Toxic Masculinity is destroying millions of lives

Why reshaping masculinity is absolutely essential to stop the rising rates in male suicide.

Alarming new rates of male suicide, they are reaching new heights. 125 men in the UK are taking their own life’s every week.

More of our young men are depressed and having suicidal thoughts. 3 Million children are experiencing this.

Men are isolating themselves and suffering from loneliness. More than ever before.

You maybe asking yourself, why won’t these men just ask for help? I wish it was that simple. I wish we could just tell all these men that have taken their own life’s “that we are happy to help.” “Or happy to listen.” “Or that is ok to feel a certain way.”

If it was that easy, I wouldn’t be writing this.

It’s just not that simple!

You see masculinity of today is under fire. We are quickly becoming not needed, apart from our reproducing organs and even then sperm is now being frozen. We may even see us out of that job if we are not careful or change.

The old way of being a man is no longer applicable. The breadwinner, protector, fighter, worker, father, main earner and head of the house. Little by little our basic instincts of what it is to be a man are not applicable.

Our counterparts the females in society are developing at a rapid rate, they achieve better at a school, there is becoming more opportunity in organisation’s for these women to be leaders and although not quite equal in salary yet they are deserving of it, in many cases should be earning far more than us males. 

Our masculinity is bruised, our ego’s sore and guess what? 

They deserve it, they deserve more than they have been subjected to for years and they are better qualified than us in many of these areas. The roles  that we as men have been fundamentally taught, engrained in our scripts and practiced are exactly why we are falling behind. Why masculinity is crumbling and not evolving. 

See when we are kids, we are taught from a early age to act up, grow up, big boys don’t cry and many more. We are also taught to suck up that emotion, don’t show weakness if you feel a certain way and in turn we carry that emotional baggage as a badge of honour. 

To be popular in our male society you have to display great athletic skill, to be the strongest physically and act like you don’t care.

Can you imagine after a school Football game, in the changing rooms, I said that I was feeling sad because of the outcome what would happen? I would be shamed, bullied and outcasted because that is not masculine. That trait is “weak”. I should be angry and express it by taking it out on other males. That’s the definition of masculine.

Changing rooms at school scared the shit out of me, the boys most of them developed at an alarmingly scarier, quicker rate than me, they would show of their manhood strutting around like a peacock in mating season, whilst I would wait for them to finish showering and I would quickly jump in with a minute to go. So I would not have my little man examined, laughed at and be labelled not man enough.

Fuck I was worried about this at 13. That’s not right.

Fast forward to late teens and it was all about sex. Well guess what my experience with sex was like before I was 21, it was premature, quick and I felt great shame because of it. But it didn’t matter, all that mattered was the fact you could put a notch on the bed post. This would show how much of a man you are!

What also made me feel very unmanly is I compared myself to the Porn I consumed. The videos were circulating from the age of 14 (Phones were introduced then, they are probably being shown younger now). My friends or the boys in my school would be like Jay from inbetweeners bragging about “how long it went” or “how she moaned how big I was” or “how hard you could go”. I was doing none of them things, accept completely panic about my performance (winners mentality) but had to lie about it “to be a man”

That was when I was 15 imagine now, the access is ridiculous and the pressure I imagine unbearable.

This is just a small example.

We are taught to be hyper masculine, win at all costs, pushed hard, bullied for not being athletic, popular and worst than that damned if we do try to do well in school.

When was the last time you saw people outside your friendship circles celebrate your improvement or a change that you have made that are male? 

Very little, but you see women daily on many social media platforms celebrating friends wins, milestones, new roles, self development, how good they look in the bikini and sharing something vulnerable. Women are making a stand for their rights, whilst us men just pretend we are ok and we are winners.

Now I am not saying we need to tell our mates he’s got a great package in budgie smugglers. But what we do need to do, is learn that not everything needs to be motivated by who’s winning and if your friend does succeed or improves or try’s something new we celebrate that push for better. That continued gift of learning (Very un masculine).

Our hyper masculinity approach to life is holding us back. It is no surprise many stats back this like, 9 out of 10 murders are committed by males. Or the rise is in male suicide rates are at a all time high, 75% of suicides are male. If we aren’t seen as the old way to be a male or a winner, what’s the point to life?

We can’t live up to pressures of what it means to be a man. Which is seeing us make decisions that don’t reflect our values, that we hate about ourselves, these destructive outbursts have a cause and a pattern.

That pattern is toxic male environments and hyper masculinity that we are taught from a young age.  

From being bloody taught to man the hell up!!!!!!!

So what needs to change?

Well we do. Us men need to change and now. The rates are eye opening and we are falling further behind in our development as beings by the day. We all need to open our eyes. This is not a look away moment and pretend that doesn’t effect you.

Per every suicide it effects over 100 people. It’s closer to home than we like to imagine.

Look we can’t compete with women, they are more intelligent than us at early ages, they develop so much more quicker and we certainly can’t stay in this toxic male bravado any longer. We need to take down the mask and reveal our struggles. Show our vulnerable side.

We need a reality check, a wake up call. I repeat…..

125 men take their own life’s every week in the UK alone!!!

3 million boys / teenagers are experiencing depressive and suicidal thoughts currently. 

What more of shake do we need. I don’t know how more statistically shocking I can get.

Fathers, brothers, friends, team mates, educators and men in power. All need to wake up. We need to teach and grant permission for men to be vulnerable from as soon as they can.

We need stop taking away our birth rights as males to feel certain ways. Trust, sadness, tenderness, patience, fear, insecurity, confusion, feeling overwhelmed and joy. All of these words we as men will look at as weak or not masculine.

Well that’s complete BS that’s 80% of the human experience deleted.

No wonder we are falling further behind, no wonder men commit such atrocious crimes, no wonder suicide rates in men are rising and no wonder why more men are unemployed than ever before. We are treating it as a competition, so if we can’t win, just give up and stay at home.

No human deserves to feel that lonely, shut off, isolated and feel shame for not living up to society’s pressures. Let alone millions of men and boys. 

We are walking time bombs, ready to explode at any moment damaging ourselves or others. 

Being vulnerable is where we need to start, but that needs to be taught from a young age. Instead of when we do prepare to change having to have years of emotional retuning, therapy and counselling to unload the stored emotion.

So how can we teach?

Well we have to grant permission to our other male counterparts, we have to have men, more men, saying “please tell me you how you feel” or “this is how that made me feel”. By granting permission more men will step forward and it will start to change a narrative that is destroying our potential.

Release the shackles of our tired minds and share our pain.

By practicing mindfulness from a young age is the most powerful tool we can use. Us as men are too quick to pull the trigger on our first thought and blow up like firework if it triggers our emotions (defence mechanism).

We need to teach how to be mindful, how to take a moment and how to take a breath. It is proven that by doing so more men react better, accept and share how they feel. 

Instead of these men beating themselves up for not being the perfect version of a male, downing tools and shutting themselves of from the world. Through this we can cultivate the ability to show themselves empathy, compassion and support.

Us men need to be able to find pleasure with just connecting with our friends outside our normal hyper masculine ways. The pub, sports and politics. We need to be able to just grab a coffee and chew the fat on life. Women are fantastic examples of this and they show great empathy for other women who are experiencing difficult emotions.

Imagine us men trying to discuss that over that a pint. You can imagine what would be said and it would not do anything for our wellbeing.  In turn it would continue to isolate us and our masculinity made a mockery of.

My final thought and thanks for reading.

You have to join me by helping me change the main stream narrative.

So can you grant your friends permission?

Can you take a moment before you react?

Just by implementing these small steps in to your life, you honestly could save a life in the future. 

Your own actions will show more men young and old. That it is ok to fail, not be perfect and feel. 

Ultimately life is all these things and the lessons we learn from them help set us up to thrive. 

The time to act is now because tomorrow is not given. 

And for 125 men since I wrote this that tomorrow never came!

Daniel Constable 

Mindfulness and awareness coach