I found this piece by Jamie Utt to be really thoughtful and reflective. I’m linking below and including a few favorite quotes. I especially liked the first example he gives, when he slammed his hands on the table, and how he realized that even though he knows he would never hurt his partner, she lives in a system where men often are abusive and it’s scary to her regardless of his intent.
“If we, as men, can think of ourselves as “the good guys” and construct a boogey man abuser in our head, then we never have to turn the lens inward. We never have to consider the ways we’ve been socialized to be abusive.”
“My actions exist in the context of how I was taught to be a man. My actions exist in the context of patriarchy.”
“we have a responsibility to consider the ways that we might be complicit in that violence – simply by living out the patterns of how we were taught to be men.”
“we teach partners or children that they need to manage our anger (rather than that our anger is something we can control and manage).”
“And for each of us that might look different, as each of our masculinities exist at intersections with other parts of who we are.”
Erin Clark Frost 