Welcome

Dear Masculinity is a project for any and every one interested in examining their  relationships and experiences with masculinity by writing a letter to masculinity as if it were a person. The overall goal of Dear Masculinity is to demonstrate that masculinity is multifaceted and the way individuals express their masculinity rather it be toxic or “nonconventional” through their stories can potentially help us all, especially men, to unpack the excess emotional baggage they have to carry around because of the hyper masculine society we live in. This type of self-reflection will help male identifying folks to address the potential dangerous aspects of their masculinity that they wouldn’t necessarily think about on a daily basis, as well as help us all think about the role of masculinity in our life experiences. We hope to demonstrate that people assigned male at birth and male identifying folks express their masculinity differently and that masculinity is not monolithic. Here we use our stories to shape the future or masculinity. Letter submissions should be 300-500 words and we are still accepting submissions. Thank you to all the 60+ individuals who have already shared their stories through letter submissions, and much love to all those to come. Please submit your letter to insertapparel@gmail.com

17

Dear Masculinity,

I am not here to call you hyper or toxic

I just want to talk 

I think you owe me that much 

Since you’re the reason why my father died

you heard me right

You killed my father. 

He was only seventeen

He was a child still deserving of love  

He wasn’t steel  

He wasn’t stone

He was human and a bullet proved that. 

Funeral

Dear Masculinity,

Why couldn't I grieve at my own father's funeral?

Why did I have to be "the rock?" Huh? The one time it was unquestionably ok to do so, I didn't...truth is, I'm still paying for it till this day.

I still remember that day like it was yesterday. I was walking home from a gospel choir practice, when I checked Facebook and saw a post on my wall that read, “Sorry for your lost…praying for your family during this time of grief.” Facebook of all places. I called my sister and asked, what was going on. “Hold on,” she says. About a minute on hold and my mother answers the phone, “It’s your dad. He passed away today. We were going to come to Madison tomorrow to tell you. Try to find a friend to keep you company. I love you,” she says.

Oh masculinity, did you know that what I wanted to do most was drop to my knees in the middle of that Sellery basketball court and cry my heart out like a baby? I was exposed, weak, sucker punched. Who was to hold me? Who was to provide a shoulder to lean on? Why was I taught all my life that crying was weakness? Why did you tell me, “Dantrell, wipe your eye. Be strong. You have to be one of the men of the house now?” I felt as vulnerable as a new born child entering this new and unfamiliar world. My tear-filled eyes struggled to adjust to normality. Like a mother holding her newborn, I just needed to be held unconditionally.

Masculinity, did you know that I was forced to cry myself to sleep, for a week straight? You told to hush so no one would hear me. You told me that if I made a noise and showed the aftereffects, it would hurt more. You told me to lock my broken heart deep within the closet of unfortunate events, quickly close the door and move on. And that’s what I did. Countless times I wanted to cry and feel my father. Instead, I had to bite and squeeze my pillow so my roommate wouldn’t hear me…wouldn’t worry…wouldn’t help. You told me that I had to fend for myself.

Dear Masculinity, who knew that when SWV said, “I get so weak in the knees I can hardly speak. I lose all control and something takes over me,” it would refer to grief?

Dear Masculinity, did you know that when I chose not to grieve, I also started to forget the very memory of my father. Oh masculinity, did you know that I cried profusely because I actually forgot it was his birthday, this past year? You made me forget his birthday.

Dear Masculinity, why have you made me dread the effects of grief. When I see it, I run the other way. When it stirs deep within my soul, I rush to spit it out like a ruined appetite.

Dear Masculinity, the inability to grieve ends here. For myself, my future marriage, my future children. For the memory of my father. 

Manhood

Dear Masculinity, 

Who do you love if not me, nor men, nor women?

I’ve seen the way you treat my mother and my sisters*

The way you scowl at me when I look at them. Full of pride.  Full of respect. Full of human. 

I know you hate me because I am a product of them. 

Man molded by, 

In need of

Women. 

Those women are short in stature. Small in mass. Soft with voice. Yet they are the strongest people I know. You had me believe that power comes from a penis but it does not. The most powerful people are the ones who are told they are powerless and choose not to believe it. 

Dear Masculinity, I don’t believe you. 

Dear Masculinity, you ain’t shit. 

Dear Masculinity, why you so scared to lose? What is it that you have that’s worth fighting for anyway?

Dear Masculinity, 

What does your ideal world look like?

I imagine it to be barren. A dried desert dipped in death. 

There are no ovaries

But blood is shed monthly. 

There is no silk. 

Only puffed chests woven with rough

patches of hair, similar to a body stuck under water (help me I’m drowning). 

Deep under water. 

But your world is barren, so that body is more similar to one

stuck underground (help me I’m suffocating). Deep underground. 

Coffin style. 

Dear Masculinity, I was going to make this letter funny but then I realized you’re not allowed to laugh. 

Dear Masculinity, sometimes I watch you from across the room and I realize that all your football talk, and your locker room butt slaps, and the porn you watch is gay as hell. And I love that you hate that about yourself. 

Dear Masculinity, my homies probably think I’m soft just for writing this letter to you. The funny thing is that they’re too scared to confront these feelings themselves. You’ve made them blind. Convinced them that if they deny you then they are less. It’s ironic because a lot of my homies don’t have strong father figures. They only have mothers who have raised them into the “powerful” men they think they are. How is it that women can instill strength in men only to have that strength turn against them? At what point do you get my homies and make them think they are stronger than the mothers that raised them? At what point do they get the girl down the block pregnant, turn her into a mother, have her raise their child just like their mothers raised them, only to call that woman a bitch by bedtime? At what point does Boy become patriarchy, and Mothers and sisters and wives and girlfriends become bitches? At what point do you start taking the humanity away from everyone?

Dear Masculinity, 

Don’t you see the irony in me

addressing you as a human?

 Love,