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

"The Man They Wanted Me to Be" explores in a clear, concise manner the subject of its subtitle: "Toxic Masculinity and a Crisis of Our Own Making". This discussion is set in the context of a moving and candid memoir by Jared Yates Sexton of his early life, growing up in a southern Indiana small town environment. The members of his family, his schoolmates, friends and acquaintances are all caught up in the social construct of toxic gender roles which had been passed down from generation to generation, and are still being propagated today. In true JYS style, the writing is excellent, and immediately engaging and real. This book should be a "must-read", certainly for all men, but also for their family and friends to both gain insight into this structure that is so common in families, as well as offer hope and true and lasting healing for our culture and nation. Please, please read this book.

Engagingly written, Sexton moves easily between personal anecdotes and scientific research to underpin his arguments. The book is a deeply personal narrative punctuated by careful and well documented research. The result is a thought-provoking look at what it means to be an American male at this tumultuous time in our history.

A solid, if uneven and diffuse book. If you're like me--a non-white, non-straight, highy-educated person living in Western culture--you are not the target audience for this book. Pretty much ninety-five percent of what Jared Yates Sexton conveys in The Man They Wanted Me to Be is well-known to those of us who don't classify as SWGs (straight white guys). After the election of Trump, the details of this book are pretty much wallpaper to our angry, traumatized minds. But redundancy, in this case, is not a bad thing. Sexton, as someone who, whether he likes it or not, is in this group but definitely not of this group or a champion of its poisonous ethos, intends this book for the men like him who, as he points out, are destroying the nation, the culture, democracy, and themselves. Sexton is trying to save his brethren so he can, in his own way, save the culture.The Man They Wanted Me to Be does some good work. In this slim book, Sexton gives readers a gadfly's view into the countless torments he faced throughout his life as a SWG who, for various reasons, just didn't fit the mold of traditional masculinity, what many people now rightly refer to as toxic masculinity. I can relate. Though there are only slight modifications, black men, and men of other races and ethnicities, are forced to endure the same tests and trauma. Witnessing a succession of losers, including his own father, abuse his mother and him made Sexton the prime author of a text that critiques the tenets, challenges, and grizzly permutations of modern manhood within a zeitgeist of feminism, civil rights, queer rebellion, and immigration debates that take a power drill to the very foundations of traditional Western masculinity. Sexton notably points to the ways men in America born and raised after World War Two succumbed to the propagandistic myths of manhood funneled down to them through cinema (I love his critique of Patton, both the Academy Award-winning film and the man), risky sex, combat sports, misogyny, conspiracy theories, and opportunistic politicians. Sexton knows his target audience and he's not afraid to call them and their forebears out on the heinous crap they've done--like voting for Trump--that have widespread ramifications for men and women around the globe. The most satisfying section of the book for me was the final chapters where Sexton takes morons like Alex Jones and Jordan Peterson to task, exposing them for the hucksters they truly are. I applaud Sexton for that.Yet the book is not without flaws. Technically, The Man They Wanted Me to Be is not a smooth, cohesive book. Frankly, it's disjointed. Sexton is trying hard to blend memoir, sociology, history, politics, and current events in this book, yet the result is a stew that, while nourishing, isn't particularly toothsome. While he never lacks conviction, passion, or authority, Sexton falters in his book's presentation. If he could have found a way to be more fluid, to organize this book in way that elevated it, this would have been an exceptional expose', one to partner Hillbilly Elegy, the new de facto book on poor Caucasians and their myriad socioeconomic struggles and resulting prejudices. However, I felt this book aimed low, giving informed readers like me material we were already well aware of. I found the writing neutral and unpolished, yet I think that's what Sexton was aiming for. He knows that the audience he needs to reach, those die hard Trumpers, won't cotton to high-falutin academic speak or SAT words. They want real stories, plain talk, and a SWG like him to give this book to them without frills, stats, or BS. I applaud Sexton for writing specifically to his audience, but I wish he had done a little bit more for woke folks like me. Still, you can't have everything, and Sexton's book succeeds if only in its raw punch-to-the-gut honesty.

Whoa! An honest, personal self-examination of the unrealistic pressure traditional masculinity, as promoted in the US, has on politics, media, men themselves, and the women and children in their lives. At times heartbreaking and at times enlightening. The main take-away is that no man can live up to the impossible expectations of manliness required of men and boys. Don't get me wrong, this is not about self-pity or seeing men as the victim. Instead it gets to the heart of the problem and puts blame where it belongs. This is a brave endeavor. I can't possibly express any of this as well as the author does. Everyone should read this book (men and women). Everything I see is now filtered through the lens of this book. Thank you for writing this Jared Yates Sexton!

Sometimes the best explanation for societal patterns is to focus on the micro stories of people who endure those patterns. This book exemplifies that genre. JYS chronicles his troubled childhood and adolescence to explain how a twisted understanding of masculinity has damaged generations of people in this country. A must-read.

I've been seeking a book that looked at toxic masculinity and explained it, that saw it as a poison affecting us all and not just a list of "the evil that men do". This book works for me, an excellent discussion and a good story too. A+!

I devoured this book in less than 24 hours. This would be a great book to introduce white men especially to the danger, both for them personally and all of us as a society, of unhealthy modes of behavior and thought around masculinity.I really appreciate the author's honesty though I would have liked to see him dig deeper into a few of the topics he focused on (esp race), truly flesh out the underlying reasons for men's actions and emotions.

Sexton examines his own life, and the lives of his family in Indiana, to understand and overcome the toxicity of white male patriarchy. His transparency about his own life struggles provides hope that a man raised deep within the patriarchal worldview can find a way out. And if one can, we all can.