We’ve talked about toxic masculinity. But this is the real question: What does modern, HEALTHY masculinity even look like??
Well, there’s an interesting alignment that occurs when you look at unhealthy, toxic masculinity, and the classic definition of an “alpha male,” the idea of a leader of the pack asserting dominance over others in the pack through sheer aggression.
And you look at what constitutes toxic masculinity: suppressing emotions, not allowing any sign of weakness, violent to assert power.
They sound like the same things.
It’s almost as if this mindset or framework is about using dominance and strength to sorta set things straight within a pack.
So there’s this dude, his name is David Mech. 50 years ago, he published a book that described his study of captive wolves who would become the top dog of their packs by winning violent fights with other male wolves.
These are the “alpha” dude-bro types you might’ve met at a bar or in a frat house. (Or, inhabiting the White House…)
Ruled by a fear of scarcity. Now, 29 years after he published that book, he published a paper basically retracting his findings. He was horrified to see people misusing his findings to justify toxic behavior.
The major flaw, Mech says, in his original research? He studied wolves in captivity. He went on to study wolves in the wild, and realized that leaders of the pack in the wild behave quite differently than a wolf in a zoo.
And he says that in nature, it’s more about starting a family and your pack are your offspring. And the role the alpha of that pack plays is as protector of the pack. Looking out for threats and danger, making sure everyone gets enough to eat, equipping other members of the pack with life skills.
The wolf researcher is so horrified about how his original findings were received, that he says he has issued “numerous pleas to the publisher to stop publishing” his best-selling book, which is still currently in print.
Think about how profound this is. If we’re modeling ourselves after animals in captivity, what do you think that actually means? We’re all in captivity! We’re all enslaved to greed and the unbridled pursuit of the almighty dollar.
Capitalism justifies the sociopaths, greedy and selfish, rising and staying in power. We build them up with a system built on selfishness and greed. We grab onto this alpha male concept. And now it’s not even veiled. In this cage we’re in now, we’re not trapped physically necessarily. I can get in a car and drive to Las Vegas right now if I wanted to. We are trapped economically, socially. So, we’re learning that you’re not being a natural human by being aggressive and fighting. Think we’re emulating nature? False.
So our nation’s role models, our leaders, are modeling themselves after caged animals. You’ve heard about “fake news”? I’d call these clowns fake alphas — striving to be wolves in a cage. Which makes you wonder, in a land of freedom and democracy, how free are we really when these are our role models?
So here’s a basic tenant of healthy masculinity: A real man is a protector of the pack.