We saw in the previous installment that men are required to be physically strong, brave, have a muscular body, not cry, endure pain, not express emotions, be self-confident, authoritarian and dominant… But none of that helps them when it comes to forming a couple.
Success in a relationship requires another masculine to function, it requires that the man become emotionally literate and that the woman accept him as a human being, and not as a novel hero. He no longer has to kill dragons, nor save princesses, nor hunt for food for her and her children. His greatest threat is being able to be a sensitive, considerate, loving man, who does not always have to win, who knows how to work in a team and forgets about being the boss. We need men to become leaders and forget about their vaunted masculine strength.
When I talk about a leader, I mean that person who brings out the best in us, who is firm but not authoritarian, who helps us grow, who listens to us, guides us and learns from us, as we do from him.
Walter Riso reminds us: “The new masculinity does not demand so much. A weak man can be as manly as a strong woman is feminine. To be men we do not have to hang by our thumbs, nor break our backs lifting weights, nor stoically endure anguish… It is enough that we let what we really are shine through, without trying to sell a distorted idea of what is essentially masculine. We have the right to let the natural fragility that nests in each one of us make its appearance, and not to feel ashamed of it.”
Many men come to my office with fear and insecurity about being thin or sensitive, going so far as to not go to the beach because they don’t have an athletic body. They have “bad luck” with women, because they don’t fit the “hero rescues princesses” criteria.
Rather than being strong, the man who follows the “lines” that society wants to instill in him ends up suffering from three basic fears. According to Walter Riso, these are:
1) The fear of fear.
2) The fear of being emotionally alone.
3) The fear of failure.
Living has nothing to do with competing, triumphing, winning and commanding, things that these men terrified by fear are experts at. It is perhaps this fear that leads them to consume alcohol and drugs, to engage in dangerous behavior – such as driving their cars too fast – and to be more aggressive. There is a reason why they almost always die before women.
Man, the stronger sex? Definitely not, thank God.
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