A Better Man Read online

  Boys grow up hearing these kinds of admonitions all the time.

  “Be a man,” we’re told, which means, “Stop crying.”

  “Man up,” we’re told, which means, “Stop complaining.”

  “Act like a man,” we’re told, which means, “Stop expressing pain or fear.”

  When that guy told me to be a man, he wasn’t asking me to be a man at all. He was asking me to be a certain kind of man because, to so many of us, only one model of manhood exists. When you deviate from it, you may find your masculinity attacked, which is to say you may feel as though your deepest self is being attacked. To say, “Be a man,” is exactly the same as saying, “You are not a man.”

  In my case, that was true. I was a boy. Now I’m middle-aged, living in the woods with my wife and two kids. I’ve done lots of man things: grown up, slept around, worked hard, gotten married, raised children, buried my parents. I’m a man. No better or worse than any other. I know myself to be a man through biology, disposition, and experience. My sense of my own manhood snuck up on me without my even noticing. One day I didn’t feel like a man and then I did. I didn’t will myself into it any more than a tadpole wills itself into becoming a frog.

  Nobody knows what “being a man” means because the model we’ve used to understand our roles as men is breaking down. Why? For a host of reasons, some of which are related to why our understanding of what it means to be a woman broke down in the 1960s.

  Over the last half century or so, women have been working to redefine their roles in society. I can use the story of a friend of mine as a good example. She grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, in the ’50s and early ’60s. Her intellectual parents were supportive of her, but they never encouraged her to develop any of her interests into a career. She got married young, at age twenty, to her first boyfriend, Jeffrey, whom she met while she was still in high school. Her life as a young married woman was about following her husband as his career developed, first as a military pilot, then as he began working in the State Department.

  One day around 1970, she says, Jeffrey came home from his job in Washington, D.C., and saw her on the couch watching the show That Girl, about a single woman living on her own—at the time a very modern and risqué premise. Seeing her there, Jeffrey told her she needed to find something to do with her life or she was going to be bored out of her mind. At the time, she says, it had never even occurred to her to have a career. “Jeffrey was the first feminist I ever met,” she said.

  She went back to school and got a college degree. After a short stint working on nuclear budgets in Washington, she saw an advertisement in the classified section of the newspaper. A little gourmet food store was for sale on Long Island. With Jeffrey’s encouragement, she bought the store and kept its name, The Barefoot Contessa. Forty years later, Ina Garten is one of the most popular cookbook authors and television personalities in the world.

  Ina’s success is obviously unusual, but her story is a great illustration of the evolution of women’s roles in a culture that was used to seeing them only as “happy” wives and mothers. The change was made possible by a revolutionary movement that initiated a conversation about what it means to be a woman—an often contentious conversation that continues to this day. The fundamental message of feminism, though, seems to have won out: girls can do anything and be anyone they wish to be.

  (Some would add, “Except president of the United States,” though perhaps by the time this book is published, or shortly thereafter, that will no longer be true.)

  That expansive message was designed to help women achieve equality with men. We can see the results. Girls are outperforming boys in school, graduating at higher rates from college, earning more money than ever before, and, as a result, living more autonomous lives. Although we haven’t achieved anything near gender equality yet, the strides we’ve made in the last sixty years have been incredible.

  You have no idea how different it is now even from when I was growing up in the ’70s and ’80s. Back then sexism in the workplace was so common, men couldn’t even see it. The thought that a working woman should be taken as seriously as a man was, for a lot of guys, absurd. (If you want to see a hilarious take on this, watch Anchorman.)

  It was so different for boys. As a kid, I certainly never felt that my sex would inhibit any dreams I might have. I could do anything, be anything. At the same time, there were other sorts of limits placed on the way I could live my life as a man that weren’t true for the girls I knew. Emotional limits, primarily. Even today, I bump up against them when I talk about issues related to men and masculinity, as if the act of even discussing those topics diminishes my own manhood. Whenever I post something critical about men on Twitter, for example, I’ll almost always find myself getting trolled. Generally, I’ll get a response like, “What would you know about being a man?”

  I’m happy to take the bait. I tell them I obviously don’t know as much they do. Could they tell me what it means? They struggle to reply. Most of the time, they’ll tell me what being a man doesn’t mean. Being a man does not mean “being a little bitch” or “a pussy.” It doesn’t mean, as I have been told, “acting like a faggot.”

  One troll told me I am not a “real man.”

  I asked him to define “real man.”

  “Not you,” came the response.

  But why not me? What about my manhood is any less real than his? One of the best aspects of modern feminism is the recognition that there are many ways to be a woman, as many different ways as there are women. A single woman who works on Wall Street is no less of a woman than a married stay-at-home mom out in the burbs. They may face different challenges related to their sex, but it would be hard to say that one of them is a “real” woman and one is not. The same isn’t true for men; it wouldn’t be unusual to hear somebody say that a hard-charging stockbroker is a “real man” but a stay-at-home dad is not.

  Why? Why hasn’t the conversation around manhood kept pace with the conversation around womanhood? Why don’t we ever talk about the role of men in the culture except to point out our shortcomings? Perhaps because, to an overwhelming extent, men are the culture. It’s only when the culture begins to change that men are forced to confront their own dominant place within it. That’s what we see now. It’s why we need a commensurate, positive message for men that mirrors the one women have led for the last half century.

  As we start asking questions about ourselves, we begin to recognize that a lot of men’s problems stem from a lack of understanding about who we are supposed to be in this evolving culture. That’s why the Twitter troll couldn’t answer my question about what it means to be a “real man.” He doesn’t know. I don’t blame him. I don’t know, either—I only know my own experiences.

  Here’s what I can tell you about my experience of being a man. For one thing, it’s a lot less dramatic than I thought it would be when I was a kid. Fewer karate battles, for one thing.

  On the other hand, it’s a richer experience than I expected. Its rewards are subtle and are tied to a defined sense of purpose and community. I feel it when we sit down to dinner as a family. When I kiss you good night even though you are eighteen and it annoys you. When I take your sister out for driving lessons and somehow manage to restrain myself from grabbing the steering wheel every few seconds. Manhood, or at least my manhood, is quiet and simple and straightforward. I’m not sure I have the right word to describe this feeling. The closest I can think of is “settledness,” which I mean in the sense of being rooted in my place, the way a house settles into the earth.

  I still have anxiety about the future, career worries, money worries, regrets. These concerns require attention and care, the same way a house requires attention and care. But my foundational sense of myself, the part that includes my being a guy, feels more secure than it ever has. In other words, I’m happy.

  Happiness is a quality people rarely discuss when talking about what it means to be a man. Actually, the opposite seems true. Manhood
is usually thought of as a grim business. Men endure. They sacrifice. They have “grit.” All of which may be true to a certain extent, but equally true is that men also do silly dances, fold laundry, try out recipes. At least this man does. I feel like no less of a man when I’m happy playing piano (badly) than when I’m miserable shoveling snow off the walk.

  Boys are taught that the institutions of manhood (work and, perhaps, fatherhood) will make us men. Manliness is the goal. This message is obviously flawed because it suggests that being seen as a man, in and of itself, is the mark of a life well lived. We aren’t taught to question our roles, only to get on with the business of being men. There isn’t a lot of room for self-reflection or self-doubt. Any disquiet we may feel is a flaw within ourselves, a blemish on our manhood.

  Women experience deep conflict—sometimes internal, sometimes externally imposed—over their inability to “have it all.” Men are supposed to already have it all. Traditional manhood does not allow space for unhappiness because happiness, or a lack thereof, is mostly irrelevant to the business of being a man. Instead, the measure of our manhood is our utility.

  Do you remember that TV show you used to watch when you were little, Thomas & Friends, about a bunch of (mostly male) talking locomotives? The highest compliment they could receive was being a “really useful engine.” That’s the hinge on which traditional manhood swings. I’m not knocking it, by the way, since all people are at their best when they’re in service to others. I’m just saying, there are times when being a useful engine may not be enough because even the best-made things sometimes break down. Sometimes, despite your best efforts, despite your attempts to suck it up without complaint, despite your manly stoicism, you break. You fall. You may sometimes feel defeated. Traditional manhood doesn’t give us the toolkit to deal with those moments. What do we do then? What do we do when we find ourselves plopped on the floor, sobbing to go home?

  five

  No Sissy Stuff

  Be Yourself

  There’s an old sketch from Saturday Night Live called “¿Quién es Más Macho?” The setting is a fake Venezuelan game show hosted by a mustachioed Bill Murray, in which the contestants are presented with a choice of two famous actors. Their task is to guess which of the two is more macho. The entire sketch is performed in Spanish, the most macho of languages. Here’s some sample dialogue:

  Bill Murray: ¿Quién es más macho? Fernando Lamas o Ricardo Montalbán.

  (You’ll remember Ricardo Montalbán as the actor who played Khan in Star Trek. I have no idea who Fernando Lamas was, but I’m sure he was a total stud.)

  Jorge, a contestant, rings in.

  Jorge: ¿Ricardo Montalbán?

  A buzzer sounds.

  Bill Murray: No, es falso. Fernando Lamas es un poquito más macho.

  What makes the sketch funny is the idea that there’s a correct answer to such an obviously subjective (and silly) question. And yet, somehow, in the complicated language of masculinity, Fernando Lamas is a little more macho than Ricardo Montalbán.

  Women speak the language of masculinity, too, much more fluently than men speak the language of femininity, for the same reason that more Latvians speak Russian than Russians speak Latvian. The dominant power will always impose its culture on the subservient power. In the male/female relationship, men have always been the dominant power, so women have had to learn the ways of men to protect themselves. That’s why men always think women are so “mysterious.” Bullshit. Women are no more mysterious than Latvians: we just haven’t troubled ourselves to learn their language.

  As boys get older, we learn that everything we say or do as a male—literally every single thing—can be assigned a spot on an Infinite Axis of Manliness. These verbal and nonverbal cues, when taken together, assign you a rank. The rank is how your manliness measures up against that of every other man.

  I’ll pick a random example from my life to illustrate:

  As I write these words, I’ve got a steaming mug of hot tea beside me, the same tea you see me drinking every morning. I can easily break down the experience of drinking this tea into its components and rank all of them on the Infinite Axis of Manliness.

  ¿Quién es más macho? Coffee or tea?

  Coffee es más macho for reasons that go back to the founding of our country. According to food historian Tori Avey, although coffee was available in America before the Revolution, “the drink wasn’t really popular in America until the Boston Tea Party of 1773, when making the switch from tea to coffee became something of a patriotic duty.” Tea’s reputation never recovered. Since then, tea has been associated with a kind of effete European aristocracy. The thing is, I don’t like coffee. It’s too bitter and it gets me jittery. So I drink tea. My tea drinking is one data point along the Infinite Axis.

  Another strike against me: I like a splash of milk in my tea. Any nonalcoholic addition to a beverage automatically makes it less masculine. Black coffee es muy macho. Worse, the milk I choose is 2 percent fat, which is so much less masculine than whole milk because whole milk has a higher fat content, but at the same time it is somehow more masculine than half-and-half. Why? Because half-and-half used to be seen as a healthier alternative to full cream. Any dietary choice a man makes for “health reasons” is less masculine than a dietary choice that does not take health into consideration. A Real Man doesn’t care about his health because worrying about superficial shit like heart disease suggests that you’re afraid of dying. Nothing scares a Real Man, least of all death.

  Back to tea: Caffeinated is more masculine than decaffeinated. Tea without sugar is more masculine than tea with sugar because the taste profile “sweet” is less masculine than the taste profile “bitter.” Women drink sweet things. Men drink paint thinner.

  I could go on and on: Sipping tea is less masculine than gulping. The size of the mug I choose, the design on the mug, the way I hold that mug—by the handle or cupped from below? Pinky out or pinky in? Coaster or no? Do I wipe my mouth with a napkin or with my shirtsleeve?

  You could pluck anything from your life and do this same exercise. The way you sit, the way you sleep, the books you read (Civil War history, yes; Victorian literature, no). The foods you eat, the car you drive, the words you choose. I used to—and sometimes still do—get teased because I had a larger vocabulary than some of my peers. A C student is somehow more macho than an A student.

  George W. Bush won the presidency partially by embracing his own “regular guy” intellectual mediocrity. During a commencement speech at Yale, he said, “To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say well done. And to the C students, I say, you, too, can be president of the United States.”

  He said the line with good humor, and it was funny, but the truth is that his joke also served a larger, destructive narrative about “intellectuals,” that they are somehow less authentic than the C students of the world. Years later, Donald Trump would get cheers when he declared, “I love the poorly educated.” Being smart no es muy macho.

  Here’s another presidential example that still boggles my mind. You won’t remember this because you were too young, but when Barack Obama first became president, he and Vice President Joe Biden did a little PR thing where they went to a local burger joint for lunch. All very fine and manly. But then, the president did the unthinkable: he asked for Dijon mustard on his cheeseburger.

  Obama, you fool! Dijon mustard no es macho! Why? Because it’s a French mustard and all true American men know that the French are a race of handkerchief-waving dandies, their expertise with the guillotine notwithstanding. French culture—indeed all culture—has taken on a suspicious cast in recent decades, a fear that a world of beauty is a threat to the world of brawn. Dijon mustard, as an idea, hits a metaphorical sweet spot for a certain mindset that would view a sandwich condiment as a threat to American manhood.

  Fox News actually aired a sneering story about the U.S. President’s choice of mustard. They ran a chyron for that segment which scre
amed in all caps: PRESIDENT ASKS FOR DIJON MUSTARD ON HIS BURGER AT LOCAL DINER.

  The host of the show, a ceramic pig named Sean Hannity, began by sarcastically intoning, “As you all know, President Barack Obama is a real man of the people.” He then belittled the president for more than a minute over his choice of condiments, ending the segment by saying, “I hope you enjoyed that fancy burger, Mr. President.”

  To be “fancy” is to be cultured, educated, elitist . . . and feminine.

  Filtered through the cyclotron of stupidity known as Fox News, President Obama’s mustard became an indictment against his masculinity, furthering a narrative they were building about his lack of “toughness” and, therefore, his lack of fitness to serve as president.

  Insane.

  Yet every man understood exactly what Hannity was driving at because we’re all fluent in the language of masculinity. We learn it along with our ABC’s. According to a study conducted by City University in London, by age three, most kids know whether they are a boy or girl, and by four they have a “stable sense of gender identity,” meaning they know the stuff that “boys do” and the stuff that “girls do.”

  The nuances come later, of course, but now that you are grown, you are surely more than capable of distilling who among us is a Real Man and who is not. So I’ll ask you: ¿Quién es más macho? Firemen or factory workers? Teachers or tax preparers? The lacrosse player or the kid on the chess team? The committed husband or the committed bachelor? The guy who bottles up his emotions or the one who risks ridicule by expressing them?

  We can’t answer these questions in a satisfactory way, yet our whole notion of masculinity is predicated on trying to do exactly that. Which is why forty years ago, you got Bill Murray spoofing it on an episode of Saturday Night Live. And it’s why, unfortunately, the sketch is still funny today.