In the midst of all my uni work this week I came across a specific moment in my life that changed me for a long time to come. One of my subjects forced me to reflect on this moment and try and decipher the concepts of being different and being portrayed as what is effectively called the “other”. The incident in question was from when I was a kid playing soccer for our local team and involved an opposing player racially abusing me. Now i’ll probably go more in depth about this in a later blog post because even though it started this whole thought process, my whole point for today is not about racial abuse. It’s about becoming a man.

So throughout my reflection I came across something that was incredibly interesting. A well-known academic writer, Deborah Cameron, wrote about the concept of gender performativity. Now I know that sounds boring as shit but in simple terms, Cameron stated that gender is essentially performed in accordance to what we, as the subject, think is necessary to incline to, when we carry out our day to day lives as either males or females. What I realised was that since this incident, I have always questioned and felt inadequate with who I am as a man and thus performed being a male as opposed to being who I actually was as a male. Not to say I was not sure if I was a man or a woman, what I mean is that because I didn’t react a certain way in that situation, I felt like I was never really attaining the masculinity that society had instilled upon me and thus over compensated for it in my later life.

I grew up with strong male role models, hard working, intelligent men who pushed themselves and others to be better. All of which were striving to do something of substance and have some sense of life fulfilment. For me I could never find out what it was that drove me to become a man and have that same feeling. I lost all motivation and desire to attain that when I became depressed and had to immediately refocus when I was diagnosed so that I wouldn’t fall into an even bigger pit of self-loathing and sadness. But that wasn’t me being a man, much less it was I, making the realisation that life is difficult and you have to make yourself strong in order to get through it, which comes in all shapes and forms.

 

You see, like it or not, men have been the foundation and stronghold for society throughout history. We have built things, destroyed things, fought for things, died for things and most importantly LIVED for things. But nowhere in society could I find where and how to become a man. I was criticised by everyone, people calling me scared and afraid and how it wasn’t “manly”. People who looked at me in pity as they watched me become sad and alone. People who talked down to me because they think that they know who I am and what I should do.

 

The truth is, I think that throughout everything, I was waiting for what ever it is that was supposed to help me, that’s supposed to drive me, that above all else was going to make me not only a good man, but a better person.

 

And that’s what sucks. Too many times I have heard a number of people desecrate what it means to be a man, what is means to be who you are. I’ve seen guys use it to their advantage and abuse other people, places and things to feel superior all because they have to over compensate for a little dick. I’ve seen women victimise themselves and claim that men are all worthless, that we just take things away, barbarians who think, again, with our dicks instead of our hearts and minds. It’s all bullshit.

 

At the end of the day no one really knows. All you can do is hope that none of these people will hurt your life just as much as they did to me, and even if they do, its up to you to stand up and be a man, to fight for what’s yours and attain and become the person that you want to be. To face everything and make sure you do with your greatest efforts. Because there comes a time in every males life where being a boy is no longer needed. The fears and insecurities that held on in our boyhood have to be faced, even with failure, in order for us to step out of the shadows, one foot in front of the other, into the light and become a man.