Be A Man

Women raised me. There were no men in our apartment, so I spent most of my life trying to figure out what it means to be a man. Yes, my grandmother taught me about baseball, my mom read me poems about brave men, and when my mustache grew in the summer of 8th grade my sister taught me how to shave, but the women in my life didn’t teach me how to be a man, really.

As a boy, I’d try a manly thing like farting in the living room, then run up to my sister for a high five. She would groan, “Ugh, men.” The Man Show taught me that we men love grossing women out, but I didn’t feel like I was a man yet.

Growing up without a father in New York City allowed me to choose my definition of manliness across every race. The men I admired shined their shoes, shaved with a straight razor, and when they’d hail a cab, it would appear. They knew a guy at the restaurant, so we wouldn’t wait. They knew how to cook for themselves, and if their uniform had a hole, they knew how to mend it.

I bought a straight razor. I taught myself to sew, I learned to cook, I bought the right shoe polish, and Papa YouTube taught me six different ways to tie a tie. Now that I knew those things, I was finally a man.

Then I moved to Tennessee, at twenty-six years old, and learned about real men. Real men fix things. They hunt and fish, they race to outdrink each other, they spit dip, and they know all the players on the college team. And grooming myself with a straight razor, cooking meals at home, and mending my clothes was not manly; it was “metrosexual.”

And here was the contradiction: if a manly Tennessee man came to my neighborhood in Queens and told the block, “Hey, I’m a real man; I hunt, I fish, I chop wood, and I can build a shed”

the men on the street corner would bark at him, “‘You useless. Nobody tryna get a shed built. Go back to Nebraska, Brawny.”

And it’s just as true that knowing how to get past a line of reservations, hail a cab, and shine your shoes are not valuable skills in places like Tennessee.

Being a man can’t be as easy as hunting deer or wearing the perfect suit because those things don’t make you a man everywhere.

I read more and realized that the definition of manliness depends on the time and place. The needs of a society create our gender roles. Imagine ourselves in the past in a society that depends on farming. We needed a strong man to pitchfork the hay (as is my loose understanding of what farming is). And if one man stopped working because he realized he wanted to write romantic stories, we’d tell him, HEY, sissy b0y, stop that nonsense and get back to germinating the wheat. Sometimes, he’d feel an emotion that could only be expressed in romantic stories, but he’d learn to repress it because we’d remind him that it’s more important that he carry those two wooden jugs of stuff on his shoulders. We, as a society, created that man.

There’s also the classic definition of a man as a provider, but we can even question that. Imagine ourselves in a future where AI takes our jobs and our work is evenly dispersed. If women and men earn the same, and our survival needs are met, our society may no longer celebrate or need a manly provider.

So what does it mean to be a man in a timeless way? To be a man regardless of hyper-specific skills like knowing how to hunt or get past a line of reservations? To be a man across societies and across generations?

How about this definition?

“Because he believes in himself,

He doesn’t try to convince others.

Because he is content with himself,

He doesn’t need others’ approval.

Because he accepts himself

The whole world accepts him.

He is good to people who are good

He is also good to people who aren’t good.

This is true goodness.

When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.

Having realized it, he admits it.

Having admitted it, corrects it

When he runs into a difficulty,

he stops and gives himself to it.

He doesn’t cling to his own comfort;

Thus problems are no problem for him.

He acts without expectation,

Succeeds without taking credit

And doesn’t think he is better

Than anyone else.”

Those are traits of a real man across cultures and across time. Especially true, considering those quotes were written in 400 BC–in China, taken from the Tao Te Ching. Be a man of conviction, stand up for yourself and others, say the truth even when it hurts, be generous of yourself, and get back up when you fall. I read that and knew I wanted to be that.

But women raised me, so I became curious–what does it mean to be a woman? A real woman. I asked my grandmother, my sister, my aunts, all the women I respect in my life.

They taught me that a real woman stands up for herself. A real woman takes care of others. A real woman speaks the truth when it isn’t easy. A real woman gets back up when she falls….

That’s when it became clear to me there are no exclusively male or female traits. And those quotes for the Tao Te Ching from 400 BC China? More than half of them used the “she’ pronoun, and I replaced “she” with “he.” There are no fixed definitions of a man or a woman; there are only messages society tells us what we should be. And the more you question those roles and society, the more free you are to be the person you want to be and not the person they tell you to be.

Look at the men or women you’ve admired most in your life. It isn’t that they knew how to build a fire or cook dinner with love. It’s that they generously gave of themselves to you. When you were around them, you felt that they were being themselves. And because they were trying to be themselves, life challenged them over and over again. Everyone looked at the people stranded on the side of the road but he was the one who stopped to help. People told her she would get taken advantage of for being kind. And people did take advantage of her, and she stayed kind. That person you admire made difficult choices and did difficult things to be that way. They had to struggle to become themselves in a place that held rigid expectations of how they should be.

Perhaps, to be yourself, a real man, a real woman, or a real person, you must become yourself. You don’t just wake up one day and “be a real woman.” No, you have to follow your compass toward who you want to become. You make choices each moment to become you.

We know that the definition of a man and a woman is created by society. And those definitions entirely depend on what society values at that snapshot in time. If you disagree with the hand society dealt you when they told you that you’re a woman, so you have to be manicured, or you’re a man, so you have to be violent, trade your hand. Pick the identity you want: you’re a Queen, you’re a King, you’re an Ace.

You can become who you admire.

Because whoever you are, it takes strength of mind to think for yourself and courage to challenge society.

It’s true. The women in my life didn’t teach me what color my first suit should be; Pinterest did. The women in my life didn’t teach me to dribble my first basketball; my friend’s dad did. In kindergarten, five kids jumped me, so I taught myself to fight. I would cry, and my mom would kiss my tears away before they slid to my chin and told me they tasted like the ocean. She loved the ocean. And then she would remind me how strong I am.

She couldn’t teach me how to throw a ball, but she taught me to read things like the Tao Te Ching. My grandmother taught me history while she cooked–how people are manipulated when they don’t question things. My aunt always took the time to read my writing, and that made me feel like I had something to give. The women who raised me taught me how to be myself, to be a man, really.