Trigger warning for violence and sexual abuse.
I learnt about masculinity when the son of my father's best friend from his teenage years kicked and punched me when I was a child because his father was bringing him up to be a 'real boy'.
I was so much physically weaker than him and didn't really do anything to provoke him... It's just that play to him was tackling his older brother and therefore it was okay to tackle me.
I complained to my gentle father and he told me that if the son of his friend were to do this again I had his permission to kick him firmly in the groin... And so I was taught self defence and about the patriarchy and about how I was less than a man and so I must learn to defend myself...
I learnt about masculinity when I was sexually assaulted by an older cousin abroad when I was 9. He was a 15 year old boy in a society dominated by religious and social systems that meant he had no idea what a naked woman would look like in real life... All he had learnt of the female form was from some pornography he'd found at the house of an older relative... That's how he explained to me why he wished to remove my clothes and have a look at my genitals... And so I was taught that raising a child in isolation of what the relationship between self and sex is with predominantly male role models and seeing women as objects it becomes acceptable to cross a line in trying to decipher what sexuality means.
I learnt about masculinity when I was assaulted again when I was older... Physically, sexually... Inappropriate touch... Groping.... Call it what you want... But never ever try and tell me that patriarchy doesn't harm everyone... My cousin needed a better education... I don't blame him... I do blame the system that tells one half of the population they have a duty to control the other half.
