I have an ongoing pre-occupation with what it is to be a man. Having grown up in the late 80’s / early 90’s there was an onus on the things that made a male, A MAN. Football, breadwinning, DIY, physical strength, the Type A masculine behaviours were drilled in from a young age – and having no particular talent for any of these things, I spent my entire young adulthood always feeling “less than” a man. 

When I say ‘drilled-in’ I should be clear. I don’t mean by my parents or siblings in particular, I mean by proximity to, culturally evident, plastered on every tabloid and in every school yard fight. I remember my first real acknowledgment of toxic masculinity, when two boys at my school who couldn’t have been older than 12 or 13, kicked the shit out of each other, both bleeding and one missing a tooth. The reason – because they both thought they were “harder” than the other (for clarification this is the term we used in the school yard for stronger or more brutal). They physically hurt each other just to prove that they were more “manly” than the other. 

I have never had to protect myself or raise my fists. Still to this day, I don’t like confrontation and will actively avoid it. I have always thought words and presentation was always a more effective way of expressing myself. I think that’s why I went into acting – it felt that the exploration of working with a script or dissecting a character, helped me understand the world a little better. 

Through Richard III I discovered what it felt like to have a physicality cause detachment from understanding himself, Caliban a creature or being separated from the world by control of another, Bobby in company who wanted to fall in to the Status Quo, but felt othered by his bachelorhood in a community surrounded by the many guises of marriage. 

I was once cast in a production of Jean Genet’s The Balcony. I played a character called Roger who was the leader of the revolution – a masculine figurehead, who in spite of this castrates himself, not living up to the image of the chief of police that he had built in his head to be the ultimate example of masculinity. A man who role-played someone else’s life to feel more than the image of man he was in his own head.

We have changed. Society has a far broader understanding of the many different qualities of manhood. This change has brought with it an epiphany of self-understanding that didn’t make sense before. Whilst there is certainly still toxic masculinity, more men choose to live more authentically as the man that they are.  Modern men play their parts as present fathers in their children’s lives, they show emotion in public (and outside of the confines of a football ground which was the only acceptable public forum,to show emotion). Modern men understand how to better handle their emotions and how to have open communication. How far we have come. 

In my forties, I have now discovered a community of other men, whom I can call friends, supporters and role models. We have some things in common and in other ways we have big differences – but none of that matters, because we can appreciate the benefits of friendships within a diverse community. People with different life experiences, different sexualities, different cultures, different ages – I even have friends who enjoy football! 

Community is key, and honesty within that community is how we all progress. Beers can be accompanied by talk of a bad day at work, the successes of your kids, problem solving, sadness, hilarity,  excitement, shared interests or even my dreaded subject, football! 

Having found some communities where I feel at home, feeling less than a man, hasn’t really crossed my mind!  In spite of the political shit-show we are all surrounded by, there is also so much  positivity in our community of Men.

TIB