The world needs more openly feminist men.
Earlier this year I was fortunate to attend a grief retreat in the beautiful community at Approvecho. If you have never done such a thing, I highly recommend it. Arriving at the main hall before commencement, I was surprised to discover I was one of two men among 15 or so women. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been, given how rare it is for men to be openly vulnerable in this place and time. Being in the minority among women has seldom been a source of discomfort for me, but in this particular room I felt very much the sore thumb.
In this moment, I was keenly aware of my maleness. Here I was, surrounded by women about to grieve all manner of transgressions and difficulties, so many of which were likely to have been precipitated by men. Walking in, it felt as if I had been unwittingly handed the heavy cowl of the untrustworthiness and danger of maleness. I was the embodiment of a problem, as one of my teachers Martin Prechtel puts it, “too big, too sour, too hard, too old”. Who in the room, in the depths of their grief and their devastation, would turn to a man for comfort? Who would feel safer because I was there?
Eventually I was given the opportunity to speak that experience into the space, to grieve it, and to hold and be held by women and by my fellow man during the two days of the retreat. And it was clear to me that it was an act of grace to have that. As men, we require so much grace to simply move through the world. Our violences, our immaturities, our lack of emotional intelligence, our need for others to do emotional labor on our behalf, require a level of grace that is larger than I can hold in my mind, in my heart, in my body.
Manhood and maleness is a country. Like a country, it’s something you’re born into without being able to perceive the broader implications. You grow up into it, your understanding of it changing all the while. Different facets reveal themselves at different stages of your growth. With each passing fad and strongly-held conviction, your consciousness is refined in the crucible of lived experience. You may go your entire life without reaching a point where you feel you are able to see clearly the full lay of the land.
Manhood is a culture, and like a culture, it has its histories, its wars, its genocides, its changing manners of expression, its shifting needs in the face of this rapidly expanding concept we call humanity.
At some point in my education, I was introduced to the horror of a more sober assessment of American history. What had previously been portrayed as heroism was now revealed to be jingoism. What had previously been cast as progress was now rendered as genocide. A nation that purported to have founded itself fleeing the oppression of monarchy and religious persecution turned out to be a haven for a new kind of empire – the spiritual successor to those very evils.
It’s time for manhood and maleness to be subjected in like kind to a revisionist scrutiny of its history and ideals. It’s time for men to examine the violent history of men. It’s time for men to look within themselves for a frank assessment of what violence continues to live there, both potential and realized.
If you have not read the book Men Explain Things To Me by Rebecca Solnit, let now be the time you do. Especially if you are a man. It speaks simply and directly to the epidemic of violence, invisible while in full view, caused by men. The linked article is the essay that begins the book. Here is an excerpt:
In her essay, she makes the simple but profound observation that violence is an almost uniquely male problem. Which is, y’know, oof… pretty damn hard to sit here and digest as a man. I find myself born onto a team whose ‘locker room talk’ I detest. I look around me and am constantly horrified by the conduct of my fellow men. And while it would be easy for me to distance myself from the difficulty of it by saying, “Yeah, well I’m not like those men,” the truth of it is more complicated and troubling.
Being a man in this era is like being a loaded gun. You walk around capable of causing great harm with little effort. The groove of male violence is so well worn in cultures the world around that you sometimes find yourself walking in it unwittingly. You have a rough day, you don’t get enough sleep, you find yourself in a situation in which you feel threatened, and suddenly the programming kicks in again. You’re like the anime character that wakes out of amnesia with your monster-slaying skills intact and ready to be put to use.
As a man, I cannot distance myself from the responsibility of male violence because I am not in this moment actively harming somebody. Going through my history and examining how I’ve expressed toxic masculinity in my life and relationships is humbling. The shame and hurt of that lives on in me and wants to be understood, processed and not repeated.
It is the responsibility of men who know kindness and gentleness to address this issue. Who else will? Who else can? Though you weren’t present for your country’s violent beginnings, you belong to the only group of people now able to do anything restorative. Though you weren’t the man committing violence 1,000 years ago, 50 years ago or this morning, you do have the privilege of being alive now, and able to act in another way. Who else will?
There’s so much more to say about this, but I’ll part with this thought. Each child is born beautiful and innocent. Each baby boy comes from the womb eager for love, tenderness, play, respect, healthful boundaries, and strong role models. Boys who have these in any meaningful amount are so much less likely to re-enact the violence laced throughout their history. It is the decades of abuse at the hands of their fathers, uncles, brothers, peers at school and other men that initiates boys back into being weaponized men capable of great harm. Omnipresent narratives and modern myths reinforce it. The groove is worn.
Love and hugs to my brothers out there trying to walk a different way. Love to all men, regardless of their paths, who need it.
Listen to the episode “Man As Protector and the Warrior Archetype” for a deeper meditation on what men can do to reduce violence, especially towards women.