Occasionally, the seat on the toilet goes wonky. Without warning, the bolt on the back can come loose, which is potentially dangerous. If you are rushing to relieve yourself, there’s a distinct risk of slipping off, crashing through the shower screen beside it, possibly impaling yourself and dying. All while your trousers are around your ankles. In case it ever happens, we’ve already prepared a cover story. If you hear I died while saving orphans and cats from a burning museum, you’ll know what really happened.
It’s my job to fix it. It’s an extremely fiddly task as the space between the toilet and the shower is only just wide enough to accommodate a human head, and because the bolt is at the back I have to lie on the floor and slide myself in. I fear that one day I may become stuck there. If you hear that I’ve gone to spend time in a silent monastery, you’ll know what really happened.
This job, and all the similar jobs are always mine. I come from a generation where it’s a given that the man will always have a toolbox of some sort and will always be the first to attempt to repair stuff: and when that doesn’t work, a professional may be called in. My father was exactly the same, and like me, ambition would often outstretch ability.
But I like doing these jobs. I like that, most of the time, I can be handy. At a time when you can barely use the word “masculinity” without pairing it with “toxic”, this is one aspect of being a man that can be benign and useful; even an expression of love.
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Before you drag me up in front of Heteronormative Court, I’m all for women doing these jobs too. I’m all for women plumbers and carpenters and electricians. And it’s also true that many men loathe DIY. Yet there is still a societal expectation that males should have an innate knowledge of this sort of thing.
I know a lot of men who reach a point in their lives when they start to change. It can be in their 50s or even 60s, and in popular culture it’s often depicted, cartoonishly, as a midlife crisis: hair dye and sports cars.
But that’s only one version of this kind of change. The man can decide to buy a drum kit or decide he wants to learn to restore old cars or go on hiking trips to Vietnam. He will have generated enough self-confidence to be able to make those bold changes in his life, and also have achieved a degree of freedom. He might be close to or have already paid off the mortgage. The kids will be grown up. They might even have found a place to live and moved out.
Either way, the man will feel less parental pressure, and less pressure to be a man in the traditional sense: the provider and protector. The DIY person. Whether conscious of it or not, men bear the burdens and make the sacrifices required to fulfil those expected roles, and it’s only in their fifth decade (or so) that they get the chance to explore becoming the person they may have always wanted to be. Or get the breathing room to try to figure out who they are at all.
Of course, the experience of women at this or any age is very different. And yes, not all men change. Some just get crankier as they look out at a world that seems confusing to them and that they aren’t too pushed to try to understand. They may express this crankiness by fulminating about Common Sense and running in local elections.
For the others, it’s an opportunity to at least partially escape the life they were always expected to lead. Patriarchy benefits men, but it limits them too.