statesboro, ga. <u+2014> growing up in a factory family in small-town indiana, i led an uncertain life with only a few constants: fear of losing it all, frustration with a world out of our control and the ever-present need to <u+201c>be a man,<u+201d> a phrase that always carried with it an air of responsibility and torment. to be a man was to maintain the appearance of toughness, to never let on that you were weak or in pain. it was a command i heard repeatedly at home and around town, handed down by my stepfather and role models. my stepdad was fond of saying, <u+201c>boys don<u+2019>t cry <u+2014> crying<u+2019>s for women.<u+201d> one of my high school football coaches gave injured players this choice: <u+201c>you a football player or are you a little girl?<u+201d> donald j. trump, especially the donald j. trump we heard last week on tape, is nothing new to me. his macho-isms, his penchant for dividing the world into losers and winners, his lack of empathy for anyone but himself <u+2014> it all reminds me of home, and the sense i had, even as a boy, of a system of privilege that has ailed this country since its beginnings, but now seems to be, and sees itself, fading away. taking refuge in traditional masculinity is a coping mechanism that works only so much as it deadens a man and his emotions. in its most pure state, masculinity is a hardening shell meant to protect men from the disappointments and travails of life, a self-delusion that preserves them from feeling overwhelmed by the odds against them. mr. trump was not lying in this week<u+2019>s presidential debate when he called his offensive conversation <u+201c>locker room talk.<u+201d> i heard similar chatter among my teammates as they laced up their cleats and donned their pads for a big game. young men brag about sexual conquests, demean those who have denied them and dehumanize their opponents, real and imagined. fear precipitates this chatter <u+2014> a fear of pain, a fear of mortality, a fear of rejection and, most of all, a fear of inadequacy. they<u+2019>re the fears of a child, and most men outgrow them. but for various reasons, not all do. their masculinity, already a coping mechanism, becomes toxic. i<u+2019>ve heard men attack the character of women in the same tone that an uncle of mine once used to call for the nuclear annihilation of the entire middle east and the murder of every last arab man, woman and child. i<u+2019>ve heard men utter un-american things, things that directly contradict our country<u+2019>s highest ideals, and then excuse it all with one of mr. trump<u+2019>s pet phrases: <u+201c>we live in the real world.<u+201d> but the real world <u+2014> complicated foreign policy questions, confusing social change, economic dislocation <u+2014> is precisely what toxic masculinity is trying to avoid. it<u+2019>s bigger than any one person, which makes it a threat to men who cling to the belief that they alone control their fate. though such masculinity might temporarily shelter men from the pressures of their daily lives, inevitably it robs them of their lives: disturbing trends show that men, especially the white men who make up a majority of mr. trump<u+2019>s base, are suffering greatly for their posturing. from 2009 to 2014, while mortality rates fell for all other americans ranging from ages 22 to 56, they rose for middle-aged whites, with most of the fatalities coming from what experts are calling <u+201c>despair deaths,<u+201d> including drug overdoses, alcohol-related liver disease and suicide, all consequences of unhealthy coping mechanisms. more and more men are also suffering and dying from heart disease, cancer and diabetes, the disease that claimed my father, a man who was so proud and so concerned with upholding his masculinity that he refused to see a doctor for decades, until it was too late. our economy has left many of these men behind. white men, statistics show, have borne some of the worst of the effects of globalism and the great recession, and still suffer from the largest shortfall of jobs. that<u+2019>s why it<u+2019>s no surprise to see mr. trump<u+2019>s core supporters not only cling to him after the tape came out, but even tighten their grip, doubling down with misogynistic t-shirts and chants at rallies. he<u+2019>s the furthest thing from the working-class men of my childhood, but whatever his motives for demeaning women, these supporters hear in him an echo of their own desperation. i can still remember, as a child, listening to the same man who<u+2019>d told me to leave the crying to the girls as he sobbed alone in his room. my stepfather was a truck driver, and after he<u+2019>d left his rig and clocked out of his shift, he would often lock himself in his bedroom. i could hear him, though, and i could hear when my mother, a woman he<u+2019>d derided and belittled as being weak, came to him and did the heavy lifting for them both. jared yates sexton is an assistant professor of creative writing at georgia southern university. follow the new york times opinion section on facebook and twitter (@nytopinion), and sign up for the opinion today newsletter . a version of this op-ed appears in print on october 13, 2016, on page a25 of the new york edition with the headline: america<u+2019>s toxic masculinity. today's paper | subscribe
donald trump<u+2019>s toxic masculinity
jared yates sexton