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How would you define masculinity?

And of all the questions, I think that’s the hardest one to answer. A definition of what it actually is. I think it’s changed so much from what we saw on Leave it to Beaver and Ward Cleaver; this definition of purely provider and family man to, today, I think it has so many different meanings. I heard htis quote recently which was a father passing on advice to his young son.

The core and essence of what masculinity should be humbleness and respect. Instead we have transformed masculinity into machismo as a society.

I do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and parts of masculinity in that are being strong, putting yourself out there, and taking risks. But I also work in the tech industry; there’s a masculine nature to working in the tech industry that has nothing to do with strength or taking huge physical risks. And so I think, to define it, it’s different by every slice of society and I think that’s why it’s hard to define overall.

It’s still about being a good person, it’s still about being strong— whether that’s emotionally or physically— it’s still about all these elements which have been since the beginning of time.

Do you feel like your race or ethnicity impacts your concepts or understanding of masculinity? How so?

Oh, absolutely. And I think it goes beyond race and ethnicity; I think it speaks to social circles, work, even just the make up and definition of what a family is these days.

How does masculinity hold you back? Or, rather, do you feel like you lose out on anything because of masculinity? Please Explain.

I think there’s one slice of masculinity that does, body image. I debated in college, and there was a topic on advertising in 1991 (yes I’m old) and a lot of people that made the best cases were building cases around the visions of what we have built of women in advertising and how we portrayed the female persona and how an individual had to look at themselves. Somehow we’ve never really talked about this from a man’s perspective. And it’s true as well, I mean you turn on TV and you have UFC fighters who look ripped and have abs; anything you turn on, you know, crossfit, bicyclists— it doesn’t matter, everyting you see is these people who are perfectly fit, something I’ll never achieve and it’s something I hold myself to as a standard because I train a lot of these things. And I think, in some ways, this constant definition and barrage of what you’re supposed to look like, I think it holds me back sometimes. Because I try to BE that.

Compare those parts of your body with parts of your body that you’re less sure about; parts that maybe affect the way you get ready for the day, i.e. getting dressed, maintenance, personal hygiene, etc. Stuff that maybe you’re self conscious about other people noticing because these are parts of your body that compromise your sense of your own masculinity or appeal.

My belly. I will put on a shirt and look in the mirror and see a button that’s stretched a little more, or— it’s funny, men want to have big chests, but I’ll put on a shirt and it’ll stretch right there and there will be that one little button you can hear screaming, “let me loose!” and I’ll put on a different shirt. But that’s my perception of myself. That’s not what I hear from friends, that’s not what I hear from people, that’s not what anybody else ever says. But I pay attention to it.

Have you ever felt that society pressures you to look or act in certain ways? If so, how?

I think there’s always pressure to both look and act a certain way. When I lost all my weight, I think why I was successful is that I didn’t go about it to loose weight. I just one day quit drinking soda and lost weight and started sleeping better and lost weight and started doing physical activities and lost more weight. I didn’t go into it with a dream board and a picture of who I wanted to be on it. I think there’s definitely a way people want you to look, I measure myself against myself more than I think I measure myself against society. That doesn’t mean I didn’t let society define what that measure is.

As far as act, I think there’s always pressure to be a certain way, whether that’s to have certain religious or political beliefs, whether that’s to behave in a certain way— there’s constant pressure to do that. I live life like there’s no tomorrow, and I try and do that in everything I do whether that’s work and make my mark and make a difference with the people I work with, whether that’s Jiu Jitsu and try everything I can and fail a whole bunch— I think that’s another thing, society is always about success and we fail. As humans, failure is part of human nature. I embrace it because you can’t succeed until you fail; you can’t have one without the other.

WHAT DO WORDS LIKE “PATRIARCHY” OR “PRIVILEGE” MAKE YOU FEEL? WHY DO YOU FEEL THAT WAY?

Patriarchy is a term that’s built around the idea that there’s a patriarch in the family, there’s somebody that’s in charge of contributing, who’s dominant in decisions and dominant in everything and I think the definition has changed a lot. People probably look at my family and think we’re a pretty patriarchal family; my wife doesn’t work, she spends time with the kids. But it’s also a trade off. She takes of a lot of things that I don’t have to so I can do things like train a bunch and work my butt off and so when I hear those terms I think they’re something of the past that just haven’t been redefined, but that’s also what makes them charged terms. They’re tied to this male-based decisions, whether it’s in work or life, all my favorite bosses have been women.

Privilege? It’s funny to ask in the context of masculinity. I guess I always think of privilege from a definition of money and where people came from. I don’t think anything’s given. I think patriarchy and masculinity is just given because you’re born a male, I think privilege today is about what are things that you got to have that you didn’t have to work for whether that’s you got to go to the right school because your family did, or you grew up with money and so got access to better education or other things that other people don’t and, maybe I say that definition because I came from a pretty poor farm family and everything I’ve had to do I’ve had to work for.