A Man, My Son
I see increasingly in some of my male colleagues and students the sense that, if one is born male (and perhaps especially white, and heterosexual, and male, if one is born into a position which many Western cultures would historically have associated with privilege), somehow one must walk about feeling badly and apologizing for it, and never quite feeling comfortable in one's own skin.
We are in a time of cultural change, as traditional gender roles become increasingly a thing of memory. There is sufficient turmoil to create space for a rewriting of so many of our culture’s stories. It is an interesting occasion – perhaps especially on international Women’s Day - to think of women and womanhood and men and masculinity.
What is it to be strong, and capable, and competent, and compassionate and masculine at the very same time? It is, perhaps, very similar to what it is to be strong, and capable, and competent, and compassionate and a person at the very same time. Men and women – and those in the space in-between – we are people. We are all persons: we don’t need to be enemies.
It is an error to confuse aggression with strength, and therefore fail to own the depth and subtlety of possibilities of one's own inherent strengths for fear they may be confused with aggression.
There is a meeting that I chair about once or twice a month. I hold the boundaries in that room - a somewhat intense meeting environment with many waves of undertones – so much more effectively than many men that I have seen do it, because I am a woman. Because I am a woman, I both must, and can, be much more direct, more commanding, and more straightforward. It is a tremendously useful way to lead in that context, where the strength and clarity of the boundaries are creating both safety and space. People are relaxing, and speaking more freely, and it is rather astonishing the amount that it is now being accomplished in such a small amount of time.
I have often reflected this past year that a man could never do that: the room would never permit it. Anything that I will do will be softened, because I am a woman, and therefore my strength can be received as strength. It will earn respect. No one is going to confuse that with aggression. It's coming from me.
If a man were to be direct, and straightforward, and commanding like that, that strength would be confused with aggression. The man would be attacked for it. It would not be permitted.
So much conversation has happened this past year about gender roles. I feel there's a great deal yet to be discovered in relation to the inherent strengths that come from the breadth, and variety, and texture of each of our experiences of personhood.
I don’t want to be an “equal” to a man in that room, in the sense of being “the same”. What I want is to apply the many strengths that come to me from my womanhood.
In the case of my first of two male guest speakers I had in class this week, it is someone, who through the course of the past year, has worked remarkably well in the midst of many social storms. He has shown an impressive ability to not be blown over by the winds that come and go in the course of our days. It seemed appropriate to acknowledge – or at least not to ignore - that as I introduced him as a guest speaker in the class, and so I introduced him using a poem I have known since childhood.
For me, the poem is a definition of integrity: can we stand in the winds and not be blown over by them?
It is refreshing that what is, for me, a definition of “integrity” was, for the poet, a definition of manhood.
So, let me offer you this well-known poem, a piece of advice from a father written to his son, in 1895, by the Nobel Prize laureate Rudyard Kipling. It's one of very few poems that I knew by heart when I was ten.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when others doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
For me, when I was ten, it was a description of integrity. Can you stand in the winds and not be blown over by them? Can you know that you are stronger than your fear? Can you dare to be stronger than your doubt? Can you be stronger than your impatience? Your exhaustion? Can you be what you are, knowing there is nothing to prove and no territory to defend?
For Kipling, in 1895, it was a definition of manhood: to be strong, and yet humble, brave and forgiving, gentle and kind.
So much has happened in the 125 years between Kipling and now: two great wars and the many others which followed, and the shifts of things, and change of things, as we as persons - in so many ways - are stepping out of culturally contrived boxes, socially contrived descriptions of ways that we are to snip, and trim, and cut, and tailor our perceptions of ourselves, confining ourselves to someone else's ideas of a womanhood, or manhood, or gender roles in a space in-between. Old ideas in so many ways are gone.
Listen to my undergraduate students, and they will look back to 50 years ago when couples began to first experiment: what it might be like if there were social permission to divorce, and women had the possibility of divorce – often, possibility of safety - because they were able to generate independent income?
It may be useful to look further back in our process of moving forward in our perceptions and thinking about men and manhood, about women and womanhood. We've tried to let go of a great deal, and in so many ways, I would say, we are floundering. We seem to know, more or less, what we don’t want. We are perhaps not quite ready to know what we do want or how to get it.
How can we find ourselves in a place where we can be at peace with ourselves instead of being at war with each other? Historically, there are signs of the predator-prey relationship as we've thought about masculinity and womanhood. In recent times, there are also signs of a predator-prey relationship when we think about womanhood in relation to men.
And so we shift, and change, and dance the dance of trying to figure it out: what does integrity look like?
I have reflected, and taught, and researched, and worked with this for some 25 years now in the context of ancient Indian thinking. Let me offer you this. That which is powerful, which is genuinely strong, is that which is life-giving, life-supporting, and life-sustaining. If it is about control, dominance, territoriality - if it is somehow seeking to diminish life in some way - then it is based in fear. It is an expression of weakness. It merits my compassion, not my complacency. There is no need to confuse such fear-based aggression with strength. Genuine strength: it is a kind of victory over war, the wars we have inside of ourselves and between each other, as we dance the experiment of a redefining of womanhood and masculinity, and the space in-between.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when others doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;….
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—
For me, when I was ten, that was a description of integrity and therefore a description of personal strength. For Kipling, it was a description of manhood, and therefore a description of a genuine strength, because it is life-giving, life-supporting, life-maintaining, humble and wise.
As we dance the dance of redefining, and figuring out, what will become the description of manhood and womanhood in our contemporary time, it is possible to learn to dance together.
I asked my second male in-class guest this week: what is a genuine masculinity? What is it to be strong, and capable, and compassionate, and a man all at the very same time? We decided: it’s a lot like what it is to be strong, compassionate, and capable person, all at the very same time.
We don't need to confuse kindness with weakness or aggression with strength.
Copyright © 2019, Adela Sandness