sumzaal 's review for:

The Man They Wanted Me to Be: Toxic Masculinity and a Crisis of Our Own Making by Jared Yates Sexton

4.0

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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.