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92 reviews for:
The Man They Wanted Me to Be: Toxic Masculinity and a Crisis of Our Own Making
Jared Yates Sexton
4.23 AVERAGE
92 reviews for:
The Man They Wanted Me to Be: Toxic Masculinity and a Crisis of Our Own Making
Jared Yates Sexton
4.23 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
This is a vital, important, potentially world-changing book I want everyone I know to read. How to write a book that will be read by the people who desperately need it because an identity is doing them harm but might be resistant to its message because to admit such harm would be a threat to that identity? Be from inside that world and write it as a sneaky half-memoir. Yates, brought up in a blue-collar family in Indiana, writes about the problems with (primarily) straight white American masculinity in a way that I think has the potential to reach men who would immediately dismiss a book more explicitly scholarly or more directly titled. The strength of Yates' work here is that it has no easy answers; he is not on some other side; he admits he is still struggling with the messages and meanings with which he was enculturated in his youth, but makes it clear that the struggle is worthwhile, has led him to a richer life, and has the potential to do the same for others. Everyone who has white men in their life should read this...and then leave it strategically lying around.
Writing 4| Research 5| Understandability 5|Enjoyability 4
Overall Rating: 4.5
The Man They Wanted Me to Be was an exploration of the male point of view at Toxic Masculinity which to be honest I haven't seen too much.
I studied Gender in College so a lot of the stuff wasn't anything really new to me.
Sexton tells us about Toxic Masculinity in a lot of ancedotes, except for the last two chapters.
There was this one chapter about his Dad and his Mom that reminded me of something similair. His Dad tried to kidnap him from his Mom and his mom pounded on the vehicle. The Cops were called and they did nothing, they told Dad to stop the kidnapping attempts and told mom to not damage vehicles. ....What? No one was arrested(the dad should have gotten arrested.) Mine isn't as dramatic but in the good ole US of A I was about 14 or 15 home alone and I heard a banging on our porch. I cracked open the door terrified and this man ranted that my dog(who never left my yard? I lived in a trailer park so it was lines of trailers in front and behind) was shitting in his yard. I was terrified I called my mother who called the cops. They just said he was drunk so it was okay. What? I was terrified? He was an old white man, so it reminded me of how police are on the side of toxic masculinity.
Sexton talks about how men were just awful to his mother time and time again. The only half way decent man went to jail for drugs.
Sexton does a wonderful job of making sure we know and understand why Toxic Masculinity is bad for men as well as Women. There was talk of Alex Jones and Incels the ideas they held which kind of just made me worry about the world that their are men that think like that.
But I kind of knew that there are views like that.
Overall Rating: 4.5
The Man They Wanted Me to Be was an exploration of the male point of view at Toxic Masculinity which to be honest I haven't seen too much.
I studied Gender in College so a lot of the stuff wasn't anything really new to me.
Sexton tells us about Toxic Masculinity in a lot of ancedotes, except for the last two chapters.
There was this one chapter about his Dad and his Mom that reminded me of something similair. His Dad tried to kidnap him from his Mom and his mom pounded on the vehicle. The Cops were called and they did nothing, they told Dad to stop the kidnapping attempts and told mom to not damage vehicles. ....What? No one was arrested(the dad should have gotten arrested.) Mine isn't as dramatic but in the good ole US of A I was about 14 or 15 home alone and I heard a banging on our porch. I cracked open the door terrified and this man ranted that my dog(who never left my yard? I lived in a trailer park so it was lines of trailers in front and behind) was shitting in his yard. I was terrified I called my mother who called the cops. They just said he was drunk so it was okay. What? I was terrified? He was an old white man, so it reminded me of how police are on the side of toxic masculinity.
Sexton talks about how men were just awful to his mother time and time again. The only half way decent man went to jail for drugs.
Sexton does a wonderful job of making sure we know and understand why Toxic Masculinity is bad for men as well as Women. There was talk of Alex Jones and Incels the ideas they held which kind of just made me worry about the world that their are men that think like that.
But I kind of knew that there are views like that.
Warning: several instances of such language, violence, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, alcoholism
Necessary reading! It's fresh in my mind and I don't think I'll have the words to describe how I connected with this book, but I did in a fundamental way. The similarities of experience and growth I had with the author are a bit shocking, but so well written and presented.
Do yourselves a favor and pick this up as soon as you can.
Do yourselves a favor and pick this up as soon as you can.
I never lived in Jared's world. I've had loving supportive parents that have never forced an identity on me. So this book struck me as quite foreign. Not impossible to know however. I have seen toxicity in alcoves and around corners. The odd kid who'd bully others, the friend's family grandpa that called me a sissy, neighborhood friend's father who always struck me as gruff and stoic, locker room jocks, that one friend who's obsessed with being strong. But they dotted the landscape. They didn't subsume it all in a miasma of man musk. Probably because I've lived in very liberal places. But I agree with some of his points.
I think his life was unnaturally difficult. It should not have to been that way, but it was. Still Trump era backing certainly needs to be fought against. Unfortunately, some of those ways of thinking is too embedded in individuals to remove. You sometimes just have to wait for the thought pattern to waste away - let them individual find enlightenment on their own time or never. Fact check, and do research. But ultimately they'll do what they think is best. But you can try.
I think his life was unnaturally difficult. It should not have to been that way, but it was. Still Trump era backing certainly needs to be fought against. Unfortunately, some of those ways of thinking is too embedded in individuals to remove. You sometimes just have to wait for the thought pattern to waste away - let them individual find enlightenment on their own time or never. Fact check, and do research. But ultimately they'll do what they think is best. But you can try.
Part memoir, this book follows the story of the author who grew up in a small town in Indiana, the men and women who shaped his life, and his own struggle in becoming a man. Having grown up in a conservative family and small town in the south, the stories in this book rang true for me and reminded me of the men in my own family. We all need to do a better job of educating ourselves on the pressures our culture puts on men to be tough and stoic and we all need to do a better job of not perpetuating these ideas. As Sexton lays out in the book, it’s possible to be entirely aware of toxic masculinity and the toll it takes on the men in our lives and still contribute to the problem.
When people hear “toxic masculinity”, the first thing that comes to mind is an attack on men and masculinity. This book does an excellent job telling the story of toxic masculinity and how it’s toxic to boys we raise and the men they become. It puts them in a small box, Sexton explains, and ends up hurting them (emotionally AND physically).
Heartbreaking and enlightening, everyone should read this book because it matters. But if you need a more personal reason to pick it up, do it for your dad, brother, husband, son, or nephew.
When people hear “toxic masculinity”, the first thing that comes to mind is an attack on men and masculinity. This book does an excellent job telling the story of toxic masculinity and how it’s toxic to boys we raise and the men they become. It puts them in a small box, Sexton explains, and ends up hurting them (emotionally AND physically).
Heartbreaking and enlightening, everyone should read this book because it matters. But if you need a more personal reason to pick it up, do it for your dad, brother, husband, son, or nephew.
Jared Yates Sexton did a phenomenal job of weaving together this book, including his own upbringing, the challenges in adulthood he experienced as a result of his childhood and of toxic masculinity, his family trauma, and his relationship with his father, together with political and cultural trends. For me, the most compelling part of this book was his description of his changing and complex relationship with his father. Throughout, I wanted him to go one step further in his analysis - I wanted a bit more about how white women often uphold white patriarchy because they still benefit from it, how evangelical culture is deeply a part of Trumpism (along with religious othering), how the white men who commit acts of domestic terrorism so often have a history of abuse.
While this book held my interest, I had expected a feminist piece with more concrete findings. Instead, this reads almost like a memoir. All but the last chapter are filled entirely with the author's own personal anecdotes of grappling with toxic masculinity. Which is interesting, but not exactly what I was looking for. It may be a better read for people who are unfamiliar with truly toxically masculine people. As someone whose male family members have pretty intense toxic pedigrees (murdering their wives, murdering other people, being blatantly racist, family reunions resulting in all-out brawls, etc...) this felt straightforward and kind of boring.
I'd recommend it to people, especially cis men, who struggle with understanding toxic masculinity. Or people who want to understand the far right more.
I'd recommend it to people, especially cis men, who struggle with understanding toxic masculinity. Or people who want to understand the far right more.
challenging
emotional
informative
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Transphobia, Xenophobia, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment