What am I supposed to be? An essay on Masculinity

ABSTRACT Masculinity is considered through the question ‘What am I supposed to be?’ A poem of polarity describes the profusion of possible ways of being and ways of knowing what to be. The author refers to her own experience of seemingly contradictory expectation on gender. The author calls in aid the work of Judith Butler. What are the ways people use to try to alleviate the confusion, to hammer out the contradictions, and how do these play out in our clients, ourselves and the systems we inhabit? Definitions, narratives, the policing of speech and behaviour, colonisation, denial and abjection of otherness might be some of the ways. The constitution of Masculinity is considered in Structural and Post-Modern terms, particularly the work of Jacques Lacan. The author asks if the ideas of Emmanuel Levinas about alterity and the primacy of the other might be helpful in working with the clients’ interactions with masculinity.