Are Men Truly Even The "Stronger" Gender?

It seems, often, like a flawed narrative.

That, above, is Josh Hawley running away from danger on January 6, 2021 — hours after he straight-up saluted the protesters as they gathered. Hawley is big on standard masculinity narratives, and here he is, tail between legs, running away from danger as opposed to anywhere near towards it. I’m sure I could find a quote where he criticized the Uvalde cops about that, too. (Maybe not. Back the Blue, right?)

I sometimes think of this clip because for some of 2021 and 2022, I had this therapist named Rane. More on him here.

Dude was OK. The big punchline is that I was struggling with infertility (still am) and was super broken about it (still am) and he once told me, in session, “It didn’t take Sara and I any time at all to conceive.” That was a true blessing.

So, last December, I get invited to this retirement party for a judge. I know Rane has done some work with said judge, so I figure he will be there. Probably due to social anxiety or whatever, or just generalized addiction, I got shit-faced before going to this thing. I might have had 10 beers from 11am to 2pm. I don’t even know.

So I get there, and there’s kind of an auditorium space that the party was starting in, and he’s near the front talking to the judge and someone else. When I walk in, he basically scurries out, and yes, the word “scurry” there is used very much in the context of what rats do. He sent me a text saying he “had to run!” I think that’s one of the last times we spoke. One day this year I was feeling my wild oats and I texted him, “Scurry out of any judge retirement parties this year?” I don’t think that got a response.

That’s a very small example of a man avoiding potential conflict, and/or a conversation he doesn’t want to be part of, but there are millions of examples of men — the supposedly “stronger” sex — doing this every day. Men are, in many and tangible ways, broken.

Part of it to me has always been that men are scared of new definitions of masculinity, which is why men will talk about “the need for vulnerability” or “male friendship” or “empathy” but if you try to chase that with most guys, they utterly recoil from it.

Some men are “strong,” but in many cases, a man deeming themselves “strong” thinks about it in terms of: