FROM THE EDITOR The End Days of Wayne LaPierre By Rob Okun I suggest putting a teacher in every gun store. Alongside their wives they are leading the —Jef Johnson way in a cultural shift Mr. LaPierre and his NRA backers in Congress have heretofore he National Rifle Association’s public never seen. The tears of fathers are mixing face, Wayne LaPierre, woke me up the with the fierce determination of mothers to Tother night. No, it wasn’t a midnight create a tribe of new social justice change phone call; it was a dream. He wanted to agents—activist parents. know what I’d thought of “the speech.” You This is a good sign for those who support know, the insensitive one he delivered last the Newtown parent-survivors’ promise to December 21, just seven days after Adam continue lobbying Congress until substan- Lanza shot his mother in her bed and then tive gun reform legislation is passed (www. went to Sandy Hook Elementary School sandyhookpromise.org). Beyond that pledge, and murdered 20 first graders and six school though, will soon come another to urge—no, staff before turning one of the weapons in his demand—that Congress, the Obama admin- mother’s arsenal on himself. istration, and the media add gender as a In the dream, I could hear him reciting In the years to come I central part of the national conversation about the oft-repeated line from his arm-the-schools believe Mr. LaPierre will mass shooting violence. We need only look diatribe: “The only thing that stops a bad guy at the deadly Boston Marathon bombing to with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” My dream be seen as a throwback notice that gender, specifically white maleness, self kept responding: “The only thing that stops to a bygone era. I know, I was once again absent from the discussion. a bad guy with a cream pie is a good guy with know; we’re not there yet. Rather than being distracted by Tamerlan and two cream pies.” What I remember next is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s religion, let’s remember LaPierre and me watching him on television There’s a simultaneous cultural truth oper- that like Newtown’s Adam Lanza, James Eagan delivering “the speech.” It was really creeping ating as we fishtail along the slippery road of Holmes (Aurora, Colo.), Wade Michael Page me out. Just as he came to the “good guy with gender justice reformation. On the one hand (Oak Creek, Wisc.), and Jared Lee Loughner a gun” line, out of the shadows a guy I couldn’t a man like Mr. LaPierre is still attracting (Tucson, Ariz.), the Chechen brothers were quite make out (me?) pied him. Twice; cream followers despite the disgust and astonishment white males. pie all over his sour puss. As Wayne-LaPierre- with which his tone-deaf analysis of how to For white men in particular this is a perfect on-television wiped his face clean, an off- prevent gun violence is being received by a moment to leverage whatever privilege and camera voice called to him: “Wipe the smirk sharply growing number of citizens. On the influence our status affords us to add white off, too, Mr. LaPierre.” Before I could see how other, men like Mr. Collins are opening the maleness to a conversation now fixated on he responded, I woke up. door for younger males—gay young men of guns (see Charlotte and Harriet Childress’s I’ve wrestled with the idea of writing about course and lots of others—hungry for a way out commentary on page 14). It won’t be easy Mr. LaPierre for some time. Frankly, I haven’t of the “man box” that seeks to constrain them. to make the change; there are a lot of forces wanted to give him any more ink than he has Mr. Collins’s announcement about his sexual against us. Powerful, white male forces. If we already received. Still, as a symbol of the brand orientation didn’t receive anywhere near the are to accelerate the pace of change in rede- of manhood I am committed to transforming, attention Mr. LaPierre received for essentially fining manhood, then we have to expose its he continues to pull me in. One thought keeps telling us about his. dangerous conventional white male expression nagging me: I have no idea if Mr. LaPierre is In the years to come I believe Mr. LaPierre at every possible moment—just as at the same pompous, arrogant, self-righteous, and bellig- will be seen as a throwback to a bygone era. I time we must encourage each other to spot- erent “in real life.” I want to think it’s an act know, I know; we’re not there yet. You may light expressions of egalitarian, profeminist designed to appeal to NRA members or, better call me a dreamer—I already shared one of manhood whenever we see them. (Just look yet, potential members. What I want to believe my dreams—but I’m not the only one. Sooner at the organizations and groups listed in the is that in the privacy of his home he is kind, than later, he will be marginalized as a credible Resources section at the back of this magazine attentive to his family, clears the table, loads voice representing the will of the American for starters.) We need to amplify our voices in the dishwasher, and wipes the counters clean people, replaced perhaps (besides the next telling our side of the story. For too long, we’ve before checking his email and watching the Jason Collins) by the eloquent voices of the ceded the stage to Mr. LaPierre and company. basketball playoffs. What I want to believe is heartbroken fathers of Sandy Hook murder Those days have to come to an end. The time that when news broke that the NBA’s Jason victims. There was a time when we didn’t hear to begin is now. Collins announced he was gay, Mr. LaPierre much from men after heart-wrenching family turned to his wife and simply said, “Good for tragedies. (“He’s the silent type,” a female rela- him.” (That the next day he may have asked tive would report. “He just keeps it all bottled an aide to find out if Mr. Collins was a gun up inside,” she’d say to explain a stoic man owner and might make a great ambassador to holding back his tears—and his emotions.) gun-toting gays and lesbians—well, that’s just Well, the Sandy Hook dads are different. Rob Okun can be reached at rob@voice- business.) malemagazine.org. 2 Voice Male Summer 2013 Volume 17 No. 60 Changing Men in Changing Times www.voicemalemagazine.org 8 Is There a Future for “Man Up?” 8 by E. ETHELBERT MILLER, SHIRA TARRANT AND STEPHEN MCARTHUR 10 Working with Violent Machistas in Costa Rica BY GREGORY JAQUET 12 Why White Men Keep Mum about the White Maleness of Mass Shootings By Charlotte Childress and Harriet Childress 14 Sports & Hypermasculinity 10 Violence, Male Culture and the Jovan Belcher Case An Interview with Daryl Fort by Jackson Katz 17 I’m Mad as Hell at Conventional Manhood By Rob Okun 18 One Egg, Please, and Make It Easy The Pursuit of High-Tech Babies By Miriam Zoll 24 Feminism for Men in 1914 By Floyd Dell 14 Columns & Opinion 2 F E 4 L 5 M @ W 22 M H Under Armor: From Power and Control to Letting Go By Joseph DiCenso 26 O Coming Out on the Court of History By Michael Kimmel 27 M R Why Every Black Man Should Wear Number 42 By E. Ethelbert Miller 29 N S Knowing Your Offender, Navigating Your Healing By Randy Ellison 18 30 F 31 B 32 R 34 P By Richard Jeffrey Newman male positive • pro-feminist • open-minded S Mail Bonding Rob A. Okun Editor Mom Museum’s Male Voices nication. In so many violent situations, the couples are poor communicators. I was happy When the Museum of Motherhood of Moth- Lahri Bond to read your writings. What a great movement Art Director erhood (www.mommuseum.org) hosted a gath- you are helping to spearhead! ering on Valentine’s Day as part of One Billion Michael Burke Dorothy McKenna Rising!, the largest global action in history Copy Editor Green Valley, Arizona to end violence against women and girls, we Read Predmore Circulation Coordinator wanted Voice Male to be a part of the day. As a museum and Jeff Roth-Howe From Grandma’s Office Liaison/Researcher teaching facility that focuses on women, mothers and fami- Heart VOICE MALE is published quarterly by lies, we’ve been handing out This Winter issue with the Alliance for Changing Men, an affiliate copies of the magazine for its faces of the Sandy Hook of Family Diversity Projects, PO Box 1246, some time to visitors who victims has moved me to Amherst, MA 01004. It is mailed to subscribers write and encourage all Voice in the U.S., Canada, and overseas and is dis- find our space on the upper tributed at select locations around the country East Side of New York. Editor Male readers to do what they and to conferences, universities, colleges and Rob Okun was kind enough can to advance VM subscrip- secondary schools, and among non-profit and to speak at our “Rising” and tions, especially among non-governmental organizations. The opinions expressed in Voice Male are those of its writers we continue to distribute the colleges, other organizations and do not necessarily reflect the views of the magazine because we see of learning, community based advisors or staff of the magazine, or its spon- this kind of partnership as a organizations and elected offi- sor, Family Diversity Projects.