Episode 80: Is Your View On Masculinity Actually Emasculating?

sSara (00:05)

Powered people make informed decisions that lead to living a life without regret. This is Sara Khaki and Shawna Woods from Atlanta Divorce Law Group. And this is the Happily Ever After Divorce Podcast. Welcome to the Happily Ever After Divorce Podcast. This is Sara Khaki with Atlanta Divorce Law Group, and I’m joined by our very own managing partner, Shawna Woods. Today, we are going to talk about how our views of masculinity could actually be emasculinating.

So let me set this up a little bit. What we have found in our firm through lots of clients, we’ve helped men and women, and even generally in our own lives, is that us women and also men have a certain view of what it means to be masculine. What does it mean to be a man? And.

When we take a moment and sometimes consider that point of view and where it comes from and with the expectations that it brings to the table, and then look at the results we’re getting from that point of view and the expectations we are placing on the men in our lives, at times that point of view can actually emasculinate those around us. And when we talk about emasculinate, we mean get in the way of the results.

Of a man who is trying to provide, trying to produce or trying to protect. And our point of view of what it means to be a man or our point of view of what it means to be masculine can actually stand in the way of the masculine producing, providing, or protecting. Shawna, we…

We didn’t talk about this much before we got on the podcast. We wanted to have a raw and fresh conversation as we usually do. Let’s first break this down and go to what is, what do we think of when we say masculinity? Is that different from person to person is a diff, what shapes our view of what is masculine and what does it mean to be a man?

sShawna (02:16)

I think that’s a great question. A lot of what we think about when we think about what is the masculine energy, is what we’re looking for as females, what are the males trying to emulate? I think a lot of it has to do with your culture. It has to do with your background. It has a lot to do with your age. The different generations who are viewing masculinity as distinctly different.

My view of masculinity is very much shaped by the fact of, you know, I’m what they call a genexer. It’s somebody who was raised in an era where the masculine still very much showed up in the form of the protector, the provider. It definitely had some negative connotations when it was like the overprotective person or the person who had to be overtly masculine.

But I do think that also shaped our viewpoints as women on what we’re expecting from the men in our life. And that had a lot to do with how perhaps our fathers showed up in masculinity.

sSara (03:25)

And sometimes it’s also based on how our fathers did not show up, right? Or how the men in our lives did not show up and that shaped our view of masculinity. And then here’s where things get a little bit trippy is as women, we may take that point of view that has been painted by our culture, by our relationships with other men.

Whether from childhood with our parents or with our siblings or with guys growing up, that all kept painting this picture for us. And we are now grown women coming into these relationships, never really questioning, where did I get this idea of what it means to be a man that I am now placing this expectation on my partner who is a man?

And I don’t even know where the standard I have set comes from. But so many women do say, I want a man. I want a masculine man. And if we take a moment and think about what do you mean by that? What does that mean as far as what his values are? What does that mean as far as what he’s going to provide? What, how he’s going to protect? How he’s going to show up for you? What does all that mean? And will that expectation

Get you the results, the actual results you want in your partnership. And this is where I find a lot of women and a lot of our clients go through a lot of heartache because they set their spouses up or their partners up for an expectation of that is fleeting and it’s not even really real to themselves of what it means to be masculine, what it means to be a man. And they’re setting up their partner for failure.

And in the process, nobody can make anybody happy.

So what do you think, where do you think most of us sit? Like let’s think of our average female professional woman or a stay home mom, either way, where do you think right now in our culture, what are we thinking of when we say, I want a masculine man? What do you think a woman means when she says that? Let’s help the guys out, let’s help ourselves out and just open that up a little bit.

sShawna (05:50)

United that’s a again a really good question i do think it changes you know probably would change if you ask me versus perhaps if you ask my daughter or care or some of the younger women in our office you know when i think about the people who are coming to us to i would say average you know you’re between your thirty and fifties and

This is both men and women when we’re talking about what we see in the patterns that we do see. We do want providers, even though we are providers, right? We are successful women who earn sufficient income, but we want providers in our partners. We want somebody who can catch us when we fall.

Right if something happens and gosh forbid you know my company goes under or you know i’m not able to earn what i can earn i want somebody who has my back i want somebody that can step up or not even just step up but provides period on top of what i do or in addition to what i do and i would go as far to say i do think that relationships often struggle when women earn more than men.

I’m not out here advocating that you shouldn’t. I’m saying that is a pain point for a lot of men and it’s actually a pain point for a lot of women. They don’t respect, they may say they do, but when it comes down to it, a lot of women simply do not respect their partners if they do not earn as much or more than they do. So the provider is one. I think protector, you when you talk about protection, I want to feel

That if something happened, this person next to me, the love of my life, is going to step up and prevent me from getting hurt. He’s gonna stand in the way between me and that potential threat, right? I’m not the one running to the door if we think there’s somebody breaking in. It would be him running to the door, right? That’s what we think we are like. I want that masculine energy.

Caretaker in a lot of sense. I know we think women are the caretakers a lot, but a caretaker in different ways. I’ll you a very small example that I loved this masculinity in a neighbor. This was even really directed at me. This is years and years ago. I had bought my first house, had no idea how to take care of a lawn, and I’m pretty sure the neighbor’s wife may have sent him over, but every Saturday he would show up

And just say, hey, I’m gonna mow your lawn for you. And it was the nicest, brotherly, wonderful masculine thing that I really did enjoy. So it was a caretaker in a way where they feel cars is another place, right? I love the fact that I can turn my car over to somebody with this masculine energy and say, hey, take care of this. I’m sure I’m gonna get a lot of backlash from this, from my female mechanics.

From other people who had a disagreement with maybe that’s not what they want in a partner. But I’m talking about those of us who do look for masculine energy and my viewpoint on what I think that masculine energy is.

sSara (09:21)

Well, you know, the first thing is that neighbor, you allowed him to be masculine because you made space for him to be masculine. And I think that’s the first place us women, we don’t create enough space for a masculine to come in. And then when we block that door energetically and we block even, even physically, just not even giving them permission to come in and take care of our car or,

They do your lawn for you like your neighbor did. We’re physically literally blocking the masculine from coming in instead of creating space for it. And then this is the part that’s heartbreaking then saying, he wasn’t, he was a man enough to do that for me. Or he, he wasn’t, he wasn’t masculine enough. We should first ask ourselves, how did you show up to invite the masculine? Because.

Part of what the masculine does is the masculine is really good at preserving energy. The masculine comes from our hunters and our hunters, and this is all studies you can see in anthropology and you can also read about it from Alison Armstrong that we’ve mentioned multiple times, hunters needed to learn how to preserve their energy. If the hunt was worth it or not, were they, if they went after the elk,

And the big elk did they have to take a account for do i have enough tools do i have enough resources to take that out down or am i gonna end up coming back home empty handed if i go after that elk so maybe i should go after smaller animal that i know i can assess and take care of so the masculine actually instinctually can look at a woman and say. This.

There’s energy here opened up for me to step in and move something, make somebody happy. She’s open and receiving me doing something as simple as taking care of her lawn. She’s open, willing and receiving for me to take care of her car. But if you are showing up in a way that closes that door, that’s a complete block to receiving,

The masculine instinctual energy will assess the situation and say, not worth the effort. And that is part of the masculine.

sShawna (11:47)

You bring up an excellent point there and there’s this comedian and she does this bit about how men will chase the weaker gazelle. Right? This is big and she does this like she’s like, I’m running fast. I’m the fastest runner, right? And I do think a lot of us have that energy. It’s like we don’t want to be caught by just any male, right? Right. Do you want somebody who matches our energy? So when we’re talking about we’re not talking about lessening ourselves, we’re talking about

Opening ourselves up to what we actually do want. Now if you’re a type of person who doesn’t want this kind of masculine energy, if that’s not what you’re wanting, then this conversation isn’t for you. The conversation is, we want this. Are we saying we wanting it? And are we acting like we want it? Or are we out there saying, yeah, it doesn’t matter, you know, to me, if he shows up with masculine energy at all, that’s not what I want in my partner.

But then you really want it and then by wanting it and not saying it, not acting like you want it, what you’re getting is somebody who’s already showing up, not giving you what you want and so you’re emasculating them further.

sSara (13:02)

And when you emasculinate them, you’re standing in the way by definition of them being able to produce results. So it is a complete vicious cycle. You are demanding of them to be more masculine, which right away demanding something to be more masculine. That is a block from allowing something to be masculine because the masculine does not show up and provide, protect, take care of you.

When you are making demands of it. It’s the masculine is waiting to come into a space that is opened up as an invitation for it to, provide, protect and produce. But you’re demanding of it, this masculinity from a false point of view of what is masculinity to begin with. So it’s not providing for you. And in that process, you’ve de-masculinated for it, de-masculinated the man and

When you’ve de-masculinated him, you’ve lost respect for him. And when you lose respect for him, he’s lost respect for himself as well. And this is where it breaks my heart when I see amazing providers as men that care so much about keeping their family together, care so much about the happiness of their family. And you can hear from their voice, they’re in so much pain because they’ve tried to their wits end.

To provide the things she has asked for. He’s almost gone against his own instinct. He’s gone against his instinct of, no, honey, like we aren’t there yet. I should not buy that house right now. No, we should not buy that car. We should not max out our credit cards to go on this trip. He’s tried that, but when she’s come up against the woman that says, well, you’re not a man. Why aren’t you trying to make me happy? Or I’m not happy. I’m not happy.

Is the trigger word for a true masculine to say, I got to do something because his job is he feels instinctually responsible for her. So then he will go against his instincts, his own masculine instincts to provide the things that she is verbally saying that she wants, but it’s not enough because it’s not the real thing that she wants. She hasn’t figured out what that is. And they will go in this vicious cycle till he keeps producing.

And providing things that are not what she ultimately wants. And then under her leadership, he will be demasculinated. He will not be able to provide the results he wants. She will lose respect for him because he’s been demasculinated and he will end up losing respect for himself. And that’s the saddest part is when you see a full,

Male masculine energy lose respect for itself and it it’s trust in itself to produce results.

sShawna (15:57)

I don’t want to let them in completely off the hook here in regard in this regard because they allow themselves to get into these situations as well. You really have to take a look at you know what is the male perspective what is your desire in a female does it match what she is giving you and what is her desire in the mail and is that something you wish to match. Had a client this past summer wonderful man.

Like a really nice person, genuinely nice person, excellent provider like you were talking about. And what I’m hearing from the other side and from what he was telling me, her idea of masculinity was very, very different from his idea of masculinity when it came down to it. She didn’t want to say that to him.

But she would act out in these ways that were emasculating, even though objectively he was meeting every criteria that you would really want in a spouse. I do think that, and I’m going to put just a little public service announcement out here for some of my males as well, because if you are having a woman who is pushing about, want the bigger car, I want the bigger house,

Why can’t you afford to take me the Ruth Chris every Friday right whatever it is i want you to question yourself about why you’re actually with this person they may simply be in it for the money right that that is a very big. Being that a lot of people get into relationships for so if you’re looking at this from a perspective of i am providing is that all this person wants from you is that.

Providing are they also looking for the other masculine qualities of the caretaker and the advisor the person who is gonna problem-solve exactly Sara

sSara (18:00)

Bye.

Yeah, and I completely agree with you. I think you need to take a hard look and see what are your partner’s values, what is your partner’s goals, and are you guys have a vision of where you’re headed together? One of the big problems is that in every marriage and every partnership, there’s ebbs and flows of one partner being in a place in life where they feel a little lost. That’s gonna happen in any relationship.

And if the masculine allows himself to go into the deep dark hole that his wife or partner may find herself in when she’s kind of drifting through life, because we all will face this moment at some point where we are just like, what am I about? What am I doing? What’s my purpose? What’s next?

And so she may just be grabbing on to just tree branches to find herself again. And it might be a transition she’s going through. Maybe she’s trying to get back into the workforce or maybe she’s trying to get out of the workforce. Maybe the kids have gotten older and being a mom is not her big thing right now because the kids are out of the house. When she’s going through those transitions, and it’s usually when we see this, or they move into a new neighborhood and lifestyle of all the neighbors is different.

Usually when we see these things happen and if he doesn’t stand up for the ultimate vision of the family and he doesn’t stand up against her current lost state and say, you need a moment to figure it out what you want, instead of just giving into every wind that comes and goes, he’s gonna take them both down a rabbit hole. And I think that us women,

Who truly do love the masculine and love everything it can provide and protect us from, at times we need that masculine to protect us against ourselves when we’re going down that dark place. We need it to provide for us the right thing when we’re asking it to provide the wrong thing. So give us what we need, not always what we want. We also need it to produce

The ultimate result of keeping us safe and getting us closer to the long-term vision we built for the whole family versus producing just for a month from now. And I think that that is what we need to hold our men up to, say, hey, the end of the day, the masculine part of its energy, and you can find this in women too, because women have masculine energy as well. Part of it.

Is that part of its promise, part of the promise of the masculine energy is the responsibility piece. It’s the responsible one. It’s the focused one. It’s the non distracted one, the one that is looking out for the end result and doesn’t let distractions come in the way. And women tend to say they want the masculine to provide X, Y, and Z and do this for me and do that for me and just make me happy. But instinctually.

Spiritually, we want that ultimate masculine that those moments protects us against ourselves and holds onto that long-term vision and sets the boundaries for the distractions that come along the way. Men, as you said, the PSA is, you have to stand up for that and you have to stand up for yourself because if you get yourself to a point where you lose respect for yourself,

Because of you going down rabbit holes that your partner’s taking you through, then we’ve lost you. Because that’s what we’re relying on at the end is your own self-respect and your self-reliance and your to be self-assured. And if you lose that, we’ve ultimately lost our man.

sShawna (22:14)

And I do think you know circling back everybody has different things that they look for in a relationship in your idea of masculinity and femininity may be different than Sara’s and I idea of that but I think what’s really important is to be honest with yourself about one what does it mean for you if you’re saying I want a masculine male I want a feminine female what does that mean what does that look like.

And is that something that’s congruent with what your partner is or wants? And if you’re struggling with this, if you guys are thinking about this or you’re not sure how to approach this subject, I would strongly urge, and I know Sara does too, that marriage therapy is one of the best ways to really come together to say, what is it I want and need from you? And how is it I can fulfill what you want and need from me?

sSara (23:10)

Thank you, Shawna, I think that nails it.

sShawna (23:12)

Thank you.

sSara (23:16)

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