Life As Performance Art 70

Once again we are hijacked by toxic masculinity and in one of it's particularly ugly manifestations. In this case, basketball, or any team competitive sport. Now that a team in Toronto has won, all the knuckle-draggers and other simians are yelling and howling and singing the most horrendous and cacophonous renditions of the national anthem. I have always found this to be ugly, hideous, and frightening. I have always disliked sports, ever since I was a child. I have also always been physically active. but I draw the line at competing against others. That is toxic masculinity. It is the culture of capitalism, of competitive sports, of socially-legislated and sanctioned aggression, of war and conflict. During these public sports victories everyone, especially men, turn particularly ugly. Even while they are celebrating their team's victory. The aggression and violence are so clear in their voices, and these celebrations can so easily turn violent and ugly, especially if the home team loses. Canuck's riots, anyone? 1994 and in 2011, right here in beautiful downtown Vancouver. I was even present for the riot in 94, for the first part of it anyway. Ugly. And I got out just in time. I'm not even sure if this social toxicity can even be attributed to any one gender, given that women are every bit as capable of violence as men. I was raised by a physically abusive mother, so I know what i am talking about. Or...Margaret Thatcher? Given that I have come to grief with roughly equal numbers of men and women in my time, I am perplexed that no one has bothered to explore the whole theme around female toxicity. But that is not on the politically-correct radar, unfortunately. The most destructive Anglican clergy, for example, that I have had to so far interact with, have been women. Using very polished schoolyard and school girl tactics to undermine, discredit, destroy and psychologically disembowel me. I have also known some great female clergy. And male clergy too. But I suspect that with some of the women, anyway, there is still a lot of residual hatred of men, and I seemed to be for two of them anyway, a very easy target. Ironic, this, given that I do not relate or identify with cis male binary gender anything. But that doesn't seem to matter, given that if love is blind, then hate is much blinder still. I think that we need to ungender toxicity. Even where it relates to gender interactions. Oppressing or harming anyone, for whatever reason, is toxic. When we take the male-bashing route (very easy, since it so much figures on the politically-correct radar), we are simply turning into the enemy. More than once I had to point this out to a female supervisor at work, during a meeting, where I think I was the only male present, and when she tried to dismiss something I had done or not done as typical male behaviour, I looked at her and said, excuse me, but we are not all like that, and I certainly am not like that. I am not dismissing here, the nasty power imbalance that has always damaged gender relations, and it is more than evident that patriarchy and male dominance and oppression have wreaked immeasurable harm on women, and also on other men. But hating and blaming isn't going to solve anything. Not even wearing a Me Too lapel button, though I am glad that male abusers of women are finally being so roundly outed. Women and men alike have got to stop thinking and seeing each other through the lens of gender. We are human beings. All of us. Our gender differentiations and variations play, or ought to play, but a very minor role in forming our identity as humans, and we all do ourselves and one another a huge favour by rejecting that lens and claiming and reclaiming for ourselves and as our own, all those human characteristics that make us who we are, which means women empowering themselves with characteristics long held to to be masculine, and men empowering themselves with the discarded and rejected feminine, but everyone doing this in balance. First, people have to learn to stop hating each other, and we are nowhere near arrived at that pñoint yet.