is first shamed into behaving in a more “ladylike” fashion. A lady is some elegant, traditionally feminine ideal. Ladies don’t lick the bottoms of their ice cream bowls, for example, even when there is no other way to slurp up the last dregs.

  Being a woman, though, has an almost entirely different meaning. Ladies attend balls and sup with the queen. They sit demurely on the divan sipping sherry while men gather in the drawing room to talk business. Women, though, are active. Women do women’s work, scrubbing floors and cooking meals. Ladies offer their gentlemen callers a peck on the cheek after a night at the theater. Ladies are chaste; women have sex. I hate to be so blunt about it, but it’s the truth. We associate womanhood with sexual maturity instead of emotional maturity in a way that we don’t with men and manhood. That’s why the hallmark of a girl’s early passage into womanhood is when she gets her first period. “You’re a woman now,” goes the popular (and cheesy) saying.

  One of the strange things about parenting both a boy and a girl is realizing how early sexism starts. I used to tell a joke in my act about how when people met my infant son for the first time they’d tell me how handsome he was, etc. etc., but when they met my infant daughter for the first time, inevitably somebody would say, “She’s going to be trouble.” Which I always thought was weird because the trouble they were implying she was going to get into was sexual. They meant it as a compliment, I guess, but when they said, “She’s going
to be trouble,” all I heard was, “She’s going to suck a lot of dicks.”

  Girls are sexualized in a way that boys are not. Once girls hit puberty, the culture begins treating their bodies as objects of fascination and desire. Those cultural cues don’t just come from men, by the way. Open up any women’s fashion magazine and look at the ads: Gucci, Dior, Versace, whatever. The clothes in those ads are all exorbitantly expensive: $1,700 blue jeans, $2,500 handbags—clothing practically no young woman can afford. But who’s modeling it? Teenagers. The adult women who read these magazines are looking at aspirational photos of girls. The other ads in fashion magazines are for youth serums. It’s perverse: girls are rushed into young adulthood and then asked to remain there, suspended in adolescent amber, for decades.

  It’s different with men. A boy’s manhood is never assumed simply because of his biology. Yes, he will grow. Yes, he will enter puberty and emerge on the other side as a physical man, which is to say he will be bigger and stronger than a child and capable of reproduction. But his manhood—the qualities that distinguish him from a boy—will remain in doubt until he has somehow proven himself to be a man.

  That’s why the phrase “be a man” makes sense in a way that “be a woman” does not. A boy is thought to earn his manhood, whereas a girl’s womanhood is primarily controlled by the passage of time. She will become a woman whether she wants to or not, but a boy may remain, in a sense, a boy well into adulthood. Adam Sandler built an entire career on that idea.

  Even when achieved, manhood always feels conditional. Everything a man does or says is parsed to determine his continued worth as a man, all of it measured against a standard of manliness arbitrated by everybody and nobody. That measuring starts early, as early as a stranger telling a toddler terrorized by a dog to “be a man.”