Emasculated men are bad for women too
We must not deny men the chance to talk about themselves in their own language
Men: we can’t win. If we don’t want to talk about being men, we’re called dinosaurs. If we do, we’re called sexist. That’s why the Jordan Peterson saga hurt so much. Peterson is a Canadian clinical psychologist who has become famous, in part, for writing about the struggle to be a man in an age that frowns on manliness. A few days ago, he recorded an interview with Cathy Newman on Channel 4, during which she accused him of being anti-feminist and antediluvian. This was disingenuous and annoying. It’s also something I’ve heard a lot: the suggestion that when men try to talk directly to men about being men, and in terms that men can actually relate to, they are purposefully distracting us from the far more important problems faced by women.
Well, men do have issues and, yes, they are specifically male. We increasingly suffer from depression, anxiety, anger and uncertainty about who we are or what we’re for. Men are three times more likely than women to show signs of alcohol dependence or be frequent users of drugs. Our biggest killer under 50 isn’t cancer or heart disease. It’s suicide.
A lot of men do blame this on feminists, and that’s unfair. Suicide rates can correlate to areas of high unemployment and low pay: feminists were not responsible for the deindustrialisation of Britain, for destroying blue-collar jobs, killing trades unions or closing down the pubs. On the contrary, feminism usually aims to help men by sharing responsibilities and liberating us from stone age machismo.
But the very fact that some men instinctively look for a woman to blame points to an eternal tension between the sexes, to conflicts rooted in the realities of biology and psychology. The sexes experience life differently. When feminism, or just a feminine-dominant perspective, attempts to reshape public policy and culture – everything from portraying dads in adverts as drooling morons to over-prescribing Ritalin to boys who show all the symptoms of being boys – it is inevitable that men will feel they are losing out.
If you want to know what men really want, look at the mistakes we make. Research suggests that up to one million Britons are using steroids to change the way they look, many in a bid to resemble those ripped buffoons you see in films and on television programmes such as Love Island. That’s about sex and body image. Meanwhile, human folly also encompasses the suicide bomber who kills out of wounded masculine pride. I’m being deadly serious. Two common themes in the lives of terrorists are misogyny and the yearning to be a hero. The misogyny is inexcusable. But that universal, masculine need for honour is something society can negotiate with, so long as we do it intelligently and with the right language.
One of the many reasons I distrust Theresa May’s idea of a Minister for Loneliness is that, again, you just know the solutions will be feminine: ie “Let’s talk about it”. Talk works for some. But a lot of men, if pressured to emote (even by their friends), will feel greater stress, withdraw from interaction and, if anything, grow sicker than before. Good male friends are experts in judging when not to “go there”: sometimes, when a chap’s got a problem, what he wants is to talk more about anything else. Other times, he wants to talk too much and over-indulging him undoes the last few threads holding his psyche together. Treat some men with pity and they become pitiful.
What’s refreshing about Peterson is his brutal common sense. Far from encouraging the kind of selfindulgence you find among the women-haters, he challenges men to take responsibility. As he puts it: “Clean up your room”. That means start with the small things, get them in order, set your goals and make changes. This is hardly brain surgery; it’s certainly not new. Last year, Admiral William Mcraven, a former Navy Seal, wrote a book called Make Your Bed. But it’s a style of self-help that men can relate to, because it’s rational, logical and practical.
Of course, by writing that, critics will infer that I’m saying women can’t relate to those adjectives too – which is tiresome. If we insist that masculinity is a conservative construct that’s anti-women and therefore can never be engaged with, all we do is deny men the right to talk about themselves in their own language. What is Peterson accused of? That he acknowledges the reality of the male taste for sex and violence? That his lectures are attended overwhelmingly by men? That he tells them to pull themselves together? Good! After all, he’s not trying to speak to successful, brilliant women. His audience is the failed male.
Peterson made one other point in his interview with Newman that struck a nerve: women, you really don’t want to live in a world populated by emasculated and depressed men. The sexes have their differences, but we’re in this together. And we need each other to be the best that we can be.