The regular "Masculinity Monday" posts on this blog ended when I intended them to; the Monday after I turned 40.
This blog's core purpose had been to document a process; the run up to, and the landing glide of, turning 40. Mid-life. Maybe less. Maybe more. In my family, life expectancy runs anything between 62 and 102. I could have 22 years left. I could have 62 years left.
The space between those two possibilities is overwhelming. It's frightening. It's exhausting.
But I can't talk about the feelings the space creates, because I'm a masculine man, and masculine maleness means holding the space. The space that is yours, the space that you share. The space that feminine people who hold connection to you are finding too heavy.
The space of the expectations the world places on feminine women.
The space of the fears of the women who are feminine in themselves, but are not seen as feminine by enough of society.
The space of the outrage of feminine men.
The space of a feminine, or feminised, person's collapse.
The "soft boi" weaponising choices he made about his body - including the choice to weaponise the pronouns "they" and "their" whilst claiming the space of "him", "he", "his" - which have consequences that were always known.
The woman who has had her autonomy, her choice to refuse the choices thrust at her, turned into a weapon used against her.
The "more marginalised" (read: more feminised) person who is both suffering and wielding the weapons of circumstance, of choice, of lack of choice, of refusal to choose.
The people who have never actually felt a real weapon used against them, but invent weapons of imagined assault and oppression in their minds, and picture you as the one wielding those weapons, because they are feminine, and you are not. Because they are women, and you are not.
For women and feminised people, putting down anything they're holding is their right, a need that must be honoured. They don't have to give a heads-up; they can just drop whatever they're holding into the arms of the nearest masculine, or masculinised, person.
The masculine person is often a man.
The masculinised person can be a woman who has been identified as "just better at all that stuff, babe" - she can even be a woman who is more feminine than her partner, but has been masculinised by her acceptance of complexity and engagement with adulting, because to be feminised is to be allowed to be treated gently by life.
Masculine and masculinised people are told that the space has no weight.
Most of the time it doesn't.
But some of the time its weight is crippling.
Masculine and masculinised people are told that they are obliged to bear the weight of the space, because other men caused so much harm. They are told this by people who scoff at the concept of Original Sin when it's written in a Bible, but believe it like religion when they can turn it into a weapon against masculine and masculinised people.
A feminine or feminised person has all this stuff happen to her. To them. To him. They, she, he, just can't control anything that happens! It all just rains down, and she's drowning, they're drowning, he's drowning!
A masculine or masculinised person, so say the feminine and feminised people, have the privilege to avoid life's weather. If rent is due, and he's short, she's short, they're short? Privilege means they, he, she can just write a blog post, set up a subscription model, and immediately get 100 subscribers at £20 a month. If a major repair comes up, he, she, they have a vast circle of friends with trade skills who have no other commitments, no fatigue, and, apparently, no bills, because they can just do the work immediately and free of charge. He, she, they just get any job they apply for, because privilege!
The masculine or masculinised person must do the labour of holding all the space, all the "impossible" expectations of "the capitalist machine", because he, they, she, will never do actual, child-bearing labour. She, they, he has, in fact, rejected the possibility of that labour, which means they "owe" feminine and feminised people all other forms of labour. That is the tax owed on not renting space in one's body for someone else's ambition.
When you are the masculine or masculinised person, the space - and the rest - can only be put down in the silence of bare-bones solitude. With the door to a cold single-room space shut on bare boards and no furniture. In the absence of community, because community is labour, and masculinity surrendered the right to labour when it refused to go through the labour of bringing new life into the world, or when its anatomy is the refusal. But claiming that space, that solitude, that restart, as a masculine or masculinised person is emotional blackmail. It's manipulative. It's a demand for emotional labour from feminine and feminised people. It's entitlement. It's patriarchal oppression. It's an insult. It's not allowed without punishment.
And sometimes, the weight of the punishment is equal to the weight of all you're holding - but the punishment is public, and comes with shame, and the holding is private, and comes only with exhaustion.
An inability or refusal to engage in child-bearing labour is not an absence of labour.
The harm done by other men is not always being done by this man, that man, those masculine and masculinised people.
Feminine and feminised peoples' experience of the world - claimed and provable, felt and evidenced - is not the action of those men. That masculine person. This masculinised person.
It is not a refusal to engage in equitable labour to say "I need to put this down. I can't actually hold anything else."
This blog's core purpose had been to document a process; the run up to, and the landing glide of, turning 40. Mid-life. Maybe less. Maybe more. In my family, life expectancy runs anything between 62 and 102. I could have 22 years left. I could have 62 years left.
The space between those two possibilities is overwhelming. It's frightening. It's exhausting.
But I can't talk about the feelings the space creates, because I'm a masculine man, and masculine maleness means holding the space. The space that is yours, the space that you share. The space that feminine people who hold connection to you are finding too heavy.
The space of the expectations the world places on feminine women.
The space of the fears of the women who are feminine in themselves, but are not seen as feminine by enough of society.
The space of the outrage of feminine men.
The space of a feminine, or feminised, person's collapse.
The "soft boi" weaponising choices he made about his body - including the choice to weaponise the pronouns "they" and "their" whilst claiming the space of "him", "he", "his" - which have consequences that were always known.
The woman who has had her autonomy, her choice to refuse the choices thrust at her, turned into a weapon used against her.
The "more marginalised" (read: more feminised) person who is both suffering and wielding the weapons of circumstance, of choice, of lack of choice, of refusal to choose.
The people who have never actually felt a real weapon used against them, but invent weapons of imagined assault and oppression in their minds, and picture you as the one wielding those weapons, because they are feminine, and you are not. Because they are women, and you are not.
For women and feminised people, putting down anything they're holding is their right, a need that must be honoured. They don't have to give a heads-up; they can just drop whatever they're holding into the arms of the nearest masculine, or masculinised, person.
The masculine person is often a man.
The masculinised person can be a woman who has been identified as "just better at all that stuff, babe" - she can even be a woman who is more feminine than her partner, but has been masculinised by her acceptance of complexity and engagement with adulting, because to be feminised is to be allowed to be treated gently by life.
Masculine and masculinised people are told that the space has no weight.
Most of the time it doesn't.
But some of the time its weight is crippling.
Masculine and masculinised people are told that they are obliged to bear the weight of the space, because other men caused so much harm. They are told this by people who scoff at the concept of Original Sin when it's written in a Bible, but believe it like religion when they can turn it into a weapon against masculine and masculinised people.
A feminine or feminised person has all this stuff happen to her. To them. To him. They, she, he, just can't control anything that happens! It all just rains down, and she's drowning, they're drowning, he's drowning!
A masculine or masculinised person, so say the feminine and feminised people, have the privilege to avoid life's weather. If rent is due, and he's short, she's short, they're short? Privilege means they, he, she can just write a blog post, set up a subscription model, and immediately get 100 subscribers at £20 a month. If a major repair comes up, he, she, they have a vast circle of friends with trade skills who have no other commitments, no fatigue, and, apparently, no bills, because they can just do the work immediately and free of charge. He, she, they just get any job they apply for, because privilege!
The masculine or masculinised person must do the labour of holding all the space, all the "impossible" expectations of "the capitalist machine", because he, they, she, will never do actual, child-bearing labour. She, they, he has, in fact, rejected the possibility of that labour, which means they "owe" feminine and feminised people all other forms of labour. That is the tax owed on not renting space in one's body for someone else's ambition.
When you are the masculine or masculinised person, the space - and the rest - can only be put down in the silence of bare-bones solitude. With the door to a cold single-room space shut on bare boards and no furniture. In the absence of community, because community is labour, and masculinity surrendered the right to labour when it refused to go through the labour of bringing new life into the world, or when its anatomy is the refusal. But claiming that space, that solitude, that restart, as a masculine or masculinised person is emotional blackmail. It's manipulative. It's a demand for emotional labour from feminine and feminised people. It's entitlement. It's patriarchal oppression. It's an insult. It's not allowed without punishment.
And sometimes, the weight of the punishment is equal to the weight of all you're holding - but the punishment is public, and comes with shame, and the holding is private, and comes only with exhaustion.
An inability or refusal to engage in child-bearing labour is not an absence of labour.
The harm done by other men is not always being done by this man, that man, those masculine and masculinised people.
Feminine and feminised peoples' experience of the world - claimed and provable, felt and evidenced - is not the action of those men. That masculine person. This masculinised person.
It is not a refusal to engage in equitable labour to say "I need to put this down. I can't actually hold anything else."
