Masculinity is, for many, synonymous with anger. And male anger is often physical, loud, violent, scary to witness.
This is the root of what many mean by that horrible phrase “toxic masculinity”.
My own anger, expressed unfairly at the people I love, was one of the starting points for my own therapy journey. I wanted to get back in control.
A tipping point
I have a parenting memory that brings up a lot of shame for me.
We are fortunate that our house backs on to a school playing field that we have a right to use. It’s a huge flat open grassy area, the size of 3-4 football pitches.
Perfect for young kids to learn to ride their bikes.
Around five years ago that’s exactly what we were doing. Our twins were coming up a year old. We’d carried them out and sat them on the grass with a few toys, hoping they’d be distracted long enough for us to help our older two.
Our daughter, then aged 5, was just getting the hang of riding her bike but still needed help. Max, our 3 year old, was desperate to ride his. He wanted to be off like his big sister.
Megan got going and sped off across the field, Jo holding her up and running alongside her, breathless and excited at seeing her finally get the confidence to go for it.
Meanwhile, back near our gate where I was with the boys, things weren’t going so well.
Max was getting frustrated with his bike. He couldn’t get the pedals to turn. I was trying to coach him but he didn’t want my advice. “I can do it”. He was working himself up and started crying.
Max not listening to me was making me feel frustrated. I know now that not being listened to is a trigger for me, that takes me quickly to anger.
Back then I wasn’t so self-aware.
My anger was building up already when the twins kicked off. Seeing Mummy disappear across the field with Megan had upset them. They started screaming, triggering me even more.
I was overwhelmed with rage, feeling abandoned by Jo and left with these three crying boys who wouldn’t listen to me.
I flipped. I shouted at Max, picked the twins up and stormed back towards our wooden gate that had swung shut in the wind.
Kicking it open with violent rage, I put my foot through the bottom of it. A gaping hole that stayed there for days.
I replaced that gate a week or so later. It took a year before Max would let me help him ride his bike again.
Tuning in to my emotions
The aftermath of that incident led to my first conversations with a therapist. I’ve learnt a lot over the last five years.
From those conversations and the work I’ve done since I now understand that there are 4 basic emotions: Grief, Anger, Fear and Joy.
Some people include Shame separately, and the wonderful book 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership includes Sexual Feelings - the source of our creativity - as a 5th emotion.
For me, those 4 core emotions work at the moment. What I find important is to remember that they arise for a reason. They have a message for me.
When I feel sad it’s because of something ending when I don’t want it to. Fear tells me that the path ahead is uncertain and I need to consider my options. Joy is a message that I’m connected to something bigger than me and feeling blessed.
And Anger tells me that my boundaries have been crossed.
Clean anger
Anger isn’t inherently a bad thing. Often, it’s perfectly reasonable to be angry when someone transgresses against our boundaries.
There are two aspects to this that I think about:
Is my anger righteous and reasonable in the circumstances?
Am I expressing my anger cleanly?
In the “Gate-gate” incident above, I failed on both those questions. My anger wasn’t reasonable, or righteous - I was triggered, regressed, and acting like a hurt little boy. And god knows I didn’t express it cleanly, shouting at my three young sons and my wife, and smashing my own property.
How could that have looked different?
With the same feelings coming up, I could have taken a step back and processed what was going on. With clarity, I’d have said to Max “Hey buddy, this is getting frustrating isn’t it. Let’s take a break. I need to go help your brothers out. Are you ok to have a think about how I can help you once they’re sorted?”
Rather than shouting at Jo when she got back with Megan I’d have spoken calmly. Something like “The twins were sad when you went off with Megan. I found it really difficult to handle all three boys. Next time I’d appreciate it if you stayed closer to us, or let me go with her.”
Anger can be righteous. Maybe someone has screwed you over at work. Maybe someone has insulted or inappropriately touched someone you care about. Maybe a driver has acted dangerously, cutting in front of you and putting you in danger.
These are all situations where boundaries have been crossed and anger is reasonable.
In those situations, to express that anger cleanly, I call upon my inner Warrior.
Warrior Energy
One of the most powerful concepts I’ve come across in my men’s work is the idea of the Male Archetypes. These are based in Jungian psychology.
There are four male Archetypes - Lover, Warrior, Magician and King. These are different ways we show up in the world, depending on the situation we find ourselves in. The female equivalents are Maiden, Mother, Keeper, and Crone.
Let’s take a simple example. When you give your kids a cuddle and kiss them goodnight you have a certain energy, a particular presence in the room in that moment. That gentle energy is very different to the way you show up in a big meeting at work, or at the end of a 5km race, or in the pub with your mates.
For me, the archetypes help me tune into the energy I WANT to have in a given situation, to understand that energy, and to express it cleanly.
The Warrior Archetype represents the part of us that takes a stand for something. The energy we have when a boundary has been crossed that we need to defend. And the source of Warrior energy is anger - clean anger, expressed calmly.
Rage, shouting, or violent anger is an out-of-control Warrior. A childish expression of the same energy. The result of being triggered.
Clear Warrior energy is standing up tall, shoulders back, and looking the transgressor in the eye.
Calmly saying “I don’t like how you have behaved”.
Escalating anger
Expressing anger cleanly is about clearly stating your boundaries and letting someone know that they have crossed them.
They are free to choose how to respond to that information. They may respect your boundary, or they may choose to continue crossing it. You can’t control how they respond.
If they choose the latter, anger can escalate quickly. For men there has always been, since the dawn of time, the threat that crossed boundaries can result in physical violence.
This is one major difference between men and women - when women clash with other women the threat of physical violence is much less common. This is one reason why female anger, expressed uncleanly, tends more towards manipulation, undermining, and social exclusion. Violence through words, not fists.
For men, that threat of physical violence also seems out of place in today’s world. It rarely serves us to be actively physical towards others. The one exception is when we must defend ourselves against a man who goes to physical violence. In my judgement, a fully-rounded man must be prepared to cleanly and calmly defend himself and those in his protection from physical threat.
As the saying goes - better to be a soldier in a garden than a gardener in a war.
Healthy Masculinity
For me, this concept of Warrior energy and clean anger is the centre of healthy masculinity. Male rage is such an obviously dysfunctional expression of masculinity and this is the antidote to that.
There are two alternatives to that male rage:
Give up on your boundaries and fail to protect yourself or those you love
Tap into your clear-eyed Warrior and hold your boundaries cleanly, with mental and physical strength
The first of those is to open yourself to being oppressed, used and abused. Not just yourself, but those you care about. It’s to give up on the very concept of masculinity. To give up on men and all the positive things we contribute to the world.
That is the path of anger turned inwards, translated into addiction or adultery.
Instead of wild rage or weak capitulation I choose to put Warrior energy at the centre of the man I want to be.
That man is clear with his anger and can express it cleanly with calm strength.
I’m working towards him. The journey continues.
Recommended reading on the male archetypes
Iron John, by Robert Bly
King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine by Robert L. Moore & Douglas Gillette
Warrior, Magician, Lover, King: A Guide to The Male Archetypes Updated for the 21st Century by Rod Boothroyd
This makes for very interesting reading, but I wanted to comment on the comparison of the female archetypes. For me, these are not equivalents and are not useful to women in the way you describe. The male archetypes are energies, enduring and interchangeable, and available to you at all times. The female ones describe life stages, and roles women are playing in society. The introduction of Keeper is just another role - what do childless women do and offer?
Being a mother requires a full spectrum of energies, from the most tender to the very fierce. You cannot therefore call on your 'mother energy'. The same is true for the others.
I think the female equivalent of Warrior would perhaps be Lioness!