My dad taught me to be tough and stand up for myself, but he also showed me that being sensitive and crying was more than OK too.
Courtesy of the author
Growing up in the US, the message was clear: masculine traits, such as aggression, discipline, and logic, are held in the highest esteem, and feminine traits, such as compassion, intuition, and creativity, are devalued.
We are out of balance because we don't see beyond the binaries, we don't see how no matter the gender, feminine and masculine exist within each of us.
I learned to look beyond those binaries at a young age through my dad — a tall man with strong, often conservative, opinions — who never tempered his expectations because of my gender and who wasn't afraid to let me see him cry.
On a camping trip when I was 4 years old, Dad sat with his friend while I played with his friend's 3-year-old son. When the boy hit me, I looked to Dad for help. "Stand up for yourself," Dad urged with his eyes, and when I didn't, the boy hit me again and again. When I looked at Dad the third time, he said, "Hit him on the damn nose!" That time, I listened. Dad's friend asked, "Sure you know what you're doing here?" Dad laughed, but he knew what he was doing. He was teaching his eldest daughter to assert herself within the masculine matrix she'd navigate the rest of her life.
It was 1985, and Dad believed in a more egalitarian future. He often told me and my sister: "By the time you're grown, women will rule the world." Every Father's Day, we "oiled" the cars — arms covered in grease by the time we'd drained the used oil into a can. And when I came home bragging that I beat all but two boys in the gym class mile, Dad cheered when I said, "Next time, I'll beat them all!"
Dad was deliberate in fostering the masculine in his daughters, and he wasn't the only source of that messaging. But what he taught me about the feminine was something I wasn't learning elsewhere.
The quieter message of my youth came through observation. My parents shared in the domestic and emotional tasks of childrearing.
Dad drove me twice a week to dance class, and on those drives, he became my emotional anchor as we talked about hopes, dreams, and struggles. He applied our makeup for dance recitals and painted our nails. He ironed, cooked, and cleaned alongside Mom.
And growing up, I saw Dad cry often. He'd look at me after a recital, or a track race, or an afternoon swim, with eyes glassed over and say something about how proud, grateful, or lucky he was to have me as his daughter. Every Christmas, we watched "It's a Wonderful Life," and when Jimmy Stewart ran into the arms of his family, Dad cried.
His tears were never hidden, never something to be ashamed about, and whether he meant to or not, his unabashed sentimentality showed me that masculinity and femininity exist within each of us. Through Dad, I saw how, regardless of gender, we can be action-oriented, disciplined, assertive, and be vulnerable, compassionate, questioning, and willing to share our inner selves. It taught me to look for that in a partner and to embrace that within myself.
That wasn't a message I often heard elsewhere. Women and men have spent years fitting the mold of masculinity that defines our culture, I've done it too. These days, as I navigate the masculine matrix, my father's tears nudge me away from rigid binaries.
