Toxic masculinity and the deadliest catch

If you watch reality TV, you've probably at some point seen the Deadliest Catch. It followed the lives and fortunes of commercial fishermen in the Bering sea. It's off the air now, but it had 18 seasons following the fishing boats and their experiences.

And if you've seen the Deadliest Catch, you've seen something that ought to be shocking. Almost none of fishermen wear life jackets. The boats that do stand out as oddballs. This is not unique to Alaska. Commercial fish men just don’t tend to wear them. (1)

You might think there's a good reason they don't wear life jackets. Maybe they catch on things, or pose some other kind of risk that you and I don't understand. Maybe it's just not recommended on commercial fishing boats.

Nope, they're totally recommended. There's formal guidance and everything.

And wearing a life jacket will not just keep you afloat, and un-drowned. Alife jacket with an emergency beacon can call for help and share your location the instant you hit the water. It's a game changer for water survival. It's not all that expensive, either. A life jacket with the beacon costs about $400. That's not free, but it's not a prohibitive cost.

Commercial fishermen don't wear life jackets because they're fishermen. You don’t find women in fishing boats. It's an intensely masculine culture - masculine to the point of toxicity.

Fishing boats don't tend to have life jackets because wearing life jackets makes fishermen feel weak. Because wearing a life jacket somehow invites disaster. The life jacket doesn't prevent the problem - the life jacket causes it. Does that sound familiar?

The very first comment on my very first substack newsletter included the phrase, “Perhaps you've heard that whatsoever you most fear shall come to pass.” (2)

I deleted the comment because it was really stupid and I didn't want to launch my newsletter with a fight. But it reminded me that plenty of people really do think that talking about a problem is what causes the itinkem. And that trying to prevent harm invites that harm in. It’s a mass failure to understand causality and it’s driving covid infections. 

1. “Between 2000 and 2013, 665 US fishermen died at sea, nearly one-third of them after falling overboard. Not one of the latter group was wearing a life preserver,” 

2. Christian friends tell me this is a mistranslation of Job 3:25.