Scripts, scripts, scripts!

THE FEAR OF HEREDITARY

 We are haunted, our ghosts a half memory. Impressions or feelings but not images – our memories having form but no substance, an outline with nothing filled in, skin without organs. A sheet with chains dragging behind it and wailing. Oh, how lovely it must be to remember the past on a Sunday, warm and inviting, when the memories of who we were fill up our bodies with sweetness. To remember someone who watched over us, looked after us, feed us our meals and kept our faces tidy and clean. The games that filled the house with laughter and squeals that echoed in the hall until we were told – gently – to control ourselves, while we looked at each other in conspiratorial winks like our games were a secret, and only we knew the rules. But none of that happened. The fog, once lifted, shows the silhouettes of the ghosts. Our attempt to paint the gray forms red and blue and green is a tonic for a restless night, a way to lie to ourselves about what happened. “How could it have been so bad,” a matronly figure might ask “if we made it through the other side unscathed?” But did we?
 Is the twist that we never did? We were born without being asked – lives without consent. A cold spot in our hearts, when walking through the old house. A chill, like someone carving our grave. And the dreams! Why do our dreams always transport us back there? Why the nightly time travel? Why not dreams about yesterday or tomorrow or the home where we live now? Why so long ago? We are always children in our dreams, always running along to school and filled with the same dread as before but magnified because even when we are children in our dreams, our childish naievte is gone and replaced for foreknowledge of the future, of how things turn out. We know what's coming. We are always, always, always children in our dreams. Always vulnerable – to them. The one who didn't care enough and the one cared so much that it suffocated. It drowned us. Why couldn't they let us be us? Were they ashamed? If we were only the product of them, were our successes only theirs? Was nothing left for us? Were our shames, whether we felt ashamed or not, also theirs? Is that why they hated us so much? Is that why we hate them so much?   
 The one who didn't care enough was emotionally distant and provided no model for how to be emotional and deal with emotions and feel emotions and recover from emotions. If the one who didn't care enough was cold, then how could we ever find warmth? Did we find it elsewhere but in a polluted form? The one who didn't care enough was strong and protected us from outsiders, but who protected us from...? Fear is not the same as respect. Fear of someone makes that someone a demon, not a king.   The one who cared too much wanted us to be smaller, incomplete versions of them, a trip through time in new bodies. To right the wrongs of their pasts by imprinting those wrongs on us and having us live their lives over again. They brushed our hair to look like theirs. The one who didn't care enough had few words and therefore few clues as to what made them tick, and the one who cared too much overshared and desensitized us and ruined our sense of boundaries. They never wanted us but convinced everyone that this was all they ever wanted. Life was not a gift, it was a contract. We got to live but only under the conditions they decided.   
 We signed the papers before we could read. If we did wrong, they blamed us, and if we did good, they took the credit. If we accused them, they would say we remembered it wrong. But who wants to remember it all? They called us “idiot” and “you're not our child.” and when we stood up for ourselves, they choked us and pretended it was our fault. The lie of an abuser that festers inside us and makes us feel ashamed the rest of our lives, that gnaws on our future relationships like termites in the floorboards, destroying the foundation of what we could have. More than that, worse than that, it's a sickness. This...trauma. This neverending damage, this baggage, this filth. It has ruined us, and this trauma has made us suspicious of others – paranoid – and has made us fear any loss of control in our adult relationships as a threat, and so we strangle those around us. Through it all, we have built up this venom that poisons those around us...who we love. And Dear God, what if it happens to us as well? What if we become the one who didn't care enough or the one who cared too much?   
 Is that what happened to them? Is there any way out or are we cursed like in so many ghost stories? If the trauma of childhood is the work of the Devil, then becoming a parent yourself is like being possessed by Him. Forced to continue the cycle and probably failing. What if we harm the innocents? What if we become like all the others? What if their blood will make us like them even if their words did not? The fear of heredity is strong. At least we got out, though. We escaped, and we didn't look back, and we are all the better for it. The cycle that could make us the one who didn't care enough or the one who cared too much continues, but at least we scorched the Earth and burned the bridge on our way out. They pointed weapons at their heads and said “Don't leave” and manipulated us into staying long enough to poison us...but they couldn't hold it to their heads forever, they got tired, and we got stronger. They, themselves, can't hurt us anymore. Only their ghost can hurt us now.     

BLACK PANTHER: AFRICA WITHOUT COLONIZATION

 AUDIO 1
 Black Panther is the dream of an un-colonized African nation. An African nation that was never conquered by Europeans, that never had its people snatched away and enslaved in European nations or America, that never saw its development reversed or stagnated due to the interference of European nations, America or other imperialist powers. Black Panther is set primarily in Wakanda, a fictional African nation. Thousands of years prior to the events of the film, Wakanda was struck by a meteorite containing vibranium, a fictional metal with incredible properties. This allowed Wakanda to be significantly more advanced than neighboring countries. The story follows the conflict between two characters and two worldviews. T'Challa, recently crowned ruler of Wakanda who wishes to keep the nation secret from the rest of the world and continue the policy of isolationism, and Killmonger, who wishes to use the power of vibranium and Wakanda's technology to effectively take over the world to benefit people in Africa and people of African descent in other countries. Killmonger wishes to enforce the policy of colonialism that so ravaged the African continent a century ago.
 Isolationism is the foreign policy of remaining apart from the affairs or interests of other countries. Colonialism is the foreign policy of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically. In the end, T'Challa defeats Killmonger but questions his own policy of isolationism, opting instead to reveal the secrets of Wakanda – not to conquer other nations but to provide humanitarian aid and new technology. Sometimes when nations claim they are only providing “humanitarian aid,” they are actually hoping to get their foot in the door to enact regime change, but one assumes that T'Challa's intentions are more noble than this and genuinely wants to help the world and begin peaceful relations with other world powers. T'Challa rejects the policy of colonialism, perhaps because it is a policy so intertwined with the exploitation of real world Africa between 1884 and the early 20th century – a period commonly known among historians as “the scramble for Africa.”   
 AUDIO 2
 Even before his ascension to power in 1865, Leopold II of Belgium had a desire for his country to expand and carve out a piece of the world. He believed that colonies gave modern nations their prosperity, citing examples such as the exploitative Dutch colony of Java. Colonialism is like any business practice for political leaders: there is an investment and an eventual payoff in the future. The loss of life is never factored into the ledger. His father, Leopold I, tried to discourage this to no avail. Years prior, the father's failed “investment” St. Thomas de Guatemala proved embarrassing for him and fatal for those involved. Yet, when Leopold II proposed a Belgian colony, he claimed it must be done in his father's honor. Leopold wanted a colony somewhere – anywhere – and eventually fixed his gaze to Africa. At the time, save for investments like the Suez Canal, a few colonies and a few ports, European nations had little hold or even little interest in the continent. Thomas Pakenham, author of The Scramble for Africa, wrote of this: “No continent was less inviting for European explorers.   
 It was nearly 400 years since the smooth round profile of Africa had first decorated the charts of the Portuguese navigators. For most of that time the interior – with notable exceptions to north and south – had remained as mysterious as the surface of the moon. (In a way the moon’s surface was less mysterious. Europeans could chart its mountains in safety with their telescopes.) South of the Mediterranean the coast of Africa became increasingly hostile. Harbours were rare. Even a sheltered anchorage was often hard to find behind the curtain of mangrove swamps and the surf crashing down on the coral reefs. It was true that from the time of the Greeks there had been tales of great rivers that led to the interior. The Nile apart, the great rivers seemed a mirage.” Up to that point, imperialism among European nations and subsequent colonialism of its conquests stretched out across the globe to everywhere but the majority of Africa. The “notable exceptions” Pakenham referenced were the Anglo-Zulu War that gave Britain control of Cape Colony (or modern day South Africa) in 1879, a smattering of French and Portuguese conquests and colonies and little else. African territories and empires were largely still controlled by their indigenous people.
 AUDIO 3
 Save for the massive gold mining operation in west Africa and the slave trade, Europe thought little of the benefits of the continent. Leopold II, who fancied himself an innovator, concluded he would change that. Leopold became the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State in 1885, a private project undertaken on his own behalf that eventually claimed all of Congo. Europe applauded his efforts under the assumption that Leopold would improve the lives of the Congalese. Leopold ignored the conditions of the Congalese, seeing the Congo Free State as concerning him alone, and millions of the natives were killed or mutilated, including children. Million were killed. Loss in the Congo Free State is estimated at sixty percent of the population. Part of this was due to Leopold's barbaric labor laws. Any Congalese who failed to meet rubber quotas were executed. Leopold made a fortune in ivory and other resources. Britain's role in colonizing Africa was even greater. Originally content with administering Egypt and control of South Africa, Britain stretched out across Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, South Africa, as well as a smattering of colonies in the west. By the early 20th century, the British Empire controlled the lion's share of Africa and exploited both its people and its resources.  
 In 1883, Germany established a colony near the Angra Pequena Bay, codified by a fraudulent purchase. The indigenous people revolted. As the years went on, Germany massacred the Herero and Namaqua people, inciting the first genocide of 20th century. Those who survived were put into concentration camps where they were used for human experimentation. About 80% of the Herero population and about 50% of the total Namaqua population either starved, died of thirst, or were worked to death in concentration camps between 1904 and 1908. There are so many more atrocities, but this is getting extremely grim, so I will try to sum up here. Historians who cite the scramble for Africa as being partially about maintaining the “balance of power” among the largest European nations sometimes leave out that “power” was not an abstract concept for these nations but the product of wealth. The colonies resources provided this wealth and were themselves useful as bargaining chips in international negotiations. The native populations of colonies could be turned into a military force as means in which to conquer more territories, achieve more wealth, which could then be used to create an even larger military force to conquer even more territories, achieve even more wealth, ad nauseum.   
 AUDIO 4
 Britain and France, as examples, used the North African population in their own territorial disputes between them. In other words, European powers conquered the people of Africa to force them into military service to fight one another to gain more African territory for the Europeans. There is no end goal. There is only cycle. So, were there any countries in the real Africa like the fictional Wakanda? Meaning were there any countries or kingdoms in Africa that were never conquered during the late 19th and early 20th century period? Yes, but only two: Liberia and Ethiopia. Liberia was already a kind of colony prior to the scramble for Africa. It was made up of recently freed slaves from America, and this connection to a world power may have made it an unattractive target. And Ethiopia was eventually conquered by Italy a few decades after the scramble for Africa period. In Black Panther, Killmonger is introduced during the museum scene. He pretends to be a tourist, asking an expert about the origins of African art. She correctly gives the history of some but makes a mistake on the last, not realizing it is made of vibranium and originated in Wakanda.   
 This is common among European nations, displaying stolen African artifacts in their museums, thus legitimizing their colonialists pasts. France has recently announced that it plans to return 26 works of art to Africa. However, a report from French historian Bénédicte Savoy and Senegalese writer and academic Felwine Sarr says that France houses 90,000 pieces originating from sub-Saharan Africa. The UK and Germany have been considering “loaning” their stolen artifacts back to Africa, which seems disingenuous considering who historically actually owned them. The scene from Black Panther is a more palatable way of expressing frustration at what Europe actually took from Africa. Not art and religious items but...lives and the under-development of the African continent. Effects that are still felt today. Black Panther does not have one-to-one allegorical parallels. Killmonger is not merely the representative of revenge against European colonialism. He himself is referenced by Agent Ross as an agent of regime change due to his involvement with United States special forces in one of the most overt anti-colonial moments in the film.    
  AUDIO 5  
 Killmonger himself wants to use his power to conquer the world under the rule of Wakanda. The conflict is between isolationism – Wakanda as a hidden nation that provides neither aid nor violence to the world – or colonialism – Wakanda as an imperialist military force to rule the world under the guise of “civilizing” other nations. It lets the audience see Killmonger present this villainous proposal, and if they reject this as overtly wrong, the audience can also reject the apologia for imperialism and colonialism employed by majority white nations over the centuries. And yes, there are those who apologize for colonialism with the excuse that those who were colonized and enslaved were better off in the long run – “civilized” by the Europeans, even if it meant stripping away their culture. This is bunk. Demonstrably false simply because people do not live in “the long run,” they live and die in the here and now, but it can also be proven by examining another atrocity: slavery. Enslaving Africans for exploitation in European colonies had its roots in the exploitation of Africa itself. Again from Thomas Pakenham: “Two-thirds of the world’s gold supply in the late Middle Ages came from West Africa. In the fourteenth century an African Croesus turned up at Cairo on his way to Mecca.
 He was Mansa Musa, King of Mali and a man to be reckoned with. He had crossed the desert with 500 slaves in his retinue and each carried a solid gold staff weighing four pounds. Europe welcomed that kind of exhibitionism. Kings and popes depended on gold for more than crowns and chalices. It was then, as now, the ultimate basis of foreign trade.” By the 15th century, Portuguese navigators sought to tap the gold by finding a direct seaway to and from West Africa. This would also help them acquire the Indian spice trade and Chinese silk trade if their seaway could extend to the Indies. They founded two colonies, Angola and Mozambique, but soon discovered that their gold operation paled in comparison to treasures found in what Europe considered their “new world” of North and South America. With Europe already established in West Africa for gold mining, it became easier to establish the West African Slave trade. The Americas for cotton and sugar. Africa for the slaves to work the cotton and sugar plantations. In Black Panther, Killmonger remarks that he would rather die than be imprisoned, referencing the enslavement of his ancestors.
 AUDIO 6
 He asks to be sent into the water, much like slaves who leaped from the boats that brought them to the new world. He would sooner die than become a subject or captive of Wakanda. It was actually even more complicated and lethal than that, though. Perhaps a third died during transit to the slave farms of Brazil, America and the West Indies. Although revisionist history positions The West African Slave Trade as less military more business since the practice of slavery already existed in the continent among Africans, the truth is that the process by which captives were obtained by Europeans did not resemble trade. Historian Walter Rodney once wrote of the West African Slave Trade “It was through warfare, trickery, banditry and kidnapping. When one tries to measure the effect of European slave trading on the African continent, it is very essential to realize that one is measuring the effect of social violence rather than trade in any normal sense of the word.” The fictional Wakanda is presented as an African nation whose people were never taken by the slave trade and presumably never enslaved each other either.   
 It is prosperous, and though ruled by an absolute monarchy, it is presented in every other way as modern both technologically and socially. Is this an accurate depiction of an African nation that never saw slavery? Possibly, according to some historians. Although estimates vary, European historians claim that at least ten million African slaves landed alive in the Americas, Atlantic islands and Europe. This is considered a low estimate, though, and does not take into consideration the full impact of the slave trade. For example, the figure does not account for those who died in transit or smuggled slaves or those killed during the banditry of capturing slaves. Furthermore, this figure does not count the east African slave trade or the Arab slave trade. The figure should actually be many times what European historians often cite as the “official” count. The massive loss to the African labor force was made more critical because it was composed of able-bodied young men and young women. It's like this: Population growth plays a major role in development in providing labor, as was seen in Europe and other parts of the world.
 AUDIO 7
 Without this population growth, Africa stagnated. Example: when the inhabitants of a region in Africa were reduced below a certain number in an environment where disease-carrying tsetse flies were present, the remaining few had to abandon the area altogether and give up development. Historian Walter Rodney also posited: “Captives were shipped outside instead of being utilized within any given African community for creating wealth from nature. It was only as an accidental by-product that in some areas Africans who recruited captives for Europeans realized that they were better off keeping some captives for themselves.   
 In any case, slaving prevented the remaining population from effectively engaging in agriculture and industry.” Thus, a massive population loss stunted development of the continent. Even regions of Africa in which the European slave trade was minimal or even nonexistent were affected due to these region's more legitimate trade relations with regions that were more directly affected by the slave trade. A single change can set off reactions in regions that superficially appear unconnected. Therefore, European slave trade was an under-developing factor for the entire continent. The fictional Wakanda is the vision of an African nation that never saw slavery. It is hyperbolic and grandiose, of course, and contains a fictional and almost magical resource, but this is closer to what could have been than many seem to realize. Wakanda most likely had the ability repel any attempts at foreign banditry within its borders. With no massive population loss, Wakanda had enough people to mine their most important resource: vibranium.   
 AUDIO 8
 If Wakanda suffered the severe population losses from the slave trade, even if the nation had not been fully conquered and colonized by a Europe power, the minimized population would have prevented full-scale mining and may have even resulted in being forced to abandon the area containing vibranium altogether due to the ratio of human to tsetse fly population. Only by the presumed fictional weapons used to repel the invaders could Wakanda have survived the attempts at enslavement. Either that or by hiding both its resources and population, as seen here. But real African nations were not Wakanda. The real African population was not Wakandans. The offensive idea put forth by slavery apologists and colonialism apologists that Africa eventually benefited economically by the presence of European colonialism and the West Africa slave trade completely falls apart under a careful examination of history, economics and even simple, elementary mathematics. … In the 1950's and 1960's, Africa was effectively “de-colonized.” During World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill convened to discuss the post-war world.    
 The result was the Atlantic Charter. It was not technically a treaty and was not submitted to the British Parliament or the US Senate. It was more of a guideline, a “campaign promise” of sorts. One of the provisions, introduced by Roosevelt, was the sovereignty of imperial colonies. After World War II, the US and the African colonies put pressure on Britain to abide by the Atlantic Charter. Churchill strongly disagreed, but with mounting pressure within his country and with the UK broke following the war, they couldn't afford to fight back anyway. Some African nations gained independence through protest and politics such as in Ghana and Congo, and some nations fought their own revolutionary wars, such as in Algeria and Morocco. Africa is still putting itself back together after centuries of conquest, colonization and exploitation by European powers. However, the exploitation of Africa changed over the centuries but never ended. Klaw laying waste to Wakanda for their most precious resource, vibranium, is not too dissimilar from the supply chain of coltan and cobalt that go from African child labor to American businesses. But that is a topic for another day.    

WHAT IS (AND IS NOT) TOXIC MASCULINITY?

 Masculinity is a set of attributes, values and behaviors associated with being a man. It is a social construct that is distinct from biological s*x. The term “toxic masculinity” refers to a specific societal expectation of men that is enforced and policed by men – a narrow, inflexible script of being a man that emphasizes reliance on aggressive behavior, de-emphasizes other more positive traits that are sometimes coded masculine and dismisses any and all traits for men that are coded feminine. It also refers to the incredible and damaging pressure put on men to behave this way in order to achieve or maintain their “status” as men. When the term “toxic masculinity” is used, it is NOT an assertion that men are naturally violent. It is also NOT an assertion that all aspects of masculinity are naturally toxic. Confronting toxic elements of masculinity often runs into the problem of misunderstanding the concept or ignoring the concept for fear of self-reflection, and this has made defining what toxic masculinity is NOT as important as defining what it is. I'm going to be spending a lot of time in this video trying to get people over the hurdle of what is and is not toxic masculinity because that seems to be the biggest roadblock in the discourse. Here are some common bad arguments so that we don't have to deal with them in the comments. “You think men are toxic! You think masculinity is toxic!” No. The term “toxic masculinity” does not refer to all masculinity being toxic nor is it a condemnation of men or manhood.   
 It refers to a form of masculinity – not all masculinity. Most who reject toxic masculinity would conversely praise other traits that society often codes as masculine like courage and protectiveness. The Good Men Project describes it thusly: “Toxic masculinity is a narrow and repressive description of manhood, designating manhood as defined by violence, s*x, status and aggression. It’s the cultural ideal of manliness, where strength is everything while emotions are a weakness; where s*x and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measured, while supposedly 'feminine' traits—which can range from emotional vulnerability to simply not being hypers*xual—are the means by which your status as 'man' can be taken away.” Toxic masculinity positions masculinity in general as superior to femininity, reinforcing a vertical hierarchy. A vertical hierarchy is an unequal social or economic institution or structure. The term toxic masculinity is designed to describe not masculinity itself, but a form of gendered behavior that occurs when expectations of manliness go wrong.   
 Put even more simply, everyone on the Boston Red Sox are Major League Baseball players, but not ALL Major League Baseball players are Boston Red Sox. Some of them are Blue Jays and Yankees and such. Nobody is calling all baseball players the Red Sox, and nobody is calling every expression of masculinity “toxic.” It should be noted, however, that this absolutely DOES NOT mean that there exist toxic men and non-toxic men, as if they are neatly divided up like baseball teams. It means that some BEHAVIOR is toxic and some BEHAVIOR is not. Everyone is susceptible to negative behavior traits, even those making a conscious effort not to do so. “We should call it something besides toxic masculinity!” Perhaps by calling toxic masculinity something else, we could make men less defensive when discussing it, right? No such luck. Example: The term “patriarchy” sounds fairly neutral and scientific in language and contains no scary words like “toxic” but when the topic of patriarchy is brought up, the same men who dismiss the concept of toxic masculinity cry out and dismiss patriarchy as well. The word is not the problem. The words could be anything, and the same defensiveness would occur.   
 If we changed the word “toxic” to something less harsh like “bad,” the same people who exclaim “Oh, so you think ALL men are toxic!” would instead say “Oh, so you think ALL men are bad!” “Hegemonic masculinity” describes a form of masculinity that is narrow but not specifically toxic masculinity. “Traditional masculinity ideology” describes some of what toxic masculinity is, but does not describe it specifically enough and encompasses other things that would muddy the waters – not to mention the fact that it is not immediately positioned as a negative in its wording. Also, jargon terms that require a second definition just to understand the meaning of the one of the words do not lend themselves to educating the masses. They are more helpful in academic settings. Furthermore, again, even this academic term would eventually be rejected by the same people who reject the term “patriarchy.” Some attempts to use a different term are meant in good faith as a means of making it more palatable, though that seems an unlikely result, and some attempts are made in bad faith in hopes of removing discussion about toxic masculinity altogether.
 “Men invented the car, you know!” Listing men's achievements is irrelevant because nobody is dismissing said achievements or attacking men. “What about toxic femininity?” The early feminist movement wrote a lot about what we might now call “toxic femininity,” meaning the results of society placing a great deal of pressure on women to look and behave in a similarly idealized way. Example: eating disorders. “You still think all masculinity is toxic masculinity! You can't fool me, I'm a man who goes his own way and...” The fact that the term “toxic masculinity” has a qualifier – “toxic” – is evidence in and of itself that those who use the term either in academic settings or in conversation do not believe all masculinity is toxic. Because that's how words work. “Men who believe this are nu-male, beta-male, soy cucks!” Please say this or some variant of this in the comments if you want to expose yourself and prove toxic masculinity definitely exists. The point of toxic masculinity is that it makes men see anything less than the aggressive, uncaring “ideal” of masculinity as worthless and the subject of ridicule, thus putting unnecessary pressure on men to perform this version of masculinity.
 If you want to prove toxic masculinity exists, please go ahead and say this, as it is the most blatant example and proof of toxic masculinity – the policing of what is and is not properly masculine. All caught up? Excellent. Let's talk about Conan the Barbarian. In Conan the Barbarian, young Conan's parents are slaughtered by the forces of Thulsa Doom. Conan becomes a slave, but his strenuous physical exercise eventually transforms him into Arnold Schwarzeneggar. He becomes a gladiator, then a thief and then exacts revenge on Thulsa Doom and his serpent cult. Conan was not born violent, but he was taught by his father that the only thing he can trust is his sword, and the circumstances of his life – a system of enslavement – hardened him and made him the violent barbarian. Men are not born with toxic attitudes or born violent. They are taught by others explicitly, as seen here, or taught implicitly through social interactions with other men that express this narrow form of masculinity. These social systems are not literally pushing The Wheel of Pain endlessly until it makes you hard and unfeeling, but, well, it's a pretty solid metaphor, right? Conan had no choice but to push the wheel and exist in this strict hierarchical system. He did not choose this, and the system pre-dated himself.
 Most people are not slaves, but all exist within vertical hierarchies that do us a lot of damage, and much like Conan, we have no choice but to participate in them. In this iconic scene, Conan is asked what is best in life. To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of the women. What Conan is describing here actually fits in quite well with the description of the values of toxic masculinity. “Crush your enemies.” Alright, so, aggression. A component of toxic masculinity is the expectation that men – real men – are strong. Not only physically strong like Conan but “emotionally” strong. However, in this narrow version of masculinity “emotionally strong” means “unemotional.” Emotion becomes incompatible with being strong. Anger is considered an exception to the rule or not labeled an emotion at all. Example: Conan understandably grieves the loss of his love interest. Another character claims that Conan cannot cry, so he will cry for him. In this narrow version of masculinity, Conan's unemotional response to the loss of his romantic partner is seen as noble even though it benefits no one – least of all Conan – to suppress his feelings. In general, women live longer than men. One factor that causes men bodily harm is stress.   
 According to a study last year, work stress is six times more likely to kill men than women despite being otherwise healthy. Everyone puts pressure on themselves, but men are told by society that being “strong” and not expressing your feelings in a healthy way are both positive values. In truth, keeping your feelings inside causes added stress. Toxic masculinity can be harmful to women if men are given the impression that aggression is a positive, but it is also harmful to men who are given the impression that expressing your feelings in a healthy manner is “weak.” This pressure to be “strong” all the time can cause adverse health effects. It is not the ONLY reason there is a gap in mortality between men and women, but it appears to be one contributing factor. So, what else does Conan say? “See them driven before you.” OK, so, pride? There is nothing about being a man that means having to see oneself as larger than life, but toxic masculinity makes it difficult to feel secure about being merely average when our vertical hierarchies demand both control and competition. And the last thing Conan says? “Hear the lamentations of the women.” OK, so, let's talk about that.   
 Here, Conan, encountering women, mindlessly calls them “sluts.” In another scene, Conan is “gifted” a woman. Toxic masculinity tells men that they should be prepared for s*x at any time and that it is only natural to believe oneself entitled to the attention of women. The toxic script says that if men think about s*x all the time, then that is the natural course they must take, and that men therefore must be extremely forward about s*x. That s*x is an inevitability, mandatory and can skirt around the borders of consent. You can imagine how women feel about this s*xual aggression, especially when it is justified as “boys will be boys.” Under this narrow scope, if violence is an indicator of power, then violence against women is acceptable if it is in service of men's “natural” desires. According to the American Psychiatric Association, more than any biological reason, these cultural lessons are what link men to aggression and violence. This leaves boys and men at disproportionate risk for school discipline, academic challenges, health disparities and substance abuse. Men are also over-represented in prisons and are significantly more likely to commit violent crimes than women.   
 Also, because of the competitive nature of toxic masculinity, aggression between men is a contributing factor to men being at greater risk of being the VICTIMS of violent crime as well. You know how Conan the Barbarian is pretty good and the sequel, Conan the Destroyer, is pretty bad? Well, saying the first one is good and the second one needs some work doesn't mean someone hates the Conan movies. Comparatively, saying some aspects of what we consider masculinity are positive and some aspects of what we consider masculinity are negative does not mean that someone hates men. If you can understand and accept someone liking Conan the Barbarian but not Conan the Destroyer, you can understand someone appreciating men but not like men abusing women.   
 If toxic masculinity is such a destructive force, its defenders might say, then how did it propagate itself? Part of what we have come to call toxic masculinity is belief that physical strength separates men from women and therefore makes men either superior or at least superior at “things that matter.” Men who believe this often deflect by calling women their “partners” but still believe that the workforce and important positions should be dominated by men. This hierarchy, most historians and experts say, began to happen when human beings started to raise livestock. The first known patriarchies were nomadic herding societies  – meaning the first to depend on raising livestock – and that male privilege and women’s oppression reached their height in advanced agrarian societies that depended heavily on both human labor and animal breeding. Vertical hierarchies of economy were created by those who hoarded the most wealth. That's not to say this happened everywhere. Anthropological and historical studies of societies in Africa, Pre-Columbian North America and New Guinea show numerous cultures in which women had not been devalued or pushed down the hierarchy.   
 Matrilineal societies are historically quite common and have included significant female control over land and property. s*xual violence and treatment of women as property were largely unknown in these societies and historically only increased with the introduction of male dominance – often from outside   forces. Like many societal woes, toxic masculinity has its roots in vertical power structures, hierarchies that elevate some people – often not based on true merit but pre-existing systems that benefit them – and disenfranchise others often for reasons beyond the control of those disenfranchised. Hierarchies are NOT held together peacefully, as the circumstances in which they were created and maintained involve the exploitation of those lower on the ladder. Hierarchies are held together by force. Capitalism is maintained by a ruling economic class that exploits workers, for example. Those who defend such hierarchies claim they are “natural” and that makes them somehow unavoidable.   
 Of course, no hierarchical system has always existed, which disproves this, and even if it were natural, something being “natural” does not make it automatically better. Indoor plumbing is not natural, but we wouldn't give that up. It is not a coincidence that those who defend the existence of these hierarchies – whether based in economics, race, gender, etc. – are also those who benefit most from them. Hierarchies create incredibly stressful competition, which often guides those in said hierarchies to double down on the worst aspects of the condition that keeps them above others. In the case of male hierarchy over women, this competition makes men resistant to challenges to masculinity, even narrow versions of masculinity like toxic masculinity. Thus, when men are told about toxic masculinity and the dangers to both women and themselves, they often dismiss said criticisms and engage in the behavior even further. Challenging toxic masculinity can make some men take on even more toxic traits because humans living in hierarchical systems have been conditioned to be “competitive.”   
 If masculinity is what makes them male, and being male is a higher position in the gender hierarchy, then criticism of masculinity feels like an affront and a challenge to said position. Even though criticisms of toxic masculinity are intended to help men and not hurt men, the criticism is mistakenly perceived as an attack, even when this criticism is brought up by other men because men are not only competing against women but also competing among other men. This is true in other hierarchies as well. When capitalism is criticized for the disparity between the rich and poor, capitalists counter by demanding even fewer regulations and more tax cuts for the rich, thus increasing the disparity between the rich and poor rather than resolving it. If the hierarchy between men and women is so resistant to change, what can we do to better the situation? The truth is, power structures like gender hierarchies cannot be dismantled by your individual growth on the subject. Your growth is important, both to yourself and to those with whom you interact, but it will do nothing to the hierarchy itself. Your personal growth is not the end of toxic masculinity or this hierarchy, it is only education about toxic masculinity and this hierarchy.   
 That's definitely a good thing, but it is the start and not the end of the journey. I don't want that to sound discouraging, though. There is some good that can and should be done on the individual level. Some things can be done like actively pushing back by telling your friends, family and co-workers when they are engaging in toxic behavior – and I recommend this wholeheartedly – but that still is not the end of the journey. Combating toxic masculinity is what we can do now, within the system in which we currently exist, but obviously, the system itself needs to change. Powerful, far-reaching structures and attitudes can only be dismantled or at least diminished through powerful, far-reaching movements like direct action, drastically changing education on the matter taught from an early age and working toward changing hierarchical power structures in other aspects of life. The world needs to work toward horizontal leadership in all forms and eliminate the obsession with competition in order for any of these hierarchies to completely lose their power, especially since these hierarchies feed into each other. And if you are asking me for an exact plan on how to do this, I hate to disappoint, but I am an educator and not an organizer.   
 I don't have a blueprint to change the world. Although, education is the first step, and I hope that this video has been more helpful than harmful. To recap, toxic masculinity is a hegemonic form of masculinity that protects aggression and unemotional detachment, and it defines manhood in narrow terms while de-emphasizing positive traits that are sometimes coded masculine like personal integrity and courage. It is unhelpful or dangerous to people of all genders and is empowered by a rigid, vertical hierarchy that has existed for centuries. Said hierarchy can't be taken down overnight – we can't just cut off the head of Thulsa Doom and change the world with one stroke -- but within the current system we have, we should always make an effort to minimize harm and affect change where we can.