In a culture where men are discouraged from sharing any feelings, it takes so much courage to show up in a space where feelings are the main topic of conversation.   Women are more likely to come to counseling, but I don’t think that’s because women need it more than men. Men have higher rates of suicide, drug addiction, and many other mental illnesses than women.  Women aren’t in therapy more because they suffer from more mental illness, they’re in therapy more because they’re allowed to be.

Before getting into how Toxic Masculinity shows itself in a counseling room, I want to take a moment to define the way I think about toxic masculinity.  I was having a conversation (i.e., argument) with someone about it the other day, and about half-way in I realized that we were working off entirely different definitions of “toxic masculinity”.

Being masculine is not toxic.  Masculine traits could encompass a number of things including: strong body, beard/facial hair, large truck, and--most importantly-- a “tough” interior and exterior.  There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of those things. When masculinity becomes “toxic” is when men feel like they can’t be themselves for fear of coming off as “too feminine”.  And not just that they can’t be themselves in ways like how they dress, but in how they express their emotions. Some emotions are traditionally viewed as “masculine” (e.g. anger), so those are considered most socially acceptable for men to express.  Anything else puts men in danger of losing their manhood (or so it feels).

Masculinity can also be toxic in that it encourages the idea that men are somehow better than women.  If men show traits that are more common in women (e.g., caring for someone who’s sick, caring about how they look, watching a romantic comedy, expressing openly how they feel), they’re being a “pussy” or they’re “acting like a girl”.  This cultural norm helps no one. It makes men somehow feel that they aren’t good enough if they are being true to themselves and saying how they feel. It also implies that being a woman is somehow “less than” being a man.

Human beings feel such a range of emotions; everyone does, no one is immune to that.  But, if a man feels that the only emotion that’s acceptable to express is anger--whether consciously or subconsciously--then that is a form of toxic masculinity at play.  It’s toxic to men’s emotional intelligence, it’s toxic to the way they treat women, and it’s toxic to their own well-being.

It’s also toxic because it tells men they aren’t entitled to therapy.  I appreciate any man who steps foot in a therapist’s office--this takes some breaking of norms, it takes some courage.  They’ve been told not to feel, or express a wide range of emotions, and therapy is a place where you go to do just that.  They’ve been told not to cry, to suck it up, to be a man; therapy is a place where crying is welcome. In working in this field, I’ve come to understand toxic masculinity at a deeper level than I ever understood it before.  I’ve heard men’s stories and I’ve seen many of them talk about things they’ve never talked about before; I feel so honored. Below are just a few ways I’ve seen toxic masculinity in my office.

1. Not knowing how to identify emotions.

When I give my typical therapist line, “how do you feel about that?”, often men don’t know how to answer.  Whereas many women could answer back “I’m frustrated, hurt, and annoyed”, many men are left with “I guess I’m pretty pissed off” or, even trickier, “I don’t know”.  Even more often, they launch into “well I’m just thinking that…”. Thinking is easier to understand and express than feeling. Their thoughts have a language, and their feelings don’t.  When you’re taught that men don’t have feelings, or if they do they don’t talk about them, of course you don’t have the words to describe what you’re feeling.

2. Not seeking support from loved ones.

When I leave work after a hard day, I reach for my phone.  I text my bestie that work sucks. I message my group chat to see who wants to meet for dinner, because I had a rough day.  I call my sister on the drive to vent and eventually let her distract me with something else. By the time I get home, I’ve talked it out with multiple support systems and I’m feeling better.  They all do the same with me, and together we keep each other relatively sane and happy.

My male clients, and friends, often don’t use the same line of thinking.  They get in their car, fuming, and try to distract themselves. They act annoyed and frustrated when they go to dinner with their friends or significant others, but they won’t tell them why.  Maybe, eventually, they let it out that it was a rough day. They let loose those feelings of anger after a couple drinks and some prompting. Maybe.

But what about when the matter is more serious? What about when their dad died four months prior and they’re still hurting?  Where do they go to process after they find out their girlfriend is cheating? Who do they talk to after they fight with a sibling?

If they were never taught the rewards that come from vulnerability, they might not even know they can open up and talk about these things.  They might think it makes them look weak, or they might not even consider discussion to be an option. You suck it up and move on, you don’t discuss.

 3. Waiting a long time to seek counseling--fighting it on their own.

Not knowing about vulnerability  leads to many men “fighting it on their own”.  They don’t know how to seek support, so they don’t do it.  They don’t know what their feelings are called, so they don’t know how to talk about them anyway.  Feelings are an inconvenience in the way they live their life. They defy logic and clear cut understanding.  They’re tough anyway--they don’t need to “talk it out”. They don’t need anyone.

4. “I’ve never told anyone this before”

After they struggle in whatever pain they’re feeling for long enough, they finally seek counseling.  By the time they make it to my office, or any therapist’s office, they’ve often been suffering alone for years.  Maybe they’ve experienced a trauma. Maybe it was a bad break-up. Maybe they have chronic depression or anxiety.

Whatever the ailment, I’ve heard the phrase “I’ve never talked about this before” so many times.  Whereas women might come into therapy a week after a break up, men wait years. Lots of people talk about things in therapy that they’ve never talked about before--men and women.  I hear that phrase often, and I’m sure I’ve made the same sentiment in my own therapy. With men, however, it seems more rooted in how they feel they’re supposed to be or act rather than shame over the situation itself.  It’s not necessarily that they don’t want to talk about it--it’s that they feel like they shouldn’t need to.

This isn’t a post saying that men need to act/think/feel the same way women do.  It’s saying that it’s okay for literally everyone to be true to themselves. No one should feel like they have to hold their pain inside in order to conform to a cultural norm.  No one should suffer alone because they feel like they have to be “tough”. It doesn’t make you less tough to experience pain, it just makes you human. Every single human requires support from others, it’s how we’ve survived this long.

I appreciate every male identified person who has come to my office.  It takes great courage to question what it means to be a man. It takes even more so to discuss with a female therapist the ways in which you’ve transgressed women, and to ask how to do things differently. Though they makes up a much smaller portion of my clientele than women, I hope to see this shift during my career.  I hope it’s not long before our culture values openness, honesty, and being genuine over “masculine” and “feminine” facades.