The Slap, the Cry, and the Ugly

Propagators of Toxic Masculinity in Unexpected Places

Propagators of Toxic Masculinity in Unexpected Places

I’m queuing for fried plantains while Tim fills a basket with vegetables at the weekly Maybachufer market. It’s a brisk, sunny March afternoon. This week, the Internet exploded with “The Slap” at the Oscars — Will Smith’s smacking of Chris Rock for a tone-deaf joke about Jada Pinkett Smith’s alopecia-related baldness, and Smith’s subsequent teary award acceptance speech.

Incidents like these produce polarizations in societal discourse — typically vapid, occasionally insightful, but always reliable in drawing to surface the undercurrents driving societal patterns.

‘Heracles and Nessus’ — Photo by Dim 7 on Unsplash

There are quite a few people still ahead of me. A man and woman slide into line behind me, and I cannot help but be drawn into their conversation.

The woman, draped in deep blue felt overcoat and gold-rimmed sunglasses spewed vitriol:
“He’s obviously not well — to be weeping like that in front of everyone. Get your shit together, nobody cares about your tears. Save it for home. Don’t come out in public if you can’t stomach it and swallow it.”

Her male companion made concessionary sounds but didn’t say anything back.

The woman continued, addressing an invisible Will Smith directly, her voice becoming shriller, angrier: “You also cried when you came on Oprah. Why so much crying? Just stop it! You’re not well! Save it for your therapist. You’re a millionaire — you don’t need to cry about anything. Nobody wants to see this on public television. Just go home!”

The woman’s narrative starts to repeat itself, as she sings the same tune, with the same condemning energy. Her companion listens, occasionally forcing out a chuckle, but adds nothing to the dialogue.

I start to feel my insides hurt from the moment I started hearing the conversation, and consider abandoning my place in line to relieve myself.

But fried plantains.
Just a few more people ahead of me.

And, I tell myself, it’s also important to receive this input from the world, as uncomfortable, and as sad as it makes me. Because this is a prime example of how the patriarchy acts through women and men alike, harming them both. Not once in the woman’s tireless diatribe did she comment on what most others were: an act of physical violence committed by a man. All of her contempt was concentrated on what she found more unacceptable: a man crying in the public eye — the reinforcement that physical violence was acceptable from a man, while tears were not. A message she delivered like a broken record to her male companion, served with an extra side of shame.

This is how systemic issues affect everyone. Toxic gender stereotypes get passed on by both men and women, while they are often not even aware of having been recruited as agents of the patriarchy.

Try finding a picture of a statue of a man crying — this will already be an exercise in exposing toxic masculinity

I thought about what messages this woman must have grown up with, that she is now passing them on to others. She had a much stronger opinion about what was acceptable as a man, than her male companion himself did.

There was something especially insidious in this situation — it would have been hard for her male friend to speak up with a different viewpoint because he would be putting his own masculinity up for scrutiny against her judgment. If he disagreed, she would steamroll him with shame and ridicule.

I considered turning around and engaging them in conversation. But decided it was not a moment where challenging this would end in anything but frustration and heightened divisions. But I recognized that in choosing to not do anything, I was standing by as systemic oppression was in action before me.

I wished that we were in a context where I could respectfully confront the sexism happening before me, in a way that would bring us all into dialogue with each other. But I couldn’t create that reality at that moment.

So instead, I am writing this piece. It is my promise to myself that I have not let this encounter go unnoticed. I am marking it, and I am allowing it to affect me. I have received the reminder that such harmful scripts are alive and course through the currents of the environment I live in. And I will keep trying my best to challenge them when I have the chance.

As much as it would be easier to shake this kind of event off, and try to avoid future inputs like this, I am remembering how important it is to practice being with them in the world. Being with-ness is a practice — finding the place between being with too much that you become numb to things, and seeing them from too far away, and as not personal enough to be your problem. Choosing, again and again, to see, feel, and be close to the painful truths in reality is humbling.

I am relieved when I depart the line and put distance between me and the woman. Tim stands with his backpack full of vegetables, and I relate the experience to him. He shares a shudder and a moment of rage against the system with me, and we depart the market.