Sting: “I’m lucky to work with my hands every day”

The former frontman of Police Sting said the decline in manual labor and the use of physical force by men may underlie some traits associated with toxic masculinity. The 74-year-old originally from Newcastle, in the North of England, is the creator of the theater show “The Last Ship” (read the review of the musical’s soundtrack here), inspired by its working-class origins, which narrates the last days of a shipyard being closed due to the deindustrialization of the 70s and 80s.

In a recent interview with the British newspaper The Guardian, Sting spoke about how the decline of manual labor is affecting people, saying it may underlie some toxic traits of modern masculinity. “As a musician, I work with my hands every day and I’m lucky. It’s rare for modern men to use their hands and their own strength to do something. We’ve lost something in that sense. I have no answers, but perhaps the toxicity that exists in society today is the result of the fact that we have lost that direction for our energy, that masculine strength. We rarely find ourselves having to use it.”

Speaking more specifically about ‘The Last Ship’which was first staged in 2014 in Chicago, explains that although “Britain’s wealth was created in coal mines, steel towns, industrial cities and shipyards”, its decline was due to “Margaret Thatcher’s dream of a service economy. All those skills were thrown in the bin”, adding that he did not want the stage production to glorify what was ultimately dangerous work, but rather to capture the sense of “pride” of the era.

Sting he misses those hard types of work, rather the cohesion that existed in society at the time. “I’m the one who didn’t want to work there, and for good reason. They worked with asbestos, with all sorts of toxic chemicals. At the same time, I feel nostalgic for the sense of community that I grew up in. That environment was really rich in symbolism. The city, although often struggling economically, was extremely proud of the ships that were built there. The work was terrible and dangerous and tiring, but those men could look back and say, ‘Well, I built that.’ Civic pride It was immense.”

While there appears to be a rise in toxic masculinity in society, a new study has shown that the majority of men do not share such beliefs. The research analyzed a representative sample of 15,808 heterosexual New Zealand men aged between 18 and 99. Among study participants, 35.4% exhibited predominantly nontoxic patterns, while 53.8% exhibited low to moderate scores in most traits. Just over 7% showed a toxic benevolent profile – due to high scores in benevolent sexism and high sexual prejudice – and 3.2% showed results of a more concerning nature, with high scores for hostility, toxic profile, sexism, narcissism and resistance to domestic violence prevention.