FROM THE EDITOR The Unspeakable and Men’s Lives
By Rob Okun One of the awful facts of our age is the evidence leaders. I didn’t recognize in the spirited female that [the world] is stricken indeed, stricken to responses to New Left men’s sexism that I was the very core of its being by the presence of JHWWLQJP\¿UVWJOLPSVHRIZRPHQ¶VOLEHUDWLRQ the Unspeakable…[that] too few are willing At the times of their deaths, JFK, Malcolm, to see. — Thomas Merton MLK, and RFK were taking markedly more progressive positions that were alarming the When we speak, we are afraid. But when we power elite. As the play painstakingly reveals, are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to each of them posed a threat that could not be speak. allowed to go unchallenged. —Audre Lorde Dorsey, who developed the play with assistance from a cohort of longtime activists, hat if?...” All of us have uttered says his intention goes beyond challenging the those two words at one time or silence long surrounding the murders. He says another as we contemplated “W he wants “to shed light on the “unspeakables” what might have been. Often our focus is RIWRGD\²WKHRI¿FLDOO\FRYHUHGXSFULPHVWKDW personal. “What if mom or dad had lived long have led to or worsened the multiple crises that enough to meet the new grandchild?,” for currently beset our country and the world… example. Sometimes the focus is global. manhood. How do we understand him: Project Unspeakable is an attempt to liberate the In the case of Project Unspeakable—a caring father and equal marriage partner who truth so that the truth can liberate us.” political meditation on truth, morality and unambiguously speaks up for women’s rights )RUW\ ¿YH \HDUV DJR 7UDSSLVW PRQN DQG secrecy as much as a compelling new play—the DQG JD\ ULJKWV" 2U &RPPDQGHULQ&KLHI mystic Thomas Merton—who coined the term “what if” has profound implications for our RUGHULQJPRUHGURQHVWULNHVLQ¿YH\HDUVWKDQKLV “unspeakable”—corresponded with Nicaraguan times. “What if JFK , RFK, MLK, and Malcolm SUHGHFHVVRURUGHUHGLQHLJKW"3RLVHGWREHFRPH SULHVWOLEHUDWLRQWKHRORJLDQDQG ODWHU PLQLVWHU X had not been assassinated?” the play asks. D 6\ULDO NLOOHU RQHPLQXWH DQG FKDPSLRQLQJ of culture Ernesto Cardenal. “The world is full of “What would the world look like if they had nuanced diplomacy the next? great criminals with enormous power, and they lived?” That all four were gunned down within Even if Court Dorsey, who wrote Project are in a death struggle with each other,” Merton D¿YH\HDUSHULRG² ± ²UHPDLQVDOLIH Unspeakable, would not describe the play ZURWH ³,W LV D KXJH JDQJ EDWWOH XVLQJ ZHOO altering backdrop to the lives of many who came as about men per se, it is a play about men’s meaning lawyers and policemen and clergymen as of age in the sixties. privilege and entitlement. Inspired by James their front, controlling [news]papers, and means The script, completed in advance of the Douglass’ JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He of communication, and enrolling everybody in 1RYHPEHUQG¿IWLHWKDQQLYHUVDU\RI3UHVLGHQW Died and Why It Matters 2UELV%RRNV their armies.” A harsh assessment when he wrote Kennedy’s assassination, has asked intriguing an impeccably researched book that continues to it in the wake of the four assassinations; sadly, TXHVWLRQV EHJLQQLQJ JHRSROLWLFDOO\ 3UHVLGHQW DWWUDFWDIROORZLQJPRUHWKDQ¿YH\HDUVDIWHULW still true today. Kennedy had begun to turn away from violence ZDV SXEOLVKHG 'RUVH\ DQ DFWLYLVWDFWRU ZLWK D 3HUKDSV QRW PDQ\ ZKR UHDG RU SHUIRUP as a head of state’s primary governing principle, ORQJUHVXPHFUHDWLQJVRFLDOO\LQIXVHGDUWZURWH Project Unspeakable will explicitly consider pivoting toward peacemaking. There is evidence Unspeakable to incite a complacent citizenry to the transformation of masculinity as a backdrop he planned to withdraw U.S. troops from Viet defend a democracy under siege. to the play’s narrative. I hope some do, though, 1DP LI UHHOHFWHG LQ $QG LQ KLV SRLQWHG Edward Snowden’s revelations of National since “changing men” offer a ray of hope in a remarks against the Viet Nam war and in support Security Administration efforts to erode citizens’ bleak political and moral landscape. of workers’ rights—MLK was marching with liberties underscore why Douglass’s book and Dorsey’s play should be added to social striking sanitation workers in Memphis on the www.projectunspeakable.com HYH RI KLV$SULO DVVDVVLQDWLRQ²0DUWLQ studies curricula and debated in book groups Luther King, Jr. had begun to articulate the and community forums. Anyone who has never In addition to staging the play on or around connection between class and war to the struggle TXHVWLRQHG WKH RI¿FLDO YHUVLRQV RI WKH IRXU November 22, 3URMHFW8QVSHDNDEOH recommends for civil rights. In addition, at the time of their assassinations should now be skeptical. That the the following dates: January 15, 2014 – MLK’s deaths Malcolm X and Robert Kennedy had also play was meant for neighbors sitting around their birthday (born 1929) February 21, 2014 begun to enlarge their vision of social justice. living rooms to read aloud, as a staged reading – anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination From the perspective of today’s profeminist in a faith community social hall, or produced as in 1965; April 4, 2014 – anniversary of MLK’s men’s movement, the brothers Kennedy DIXOOVFDOHWKHDWUHFRPSDQ\SURGXFWLRQPDNHV assassination in 1968; May 19, 2014 – Malcolm and Malcolm each were becoming more Project Unspeakable a democratic civics lesson. X’s birthday (born 1925); May 29, 2014 – JFK’s contemplative, ready sooner to negotiate and The burgeoning gender justice movement was birthday (born 1917); June 6, 2014 – anniversary collaborate than to resort to aggression. Dr. unfolding in the shadow of the assassinations. I of RFK’s assassination in 1968; November 20, 2014; RFK’s birthday (born 1925); November 22, King had recognized that by connecting the was an activist in college in Washington, D.C. dots of the isms beyond race, he extended his LQWKHODWH V0\¿UVWGD\LQWRZQ,RSWHG 2014 – 51st anniversary of JFK’s assassination; moral authority, demonstrating a different way to out of a tour of the national monuments to hop February 21, 2015 – 50th anniversary of express courage. There is much for us to consider a bus visiting parts of the city that lay in ruin Malcolm X’s assassination in 1965. in the “what if” the play asks about men at the in the wake of Dr. King’s assassination. It was cusp of change, especially men in leadership a time when few men were questioning how positions. they were expressing their masculinity. Some of ,Q PDQ\ ZD\V 3UHVLGHQW 2EDPD ERWK us were vaguely aware of the nascent women’s H[HPSOL¿HV DVSHFWV RI WKH WUDQVIRUPDWLRQ RI movement but didn’t necessarily connect its Rob Okun can be reached at rob@voice- masculinity and the rigidity of conventional emergence to arrogant male antiwar movement malemagazine.org. 2 Voice Male Fall 2013 Volume 17 No. 61
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male positive • pro-feminist • open-minded S Mail Bonding Rob A. Okun Editor FUTURE I think people are indi Lahri Bond PERFECT? viduals with mixed Art Director characteristics; gender 5HFHQWO\ DORQJ Michael Burke is an erroneous quality ime colleague of mine Copy Editor around which to order VWRSSHGE\P\RI¿FHWR Christine Polaczak a society, and that there show me a copy of your Circulation Coordinator is a direct line leading PDJD]LQH , ÀLSSHG Tim Boateng, Ethan Corey, from gender polariza through the pages and Ajun Downs, Jonathan Yau tion mythology to war interns immediately knew that and the destruction of I wanted to subscribe. VOICE MALE is published quarterly by the earth. the Alliance for Changing Men, an affiliate Within the hour the of Family Diversity Projects, PO Box 1246, I don’t know subscription envelope Amherst, MA 01004. It is mailed to subscribers why I didn’t subscribe in the U.S., Canada, and overseas and is dis- was in the mail to you. when I first came across tributed at select locations around the country I want to learn all that and to conferences, universities, colleges and your magazine, but I secondary schools, and among non-profit and I can regarding the wish I had. Now I plan non-governmental organizations. The opinions interactions between expressed in Voice Male are those of its writers to receive it at my house, men and women, past, present and future. and do not necessarily reflect the views of the read it, perhaps glean articles from it, and advisors or staff of the magazine, or its spon- Grace Megli-Turrner, MSW, RSW sor, Family Diversity Projects. Copyright © then leave it in the lobby at my work (I’m a 2013 Alliance for Changing Men/Voice Male Edmonton, Alberta SV\FKRWKHUDSLVW ,¶PDFWXDOO\GLVDSSRLQWHG magazine. that I haven’t ever seen it anywhere, but I’ll Subscriptions: 4 issues-$28. 8 issues-$45. soon take care of that little problem. BUCKING Institutions: $40 and $65. For bulk orders, go Jean Ballantyne to voicemalemagazine.org or call Voice Male TRADITION at 413.687-8171. Santa Barbara, Calif. I have known about your magazine for Advertising: For advertising rates and dead- Letters may be sent via email to a while. I found it online while I was doing lines, go to voicemalemagazine.org or call www.voicemalemagazine.org Voice Male 413.687-8171. research for my own work about egalitari or mailed to Editors: Voice Male, anism and why heterosexual couples seem Submissions: The editors welcome letters, PO Box 1246, articles, news items, reviews, story ideas and to continue to fall back into traditional roles Amherst, MA queries, and information about events of inter- despite their intentions to do otherwise. I est. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcomed but 01004 the editors cannot be responsible for their loss find that people continue to maintain cultural or return. Manuscripts and queries may be sent beliefs often reflected in unsubstantiated Voice Male extends a deep bow of via email to www.voicemalemagazine.org or mailed to Editors: Voice Male, PO Box 1246, “science” designating women to be innately gratitude to the indomitable Read Amherst, MA 01004. more nurturing and men to be brutes or Predmore, our circulation coordinator babies. I don’t believe any of that hogwash. from 2008-2013.
N A B Juan Carlos Areán Bill T. Jones E. Ethelbert Miller National Latin@ Network Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Co. African American for Healthy Families and Communities Resource Center, Howard University Jackson Katz John Badalament Mentors in Violence Prevention Strategies Craig Norberg-Bohm !e Modern Dad Men’s Initiative for Jane Doe Michael Kaufman Eve Ensler Judy Norsigian White Ribbon Campaign V-Day Our Bodies Ourselves Joe Kelly Tom Gardner Chris Rabb Professor of Communications Fathering Educator, !e Emily Program Afro-Netizen Westfield State University Michael Kimmel Haji Shearer Byron Hurt Prof. of Sociology, SUNY Stony Brook Massachusetts Children’s Trust Fund God Bless the Child Productions Charles Knight Joan Tabachnick Robert Jensen Other & Beyond Real Men NEARI Press Prof. of Journalism, Univ. of Texas Don McPherson Shira Tarrant Sut Jhally Mentors in Violence Prevention Prof. of Gender and Sexuality Studies, Media Education Foundation California State Univ. Long Beach Mike Messner Allan G. Johnson Miriam Zoll Prof. of Sociology, Univ. of So. California Novelist and author, !e Gender Knot Educator and author, Cracked Open
4 Voice Male Men @ Work
was released in September and changes in gun ownership. They areas all contribute to an area’s reported on by Zack Beauchamp DOVRHPSOR\HGWKHODUJHVWHYHU propensity for gun deaths. That LQ7KLQN3URJUHVVRUJ number of statistical controls for suggests broader social inequality, The researchers compiled other variables in this kind of gun not gun ownership alone, contrib data on firearm homicides from study: “age, gender, race/ethnicity, utes to the gun violence epidemic. DOOVWDWHVIURP WR urbanization, poverty, unemploy Nevertheless, the fact that gun the longest stretch of time ever ment, income, education, income ownership mattered even when studied this way. Their aim? To inequality, divorce rate, alcohol race and poverty were accounted see whether they could find over use, violent crime rate, nonviolent for suggests that Americans More Guns = More time any relationship between crime rate, hate crime rate, number can’t avoid talking about the changes in gun ownership and RIKXQWLQJOLFHQVHVDJHDGMXVWHG country’s fascination with guns Murder murder using guns. nonfirearm homicide rate, incar when debating what to do about The largest study of gun While violent crime rates ceration rate, and suicide rate” WKHURXJKO\$PHULFDQV violence in the U.S. confirms overall declined during that period, were all accounted for. murdered by gunfire. that widespread American gun the authors used “fixed effect The authors acknowledge ownership is fueling America’s regression” (http://www.jblumen that rates of gun ownership don’t (http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2 gun violence epidemic. The study VWRFNFRPILOHVFRXUVHVHFRQ explain all of America’s gun ODUJHVWJXQ by Boston University professor FEModels.pdf WR DFFRXQW violence epidemic: race, economic VWXG\JXQVPXUGHU Michael Siegel and two coauthors for national trends other than inequality, and generally violent
Sexism, Consumerism, and Parenting
VD\LQJ³3UHWW\OLNHPRPP\´ZKLOHVKLUWVIRUER\VUHDG³6PDUWOLNH daddy.” Disney has made shirts for boys that say, “Be a hero,” while the comparable shirt for girls says “I need a hero.” While these examples are repulsive because they are marketed to young girls, shirts marketed to older demographics are even more GLVJXVWLQJ$TXLFN*RRJOHVHDUFKUHYHDOHGVKLUWVUHDGLQJ³$OOHUJLF WR$OJHEUD´ VROGDWWKHSRSXODUWHHQVWRUH)RUHYHU ³7RRSUHWW\ WRGRPDWK´DQG³*ROGGLJJLQJ´ UHSOHWHZLWKDV\PEROPXFKOLNH WKH 1LNH VZRRVK 2Q WKH PRUH ULVTXp VLGH WKHUH¶V ³1HYHU WUXVW anything that bleeds for a week and doesn’t die.” Then there’s the classy “Don’t be sexist, Bitches hate that.” Amazingly, someone HYHQ WKRXJKW WR PDUNHW D RQHVLH IRU EDE\ JLUOV ZLWK IDX[ EODFN tassled pasties. $QRWKHUJHQUHRI7VKLUWVWXSLGLW\IHDWXUHVSURUDSHDQGDEXVH messages. One shirt shows a checklist of reasons why he is “sorry,” including “you provoked me” and “I was drunk.” Topman released D VKLUW LQ WKDW UHDGV ³:K\ GR , DEXVH \RX" /HW PH FRXQW WKHZD\V´ZLWKWKHVDPHOLVWRI³UHDVRQV´,Q0D\$PD]RQ UHPRYHGIURPVDOH7VKLUWVWKDWUHDG³.HHSFDOPDQGUDSHDORW´ Wow. Just writing this makes me sick. As a sociologist, I am By Laura Finley, Ph.D. keenly aware of the many ways we are all impacted by media and PDUNHWLQJ$VWKHPRWKHURID\HDUROGJLUO,FDQ¶WEHOLHYHDQ\ ome companies insist on producing atrocious consumer company would be so depraved as to think these products were their SURGXFWV)URP³JKHWWRSRO\´D0RQRSRO\VW\OHJDPHIHDWXULQJ SDWKZD\WRVXFFHVV5HYLHZLQJWKHPWULJJHUVP\JDJUHÀH[ Sridiculously offensive stereotypical black characters (a pimp, So, what do we do? That’s easy, really. While we cannot stop KR JXQ DQG PDULMXDQD OHDI IRU LQVWDQFH WR /HJRV GHVLJQHG someone from making and marketing these products, we can refuse VSHFL¿FDOO\ UHDG RQO\ IRUER\VRUJLUOVVRPHFRUSRUDWLRQVVHHP to buy them. Although boycotts are not always the best way to to have zero social conscience when it comes to the groups they will eradicate social injustices, they surely are effective for this type of exploit to make a sale. Sexism in particular is rampant, and these FKDQJH3DUHQWVPXVWUHIXVHWREX\WKHVHVKLUWVIRUWKHLUNLGV$QGLQ sexist products have increasingly been marketed to young children. doing so, they must explain to their children—and the store manager, 5HFHQWO\WKH&KLOGUHQ¶V3ODFHDVHHPLQJO\ZKROHVRPHFRPSDQ\ if they are feeling professorial—precisely why the messages are so WKDWSURYLGHVFORWKLQJIRUNLGVSXOOHGVRPH7VKLUWVDIWHUFXVWRPHUV problematic. What began as yet another example of irresponsible complained about the way they reinforced negative stereotypes about corporate activity can result in a teachable moment that might women and girls. One shirt for girls read “Born to wear diamonds” resonate for a lifetime. while another showed a list of “My best subjects” that included boys, shopping, and dancing. Of course, math remained unchecked. Laura Finley, Ph.D., teaches in the Barry University Department %HIRUH WKLV PRVW UHFHQW FRQWURYHUV\ -&3HQQH\ SXOOHG VH[LVW of Sociology and Criminology. A version of this commentary was WVKLUWV WKDW UHDG ³7RR SUHWW\ WR GR KRPHZRUN´ ZKLOH *\PERUHH syndicated by 3HDFH9RLFH ZZZSHDFHYRLFHRUJ DQRWKHUVXSSRVHGO\IDPLO\IULHQGO\FRPSDQ\IHDWXUHGVKLUWVIRUJLUOV
Fall 2013 5 Men @ Work Patriarchy Dead? “[S]imply read the news, on the area have more progressive board member Miriam Zoll’s Hardly any given day, for yourself…. If ideas about gender roles. 6HSWHPEHU RSHG LQ the patriarchy is dead, the numbers http://www.bustle.com/ the New York Times, “Selling the In the epilogue to the paper have not gotten the memo.” DUWLFOHVNXUGLVKPHQLQ Fantasy of Fertility” (coauthored back edition of Hanna Rosin’s GUDJSURPRWHIHPLQLVPLQLUDQ ZLWK 3DPHOD 7VLJGLQRV VSDUNHG The End of Men: And the Rise of in Drag, Iranian both global media attention and Women), she recently implored Governors Ignoring ORQJRYHUGXH RQOLQH GLVFXVVLRQV feminists to accept that the patri Men Promote DoD Gay Directive about the myths linked to infer DUFK\LVGHDG5R[DQQH*D\VD\V Feminism tility and the ability of science Rosin is mistaken. Kurdish men in Iran are Just because the Department to “cure” it (http://www.nytimes. “The patriarchy is alive and donning drag to promote a RI 'HIHQVH 'R' DQQRXQFHG FRP RSLQLRQVHOOLQJ well,” she wrote in Salon.com, simple message: Being a woman in August it would extend to WKHIDQWDV\RIIHUWLOLW\KWPl and backed up her contention. isn’t anything to be ashamed VDPHVH[ FRXSOHV WKH VDPH Zoll is author of Cracked “The tech industry is consistently of. The “Kurd Men for Equality” EHQH¿WV DYDLODEOH WR VWUDLJKW embroiledLQ RQH PLVRJ\Q\ Open: Liberty, Fertility and the campaign was started in response military spouses doesn’t mean it Pursuit of High-Tech Babies (In related controversy or another. automatically became reality. The At TechCrunch’s Disrupt, two to an Iranian judge sentencing WHUOLQN , KHU PHPRLUH[SR a convicted domestic abuser to governors of Louisiana, Texas, VpDLPHGDWH[SDQGLQJSXEOLFDQG programmers shared the TitStare and Mississippi have refused to app, which is exactly what you wear women’s clothes in public. patient education about the trau Following the ruling, Masoud SURFHVVIHGHUDOO\SDLGIRUEHQH¿W mas, health risks, and bioethical think it is. Something so puerile DSSOLFDWLRQV IURP PDUULHG VDPH is hardly worth anyone’s time or Fathi donned a dress and had concerns linked to treatments. his friend Dler Kamangar take a sex military couples. In response, An educator and advocate energy but it’s one more example the ACLU and the American of the cultural stupidity that is picture. On Facebook they write: with more then 20 years’ experi 0LOLWDU\3DUWQHU$VVRFLDWLRQKDYH fueled by misogyny (http:// “Being a woman is not a tool to ence in reproductive health and launched a national petition to npr.org/blogs/alltechconsid humiliate or punish anyone.” international public policy, in HUHG Since the campaign launched WKH'R'FDOOLQJRQLWWRUHDI¿UP Cracked Open Zoll vividly re VH[LVPLQWKHWHFKLQGXVWU\WDNHV in April, men young and old have that all married military personnel counts her husband’s and her FHQWHUVWDJH +DUYDUGUHFHQWO\ been posting pictures to Facebook must be treated equally. VHYHQ\HDU TXHVW WR EHFRPH SDU introduced Riptide, a project and taking to the streets dressed The southern states’ stance ents, generously seasoning the that will examine how the jour in colorful, traditional Kurdish is in stark contrast to the actions ERRN ZLWK IDFWV DQG ¿JXUHV WKDW nalism industry collapsed under women’s clothing. The Kurd of the vast majority, including reveal the hidden side of the as the pressure of digital advances. Men for Equality hold signs with those “that don’t recognize same sisted reproductive technology Unfortunately, most of the people messages such as “Hoping for the sex marriage including Alabama, LQGXVWU\,Q³2QH(JJ3OHDVHDQG interviewed for the project are day that sexuality, gender will not Kansas, Oklahoma, South Caro 0DNH ,W (DV\´ 6XPPHU white men, offering, as usual, a be a way of evaluating humanity” lina, and Wyoming,” according she interviewed her husband, Mi WR 6WHSKHQ / 3HWHUV ,, SUHVL narrow perspective on an issue that and “Disgracing Kurdish women chael Shashoua, who discussed dent of the American Military would benefit from a more diverse is disgracing an international invasive fertility treatments and set of voices. Fix the Family, a 3DUWQHU $VVRFLDWLRQ +H QRWHG community. Women are mothers, their effect on the couple’s lives. conservative, Catholic family that resisting the DoD directive sisters, and life partners.” (http://voicemalemagazine.org/ values organization, offers a list means same sex couples “may Diana Nammi, executive VXPPHULVVXHRQHHJJ of reasons why families should be forced to travel hundreds of director for the Iranian & Kurdish SOHDVHDQGPDNHLWHDV\/ not send their daughters to college. miles just to do something that Women’s Rights Organization, The list is not satirical. RSSRVLWHVH[FRXSOHVGRQRWKDYH In an effort to raise aware told CNN that while honor killings to think twice about. This is not ness about and integrate men’s (http://www.fixthefamily.com/ and child marriages are still cul what equal treatment under the perspective into the public EORJUHDVRQVWRQRWVHQG\RXU turally common in the region, it’s law looks like.” The petition is at: discourse, Voice Male invites GDXJKWHUWRFROOHJH heartening to know some men in DFOXRUJVHFXUHVWRSGHQ\LQJ men who have experienced treat EHQH¿WVVDPHVH[FRXSOHVVHUY PHQWVWRWHOOXVPRUHDERXWLW3HQ LQJQDWLRQDOJXDUG. DVKRUWHVVD\²ZRUGV²DERXW your experiences. Questions to consider include: Selling the Fantasy · What should men know before of Fertility they enter into treatments? Assisted reproductive tech · Did you consider the treatments QRORJLHVOLNHLQYLWURIHUWLOL]DWLRQ to be invasive? If so, how? and egg donation, sometimes re · Did the media’s depiction of the sult in the birth of healthy babies, fertility treatment process match but far more often treatments fail. the reality? The European Society of Human · Did the treatments strain your Reproduction and Embryology relationship? If so, how? UHSRUWV D SHUFHQW JOREDO IDLO Send to: info@voicemalemaga
Mirjamali ure rate. In the U.S. the rate is zine.org. Kurdish men in Iran are donning drag to promote a simple message: Being a woman QHDUO\SHUFHQW isn’t anything to be ashamed of.They are members of Kurd Men for Equality. Voice Male national advisory 6 Voice Male Voice Male is a superb, groundbreaking publication offering a powerful way to “Know Thyself” said the ancient Greeks. engage men in working towards gender “Recreate Thyself” says Voice Male. justice and to encourage younger men to This vital publication aims for nothing less learn new ways to become a man. Every on behalf of all men. Voice Male is an individual and institution interested in gen- important tool in our struggle to der equality and violence prevention should re-imagine ourselves in the world. subscribe and spread the word! —Bill T. Jones, artistic director, —Judy Norsigian, coauthor and executive Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane director, Our Bodies, Ourselves Dance Company W’ That’s the question Voice Male tries to answer each issue as it chronicles manhood in transition. The changes men have undergone the past 30 years, our efforts following women in challenging men’s violence, and our ongoing exploration of our interior lives, are central to our vision. The magazine’s roots are deep in the male-positive, profeminist, anti-violence men’s movement. We draw inspiration from the world-changing acts of social transformation women have long advanced and the growing legion of men agitating and advocating for a new expression of masculinity.
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Fall 2013 7 Boys to Men Driving Home Lessons for My Son By Janice Lynch Schuster STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP/GETTY IMAGES AFP/GETTY / SAKUTIN DE STEPHANE
very day, Ian has a new tidbit about RWKHUSUHVVLQJPLGGOHVFKRROPDWWHU WKHULJKW WKHQH[WPRUQLQJKDG,DQOLVWHQWR*DEULHO¶V his expectations of beginning middle shoes and clothes to have before the start of classic song “Biko,” about the antiapartheid school. As I was driving him home school. activist beaten so badly by his jailers that he from summer camp, he mentioned he Earlier that same day, I had seen a news died while in their custody. Ehad heard that sixth graders stayed mostly on alert that proved to be untrue: that the great “Do you know who Nelson Mandela is?” the first floor of the building while seventh and Nelson Mandela had been withdrawn from life I asked. Ian shook his head. So I told him the eighth graders prowled upstairs. support and died. It set me to memories of the stories I remembered, the images and circum “It’s not that the eighth graders pick on 4XDNHUFROOHJH,DWWHQGHGLQWKHHDUO\ V stances of those awful days. What I really the sixth graders,” he added. “It’s the seventh where I first came to know and understand the wanted him to understand was that nonviolent graders who hate us. And most of the fights are evil that was apartheid. Somehow, a young resistance is important and effective, and that between the sixth graders.” black South African had made it to our North Because Ian is a dozen years younger than Carolina campus, and he and I became friends. its practitioners can—sometimes—carry the his oldest sibling, I had forgotten the miseries One day, he told me about a protest that had day. I told him of Mandela’s quest to win civil wrought by middle school—the hellish combi occurred at his high school, police shooting ULJKWVIRUEODFN6RXWK$IULFDQVKLV\HDUV nation of overcrowded classrooms and unfet into the crowd, a girl dying in his arms. He in jail, and his emergence to become South tered hormonal changes. showed me bullet scars along his back. Africa’s first black president. “You know if you see a fight, you need to ,WLVKDUGWRLPDJLQHWKDWZRUOG\HDUV “All of this happened in your lifetime?” he walk away,” I said. “Don’t get involved. Walk JRQHZKHQLPDJHVRIIDURIISODFHVFDPHWR asked, incredulous. away. Find an adult who can help. And turn the us via network news and an occasional docu Young people, especially boys like my son, other cheek.” mentary. For a while, apartheid seemed like a could take so many lessons from Mandela’s life, “Turn the other cheek? What’s that UHSRUWIURPDQRWKHUSODQHWDVFLHQFHILFWLRQ how he expressed masculinity and strength— mean?” horror movie. Slowly, the realities played out, rarely with violence and aggression, but with I blame myself for his biblical illiteracy, and eventually, good won out. As a graduate dignity and perseverance, and a sense that he and explained to him the words of Jesus: “If student, I took a workshop at the Institute for was working to achieve a common good. someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to 3ROLF\6WXGLHVZLWK'HQQLV%UXWXVWKH6RXWK 8SRQKLVUHOHDVHIURPSULVRQLQ KH him the other cheek also.” African writer and activist who had been reiterated his support for any and all efforts “That’s cool, but what about selfdefense?” imprisoned on Robben Island in the cell next to undertaken by the African National Congress he asked. “What then?” 1HOVRQ0DQGHOD VHHDFFRPSDQ\LQJSRHP to bring an end to apartheid. He repeated his We talked more about nonviolent responses $ZDVKLQPHPRU\,IRXQGDQROG3HWHU RZQZRUGVVSRNHQLQ WRWKHFRXUWWKDW to threats, and then turned our attention to an *DEULHO&'DQGRQWKHGULYHWRVXPPHUFDPS sentenced him to prison:
8 Voice Male “I have fought against white domination SOMEHOW WE SURVIVE generation. Which everyday practices of ours and I have fought against black domination. I by Dennis Brutus will seem preposterous, evil, and beyond have cherished the ideal of a democratic and comprehension? free society in which all persons live together Somehow we survive ,UHPHPEHUP\RZQVKRFNDWWKHDJHRI in harmony and with equal opportunities. and tenderness, frustrated, does not wither. when I learned that the diary of a young Dutch It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to girl was a true story. Whatever injustices Ian achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for Investigating searchlights rake and his generation face, boys and young men which I am prepared to die.” our naked unprotected contours; especially, I hope they discover and learn from In the end, he went on to become his the lessons of nonviolent leaders whose pres nation’s president. Such an improbable over our heads the monolithic decalogue ence on this earth has transformed it. RXWFRPH,QDFFHSWLQJWKH 1REHO3HDFH of fascist prohibition glowers 3UL]H0DQGHODFRQFOXGHG³/HWWKHVWULYLQJV and teeters for a catastrophic fall; Janice Lynch Schuster, of us all prove Martin Luther King, Jr., to have mother of four sons and been correct when he said that humanity can boots club the peeling door. two daughters, is a writer no longer be tragically bound to the starless based in Annapolis, midnight of racism and war.” He continued, But somehow we survive Maryland. She is a senior “Let the efforts of us all prove that he was not severance, deprivation, loss. writer for Altarum Insti- a mere dreamer when he spoke of the beauty tute, where she special- of genuine brotherhood and peace being more 3DWUROVXQFRLODORQJWKHDVSKDOWGDUN izes in covering issues hissing their menace to our lives, precious than diamonds or silver or gold.” related to aging and end-
Indeed, being a dreamer in the face of of-life care, and is the most cruel, all our land is scarred with what everyday life offers takes grit. Ian, just terror, coauthor of an award- KDVDOZD\VKDGWKHVZHHWHVWGLVSRVLWLRQ rendered unlovely and unlovable; winning book, +DQGERRNIRU0RUWDOV *XLGDQFH and the most generous heart. I worry that sundered are we and all our passionate IRU3HRSOH)DFLQJ6HULRXV,OOQHVVHer articles adolescence will drive those traits into hiding. surrender and essays often run in 7KH:DVKLQJWRQ3RVW. And I see that I need to take care to expose She is currently working to promote an idea him more to the realities of the world—but but somehow tenderness survives. for national service, the Caregiver Corps, also to its capacity for change, its underlying which would engage people, young and adult, beauty. “Somehow We Survive” was published in in developing better ways to care for our frail Thirty years from now, I wonder what Dennis Brutus’s collection A Simple Lust elders. She is the author of a collection of will seem surreal to Ian’s children and their +LOODQG:DQJ poetry, 6DWXUGD\DWWKH*\P
Sting: To Be a Man, Treat Women Well Musician-activist Sting believes in gender equality. Interviewed about the When you integrate the elements of meaning of manhood at the Printer’s your psyche that were bequeathed to Row Lit Fest June 8 at the Auditorium you by your mother—compassion, care, Theater in Chicago, he said the intuition, creativity—then you’re a man. following: You’ve got a lot of other ways [to ,WKLQNLQROGHUVRFLHWLHVRUVRFDOOHG be a man]...you can buy a gun, build primitive societies, they had a very your muscles up, join the army, wear a ritualized form of a rite of passage where uniform—[it] doesn’t mean much. a boy would go through some ordeal…go into the woods or the forest and survive But to treat women well—in the way or climb a mountain.... society treats women well—will tell XVZKHWKHUZHDUHDJURZQXSVRFLHW\ We don’t have that in modern society. It’s or not. Any society that doesn’t treat much more vague for men. How do we women well will never grow up. go from being boys to men? I don’t think it’s overnight. So for me to become a man is to treat women as they should be treated—as For me, becoming a man, paradoxically, equals. is about the nature of how you relate to To watch the YouTube video women. I think you’re really a man when of Sting’s remarks go to: http://www.chicagotribune.com/videogal you treat women well. OHU\6WLQJGHVFULEHVZKDWLW PHDQVWREHDPDQ
Fall 2013 9 KR LV WKH UHDO 3ULYDWH 0DQQLQJ"Does anyone Claire Lebowitz: Bradass87 has always been a living document, and know? Can anyone know?” Those were central I see these two statements as reiterating and clarifying points that are “W questions in John Stoltenberg’s review of playwright present in the play and in previous statements Chelsea has made in Claire Lebowitz’s documentary theater piece %UDGDVV, about the public and in private. What I am struck by in these two statements is how Army private sentenced in August for passing secret government Chelsea has consistently appealed to our highest, most moral selves. documents to WikiLeaks. Lebowitz crafted the script from primary 6KHKDVDFWHGLQDZD\WKDWUHÀHFWVRXUSHUFHLYHGYDOXHVDV$PHULFDQV sources—including Manning’s own online chats and instant messages, The Declaration of Independence was a radical, revolutionary document in which Manning used the handle Bradass87. Stoltenberg called the written during a time of Enlightenment. Chelsea Manning perhaps is play “a unique and fascinating front-row seat to history. Built around our new Enlightenment hero of the Information Age (Chase Madar, The Manning’s own words and artfully compiled from documents on the Passion of Bradley Manning WDNLQJWKHYDOXHVRXUQDWLRQLVVDLGWR public record, %UDGDVVGHOLYHUV DQ DXGDFLRXVO\ XSFORVH DQG ¿UVW EH IRXQGHG RQ WR KHDUW DQG UHÀHFWLQJ WKHP EDFN WR XV$IWHU EHLQJ person portrait that reveals how deeply the maligned young soldier VHQWHQFHGWR\HDUVLQSULVRQ²WKHKDUVKHVWVHQWHQFHIRUDMRXUQDOLVWLF himself was distressed by the question Who is Bradley Manning?” source ever—she said: “I will serve my time knowing that sometimes Manning’s answer, in part: “I’m not so much scared of getting caught you have to pay a heavy price to live in a free society. I will gladly pay and facing consequences at this point, as I am of being misunderstood, that price if it means we could have a country that is truly conceived and never having the chance to live the life I wanted to. I’m way way in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all women and men are way too easy to marginalize, I don’t like this person that people see. created equal.” No one knows who I am inside.” After Manning announced her gender 7KLVVLPSOHVWDWHPHQWEHJVDVHULHVRIVRXOVHDUFKLQJTXHVWLRQV change, identifying as female and changing her name to Chelsea, Stoltenberg, a longtime profeminist activist and writer, interviewed Ɣ Why do we live under the assumption that American lives are more the playwright about the incarcerated soldier, the play, and the role of valuable than other people’s? theatrical art in politics. ƔWhat exactly makes us “exceptional”? Ɣ:KDWIUHHVRFLHW\RYHUFODVVL¿HVLQIRUPDWLRQWRMXVWLI\LOOHJDOZDUVIRU John Stoltenberg: I watched a performance of Bradass87 in SUR¿W" :DVKLQJWRQ'&MXVWDIHZGD\VEHIRUH3ULYDWH0DQQLQJZDVWREH Ɣ How can a functioning democracy with a free press overprosecute the VHQWHQFHG²DWHQVHUHDOWLPHVXVSHQVHWKDWORRPHGRYHUWKHUHDOOLIH messenger, rather than reviewing the crimes revealed and bringing the events unfolding on stage. At the time I could not have anticipated real criminals to justice? WZRH[WUDRUGLQDU\¿UVWSHUVRQWH[WVWKDWZHUHVRRQWREHFRPHSXEOLF In the statement asking the world to support her in becoming her )LUVW RQ $XJXVW FDPH 3ULYDWH 0DQQLQJ¶V SRZHUIXO SRVW true self, she challenges us to confront our limiting assumptions of VHQWHQFLQJ VWDWHPHQW 7KH QH[W PRUQLQJ FDPH 3ULYDWH 0DQQLQJ¶V identity and simply asks us for what she needs—support. Considering startling revelation, “I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female,” which how much she clearly thinks of us, the American people (in contrast to has provoked an outpouring of responses both pro and con. What went KRZWKRVHLQSRZHUPLJKWYLHZXV VKHGHVHUYHVRXUVXSSRUWDVVKH through your mind as you learned of those two dramatic developments? has supported us and challenged us to “become our true selves.” What do you make of them? What effect do you think they will have on In terms of the play, I’m considering having the audience reading future iterations of Bradass87? WKHVWDWHPHQWPDGH$XJXVWIURPWKHVFUHHQEHIRUHWKHSOD\EHJLQV
10 Voice Male For someone who was treated so badly for being who she is throughout remembered as a poster person for anything, it’s for her bravery in her life, her ability to identify with others and feel responsibility for the H[SRVLQJWKH86ZDUDQGGHFHLWPDFKLQH actions of her country is extraordinary. So often in this statement she I’m curious to know your thoughts on all of this—on Chelsea, the uses the term we: “We have forgotten our humanity”; “We consciously controversy, the future of Bradass87—not only as the playwright but elected to devalue human life in Iraq and Afghanistan”; “We elected to DOVRDVDORQJWLPH0DQQLQJVXSSRUWHUDQGDVZKDWWUDQVDFWLYLVWVWRGD\ KLGHEHKLQGWKHYHLORIQDWLRQDOVHFXULW\DQGFODVVL¿HGLQIRUPDWLRQLQ FDOO³FLV´ PHDQLQJLQ\RXUFDVH DIHPDOHERUQZRPDQ order to avoid any public accountability.” I imagine the entire audience reading the statement from a screen like a mass mea culpa and an C.L.: Originally when I started working on the project, the trans invocation of this individual who is locked away but we are bringing narrative was a much larger part of the story. I knew it is pervasive into the room. In terms of the trans statement, in the play we watch this LQWKHORJRIFKDWVEHWZHHQ0DQQLQJDQG$GULDQ/DPR WKHFRQ¿GDQW young person struggle with not being able to express their true self, ZKRWXUQHGLQIRUPDQW ,W¶VDKXJHSDUWRIKRZ0DQQLQJVDZKHUVHOI which I believe provides some sorely needed context to a discussion situated in the world. But from speaking to many ardent supporters that is too reduced to who’s using which and getting statements from the lawyer that pronoun and could reach forward into Bradley would like to be referred to as “he” a deeper truth about us all through the and Bradley till he could move on to the theater’s power to identify with, instead of next phase of his life, it seemed that there separating from. was so much at stake with the trial ongoing, and perhaps it was just something that she J.S.: $IWHUWKRVHEUHDNLQJQHZVVWDWHPHQWV was questioning while deployed and not a I looked back at the Bradass87 script core part of her identity issues. I minimized you shared with me, and I was surprised it during development, but that section you by how much rich context was in it quoted seemed to me to be one of the most that foreshadowed Chelsea Manning’s beautiful passages, one I really missed when announcement—especially this: it was taken out, so I put it back in. For me “I’m isolated as fuck, my life is falling it is the one moment that she is free from apart, and I don’t have anyone to talk to. FRQ¿QHPHQWZKHQVKHLVUHPHPEHULQJWKLV It’s overwhelming—I’m not comfortable moment that she felt comfortable—and like with myself, I’m in an awkward state and herself. I just love how she describes it. the weird part is…I love my job. I was It was a delicate balance of not ignoring very good at it. I wish this didn’t have to this thing that she was clearly struggling with happen like this. I don’t think it’s normal Playright Claire Lebowitz wrote Bradass 87 before Private and making sure it was not used as an excuse for people to spend this much time worrying Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison. or the “reason” that she had to act. I was about whether they’re behaving masculine committed to making sure that the lens that we enough. I behave and look like a male, but it’s not ‘me.’” view the act of leaking from is that of suppression of information and When writing my review, I made a conscious choice to stop that illegal imperialist wars, and not taken out of context as just a confused quote there—because I thought the rest of that passage would be a young gay man under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell with an axe to grind against distraction. I see now that I omitted something not peripheral at all, the military. something that was actually a central story point in your text: In fact %UDGDVVFRPHVRIIWRPHDVWKHRSSRVLWHRIFRQIXVHG VKH “Eight months ago if you’d have asked me whether I would identify knew she was a woman inside—“No one knows who I am inside”— as female I’d say you were crazy, that started to slip very quickly, as and also felt so strongly that “information should be free” and “it’s the stresses piled up…. For whatever reason, I’m uncomfortable with important that it gets out, it might actually change something.” It is my role in society in particular—I went on leave in late January/early the world that is confused—how should we live in it? Like Bradley )HEUXDU\DQG«,FURVVGUHVVHGIXOORQ:LJEUHDVWIRUPVGUHVV²WKH says at the beginning of the play, “I wish that things were black and ZRUNV)RUDIHZGD\V,EOHQGHGLQ«QRRQHNQHZ7KH¿UVWWKLQJ, white like the media and politicians presented […] it’s all shades of learned was that chivalry wasn’t dead. Men would walk out of their way blurry gray”: Multiple things can be true at the same time; one can and open doors for me; it was so weird. I was referred to as ‘Ma’am’ be intelligent, principled, and moral, and also have a condition called RUµ0LVV¶DWSODFHVOLNH0F'RQDOGV KH\,¶PQRWDIDQF\HDWHU ,WRRN gender dysphoria. the Acela from D.C. to Boston. I rode the train, dressed in a casual :KHQ , ZDV LQ FRXUW RQH RI WKH SV\FKLDWULVWV ZKR WHVWL¿HG VDLG EXVLQHVVRXW¿W,UHDOO\HQMR\HGWKHWULS,WZDV«DQH[SHULHQFH,ZRQ¶W DERXWJHQGHULGHQWLW\³>,W¶V@KRZZHGH¿QHRXUZRUOGDQGZKDWUROHZH IRUJHW« SHUFHQWRISHRSOHFRPLQJEDFNIURP,UDTRU$IJKDQLVWDQ serve in it at this point anyways. I think maybe some point in the future want to come home, see their families, get drunk, get laid…I…wanted JHQGHUZRQ¶WPDWWHUDVPXFK$WWKLVSRLQWLW¶VYHU\PXFKDGH¿QLQJ to try living as a woman, for whatever reason. I don’t know, I just kind part of who we are and how we function. Maybe someday it won’t of blended in…I didn’t have to make an effort, it just came naturally, matter so much, but gender is still seen as a core issue of identity and LQVWHDGRIWKLQNLQJDOOWKHWLPHDERXWKRZ,¶PSHUFHLYHGEHLQJVHOI how we interact in the world.” I like this idea, that someday the way FRQVFLRXV,MXVWOHWP\VHOIJR«ZHOO,ZDVVHOIFRQVFLRXVLQDGLIIHUHQW we interact in the world will not be so limited to only how our bodies way, I was worried about whether I looked pretty, whether my makeup present us. ZDVUXQQLQJZKHWKHU,VSLOOHGFRIIHHRQP\H[SHQVLYHRXW¿W´ I wrote Chelsea a letter that day saying, “I have tried myself to 7R EH KRQHVW DQRWKHU UHDVRQ , GLG QRW PHQWLRQ 0DQQLQJ¶V VHOI transcend gender at different moments in my life and feel increasingly LGHQWL¿FDWLRQ DV IHPDOH ZDV WKDW , ZDV ZDU\ RI SURYRNLQJ WKH QDVW\ stuck in a box as I get older where people treat me a certain way ÀDPHZDUV,NQRZWREHJRLQJRQEHWZHHQSROLWLFDODFWLYLVWVZKRYLHZ GLVPLVVLYH EHFDXVHRIWKHLUSHUFHSWLRQRIPHEDVHGRQORRNV,QVRPH transwomen as really “men” and political activists who counter that ways I can see where being a woman inside allows you to empathize and such views are “transphobic.” Well, as you likely are aware, that highly feel connected to the powerless and oppressed. I’m often astounded by charged controversy is all going on now around Chelsea Manning the lack of empathy and compassion displayed in hegemonic pervasive anyway, and suddenly she has become its lightning rod (which in my view really is a distraction, because if she should be regarded and [continued to page 34]
Fall 2013 11 John Stoltenberg on Gender and Character
Interview by Logan Howlett
ogan Howlett, an editor and blogger for the website 'LVUXSWLQJ'LQQHU3DUWLHV (http://disruptingdinnerparties.com), recently interviewed John Stoltenberg after reading Stoltenberg’s essay, “Why Talking About ‘Healthy Masculinity’ Is Like Talking About ‘Healthy Cancer’”(feministcurrent.com/7868/why-talking-about-healthy- masculinity-is-like-talking-bout-healthy-cancer/). Stol- tenberg, who has explored the distinction between gender identity and moral identity in many essays, is author of Refusing to Be La Man: Essays on Sex and Justice and 7KH(QGRI0DQKRRG 3DUDEOHVRQ6H[DQG6HOIKRRG
Logan Howlett: The “problem” of reaching men and masculine people being and maybe have better relationships with others in his life if he who don’t see any problem with their masculinity as it is—why do you lets go of those boundaries, well, he’s just going to feel you’re judging think these men are resistant to reframing masculinity? Why do you think him and threatening his sense of personal security. YDULRXVDSSURDFKHV VXFKDVWKH³5HDOPHQGRQ¶W´FDPSDLJQV KDYHQRW It all goes back to the fact that the gender identity manhood origi affected these men? Do you think there’s a way to introduce these men nates as contested, and it has to be reproven and redefended against the to the concept of flexible masculinity? threat of seeming not a man—which can feel like nonexistence, like being less than nobody. John Stoltenberg: The basic dilemma with the gender identity “real I’ve been dubious for many years about the effectiveness of “Real man” is that it’s a contested sense of self. It’s not an identity one can men don’t...” campaigns. They preach to the choir, whereas to the simply put on in the morning like clothing. It’s not something that auto unconverted they’re nonsense. That’s because much of what men and matically inhabits one’s body with, say, one’s first nocturnal emission. masculine people do to prove and assert their gender identity as “real Instead it needs to be reiterated, asserted and proven, repetitively, over men” entails the very acts deplored in “Real men don’t...” campaigns. and against what it is not. For instance: Rape has been called an act of power and control, not an 3XWDQRWKHUZD\ 0DQKRRGLVDQLGHQWLW\FRQVWUXFWEDVHGRQWKUHDW² act of sex. But I don’t think that’s what’s really going on. In my analysis, WKHWKUHDWRIEHLQJSHUFHLYHG E\RWKHUVDQGRQHVHOI DVOHVVWKDQD³UHDO rape and other forms of sexual assault are sexual acts of gender identity man.” That’s why to many men and masculine people, any critique of reification. What’s driving the sexual urge for power and control is the that identity framework will seem to be another threat. need to experience himself as a real man. So since that’s why a man There are really only two reasons people seek fundamental change rapes in the first place, you can’t get anywhere by telling him that rape in themselves. One is because they are inspired to aspire to become is not something that real men do. It doesn’t compute. As an effort to someone better, which promises some positive pleasure or outcome; and communicate persuasively, it’s going to fail. the other is because they experience desperation, some serious pain or 2YHUVHYHUDO\HDUV,¶YHEHHQILQHWXQLQJDQRULJLQDOFRPPXQLFD distress about how they are now. tions theory that I believe holds promise for speaking to men and So the answer to your first question is pretty simple. If a man or masculine people in a way that could prompt aspirational personal masculine person doesn’t experience any distress or problem with the FKDQJH,¶YHRXWOLQHGWKHWKHRU\LQDVLPSOHWRIROORZZHELQDU³+HDOWK boundaries around his gender identity as it is, he’s not going to want or Messaging to Boys and Young Men: Dos and Don’ts” (http://youtube. aspire to be free. And if you try telling him he could be a better human FRPRU\X)G3D< ,EHJDQUHWKLQNLQJVXFKFRPPXQLFDWLRQVWR
12 Voice Male \RXQJPHQZKHQ,FRQFHLYHGDQGFUHDWLYHGLUHFWHGWKH³0\VWUHQJWK LH: When I wrote my piece “My Strength Is Not for Hurting” is not for hurting...” campaign (http://www.mystrength.org/ ZKLFK KWWS GLVUXSWLQJGLQQHUSDUWLHVFRPP\VWUHQJWKLVQRWIRU models consent and respect behavior and illustrates its positive rela KXUWLQJ ,ZDVVWUXJJOLQJZLWKKRZWREHPDVFXOLQHZLWKRXWWDNLQJRQ tional outcomes. Never does the campaign speak to young men as men. the more damaging aspects of male privilege. Do you have any thoughts It speaks instead to young men’s capacity for moral decisionmaking. on how the masculine community can welcome someone who was not There’s a big difference. born male without falling back on the more damaging aspects of male ERQGLQJ OLNHREMHFWLI\LQJZRPHQRUHQJDJLQJLQULVN\EHKDYLRU " LH: What does your masculinity mean to you? What makes you masculine? What makes you a man? Is there a difference between JS: I remember reading that piece and being really impressed by how what makes you masculine and what makes you a man? Talk amazingly you framed that question. You really asked what I would now about your gender identity, including the characteristics you are say should be “everyman’s” question—meaning the question someone proud of, your internal sense of your gender, your frustrations with should ask whether they were assigned at birth to grow up male or gender roles, your history of adherence or rejection of gender roles. whether they elected to live as a male sometime later on. So rather than thinking of your question as coming from some marginal, outlier, JS: Wow, well, my personal anxiety about measuring up to “real outsider position, I would encourage you to assume the truth, which is manhood” goes back to early childhood. I’ve written about this a bit, that your question is absolutely central to the conversation. And that also including a short piece called “Why I Stopped Trying to Be a Real Man” means: Don’t assume there are no others in what you call the masculine (http://web.archive.org/web/ KWWS ZZZIHPLQLVWD community who could not relate to your particular struggle, learn from FRPDUFKLYHVYQVWROWHQEHUJKWPO it, and be inspired by it. Years ago, once I began to be publicly honest I always felt my body was wrong—meaning it was never “mascu about feeling unfavorably compared to the greater masculinity in others, line” enough—and I always I felt I was in it wrong—meaning I never I began to realize I was not the only one. In fact I’ve never since met believed myself to be behaving like a real boy like other boys. I’m aware anyone raised to be a man who did not at some level share that secret my phrasing here may seem to resemble other people’s experience of fear. So what I thought was my problem being accepted—or welcomed feeling they were born into the wrong body. But that did not happen to as you wonderfully put it—was actually my problem being honest, open, be my experience. I didn’t want a body more feminine; I wanted a body and courageous. Did everyone want to hear what I said? Of course not. more masculine. But as it turned out, enough people did that I soon realized I was not the Truth be told, I can’t ever remember feeling masculine, even though anomaly I thought I was; I was just someone who tried to speak truthfully I’m aware that I’m socially perceived as a man and I move through life to those who could hear. as a man. To this day I’ve not gotten over feeling there is more mascu linity in other men and I am deficient. And since I recoil at the sorts of LH: What would masculinity look like to you in an ideal world? Would cockfights, competitions, and combat by which other masculine people it be severed from sex organs? Would it be gentler? Would it be more JHWWKHLULQIXVLRQRUIL[RIJHQGHULGHQWLW\VXUHW\,¶PKDSSLO\UHVLJQHG expansive? Would it include a wider variety of men? Would it include to be at peace not trying. the same number of men but be less disdainful of men who fall outside I know that doesn’t directly speak to your questions “What makes its limits? Dream big. you masculine?” and “What makes you a man?” But honestly, inside my skull, inside the sensorium that seems my fundamental self, the JS: Well, if my big dream could come true, the thing I would sever answer is simply nothing. Nothing has ever convinced me that I’m just masculinity from is character. (I of course would wish the same for as masculine as other people who seem masculine. IHPLQLQLW\ 7KLVYLVLRQHFKRHV'U.LQJZKHQKHVDLG³,KDYHDGUHDP that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will LH: 0XFKRIWKHWLPHZKHQZHGLVFXVVPDVFXOLQLW\ LQIHPLQLVWFLUFOHV not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their char we use loaded language. Aggressive masculinity is “bad” or “toxic,” acter.” None of us should be judged by the color of our skin or the gender chivalry is “wrong,” etc. Do you think this language is turning away of our bodies. Character and its corollary conscience comprise who we men who might otherwise be willing to examine their masculinity? Do fundamentally are—to ourselves and to others—as evidenced by the you think there’s value in designating certain masculine behaviors as choices we make and as embodied in the actions we take. No one is their negative? race. No one is their sex. But attributions and aspersions on the basis of ERWKUDFHDQGVH[KDYHEHHQIRLVWHGXSRQXVDVVHOIFRQFHSWDUFKHW\SHV JS: Well, the backlash in some quarters against feminist critiques of though they say nothing definitional about who we are. men’s behavior has become pretty intense. For instance, such language I know that’s counterintuitive. But it’s what I have come to believe. KDVEHFRPHDIODVKSRLQWIRUUHWDOLDWRU\UDJHDPRQJVRFDOOHGPHQ¶V Distinguishing character from gender styles, gender expressions, gender rights advocates. Is the feminist language itself what’s impeding or trappings, gender cultures, gender modalities, and such would be a huge REVWUXFWLQJZKDWFRXOGEHWKHLUVHOILQWHUHVWLQUHWKLQNLQJWKHLUDGKHUHQFH breakthrough in human existence. Finally, “Do unto others as you would to manhood “if only they saw the light”? I don’t think manhood works KDYHWKHPGRXQWR\RX´ DQGWKHPDQ\LWHUDWLRQVRIWKDWLGHD ZRXOG that way. I think these men’s adherence to manhood requires animus and get to mean what it means. And finally everyone would be relieved of opposition in order to exist and be experienced as authentic. And it’s way the obligation to act some scripted way because it’s the way a man (or safer waging vitriolic combat against women than against other men. DZRPDQ LVVXSSRVHGWRDFW ILQDOO\ZHZRXOGDOOEHVLPSO\KXPDQ Incidentally there’s an important lesson here for profeminist 7KHUHZRXOGEHQRXV±WKHPRQO\,±7KRX7KHUHZRXOGEHQRJHQGHU men. Attacking antifeminist men (out of righteousness, indigna boundaries to police or enforce. Sexuality would all be open source; the WLRQVHOISXULI\LQJDQJHUZKDWHYHU VHUYHVQRSXUSRVHRWKHUWKDQWR RQO\ERUGHURQH¶VRZQERG\,NQRZWKDWVRXQGVZRRZRR%XW,EHOLHYH provide yourself a cockfight with which to prove your own (alleg it’s what our species needs. HGO\KLJKHUTXDOLW\ PDQKRRG By Ben Barker f the fight against pornography is a radical one, where are the what stands in our way.”2 I’m sad to report that this quote, and the UDGLFDOVILJKWLQJDJDLQVWSRUQRJUDSK\"(DUOLHUWKLV\HDUWKHWK book it comes from, reflects one of the most increasingly popular of the Iannual San Francisco Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair, an event that radical subcultures brings together radical activists from around the world, was held at the Conflating perversion and revolution is nothing new. We can trace KHDGTXDUWHUVDQGSURGXFWLRQIDFLOLW\RIVRFDOOHG³DOWHUQDWLYH´SRUQ WKHWUHQGDOOWKHZD\EDFNWRWKHVLQWKHWLPHRIWKH0DUTXLVGH company Kink.com.. Sade, one of the earliest creators and ideologues of pornography (not Kink.com is known for its unique brand of torture porn. As longtime WRPHQWLRQSHGRSKLOLDDQGVDGRPDVRFKLVP 6DGHZDVIDPRXVIRUKLV DQWLSRUQDFWLYLVWDQGZULWHU*DLO'LQHVUHSRUWVZRPHQDUH³VWUHWFKHGRXW graphic writings featuring rape, bestiality, and necrophilia. Andrea on racks, hogtied, urine squirting in their mouths, and suspended from Dworkin has called his work “nearly indescribable,” writing, “In sheer the ceiling while attached to electrodes, including ones inserted in their quantity of horror, it is unparalleled in the history of writing. In its vaginas.” But to grasp the agenda of Kink.com, we can just go to the fanatical and fully realized commitment to depicting and reveling in VRXUFH IRXQGHU3HWHU$FZRUWKVWDUWHGWKHFRPSDQ\DIWHUGHYRWLQJKLV torture and murder to gratify lust, it raises the question so central to life to “subjecting beautiful, willing women to strict bondage.” pornography as a genre: why? why did someone do . . . this? In Sade’s When the Anarchist Bookfair announced its choice of venue, femi case, the motive most often named is revenge against a society that nists were outraged. The few who were billed to speak during the event persecuted him. This explanation does not take into account the fact dropped out. But ultimately, the decision was defended, the outcry that Sade was a sexual predator and that the pornography he created lashed back against, and the show went on. was part of that predation.” Dworkin also notes that “Sade’s violation Anarchists are my kind of people—or so I thought. When I first of sexual and social boundaries, in his writings and in his life, is seen as discovered the radical Left some eight years ago, I thought I’d stumbled inherently revolutionary.” on the revolution. The rhetoric seemed as much: brave, refreshing Despite all they seem to share in common, most of today’s radicals demands for human rights, equality, and liberation; a steadfast commit actually don’t revere the Marquis de Sade. Rather, they look to his ment to struggle against unjust power, however daunting the fight. followers; namely, one postmodern philosopher by the name of Michel It wasn’t long, though, before my balloon of hope burst. To the Foucault, no small fan of Sade, whom he famously dubbed a “dead detriment of my idealism and trust, the true colors of my radical heroes *RG´)RXFDXOW¶VLGHDVUHPDLQVRPHRIWKHPRVWLQIOXHQWLDOZLWKLQ began to show. the radical Left. He has catalyzed more than one generation with his 3RUQRJUDSK\ZDVWKHQDQGLVQRZRQHVXFKOHWGRZQ2YHUWKH\HDUV critiques of capitalism, his rallying cries for what he calls “social war,” I’ve bounced between a diversity of groups on the radical Left: punks, and his apparently subversive sexuality. Foucault, who in fact lamented Queers, anarchists, and many in between. But wherever I went, porn that the Marquis de Sade had “not gone far enough,” was determined to was the norm. push the limits of sexual transgression, using both philosophy and his Here’s the latest in radical theory: “We’re seventeen and fucking own body. His legacy of eroticizing pain and domination has unfortu in the public museum. I’m on my knees with your cock in my mouth, nately endured. surrounded by Mayan art and tiger statues. Our hushed whispers So where are the radicals in this fight against pornography? The and frenzied breathing becomes a secret language of power. And us, answer depends on who we call radical. The word radical means “to EHFRPLQJPRQVWURXVHDWLQJZKROHUHVWUDLQWDQGDSRORJ\7KHZRUOG the root.” Radicals dig to the roots of oppression and start taking action ruptures as we come, but it isn’t enough. We want it all, of course—to there—except, apparently, when it comes to the oppression of women. H[SURSULDWHWKHSXEOLFDVDZLOG]RQHRIEHFRPLQJRUJ\DQGWRGHVWUR\ How radical is it to stop digging halfway for the sake of getting off? 14 Voice Male What is called the radical Left today isn’t really that. It’s radical in “Sleaze, perversion, deviance, eccentricity, weirdness, kinkiness, BDSM name only and looks more like an obscure collection of failing subcul DQGVPXWDUHFHQWUDOWRVH[SRVLWLYHTXHHUDQDUFKLVWOLYHV´VKHZURWH tures than any kind of oppositional movement. But this is the radical Left As the lives of the radicals I once counted as comrades began to confirm we have, and this one, far from fighting it, revels in porn. and give testament to this centrality, I abandoned ship. Just as we need to wrest our culture from the hands of the pornog 3RUQRJUDSK\LVDVLJQLILFDQWSDUWRIUDGLFDOVXEFXOWXUHVZKHWKHU raphers, we need to wrest our political movements from the hands of quietly consumed or brazenly paraded. That it made me uncomfort WKHVH[LVWV8QWLOZHGRWKDWVRFDOOHG³UDGLFDO´PHQZLOOFRQWLQXHWR able from the beginning did not, unfortunately, deter me from trying it prop up sexual exploitation under the excusing banner of freedom and myself. It seems significant though, that, despite growing up as a boy in subversion. a porn culture, my first and last time using porn was while immersed in 7KLVPDOHGRPLQDWHGUDGLFDO/HIWLVH[SUHVVO\DQWLIHPL this particular social scene. Who was there to stop me? With all nist. In a popular and obscene anarchist essay, “Femi semblances of feminist principles tossed to the wind, who nism as Fascism,” the author—who is male, need It’s was there to steer me from the hazards of pornography I mention—ridicules feminists for drawing any no easy and toward a path of justice? connection whatsoever between porn and The answer is no one. Why? Because the violence against women. He concludes that task taking pornographers control the men who control feminism—rather than, say, the multibil the radical Left. Women may be kept around lion dollar porn industry—is a “ludicrous, on the cult of in the boys’ club—or boys’ cult—but only KDWHILOOHGDXWKRULWDULDQVH[LVWGRJPDWLF masculinity. This cult to be used in one way or another; never as construct which revolutionaries accord an full human beings. How is it a male radical unmerited legitimacy by taking it seriously needs to be dismantled. can look honestly in the face of a female at all.” Men need to take it comrade and believe her liberation will I’ve ceased to be surprised at the viru come through being filmed or photographed lent use and defense of porn by supposedly down, from the most nude? UDGLFDO²DQGHYHQ³DQWLVH[LVW´²PHQ7KH personal sense to I have a dear neighbor who says, “There’s WZRKDYHDOZD\VVHHPHGWRPHWRJRKDQGLQ nothing progressive about treating women hand. My first encounter with radicals was at a the most global. like dirt; that’s just what happens already.” My punk rock music show in the basement of a stinky neighbor has little experience in the radical Left, party house. I stood awkwardly upstairs, excited but apparently has more common sense than most but shy. Amidt the raucous crowd, a word caught my individuals therein. She, along with many ordinary ear: “porn.” Then, another word: “scat.” Next, the guys were people I’ve chatted with, have a hard time believing—let alone huddling around a computer. And I was confused… until I saw. understanding—that people who think of themselves as radical could More sophisticated than the punks, the anarchist friends I made a few actually embrace and defend something as despicable as pornography. years later used big words to justify their own porn lust. Railing against If the basic moral conscience of average people allows them to grasp what they deem censorship, anarchists channel Foucault in imagining the violence and degradation inherent in porn, we have to ask: what’s themselves a vanguard for free sexual expression, by which they really wrong with the radical Left? mean, men’s unbridled entitlement to the use and abuse of women’s In a way, this letdown is predictable. From ideologues like Sade and bodies. And any who take issue with this must be, as one anarchist put )RXFDXOWWRWKHPDFKRUHEHOOLRQRISXQNEDQGVOLNHWKH6H[3LVWROVWRWKH it, “uncomfortable with sex” or—and I’m not making this up—“enemies DQDUFKLVWHQGRUVHG.LQNFRPMXVWLFH²IRUZRPHQDQGIRUDOO²KDVEHHQ of freedom.” a peripheral goal at best for countercultural revolutionaries. Of vastly The Queer subculture puts the politics of sexual libertarianism into greater priority is this notion of transgression, an attempt at “sexual dissi practice. Anything “at odds with the ‘normal’ or legitimate” becomes dence and subversion which challenges the symbolic order,” the devout fair game. One Queer theorist, Sandra Jeppesen, explained in specifics: belief that anything not considered “normal” is radical by default. [continued on page 34] Progressive Men Are Confronting Pornography From the earliest days of feminist activism against the deep misogyny of the porn industry, a small but vocal number of men have joined with women not only to protest the harm porn culture FDXVHVZRPHQEXWWRDUWLFXODWHWKHQHHGIRUDUDGLFDOFULWLTXHRISRUQ¶VUROHLQVKDSLQJ KHWHURVH[XDO men’s sexuality in a way that reinforces men’s dominance, power, and control over women. “The core RIRQH¶VEHLQJPXVWORYHMXVWLFHPRUHWKDQPDQKRRG´VDLG-RKQ6WROWHQEHUJLQ While the trend within a significant segment of the radical Left bends toward male entitle ment and violation, there is more to the story. For some progressive men, humanity and justice have seemed the better choices. 3URIHPLQLVWPHQ²UDGLFDOVLQWKHPRVWKRQHVWVHQVHRIWKDWZRUG²FRPSULVHDPRYHPHQWWKDW VKRXOGKHDUWHQPHQHYHU\ZKHUH6LQFHWKH VERWKLQDQGRXWVLGHRIWKH³RUJDQL]HG´OHIWWKH\KDYH supported feminist activism on a range of issues, including challenging the sexism of men on the left. They have created organizations, organized conferences, written books, held trainings, participated in demonstrations, and taken legal action. They have also produced works that explore the role of pornography in maintaining sexism, racism and other systems of inequality, as well as its effects on men’s lives, sexuality, and relationships. Books like Stoltenberg’s Refusing to Be a Man, Robert Jensen’s Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, Michael Kimmel’s Men Confronting Pornography, and Jackson Katz’s The Macho Paradox are HQFRXUDJLQJPHQ¶VUROHLQWKLVVWUXJJOH$QGRUJDQL]DWLRQVOLNH7KH$QWL3RUQ0HQ3URMHFWDVZHOODVSHULRGLFDOVOLNHVoice Male, illuminate the path toward gender justice, without which any sense of social justice is just empty rhetoric. Fall 2013 15 hree women are sitting around a small managed to get my attention long enough to VRPHOXPLQDULHVLQFOXGLQJDVOHZRI table in a bar, a night out together, ask a few questions. powerful and prominent men, from Mikhail Ttalking and laughing when a man walks Did I actually know what I was saying, she *RUEDFKHY+HQU\.LVVLQJHUDQG-RKQ*OHQQ over and rests his hand on the back of a chair as wanted to know, and was I keeping track or just to Muhammad Ali, Joe DiMaggio, and Tom he leans in and says, “Are you ladies alone?” rattling on, and did I have reason to believe I Cruise. I want to state for the record that men was correct, since my tone seemed so confident The important thing is that the crowd are not born with a predisposition to say and sure? laughed. such things. Or to write, “Man, being a I think it’s worth asking why. Why would mammal, breastfeeds his young.” Or to be Being clueless about Sharon Stone be able to predict a joke like HPRWLRQDOO\WRQHGHDILQDWWHQWLYHOLVWHQHUV that would play so well to an audience full socially forgetful and inept, or unable to emotions and human RISRZHUIXODQGHJRGULYHQPHQ":K\PDNH read nonverbal cues, including the difference relationships has fun of men’s brains in a world where it’s hard between being friendly and wanting to have disastrous consequences. to name a social institution or powerful orga sex. These results are from long and careful nization—including science and universities and sometimes painful training. In the interest where brains are what it’s all about—that is of fairness it should also be made clear that I didn’t have to think it over for very long not controlled by men? Not to mention if men’s these are variable patterns among men, but before saying no. I’d been having a good time brains are distinguished from women’s in not they still show up enough to become sitcom saying whatever came into my mind without being used at all, how come they’re running plots and punch lines in comedy routines, much thought to anything else. the world? not to mention stories that women tell around You need go no further than cable news to I think part of the answer is that Stone tables in bars. see there’s a lot of that going around. wasn’t talking about all that when she said men The patterns include men’s tendency to These patterns are part of what keeps don’t use their brains. She was speaking in a dominate conversations, which has been exten male privilege going, but they also make men familiar code that allows women to make fun of sively researched and documented. I remember vulnerable to looking foolish and being the butt men and get away with it. Men don’t use their with Nora having lunch one day many years of jokes like the one about there being a market brains for things that, in a patriarchal culture, ago when she brought up a topic for conversa for human brains and women’s brains selling are optional for men—all of the emotional, tion. I don’t remember what it was exactly, at just a quarter the price of men’s because KXPDQUHODWLRQVKLSWHQGLQJWDVNVWKDWDUHOHIW which gives a clue to the problem right there. women’s brains are used. to women. If men are no good at those, it’s But I do remember her starting off in a general The source for that particular joke was the only because they’re off doing more important ZD\DVLQ³,ZRQGHUDERXWVXFKDQGVXFK´ actor, Sharon Stone, as she introduced Betty things. The message in the crowd’s indulgent which is all I needed to jump right in. Appar )ULHGDQDWWKHWKDQQLYHUVDU\FHOHEUDWLRQ laughter was clear: so long as you leave men’s ently I went on for quite awhile before she of Time magazine, attended by a crowd of manhood alone, and the control—both real and 16 Voice Male imagined—that goes with it, you can make fun not only that, it won’t take very long or hurt WKDWKHDQG*RUEDFKHYWKH6RYLHWSUHPLHUKDG of them all you want about things that don’t very much. to find a way to get along. And why? “Because really matter. And they are almost always wrong. No, you’re scaring everyone.” Except they do matter. Being clueless about actually, they’re always wrong. Amazingly enough, he listened. But also emotion and human relationships has disas amazing is that so many men can become so WURXVFRQVHTXHQFHV,Q*LO(OOLRW¶VFDUHIXODQG powerful and yet be so clueless about some conservative study, Twentieth Century Book From 1900 to 1975, more WKLQJDVEDVLFWRKXPDQH[LVWHQFHDQGZHOO of the Dead, he estimates that in just the first than 120 million people being as how to get along without pulling out \HDUVRIWKHODVWFHQWXU\PRUHWKDQ died because of wars a gun or blowing one another up or scaring million people lost their lives because of wars waged by men. Blunders everyone half to death. waged by men. And most of those wars were a from beginning to end, In all this poking fun at men we are whis series of blunders from beginning to end, with with only the victors’ tling past the graveyard, because buried in the only the victors’ magic brush of masculine laughter at Sharon Stone’s joke is the sobering history to make it look like something else. magic brush of masculine truth that if it is only half true, you really have The list of powerful men who overreach, history to make them look to wonder why men would be in charge. who misjudge the facts, who lie to themselves like something else. and everyone else, who misread their adver Voice Male contributing saries, who go to war because they’re afraid not It is a miracle that we don’t go to war editor Allan G. Johnson to and, once started, keep it going for the same more often, and that we do not is undoubt is a nonfiction author reason, and who are completely unprepared edly because a woman’s hand is in there and novelist whose books to deal with the chaos, destruction, and mass somewhere, not that it will make the front include 7KH *HQGHU suffering that result, is staggering. Our own page of the Times. Knot: Unraveling Our government knows no equal when it comes to When Ronald Reagan was president, the 3DWULDUFKDO /HJDF\ charging off under the delusion that the men Cold War was coming to a head with nuclear 3ULYLOHJH 3RZHU DQG in power know what they’re doing, that with posturing on both sides, when the president’s Difference; and The enough money, troops, and manly grit they wife, Nancy Reagan, confronted him. As the First Thing and the Last. To visit his blog, go can make it come out the way they want, and story goes, she told him he had to cut it out, to agjohnson.wordpress.com. Fall 2013 17 Reports of Feminism’s Demise By Rob Okun I don’t know why people inadvertently, to erasing are so reluctant to say they’re the history of the femi feminists. Maybe some women nist movement (including just don’t care. But how could men’s supportive role it be any more obvious that LQ LW ²D KLVWRU\ WKDW we still live in a patriarchal stretches at least as far world when feminism is a bad back as the struggle for word? suffrage. For someone to —Ellen Page, proclaim they are articu actor lating a vision of “gender equality” (the term some If the word “feminist” SUHIHU ZKLOHGLVWDQFLQJ has negative connotations, themselves from the “F running away from the word word” by name, seems to won’t fix that. Whatever me both nearsighted and new word you come up with shortsighted. will eventually take on the It obscures the legacy same negative connotations. of male privilege and helps Because the problem isn’t erase one of feminism’s with feminists; it’s with those greatest contributions to who demonize feminism. social justice: creating and sustaining a space —Rebecca Cohen, for ongoing dialogue and cartoonist TXHVWLRQV VHOIFULWLTXH and internal conflict in the i t h s u c h a n service of a more nuanced o n s l a u g h t o f understanding of all Wpressing issues systemic oppressions. It facing those concerned about also ignores, undermines— gender justice today (for RUERWK²WKHULFKJHQGHU starters consider the recent justice history that’s been actions to severely restrict at the forefront of much women’s reproductive rights profound social change, by the legislatures in North the impact of which is still &DUROLQD2KLRDQG7H[DV WKH being felt today with gains current debate about whether from Middle America to it’s still appropriate to call the Middle East. oneself a “feminist”—or in On the wall in my office the case of Voice Male, ³SURIHPLQLVW´²VHHPVWRPHWREHDKXJH is a copy of a handbill announcing a meeting, “What is Feminism?” politically divisive distraction. VFKHGXOHGIRUWKH3HRSOH¶V,QVWLWXWHDW&RRSHU8QLRQLQ1HZ 18 Voice Male Have Been Greatly Exaggerated I support feminism because I want my daughter to have a better future. I support feminism because athleticism means more than just being good at football. to Her Convictions,” “The Right to Her Name,” “The Right to Orga nize,” “The Right to Ignore Fashion,” and “The Right to Specialize “Men Support Feminism” campaign in Home Industries.” And the name they bestowed on that meeting? ³%UHDNLQJLQWRWKH+XPDQ5DFH´,W¶V\HDUVODWHUDQGZRPHQVWLOO Are you a man who wants to join Voice Male in its “Men recognize its truth—from the statehouse in Austin to the Democratic 6XSSRUW)HPLQLVP´FDPSDLJQ"*RWR ,6XSSRUW)HPLQLVP Republic of Congo. Supporters of feminism don’t need to address its Because at KWWS YRLFHPDOHPDJD]LQHRUJLVXSSRUWIHPLQLVP VRFDOOHG³EUDQGLQJ´SUREOHP WKH\QHHGWRFKDOOHQJHVH[LVP because and post a short statement, photo, or graphic on your 3HUKDSVVRPHRIWKHSHRSOHZKRSURIHVVWREHPRUHFRPIRUW Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, or Twitter account beginning with able with the term “gender equality” than the word “feminism” will the phrase “I support feminism because …” Are you a woman rethink their position and step forward to recommit themselves to the ally? Send the link to men in your life. cause. Imagine them joining a crowd filling a cobblestone square at dusk as the town crier calls out into the darkening sky, not about the Encouraged to leave the constraints of the “man box” that seeks passing of a monarch, but instead about an egalitarian movement to impose a rigid definition of manhood, more of us have begun to growing stronger and stronger. “Hear ye, hear ye,” the crier intones. access a range of feelings—from finding our tears to accessing our “The Feminists Are Alive. Long Live Feminism!” hearts. I am particularly proud to see how many younger men are LGHQWLI\LQJDVSURIHPLQLVWVRQFROOHJHDQGXQLYHUVLW\FDPSXVHV As I went to return the old handbill to my wall, I noticed more Rob Okun is the editor of Voice Male. He can be reached at rob@ WH[WGHVFULELQJDVHFRQGIHPLQLVWPHHWLQJVFKHGXOHGDVDIROORZ voicemalemagazine.org. A version of this commentary also appeared up to the initial “What is Feminism” gathering. It featured seven in Ms. magazine online. The “Men Support Feminism”campaign was women speakers addressing a range of issues, including “The Right developed by Voice Male interns Tim Boateng and Ethan Corey. WR:RUN´³7KH5LJKWRIWKH0RWKHUWR+HU3URIHVVLRQ´³7KH5LJKW Fall 2013 19 Why Some Asian Men Use Violence Against Women and Girls By Raymond Brandes 8QLWHG1DWLRQVVWXG\RIPHQLQ$VLDDQGWKH3DFLILF FRQVHQW0RUHWKDQ found that overall nearly half of those interviewed reported percent of men who A using physical and/or sexual violence against a female partner— admitted to rape in UDQJLQJIURPSHUFHQWWRSHUFHQWDFURVVWKHVLWHVVWXGLHG1HDUO\ sites in rural Bangla a quarter of the men interviewed reported perpetrating rape against a desh and China gave ZRPDQRUJLUOUDQJLQJIURPSHUFHQWWRSHUFHQW this response. Men were interviewed across Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indo QHVLD6UL/DQNDDQG3DSXD1HZ*XLQHD7KHVWXG\³:K\'R6RPH 2YHUDOOSHUFHQWRI 0HQ8VH9LROHQFH$JDLQVW:RPHQDQG+RZ&DQ:H3UHYHQW,W"´ D81 respondents said they PXOWLFRXQWU\VWXG\RQPHQDQGYLROHQFHLQ$VLDDQGWKH3DFLILF DVNHG had perpetrated gang men about their use and experiences of violence, gendered attitudes and rape against a woman practices, childhood, sexuality, family life, and health. According to or girl, ranging from 3DUWQHUVIRU3UHYHQWLRQDUHJLRQDOSURJUDPRIWKH8QLWHG1DWLRQV ZKLFK RQH WR SHUFHQW conducted tKHVWXG\ WKH\IRFXVHGRQQLQHVLWHVLQVL[FRXQWULHVDQGWKH across the various data is representative of those sites. sites. This is the first “This study reaffirms that violence against women is preventable, time data has been QRWLQHYLWDEOH´VD\V-DPHV/DQJ3DUWQHUVIRU3UHYHQWLRQSURJUDPFRRU collected from such GLQDWRU³3UHYHQWLRQLVFUXFLDOEHFDXVHRIWKHKLJKSUHYDOHQFHRIPHQ¶V a large sample of men use of violence found across the study sites and it is achievable because on gang rape. the majority of the factors associated with men’s use of violence can be changed.” The study’s findings reaffirm that violence against women is an expression of women’s subordination and inequality in the private Regarding rape, the and public spheres. They also show how men’s use of violence against study found that in the women is associated with men’s personal histories and practices, within sites where the survey was a broader context of structural inequalities. For example, men who conducted: reported having perpetrated violence against a female partner were significantly more likely to: • Men begin perpetrating violence at much younger +DYHJHQGHULQHTXLWDEOHDWWLWXGHVDQGWU\WRFRQWUROWKHLUSDUWQHUV ages than previously For instance, in Bangladesh and Cambodia men who exercised thought. Half of those who highly controlling behaviors were more than twice as likely to perpe admitted to rape reported trate partner violence than those who did not. their first time was when WKH\ZHUHWHHQDJHUV • Have experienced physical, sexual, or emotional abuse as a percent of men child, or witnessed the abuse of their who raped in PRWKHU0RUHWKDQSHUFHQWRIPHQ Bougainville, LQ%RXJDLQYLOOH3DSXD1HZ*XLQHD 3 D S X D 1 H Z and the site in China reported experi *XLQHD DQG encing emotional abuse or neglect as S H U F H Q W children, and these men were at least in Cambodia twice as likely to use violence against ZHUH \HDUV a female partner. o r y o u n g e r • Have practices that celebrate male when they first toughness and sexual performance, committed the crime. such as being involved in fights and • Of those men who had admitted to rape, the vast paying for sex. In Indonesia and Sri PDMRULW\ ± SHUFHQWLQPRVWVLWHV GLGQRWH[SHUL Lanka, men who reported having sex ence any legal consequences, confirming that impunity with a sex worker or transactional sex remains a serious issue in the region. were two times more likely to use violence against a partner than those • Across all sites, the most common motivation that men who had not. cited for rape was related to sexual entitlement—a belief that men have a right to sex with women regardless of 20 Voice Male The study featured • Ensure the full several recommendation empowerment of sincluding: women and girls and eliminate gender • Through community discrimination. mobilization programs and engaging with people who ³*LYHQWKHHDUO\DJH influence culture, make of violence perpetration violence against women we found among some unacceptable. men, we need to start working with younger • Through sustained boys and girls than we VFKRROEDVHG RU VSRUWV have in the past. We also based education programs, need laws and policies promote nonviolent and that clearly express that caring ways to be a man. violence against women is never acceptable,” said • Through parenting Emma Fulu, a research programs, comprehensive VSHFLDOLVWIRU3DUWQHUVIRU child protection systems 3UHYHQWLRQ and policies to end corporal 3DUWQHUVIRU3UHYHQWLRQ punishment, address child abuse and promote healthy families. LVDUHJLRQDOMRLQWHIIRUWRIWKH81'HYHORSPHQW3URJUDP 81'3 WKH 813RSXODWLRQ)XQG 81)3$ 81:RPHQDQG • To foster respectful relationships, work with young people, with a United Nations Volunteers 819 SURJUDPVLQ$VLD particular focus on boys and adolescents, to understand consent DQGWKH3DFLILF and healthy sexuality. • Through criminalizing all forms of violence against women, and promoting legal sector reform to ensure effective access to justice, Raymond Brandes is a program specialist for end impunity for men who use violence against women, particu- Partners for Prevention. To learn more or to read larly marital rape. the full report go to www.partners4prevention.org. The Prison Birth Project working to provide support, education and advocacy to women and girls at the intersection of the criminal justice system and motherhood. www.theprisonbirthproject.org Fall 2013 21 Abusive Men on the Road to Nonviolence Unclenching Our Fists By Sara Elinoff Acker Photos by Peter Acker or my colleagues and me in western programs for more than a decade before 0DVVDFKXVHWWVWKHODWH VWKURXJK becoming the partner support counselor at Men FWKHPLG VZDVDGHYDVWDWLQJWLPH Overcoming Violence. In all my years doing to work with families affected by domestic domestic violence work, there was always a violence. There had been an unprecedented firewall between domestic violence victims string of domestic violence murders: over the and perpetrators. Unless they were in a court course of eight years, ten women and one child room, survivors and perpetrators were never had been killed. One murder was particularly intentionally brought into the same space. KRUULILF6KHUU\0RUWRQDQGKHUVL[PRQWKROG Healing, possibility, son, Cedric, were stabbed to death by Sherry’s and hope can show up in the H[ER\IULHQGWKHEDE\¶VIDWKHU7KHHQWLUH most unlikely of places. The community was traumatized. meeting that day was one In the wake of these murders, the commu of those places. Our small nity became determined to create a more meeting room was crowded, coordinated and collaborative system to try buzzing with tension. At to reduce the risk of lethal violence. Spear Yoko’s invitation and with regrets; some choked back tears. headed by the district attorney’s office, key the permission of the partici They seemed to sense how deeply players in the community—police officers and pants the entire dialogue was Yoko was listening, sharing with dispatchers, prosecutors and probation officers, being filmed by a Japanese her both their deep remorse and advocates and batterer intervention coun television crew. In addi the pride they felt about their small selors—collaborated to create a more seam tion to her local work, Yoko successes. They shared with her less response to families affected by domestic was taking domestic violence the wounds they were working to violence. One of the people at the table was prevention work back to Japan, where the issue heal and, most significantly, the different men Yoko Kato, the mother and grandmother of was an enormous problem with scant aware they were becoming. Yoko challenged the men Sherry and Cedric. A local dressmaker who ness or resources to address it. The footage to continue their work and to reach out to other decades earlier had come to the United States from the meeting was going to be part of an men who had violence and abuse problems. from her native Japan, Yoko forged her grief H[SRVpRQGRPHVWLFYLROHQFHRIIHULQJWKHILUVW Yoko told me later that the meeting was over their murders into a commitment to work glimpse many Japanese citizens would have an important turning point in her own healing as a domestic violence activist. of domestic abuse perpetrators talking about process. Though the man who murdered Sherry Somehow Yoko knew that helping survi their violence. and Cedric was in prison, he continued to be vors wasn’t enough. She realized that no matter The men who participated in the meeting unremorseful. By contrast, the men who shared how many victims were helped, the source of that day had been invited to attend by program their stories had taken responsibility for their the problem was the men who were abusive staff because they had shown promise. Each violence. This had been important for her to and violent. She yearned to understand how had acknowledged responsibility for his witness. “I wanted to see if some of these to stop men’s violence. This is what brought violence and had been attending our program men—if they got the right intervention and her to Men Overcoming Violence, the batterer for at least two years. Each also agreed to share support—could really end their violence,” she intervention program where I worked, a part his story with Yoko. told me. “It’s too late for Sherry and Cedric, of the Men’s Resource Center for Change in Because there was no place left to sit, I but the work you are doing might help save Amherst, Massachusetts. Before long Yoko stood in the doorway. While Yoko shared her someone else’s children and grandchildren.” joined the MRC’s board of directors. story, the men listened attentively. Her voice When I first started working in the domestic It was Yoko’s idea to dialogue directly with broke when she described her relationship with violence field, I didn’t believe abusive men men in our program. She wanted the opportu her daughter and grandson. She spoke about could really change. Now I know that some can. nity to ask domestic violence perpetrators some Sherry’s abusive relationship, her struggle to Sadly, these men who’ve committed to change difficult questions. Why did they feel justified in break away, and the trauma of their violent do not represent the majority of men who are hurting their partners? What excuses did they deaths. She talked about her feelings about abusive. Too many abusive men continue to make for their behaviors? How did they learn the perpetrator, sitting in jail after being found live unrepentant lives, unaccountable, still a to be violent? What got them to wake up and guilty of their murders. Finally, she spoke about danger to their families. The men whose stories face themselves? She also wanted to share her her mission to end the violence that took the I’ve highlighted are part of a select minority story, the story of Sherry and Cedric and her lives of her daughter and grandson. The room chosen by batterers’ intervention program work as an activist. We arranged a meeting was so still I could hear my own breathing. leaders from around the country as representa RQH1RYHPEHUDIWHUQRRQLQ ZLWK Fall 2013 23 two: both fear and shame are more searing and have greater staying power. And Michigan Mascupathic Disorder psychologist Kirk Brink adds this telling point: it really isn’t fear and shame; it’s fear of shame. Both men and women live in fear of humilia tion. Men, however, have their own singular socialized stigmas. Mark’s and Jacob’s fathers set them up to: • Live in emotional poverty—feelings are unmanly, feminine • Keep distant from others—don’t get too close, especially with other men, or people might think you’re gay • Experience pervasive loneliness—it’s safer to keep a distance • Exaggerate their autonomy—asking for help invites mockery • Live with shame and relentless fear of shame Many men go through life believing A New Window to it’s not safe to be fully human. When their consequent unconscious suffering explodes, Understand Men it sends painful shards flying everywhere—on a personal level from frustrating relationships By Charlie Donaldson and Randy Flood to premature death; on a societal level from domestic violence to mass shootings. Charlie Donaldson and Randy Flood each ciation’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual The DSM serves up a banquet of intriguing have been therapists for more than a quarter '60 disorders that describe a range of aberrations century. Their goal in their counseling prac- Mark had been in the group for eight from the norm. Yet when it comes to males, tices has been “to better understand men and months, and had frequently spoken of the it neglects the fundamental domains of men’s create more effective treatments for them.” trauma of growing up with his police officer experience. We realized that if we wanted to They established the Men’s Resource Centers father who abhorred signs of weakness, partic explain the behavior of men like Mark and of West Michigan followed closely the work of ularly the tears of a young boy. Mark told this Jacob and find ways to help them, we needed colleagues working with men ran groups for story: At the age of eight, after he had cried one to think differently about them. court-referred batterers and substance abusers, day, his father handcuffed him to the mailbox facilitated men’s groups for self-referred men, with a bath towel—tied around him like a Mascupathic Disorder: Manhood Through a New Window and offered workshops on men and men’s diaper—so the kids in the neighborhood could issues to other therapists and health profes- see “the baby.” ,Q RXU VHDUFK IRU D KLJKHUSRZHUHG OHQV sionals. They wrote a book for abusive men, Mark had described his humiliation on with which to see men more clearly, we Stop Hurting the Woman You Love: Breaking the day of Jacob’s first session. Jacob was looked to the literature of gender role social the Cycle of Domestic Abuse (Hazelden, 2006 stunned. He couldn’t imagine disclosing such ization—the process of inculcating children ,and along the way did personal work in men’s intimate matters, and yet, a couple months later, with societal norms and values. Beginning groups, at retreats and workshops, “always more acclimated to the group than he knew, close to a half century ago, feminists revolu on the lookout for other men to walk along the he shared how his father had abandoned him tionized our understanding of gender, demon road beside us.” What motivated Donaldson at night in the woods to teach him not to be strating that gender roles were not inherent but and Flood was identifying, describing, and afraid of the dark. Jacob said the lesson sort of social constructs; they brought the dark side explaining what they saw as an affliction that worked: he confessed that he’d lived his whole of gender role stereotypes to light. As Carol seemed to plague so many men. What keeps life pretending that he was never afraid, and *LOOLJDQSRLQWHGRXWLQKHUFDWDO\WLFERRNIn them going now is “watching our clients knowing he didn’t hide it very well. a Different Voice, traditional psychology had transform themselves from lonely, angry, and Boys and girls both endure the excruci ignored the voices and experiences of women, shamed loners into relational, grounded, and ating lessons of socialization. Sometimes the having based its research only on white male compassionate men. It’s among the most grati- teaching moments are humiliations, and like participants. In so doing it replicated society’s fying aspects of our work.” Mark’s and Jacob’s, become permanent blots exclusion of women. that spill out in shame as adults—“Mark, you get In her groundbreaking book The Femi- ike a lot of psychotherapists, we began upset so quickly. What’s the matter with you?” our therapy practices treating disorders Other times, they seemingly go unremembered, nine Mystique, Betty Friedan challenged the VXFKDVSDQLFDWWDFNV376'PDMRU but unconsciously exaggerate similar situations narrow definition of women’s roles, in partic L ular taking Freud to task for his contention that depression, and alcohol dependence using in their brains—Jacob feigning a smile as the LQVLJKWDQGFRJQLWLYHEHKDYLRUDOWKHUDS\%XW doctor tells him he has brain cancer while his “Law and custom have much to give women as we listened to the stories of men’s lives, we grown children look on. that has been withheld from them, but the posi realized we needed something more than could Therapists talk about the big three of dark tion of women will surely be what it is: in youth EHIRXQGLQWKH$PHULFDQ3V\FKLDWULF$VVR emotions: hurt, fear, and shame. Most agree an adored darling and in mature years a loved that hurt really isn’t in a class with the other wife.” 24 Voice Male Following in the footsteps of these RQHXSPDQVKLSDQGLQWKHH[WUHPHYLROHQFH rom Mascupathic Disorder have used it to rule leading women, men began writing about their against women, children, and other men. the world since human beings emerged from male clients as well as their own experience. Since the bar for achieving “acceptable WKHDSHV,QWKHWKFHQWXU\DORQHPDOH 2YHUWKHODVW\HDUVWKH\FRQWULEXWHGUHYR manliness” is impossibly high, many men instigated wars and genocides led to a hundred lutionary new ideas that challenged accepted externalize, acting out their shame about their million deaths. YLHZVRIPDVFXOLQLW\7ZRSLRQHHUV3DXO failure to be adequately masculine. Some abuse The severity of Mascupathic Disorder falls Kivel in Men’s WorkDQG)UDQN3LWWPDQLQ alcohol or others drugs; some throw themselves on a continuum from severe to moderate to Man Enough, exposed the systemic social LQWRWKHLUZRUNHQJDJLQJLQKLJKULVNDFWLYL mild. The severe form we call “Consuming” structure that induces and coerces boys to ties, or becoming preoccupied with sex. Most because like an addiction, it takes over, leaving sacrifice a big part of their humanity in service men are perceived to live “normal” lives only QRDVSHFWRIOLIHXQDIIHFWHG³3UREOHPDWLF´ to men’s toughness, domination, and power. because traditionally such behaviors have here the moderate form, refers to the mascupath $QGHGXFDWRUDFWLYLVW-DFNVRQ.DW]UHYHDOHG tofore defined normalcy. who displays fewer symptoms but, similar to how hypermasculine media images encourage DSUREOHPGULQNHUKLVGLVRUGHUPDQLIHVWVLQ men to mask their fear and shame. In Tough Like the Water Fish Swim In some behavioral and relational difficulties. The Guise: Violence, Media and the Crisis in Though virtually every male could be ³1HJOLJLEOH´W\SHLVFRPSDUDWLYHO\V\PSWRP Masculinity (the video he made with Media described as having it, the severity of Mascu free, but nevertheless struggles with occasional (GXFDWLRQ)RXQGDWLRQ .DW]SRLQWHGRXWWKDW pathic Disorder varies greatly. Although some distorted thinking and errant behavior. (See while men certainly abused, hurt, demeaned, men carry many symptoms that interfere with ER[EHORZ and subjugated women, they oppressed them normal functioning and other men have mild The presence of Mascupathic Disorder selves as well. In addition, therapist Terry FDVHV03'LVQHYHUWKHOHVVDSODJXHRQDOORXU causes impairment in four domains of human Real challenged traditional concepts of men’s houses. While not included in compilations functioning. mental health in I Don’t Want to Talk About It, of disorders it is because it’s so common it • Weak self-concept – A pattern of poor or describing the covert depression that men won’t seems normal—like fish not knowing they distorted sense of self, excessive grandiosity admit they have. Real is credited with devel DUHLQZDWHU²LWLVRXUFRQWHQWLRQWKDW03'LV RULQDGHTXDF\ DQH[WUHPHHPSKDVLVRQVHOI oping the concept of externalization—acting far and away the most destructive pathology presentation, and/or incongruence between out to escape hopelessness and lethargy. in the history of the human race. Of course thoughts/feelings and actions, resulting in there have been men over the centuries who Men’s Struggles Go Unnamed impulsive and erratic behavior or withdrawal KDYHDFWHGFRXUDJHRXVO\DQGVHQVLWLYHO\VHOI and insularity. Before she wrote The Feminine Mystique, sacrificing and honorable men who have been Friedan described the state of women as “a there in every generation. They have been tire • Inadequate emotionality – 3HUVLVWHQW problem with no name.” In our work with men, less leaders working to achieve global goals GLI¿FXOW\ ZLWK H[SHULHQFLQJ QDPLQJ we realized that the malaise men experience is of social justice and humanitarianism. Sadly, managing, expressing, and governing feelings, also nameless. The DSM had poked around, many men around the world in positions of leading to behavioral instability and shallow pointing out pieces of men’s erratic personali leadership suffered from Mascupathy; the DQGRUFRQÀLFWXDOUHODWLRQVKLSV ties, but it offered no overarching concept, no results have been devastating. Men suffering identifying moniker for therapists to under- stand male clients and plan their therapies. Early in our practices, when we’d Consuming 6HYHUH Problematic 0RGHUDWH Negligible 0LOG worked primarily with men who had abused :HDNXQVWDEOHDQGGLVWRUWHGVHOI 9DULDEOHVHOIFRQFHSWUHVXOWLQJLQ Stable, balanced, and positive women, we’d often describe batterers as concept leading to rigid patriarchal moderate interference with normal VHOIFRQFHSWZLWKJHQHUDOO\UH “hypermasculine.” As we broadened our and grandiose thinking and aggres human functioning; spectful and egalitarian thinking; pratices to include men who struggled to sive/ intimidating and sociopathic hierarchical thinking leading to RFFDVLRQDOVHOIDJJUDQGL]LQJDQG behavior including hypercompeti find—and express—their emotions, and who intermittent control tactics and controlling behavior, especially tiveness and violence or asocial emotional aggressiveness or epi during times of stress avoided intimate relationships, we recog insularity and alienation sodic withdrawal nized hypermasculine only represented some men. Others did not manifest aggression and A poverty of healthy emotionality Variable or limited emotional Consistent ability to name, including the inability to identify, DZDUHQHVV PRGHUDWHGH¿FLHQF\LQ experience, express, and govern toughness; they were in fact hypomasculine, feelings. Frequent positive name, experience, express, or managing and expressing feelings; either unable or unwilling to meet the taxing emotionality with moderate govern feelings; profound sense of restricted capacity to empathize requirements of masculinity, acting out like failure, inability to empathize or capacity for empathy. Occasional other men but for different reasons. As a express compassion HPRWLRQDOGLVWDQFLQJDQGRURYHU reaction. consequence, we created the concept and GLDJQRVLV0DVFXSDWKLF'LVRUGHU 03' WR 3RRUXQVWDEOHUHODWLRQVKLSVZLWK Variable satisfaction with partners Responsive, caring, and respect describe men with a range of struggles. IUHTXHQWFRQÀLFWVUHVXOWLQJLQH[FHV and friends; moderate and variable ful with partners and friends; sive and abusive behaviors; virtually levels of openness and intimacy; JHQHUDOO\DEOHWRVHOIGLVFORVH 03'LVDPHQWDOKHDOWKFRQGLWLRQ²D QRVHOIGLVFORVXUHLQWLPDF\RUHPR express empathy, and enter into pathology of masculinity—an imbalance FRQÀLFWUHVROXWLRQVNLOOVUHGXFHGLQ tional connection, often resulting in times of stress intimacy; occasional, mild acts in personality stemming from a socialized an obsession with sex as a substitute of aggression or distancing exaggeration of genetic masculine traits: for connecting aggression and invulnerability, and only a 3HUVLVWHQWH[WHUQDOL]DWLRQ DFWLQJ minimal expression of inherent feminine RXW WKURXJKDGGLFWLRQVZRUNVH[ Moderate levels of externaliza *HQHUDOO\KLJKOHYHOVRIDF characteristics, openness and sensitivity. The YLROHQFHDQGKLJKULVNDFWLYLWLHV WLRQDVDUHVXOWRIFRQÀLFWVLQ countability and limited use of compensating for frustrations result relationships, disappointment, or externalizing behaviors due to V\PSWRPV²LQDGHTXDWHVHOIDZDUHQHVVDQG stress; limited accountability as governance, emotional numbness and insta ing from a paucity of expressions of relatively accurate and balanced demonstrated through episodic perceptions of self and others, bility, relational ineptness and withdrawal— accountability and poor life skills, HVSHFLDOO\GH¿FLWVLQUHODWLRQVKLSV rationalization and blaming leading to gratifying relation result in poor or failed intimate partnerships ships and parenting, excessive competition and Fall 2013 25 • 5HODWLRQDO GH¿FLWV ± A pervasive pattern and disdained—as well as owning their acts of of interpersonal controlling, neediness, Mascupathy is an ostracism, persecution and disdain—I discov distancing, and/or aggressive behaviors ered I was not alone. I witnessed these guys— resulting in reduced capacity to establish imbalance in personality for whom I had gained great respect—hold and maintain satisfying, intimate, stable, and stemming from a their hands to their foreheads with fear and enduring relationships. socialized exaggeration hurt, describe shaming situations with their SDUHQWVZLYHVNLGVDQGFRZRUNHUV*UDGXDOO\ • Externalization – Acting out—a personal of genetic masculine sense of inadequacy and alienation, relational it came to me that these dark feelings didn’t frustrations, as well as pervasive and traits, aggression and control their lives because when they told their unresolved feelings of hurt, fear, and shame— invulnerability, and only stories and other men compassionately nodded their heads in agreement, the pain lifted, was behaviors such as addictions to substances, minimal expression ZRUN VH[ DQG RWKHU KLJKULVN EHKDYLRUV released. I began speaking of my pain and aggression toward partners and family; of inherently feminine I found that when they had compassion for planned and/or random acts of violence. characteristics, openness me, I could, amazingly, have compassion for myself.” ,Q \HDUV DIWHU The Feminine and sensitivity. 7KHDFWRIVHOIGLVFORVXUHLVRQHRIWKH Mystique was published, Betty Friedan most essential elements of this kind of therapy. wrote: substances, rage, control, and emotional or As John Bradshaw, a master of understanding physical abuse in intimate relationships. Men “How could women and men ever really family systems, famously said, “We’re only as also learn to replace grandiosity and rational know or love each other as long as we kept sick as our secrets.” As men and clinicians, we izing with clear and deliberate thinking. playing those roles that kept us from knowing have learned the great paradox: that admitting While many programs, especially with or being ourselves? Weren’t men as well as shame—the last thing on earth most men want FRXUWUHIHUUHGFOLHQWVHQGDIWHUVL[WR women still locked up in lonely isolation, to do—is what begins to heal it and invites men months of cognitive treatment, we believe alienation, no matter how many sexual acro WRH[HUFLVHVHOIFDUHDQGVHOIFRPSDVVLRQ that is only the beginning. Once men have batics we put their bodies through? Weren’t *HUDOGDQ$UP\FRORQHOZKRGLGIRXUWRXUV completed resocialization training, it is recom men dying too young, suppressing fears and in Iraq, wound up in the men’s therapy group mended they continue their personal work tears and their own tenderness? It seemed to after his wife kicked him out of the house, through experiential reclamation therapy. This me that men weren’t really the enemy—they tired of his control tactics and abuse. Though phase continues the process of resocialization were fellow victims, suffering an outmoded he’d never been a man’s man tough guy, still but adds psychotherapeutic group activities masculine mystique that made them feel unnec he believed he should be the commander. which guide men through the process of redis essarily inadequate when there were no bears When he finally opened up after ten months in covering the balances of childhood lost to rigid to kill.” the group, he admitted he’d been fearful that socialization: awe, easy intimacy, empathy, and Forty years later, most men are still both expressing emotions was dangerously conta spontaneity. perpetrators and victims of their own oppres gious. Three years later, having found an inti The third phase is recovery. Like reha sion; they still subjugate others. Meanwhile, PDF\KH¶GQHYHUEHIRUHH[SHULHQFHG*HUDOG bilitation from alcoholism, healing from women have made significant strides. Only not only spoke of the turmoil of his hidden Mascupathic Disorder is a lifelong pursuit, \HDUVDJRWKHRQO\MREVPRVWZRPHQFRXOG struggle to be “man enough,” but also that he the ultimate goal of which is the creation of an get were as a nurse or schoolteacher. They had learned to perceive emotional candor as a androgynous life—incorporating the best qual frequently couldn’t open a bank account or buy badge of courage. ities traditionally associated with the masculine DKRXVHZLWKRXWPDQ¶VFRVLJQDWXUH&HUWDLQO\ One day, he told the group that Jane and the feminine. there is much work still before full equality wouldn’t take him back. “It was just too late. Too much water over the dam.” Over the next ZRPHQVWLOOHDUQOHVVWKDQPHQ EXWPDQ\ Advantages of Group Work women are free of their mothers’ roles while VL[PRQWKV*HUDOGJULHYHGKLVORVV2QHGD\ Therapists who work with men have men are stuck in their fathers’. They live in an 0DUNSDXVHGDQGORRNHGDWKLP ³*HUDOG often found that of the three typical forms of outmoded masculinity, out of step in today’s sometime you’ll meet another woman.” therapy—individual therapy, couples coun world and certainly unappealing to women who ³ T!" M"#’$ S%&'( unique to Chile, the struggles P'&)"*%: they narrate and solutions they O!" L#!$! found have universal appeal. (Proyecto Historias de Hombres: ¡En “I have worked with men for Voz Alta!) more than 20 years, and know Directed by Josie Lehrer, Sc.D. well the need we have to tell Spanish, with English subtitles our stories,” said Juan Carlos 107 minutes, Dark Hollow Films, Areán, director of the National 2013 Latin@ Network for Healthy Here are men more on an Families and Communities. “I expedition into the heart of also know that there are very few darkness and light that make spaces where we can do so safely up their lives than characters and authentically. Historias de in a documentary film. The Hombres provided a moving and 0HQ¶V 6WRU\ 3URMHFW¶V Out powerful example of men over Loud! 3UR\HFWR +LVWRULDV coming their negative socializa de Hombres’s ¡En Voz Alta! tion and fear, and sharing openly highlights diverse Chileans— both about painful and joyful celebrities, community leaders, experiences in their lives.” and everyday men—sharing Among those performing personal stories with a live their stories are Coco Legrand, audience at a popular theater Chile’s most popular comedian; in Santiago. 3HGUR6iQFKH]0HOLYLORDOHDGHU With unusual candor, the of Chile’s indigenous Mapuche presenters address hot button FRPPXQLW\ DQG$QGUpV5LYHUD topics including family rela Duarte, the first transgender tionships; substance abuse; man to legally change gender bullying; aging; homosexuality in Chile. and the Church; transgender Sponsored by Amnesty Inter LGHQWLW\ DQG /*%7 ULJKWV national, educational goals of violence between men; living the production were developed with HIV/AIDS; breaking the through interviews in Santiago cycle of domestic violence; with researchers, health care the evolution of men’s social providers, educators and advo roles; poverty, manual labor, cates regarding linking mascu and classism; physical disability linities with key health and justice challenges in the country. DQGVHOIDFWXDOL]DWLRQ DQGWKHKHDOLQJSRZHURIVHOIDFFHSWDQFH The film is a “spark we need to catalyze a movement,” said community, and love. Mediums include prose, comedy, dance, (VWD6ROHUSUHVLGHQWRIWKH6DQ)UDQFLVFR±EDVHG)XWXUHV:LWKRXW photography, and video. Violence. “I would love to see this project replicated in every city and 'LUHFWHGE\WKH0HQ¶V6WRU\3URMHFW¶VIRXQGHU-RFHO\Q/HKUHU town across the world—from New Delhi to Steubenville.” the film “offers a unique window into the complexities of masculinity 7KH0HQ¶V6WRU\3URMHFWLVDUHSOLFDEOHPRYHPHQWEXLOGLQJ and its painful impacts on boys and men, girls and women,” noted initiative that can be created with new groups of men in local commu Steven Botkin, executive director of Men’s Resources International. QLWLHVVD\VIRXQGHUGLUHFWRU/HKUHU7RFRQWDFWKHUWRDUUDQJH063 “Her introduction is a brilliant example of a woman being an ally for presentations and trainings, or for more information, write josie@ the healing and liberation of men. In both process and content, this mensstoryproject.org film helps us all recover our humanness.” The men’s stories illustrate the many meanings of masculinities To purchase the film and discussion guide, visit www.darkhollow- and they share their accounts with such raw honesty that they become films.com. To learn more about the Men’s Story Project, go to www. a collective Everyman reaching across gender, race, and class. Even mensstoryproject.org. though they are all Latino and speak from a cultural perspective —R.O. Fall 2013 27 about my son’s first moments I put the magazine down, “It’s probably nothing,” as my son, but they’ve come to me here, bear those women with me he nods sagely, in this urologist’s waiting room, as I rise towards the door I need to walk through stepping back, P because I picked up from the coffee table so I can place in this doctor’s hand peeling the rubber the copy of The Nation the left testicle I found a bump on off his hands. another patient must have left behind, three days ago. A few I pull my clothing up, O and the first article my eyes fell on, of my fellow patients tuck in my shirt. ³6LOHQFH 5DSH´E\-DQ*RRGZLQ glance up as I pass, “Still,” he continues— introduced me to Shashir, one of them smiling, I’m fumbling with my zipper— six years old and gang raped nodding his head, “let’s check it again E in the Congo. When they found her, as if to say, “Don’t worry. six months from now.” she was starving; It’ll all work out.” He smiles, offers his hand and when they found her, I smile back, grateful for me to shake, then moves on T she could neither walk nor talk; for his small empathy, to the next man in the next room. and so they stitched together noticing as I do so I head back out the way I came, the parts of her the men had ruptured, that the flag pin on his lapel where my friend smiles and nods again, R fed her, gave her clothing; and the name of the newspaper lifting his hand in a farewell and that night she slept folded over in his lap I answer with my own nod and smile, for the first time since no one knew when place his origin in, the reprieve I’ve just gotten in a bed that was not or at least his allegiance to, predisposing me Y the bush the militia had left her to die in; a country now making headlines not to assume the worst of anyone. and maybe the tent walls for stories like Shashir’s; Outside, the wind shaping the room she lived in and I know such things rips the hood ZKHQ*RRGZLQOHDUQHGVKHH[LVWHG don’t happen only away from my head; For My Son, A Kind of Prayer had come to mean for her over there; and of course VQRZJXVWVVODSPH a kind of safety; and maybe By Richard Jeffrey Newman not one man in this room back and forth that safety was fertile ground, has ever done enough, across my face; …for they know where words for what the men had done to her, could ever do enough, and I am reminded how quickly Of some most haughty deed or thought dropped like seeds from the mouths to stop them, and so this place— beauty turns cold, how easily That waits upon his future days… of those who rescued her, where our penises are just penises, death wears friendship’s face. —William Butler Yeats, could begin to take root. and our balls are glands, I want to know “A Prayer for My Son” I have not been gang raped, nothing more— how a man who loves his children but a man much older than I was becomes in my imagination does not see their faces when I was twelve where we are supposed to be, in the eyes of the girl Just before his mother forced his penis into my mouth, a kind of purgatory whose vagina he is opening pushed him through herself seared the back of my throat pregnant with poetic justice. with a bottle or a bayonet; hard enough to split who she was with what he poured out of himself I want to know how their voices wide enough for him to enter the world, The door shuts behind me. and sealed into silence The nurse turns a perfect about face, woven into that girl’s screams I touched the top of my son’s head; everything that took me do not paralyze his hands and after he was born, JULQV³3OHDVHIROORZPH´ fifteen years of pushing over her shoulder, or keep his penis soft. the midwife—Vivian, till who I was split wide enough I think it was— and leads the way in silence My son will never know Shashir, that who I am to a room dominated but he will know men held my wife’s umbilical cord could speak his first true words. in a loop for me to cut, which I did, E\DZDOOVL]HIRXUFRORUSRVWHU who could’ve been, freeing our new boy’s body “Mr. Newman?” The nurse, of the flaccid male genitalia. who’d gladly be, to enter the name white, blond, about my age, The poster, I notice, among the ones we had waiting for him; calls my name, includes the foreskin; who violated her; and then Vivian laid him one of the few she has not butchered, the plastic model and he’ll know women, against the curve of his mother’s belly, sitting as I am sitting on the cabinet and other men like me, giving him to the breast among the men of my neighborhood, next to a box of tissues who carry violation he would for years where names that would twist does not—something within them. A time will come, define his world by; the tongue of any English speaker to ask the doctor about, because it comes to all of us, and once that first taste of love are common, but I’m not yet ready but when he arrives when he’ll be forced to choose was firmly lodged within him, WROHDYH*RRGZLQ¶VSLHFH my only thought where his allegiance lies. she bundled him tight, Maria was seventy resembles a prayer. These words are for him placed him in my arms when the Interahamwe He snaps on on the day of that decision. and, while I sang his welcome tied her legs apart his latex gloves; in a far corner of the room, like a goat before slaughter; I let my pants turned to assist the doctor DQGWKHZRPHQ*RRGZLQOHDYHVQDPHOHVV fall to my ankles, Richard Jeffrey Newman writes about the impact of feminism sewing up my wife’s most of them killed later by infection, my underwear on his life as a man and classical Persian poetry on our lives ELUWKWRUQIOHVK their labia pierced and padlocked to just below my knees, as Americans. His books include The Silence of Men and The when their rapists were finished— Teller of Tales: Stories from Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, a transla- I don’t remember what song I chose, and I watch him handle the story belongs to them as well. tion of part of the Iranian national epic. He is a professor of and it’s been a decade at least what in my wife’s language English at Nassau Community College in Garden City, N.Y. since I’ve told anyone “Mr. Newman?” are called my tokhm or “eggs.” www.richardjnewman.com 28 Voice Male about my son’s first moments I put the magazine down, “It’s probably nothing,” as my son, but they’ve come to me here, bear those women with me he nods sagely, in this urologist’s waiting room, as I rise towards the door I need to walk through stepping back, because I picked up from the coffee table so I can place in this doctor’s hand peeling the rubber the copy of The Nation the left testicle I found a bump on off his hands. another patient must have left behind, three days ago. A few I pull my clothing up, and the first article my eyes fell on, of my fellow patients tuck in my shirt. ³6LOHQFH 5DSH´E\-DQ*RRGZLQ glance up as I pass, “Still,” he continues— introduced me to Shashir, one of them smiling, I’m fumbling with my zipper— six years old and gang raped nodding his head, “let’s check it again in the Congo. When they found her, as if to say, “Don’t worry. six months from now.” she was starving; It’ll all work out.” He smiles, offers his hand and when they found her, I smile back, grateful for me to shake, then moves on she could neither walk nor talk; for his small empathy, to the next man in the next room. and so they stitched together noticing as I do so I head back out the way I came, the parts of her the men had ruptured, that the flag pin on his lapel where my friend smiles and nods again, fed her, gave her clothing; and the name of the newspaper lifting his hand in a farewell and that night she slept folded over in his lap I answer with my own nod and smile, for the first time since no one knew when place his origin in, the reprieve I’ve just gotten in a bed that was not or at least his allegiance to, predisposing me the bush the militia had left her to die in; a country now making headlines not to assume the worst of anyone. and maybe the tent walls for stories like Shashir’s; Outside, the wind shaping the room she lived in and I know such things rips the hood ZKHQ*RRGZLQOHDUQHGVKHH[LVWHG don’t happen only away from my head; For My Son, A Kind of Prayer had come to mean for her over there; and of course VQRZJXVWVVODSPH a kind of safety; and maybe By Richard Jeffrey Newman not one man in this room back and forth that safety was fertile ground, has ever done enough, across my face; …for they know where words for what the men had done to her, could ever do enough, and I am reminded how quickly Of some most haughty deed or thought dropped like seeds from the mouths to stop them, and so this place— beauty turns cold, how easily That waits upon his future days… of those who rescued her, where our penises are just penises, death wears friendship’s face. —William Butler Yeats, could begin to take root. and our balls are glands, I want to know “A Prayer for My Son” I have not been gang raped, nothing more— how a man who loves his children but a man much older than I was becomes in my imagination does not see their faces when I was twelve where we are supposed to be, in the eyes of the girl Just before his mother forced his penis into my mouth, a kind of purgatory whose vagina he is opening pushed him through herself seared the back of my throat pregnant with poetic justice. with a bottle or a bayonet; hard enough to split who she was with what he poured out of himself I want to know how their voices wide enough for him to enter the world, The door shuts behind me. and sealed into silence The nurse turns a perfect about face, woven into that girl’s screams I touched the top of my son’s head; everything that took me do not paralyze his hands and after he was born, JULQV³3OHDVHIROORZPH´ fifteen years of pushing over her shoulder, or keep his penis soft. the midwife—Vivian, till who I was split wide enough I think it was— and leads the way in silence My son will never know Shashir, that who I am to a room dominated but he will know men held my wife’s umbilical cord could speak his first true words. in a loop for me to cut, which I did, E\DZDOOVL]HIRXUFRORUSRVWHU who could’ve been, freeing our new boy’s body “Mr. Newman?” The nurse, of the flaccid male genitalia. who’d gladly be, to enter the name white, blond, about my age, The poster, I notice, among the ones we had waiting for him; calls my name, includes the foreskin; who violated her; and then Vivian laid him one of the few she has not butchered, the plastic model and he’ll know women, against the curve of his mother’s belly, sitting as I am sitting on the cabinet and other men like me, giving him to the breast among the men of my neighborhood, next to a box of tissues who carry violation he would for years where names that would twist does not—something within them. A time will come, define his world by; the tongue of any English speaker to ask the doctor about, because it comes to all of us, and once that first taste of love are common, but I’m not yet ready but when he arrives when he’ll be forced to choose was firmly lodged within him, WROHDYH*RRGZLQ¶VSLHFH my only thought where his allegiance lies. she bundled him tight, Maria was seventy resembles a prayer. These words are for him placed him in my arms when the Interahamwe He snaps on on the day of that decision. and, while I sang his welcome tied her legs apart his latex gloves; in a far corner of the room, like a goat before slaughter; I let my pants turned to assist the doctor DQGWKHZRPHQ*RRGZLQOHDYHVQDPHOHVV fall to my ankles, Richard Jeffrey Newman writes about the impact of feminism sewing up my wife’s most of them killed later by infection, my underwear on his life as a man and classical Persian poetry on our lives ELUWKWRUQIOHVK their labia pierced and padlocked to just below my knees, as Americans. His books include The Silence of Men and The when their rapists were finished— Teller of Tales: Stories from Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, a transla- I don’t remember what song I chose, and I watch him handle the story belongs to them as well. tion of part of the Iranian national epic. He is a professor of and it’s been a decade at least what in my wife’s language English at Nassau Community College in Garden City, N.Y. since I’ve told anyone “Mr. Newman?” are called my tokhm or “eggs.” www.richardjnewman.com Fall 2013 29 A Short History of One of the Most Important Social Justice Movements You’ve Never Heard Of By Rob Okun Sipho Mpongo Sipho In June, MenEngage, the global alliance created to encourage boys and men to work for gender equality, hosted 100 men and women from 25 countries in Cape Town, South Africa for a meeting of the international MenCare fatherhood campaign that promotes men’s participation as caregivers. Fom left, Gary Barker (Promundo-US), Pancho Aguayo (CulturaSalud, Chile), Douglas Mendoza (REDMAS, Nicaragua), and Michael Kaufman (Canada). 9RLFH0DOH 7KH8QWROG6WRU\RIWKH3URIHPLQLVW0HQ¶V0RYHPHQWis engaged in a sweeping critique of manhood and masculinity since the the name of editor Rob Okun’s new book (Interlink 2014). In advance V7KHILUVWODUJHVFDOHRUJDQL]HGHIIRUWZDVE\WKH1DWLRQDO2UJD of its publication, what follows is a short excerpt. To learn more nization for Changing Men—now known as the National Organization about the book, go to http:/www.robokun.net. of Men Against Sexism 120$6 ,Q DJURXSRIPDOHVWXGHQWVLQDZRPHQ¶VVWXGLHVFODVVDWWKH or nearly two generations a growing number of men of all races University of Tennessee organized “The First National Conference on and ethnicities in the U.S. and around the world have followed Men and Masculinity” in Knoxville. Since that time, groups and orga women both in working to prevent domestic and sexual violence, nizations have sprung up across North America and in many parts of F the world, following in the footsteps of the idealists in NOMAS, men and also in redefining and transforming traditional ideas about manhood, fatherhood, and brotherhood. We’ve been called all kinds of names, but in their twenties and thirties who had been inspired by the women’s PDQ\RIXVGHVFULEHRXUVHOYHVDVPHPEHUVRIWKHSURIHPLQLVWRUDQWL movement. What may have begun in part as a kind of “gentlemen’s sexist men’s movement. auxiliary”—providing childcare in part so mothers could participate Even though it has been nearly four decades since modern day men in demonstrations—soon became an inquiry into a panoply of men’s began this transformative work, embracing many of the ideas (if not experiences, in many cases reluctantly addressing the elephant in the DOZD\VWKHODEHO RISURIHPLQLVPWKHEUHDGWKDQGGHSWKRIWKHSURIHPL room: male privilege. nist men’s movement is revealed in a range of programs and projects from boys to men and fathering to male survivors and men of color; Learning to Speak “Emotionalese” *%74PHQDQGPHQRYHUFRPLQJYLROHQFH PHQ¶VKHDOWKDQGPHQDQG 'HVSLWHPHGLDPHVVDJHVWKDWODJIDUEHKLQGRQWKHJURXQGWUXWK feminism. Woven together, they create a multilayered tapestry revealing a progressive transformation of men’s lives is well under way. Men’s a wide rich swath of one of the most important social change movements LQFOLQDWLRQWREHFRPHLQYROYHGLQDQWLVH[LVWDFWLYLVPJUHZRXWRIDVHQVH you’ve probably never heard of. of justness and fairness heightened by men’s involvement in the civil 3URIHPLQLVWPHQKROGWKHVLPSOH³UDGLFDO´EHOLHIWKDWJHQGHUDQG ULJKWVDQGDQWLZDUPRYHPHQWVRIWKH V)RUPDQ\WKRVHIHHOLQJV sexual equality are fundamental democratic goals and that women and easily carried over to women’s call for liberation, itself nothing less than men should each have the same rights and opportunities. Although a social justice imperative of obvious historical importance. marginalized and largely absent from the national conversation about Many men simultaneously felt threatened by and envious of women’s JHQGHULQWKHPDLQVWUHDPPHGLDPRGHUQGD\SURIHPLQLVWPHQKDYHEHHQ groups, women’s politics—the entire women’s movement. Most of us 30 Voice Male couldn’t keep up. Women’s bilingual fluency—speaking both “Emotion EHHQPDLQWDLQHGE\LQWHUQDWLRQDOO\UHVSHFWHGSURIHPLQLVWVFKRODUDFWLYLVW alese” and³3ROLWLFDOHVH´²FHUWDLQO\PDGHLWFKDOOHQJLQJEXWQRWLPSRV 0LFKDHO)ORRG $VDVLJQRIWKHJURZWKRIWKHPRYHPHQWWKHUHDUHWRGD\ sible, for men to understand what was happening in those dizzying times; RQJRLQJFROODERUDWLRQVZLWKORQJHVWDEOLVKHGZRPHQ¶VSURJUDPVDFURVV especially once we relinquished our heretofore unquestioned belief that North America and internationally, often through women’s initiatives at in the world of gender there was only one official language: “Manspeak.” the United Nations. (Eve Ensler, the activist and author most well known In those early days, some of us were confused and angry; some tuned out, for writing the Vagina Monologues,PDGHVXUHWKHUHZDVD³90HQ´SDJH choosing to ignore multiracial women’s marches toward libera when she launched her organization’s 9'DyZHEVLWH tion. Still, a small number of men began tuning in. ,Q QHDUO\PHQDQGZRPHQDOOLHVIURPFRXQ Acknowledging women’s fluency in Emotion tries met for four days in Rio de Janeiro at a symposium, alese, haltingly some of us began to talk about ³(QJDJLQJ0HQDQG%R\VLQ*HQGHU(TXDOLW\´7KH our struggles, our feelings, our inner lives. The profeminist growing global movement, united under an alli Trouble was we were primarily doing so men’s movement may ance called MenEngage, now operates on every with the people we believed could hear have begun in part as continent. Major conferences on related themes and understand us best—women. Slowly, a kind of “gentlemen’s of men and women collaborating to prevent over time, more of us realized (often with auxiliary” to the women’s violence against women and promoting healthy a firm push from our partners, wives, movement, but soon masculinity for boys and men have been held in RUZRPHQIULHQGV WKDWZKRZHUHDOO\ became a place for men recent years across the globe. In North America needed to be talking to was other men. to examine a panoply of there are numerous events occurring each year from coast to coast, in our largest cities and Despite the modest number of men their experiences, in at many of our most prestigious colleges and involved, chinks in the armor of conven many cases reluctantly addressing the universities. tional manhood are visible, and as our Recognizing the movement’s growth and numbers grow the chinks grow larger, threat elephant in the room: male privilege. potential to become even more of a force for social HQLQJWRFUDFNRSHQ6LQFHWKHODWH V FKDQJHLQDGGUHVVLQJJHQGHUMXVWLFHLVVXHVLQWKH besides activities in the U.S. and Canada, profemi John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation awarded QLVWPHQ¶VZRUNKDVEHHQRQJRLQJLQ*UHDW%ULWDLQ DWZR\HDUJUDQWWRHVWDEOLVKWKHILUVWCenter for the Study of Scandinavia, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Men and Masculinities. Headquartered at the State University of New Mexico, and Central America. In more recent years India and Nepal have York, Stony Brook it is being led by the sociologist and writer Michael joined the growing list, as have a number of African nations. The roots Kimmel. The profeminist movement is beginning a new chapter. It’s of profeminist men’s work are deep. been a long road to get here. In North America, antiviolence men’s centers and men’s programs have offered general issue support programs for men, as well as groups Excerpted from 9RLFH0DOH 7KH8QWROG6WRU\RIWKH3URIHPLQLVW0HQ¶V IRU\RXQJPHQRIFRORUDQG*%74PHQ)DWKHUVJURXSVDQGDYDULHW\ Movement, edited by Rob A. Okun (Interlink, 2014 www.interlinkbooks. of programs for boys on the journey to manhood also are on the rise, com). as are programs addressing men’s health, including male survivors of child sexual abuse. Batterers’ interven WLRQJURXSVEHJDQLQWKHODWH VDQG now operate in most states in the U.S., often overseen by state departments of public health. There are also numerous educational initiatives engaging men in gender violence prevention efforts on college and high school campuses, in sports culture, and through a variety of FRPPXQLW\EDVHGRUJDQL]DWLRQV 6LQFHWKHODWH VSURIHPLQLVW PHQ¶VDFWLYLWLHVKDYHUDQJHGIURPRS eds and letters to the editor, newspaper signature ads, rallies, demonstrations and advocacy campaigns, as well as books and films—all aimed at offering an alternative to conventional notions of masculinities. As time and technology marched on, listservs were created, websites launched, electronic publi cations introduced, and social media campaigns inaugurated. (One of the College Smith Papers), Steinem (Gloria Collection Smith Sophia the courtesy Image PRVWZLGHUDQJLQJDQGFRPSUHKHQVLYH MEN ALLIED NATIONALLY FOR THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT: Chapters of M.A.N. for the ERA dotted the national online resources XYonline: Men, Mascu landscape in the late 1970s when men like those pictured in this 1979 flyer campaigned for the amendment to the U.S. OLQLWLHVDQG*HQGHU3ROLWLFVKDVORQJ Constitution. Although both houses of Congress passed the bill in 1972 and 35 of the 50 states ratified it, the ERA fell three states short of the requisite three-quarters needed to become law. Fall 2013 31 Resources for Changing Men Menstuff: The National Men’s Resource Fathers with Divorce and Custody National clearinghouse of information and Concerns Malecare resources for men Looking for a lawyer? Call your state bar Volunteer men’s cancer support group and www.menstuff.org association lawyer referral agency. CFXQECE[PCVKQPCNPQPRTQſVQTICPK\CVKQP Useful websites include: providing resources in multiple languages The Men’s Story Project www.dadsrights.org (not www.dadsrights.com) malecare.org Resources for creating public dialogue www.divorce.com about masculinities through local storytell- www.divorcecentral.com Men’s Health Network ing and arts www.collaborativealternatives.com National organization promoting men’s A wide-ranging (but by no means exhaus- www.mensstoryproject.org www.collaborativedivorce.com health tive) listing of organizations engaged in www.menshealthnetwork.org profeminist men’s work. Know of an orga- XY Fathers and Family Law: Myths and nization that should be listed here? E-mail www.xyonline.net Facts Prostate Health Guide relevant information to us at Profeminist men’s web links (over 500 Debunking common myths regarding Offers a guide to the prostate and various [email protected]. links): www.xyonline.net/links.shtml fathering and family law and providing facts conditions that can affect men’s health directly from the research www.prostatehealthguide.com Profeminist men’s politics, frequently asked http://www.thelizlibrary.org/site-index/ For Young Men questions: www.xyonline.net/misc/pffaq. site-index-frame.html#soulhttp://www. World Health Organization HIV/AIDS Advocates for Youth html thelizlibrary.org/liz/017.htm Provides evidence-based, technical sup- Helps young people make informed and Profeminist e-mail list (1997– ): www. port for comprehensive and sustainable responsible decisions about their reproduc- xyonline.net/misc/profem.html Feminist Fathers responses to HIV/AIDS tive and sexual health Resources for dads seeking to raise fully www.who.int/hiv/en/ www.advocatesforyouth.org Homophobia and masculinities among young men: www.xyonline.net/misc/ho- realized human beings with a mindfulness to how gender socialization affects parent- Male Survivors of Amplify Your Voice mophobia.html ing and children Sexual Assault A youth-driven community working for http://feministfatherhood.com/ social change For Men of Color 1in6 www.amplifyyourvoice.org 100 Black Men of America, Inc. Provides resources for male sexual abuse National Fatherhood Initiative survivors and their family members, Chapters around the U.S. working on youth Organization improve the well-being of chil- Boys to Men friends, and partners development and economic empowerment dren through the promotion of responsible, Initiation weekends and follow-up mentor- 1in6.org in the African American community engaged fatherhood ing for boys 12-17 to guide them on their www.100blackmen.org www.fatherhood.org journey to manhood Black Sexual Abuse Survivors www.boystomen.org A national online support system for Concerned Black Men National Latino Fatherhood & Family Institute African-Americans A national organization providing mentors Addresses the needs of Latino communi- The Brotherhood/Sister Sol www.blacksurvivors.org/home.html CPFRTQITCOUVJCVſNNVJGXQKFQHRQUKVKXG ties by focusing on positive Latino identity Provides comprehensive, holistic and long- black role models and provide opportuni- while addressing issues faced by Latino term support and rites of passage program- Giving and Receiving Guidance & Hope ties for academic and career enrichment fathers, families, and communities ming to youth ages 8-22 A page of brief stories written by men who www.cbmnational.org YYYPNHſQTI www.brotherhood-sistersol.org were sexually abused. www.jimhopper.com/hope/ Institute on Domestic Violence in the Men and Feminism YCteen Magazine African American Community Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog A magazine written by New York City teens Working to enhance society’s understand- MaleSurvivor An information resource, for both feminists that helps marginalized youth reach their ing of and ability to end violence in the National organization overcoming sexual and those questioning feminism full potential through reading and writing African-American community victimization of boys and men finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com www.ycteenmag.org www.idvaac.org www.malesurvivor.org Guy’s Guide to Feminism On Masculinity National Compadres Network Men Thriving Website companion to a book by Michael Reinforcing the positive involvement of A peer-resource offered to male survivors American Men’s Studies Association Kimmel and Michael Kaufman which illus- Latino males in their lives, families, com- by male survivors. Advancing the critical study of men and trates how supporting feminism enriches munities, and society www.menthriving.org/forum/ masculinities men’s lives www.mensstudies.org www.nationalcompadresnetwork.com http://guysguidetofeminism.com/ Overcoming Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault EngagingMen For Fathers National Organization of Men Against A public resource for anyone committed Dad Man Sexism (NOMAS) 1in4: The Men’s Program to gender justice and overcoming violence Consulting, training, speaking about fathers Pro-feminist, gay-affirmative, anti-racist Offers workshops that educate men in against women and father figures as a vital family resource activist organization supporting positive women’s recovery and lowers men’s rape engagingmen.net www.thedadman.com changes for men myth acceptance and self-reported likeli- www.nomas.org hood of raping ManKind Project Dads and Daughters www.oneinfourusa.org/themensprogram.php New Warrior training weekends A blog of thoughts and reflections on Men’s Health www.mkp.org A Call to Men father-daughter relationships by Joe Kelly American Journal of Men’s Health dadsanddaughters.blogspot.com Trainings and conferences on ending Masculinidades A peer-reviewed quarterly resource for violence against women Pro-feminist blog about the anthropology of information regarding men’s health and www.acalltomen.org masculinity. In Spanish illness http://masculinidades.wordpress.com/ jmh.sagepub.com 32 Voice Male EMERGE National Resource Center on Violence COLAGE Survivor Project Counseling and education to stop domestic Against Women National movement of people with one or A non-profit organization dedicated to violence; comprehensive batterers’ services An online collection of searchable materials more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or addressing the needs of intersex and trans* www.emergedv.com and resources on domestic violence, sexual queer parent working toward social justice survivors of domestic and sexual violence violence, and related issues through youth empowerment, leadership www.survivorproject.org Futures Without Violence vawnet.org development, education, and advocacy Working to end violence against women www.colage.org Transgender Resources globally; programs for boys, men and National Sexual Violence Resource Dedicated to educating those unfamiliar with fathers - www.futureswithoutviolence.org Center (NSVRC) Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defa- or curious to learn more about the trans- A national information and resource hub mation (GLAAD) gender community Gloucester Men Against Domestic Abuse relating to all aspects of sexual violence Works to combat homophobia and dis- www.glaad.org/transgender Gloucester, Mass, volunteer advocacy www.nsvrc.org ETKOKPCVKQPKPVGNGXKUKQPſNOOWUKECPFCNN group of men’s voices against domestic media outlets Men’s Resource Centers abuse and sexual assault PreventConnect www.glaad.org Austin Men’s Center – Austin, TX www.strongmendontbully.com Uses online media to build community Provides counseling, psychotherapy, and among people engaged in efforts to prevent Gay Men’s Domestic Violence Project classes helping men with their lives, rela- Healthy Dating sexual assault and relationship violence Provides crisis intervention, support and tionships, health, and careers Sexual Assault Prevention http://preventconnect.org/ resources for victims and survivors of austinmenscenter.com www.canikissyou.com domestic abuse Promundo gmdvp.org/gmdvp Mending the Sacred Hoop Lake Champlain Men’s Resource Center Brazilian NGO seeking to promote gender – Burlington, VT Works to end violence against Native equality and end violence against women, Hear My Voice American women and to strengthen the Center with groups and services challenging children, and youth Educates and engages young people in men’s violence on both individual and soci- voice and vision of Native peoples www.promundo.org.br/en/ the LGBTQ community to create safe and www.mshoop.com etal levels healthy relationships, and connect victims of www.lcmrc.net Rape Abuse and Incest National Network dating abuse to help and legal services. Men Against Sexual Violence (MASV) (RAINN) hearmyvoice.breakthecycle.org Men working in the struggle to end sexual Males Advocating for Change A national anti-sexual assault organization – Worcester, MA violence - www.rainn.org Human Rights Campaign www.menagainstsexualviolence.org Center with groups and services supporting Largest GLBT political group in the country men and challenging men’s violence Sexual Violence Prevention 101 www.hrc.org Men Against Violence http://www.malesadvocatingchange.org/ Sexual assault and domestic violence Yahoo email list prevention workshops by Todd Denny Interpride http://groups.yahoo.com/group/menagain- Men’s Resource Center for Change http://www.olywa.net/tdenny/ Clearinghouse for information on pride stviolence – Amherst, MA events worldwide Model men’s center offering support groups Men Can Stop Rape Stop Porn Culture www.interpride.net for men and consulting with individuals and Washington, D.C.-based national advocacy A group for those willing to question and groups on a range of issues related to men and training organization mobilizing male ſIJVCICKPUVRQTPQITCRJ[CPFRQTPEWNVWTG Intersex Society of North America and masculinities. youth to prevent violence against women stoppornculture.org/home/ Devoted to systemic change to end shame, www.mrcforchange.org www.mencanstoprape.org secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for Students Active For Ending Rape people born with an anatomy that someone Men’s Resource Center of West MenEngage Alliance Organization dedicated to fighting sexual decided is not standard for male or female Michigan – West Michigan An international alliance promoting boys’ violence and rape culture by empowering www.isna.org Consultations and training in helping men and men’s support for gender equality student-led campaigns to reform college develop their full humanity, create respect- www.menengage.org sexual assault policies National Resource Center on LGBT ful and loving relationships, and caring and www.safercampus.org Aging safe communities Men’s Initiative for Jane Doe, Inc. Resource center aimed at improving the www.menscenter.org Statewide Massachusetts effort coordinating V Day quality of service and supports offered to men’s anti-violence activities Global movement to end violence against LGBT older adults Redwood Men’s Center – Santa Rosa, CA www.mijd.org women and girls, including V-men, www.lgbtagingcenter.org A mythopoetic gathering dedicated to male activists in the movement filling the need for men to come together in Men’s Nonviolence Project www.vday.org Oasis Magazine community healing Texas Council on Family Violence A writing community for queer and question- redwoodmen.org http://www.tcfv.org/education/mnp.html White Ribbon Campaign ing youth International men’s campaign decrying www.oasisjournals.com/magazine Saskatoon Men’s Center – Saskatoon, Men Stopping Violence violence against women Saskatchewan Atlanta-based organization working to end www.whiteribbon.ca Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Pro-feminist, male-positive, gay-affirmative violence against women, focusing on stop- Gays center dedicated to offering a safe environ- ping battering, and ending rape and incest LGBTQIA Resources Promotes the health and wellbeing of ment where men may explore their true www.menstoppingviolence.org Ambiente Joven LGBTQ persons and their parents, friends, natures and improve their health An advocacy project and LGBTQ commu- and families www.saskatoonmenscenter.com Mentors in Violence Prevention nity for Spanish-speaking LGBTQ youth www.pflag.org Gender violence prevention education and www.ambientejoven.org Twin Cities Men’s Center – Minneapolis, training by Jackson Katz Straight Spouse Network MN www.mvpnational.org Beyond Masculinity Provides personal, confidential support and Provides resources for men seeking to grow information to heterosexual spouses/part- National Coalition Against Domestic Collection of essays by queer men on in mind, body, and spirit and advocates for gender and politics ners, current or former, of GLBT individuals healthy family and community relationships Violence www.straightspouse.org/home.php Provides a coordinated community http://beyondmasculinity.com www.tcmc.org response to domestic violence www.ncadv.org Fall 2013 33 Excusing Porn [continued from page 15] I can’t speak for you, but there are plenty of things that I think It’s no easy task taking on the cult of masculinity from the inside, but deserve not to be seen as normal. Take Kink.com, for example. Despite it’s a privileged position in comparison to being on the outside and, thus, the cheerleading of shock value crusaders, I don’t really care how many its target. And this cult needs to be dismantled. Men need to take it down cultural boundaries the company believes itself to be transgressing; tying inside and out, from the most personal sense to the most global. up and peeing on another human being is simply wrong. If this sentiment Men can start small by boycotting porn in our own lives, both for the gets me kicked out of some sort of radical consensus, so be it. sake of our individual sexualities and for the sake of the many women :KDWLVWUDQVJUHVVLYHIRUVRPHLVEXVLQHVVDVXVXDORSSUHVVLRQIRU undoubtedly suffering for its production. Through images of dehuman others. As Sheila Jeffreys explains, “Transgression is a pleasure of the ized women, pornography dehumanizes also the men who consume powerful, who can imagine themselves deliciously naughty. It depends those images. on the maintenance of conventional morality. There would be nothing Individually rejecting pornography is necessary, but social change to outrage, and the delicious naughtiness would vanish, if serious social has always been a group project. Men must put pressure on other men change took place. The transgressors and the moralists depend mutually to stop supporting, and at the very least stop participating in, sexual upon each other, locked in a binary relationship which defeats rather than exploitation. We can demand that our movements and organizations enables change.” Transgression, she contests, “is not a strategy available outspokenly oppose it. We can disavow them if they refuse. to the housewife, the prostituted woman, or the abused child. They are As it stands, it’s hard to tell apart the radical Left and porn culture the objects of transgression, rather than its subjects.”5 at large. Both are based on the same rotten lie: women are objects to be Being radical is a process, not an outcome. To be radical means publicly used. keeping our eyes on justice at every instance, in every circumstance. It $VLWIDOOVWKHPDOHGRPLQDWHGUDGLFDO/HIWFDQEHUHSODFHGE\ means maintaining the agenda of justice when picking our issues and VRPHWKLQJQHZDQGVRGHVSHUDWHO\QHHGHG DIHPLQLVWDQWLSRUQRJUDSK\ the strategy and tactics we use to take them on. Within a patriarchy, men radical Left. Its goal: not the transgression of basic human rights, but the cannot be radical without fighting sexism. This is to say that radical uncompromising defense of them. activism and pornography are fundamentally at odds. Where are the Endnotes: radicals fighting porn? The ones worth the name are already in the heat KWWS ZZZFRXQWHUSXQFKRUJDQDUFKLVWERRNIDLUSRUQ of battle, and on the side of justice, whether or not it gets us off. 2. The Institute for Experimental Freedom. Politics Is Not a Banana: As for the rest, we’re going to have to make them. As the current The Journal of Vulgar Discourse. UDGLFDO/HIWVHOIGHVWUXFWVXQGHUWKHFUXVKLQJJULSRIPLVRJ\Q\²DVLW 'ZRUNLQ$QGUHDPornography: Men Possessing Women. already is and inevitably will—it is up to us to gather from the rubble :HHNV-HIIUH\Making Sexual History. whatever fragmented pieces of good there are left. And it is up to us to 5. Jeffreys, Sheila. Unpacking Queer Politics. forge those pieces into a genuinely radical alternative. Women have been doing this work for a long time. But it is by and for Ben Barker is a writer and community organizer from men that women’s lives are stolen and degraded through pornography. West Bend, Wisconsin. A member of the Deep Green And it is by and for men that the radical Left colludes with this injustice. Resistance organization, he is currently writing a book So it must now be men—the ones with any sense of empathy or moral about toxic qualities of radical subcultures and the obligation left—who take final responsibility for stopping it. Women need to build a vibrant culture of resistance. He can be have already mapped out the road from here to justice. Men simply need contacted at [email protected]. to get on board. Private Manning Mascupathic Disorder [continued from page 11] [continued from page 26] ZKLWHPDOHFXOWXUH WKHRQHWKDWZHDOOOLYHLQDQGKROGVXVFDSWLYH ´ burning issues of race and class—must be addressed fully and intention Theater is the most political, social art form, one that could spur ally to bring about a more humane society. an audience into action because they’ve gone through something and In the short time since Hanna Rosin published The End of Men, the perhaps had a transformation in their thinking. This play allows us all transformation of men has been accelerating and, we believe, sooner WRFRQVLGHUZKRZH¶YHEHFRPHLQWKHZRUOGHVSHFLDOO\LQWKHODVW than you might think, “the end of men” will be transformed into another years, by relating Chelsea Manning’s experience and how she’s been story—one of men’s new beginnings. treated. The soldier taking the fall for two failed wars deserves to have her own words heard, and I believe she has a message for us. Charlie Donaldson is a psychotherapist, former For more information about Bradass87, see its blog, http:// codirector of the Men’s Resource Center of West Michigan, and author of Restorative Treatment, a EUDGDVVZRUGSUHVVFRP RU )DFHERRN SDJH IDFHERRNFRP guidebook for therapists. %UDGDVVSOD\ RUIROORZLWRQ7ZLWWHU@EUDGDVVRZV Randy Flood is director of the Men’s This article was excerpted and adapted with permission from Resource Center of West Michigan, a “Now That ‘Bradass87’ Is Chelsea: A Q&A with Playwright psychotherapist, and cofounder—with Donaldson— Claire Lebowitz,” originally published by DC Metro Theater Arts of the Institute for the Prevention and Treatment of (dcmetrotheaterarts.com). Mascupathy. He offers workshops and trainings on male socialization and the treatment and prevention of Mascupathy. John Stoltenberg was creative director of the “My strength is not for hurting” sexual-assault-prevention media campaign, which he To reach Donaldson write [email protected]. Contact conceived. He continues his communications- and cause-consulting Flood at [email protected] or by visiting www.menscen- work through media2change and writes regularly about theater ter.org. For more information about their forthcoming book on mascu- for DC Metro Theater Arts. He tweets at @JohnStoltenberg and @ pathy, visit the Institute for Prevention and Treatment of Mascupathy media2change. at http://www.mascupathy.org 34 Voice Male