CW: references to family violence
Wanting to present like a boy was a visual queue for a more complex relationship with masculinity that was forming beneath the surface. In a heteronormative environment that perpetuates the narrative ‘men are the protectors of women’ I understood masculinity as a means of survival. Femininity put you in danger.
My mother left my father when I was four in order to protect my sister and I. Separating from your husband was still rather taboo at the time but she knew we would be better off without him. She did this despite the heavy sentiment that families should stick together through thick and thin because children needed a father. Note, minimal emphasis on women and children’s safety, maximum emphasis on the powerful role fathers played in raising and protecting their children. Particularly daughters.
My father oozed masculinity. He was athletic, aggressive and handsome. Women loved him, and he loved women. He was the first person to tell me that I should be afraid of men and needed to learn how to protect myself from them. He taught my sister and I how to disarm a man from about age five. Men were always going to be stronger than us, he would tell us, so we had to learn their weaknesses. Men were going to try and attack us so we had to be ready. I took these lessons very seriously. To this day, I am still forever alert.
The first man I had to protect myself from, was my father. He had a temper that went through walls. My sister and I would hide in closets until the storm would pass and we were safe. I am grateful my mother gave up trying to reason with him and with the rest of the world as to why she should stay.
As i got older my father made it very clear there would be a void in our lives without a man present. We would be vulnerable. People would take advantage of us. My sister and I would be lead astray and my mother wouldn’t be able to stop it because she had no control. Despite my mother proving to be quite strong and incredibly capable, I believed him. As a result, I felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility to fill that void. By age ten I had decided I would be the man of the house.
Man of the house responsibilities included navigating maps, chasing out spiders and investigating noises outside. Truth be told, I didn’t really know where I was going, I was secretly terrified of spiders, and I just pretended to be brave when I went out in the dark. Families have an uncanny way of developing unspoken but mutually recognised roles and responsibilities that keep them functioning. Mine was to protect the women in my family.
I took my role very seriously. I learnt how to be a handyman and fix things around the house. I taught myself how to work the lawn mower and restring the whipper-snipper. I remember people pointing and laughing as they drove by and would see me wrangling equipment twice my size. I didn’t care. In my mind i was looking after my family. In my mind if I didn’t do this, people would think we couldn’t look after ourselves and would interfere. We did not need a man in our house, we had me.
I saw myself as the rock, and like a good rock I need to be stable. I learnt to control my emotions and think logically. When everyone else was panicking or getting upset, I needed to be rational and grounded. These were great attributes to take into adulthood, but they came with the more toxic traits of masculinity as well. I was tough. Too tough. I never learnt to communicate when I was feeling sad and vulnerable. No one knew when I was hurting and as a result, I never felt validated. I refused to let people see me cry out of fear of appearing weak. I had built an identity for myself that left no room for healthy emotional outlets. I bottled up my emotions and surprise surprise they came out as bursts of rage that would terrify my mother when I exploded.
By age twelve I had outgrown my mum and had played enough sport and outdoor activities that I was much stronger than my sister. I could overpower both of them and I knew it. One day I lost my temper and pinned my sister up against a wall. I was so fired up my mother couldn’t pull me away. My sister was frozen with fear as I threw my weight into her, completely out of control. It wasn’t until I recognised the look in her eye that I regained some sense of reality. It was the same look I saw when would hide in the closet together when we were little. I let her go and took myself to my room, horrified by my own behavior.
Had I become my father? Was this about survival or power? Looking back my associations and experiences with masculinity were tightly linked with power and control. This sat heavy in my stomach, and continues to do so to this day. Is my desire to be read as masculine driven by internalised misogyny? If I had grown up with women being able to access the same privileges as men, and represented as equal to men, would I still be the way I am?
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