I was reading an opinion piece about evolving attitudes toward sexuality among women, especially Gen-X women, and then an accounting of the many recent movies where the bad guy is literally a bad guy who is controlling or violent toward women. And of course there's a bit of a, let's call it a wave, of thinly veiled racism posing as a combination of grievance and victimhood. One of the underlying themes of all this is a shared sense of white, straight American males who feel like they're not heard, displaced or otherwise threatened by cultural and societal changes. That's a useful thing to think about, if only to better understand where the sentiment comes from.
To be clear, white hetero males are not actually disadvantaged in any way in American society. Even if they were suddenly, it seems to me like that would be a valid course correction. Objectively, meaning it's measurable in data, white hetero males make more money and have outsized influence on the world compared to other cohorts of races, genders and sexuality. I'm not going to debate that with anyone, because any other view is just a an uninformed opinion. Math is not a belief system.
I was reading an account by an actor and writer who traced his lineage not only to slaves in Virginia, but was also able to identity the names of the slave owners. That got me to thinking, that significant parts of the population are born with a certain identity. The identities are rooted in being different, being oppressed, being treated not as equals. This does include some white Americans, certainly, if they are born within a generation or two of immigrants. That identity also comes to those who are any flavor of queer, even if they don't really know of that identity until later in life. Many variations on those groups don't necessarily choose the identity, or want to be defined by it, but even if they don't embrace it, it may be forced on them.
Which brings me back to the straight white guy. I'm one of those. I've honestly never had any specific identity that I, uh, identify with. There was a very brief moment where I identified as a college graduate, until I realized that nothing was special about it. I placed some identity in my work in the earlier parts of my careers, too. But I had no default identity, born with or chosen, that I can really think of. I only know that I'm about a quarter of Polish descent, but I've never leaned into it. For most of my life, I haven't been able to tell you who I am, only things that I've done.
Men through most of history have held a certain societal advantage, and their position was not based on merit at all. White hetero males were on top of the food chain without really earning it. As civil rights have evolved over the last century, this default position has left a lot of these guys wondering where that leaves them. I speculate (I leave it to the anthropologists to explain it) that this is part of the root of the whole MAGA nonsense, because they're lead by an unapologetic misogynist and racist. If a powerful person can be hostile toward women, and be racist, and embrace a silly stereotype of "masculinity," it makes it OK to be the same way, like the old days.
I can't pretend to explain why you would wrap up your identity in a "masculine" definition that's so terrible toward others. But again, if you don't have another identity to lean into, maybe this is all that makes sense to you. Losing it causes fear. That's a choice, and I don't think that it's a good one. A non-trivial portion of American has subscribed to this idea that being "manly" means ignoring consequences, controlling women, rejecting people who look different from you, and having a rigid definition of love that must be declared as the only way. Those are not admirable things to wrap up your identity in.
For me, being a dude hasn't really figured into things. In fact, my journey has been more about rejecting any expectations about who I'm supposed to be, and gender is just the tip of that. But there's no question that I'm freer to enjoy that lack of expectations because I'm a white hetero male. In just the last few years, and in watching my son grow up, I've come to understand what it means to be neurodiverse (read: have ASD), and that has further changed my outlook. I'm not sure that I make it about my identity, even though I'm open, maybe even anxious, to talk about it. The psychologist who diagnosed me suggested that much of my empathy for marginalized people may be connected to a lifetime of being different and not fitting in. I think that's probably true. But even with that being understood, I have never had to worry about driving while black or whether or not I could get certain healthcare.
The bottom line is that I'm oddly free to choose my identity, and connect to it in any way that I see fit. Any random person who meets me does not start with any biases. If I were a woman, or a person of color, or not shy about queerness, the same random people would already have connected me to an identity. That's the tricky thing, because being born any particular way need not dictate your identity unless you want it too, or find value in it. But this also includes being born a white hetero male. In fact, if you have that latitude and freedom, maybe don't pick the identity that's wrapped in hate and fear. It's not a good look.
No comments yet.