The Man They Wanted Me to Be: Toxic Masculinity and a Crisis of Our Own Making

In this moving memoir of growing up steeped in the toxic masculinity of 1980s working-class rural Indiana, Sexton (The People Are Going to Rise Like the Waters Upon Your Shore) gives an emotionally intimate demonstration of the thesis that “men have actively overcompensated for their insecurities, so much so that they have endangered themselves, the people they love, and their society as a whole.” His father violently stalked his mother after an ugly divorce caused by his cheating, and subsequent father figures were abusive, reckless, or prone to forcing idealized masculine behavior on him; Sexton’s most secure relationship was with his grandfather, a WWII veteran who drowned PTSD in alcohol and was only given “the benefit of the doubt” for being “sensitive” by his family because of his established identity as a war hero. Sexton partially reconciled with his father as an adult; both men were grappling with the unhealthy behaviors they developed to cope with gendered expectations. The final section gives Sexton’s psychosociological analysis of attendees of Donald Trump’s 2016 rallies, whom he depicts as people compelled to “double down” on antiquated masculine ideals. This thoughtful and powerful consideration of the damage done by traditional masculinity to its ostensible beneficiaries will reward readers’ attention. (May)