A while back I was watching the Taylor Swift Eras Tour concert film with my eight-year-old son.
We were both enjoying the incredible display of talent in songwriting, choreography, staging, costume and lighting design, and more, all centered around one brilliant performer holding a crowd rapt for three-and-a-half hours.
Early on, Taylor donned a sequined power-suit jacket and launched into “The Man,” a wry, bass-heavy riff on the unfair gender standards we all live and breathe. Her backup dancers appeared in business suits and performed a sort of glammed-up cubicle life, passing around memos and coffee cups in time with the beat. Her male dancers, in particular, hammed it up as pompous middle-managers with exaggerated handshakes and bicep flexes.
“I’m so sick of running as fast as I can,” Taylor sang. “Wondering if I’d get there quicker / If I was a man.”
It was campy, cartoonish, and contagiously fun — one of the most engaging moments of the whole show. Then my son turned to me with a sort of curious grin and said, “Isn’t this kind of biased against men?”
Naturally, I gave a deft, age-appropriate explanation about centuries of patriarchy, decades of problematic workplace norms, and the unfinished promise of the #MeToo moment.
Just kidding! I had no idea what to say. I don’t remember my exact words, but I hope that I affirmed his curiosity and showed a non-defensive response.
The moment reminded me that part of parenting is teaching kids about injustices that began long before them. And as our culture battles over acceptable expressions of gender, I can’t help but view it through the eyes of the two young males in my house.
I’m torn here because the stakes of gender politics are so unbelievably high. Toxic conceptions of masculinity are what allows cultures of abuse to persist in churches and other institutions. They’re what allows a convicted felon, wholly unequipped to lead, unable to wield power in service to anything but himself, to take over one of our major political parties.
And yet, masculinity has to be something more than something benign at best, always at risk of turning toxic. There’s got to be a healthy version of it, right? But every time I try to articulate what a healthy masculinity might actually mean, in a way that doesn’t exclude others, the words get away from me. That may be due to my own limitations – I’m not a theorist or philosopher or pundit.
I am, however, a reader and a music fan, and it’s primarily in story and song that I’ve gathered fragments that give shape to the kind of masculinity I’d like to live as parent, husband, and neighbor.
Which is why, a few months after watching “The Eras Tour” on Disney Plus, my younger son and I drove eight hours to Pittsburgh to see Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
I’ve been listening to Springsteen since I was a 14-year-old picking up “Nebraska” at the local library, and what I appreciate most about his music is the way he sings about such a broad sweep of human experience. There is music about childhood naivete, music about adolescent longing and desire, and music about weariness and grief and the dogged daily work of carrying on. He sings about the joy of busting loose from family and community expectations for the freedom of the open road, and he sings about the joy of rooting oneself in family and community, sometimes in the same song.
That night in Pittsburgh, a little overwhelmed by the noise, my son bounced along to the rhythm. His favorite song, and mine, was “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” Ostensibly it’s about street-car racing, which I can’t relate to any more than my son can relate to Taylor’s riffs on cubicle culture. Really it’s about showing up for what you value, showing up for your commitments.
“Tonight I’ll be on that hill ‘cause I can’t stop,” Bruce sings. “I’ll be on that hill with everything I got … I’ll be there on time and I’ll pay the cost.”
I can get with that. Whether this is a distinctly masculine promise to show up, or just a beautifully human one, I can’t say. I just know it’s been helpful.
Whatever expressions of gender are inspiring for you, I hope you find examples that lead you toward compassion, humility, and humor. I hope you draw inspiration from artists of all genders.
Ultimately, despite all the cultural strife, I hope we can find ways to understand gender not as a battle to be won, a problem to be solved, or a project to be finished. I hope we can see it as part of the goodness of creation. Because the world needs Taylor, Bruce, and so much more.
This is terrific, Jonathan. I am very grateful that you put your insights into these words.
You have an astute 8 year old, Jonathan!
Thank you for this blog post Jonathan. Based on some of the wondering how you are doing, I offer the helpful book written by Nate Pyle called “Man Enough.” I find it to be a helpful look at what it means to be a man through the eyes of the New Testament and the life of Jesus. Blessings on you as you raise your sons.
Great essay. You had me at Bruce. I’ve seen him many many times, including in Pittsburg when he played the entire The River album circa 2016. A great nexus of a gritty album played in a gritty town. Both TS and BS have accumulated their share of male haters because of their public positions.
Thanks, Jonathan! I’ve (with some fear and trepidation) enjoyed the the gift of walking through this past decade+ with young kids/teens. I’ve also appreciated artists and cultural touch points that increase our capacity and shared language for unpacking some of the big polarizing questions and challenges we are confronted with. Also a huge fan of Springsteen, though my daughter did question the lyrics to “I’m on Fire.” 🤣
Thanks so much, Jonathan. And my mother would also be grateful. She was such a recognized figure in Pittsburgh concerning The Boss that she was stretch limoed to his concerts, was there at 90. On her assisted living door, no wreath or grandkid photos. Nope. The door was covered top to bottom with the iconic poster of Bruce, red handkerchief dangling from his back pocket.
I grew up in the ‘60’s and spent hours on the floor in front of the stereo with my cousin listening to The Beatles, singing every word. That was back in the days when you could actually hear each word. And, in fact, our parents let us stay home from Sunday evening services in ‘64 to watch the Fab Four on Ed Sullivan. I have never since been hooked enough to buy other albums such as Springsteen or Swift and have only been to one Amy Grant/Michael W. Smith concert and one Elton John/Billie Joel concert. A week ago, I took my dog to the vet. They were playing background music, and the receptionist was quietly singing along with the artist, not missing a word. I wasn’t familiar with the song, but it was catchy and well done and I was surprised that a current singer would catch my ear. So I asked her what the song was. I must say I was embarrassed to hear that it was Michael Jackson singing, BillieJean! I immediately confessed that “I guess I’m a little old.” And that is why I missed that answer while playing a Trivia Game recently.
Saw the Beatles, 1964. With my mom. Pittsburgh
Jonathan, thank you. Delightful paragraph about Springsteen writing and singing the broad sweep of the human experience. I was reminded that he also sang about confession as essential to masculinity. “When I look at myself I don’t see the man I wanted to be, somewhere along the line I slipped off track.
I’m caught movin’ one step up and two steps back.”