On Jokes and My Nephew: Habituating Humor to Diminish Men’s Work and Introspection on Masculinity

BY LEWIS KENDALL

Last weekend the Hey Brother Co. team gathered in upstate New York to train skills, plan for this summer’s retreats, and develop a cohesive mission statement for the organization:

“We seek to redefine what it means to be a man through education and training to build healthy communities free from the harms of traditional masculinity.”

It was important to us to get this mission statement written out because we all had acknowledged the difficulty we’ve experienced when it comes to talking about men’s work. Whether with strangers I’ve met at a dinner party or close friends, I’ve found myself talking around the edges of it, demurring or, most commonly, deflecting with humor.

“Oh yeah, it’s this organization where a bunch of guys get together and go on retreats in the woods and talk about their feelings,” I’ll tell people. “We’re not the Proud Boys, I promise.”

I’ve discovered, though, that these jokes diminish the importance of the work and, more importantly, prevent me from actually explaining cohesively what it is that we’re attempting to do with this organization. Levity is important, especially when used to offset some of the consistently difficult, heavy conversations often taking place in these spaces, but it’s also important to recognize when we’re using it as a defense mechanism.

Even within the HBC community, we catch ourselves cracking jokes about our trauma or the way we process emotions or our shortcomings. It’s easy and it’s funny and, sometimes, it helps us feel more accepted as part of the larger group. Humor is a great way to endear yourself to people, even at the cost of potentially harmful self-deprecation. And we know we already perform plenty of self-deprecation—which to me is just another shade of what bell hooks calls the “psychic self-mutilation” required of men by the patriarchy.

For me, that inclination toward humor comes from a place of fear. A fear of vulnerability—that if I tell people the truth—that I’m learning how to cry, love my inner child, and accept platonic touch from other men—they will judge me. They will think I’m weak or lame or different and will reject me socially. Being passionate about my emotions and self-care goes against everything we are traditionally taught as men, and so it stands to reason that my enthusiasm for men’s work might rub people the wrong way. So I downplay it with jokes.

But as part of this work, I’m learning to lean into the discomfort of my fear and vulnerability. I am proud to talk about my sadness, doubt, and insecurity with other men. I am proud to be passionate about healing the harms traditional masculinity has wrought on society. I am proud to be intimately connected with the men (and women) around me. I am proud to cry. I am proud of all these traits because they are values I want to exemplify for the men I care about in my life—my close friends, my family, my young nephew. I want to show all these men and boys that it’s ok to care, for themselves and for others.

I still plan on cracking jokes, for sure. But if those jokes are coming from a place of insecurity and fear, maybe next time I’ll think twice.