Keeping Masculinity from Trending Toxic - Dr. Jonathan Brown | Reframing the Gender Question
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. I get told pretty much every day, and maybe this is just an academic thing, I don't really leave the university very often so you'll have to bear with me, but I get told pretty much every day, why do you care about this family and gender stuff, what about Trump, there's kids in cages, Trump, what about... It reminds me of this Onion article I just saw, man can't believe that couple is upset at him for running over their dog because Trump is the real enemy. Look, politics is important, it's really horrible that kids are in cages at the border, everybody condemns that, nobody's debating that, but family is really, really important. And it doesn't matter who's president or how awful the government is, or whether it's a thousand years ago or a thousand years from today, human beings live in families, and the basis of our lives are families, and the basis of our family is gender. This is really, really, really important. And if you don't care about this, you don't take this seriously because someone's telling you that this political issue or that political issue is more pressing, that's not a helpful piece of advice. That person might be sincere, but that person is accidentally or may perhaps intentionally misleading you. This is a really, really important question. And the thing that you should care most about in politics is the school board. What your children learn in school. That's the thing you should care, that should be the most important thing you vote for, no matter what. Who voted for the school board this year? One person, two people, you? Ooh, I see other people who didn't vote. Of course, if you're not actually eligible to vote, then don't do it, I want to encourage you to break the law.
Okay, so, we are living in an extremely polarized time. You could say this globally, you could certainly say it for the United States. The middle ground in politics, the middle ground in society, the middle ground in pretty much everything is just disappearing, and everything is getting sucked toward these two poles. We could call them sort of liberal and conservative pole, right? What I was thinking about this when I was in my class with my students a few months ago, there's no, for example, American society has no role model. There's no one person in the United States, no one man, there's no one male role model that all Americans can agree on. Now, to be clear, I'm not doing some lament for the days gone by when everyone respected some white guy. I'm the last person who wants to have a society that's more racist or xenophobic than the one today. I'm simply observing, I'm simply observing that if you have a society that doesn't have agreed upon male role models, that's indication of real social fragmentation. That is indication of real social fragmentation. In fact, you could look at American society and you could say that there's actually competing male role models, and that those competing male role models basically map onto this conservative and political division. Everybody following me? So this is a bit of a caricature, but I think it's an accurate caricature. You have one role model you could call the traditional man's man. Think Kevin Costner movies.
He's got a cup of coffee. He knows what's right and wrong. He plays baseball, etc, etc. And then there's what you might call the progressive guy. He does the dishes. He's like all tough. He does the dishes. I'm going to retract that comment because I'm actually undermining my own argument. He does the laundry. He nurses. He attaches one of those things like where you can nurse babies. He does the nursing of the baby. He doesn't work. He stays at home. He's so feminine that he erases gender lines. He watches Gilmore Girls and cries, things like that. I won't tell you about my own viewing habits. So these are caricatures, but I think they're actually pretty accurate caricatures. I think if you think about what are the ways that people, what type of thing we see on TV, that we see in the movies. And this progressive male role model, the progressive male role model actually breaks down the categories of male and female. So it's not really even a male role model. He's actually a role model of imagining a society in which male and female no longer have any substantial meaning in society. Everybody with me? Okay. Now, this sucks in Muslims. So this sucks in Muslims in this country, Muslims in Britain, Muslims in any Western country are part of these societies. And we get sucked into the same polarization. So I'm sure you've debated this. Who do Muslims support? Who do you root for? The Republicans who are socially conservative.
They don't have these crazy progressive ideas. They don't want to come up and tell your kid that your kid can be a guy one day, the female next day. They believe in family values. None of this crazy progressive nonsense. But of course they think Muslims are a cancer, need to be removed from the country. That's a little bit inconvenient. But where do Muslims go with the progressive liberal view? They love Muslims. I took all these pictures of these coffee shops downtown. Every coffee shop in the DuPont Circle area has, as far as I can tell, has a symbol on the window saying, Muslims welcome, end Islamophobia. It has a picture of them with hijab and then a rainbow flag right above the one with hijab. So they love Muslims. That's excellent. Finally, somebody talk to me. Somebody's going to put me on, well, everybody talks to me. What can I say? Put the talk to Altaf or Zahra. But on the other hand, some of their ideas about lifestyle, some of the things that maybe people are trying to push into school curricula are problematic for Muslims. So where do Muslims go? We feel torn between these two poles. Now, we're Muslim, it gets even worse. It gets even harder. Because overlaid onto the conservative and liberal or conservative and progressive polarization, you have what I call the keeping it real versus sellout dichotomy. Everybody knows what this is, right? So if you're a Muslim and you keep it real, what does that mean? That means when someone comes up and says, you know, let's think of an example. What's a good example of keeping it real versus, let's think of a semi-controversial example.
So I'll think of, let's just put this one out there. Everything is going to be controversial, so it doesn't matter, right? Someone's going to get upset. Let's say, are Qadiani Ahmadis Muslim? If you keep it real, you say, hell no. Right? If you're progressive, you say, or if you're seen as a sellout, you say, oh no, I think anybody who says they're a Muslim is a Muslim. Right? And depending where you are on this spectrum, you will take pride in wherever you are. Right? So the person who's keeping it real says, I'm an authentic Muslim. I stick to the dean. I'm not just going with whatever the local, you know, political correct fad is. The person who is on the sellout side would say, you're just a backward person. How can you have these ideas? These are unacceptable. Right? So Muslims get torn between this. They're constantly being filled with, what do I do here? If I do this thing, someone's going to see me as a sellout. If I do this thing, I'm going to be seen as keeping it real, but I'm also going to be criticized for being backward. If I do this thing, I'm going to be seen as a sellout, but I'm also going to be praised for being with it and hip and woke. So we're constantly feeling these things pulling on us. And then if you take that globally, it's even more intense because it's not just keeping it real versus sellout. It's colonizer versus colonized. It's Western, you know, cultural imperialism versus indigenous, authentic Islamic culture. And almost any item in the news you see is going to trigger something like this in your mind. Right? So some guy in Uganda says something about homosexuality and Muslims feel like, oh, this is like, do I root for this or not? Is this good for me or not as a Muslim?
Like the whole world just gets sucked into this polarization of conservative versus liberal, traditionally Islamic versus Westernized, or backward versus enlightened. And depending where you are, what your views are, you're going to view the person on the other side of this polarization as simply not understanding it anymore, not understanding Islam anymore. Maybe because they're too conservative or too liberal. Everybody understand? I don't think I need to explain this too much. The problem here is that Islam is not conservative or liberal in the American sense. So if you take, I would not even say American, in the Western sense, Islam is not conservative or liberal. Right? It doesn't fit into these categories. So Muslims, let's just use a controversial example, but it's from the Quran. Muslims believe in that it's prohibited for people to engage in same-sex actions. This is what's called ma'lum man ad-deen bi-dururah, known axiomatically as part of the religion from the Quran, from the Sunnah of the Prophet, from the, alayhi salatu wa salam, from the agreement of Muslim jurists. But what's one of the categories in the Quran, one of the categories of the people around, the type of men around whom women do not have to cover their hair, do not have to wear hijab? What's one of them? Can anyone tell me? I couldn't guess what I'm aiming at. ghayri ulil irba, which means what? It literally means men who don't have desire for women. So, immediately someone says, oh that's so liberal. That's not liberal, that's Quranic. So the Quran is not a liberal document or a conservative document in the American sense.
The Sunnah of the Prophet is not a liberal Sunnah or a conservative Sunnah. It's the Sunnah of the Prophet of God, alayhi salatu wa salam. So young Muslim, and here I'm talking about young Muslim men, because I see this happen a lot with young Muslim men. And it really, it's disastrous. It's disastrous. Young Muslim men, and I feel you guys, okay? You look at the world around you and you say, okay I got the conservative thing, I got the liberal thing. This liberal thing is insane, right? They're telling me, like, this little personal story here. When my older kid was four years old, the younger kid was two, the girl they played with on my block, who's not Muslim, the mom came one day and she says, okay, my daughter is now a boy, and you have to call her this boy's name, and etc., etc., etc. She doesn't understand the category that she's saying she is. You want me to tell my kids this? And I'm sitting there trying to tell them what boys are and what girls are and stuff like that, and who has a penis and who doesn't have a penis and all that stuff, and you want me to undermine this because your four year old is telling you what gender it is? I told half my friends were like, whoa, that's crazy. Half my friends not Muslims were like, that's amazing, that's great, you should embrace that. So if you're a young Muslim guy, your reaction is going to be, that's crazy. Most young Muslims, that is crazy. And so you just see the, you know, you read the headlines, flight denies woman emotional support peacock, remember this? United Airlines wouldn't let a woman with their emotional support peacock come on the plane. Dutch guy says he's actually 50 years old and not 70 years old. So you're sitting there, you're a young Muslim guy, you're like, this is insanity.
So what's my other option? So this, the kind of progressive liberal option is crazy. So where's my other option? There's a conservative one. And the conservative one is also hyperbolically opposed to this one. So they end up, you don't go into a moderate sunnah of the prophet approach. You go into this kind of alt-righty toxic masculinity approach, where you make fun of people who have views different than you. You kind of, you're like, oh, a real man, his woman listens to him. A real man, he don't put up with this. A real man, his woman's going to, he's going to sit there with his boys and eat chicken wings, and his woman's going to bring him pizza slices, and he's going to watch the game. That's what a real man does, right? This is the other, so the problem is, instead of following the sunnah of the prophet, their aversion, understandable aversion to this progressive vision of the world, pushes them into a toxic masculinity vision of the world. And that's a big problem. It's a big problem for two reasons. One, that is a nasty way to live. Two, you're going to get divorced. And I'll add another one in there. Three, see all these Muslim women here? See all these women? Guys, look at me. These women, every day, put up with a level of oppression and attention that you can't imagine. I say this as a white guy who gets treated, but I hear this, and I see this. I'm sorry that I don't, I mean, I'm not sorry I don't experience it, but I wish that I could share something with you that would help you relate, but I can't. Right? Any of these women, if they take off their hijab tomorrow, and they say, I'm not a Muslim anymore, I'm a progressive enlightened Muslim, you know, they will be love-bombed. They will get Huffington Post columns.
They will get grants given to them. They will be welcomed into the bosom of a society that will reward them for realizing that they were oppressed. And if you don't treat these women with respect, and you don't give them every reason to stay part of your world, they are going to be out of there. Because every force in this society is pulling them out. And if you don't show them the utmost compassion, you're contributing to that. I don't, it doesn't, you might even think, this, you know, let's say you're talking to a Muslim woman. You might even think, this person is totally wrong. She doesn't know what she's talking about. She's got everything mixed up. You should still show her compassion. Because pushing her away is not going to help anybody. Okay, so now I want to actually look at what is the sunnah of the Prophet, alayhi salam. What is the sunnah of the Prophet in terms of dealing with your family? What is the ideal role model that we Muslims have? Who can tell me, Aisha asked, was asked, how was the Prophet with his family, alayhi salam? What did she say? Who can tell me? Yes, you with the hat on. Oh, that's actually the correct answer, but not the correct question. He was rewarding the Quran. كان في مهنة أهله يعني ايه? كان في خدمة أهله He was in the service of his family. The Prophet was not served. The Prophet, alayhi salam, was at the service of his family. This is a fundamental lesson you have to learn. Real men don't get served. Real men serve others. Real men serve their families. Real men serve their wives. Real men serve their children, because that's what strong people do. Strong people don't hurt other people. Strong people protect other people. And they protect those that they're responsible for.
Who saw the movie Jack Reacher 2, Never Look Back? One person? You guys don't travel enough. So it was really interesting. So he's talking to Jack Reacher. You guys know who this guy is? Action hero. Like all action heroes, his name is Jack. He is talking to this young girl who's kind of living on the streets. And he asks her how she survives. She says, it's easy. You find a group of guys and you go up to the strongest one. And you become friends with them. And Jack Reacher's like, what do you mean you go up to the strongest one? She says, the strongest guy always protects you. It's the weak guys who hurt women. It's the weak guys who hurt women. And what does the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, say to this? To the men, khayrukum khayrukum la ahlihi. Ahl means family, but ahl, oftentimes, especially in hadith, because Arabs are very sensitive about gender things, means your wives. Best of you is the best of you men is the best of you to your family, the best of you to your wives. And I was having, actually it was yesterday, I was having this really interesting discussion with this super engaged young Muslim woman. And she said to me, she says, give me one example when the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, used compulsion or authority or power to tell one of his women folk what to do. I couldn't think of any examples. I actually never thought about this. I don't know, maybe someone else could think of this. I could not think of any examples. The Prophet didn't order people to do things. I mean, sometimes, you know, very simple things, like especially in his capacity as a leader, he would tell people to do things. But his capacity as a husband and his capacity as a father, very subtle, very subtle. His power and his authority is known. He doesn't have to express it, right? What's really interesting when you look at, especially hadith collections, hadiths of the Prophet of God, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam,
most of them actually, they don't really have sections about like, oh, what are the husband's authority over his wife? You have what are the husband's rights with his wife? What are the rights over her husband? But you also see what are the limits on the husband's authority? And those limits are very clear. The husband cannot command his wife to do something that's ma'asiyah, that's disobedient to God. So one example is like a guy saying to his wife, I want you to get hair extensions. Well, I mean in Arabic, right? And the Prophet says, you know, you can't command this, this is prohibited. How was the Prophet described? According to Aisha, he mended his own clothing. He washed his own clothing. He mended his sandals. He took care of his own needs. And this is all hadith in Bukhari, Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim. Musnad Ahmed, you have a hadith that the Prophet, was helping his wife, like they were cutting meat. And so he was holding the meat and one of them was cutting the meat, right? How was the Prophet with his children? What does he say about his children? Altaf already told you some of it, but he also said, for giving gifts to your children, i'adalu bayna awladikum, be just between your children. And how, in another version of the hadith, what does he say? In the Arabic, Ibn Abbas, sawu bayna awladikum. What is being just between your children? It means being treated equally. In fact, in one hadith in Sunan Bayhaqi, he says, treat them equally and in fact, give the female, the girl child more than the male child, when you're giving them gifts. And then one hadith in, one of the collections of At-Tahawi, this man comes up and he has his, his son comes up and sits on one of his legs and his daughter comes up and sits next to him. And the Prophet says, you should be just with your children.
Put the daughter on your other leg, right? So this is the Sunnah of the Prophet in his family. This is, is this what we would call like, the kind of like manly man in the conservative liberal polarization today? And this is where this is sensitive for Muslims. Because a lot of times Muslims, especially if your families come from overseas, your families might come from countries where like, you know, like there is a lot more manly man culture. So not only does that kind of seem attractive in the current American political alignment, but it also seems attractive in that it looks like the quote unquote real Islam that your parents knew before they came here and got deluded, right? But that's also not the, the Sunnah of the Prophet is not to be served. If you're a man, the Sunnah of the Prophet is to serve your family. Okay. So I wanna, did I say something wrong? Okay, I'll speak really loud because I'm almost done. I was thinking about this. Yeah, what are the, I mean, if you're a Muslim and you're confused, you're a Muslim and you wanna know how you should live, where should you turn? You turn to the Sunnah of the Prophet, the Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet, right? If you look at the Prophet's community, alayhi salatu wasalam, radiyallahu anhum, right? If you look at that community, what are the ideal role models for men and for women? You understand my question?
What are the ideal role models? I think if you think about it, there's actually not that much difference between the ideal Muslim man and the ideal Muslim woman. Of course they have differences in the, like for example, women don't pray when they're menstruating, men don't menstruate, at least if they're lucky, right? Women have, wear hijab, men don't wear hijab, right? There's, I'm not saying men and women are the same by any stretch of the imagination. What I'm saying, if you look at their characteristics, they're actually, I don't really know the difference. They're all very confident, they're proud, they're proud of themselves, but immediately humble in the face of the commands of God and the prophet. When they think they're right, they're committed and brave and courageous and in body and in word, but they immediately submit to the commands of God and the prophet. They're both, I would just say that they're both extremely courageous, extremely courageous. And you see, they both feel their voices should be heard. So Aisha, Aisha becomes a major political actor in the Muslim community after the death of the prophet of Islam. And one of the main teachers of the prophet Sunnah and the proper understanding of Islam. We all know the story in the Shahr-e Ma'ani al-Athar of At-Tahawi that during one of the khutbas of Omar ibn al-Khattab when he was caliph, a woman stood up in the khutba and corrected Omar, a point he was making. Did he get upset and say, how dare you talk in the khutba? No, he said, actually, you're correct. He changed it, he said, yes, you're correct. This is a story that Ibn Kathir considers authentic. In Shahr-e Ma'ani al-Athar of At-Tahawi. If you think, I actually have a running collection
of female companions who killed people with tent poles. For some reason, tent pole was like the weapon of choice for early Muslim women. Like a tent pole. So if you're a guy and you have a tent pole in your house, consider moving it. So they, Um Fadl, who killed Abu Jahl? No, sorry, Abu Lahab. Who killed Abu Lahab? No, wait. Abu Jahl. Now I'm forgetting. I bet you that Abu Lahab. No, Abu Lahab. Who killed Abu Lahab? Abbas's mother. Ibn Abbas's mother, Um Fadl. He was beating one of his slaves in Mecca and the slave was Muslim. And she took a tent pole, smashed him in the head, his wound festered, he died of it. We know the story of Nusaybah bint Ka'b, the female companion of the prophet who actually fought in the Battle of Uhud, protected the prophet against attacks when other people ran away. And then she later died on campaign fighting. And I can go on. I love this story. A woman named Safiyyah bint Abdul-Muttalib. She's in, during the Battle of the Khan of the Trench, she's in one of the Muslim fortresses in Medina. And her husband is Hassan bin Thabit, the poet. So there's this guy, one of the enemy soldiers is going around outside the fort and he's about to find the entrance to get in. So Safiyyah bint Abdul-Muttalib says, you need to go down and deal with this guy. Hassan's like, I'm not sure about that. She jumps out and kills him. But then look, this is really interesting. She says to her husband, I'm not gonna take off his armor and his weapons because he's a man, I'm not gonna touch him. So it's really interesting. Don't get this idea that because these women were brave and confident and courageous Muslims, that somehow that means that gender doesn't mean anything. No, for both male and female Muslims
in this time of the prophet, alayhi salam, that division between gender, that notion of sexual propriety was extremely important. You don't touch a man who's not related to you. Remember, and this isn't even just the Muslims. When the Quraysh came to kill the prophet in Mecca, you didn't know this story, they didn't go into the house immediately, why? They're afraid that there were women folk in there, they would see the women folk. So this is, when we think about what it means to be a good Muslim, a confident Muslim, a committed Muslim, don't get confused by the polarization of the society today in the United States. Don't get confused by the polarization of things globally. Turn to the Sunnah of the prophet, turn to the Sunnah of the prophet and offer, this is very important. This is a confused country, people. This is a really confused country in a confused time. If you wanna help, offer that model to other people. Offer the model of the Sunnah of the prophet to other men. Offer the model of the female of the mothers of believers to other women in the society. Jazakumullah Khair.
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