Masculinity Mondays: 8

 

Today has been a difficult day. A day processing the implications of some new health impacts, including the possibility I am experiencing the early-stage symptoms of Parkinson's.

There's a lot of emotion around that, around what it means now, and what it might mean for the future. About how the hell I'm going to manage more disabling issues and try and hold down work that pays enough to keep two of us going.

And emotion is something that men aren't allowed to engage with. Oh, we can be angry - but even then, even with the emotion we're accused of "always" defaulting to by women, we're not supposed to stay angry. It's supposed to be a momentary loss of temper, a momentary glitch in the flawless processing of control. A crack in the facade that we rush to paper over.   

That's why there's so much contempt from comfortably-off men for men whose situations are so dire, anger sparked by frustration is all they have left, the only thing that keeps them going - because anger isn't supposed to be a constant.

Being a man is about control - not control of others, but control of yourself, control of circumstances, control of events. Disabled men have poorer outcomes than disabled women because society despises men for not having control - even while some loud voices from the female side claim what they want is for men to never be in control. They're liars - because women have nothing but resentment for men who "lose control", who become unemployed, disabled, homeless.

Society provides far more of a safety net for women than it does for men. And, beyond society's safety net, women can always offer sex to men in exchange for a roof over their heads. Can always offer to have a man's children so that she has a bargaining chip, a claim to, if not protection, then at least the basics of prevention from harm.

Men don't get that unless we're rich.

And I'm not rich.  I'm a million miles away from even "on the approach to" rich.

Other men have women who can step up when they fall down; I have to carry both of us. That would just about be possible if I could balance on society's safety net - but I don't have access to that safety net. Hopefully, it will remain possible for several years yet. Hopefully by the time it stops being possible, things will have advanced to the point where I'm dead, or so near to it as to make no difference.

Strength, endurance, power - these are the qualities associated with men - and disability takes those away. In the current climate, men aren't given space to talk about feeling a loss of masculinity - women will claim that's no more than they deserve, other men will mock them.  The hardest thing to take is that the women who claim to deride "toxic masculinity" are often very happy to leap into bed with the worst examples of it.

I've looked into things I can do to at least manage these new twists and turns - I'm good at that, at research, fact-checking, planning.

But I'm still not feeling good.

And I don't know how to feel about that.