a piece i wrote a while back...
Understanding Men
Ok…to understand men’s issues…one has to be able to listen to men…we have a lot of things to say that we don’t feel safe to say…we are very emotionally vulnerable and we can be hurt when we are dismissed for simply being a man…the hazard here is that after a while we tend to act these frustrations out…one must understand that men have a lot of things to say that might not be so easy to hear…we have some darkness in our worlds…and to get us to open up…really open up…one has to be able to hear some things that are unsavory at best…one has to understand that we are in conflicting times…the way things worked for dear old dad is not working for us…if there were a men’s revolution similar to the women’s revolution…I doubt that many women would approve…it would by necessity be more radical due in part to our natures and also the enormous changes that must be put in place in relatively short order…what I perceive to be a problem here is that many men have not formed their own psychic identity…when they broke away from “mom”…they immediately replaced her with a woman they “loved”…and in loving that woman…gave her the same power that mom used to have…the power to shame and guilt…the power to approve or disapprove of actions and decisions…while remaining uninvolved or unaffected by said actions and decisions…also men need to resist the sexual manipulation and coercion that women use to influence their decisions…I believe that men should form their own identities…separate…wholly separate from women…and I don’t mean the pity/whine groups that have sprung up around the country…if a man is going to go to a therapist or counselor…he should go to a man who is capable of understand and having compassion for his plight or position he finds himself in…the other thing that men need desperately is initiation into what it means to be a man…we need groups for young men that include older males…we need to weed out the perverts who are mostly products of maternal psychic or physical abuse and absent fathers…what we need is a new way of thinking about manhood that does not involve violence and drugs and other destructive behaviors…ways that do not involve being emotionally dependent on another for your emotional well being…we need a way of thinking that encourages self-love and esteem…a way that is true for us as men to be able to be the myriad of beings that we are…
DJones 2003
Understanding Men
Ok…to understand men’s issues…one has to be able to listen to men…we have a lot of things to say that we don’t feel safe to say…we are very emotionally vulnerable and we can be hurt when we are dismissed for simply being a man…the hazard here is that after a while we tend to act these frustrations out…one must understand that men have a lot of things to say that might not be so easy to hear…we have some darkness in our worlds…and to get us to open up…really open up…one has to be able to hear some things that are unsavory at best…one has to understand that we are in conflicting times…the way things worked for dear old dad is not working for us…if there were a men’s revolution similar to the women’s revolution…I doubt that many women would approve…it would by necessity be more radical due in part to our natures and also the enormous changes that must be put in place in relatively short order…what I perceive to be a problem here is that many men have not formed their own psychic identity…when they broke away from “mom”…they immediately replaced her with a woman they “loved”…and in loving that woman…gave her the same power that mom used to have…the power to shame and guilt…the power to approve or disapprove of actions and decisions…while remaining uninvolved or unaffected by said actions and decisions…also men need to resist the sexual manipulation and coercion that women use to influence their decisions…I believe that men should form their own identities…separate…wholly separate from women…and I don’t mean the pity/whine groups that have sprung up around the country…if a man is going to go to a therapist or counselor…he should go to a man who is capable of understand and having compassion for his plight or position he finds himself in…the other thing that men need desperately is initiation into what it means to be a man…we need groups for young men that include older males…we need to weed out the perverts who are mostly products of maternal psychic or physical abuse and absent fathers…what we need is a new way of thinking about manhood that does not involve violence and drugs and other destructive behaviors…ways that do not involve being emotionally dependent on another for your emotional well being…we need a way of thinking that encourages self-love and esteem…a way that is true for us as men to be able to be the myriad of beings that we are…
DJones 2003
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Seattle
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Re: understanding men
Sun, November 5, 2006 - 2:24 PMThanks for posting this. This is very good input on this forum and I am surprised no-one so far engaged the topic. I agree with much of what you said there but would take a different angle on men's right - more conciliatory toward women.
The fact that most American men have the background of being raised by a strong discipline-wielding woman causes attitudes that subcousciously accept female authority where male authority should be asserted or at least used to confront and limit the female. The transference from mother to wife is somewhat transcultural but in America it is very strong. I think Erich Fromm wrote about it.
The issue of men's rights and allowing men to be men should be approached by first admitting that men and women are in fact alike and by seeking out the similarities. Also the genders are members of the same species and are destined to live together. Avoiding the polarization between genders will help rebuild trust that is getting lost. The source of this polarization is basically social power structure which feminists are trying to change by promoting women's rights in a "male-dominated" society. Maleness has been identified with social power - by men and women alike - but this power has not been that beneficial to men. It just gave them domination - but really only when they also had domination over other men - but not really access to intimacy. Currently men suffer from being presumed to be aggressive, dangerous and unsocial, unless they behave exactly accoding to a feminist paradigm. Here I would point at women and tell them to deal with their insecurities while helpfully showing how similar we really are.
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Re: understanding men
Sat, November 24, 2007 - 10:00 AMI agree... men are unilaterally seen as nonemotional creatures. And I think it is so to allow us to be greater manipulated by those who are adept to move emotion - women who are deputized to deal with emotion issues of the family by tradition.
being percived as insinsetive and dull hearted beings it is therefore permissibe to exploit and manipulate men by the same argument people have ever used in justifying slaughter of races nature or animals - that they just don't FEEL anything!
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Unsu...
Re: understanding men
Sat, November 24, 2007 - 10:40 AM"men need to resist the sexual manipulation and coercion that women use to influence their decisions"
I think this is an extremely vital idea that many men are just clueless about. So many men are completely unaware or unwilling/unable to acknowledge the extent to which the women in their lives sexually manipulate them, often on a daily basis. And so many women (especially young women) are absolutely drunk with their own sexual power and will think nothing of using such manipulation to get just about anything they want. Most men will just cede all sexual authority to women (granted, our society is presently constructed to encourage this, but it is important to resist).
It is comical to me to watch aging women (whose sexual power is waning) attempt to use the same sexual manipulation ploys they used when they were younger & hotter, only to find men completely ignoring them or brushing them aside for more fertile, fresher fruit. It's the panic that sets in once women lose their power to sexually manipulate men that serves to highlight the extent to which they have become accustomed to habitually using sexual manipulation tactics at a young age. -
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Re: understanding men
Sat, December 29, 2007 - 3:22 PM"I think this is an extremely vital idea that many men are just clueless about. So many men are completely unaware or unwilling/unable to acknowledge the extent to which the women in their lives sexually manipulate them, often on a daily basis. And so many women (especially young women) are absolutely drunk with their own sexual power and will think nothing of using such manipulation to get just about anything they want. Most men will just cede all sexual authority to women (granted, our society is presently constructed to encourage this, but it is important to resist)."
Wow, this is the serious truth. You see women using this on a daily basis but nobody's going to admit to it. Drunk is definitely the word - and arrogance, too.
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Re: understanding men
Thu, December 13, 2007 - 8:59 AMThis reminds me of messages that a couple of national men's groups are raising.
I don't have great links, but one could start with Robert Bly:
www.robertbly.com/index.html
He has been speaking about men's issues and about how our society has stripped all power from men. The women have taken over raising children...which leads to these issues with mom that you were mentioning. Men's roles have been reduced to going to boring, repetetive jobs that slowing suck our life away and gets us away from influencing our children. This also takes away our passion and energy to be functioning, powerful members of our society. I haven't seen him speak for about 10 years, so I'm not sure how his message has evolved, but he really advocates for this male revolution you bring up here.
Another organization (the Mankind Project) seeks to develop new initiation rites into manhood in an American culture that no long has such rites (with the exception of going to a strip club and getting drunk for the first time or something):
mkp.org/mkp.htm
I have listened to Robert Bly speak at men's gatherings...he acts as a wise elder that us yound guys (I'm 45) need. I haven't done the Mankind Project, because of scheduling issues, but I've been to their local meetings and these guys are great. They really focus on unlocking men's power, accessing our emotions and not being afraid to be men or do men things.
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Re: understanding men
Tue, January 22, 2008 - 9:45 PMI am glad to see that this thread picked up some interest.
Again I'll briefly restate my main observation: when childbirth is no longer very dangerous and men are not very often and not exclusively called upon to pick up arms to fight other men or nature the difference between the genders ought to diminish. The feminists are going the wrong way when they seek to emphasize them.
