The women writers helping me grow as a man

I have a tendency as a man to pretend like I’m self-made—which is so not true.

I’ve taken a few weeks off from writing for a summer break. As I find my flow again, here’s something that’s been on my mind since reading 15thCenturyFeminist’s recent post, “Men Performing Masculinity.”

Kate is one of my favorite writers today. She’s doing something similar to what I’m doing with my newsletter. She’s exposing how feminism isn't new, even if it’s framed by conservatives and protectors of the status quo as unnatural and radical. Similarly, my goal is to expose the history of masculinity before capitalism. Before men were forced into the small, confining box we think of as “traditional masculinity.”

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These sentences, in particular, hit me like a brick:

“Masculinity ... becomes a part of a man’s identity that is defined solely through how others perceive him, wholly external to the self. The compartmentalization required to exist in the margins of what you are not is inhumane, yet that is what patriarchy requires of boys who grow into men.”

I’ve felt the consequences of this inhumanity over the past few days. I’ve been at a retreat for therapists in the Vermont mountains. We’ve been processing and healing our trauma together. I’ve gotten closer and closer with old friends and new faces. But there’s been a familiar backdrop of loneliness. A sense that I don’t belong.

I feel most at home in spaces with women and other folks who aren’t men. Yet, I’m not fully calm and relaxed inside. Part of me is worried about saying or doing something that could cause harm.

In spaces with only men, my body is relaxed. I can let go of the worrying. But I don’t feel like I can be fully myself. I worry about being too emotional and relational. It’s not conscious. It’s in my body. My voice deepens. My face stays for the most part frozen and unreactive.

I’m still making sense of the experience. But there’s something about Kate’s point that masculinity is a performance that clarifies why this background loneliness and alienation is always there for me and other men.

👋 New to this newsletter? I’m Jeremy, a therapist busting the myth of “traditional masculinity” and helping men and couples have better relationships. If you subscribe, you’ll get a free post like this every week. For $5/month you’ll get my Friday Q&A posts with specific advice on how to improve your relationship, get better at dating, raise a boy in a healthy way, support the men in your life, and more. 👋

Since I’m shining a spotlight on Kate’s writing, I also want to share some of my favorite email newsletter writers who are helping me heal and grow as a man. I have a tendency as someone who was socialized as a man to pretend like I’m self-made—like I don’t need anyone else. These women are very important to me:

• Mariame Kaba is an organizer and educator helping me how to fight for a world without policing and prisons.

• Ellen Line is a fellow Baltimore therapist who recently wrote a post I really liked, “The Trauma of Living Under Capitalism.”

• Katie Jgln is an essayist who writes about things like how food playing a role in the rise of the patriarchy and how male-centric myths poisoned science and shaped our world.

• Ruth Whippman is the author of the new book BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity, which I’ve been listening to as a I drive through the mountains this week.

• Kerala Taylor is a writer and co-owner of a worker-owned cooperative, a business model I’m a huge fan of.

• Vicki Connop is a therapist who wrote a post about the nervous system that I read over and over again.

• Anne Helen Peterson is a writer who explores so many things relavant to my life in my late 30s, approaching my 40s. I particularly loved her post on how to make friends.

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Now, a question for the comments below: Who are the women in your life who’ve influenced you most?

(P.S. If you become a paid subscriber for $5/month, you’ll get my weekly Friday Q&A posts about improving your relationship and friendships, plus the warm feeling of supporting my writing.)