Been trying to narrow roots down lately. You know, to save my sanity. Been thinking on this a bit, and I’ve come to the conclusion currently that all the shit I’m mad about and think needs changing leads back to two things: Capitalism and Patriarchy.
So, if considering the main sources of our current social problems can be traced back to Capitalism (classism, ablism, racism, production-based human worth) and Patriarchy (sexism, rape culture, devaluing of bodily sovereignty, feminine ideals, and care work), would it then suppose that the root of what we must shed and transmute in our social evolution is simply: Toxic Masculinity (supremacy, domination, control, emotional disconnection, and power based upon fear of that wide spectrum of physical and emotional violence)?
And how is it that people generally wake to their realities of these issues, even when they’ve already known they are against the patriarchy and or capitalist ways of operating?; They then suffer a period of deeply adopting toxic masculinity themselves to manifest the ‘power’ needed to stand in their resistance without being annihilated while in transition. And some will never make that transition.
Ghandi was a sexist rape apologist. Mother Teresa was against violence unless that violence attacked the sovereignty of women’s bodies. The toxic masculinity permeated these people as well, people who vastly and fundamentally inspired and changed the world and are widely considered saints, superhuman. But organized religion, the cause of which so many wars and so many saints have rallied behind, in and of itself is based upon what? Toxic masculinity, that’s what.
And here we still are, dealing with the deep rooted tendrils of the same old shit.
Every once in a while we erupt in toxic masculine (and deeply cathartic) violence, making a tiny baby step by forcing the patriarchal empire into changing the rules a little in order to make that toxic masculine a little less obvious (see: The civil rights movement). But it, that toxicity, is always here – piled over our grief, stuffed in the corners of our coping mechanisms, whitewashed away by the lies of our generally accepted history. For centuries of conditioning and ancestry, it is deeply, fundamentally, here.
I wonder that toxic masculinity is a game that is subconsciously perceived as must being played in order to survive this world, much less overcome and thrive. For all people, including children.
And I wonder that this here is the impetus, the toxic masculine that goes beyond patriarchy which centers around gender and seniority of male lineage, beyond capitalism which leverages these teachings for the gain of few at the expense of many, rather than simply another symptom, of why we’re all so royally fucked.