Archive for the 'Men's Movement' Category

Yet another post on men, suspicion, youth ministry, and cheerfully proving one’s innocence

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 19, 2008
in Emotional and Sexual Boundaries, Men's Movement, Sexual harassment, Youth and Youth ministry
. 29 Comments

A reader, responding to the thread below this reprint, writes:

…talking about false allegations keeping men out of these fields (working with kids) and referencing things like To Catch a Predator and the McMartin / Buckey case to make out like the fear of abuse is totally overblown really hurts, you know? I try not to let things bother me. I’ve had to stop reading certain blogs because of the prominence of thinking that downplays the reality of child sex abuse… For someone to portray what concern that exists now as hysteria makes me feel invisible. For almost every woman I’ve known well enough to have a personal conversation with and almost every female family member, this is a big part of their reality, part of their life story.

I wasn’t able to do much moderating while I was in New York, and perhaps I ought to have weighed in a bit. Whenever I’ve posted about working with youth, and particularly about working with underage teens (see this category archive), men’s rights activists tend to show up in the comment threads. They often show up to give me a “friendly” warning that I risk being hit with a false accusation, or to lament what they see as a broader cultural climate that is deeply distrustful of men who work with young folks. As I said in this post and many others, the collective bad behavior of a great many men (not just a few “bad apples”) has led to a justifiable degree of suspicion on the part not only of the survivors of abuse but on the part of parents, communities, and the broader culture. My two-fold point has always been the same:

a. I welcome the opportunity to “prove myself safe” through a repeated willingness to submit to scrutiny, a scrupulous willingness not to be entirely alone with a minor, and a cheerful and undefensive willingness to answer questions about my actions and my pedagogy from any stakeholder in the community.

b. At the same time, I’m going to be fearless about being warm, loving, and where appropriate (and sometimes, it is very appropriate) physically affectionate with young people of both sexes. Good youth ministry with any group of teens is impossible without an environment in which non-sexual, affirming, touch is available. Continue reading ‘Yet another post on men, suspicion, youth ministry, and cheerfully proving one’s innocence’

“The chance to become something more than a man”: a review of “Men Speak Out”: UPDATED

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 5, 2008
in Books, Men and Masculinity and Men's Movement
. 9 Comments

I’ve been taking my time to make my way through the nearly forty essays in Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex and Power. The anthology, deftly edited by Shira Tarrant, is a marvelous one, with a breadth and diversity of men’s voices that is impressive — and moving. Though I got a copy in mid-January, it’s taken me nearly two months to read all the essays, generally moving at the pace of no more than one or two per day.

A few of the essayists are celebrated names in the small world of the pro-feminist men’s movement: Michael Flood, Robert Jensen, Michael Kimmel, and Jackson Katz (who penned the introduction.) But most are not as well known. These male voices are ethnically, chronologically, and sexually diverse, united by a strong commitment to gender justice and to creating a different understanding of what it means to be a man in the modern world. The essays are organized into themes: Masculinity and Identity, Sexuality, Feminism, and Points and Perspectives. And yes, I have a short piece in the anthology as well.

Refreshingly, few of the essays are written by academics. This is not to say that those of us who “labor” in the ivory tower (whether in the Ivies or at community college backwaters) don’t often have excellent perspectives on gender, sexuality, and feminism. But the dynamics of the culture being what they are, it has often proved true that the men best positioned to publicly identify as feminists are those who enjoy the protection of tenure. Tenured professors have a firmer rock on which to stand than do their brothers in, say, the military, or the corporate world, or in a factory, or in graduate school. The men who contributed essays to this anthology come from all those places and more, and there is a richness and an authenticity to what they have to say about their lives. Continue reading ‘“The chance to become something more than a man”: a review of “Men Speak Out”: UPDATED’

The “three guy” rule: the third post in a series on numbness, growth, and male transformation

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 26, 2007
in Male Transformation Series, Men and Masculinity and Men's Movement
. 5 Comments

This is the third post in a series that began with this one last Friday and continued on Monday of this week here.

The problem I’ve been writing about is perhaps not entirely unique to men, nor is it universal among them, even in our culture. But the problem — call it “numbness”, call it lack of resolve, call it a profound sense of disconnectedness from both the self and others — does seem to manifest far more often among men than women. Men, both as individuals and in groups, do far less healthy self-reflection than women do. To put it in terms that mytho-poetic types use, men do less “soul work” than their sisters. That doesn’t mean that young American women are growing up healthier, mind you, only that women are generally allowed more emotional resources to help them grow.

The first two posts were largely about sketching out the problem. Today, I’m offering some preliminary solutions. (I realize that in doing so, I’m part of a fairly large crowd: the “what’s wrong with boys and men today” sector is a fast-growing one in the media and publishing worlds.) Below Monday’s post, ballgame notes:

I think your suggestion that males need solely to ‘look within’ to combat the emotional consequences of this enforced isolation is rather like telling someone, “That poison is making you sick! Here, have some more.”

Indeed. The kind of transformation we’re talking about here can’t be done in solitude, or at least not solely in solitude. The journey within is a difficult one, and it requires both guides and companions. To state the obvious, young men desperately need mentors. But the kind of mentors that they generally find in our culture aren’t much help in doing this work: a schoolteacher may make you a better history student, but won’t automatically help you go “deep and inside”. A basketball coach may make you a better foul shooter, but he won’t necessarily mentor you in developing a vocabulary for your inner emotional terrain. And your first boss may show you the skills you need in order to succeed in one particular job environment, but that boss probably won’t help you answer the existential “why” that explains what you’re doing there in the first place. Continue reading ‘The “three guy” rule: the third post in a series on numbness, growth, and male transformation’

“There is no ‘there’ there”: part two of a very long post on Robert Bly, male transformation, and the fear of one’s own hollowness

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 22, 2007
in Male Transformation Series, Men and Masculinity and Men's Movement
. 26 Comments

This is the second post in a three-part series. Part one appeared last Friday. It dealt with several issues, focusing in particular on the difficulty so many men have today identifying and acting on what it is that really want. Men who long to be “good guys” often have a particularly difficult time with what Robert Bly calls “resolve.”

Anti-feminist male voices play on this lack of resolve, mocking the aspiring feminist man for his apparent passivity. Anti-feminist men claim that they do know what they want: they want to get laid, make money, play Halo or World of Warcraft until four in the morning. They want to watch football instead of talking. They don’t want emotional intimacy, or so they claim; they want to work hard, play hard, and fall asleep after sex. These anti-feminist voices (one thinks of their popular high priest, the talk-show host Tom Leykis, who without any irony tells his male listeners to call him “Dad”) urge young men to give up the quixotic crusade of living a life of justice and self-control.

While the likes of the libertine Leykis urge calculated self-indulgence, traditionalist Christian voices implore young men to “seize back” their leadership roles as head of the family. Thus the feminist man is attacked from two sides: by the buddies that urge him to stop worrying about women’s feelings and give in to his id, and by social conservatives who call him to stop worrying about women’s feelings and take up his God-ordained role as warrior leader.

So many aspiring feminist men give up at this point. The siren songs of irresponsibility and fundamentalism both make the same promise: live this way, and you will have the certainty you lack. Both camps tell the same lie: that biological identity determines destiny. Continue reading ‘“There is no ‘there’ there”: part two of a very long post on Robert Bly, male transformation, and the fear of one’s own hollowness’

“But he could not say what he wanted”: part one of a series on Robert Bly, feminist men, and “Nice Guys”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 19, 2007
in Male Transformation Series, Male feminists, Men and Masculinity and Men's Movement
. 22 Comments

This is the first of what I hope will be a successful three-part series. Part two to come next week.

This past week in my “men and masculinity” course, we began discussing Robert Bly’s Iron John. Nearly two decades after it was written, Bly’s alternately captivating and exasperating call for a return to the “deep masculine” still resonates. Many people who know nothing else about the men’s movement (not to be confused with the men’s RIGHTS movement, a different beast altogether) have heard of Bly and “Iron John”. I make sure that my students read Bly in conjunction with very different figures in the movement, like the pro-feminist Michael Kimmel. But as confounding and opaque as Bly’s writing can be, my students seem to enjoy “Iron John” more than any other book I assign in this course.

Re-reading the book in preparation for this week’s lecture, I found myself thinking about the much discussed “Nice Guy” phenomenon. “Nice Guys” often cloak their misogyny behind a facade of sensitivity. “Nice Guys” often talk garrulously about gender issues, and often establish their bona fides by bemoaning the way in which “other guys” treat women. About every ten minutes, a Nice Guy will drop an “But I’m not like other men!” into the conversation. The Nice Guy becomes less nice when he realizes that despite all he obviously has to offer, women are remarkably uninterested in dating or sleeping with him. Nice Guys often lose their temper when rejected, launching into embittered, “slut-bashing” diatribes about how foolish women are for choosing “bad boys” (or traditional men). Most Nice Guys alternate between stunningly low self-esteem and staggering hubris, secretly believing that their “sensitivity” makes them the answer to every maiden’s prayer. A great many feminist women have their share of “Nice Guy” stories, and if you spend much time in the feminist blogosphere, you’ll read your share of ‘em.

Nice Guys are, in a few respects, similar to the famous SNAG (”Sensitive New-Age Guy”) who first made his appearance some four decades ago. SNAGs, I suggest, aren’t automatically as passive-aggressive as Nice Guys; SNAGness is about much more than a tactic to get sex from women. Becoming a male feminist isn’t easy, and most men who start down this road do so with the best of intentions, often with a profound and genuine desire to create a more just world for both sexes. The stereotype that many SNAGs are the sons of single-mothers doesn’t always hold true — but a great many pro-feminist men did grow up acutely aware of their mother’s feelings.

I was raised the first-born son of a single mom; from age six (when my parents separated) on, I was a “student of my mother’s emotions.” My grandmother and aunt told me that I needed to “take care of my mother” after the divorce, as she’d been through a “hard time.” And so, of course, I did my best. While I did often annoy and exasperate my mother (not least when I would torment my little brother), I did become very, very good at taking her emotional temperature. My mother is hardly mercurial (though she is a Gemini), and she was generally on an even keel. But she was anxious about many things, and I picked up on that anxiety very early on. She and I talked a great deal together, and in some ways — especially in the period between the divorce and the onset of my interest in girls about seven years later — my mother was my best friend.

I’ve talked to many other men active in the feminist movement, and a very high number of us have similar stories about our mothers. Let me clear that this isn’t the only reason we remain committed to the feminist movement today. It’s easy to play armchair psychologist and pathologize every activist. An adult commitment to justice is always rooted in more than childhood experience. But one thing I learned about myself a long time ago applies to a great many other men in the movement, including the “SNAGs”: we often confuse verbal dexterity for authentic insight. Our commitment to women’s rights is sincere, but we’re often incapacitated by a surprising lack of self-awareness.

Bly, who is often wrong about the remedy but rarely wrong about the diagnosis, writes of men like this:

Part of their grief rose out of remoteness from their fathers, which they felt keenly, but partly, too, grief flowed from trouble in their marriages or relationships. They had learned to be receptive, but receptivity wasn’t enough to carry their marriages through troubled times. In every relationship something fierce is needed once in a while: both the man and the woman need to have it. But at the point when it was needed, often the young man came up short. He was nurturing, but something else was required — for his relationship, and for his life.

The “soft” male was able to say “I can feel your pain, and I consider your life as important as mine, and I will take care of you and comfort you.” But he could not say what he wanted, and stick by it. Resolve of that kind was a different matter.

Emphasis in the original.

Living a feminist life as a man is about more than sensitivity to women. It’s about more than ideological assent to egalitarian principles, and it’s even about more than putting those principles into practice in one’s public and private life. Part of being a true feminist is acknowledging the enduring reality of male privilege. For men in this society, that means doing the best one can to renounce that privilege. But the danger in that renunciation is that it can destroy the capacity to act. Too many aspiring feminist men, too many nice guys, are incapacitated. They are incapacitated by a fear of doing the wrong thing — and, as Bly points out, deep down they aren’t really sure what they want. These good guys have spent much of their lives focusing on women’s concerns, and have developed the vocabulary of sympathy and solidarity. They have not developed genuine self-awareness in the process.

And this self-awareness is a prerequisite for continued growth. It is the prerequisite for the sort of resolve that Bly mentions. And righteous action, predicated on both empathy for others and upon deep self-awareness, is something far too few men comprehend.

More to come.

“Boys Adrift”: part two of a review

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 5, 2007
in Books, Men and Masculinity, Men's Movement and Youth
. 11 Comments

Last week I had some very critical things to say about Leonard Sax’s Boys Adrift.

But as critical as I am of Sax’s gender essentialism, there is much within his latest work that I think is insightful and encouraging. When it comes to the now-famous “failure to launch” phenomenon (in which young men live at home throughout their twenties, essentially relying on their parents to support them), Sax makes good sense:

I agree that the real world is very rough. What’s the best way to help young people face that reality? If your child is ten or fifteen years old, then by all means, shelter him or her from that harsh reality. But what if your child is twenty-one, or twenty-six, or twenty-nine? How long is a parent expected to shelter a child who is not mentally or physically handicapped?

My own belief… is that if parents continue to shelter their adult child after the age of twenty-one years, the parents may make it less likely that the adult child will ever be willing and able to meet the challenges of the real world.

Tell it, brother Sax. Preach the good word.

Dr. Sax also deserves credit for being willing to reject traditional models of masculinity. Indeed, given how reactionary his views are on single-sex education, it is surprising and refreshing to read the following attack on Harvey Mansfield’s ludicrous Manliness (which was a big hit with a lot of social cons last year).

Right off the bat, Mansfield asserted without any disclaimer that “John Wayne is still every American’s idea of manliness.” He then proceeded with a detailed analysis of what makes John Wayne the epitome of manliness.

When I read that sentence… I was startled. “Speak for yourself” was the first thought that came to my mind.

Anyone who can rip apart Mansfield is okay with me.

But perhaps my strongest and most enthusiastic point of agreement with Sax comes on what is perhaps the one principle which virtually all the disparate voices in the broader men’s movement affirm: the central importance of strong, loving, adult male role models. Most humans, growing up in our gendered culture, are more likely to “identify” with and seek to imitate adults of their same sex. Given that most teenagers go through at least a brief period of rebellion against their parents, it is good to have adult role models who are not family members.

Sax urges parents (and parents are the primary audience for this book) to seek out good adult men to mentor their sons:

Don’t wait for your son to make this choice. If he’s like most of the boys I work with, he may need a push. That’s OK. Just choose an activity in which he can interact with grown men, where he can have opportunities to see how they live, how they relax, how they serve their families and their communities. In most cases, even a not-quite-perfect choice, perhaps even the wrong choice, will be better — will be more likely to engage your son in the real world — than no choice at all.

Dr. Sax has been rightly lambasted by feminist critics for his suggestion that we ask too much of young boys when we insist that they be able to articulate empathy as well as their sisters. But when he calls for safe, strong, loving adult men to be more involved in the lives of young boys, he deserves an enthusiastic “heck, yes!” All children — boys and girls alike — need good, non-familial role models, and they need them from both sexes. But when the majority of adults modeling compassion, competence, courage and emotional availability are female, then our boys often grow up without ever developing their own ability to be reliable, strong, ambitious, and articulate. That’s not women’s fault — it’s men’s.

In my teaching and in my volunteering, I am committed to working with young men. I mentor quite a few of them. Those in the men’s rights community who reject my feminist commitments would be wise to step up and mentor at least as many lads as I do. After all, my MRA friends, do you want me to be the only adult man working with your sons? :-) Put your volunteer time where your mouths are, and raise up a generation of young men with the same capacity for love and boldness as their sisters.

Wealthy and embittered with a victim complex? Leave your money to the MRAs

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 4, 2007
in Men's Movement and Money
. 18 Comments

This from Vanessa at Feministing:

Apparently in all seriousness, the lads at Men’s News Daily are asking elderly men’s rights activists (MRAs) to leave their money to charities that will continue the struggle:

Let me talk directly to older wealthy American married males: give us other men a break. Don’t assume that your wife is as conservative as you. Don’t die and leave her all of your money.

In 2007, money is not only flowing into feminist organization coffers from dead widows and vindictive ex-wives like Heather Mills McCartney. The feminist groups are also getting big dollars from big politically correct corporations like Exxon-Mobil and, of course, an American Congress which is filled with blackmailed perverts like Senator Larry Craig who have clearly been doing almost everything the feminists wanted just to keep themselves in business at the local men’s restroom.

Therefore, you real men who might die in the next 10 years (you could be hit by a truck) have an obligation to leave serious funds to men’s rights organizations that can do battle with the above-mentioned juggernaut. Please go change your last will and testament today (tomorrow if it is after 5PM when you read this).

Larry Craig was a feminist? If so, he was pretty darn well, uh, closeted.

Of course, there aren’t a lot of legitimate men’s rights groups that have 501(c)3 status, but perhaps that will change. The article advises:

You can also start a 501c3 non-profit before you die. Ask a lawyer about getting one started sooner rather than later.

Remember, no matter how much you love her, please do NOT leave all your money to a woman (wife or daughter) who could knowingly or unknowingly turn your grandson and great-grandson into the slave of a system completely dominated by feminists.

It’s beyond risible, of course, but worth a visit for the laugh. There’s an interesting comment thread at Feministing.

For my own categorization of the various branches of the men’s movement, see here. For one of many critiques of the so-called MRAs, see here. Quoting myself from many years ago:

The problem with the men’s rights movement is that they confuse men’s unhappiness with oppression. They assume that if men were in control, they would be happy, because patriarchal oppressors ought to be happy. Therefore, if a man isn’t happy, he isn’t oppressing. Newsflash, folks: Just because you don’t know you’re privileged doesn’t mean you’re not. Just because there are aspects of your power and privilege that you find alienating and burdensome doesn’t mean that you are any less a beneficiary of an oppressive system! Both men and women do need liberation from rigid, traditional, gender roles. The difference is that collectively, men are the architects of the system while women are merely forced to live within it.

But here’s the serious question, since I seem to be in a question-asking mood: which charities would you be most inclined to leave your money to, assuming you die with plenty to leave?

You can scroll down on the right sidebar to find my favorites. Put yours in the comments section.

Private virtue, public justice: some very long thoughts on men, leadership, and the lie of “compartmentalism”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 12, 2007
in Men and Masculinity, Men's Movement, Politics and Sexual ethics and transformation
. 80 Comments

Responses to my post about pro-feminist men and Antonio Villaraigosa’s infidelities have been, well, lukewarm. At her place, Sassy worries that by suggesting that the mayor treats women in his life as disposable, I’m reinforcing an anti-feminist sense of victimhood. She also writes:

Part of feminism for me though is recognizing that women have the ability to make the best choices for themselves, that includes making the choice to stay or leave a man with a wandering eye. I know very little about his wife, but I can assure you that some of those tears she has cried has been from the assumption of others that he treated her as “disposable” and what others must think of her…

No doubt, but those of who work as male feminists have an obligation to do more than counsel women to make “the best choices” when faced with infidelity. There’s a strain in many of the responses to my post that suggests that bad male behavior is to be expected, and feminism should focus itself solely on giving women tools with which to respond to that behavior. That’s fine, and I do share an interest in giving women those tools — but I’m also convinced that those of us who call ourselves male feminists ought to be doing more to challenge men to transform their sexual behavior. Feminism is surely about more than empowering women; it surely is also (in part but not in whole) about holding men accountable and setting new standards for what is acceptable.

In the comments below my post, Catty writes:

I do think this hand-wringing is counterproductive and sets people up for failure.
In this day and age, Roosevelt or Kennedy would have neeeever gotten elected.

I understand the exasperation many folks have with the media’s incessant prying into the sexual lives of public figures. I hear the FDR and JFK line a lot, too; some people clearly yearn for an era in which great men were free to be great in public and have their quiet, discreet, unreported fun. Catty seems to believe, as many now believe, that there is no connection between public justice and private virtue; they believe that a man can simultaneously betray marriage vows and be desperately loyal to other, loftier principles. In other words, they believe that many people — perhaps great men in particular — can live their lives in compartments.

My faith informs my feminism, and vice versa. Though I acknowledge that philanderers have made great leaders in the past, that’s due less to their personal success at compartmentalization and more to God’s remarkable habit of “writing straight with crooked lines.” At the end of the day, my faith tells me we will all fall short of the mark; we are all works in progress; we are all going to sin in one way or another. But acknowledging that sin is part and parcel of the human condition is very different from turning a blind eye to it. Recognizing that humans are often frail is very different from accepting private betrayals as inevitable. And understanding that we all make mistakes doesn’t mean that we ought to continue to enable the making of them.

JFK and FDR were notoriously unfaithful; the Marilyn Monroe and Lucy Mercer stories (among others) are well-known. But these two men grew up in an era where men were expected and encouraged to live their lives in compartments. They were taught that it was permissable to be one way in public, and radically different in private. They were also raised in a culture where wives accepted their husbands’ infidelity as inevitable, asking only that their philandering spouses be discreet. The male-dominated press, filled with journalists who may also have had girlfriends on the side, conspired with the JFKs and the FDRs and others to keep everyone’s sexual behavior out of the public eye.

A feminist society is one in which we raise both young men and young women to treat each other with dignity, with kindness, with radical honesty. Feminism is not merely about liberating women to behave as badly as men have traditionally been allowed to behave; feminism is perhaps also about asking men to live up to the same moral standards that women have historically been required to meet. Of course, that’s a position grounded firmly in both faith and feminism rather than the latter alone. Secular proponents of women’s equality do not all share the conviction that the best advocates of public justice are also those who practice authentic private virtue.

In this country, the right-wing emphasizes private morality and often ignores the requirement to provide justice through public institutions. The left does the opposite. The right doesn’t see the communal responsibility (expressed through state institutions) to provide for the health and welfare of the vulnerable. The left doesn’t see much point in encouraging monogamy as a solution to social problems. The right sees the “family” as the solution to all problems, while the left almost completely discounts it. That’s a broad generalization, but it’s not all that far off the mark. Both left and right often fail to see that we need a combination of strong, accessible public institutions and strong, kind, morally accountable citizens to build a just society.

From a feminist standpoint, I prefer Bill Clinton to George W. Bush. The former’s track record on women’s rights globally, while far from perfect, was much better than his successor’s. On the other hand, not even his worst enemies have accused W. of any sexual impropriety since his conversion experience more than two decades ago. Clinton’s personal life was characterized by recklessness bordering (if the stories be half true) on abuse: Bush’s private life is above reproach — but his public actions have been firmly anti-feminist. But I refuse to accept a false choice between being led by a man of private virtue and public misogyny on the one hand and being led by a man who embraces egalitarian principles in the open but fumbles disgracefully with young women half his age in a hallway off the Oval Office on the other. Public justice matters; private virtue matters.

It is only unreasonable to demand both when we buy into the notion that men are fundamentally weak. We often wrongly assume that “great men” naturally have great sexual appetites that cannot possibly be met within the confines of a marriage to one woman. Their energy and their commitment to the greater good require that they have a little “down time” in the arms and beds of a variety of young women (or young men). We insist that it’s both unfair and unrealistic to demand that these men honor all of their commitments — as long as they are good servants to the public, it’s none of our business whether or not they are lousy husbands.

Every man, howver, who holds a position of power (be he president or professor) is instantly a role model to younger people, especially to younger men. We do take cues, and rightly so, from our leaders about what is acceptable and permissable. A teacher, a youth minister, a cabinet secretary, a monarch, a president — they are watched and studied by the young. The young want to know if those who guide them and provide for them are matching their public language and their private lives. When they see hypocrisy, when they see a profound disconnect, when they see that even the most admired of men cheat — they learn not to expect too much from men, or from themselves.

Had they been raised in a different era and held to a higher standard, I have no doubt that FDR and JFK could have both been successful politicians and faithful husbands. Had they been raised in a culture that taught men to speak and act when they are alone with their buddies the same way they speak and act around their sisters and wives, they might well have turned out to be even better leaders than they did. While feminists ought to care more about a politician’s ideas than about his or her private sexual behavior, it is not unreasonable or overly idealistic to ask for decency in every aspect of a leader’s life. Our sons and daughters need to see men who can treat women as equals in the boardroom — and at the same time, keep their commitments in the bedroom.

It’s not too much to ask, it’s not too much to demand. And I am demanding it less for myself than for the young people who so desperately need to know that radical, authentic integrity is possible. I’m not asking for perfection, but I am asking for an end, once and for all, for to compartmentalization.

What’s in it for men?

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 21, 2007
in Favorite posts 2007, Feminism, Men and Masculinity and Men's Movement
. 35 Comments

One question that those of us who are male feminists are bound to get asked over and over again: “What’s there for men in feminism?” The Chief asks a version of that question below Monday’s post:

Hugo, particularly, loves to preach on how men CAN change. He’s weak on providing the reasons why we SHOULD. To put it crassly, what’s in it for us?

I suppose I could quote Aristotle to the effect that virtue is its own reward, but something tells me that wouldn’t go very far.

I do answer this question regularly, as I’m asked it semester in and semester out. As most any serious feminist will tell you, feminism is about reconfiguring the culture in order to create greater equality between men and women. For most feminists, it’s also about liberating both men and women from the chains of sexism and patriarchy. As countless men in the pro-feminist movement have pointed out, oppressing women doesn’t make most men nearly as happy as one might imagine. We make a huge mistake when we assume that to be complicit in injustice brings joy and fulfillment. Yes, the benefits of living in a sexist culture are there for most men — but most men are so accustomed to taking these benefits for granted that they derive little if any sense of satisfaction from their own privilege.

When I meet with young men, I hear the same lament over and over again: “Why won’t women trust me? Why won’t women smile at me? I”m not a predator, I’m just a nice guy. Why am I always guilty until proven innocent?” I’ve answered those questions before: read “Guilty until Proven Innocent” and “No Right to be Assumed Harmless”.

When men work to transform themselves, to become genuine egalitarians in the bedroom, the boardroom, and cleaning the bathroom, they make the world a better place for themselves as well as for the women with whom they interact. When men challenge other men’s catcalls, porn use, leering stares and rude comments, they work to eliminate the very things that cause so many women to be justifiably mistrustful of so many men. Many men’s rights activists (MRAs) decry the epidemic of t-shirts that say things like “Boys are mean, throw rocks at them” or simply “Boys lie.” I’m not fond of those shirts myself, and I don’t think they’re in the least bit funny. But I recognize that in addition to reflecting an adolescent desire for attention, they reflect a legitimate anger, a legitimate fear, a legitimate frustration on the part of many women with men.

Quite a few men I know would love to be trusted more. They’d love to have their friendly “hellos” returned; they’d like it if everyone, male or female made eye contact with them and returned their smiles. They’re depressed by the way so many women respond to them, with guarded distance. Some of them become angry at women, blaming the targets of sexism for not being more warm and open to those who might well hurt them further. But the wiser ones understand that creating a world where men are trusted, believed, and smiled at involves changing the basic rules of masculine behavior.

One of the cardinal rules of American maleness is “Don’t call another man on how he treats women.” Men co-sign each other’s bad behavior far too frequently; the end result is that the “nice guy” who doesn’t harass women is rightly lumped into the same group as the jerk who does. Boys, if you’re not actively part of the solution you are — at best — passively part of the problem. If you’re respectful, friendly, honest and thoughtul to women in your interactions with them, but you remain silent while your male friends and relations behave otherwise, then you’ve got no right to complain about women’s suspicion!

I’m tired of living in a world where a man who wants to work with small children is automatically presumed to be a pedophile; I’m tired of living in a world where folks worry that the embraces I give the boys and girls in my youth group have a perverse, ulterior motive. But simply pleading my innocence isn’t enough. The incidences of abuse, the incidences of betrayal, the incidences of profound irresponsibility on the part of men in positions of trust aren’t just anecdotal — they’re overwhelming. And the answer for those of us who are trustworthy and long to have others know it isn’t to blame other people for being suspicious. It’s to work doubly, triply hard to create an authentically feminist culture in which men hold each other accountable, in which bad male behavior is immediately called out by other men.

In his comment, The Chief compares men to wolves. Just as its not easy to make a carnivorous wolf into a herbivore, he doesn’t think it’s easy — or even desirable — for men to change their essential nature. (I’m not a great believer in anyone’s essential nature, and have written umpteen times of the ways in which biology is used to excuse passivity and defeatism in the face of sexual injustice.) But it’s true that a great many women do see men as being like wolves, and a great many men do behave in ways that give women reasons for thinking that lupine comparison is apt. The damage predatory male behavior does to women is obvious. But what’s less obvious is that the “lone wolf” of lore is a symbol of isolation. I know a lot of guys who’ve tried to be lone wolves, tried to live up to the masculine ideal of the strong, silent, sturdy oak. Most of them, as Thoreau pointed out, lead lives of quiet desperation. Most of them, especially as they age, cope with an alternating sense of numbness and profound pain.

A sexist culture leaves men cut off from their own pain. Years and years of hearing “boys don’t cry” leaves many men in their teens and twenties in a state of permanent numbness, with only anger and lust as identifiable emotions still flowing through them. Feminism — with its insistence that men are as entitled to emotional expression as women — liberates men from the awful standard of “lone wolf-hood”. It allows us to stop being ciphers and become human beings, complete and whole and kind and good. It allows us to balance our strength with our humanity.

I am a feminist because I see organized feminism as one of the great vehicles for social justice and personal transformation. I am a feminist because I want to see a world in which both men and women are free to become complete people. When we shut down women’s anger, women’s desire, women’s impetuousness — we create half-people. When we shut down men’s tenderness, men’s vulnerability, men’s empathy — we create half-people. Half people alternately long for a partner to complete them, and resent the hell out of those partners for being able to do for them what they could not do for themselves. It makes for a pretty miserable existence, characterized by the strange and odious way in which men and women simultaneously long for and loathe each other. That’s not nature, that’s a social construct that needs to be dismantled.

I’m a feminist because I want to create a world where men and women alike can realize their potential; I’m a feminist because I believe that our potential is not directed or confined by our chromosomes or our secondary sex organs. My penis and my Y chromosome do not destine me to be unreliable, predatory, and emotionally inarticulate. My wife’s uterus and her estrogen do not limit the horizons of her professional or athletic ambition. Feminism is, as we’ve all heard, the radical notion that women are people. But it’s also the radical notion that men are people too, complete human beings, with the same range of emotions and the same capacity for empathy and self-control as any woman.

Feminism frees men to become truly complete human beings. And there’s an amazing payoff in that.

Note: You don’t have to be a feminist to comment here, but misogynist broadsides and anti-feminist bromides — as well as personal attacks — are out.

A Monday afternoon note on coffee, South Florida, and a new blog

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on April 9, 2007
in Blogging, Links, Men and Masculinity and Men's Movement
. 14 Comments

Various Monday afternoon notes:

…All else being equal, my favorite coffee in the world is “Peet’s House Blend.” Since the nearest Peet’s is two miles from campus, I am often seen walking across the street to our local Starbucks. But I am freshly returned from the Chevron across the road today, drinking plain old gas station coffee. About once a month, I crave convenience store coffee, 7/11’s in particular. No fancy creamers, just a big schloop of sugar in a 20 ounce cup. It’s a happiness.

…I was in South Florida (Boca Raton, Hollywood Beach) last week. I love South Beach and some of the funkier parts of Miami, but I gotta say, there are few places I would less like to live than in Broward or Palm Beach counties. I loathe humidity and I loathe flatness, and I can spend about fifteen minutes on your average beach without getting bored beyond belief. For various reasons, I find myself flying into the Fort Lauderdale airport about once a year, and I’m always happier to leave than to arrive. (My apologies to my Floridian friends.) I was up in the rolling hills of the East Bay in Northern California for Easter, however. Lots of elevation change and lots of cool mist. Sweet.

…Let me draw your attention to a new blogger writing on men, feminism, and masculinity: Ethan Todras-Whitehill. He’s writing at Crucial Minutiae, and his post today (which references a tv show I’m not sure I’ve even heard of) has some provocative things to say:

Here’s the thing: men are in trouble in our society.

Boys account for 71 percent of all school suspensions. They get lower grades than girls and are held back 50% more often in eighth grade. As a percentage of college students, college graduates, and graduate students, boys are shrinking each year.

But rather than launch into the typical anti-feminist bromide that often follows such a recitation, Ethan takes a thoughtful tack:

Here’s another take on it: men are in trouble because of the feminist movement, but it’s not feminism’s fault. The feminist movement broke the gender roles that had existed for millennia. Woman took for themselves the right to define themselves and their gender—as traditionally “masculine” or “feminine” as they want to be. And in doing so, they gave men the opportunity to do the same.

We didn’t take it. It’s kind of understandable. Power is a zero-sum game, so at the same time women were decreasing our share of power to a fair level, they were suggesting we join them. For men, it was like someone kicking them in the nuts, then asking them to dance.

But that’s just what men need to do. Pre-feminist women lived by a gender definition not of their making. Men today live by two gender definitions not of their making: one from time immemorial, and one from modern women. We are expected to be macho and sensitive, and we never asked for either of them… really, what men need to do is get off their duffs and come up with something themselves.

I’ve got a couple of quibbles with this. I’m not sure that power-sharing is always a zero-sum game, and I’m more convinced than Ethan is that men have been complicit in their own oppression. I think many of the gender roles that we struggle with are indeed of our own making; only those who acknowledge having built the house can do a really good job of tearing it down.

But it’s a good post from a promising new blog. Visit, and visit often.

More Chevron coffee.

“Architects of our own adversity”: a long post about men’s complicity in their own oppression, and the difference between self-acceptance and self-love

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 21, 2007
in Addiction and mental illness, Favorite posts 2007, Marriage, Men and Masculinity, Men's Movement and Relationships
. 21 Comments

Sorry folks, this is gonna be another very long post.

Over at Alas, A Blog, Amp has a good discussion up on the old question: Are Men Oppressed as Men? Amp cites a very interesting article by Caroline New, but warning, the article is tediously jargon-laden.

One strand of feminist thinking about male oppression is that men are rarely oppressed as men. Those who advocate this stance argue that black men are oppressed for their blackness, not their maleness; Muslim men for their faith, not their sex; inmates for ther status as prisoners, not their biological equipment. They also argue that authentic oppression requires a dominant oppressing caste whose identity is distinct from those whom they are oppressing: in other words, whites can oppress blacks, but blacks can’t oppress whites because of an unequal power differential. And blacks can’t oppress blacks because the dynamics of oppression are always the dynamics of oppressing what is Different, what is Other.

New, happily enough, is smarter than that simplistic reading. Most importantly, she notes that in certain instances, the oppressed can be complicit with their own oppression. A valuable and interesting discussion follows in the comments at Alas.

I am not a theorist. I’m not an intellectual at all, really, though I’ve played the part of one for a couple of decades. (I sometimes describe myself, self-deprecatingly, as the least intellectually curious Ph.D I know.) But I do think that feminists and male feminist allies need to have these sorts of thoughtful discussions, and I’m glad that folks like Amp host and provoke them.

On a less theoretical level, I am intensely interested in the ways in which men position themselves as victims. I spend a lot of time reading the literature of many “men’s rights” and “fathers’ rights” groups. I spend a lot of time in conversation with men who are going through divorce (I am, if nothing else, an expert on starting over.) And I mentor a lot of young male students and boys from my youth group at church. And in conversations with many of these boys and men, I hear “narratives of helplessness” emerging.

From the older, angrier voices of the so-called MRAs, the narrative describes a world in which women (and their male “collaborators”) have usurped traditional male privileges for themselves. Men are at a disadvantage in the courts, in the business world, in academia. The MRAs see public space in the Western world as increasingly feminized, and they fancy “real men” (in whose ranks they invariably include themselves) to be under attack from a dark coalition of feminist activists, cowardly politicians cravenly surrendering to the cultural left, and a media that never misses an opportunity to demean and belittle traditional men. It all provides a satisfying sense of being “under attack”, which is why many — not all — men’s rights activists use, absurdly enough, the language of oppression and resistance to describe their movement.

There’s not much point in telling these men, “you know, you’re an oppressor more than you are oppressed”. The “you’ve sinned more than you’ve been sinned against” trope doesn’t go over well!. These men feel victimized, they feel exploited, they feel ignored, they feel – often — impotent. And too often, our feelings become facts. Too often, we conveniently ignore the ways in which we played the part of volunteers, not victims. Too often, we deny our own complicity in our own misery.

Many men make the mistake of equating the role of the oppressor with a sense of personal fulfillment. If they really were oppressing women, they assume, if they really were part of a dominant class, they’d experience a greater degree of happiness and satisfaction. After all, if there really was a patriarchy, isn’t it supposed to benefit men? If men really did systematically take part in the dehumanization and degradation of women, wouldn’t more men feel the tangible benefits of that oppression for themselves? In other words, they ask the plaintive question over and over again: “How can I be an oppressor when I feel unhappy and powerless?” If most men are leading lives of “quiet desperation”, then surely those same men cannot also be agents of injustice. Right? So goes this line of thinking, or more accurately, this line of emotional reactivity.

Ten years ago, I began three interrelated journeys: I committed my life to Jesus Christ. I drank my last drop of alcohol, and turned to a Twelve Step program for recovery from my various forms of acting out. And I began to work to do more than espouse a superficial egalitarian philosophy — I began to make the effort to match my language and my life, to live a life of radical justice. Now it’s true that alcohol hasn’t passed my lips in nearly a decade, but I’ve had plenty of slips and falls on my walk with Christ. I’ve had quite a few struggles as I’ve sought to live in to an authentic pro-feminism. Growing up and taking responsibility isn’t easy.

One thing my faith, my feminism, and my recovery program all taught me: I was the architect of my own adversity. I couldn’t blame God. I couldn’t blame my parents’ divorce. I couldn’t blame my genetic inheritance for my predisposition to become an addict, and I couldn’t blame my hormones for my chronic infidelities. I certainly couldn’t blame the women I’d married. My misery was a result of a series of choices I made. Hormones and family history helped shape those choices, but the final decisions were always mine. I came to realize that my sense of my own helplessness was an illusion, one I used to justify my bad behavior and one I used to justify a chronic refusal to change.

It’s true that men are frequently oppressed by other men. When a group of older boys or male coaches ridicule a young man for crying or showing fear, that’s a way in which men are complicit in their own oppression. The older lads who torment a younger were themselves tormented when they were his age. The “be a sturdy oak” rule, a rule that teaches men to be alienated from their own inner emotional terrain, is one that is almost entirely enforced by other males. The little boy who is beaten for showing fear or for weeping is not responsible for the beating he endures. But when he grows older, and belittles other men for showing those same emotions, he is making a choice. He has transitioned from victim to volunteer. The fact that he is too frightened or too ignorant to make a different choice doesn’t change his responsibility to make a better decision, and it doesn’t mitigate his own complicity in the perpetuation of a very Great Crime.

The first task of authentic men’s work is helping boys and men get in touch with their own ancient wounds. Men need to re-feel the old injuries inflicted upon them. They need to rediscover the tears they suppressed. They need to go beneath the anger (most men have a considerable amount of anger not too far from the surface) to the root cause of their pain. And once they’ve dragged all that garbage out, then they need to be encouraged to understand themselves as active agents with a choice:

“So your father never showed you how to be there for his family? That’s terribly painful. But your father’s script isn’t yours. If you follow his example, it is not because it is your ‘destiny’: it’s because you are consciously ignoring alternatives. If you do to others what was done to you, you have become not only an oppressor, but a victimizer who has made a decision to be one.”

This is true in the big things and in the little things. The fact that we don’t raise men to be as in tune with their own emotions, to be as perceptive and intuitive as their sisters, doesn’t mean that men are destined to be shallow and obtuse. It’s appropriate for a grown man to express frustration when his own vocabulary for his feelings isn’t as deep and broad as his female partner’s; it’s not acceptable for him to shrug and say “Well, it’s the way I was raised” or “Well, that’s just the way my brain is wired.” To say those things is to be complicit; to insist on one’s own inability to transform because of one’s biology or one’s childhood is to buy into the seductive lie of our own helplessness.

I’m not big on self-acceptance. Really, I’m not. What I’m big on is self-love. Too much self-acceptance leaves me believing the idea that I’m okay as I am, even when I’m not particularly happy and I’m not making the world a better place. Self-love reminds me I’m a precious child of God. Heck, I’m God’s favorite! (And so are you, you, you, and you.) Self-love reminds me I’m worthy of joy, but that the world doesn’t owe me happiness. Self-love reminds me I am called to share with others, to live in community with others, to work to change and transform and heal the world and myself. My Jewish friends call this mandate tikkun olam. The Christians I worship with call it building the Kingdom.

But we can only heal the world and build the Kingdom when we know we have been given the power to do it. And if we buy into the lie of our helplessness, our oppression, our victim status, the world doesn’t change. We stay miserable, or maybe just vaguely dissatisfied. Our relationships are, at best, just okay. And we settle for so much less than we could have.

“I really like big guys”: culture, desire, and the awkward position of pro-feminist men

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on November 29, 2006
in Body, Feminism, Men's Movement, Relationships and Sexuality
. 107 Comments

I was talking to a female friend of mine yesterday; she’s just started dating a new fella, and the budding relationship appears promising. My friend is about 5′8″, and her new boyfriend is 6′5″. I knew her last boyfriend, who was her height — and so, as we chatted, I asked her if the height differential in this current relationship made a difference.

“Yes, I suppose it really does”, she said. “Being with a man so much taller and bigger makes me feel smaller, more feminine. Being in his arms feels wonderful because I feel the difference between us so much more than with Jack (her ex).”

My friend, who knows I teach feminism, asked “Do you think that makes me less of a feminist, wanting a man who can wrap me up and make me feel so feminine and protected?”

Almost from the start of 2006, the broad feminist blogosphere has been engaged in an intense period of self-criticism, culminating in October’s infamous “waxing wars.” I have no interest in reviving a lot of talk about feminist credentials. But my friend’s sense of delight in the size differential between her and her new guy — and her mild discomfort at what that delight might symbolize — is worth a post.

Of course, y’all know I’m going to share the inevitable personal anecdote. In college, I had a huge crush on a gal who lived in the same co-op as I did. She was my height (6′1″) and a broad-shouldered swimmer who had started her college career on an athletic scholarship but who had tired of the intensity of the competition. She was the consummate jock, and if I could be said to have a “type”, it was always the very athletic, tomboyish women. “Lisa” and I tried a romantic relationship, but it ended quickly; my interest in being more than friends exceeeded hers.

Lisa told me, even before we started dating, that she had doubts about our chances together: “I really like big guys”, she said; “I’m a tall strong girl and I like being with a man who makes me feel petite and feminine.” She liked dating tall linemen, and I was going through one of my “skinny stages”. I was already taking women’s studies classes at that point, and in order to make my case, I quite shamelessly used what I thought were sincere feminist tactics, saying something like:

“Lisa, you only want a stronger, bigger man, because you’ve been brainwashed by a sexist culture. You’ve been taught to be uncomfortable with yourself as a tall athletic woman, and so you want to be with an even bigger guy who can make you feel more traditional. You’re surrendering to the patriarchy!”

There might have been one or two grains of truth in what I was saying, but it was evident to both of us that my exhortation was colored less by a commitment to feminist principle and more by naked self-interest. And I had no reply when Lisa told me off, saying (and this I remember more vividly than my own words):

“Don’t be an asshole and assume that what I want stems from my oppression as a woman. If you were a real feminist man you would never try and channel my feelings and desires to serve your needs, and you’d never try and use feminism to guilt me into being with you.”

That was an uncomfortable “aha” moment, and it taught me an enduring lesson. Few things are more indefensible and pathetic than a self-proclaimed male feminist using the rhetoric of gender justice to try and “get” a woman to be attracted to him. Been there, did that, grew out of it.

Of course, this argument is really raising a very old question: to what extent are our romantic and sexual desires shaped by cultural and familial expectations, and to what extent are they genuinely organic, original, and unique to our “truest self”? (Yes, philosophers, I know, we can’t even be sure we have a “truest self” independent of outside influence!) I’ve raised this question before, writing about men, women, homosociality, and weight. There, I took men to task for being overly concerned with how the weight gain of their female partners would reflect upon their status as men.

So is wanting a “big strong man who will make me feel delicate and feminine” something feminists ought to try and talk women out of? Can we presume to distinguish between a woman whose innate sexuality gets turned on by “big guys” and a woman who likes being with bigger men because she’s uncomfortable with her own size, and longs to feel smaller? Can we insist that women’s erotic desires be shaped and informed by their feminism — and thus work in conjunction with their ideals, not in opposition to them?

Here’s where I drive many of my male critics in the men’s rights movement nuts. When I write about male heterosexual desire, I am adamant that it can be channeled. When discussing what men want, I am quite comfortable — because I am a man — in suggesting that men can master and redirect their libidos. I post a lot about older men and younger women in this regard, and regularly make the case that one key thing men can do is match their desires to an age-appropriate partner. I’ve also made a case against porn, and against male fat-phobia. But I am not willing to make the same demands on women.

Is it because I think women ought to be held to a lesser standard? Of course not. But I’m a great believer in the notion that men ought to hold other men accountable. When men do try and hold women accountable, even in the name of feminism, it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish a righteous motive from a self-serving one. Too many women have been told too often what to do by too many men. Women’s transformation and accountability needs to take place in community with other women, not at male behest. Do I think that women ought to think critically about the ways in which our culture shapes their erotic drives, particularly when it encourages pleasure in submission and a sense of “being small”? You betcha. Am I troubled that we live in a world where so many women are taught to find particular pleasure in being overpowered, overwhelmed, “swept off their feet”? Of course. It may be my place as a teacher to raise uncomfortable questions, but that’s as far as I ought to go.

Explicit judgment and direction are things I choose to reserve for the men in my life, not because I am filled with self-loathing or dislike masculinity, but because I believe in the importance of same-gender accountability. And, most of all, I am leery of having any man — no matter how well versed in feminist rhetoric and praxis — telling a woman what she “ought” to want. Lord knows, I spent years wishing that more women would eroticize cross-country runners instead of football players! It’s damned hard for any man to ever escape the charge of blatant self-interest when this topic comes up, and though it’s been nearly twenty years, Lisa the swimmer’s cutting words still echo in my brain.

“Cowboy up for Christ”: the Godmen, muscular Christianity, porn, and saddle imagery

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 31, 2006
in Body, Christianity, Faith, Men and Masculinity and Men's Movement
. 51 Comments

A long Reformation Day post.

Kristie, who also comments on this same topic, sends me a link to this Newsweek story: Godmen: Promisekeepers with an Edge. 

Godmen is, according to the organizers,  a series of testosterone-fueled Christian men’s gatherings across the country. Their purpose: to reassert masculinity within a church structure that they (the organizers) say has been weakened by feminization.

Uh huh.  Or, in other words, Godmen is about giving men who feel overwhelmed and challenged by a Gospel message of egalitarian justice a chance to worship God without having to let go of the very things that Jesus asks them to surrender.

According to the article, a "Godmen band" sings a song called "Grow a Pair":

  “We’ve been beaten down/ Feminized by the culture crowd/ No more nice guy, timid and ashamed/ We’ve had enough, cowboy up/ In the power of Jesus name/ Welcome to the battle/ A million men have got your back/ Jump up in the saddle/ Grab a sword, don’t be scared/ Be a man, grow a pair!”

I consider myself a charitable fellow, but it’s impossible for me as a man, as a feminist, and as a Christian to read that without a very loud derisive snort. How do you reconcile "No more nice guy, timid and ashamed" with Matthew 5?  It is the fallen culture that celebrates aggression; it is Jesus who celebrates meekness.  The Godmen have managed to get it all exactly backwards.  Simply invoking the "power of Jesus’ name" doesn’t magically transform an essentially secular message into a Christian one.

The Godmen have much in common with at least some of the secular Men’s Rights Advocates I encounter in the blogosphere.   For one thing, both Godmen and MRAs engage in the nifty trick of framing themselves as "oppressed victims".  Since at least the 1970s, both MRAs and white conservative Christians — traditionally the greatest agents of injustice — have tried to steal the mantle of "victimhood" from the genuinely oppressed.  In this perverse reframing, gays and lesbians who want marriage equality become the powerful forces of evil, imposing their will on a simple, God-fearing, and ultimately powerless majority. 

If there’s one thing I loathe above all else it’s the appropriation of the language of the oppressed by the oppressors themselves; all the Godmen are adding to this tired mix is the apparent imprimatur of our Savior Himself.   According to the Godmen, Jesus didn’t come to build a "peaceable Kingdom".  He came, it seems, to restore traditional gender roles and act as a Savior to that most noxious of cultural archetypes, the "hen-pecked husband" in danger of drowning in feminist rhetoric.

Scripture calls us to war.  But it is not a war to be fought by men only, and it is a war to be fought with prayers, not swords.  And war is, in the end, only a metaphor for the intense struggle we all fight on behalf of peace.  Paul, in Ephesians 6:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.  Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Paul’s audience would have known better than any modern one what a shield and a helmet looked and felt like.  And the shields and helmets and swords Paul speaks of are entirely spiritual, to be used in congruence with a gospel of peace.   Paul and Jesus take classic symbols of masculine aggression and artfully turn them into tools for building a peaceful, just world.    For Paul and Christ, means and ends are radically, divinely congruent: peace is built peacefully with the shield of faith and a sword of the Spirit.  To mistake the physical sword for the spiritual one is an old and tragic mistake, one that Christians have been making since, oh, the early fourth century.

For the Godmen, pornography and masturbation are apparently the "worst" sins in which a man can engage.  (In the Newsweek article, they are mentioned several times as a particular focus.)  This is in keeping with much right-wing Christian rhetoric about the necessity of "purity."  At first glance, but only at first, the Godmen’s hostility to porn seems to match that of certain wings of the feminist movement.  But the similarity is, I have come to realize, only superficial.

I’ve never been to a "Godmen" service.  But I’ve been to a few Promisekeepers events, and I’ve also got a strong grounding in secular feminism.  Frankly, I don’t know many other men who have spent a considerable amount of time in both evangelical and feminist circles, and who feel genuinely at home in both.  (What was it old Walt Whitman said about contradictions?)  I’ve heard lots of talk about pornography in both camps.  And while the hostility to porn is often nearly identical in intensity, what undergirds that dislike of commercial sex is fundamentally different.

While the feminist anti-porn movement is concerned with the impact porn has on both women and men, groups like the Godmen only pay lip service to concepts like "exploitation" and "dehumanization."  What conservative Christian men’s groups find so troubling is that an addiction to porn and masturbation leaves men feeling weak, powerless, and vulnerable.  In particular, for the vast majority who are heterosexual, it is the intensity of desire for women that leaves many men feeling dependent upon their girlfriends and wives (as well as the images on their screen.)  Thus a man who can resist pornography and sexual "sin" is a man who can stand up to women and resist their challenge to transform himself.  Feminists don’t like porn because porn sends a fundamentally destructive message about who women are.  Godmen don’t like porn because it is a visceral, shameful reminder of male weakness, one that stands at odds with their self-flattering vision of strong, bold, Christian warriors.  One group’s opposition to porn is grounded in justice and a desire to see our common humanity acknowledged; the other’s in the rhetoric of masculine autonomy and independence.

I am a Christian, washed clean in Christ.  I believe myself to be a new creation, one who still struggles mightily to follow my Master.  I am a feminist, committed to the notion that we are called to see men and women as radical equals.  I am a man who understands that his strength comes not from his testicles or his Y chromosome or his bravado, but from the Spirit that is given equally to all of us, male and female. 

The Godmen band use the image of the saddle and "cowboying up."  But the New Testament image of the saddle is of Saul of Tarsus, proud and cruel, thrown from his saddle and left sprawling in the dust of the Damascus road.   Saul became Paul — and became a true Christian — not when he climbed on his horse but when he fell from it. And men become followers of the Savior when they too are willing to be left sprawling in the dust, blinded and overwhelmed, surrendering all they have to Him.

A Letter From a Young Pro-Feminist: Responding to Ryan

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 6, 2006
in Feminism and Men's Movement
. 23 Comments

(Note: I’m experimenting with writing longer posts without sticking key phrases in bold.  Long-time readers are welcome to weigh in on whether or not they find the presence or absence of bold type preferable.) 

While I was on "blog hiatus" last month, I received this e-mail from a fellow named Ryan:

Hi. I am a 17-year old teenage male living near Los Angeles. I am emailing you today because I have had a set of questions floating around in my head ever since I decided to become a feminist a few days ago, but especially since reading " Some thoughts on pro-feminism, young men, and always taking women’s emotional temperature."

I want to know why you think a man should call himself "pro-feminist" instead of just "feminist?" What do you think about having both words subsumed under the term "gender egalitarianism?" I’ve often thought of just calling myself that, but that would be different because if people (including people who are at least somewhat sexist but don’t really know it or think it) would simply think "Oh, I’m a gender egalitarian as well," when really they would not likely share with me a radical conception of gender equality…

How should I confront others (guys and girls) when they do or say sexist things? I once called someone who said something sexist outright a sexist. She didn’t understand at first, and I had to explain it to her. The exchange, in retrospect, was less than adequate. How should I have responded?

How ought I go about finding relationships with less-sexist or perhaps even outright feminist girls at this stage and when I get to college?

Gosh, Ryan sounds a lot like some of the boys I know in my All Saints youth group!  He asks some important questions, and I’ll do my best to answer them.  (Forgive the "Rilke-esque" title of the post).

1.  I use the term "pro-feminist" because when I was first coming into the men’s movement, that was the term that was used by the men I most respected.  The leading organization of "feminist men" in the USA remains NOMAS (National Organization for Men Against Sexism); they identify themselves as "pro-feminists."  The term is used also by Michael Kimmel, whose work (particularly his magisterial Manhood in America) has more or less single-handedly created the academic field of men’s studies.

Another wonderful Michael, Australian Michael Flood, has a handy-dandy "FAQs about Pro-Feminist Men" available on his website.  In response to the same question Ryan asks, Flood writes:

Feminism is a movement and a body of ideas developed primarily by, for and about women. Men can never fully know what it is like to be a woman. If we call ourselves "feminists", we run the risk of colonising feminism or looking like we’re saying we’ve got all the answers.

Some feminist women argue that men CAN call themselves feminists, as long as they live up to the same standards as women who are feminists — to support the equality of women and men. Nevertheless, most pro-feminist men use the label "pro-feminist" rather than "feminist". We believe that there is plenty men can and should do to support feminism, and we don’t need to call ourselves "feminists" to do it.

I certainly don’t correct men who self-describe as feminists.  But for all of these reasons, I prefer to call myself "pro-feminist."

2.  As for calling other people — men or women, young or old — on their sexism, that’s a tricky one.  Indeed, the post of mine that Ryan mentions earned me a lot of criticism for "going too easy" on a young man struggling with his own sexist behavior.  I wish, Ryan, I had an easy "how to" manual to make confronting sexism easier!  Here are some general guidelines:

a.  Before you challenge a sexist remark or bring up someone else’s misogynistic behavior, make sure you are clear about what you want to say.  Simply announcing "That’s sexist!" isn’t going to be helpful if you don’t have a clear response to the inevitable riposte of "Why?"  With a friend, it’s often better to bring up the offense at a later time, after you’ve had the opportunity to reflect on exactly what it is that you found so troublesome about their words or their actions.

b .  Recognize that for a man to call a woman on her own sexism is highly problematic from a feminist standpoint. This does not mean that pro-feminist men can never criticize women’s words or behaviors!  It does mean that we have to recognize that one of the features of a sexist culture is that it gives men permission to evaluate women without their consent.  If a young man (or a man of any age, really) starts writing up "sexism tickets" and giving them to his female friends, he risks a profound disconnect between his beliefs and his behavior.  Whatever the nobility of his intentions, his actions will very likely come across as paternalistic, patronizing, and (not surprisingly), chauvinistic.  Sometimes it’s better to begin by asking questions, trying to discover the intent of the person who made the sexist remark.  Frequently, just by allowing folks to talk out loud about their beliefs, you’ll find the right "trail-head" into a productive discussion.

3.  Ryan’s third question is about meeting young feminist women now, while he is presumably still in high school, and later when he gets to college.  It’s an important question.  While I suppose it is possible that some men adopt pro-feminism as a guise, hoping to use a facade of sensitivity in order to meet more women, most young men like Ryan don’t see anti-sexism as a strategy to get laid.  At the same time, no matter how sincere their politics, young people do want to meet prospective romantic partners who share at least some of their views.  So here’s what I’d say to Ryan:

Congratulations on making a commitment at a young age to living out an anti-sexist, pro-feminist life.  That’s very commendable.  As you probably are already aware, many people (both men and women alike) will view your decision to "come out" as a feminist man (or a "gender egalitarian",if that’s the term you end up using) with derision or suspicion.  You may encounter people who will ridicule you, question your masculinity, and question your motives.  They will insinuate that you are gay, or that you are just trying to get laid, or that you are filled with toxic self-loathing.  You must remember that every man who does public anti-sexist work is hit with one or all of these accusations.  You aren’t alone.

One obvious way to meet like-minded young men and women is to take courses on women’s studies or gender.  Most colleges have such courses, and while you are still in high school, you can enroll (ahem!) in your local community college. You’ll meet lots of folks close to your own age who share some of your views.  It can be enormously refreshing and liberating to feel surrounded by folks who believe as you do, particularly when you come out of a place (like your average American high school) where your beliefs have set you radically apart from your peers.

You can do volunteer work.  Right now, Feminist Majority has a Feminist Campus project with a Student Action Network.  They even have a Feminist High School Project!  Check it out!

Trust me on this: there are many young feminist women out there eager to meet young pro-feminist men.  Obviously, for a number of reasons, you may have to spend some time "proving" your feminist bona fides.  It’ll quickly be clear whether you can "talk the talk", but feminism is also about "walking the walk" in public — and in private.  Don’t be hurt or frustrated if you encounter people who are initially suspicious of your professed egalitarianism.  In our deeply sexist culture, men are "guilty until proven innocent."  That’s our own damned fault, frankly, and the sooner we cheerfully accept the burden of proving ourselves innocent, the better off we’re all going to be.  (I’ve blogged about this before.)

In any event, Ryan, for what it’s worth, I’m proud of you.  I’m grateful that you wrote to me, and I ask you to keep in touch.  Peace, my brother, and courage.

Reprint: Daughters and Fathers, Girls and Men

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on August 16, 2006
in Family, Men's Movement, Older Men & Younger Women, Sexuality and Youth
. 3 Comments

I’m on hiatus — at least from substantive blogging — until August 28.  Until then, I’m reprinting favorite posts from 2004 and 2005.

I’m not in the habit of quoting from advice columns.  Still, I do read them regularly, and Carolyn Hax of "Tell Me About It" is perhaps my favorite these days.  I was struck by this one that appeared in today’s Times, but which I can only find online here:

Dear Carolyn: I’m a 15-year-old girl and have a twin brother. I really love my Dad, but he has little interest in doing things with me. He spends lots of time with my brother every weekend, taking him to ballgames and playing golf and tennis with him, and they go on camping trips in the summer, but he never invites me. I recently got up the courage to tell him that I would sometimes like to be included, but he said that a father and son need bonding time, and that I should be spending more "mother/daughter" time with my mother.

I’m really more interested in doing the kinds of things my Dad and brother do together, and my mother is not interested in them. And we do spend plenty of "mother/daughter" time anyway. He is a good father, and I don’t think he understands how much this hurts. My brother has all kinds of souvenirs in our room from the things they have done together, which are a constant reminder to me. How can I make my Dad understand that spending time together is just as important to me as it is to my brother? — Left Out

Hax doesn’t say it, so I will:  this man needs to get in touch with the wonderful