There’s no such thing as toxic masculinity. These “toxic males” are just boys who never grew up into men. In this episode, Amy Killingsworth explains what needs to happen for males to mature in their physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental states. First, we have to create a safe space for them to operate in their manhood. Criticizing and belittling them will only take manhood away from them. If you want to help the men in your life to rise to their truest selves, this episode is for you. Tune in!

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Toxic Masculinity? No, Just Unhealthy Boys Who Never Grow Up

In this episode, we are taking a deep dive into masculinity. Specifically, the effects that emasculation has on masculinity. I’m going to share with you a unique definition of emasculation and share what it looks like to do that and how to stop it so we can have our men rise to their rightful place of influence and reign in their lives alongside us. I hope you enjoy this episode.

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This is the third episode in a little mini-series that we’re doing on polarity. If you missed the first one on what polarity is, we’re talking about gender polarity that would have been season 2, episode 9. You can go back and start there. In the last episode, I did femininity. This episode is about masculinity. As I’m going through and preparing content, I’m realizing there’s probably even going to be a fourth episode on how these two interact. A lot of questions have come up about what to do when you find yourself accessing, living in an energy that isn’t authentic to you or exhibiting the traits out of an unhealthy personality. I’m going to handle that on the next episode. In this episode, we’re going to focus on masculinity.

I want to start off by saying, I’ve mentioned it over and over again, this is a topic where angels fear to tread because there’s so much conflict. That conflict is born out of a lot of unmet expectations, hurt feelings, trauma. Childhood wounds from a primary caregiver, as well as hurtful relationships that have gone on in our past or maybe our present between the male-female, masculine-feminine dynamic. My heart here is to begin to heal some of that by self-awareness, understanding and emotional healing. I want to say and be clear about my position is that I love men. I realize that is a blanket statement. There are so many forces that are seeking to denigrate men and masculinity. For all that we talk about women, how they have been oppressed, marginalized and they have, I’m not minimizing that but men have too. Men are hurting deeply. It is my heart to heal that to help and create space for men to heal and rise into their most authentic selves as masculine people. Also, I have two sons and it’s very close to my heart to watch them develop into healthy masculine men to rise up and take their place as godly men in the world.

With that being said, I want to also start off with this statement. This is a buzzword that’s going around, which is toxic masculinity. I don’t believe in it. I don’t even believe that such a thing exists. There is no such thing as toxic masculinity because masculinity is very healing provisional and necessary. Remember, we need both the masculine and the feminine to express the true nature and image of God. Masculinity in its true form is a good thing. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s a healing thing. It’s a necessary thing. There’s no such thing as toxic masculinity. There’s masculinity and there’s something that looks like masculinity that isn’t. We’re going to parse that out and make the distinction between what is a healthy male and unhealthy male. Those two things are opposite. As we understand godly masculinity and divine masculine, it will help us understand that what is referred to as toxic masculinity, which is behavior by an unhealthy male person. Unhealthy men are typically boys who grow old but they never grow up.

 

How Boys Grow Up To Become Men

We’re going to talk about that maturation process and what needs to happen. When we see what we normally refer to toxic as toxic masculinity, it’s a boy in a man’s body. Basically, it is a male who is a boy who grew old but never grew up. It’s never too late to grow up. In fact, that is what the rise reign process is all about, rising up and maturing emotionally, spiritually, mentally, physically. What are some of the masculine qualities? I encourage you to go listen to the last episode if you haven’t yet because I did get quite a bit into masculinity already. It’s impossible to understand femininity without understanding masculinity. Conversely, it’s impossible to understand masculinity without understanding femininity. It’s like polar opposites. It’s like, we understand what cold is because it’s not hot. We understand what fast is because it’s not slow. It’s useful to understand a thing by its opposite.

At the hot lava core of masculinity are three things. It’s protection, provision, and presiding or leading. When you think of the president, I’m not saying that a woman couldn’t or shouldn’t be president. I would love to see a female president but when you think about presiding, that’s a very masculine quality. It’s like taking responsibility for everything in his realm under his domain, that’s presiding. Taking ownership and leading in that space is a masculine quality. When we talk about what’s referred to as toxic masculinity, immature masculinity or maybe an unhealthy male person exhibiting some qualities that might be confused with masculinity, it’s the opposite of that. An unhealthy man shows up not to protect but to aggress, to perpetuate, and to be a predator. Instead of protecting, he is pre-dating or he is looking to victimize. Same with the provision and unhealthy male, there are varying degrees of toxicity in this. Varying degrees of like nefarious, motives. Some can be virulent or malignant. Some can be innocuous and benign, but still annoying and not what is needed from a man.

Provision, the second quality is an unhealthy male will show up to get instead of to give. That’s like the taker instead of the maker. This is a maturity issue. Showing up in a situation or in a relationship and seeing what they can get instead of what they can give. There are different stages of development for men, obviously a 50-year-old, 60-year-old man, a father, a grandfather versus a college student. There are all spectrums to be had there. In addition to protecting, providing and presiding, we have some other qualities that are distinctly masculine. The masculine highly prizes and values freedom. The masculine wants to be able to come and go as it pleases. This is often in conflict with some other desires that he has to protect, provide and preside. This is one of the conflicts in which men find themselves, is wanting to be a provider, protect the tribe. Also, wanting to run free and not have responsibility. Again, that’s a maturation issue. I handled this quite a bit before but the strategy is a very masculine quality, strategy and execution.

Create space for men to heal and rise into their most authentic selves as masculine people. Click To Tweet

Healthy masculine takes the ownership that’s part of presiding as well as empowers, lifts others up and develops. Healthy masculinity uses restraint. It’s restrained. It’s strong but its strength is under control. There’s a quote by Jordan Peterson that I absolutely love which says that, “A safe man is a dangerous man that has danger under control.” The feeling or general idea is that a safe man is not a dangerous man. A safe man is a dangerous man that has that strength and his danger under control. Using restraint is a very masculine quality, as well as providing safety.

This is again protection but you can feel the presence of a masculine man. It exudes safety. You feel safe around a man who is very identified with his masculinity. The masculine is inclined and predisposed toward emptying out. Men are generous. That is usually the case. What happens, what turns this and what makes women think that men are awful and evil is because often, men are put into a position where they are needing to protect themselves from women, maybe from the people that they are supposed to be protecting. That is because of the unhealthy style of relating.

Emasculation Takes Away The Manhood Of A Man

What I want to cover because I’ve covered the quality is pretty much ad nauseum of what is masculine and what is feminine. Next episode, if you’re a feminine person but you’ve put on this style of relating or armored up with masculinity, how do you get back into femininity? If you’re a man and maybe you have not identified strongly with your masculine qualities, how do you get back into that and how do these two things interplay? I’m going to handle that on the next episode. One topic that I feel has to be handled here is Emasculation. This episode is really about emasculation. When you emasculate a person, it’s the idea of castrating them. I know that is physically repulsive but it’s the energetic quality of castrating or taking away the manhood of a man.

 

You can also emasculate women though and children. I’m going to talk about that. I love Alison Armstrong’s definition of emasculation. That is, to reduce or eliminate a person’s ability to produce results. Producing results is a masculine quality. Crossing the finish line, winning, going for something is very masculine. When you, by your behavior, men do it to men, women often do it to men without understanding or knowing it and women do it to women. Emasculation is reducing or eliminating a person’s ability to produce results, according to Alison Armstrong. There are other definitions obviously but I like hers because it works.

How do we emasculate specifically men as women? That’s what I want to talk about. We complain, criticize, that’s very emasculating. We belittle and we take over. This is the idea of if you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself. We see him not taking out the trash or not putting his socks in the laundry hamper. We get disgusted, just go, do it for ourselves and we’re resentful. We think that he is such a loser because he didn’t do what he was supposed to do. When we act like that, we emasculate him. We do this to our children, and again, we do this to each other.

Our culture, especially feminism, teaches boys and men those masculine qualities are bad so they put on a feminine mask. Boys, if you’ll notice I have two of them. One of them is a teenager and the other one is a pre-teen. You’ll notice as they’re growing up, if you’ve ever been around boys, they’re aggressive and wild. I love it. I do everything that I can to encourage this behavior. In my boys, I didn’t always because they didn’t understand this when they were littler but now, I do everything that I can to encourage their wildness and aggressiveness. That’s their design and that is what is needed in the world.

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If you have a boy, been around young boys, you’ll also notice that they love weaponry. They love guns, swords and play ninja. They’re warriors and they love to be in battle. What has been termed toxic masculinity or the propensity of men to aggress against somebody that’s weaker than them? We have taken the baby and thrown it out with the bathwater and said that aggression is bad. That is not good quality and you need to be more like women. When we do that, we emasculate them but there is a very critical element here that we all need to see. That is healthy masculinity aggresses on behalf of. That’s how they protect. Think about a man going to war. I know women go to war too, but in this context, think about a man going to war to protect the village or the tribe.

Healthy masculinity is aggressive but it aggresses on behalf of unhealthy masculinity aggresses against, it’s sad when this happens. Usually when a man aggresses against somebody that they’re supposed to be protecting, it’s because they have to protect themselves from the person that they’re supposed to be protecting because that person is aggressing against and emasculating them. When demands are made of them, their choices are to either submit or to defy. Neither one of those are good options. There’s a better option. I’m going to get into that a little bit more on the next episode. I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

For this episode, what I want us to see here is when we emasculate little boys and young men and tell them that these qualities are bad. Instead of helping them understand the context in which they are useful. It is bad for our society and culture. What we see is a feminization of our men. This is very obvious in the transgender where men are dressing as women and putting makeup on. That’s the extreme of the spectrum. Even men who would consider themselves manly and heterosexual are wearing this mask of femininity because our culture has told them that masculinity is bad and not to be strong, aggressive, results-driven and oriented is bad.

 

They need to back that off. They need to embrace the good qualities, which are to share, be nice, castrated and ineffective. The reason where this gets muddy, our culture teaches women their qualities are soft and useless in the workplace. We teach men that their qualities are bad and should be overcome in the home. As you can see that’s where it creates these problems because women and feminine people in their role when they’re protected are provided for, that’s when they blossom and become powerful. Masculine people in their role, blossom and become powerful when they’re given this space to be men, to protect, provide and lead.

I want to be careful because I’m not saying that women can’t and shouldn’t lead. We need women leaders. We need women to be leaders but we need women to be leaders as women. We need men to be leaders as men. When we take the masculine qualities, we denigrate them and we emasculate them. What happens is to be loved and accepted, boys will put on a feminine mask. They’re sensitive and the metro-sexual guy. That’s like your best buddy and you can talk to them about everything, and they listen to you and they go shopping with you. It feels great but there’s no sexual attraction. Why? It’s because sexual attraction is based on polarity. The further you are on the polarity spectrum, apart from each other, the more attraction there’s going to be. We feminize men and we masculinize women, and we wonder why we have so many problems.

As I talked about in the last episode, the result of a woman encountering a feminized man is she’s not threatened. She feels safe in a way that she’s not threatened. She also feels this incredible sense of contempt because she innately sees that as weakness. How we get past this is going to be handled. It’s important. It’s going to be handled in the next episode. As fully going along, the development of how men are emasculated is, as boys, we teach them that their masculine qualities are bad. Instead of teaching them how to channel them appropriately, we teach them that they’re bad and should be more feminine so they put on a feminine mask. As they get older, they realize that, “I’m not attracting women because I am feminine.” They put on a masculine mask.

We need women to be leaders as women, and we need men to be leaders as men. Click To Tweet

I talked about how women do this too. That’s what we see as toxic masculinity. This is when they’re chasing women and not honoring women. They are trying to get ahead and step on anybody’s head to get there, and creating this false sense of bravado. Masculinity becomes toxic when it’s a masculine mask on top of a feminine mask. The solution is to take off both of those masks and come back to the core of healthy masculinity. Not only celebrate masculinity but also create the space for masculinity to thrive. For that to happen, women have to back off of the masculine side of the pole. They also have to learn to interact with masculinity in a way that is non-threatening.

I say that very carefully because it is threatening. I tell you when you have a history of maybe interacting with toxic masculinity and you’re confronted with masculinity, it can be triggering for a woman. I can speak from my experience. There is a way to soften and be with it. You realize as a woman, in the presence of true and authentic masculinity, you’re able to blossom and become more powerful when you’re protected and provided. This isn’t just in romantic relationships. Of course, it applies to romantic relationships but I’m talking about the mother-son relationship, father-daughter, men and women working together. I’m talking about men and women doing ministry in church or government organizations together. What needs to shift in our society is men need to be strong men and women need to be strong women but as women.

Emasculation is a problem where we were deuce or eliminate a person’s ability to produce results by complaining, criticizing, belittling or taking over. What we’ll talk about in the next episode is the masculine responds to the feminine. That’s the way of things, the masculine response to the feminine. In this way, I feel like this is a women’s area to go first in. That is to back out of the masculine position, to create that space for men to rise into masculinity and to be able to lead as men. One thing before I close, and we’re getting close to the time where we need to close. I’m going to have a lot to say about this in the next episode as well and take it a little bit further.

The Feminization Of Men In Our Society Is Intentional

However, I do want to mention that I believe the feminization of men in our culture, in our society, is intentional. It’s part of a master plan because we see what’s going on in our world with the victimization of children and women, and the takeover of, maybe nefarious forces. I’m not a conspiracy theorist but I think we’re at a place where we all need to open our eyes and see what’s going on in the world. It’s the men, it’s a strong masculine warrior man that protects the tribe. Just because we have houses with picket fences and cars, and men aren’t wearing fur, carrying clubs, going out and finding food on the Savannah, we’re no less a tribal society, a communal society.

We need strong men to protect the tribe. When the men are not strong, the tribe is vulnerable. We see millions of women and children and some men, but mostly women and children, in the sex trafficking industry. We see fatherless children getting into all kinds of confusion, trouble, violence and all of these societal problems. I believe this can be traced back to the issue of not having strong fathers. It’s easy to point the finger at men and be like, “You are failing. You are not doing your job. You’re not doing what you’re supposed to be doing,” but what is that when we do that? It’s complaining, criticizing.

As women, when we do that, we say, “The men aren’t showing up, so we have to.” That’s where we go with it. When the man isn’t showing up, we’re like, “I have to show up. If you’re not showing up, then I have to.” It’s this vicious cycle where we as women are mad at the men for not showing up and not being that strong presence. Our response to that is to complain, criticize, belittle and take over. That doesn’t emasculate him and it doesn’t solve our problem.

We’re not having a conversation about, whether or not that’s justified, whether or not we are entitled or deserved to have our feelings. It is not the point because when you’re a sovereign individual when you take radical responsibility, your focus is on outcomes. What’s your outcome? Our outcome needs to re-emasculate men. Not emasculate, but re-emasculate. It’s up to men to rise into masculinity and take that position to protect provide and preside. We have to create the space as women for them to do that. We also have to stop the things that we do to denigrate, marginalize, minimize and emasculate them.

It starts with every relationship you have in your life with men. It starts with your sons. Obviously, if you are raising sons, it starts there. it starts with your workplace, church, community outreach, in the family. We need to create the space for men to be able to produce the results that we need them to produce, which is protection provision and them presiding and leading. In order to do that, we have to make a commitment to stop emasculating men and boys. Men emasculate and women emasculate each other. When we complain, criticize, belittle and takeover, we reduce the ability of that person to produce results. We need to make a change here. Part of the Rise to Reign process is becoming self-aware.

I have an assignment. I have a challenge for you. Pay attention to when you complain, criticize, belittle or take over, specifically with the men in your life but even with other women or yourself. We do this. We have this standard of perfection that we hold ourselves and everybody else too. That’s the princess. The queen shows up. When the queen shows up, she calls the prince up to the king and he does the same for her. He rescues her right back. We need each other to be able to rise into our most authentic selves in this area of femininity, masculinity and polarity. As such, we need both healthy masculine and healthy feminine to express the true image and nature of God.

How does this fit into the Rise to Reign process? Remember that God wants you healed so you can wholeheartedly live your purpose and love your life. A big part of healing is healing the God imprint of the gender design of your polarity. In order to do that, for us to heal as women, we need to heal simultaneously with the masculine. We need the strong presence of the authentic masculine to fully express ourselves as women. It’s not either/or, it’s both, and. In the next episode, we’re going to talk about how we interact and how we do that. That’s it for now. Thank you so much for reading this episode. I’ll see you soon.

Important Links:

• Femininity – Past Episode

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