my life as a white hetero male

[sophiaserpentia]

"Teach him to play Monopoly, not to sing in the rain." -Jethro Tull, "Thick as a Brick"

Though I yesterday characterized my voice as "that of queer-fat-trannie," I shouldn't neglect the aspect of me that still remembers what it is like to be a white hetero male.

I'm still white, of course, and it's arguable whether or not I was ever "really" male or hetero, but that's how I identified, and that's how society saw me. When I first began to examine critical and feminist thought 13 years ago, I was soon to be married, and the world was my oyster. I wanted to learn about oppression and social stratification, but I was hindered by the problem of how exactly to relate to the issue or to literature about it.

The assertion that I was privileged didn't gel with my experience. I never questioned exploitation or discrimination, but personally, I felt anything but 'privileged.' My life had been mapped out for me by my parents and by society; I was to excel in academic pursuits and then settle into a suitably bourgeois white-collar life with my wife and the kids we would have.

As a teen I was extraordinarily angsty because I had no way to articulate how constricting this life-plan felt. As I wrote a few months ago, "Have you ever pondered that what it means to be an adult, might mean to finally have your spirit broken?" A lot of you challenged that, but that was how it felt to me. Three years before I became a Women's Studies student, I had told my parents that I was transsexual and their reaction was harsh and unapproving. The tension was released (or I should say, went back inside me) when a year later I retracted, and I started dating women shortly thereafter.

I also felt that my emotional and creative expression was terribly stifled. The range of things you're allowed to express as a white hetero male, especially emotionally, can feel very constraining. Your expressions, your mode of dress, and so on, are critically examined all the time to make sure you "stay in line." I don't recall being explicitly told that "boys don't cry," but it was more than obvious that crying was forbidden. "Being a man" requires a lot of effort and other men are always examining you for signs of insufficient masculinity. I went from living with a family that expected me to be stoic, to a marriage with a wife who expected me to be stoic.

I often felt that the only emotion I was free to really express was anger, and when I was young, I had a LOT of it.

The mythopoeic men's movement fascinated me. It was the first time I had ever heard anyone say that lots of men felt just as constrained by their gender roles as I did. The "voice with the microphone" in this culture may be that of a white hetero male, but that doesn't mean it speaks their experience, but often offers instead only a constructed facade, the experience that they "should" feel. If white hetero men stop acting as the footsoldiers in the hegemony of domination, the elites in the upper echelons will lose their privilege, and we can't have that.

Now, my own experience might not actually be that of a white hetero male. I don't know the answer to that.

But in any case I felt that it was plainly obvious that the forces which constrained me were the same as those forces which constrained women and people of color, and it hurt when a few of the feminists I tried to say this to told me that discussion about how patriarchy hurts men is not appropriate in a feminist forum. (I didn't understand then what I do now, about how bringing up men's issues in feminist forums reflected male privilege.)

Now I see things from a different perspective. If I could speak to my younger self, I would counsel him to learn how to listen to other people's anger, because learning that enabled me to see the ways in which I was truly privileged and kept myself from seeing it. I would also counsel him to listen to perspectives without presuming an agenda.

Comments

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

I see evidence of men constrained by this facade they are supposed to meet all the time. And I find myself much more comfortable around men who allow themselves to cry, to be outside of the white hetero male formula. (I mean, I have two of them who are willing/able to let me have more than one man in my life, and are willing to sleep together, so it's kind of a GIVEN I'm more comfy aorund men not conforming to the mold!) I find men who recognize their constrictions and are willing to try and escape them are more likely to recognize the constrictions of others and try to not reinforce them, or try to be supportive about people breaking free of them.

On the other hand, my father whined constantly about the persecution of the white male (he never specified hetero - it was understood) and worked his ASS off to conform. And had immense amounts of anger which would surface, sometimes explosively, as a result. He may be an invalid example being clinically psychopathic, but he seems to be getting worse with time - it may perhaps be a result of the system wearing him down.

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

I've often railed against fears of "becoming my father" because I watched what happened to him, what the system did to him, and what he in turn reflected outwards, often in the form of a stony silence, sometimes in the form of road rage (I remember a time he nearly got into a fistfight on the side of the road) or other bursts of anger. His anger simmers beneath the surface and even though it doesn't come out much, you can still feel it there.

I fear my own anger and do exactly the same with it.

[stacymckenna.livejournal.com]

so do my boys, despite the extra freedoms they allow themselves. One of them dented a wall just last week by punching it (his anger usually being a manifestation of fear).