If there is one emotion that impacts upon men more than any other it is fear. Fear of being seen as feminine or womanly, fear of intimacy, fear of being vulnerable, fear of not being powerful enough, fear of not being in control, fear of losing, fear of rejection, fear of not being a real man. And often most powerful of all, fear of being seen as afraid. Male identity is bound up with fear.
Yet despite its pervasive presence, fear is an emotion that is rarely talked about openly by us as men. One of the tenets of traditional masculinity is that a man must not show he is afraid. Riddled with fear he may be, but it ha wishes to be seen as a man he must hide his fear behind a mask of fearlessness. This image is still being reinforced today in the media, particularly through films, TV and comics.
Many of us as boys had an education supplemented by subscriptions to comics whose every other page seemed to depict violence and images of war. Cartoon strips showed massed ranks of soldiers fighting each other without a thought for their own safety and mortality, or else some lone hero battling against the odds with scant regard for his physical well-being. Fear was not a word in any of these men's vocabulary. Those that did show it were treated with utter contempt.
Over the past couple of years it has been interesting to see on our TV screens actual war veterans fifty years on sharing their experiences of warfare. Many of them shamelessly confessed to the almost paralysing terrors they experienced and wept when remembering former comrades. But must a man reach old age before he can acknowledge such raw fear without expecting the mockery of others? Fear is an emotion crucial to our sense of survival. Denial of fear can lead to great suffering and even death, yet as men we continue to behave recklessly and foolishly, making desperate efforts to be tough and brave when every fibre in our being is telling us to run away.
This denial of fear is only one side of the story. As men we reinforce our own image of fearlessness by making others afraid. Our relationships with other men are often coloured by this dynamic, where threats and intimidation are used to dominate others and enhance our own status and power. However, notwithstanding the prevalence or such male relationships, it is women who are especially cast in the role of being the foil for male intimidation.
Their fear is encouraged both as a contrast to male fearlessness and to ensure female susceptibility to male menace. A woman who is afraid is more easily persuaded that she needs the protection of a strong man. The portrayal of men generally as dangerous feeds this system of fear, enhancing the status of any individual man who is willing to offer his protection. And of course it is he threat of other men that he is protecting her from. Such protection is not offered without a price. The expectation that a woman will take care of her protector's sexual and emotional needs as well as providing physical comfort and nurture often sits alongside the demand that she recognise his superior status. If she fails to provide adequately for him or to acknowledge his authority over her then his protection turns rapidly into punishment. Which is how all protection rackets work.
This underside to the denial of men's fear illustrates how patriarchy manifests itself in personal relationships. Whilst by no means all men consciously base their relationships with women on unspoken fear and it's corollary, intimidation, it's pervasive presence is evident not only in the behaviour of those men who are violent to their partners. Those of us who take a pro-feminist and anti-sexist position need also to be aware of the danger of reinforcing the image of men as powerful and threatening and women as fearful and helpless. We can fall into the trap of setting ourselves up as women's heroic protectors against the hordes of dangerous men outside. This can become yet another way in which we as men isolate women from other men by feeding women's fear The currency of fear is not limited to those men who are sexist or violent. In the public arena, such exploitation of fear has been demonstrated by both the left and right during recent months. That politics is so overwhelmingly dominated by men is hardly incidental. Politicians of all persuasions play upon people's fears. Competing with each other in their portrayals of dangerous 'others' threatening 'decent' society, they offer solutions based upon threats and punishment.
Such measures are intended to inflame and allay fears as well as separate and isolate the supposedly dangerous from the vulnerable offering the illusion that vulnerability can be avoided by such separation yet the truth is that we are all vulnerable and we are all sometimes afraid. Fear brings home to us more than anything else our vulnerability as human beings.
In this issue of Achilles Heel we look at how fear impacts upon us as men. It is by no means comprehensive but we hope it contributes towards a more honest and realistic examination of fear and masculinity and demonstrates that fear need not compromise our identities as men. Most of the articles focus on our personal experiences of being afraid as men and boys. They are attempts to peel back the layers of denial that we have put up around our fear, to name and own the fears we still experience and the terrors we have known. In doing so we recognise that threats and intimidation are most often rooted in the denial of our own fear, that they are attempts to put our fear into someone else. This is a small step towards returning that fear to where it belongs, in our own hearts and finding therein the courage to face the vulnerability that was always there and that our fear has reawakened within us.
Copyright © Achilles Heel Collective
