Usually the focus of my blog includes the representation of women and all queer people, as well as issues related to them. Trans people will be a regular topic here. The power we have to use art to shape culture, to create visibility, to shed light, is a valuable power.
How would you feel if I said that it’s important to use that power to represent men?
This raises questions–like how men, as a group, are under any kind of visibility razor, and why we should care about raising visibility for men when history and literature are overwhelmingly rife with stories that center on male perspectives and experiences. It also raises the question of why we have a responsibility to value an “equality” of visibility, and who we have that responsibility to as artists.
My curly, mystical answer is that our responsibility is to art itself–but that we cannot shoulder all of a burden individually. Art is personal, and thus can be political, but art is also not the same as a political thesis. However, on this blog I assume a certain interest of my audience, that the values of representation, of shedding light, and of envisioning humanity positively, are shared. That you don’t need explained why wielding your glaives in the name of many voices is a noble deed. So I must also answer that we have a responsibility towards ourselves. Because the mythology of our selves is part of the world we live in, and it speaks subterraneally to who we become.
A few weeks ago, a shooting took place on the UCSB campus in which a man killed two women and four men of color before killing himself. I’m certain many of you reading this now are well aware of the shooting and the firestorm that surrounded its coverage. The fuel for the killer’s violence was no mystery. In fact, he composed a sprawling, horrifically rendered “manifesto” about his perspective on the world, in which he believe women were the fundamental evil of society because of their supposed sexual power over men. He spared no effort to express how deeply, almost existentially, he despised women as not being sexually available to him, because he believed he deserved sexual attention and for women to have the power of “no” was terrifying. He also made clear how it appalled him that non-white men would be chosen by white women, as if this were a personal mockery of him for not being so “chosen.” In his mind, women were denying him his right to sexual actualization and men of color were taunting him by obtaining what he couldn’t. His answer was lethal violence.
That misogyny and racism underpinned his rage is plain. However, a perhaps subtler element to his violence is that to the killer, everything was external. All of his anxiety about his self, his identity, were to him problems with the physical world itself. It wasn’t merely that he saw the sexual attention of women as something he desired, or even deserved–he saw it as his identity. In the killer’s view of the world, ownership of others and their actions was more than a pleasure, it was a necessary part of being a man. This makes masculinity an innate property of the world itself, and one that other people can violate by having their own wills that contradict the desires of men who see those desires as fundamentally right.
What many commentators on the shooting missed was that the killer was not a Bad Apple. He was not an isolated incident. He was parroting how his own sexual and gender identity was trained into him–as revolving around naturally deserved ownership. I doubt I need to point to the cultural undercurrent that a man’s manhood can be altered by how people react to him. Our whole dialogue about maleness actually makes it a part of the world itself, as much to do with other people as with the man in question.
So while people may feel shocked at the killer’s violence, his belief system was far from fringe. This construction of masculine identity around recognition, status–and thus power–is part of what I term the masculinity mythos. A mythology that permeates society, couching history in terms of duty and ownership, and turning gender itself into a kind of class object. To the killer, women were enemies to the mythos he depended on to define himself, and men less white than him were akin to thieves in the night, stealing his right to a life on his terms.
Our illusions have consequences. Myths have hard edges. So how do we challenge this? Does it not throw the entire concept of male identity, of masculinity on all levels, into question?
Once I saw a blogger mention that they could not understand the motives of trans men. They wondered, how do you end up identifying with a gender partly defined by power, by violence, and misogyny?
Well, hell. What a way to put trans men on the spot, right? I’m not a man myself, and I’ve love to hear a trans man’s view on this–but for the moment, setting aside some of the transphobic aspects of that thought for now, I think I have a concept to add.
We need something I call masculoclasm.
Combining “masculine” and “iconoclasm,” it’s a term I’ve started using for the process of breaking up the mythos of masculinity. To our society masculinity is a gender identity alchemically fused with a language of symbols, of action over feeling, of images of grandiose battle, with an unwritten code of duty and power. The mythos is an association of maleness with dominance, with being the owner, the master, the decision-maker, and proliferator. This is the meaning of a gender role, such that it implicates a job given at birth, and you better you do it well–and everyone else had better not get in your way. If your job includes “winning” the attention of women, for women not to give that attention may feel, perversely, like a challenge to your very existence.
Masculoclasm dissolves the fusion. Let’s look at the elements combined in the pot of masculinity. Strength; ardor to exercise will. Stoicism; thought and action over emotion or reception. Determination; behaving as a problem solver. Competition; racing other men for status. Heterosexual achievement; not only attraction to women, but a centering of the emotions around women as an extension of the self. Independence; standing singular, valuing justice over compassion and self over other.
None of these traits truly need be gendered traits. Gendering in society of course entails attaching behaviors to a wholesale narrative of maleness or femaleness. By being masculoclastic, one reinvents what masculinity means. What does such an identity look like when these links are broken or remade–and who is going to show us?
Men will.
Not only men, necessarily. However, I rest on an observation that men to whom power is not so much a part of the package–who are alienated from the mythology as outliers, as failures–must always challenge the iconography in order to make a place in it. Throughout my life I’ve been surrounded by men who defy the mythology in some way–gay men, feminine men, bi men, or trans men. By the mythology, they fall short. Traitors to the cause, less than men, mockeries, eunuchs. As a trans woman, I can at least understand the traitor stigma. For me to not only reject the male role, but to say that I never was male to begin with, is a staggering contradiction.
Men like this often find themselves asserting along the divide of identities why their maleness is not about a role. The mythology tends toward defining femininity only as secondary, as a lack of masculine traits. Similarly, men “fail” the mythology by the mythology not accurately describing them. Once again, collectively we read our beliefs as part of the world. To be seen as weak, rather than stoic. Needy instead of strong and independent. To fall short of proper attainment of success with females, to fail at being a good stud. Or, more grave a sin still, to eschew male heterosexuality altogether. To desire men, to display sides of the self that other men may desire in return. How horrifying to the mythos, to not only set aside heterosexual success, but the whole business of projecting one’s desires onto women. And most shocking of all? To have a body that “should” be female. This reality delivers such a blow to the mythos that it is far easier to simply deny it, to paint such men as laughable girls, playing at manhood out of admiration or jealousy.
One of my best friends growing up is a gay man; he described to me his process of growing into an adult and slowly coming to terms with what it meant for him to be a man. For years, he only felt comfortable being identified as a boy, not a man. “Man” seemed to suggest a state not meant for him, one which he was simultaneously expected to fulfill and yet was unwelcome from. Identifying as male nonetheless, he eventually became able to say “I am a man” in a way that meant describing him as a person, rather than suggesting any tie to a role.
This type of journey is one all trans people, and most queer people, no doubt take in some form. And for those whose identity is male, masculine, it must mean reinvention from what is expected–because part of their identity, too, is that those expectations will not come to pass. They will not fall in line with the mythos. The mythos wreaks destruction and binds men to it as though it were desirable. As though they had no choice. Masculoclasts stand and say “we have choice.”
Masculoclasm can be both internal and external, a process of inner work and something expressed. It’s logical to say that most men, because of the mythos they’re immersed in, must break their own iconography, a path queer and trans men are pushed onto. It requires awareness and action, both for men who have to examine what their identities mean to them, and men who have been introspecting about it for years. But what does this have to do with art?
On a larger level, as I said above, it’s important to use our imagery. Use our swords. In this case, less to generate visibility as to change that visibility. We can rewrite the mythos, if we let people see. See not only examples of its artifice, but to narrate masculoclasm through lives, characters, victories, choices. It can be as elementary as depicting our male characters responsibly–breaking the associations with violence, showing them defy the male role without the connotation of failure. We need to show men giving up their mythos and being admirable in doing so.
But more specifically, this has a deep application to my own writing, which is why I began thinking so much on this topic. I spend a lot of time writing gay male characters. I write them romantically, from an emotional viewpoint, and their relationships are key to their stories. I’ve written men with a variety of gender expressions. Some of what we might call “successfully” masculine, in that they are rough-spoken, physical apt, assertive, stoical. Or, especially, that they are aesthetically masculine. Bearded faces, muscular forms, masculine interests like hunting or sport.
But I’ve noticed a pattern–that “successful” masculinity only flows to a point. Gay romance and erotic stories traditionally employ a role system of submissive, feminine partner and tough, masculine partner. I ponder which characters in a particular story might be seen as filling which classic role. However, I always reach a point with my men where I see the lines blurring. I see that I can’t really determine which is which role–and I don’t actually want to. The men who have a very masculine style still end up being tender. They cry. They say what they feel. They give up their own will. They become vulnerable. They give up violence. And they often find these the very means of their victory.
And they’re queer, for another thing. This means more than illustrating that men can be both queer and still men. It’s also a matter of story structure. Romance stories traditionally frame a female heroine in a way that society is assumed to be comfortable seeing a woman–as being in love, as wooed by a male love interest who we see through actions rather than feelings, and as being vulnerable. This isn’t to say that female heroes in romance stories lack agency, but that the the very style of storytelling is often relatively comfortable alongside our cultural ideas about women. They’re stories about love, about confessions, about relationships.
Don’t mistake me! I love the romance genre and the women that populate it. But part of what I find so enjoyable about the gay romance subgenre is how its very structure is inherently masculoclastic. We take a traditionally female-centered narration and apply to a male character. It paints men in terms of their feelings, their relationships, their potential for softness, and very importantly, their identities without the implied existential ownership of women.
As I said when I started this blog, I don’t know if fiction can save the world. I don’t know if fighting the masculinity mythos with my sword, flooding the false iconography out with my own images, will change the hearts of men like the killer. But I think it can change something. And I know that, as an artist, if nothing else, I can and will stand up and say “no” to myths I do not believe.
I bid you all, take up your implements of battle, and tear down the mythos. Be masculoclasts.
Words: 2297
Maidens’ Decrees
16 May 2014 1 Comment
by maidenwarriorsblade in Uncategorized Tags: commentary, fantasy, feminism, schedule, visionary
First of all, an update. Apologies for hiccups in my usual blogging routine: normally, on the Thursday in between reviews, I would do my monthly Author Spotlight. However, as I’ve said, I’m fiddling with changes in my schedule.
My schedule thus far has been to post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, with the exception of the odd Thursday, leaving two Mondays out. I’ve decided to even it out more, so keeping to the alternating days, and as such I’m moving my Author Spotlight post to the last Monday of the month. That least ones Monday still free, so I’m considering what else to do with it. Any suggestions would not be unwelcome!
So, on that note. Today’s discussion post! It’s a simple one.
What is your reaction to aspects of stories which seem to depart from our own world? I don’t mean fantastic elements, like mythical beasts or magic, per se. But, let’s take feminism for example. Imagine a story that narrates a kind of historically-based fantasy, roughly similar to feudalism, and yet has a strong feminist overtone, such as primary women rulers.
Do you find this interesting, or does it seem to negate the consequences of the world being imagined? Or could we have such a combination? Tell me what you think. How does it feel for fiction to depart from our own history in order to point to a desired state of affairs? Is it more useful to start with our own world, and make subtle changes, or can a visionary epic be just what we need?