The Fragile Male Ego?

The other day I was reading an article and a phrase that I have heard over and over again really got my attention. The person was writing and they mentioned the 'Fragile Male Ego'. As I pondered this, I asked myself, what does this really mean. Believe me when I say this, I've heard this term before and to some degree or the other I just accepted it as being relevant to the truth. However, when I focused on this idea a little I realized how ridiculous the concept this phrase represents.

Well the first thing that you probably need to know about me is I enjoy being a man. I like the fact that I'm not quite as sensitive to things that my wife may be. I don't see everything the way she sees it. Sometimes she thinks I need to relax a little bit. When we first got married, she used to say to me when I returned home from work, 'loosen up Mr. Dillinger'. So we are wired differently. I like that I can watch a football game with my friends and make a lot of noise while I do it. I even remember a couple of times waking up my children with a lot of racket while I was watching a sporting event when they were babies.

As a child the men that I knew enjoyed being men. Although they were many different personalities and characters, it seemed to me that they enjoyed being men. I never remember or think of them in the sense of having a 'Fragile Male Ego'. I often think of my uncle Dave, man could he drive a car. Yes, he drove too fast, but I loved watching him do it. Looking back, as I grew up I took on his driving style for a while. Of course, with the assistance of a judge suspending my driver's license, I learned the error of my ways and slowed down.

One of my relative's husband, Sam, really enjoyed being a man. If memory serves me right, he was a porter for the railroad before he retired. When we would go to Rocky Point to visit them he would regale us with fascinating stories of his life as we walked through acres of property out behind his house. I was never quite sure if it was his property or not, but he clearly enjoyed the essence of manhood.

There was a man that lived at the end of the dirt road that I grew up on named Mr. George Foy. Listen, he was an old man but he never appeared fragile in the embracing of his manliness. From time to time he would give me a word of wisdom. One day he saw me following a snake trail across the road and advised me not to do that because it was possible that the snake would be hiding in the bushes waiting for me. I don't believe I ever spoke his name in my life without putting Mr. in front of it and I never forgot his advice. While in high school I lived with a friend of mine’s family. His father, Mr. Rufus, was a good man. However, if you crossed him you found out pretty quick this was no ‘Fragile Male Ego’ you were dealing with. My Uncle Johnnie can fix anything with wire and duck tape if that is all he has and I guarantee you he enjoys being a man.

My biological father used to fascinate me as he entered a room. His personality and masculinity filled the room. He was loud, but loud in a good, masculine, and energizing way. My uncle, who adopted me as his own, was a much quieter man. He was a very capable man that was comfortable with his manhood. The list could go on and on with men from the Rock Hill community, the community that I grew up in, and as you can see, I had some good role models as to how to be and enjoy being a man.

I find it interesting that when some attempt to describe and understand men the perspective seems to be rooted in a negative or perhaps anti-manhood light. Listen, it is not just the apparent reproductive organs that make men different from women, men are different on chemical (hormonal) and emotional levels. It is really counter-productive to characterize characteristics of manhood in such a negative and derogatory phrase as ‘Fragile Male Ego‘. Just as we know women and appreciate that their differences should not compared to men in a negative light, this standard needs to be applied when discussing the attributes of men.

So if a man responds in a typically masculine way to a given situation, many would respond that that is a ‘Fragile Male Ego‘ on display. I disagree. I say that is a man that accepts and enjoys the essence of being a man and has no intention of pretending to be something else.