Whilst I try to enter every conversion with an open mind, I won’t lie, whenever someone starts talking about ‘patriarchy’ this, and ‘toxic masculinity’ that, I roll my eyes and find myself acting as a parent would, when their child once again grabs hold of the microphone, to unleash a diatribe of incoherent babble. I hear reductive, meaningless, and shame-laden neologisms pepper discourse, stoke division, and erode the value and mental health of men and boys. I watch as we routinely and systematically deride ‘men’, and name everything bad in the world after them. How we insult and gaslight men, pathologising innate parts of who they are as ‘toxic’, to be expunged, exorcised or corrected. We frame men as collectively responsible. We blame them for things they never did, and are horrified by. This slow drip of such hateful ideas naturally impacts the group consciousness of society, who have now learnt to dislike men too; including men, who continue to take their own lives in record numbers. And whilst this ‘men vs women’ narrative might sell your angry book, look great on a placard, or shift tickets to expensive ‘positive masculinity’ workshops where the self righteous flagellate themselves, and proselytize, with whines and crocodile tears – such ideas have little efficiency in the realm of real life. Such ideas don’t work. Such ideas often makes things worse. They make little sense, and are thankfully rejected by most of the world. Still, damage is being done, and ought to be discussed. So what do you think of the profile of men, now found to be the most disliked demographic of all? And what can we do to reframe people’s minds to value, treasure and respect men, as we do women? What do you think? ~ Images by Alex Spurn, Codioful, Christopher Burms, Toa Heftiba, Pierre Bima, Study Centere for Male Psychology  Supplementary studies [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

2023-10-12