.:.Welcome to Voice Male Magazine .:.

There is a struggle underway to define manhood and masculinity. It’s playing out in the halls of Congress, in pop culture, and in desperate protests to maintain an outmoded view of what our country should look—and be—like. It’s a story not being covered much by mainstream media.

During the last presidential campaign, Barack Obama represented a break from conventional manhood; John McCain was its standard bearer. A year and half into his presidency, Mr. Obama is still seen as a sensitive and thoughtful man, a caring husband and devoted father, even as many of his policy decisions come under fire from progressive quarters. But the debate about a new direction for manhood is largely absent.

For as far as many men have come over the last generation in accepting—if not embracing—the historic world-changing gains women have made, there are others yearning for the bad old days when men were the kings of their castles. Rather than seeing in feminism a portal to our own personal growth, many men narrowly see it as a threat to the status quo. Many show great disdain for women’s rights. Sadly, it’s those men’s shrill voices that are getting much play, clogging the airwaves and the blogosphere.

Men’s were among the harshest voices warning of Armageddon during the health care debate, and in the bitter diatribes directed at President Obama as well as civil rights veteran John Lewis and liberal Barney Frank—both members of Congress (The great exception was Sarah Palin, a self-described pit bull with lipstick.) But while the media highlights mean-spirited men, there is another side of the story— men around the world working for gender equality.

Under the umbrella of MenEngage (www.menengage.org), there are hundreds of groups and organizations which understand the crucial need for men and women to question conventional attitudes and expectations about gender roles in reaching gender equality. Among their efforts is a men and gender equality policy project underway in Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, China, Croatia, Mexico, South Africa and Tanzania. Other countries are expected to participate in the coming years.

Founded in 2004, MenEngage members are dedicated to involving men and boys in working to end violence against women and in redefining old-style notions of manhood. Among its core beliefs? Manhood is /not /defined by how many sexual partners men have, or by using violence against women or men. It’s also not defined by how much pain men can endure, or by how much power we can exert over others. It certainly isn’t defined by whether we’re gay, straight or trans.

Rather, manhood is defined by building relationships based on respect and equality; by speaking out against violence in society; by having the strength to ask for help; by sharing decision-making and power; and by how much we as men are able to respect the diversity and rights of those around us. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Sounds achievable. So what gets in our way? The power, privilege and sense of entitlement we enjoy as men.

Taking a hard look at privileges we’ve long held is a “manly” thing to do if, by manly we mean courageous, thoughtful, and caring. What happens for men when we question the entitlement we inherited simply by being born in male bodies? What shifts for us when we no longer assume social conditions favoring us are right, or just, or “normal?” A transformation begins. A door opens, an invitation to explore our inner lives is extended and it’s suddenly not quite as scary to spend time exploring our feelings. We become more available to ourselves and to women, men, and children—to everyone in our lives. So tightly have we been holding on to what we’ve perceived as our birthright, few have considered what treasures await us if we let go. How to compare discovering one’s heart opening vs. needing open heart surgery? How to equate surrounding ourselves with symbols of wealth vs. surrounding ourselves with circles of friends?

A new report by the Men and Gender Equality Policy Project, notes, “In far different ways than women and girls, boys are also made vulnerable by rigid notions of gender and masculinities.” Conventional expressions of dominant masculinity, ample research confirms, drive dangerous rates of alcohol, tobacco, and substance abuse, car accidents, occupational illness, and suicide. In such a world, everyone loses, not just the men. “For the most part,” the report says, “programs and policies have not fully tapped into men’s and boys’ self-interest for change,” particularly in the positive experiences many men report as they become more involved in caregiving and family relationships.

Careful not to pit the needs of men against the needs of women, the report promotes forging alliances among “women’s rights activists, civil society groups working with men (and male leaders), the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender [communities] and other social justice movements.” Noting the common interests all these groups share in ending gender inequalities, the report advocates taking up gender equity as a cause not only for women and girls “but also to reduce the pressures on men and boys to conform to harmful, rigid, and violent forms of manhood.”

That pressure to conform—combined with a sense of privilege—is a dangerous mix. I favor cultivating the middle ground where men explore our lives after letting go of the pressure, after giving up the privilege. I see plenty of examples that give me hope and inspiration.

I am a member of V-Men, the male arm of V-Day (www.vday.org), the antiviolence organization playwright-activist Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues) founded that works to prevent violence against women and girls and, more recently, to advance healthy masculinity as a key to a world where all are safe and free. The writer Mark Matousek is interviewing men for a book exploring men’s lives as they really are—filled with disappointments as well as successes, fear and vulnerability as well as confidence and strength, love lost and love found. To me it’s a critical component of a strategy to encourage men to move from being bystanders to allies (if not activists) in the struggle to end violence against women, girls and men. And in overcoming the damaging effects of conventional masculinity. (Editor’s Note: Mark and I are leading a workshop, “Ten Ways to be a Man: Men’s Voices in the 21st Century” at the Rowe Conference Center in northwestern Massachusetts May-14-16).

What will it take for us as men to face our full humanity? What will it take for us to wake up to the healing the world is crying out for? Men relinquishing our privilege, willing to investigate our inner lives, doing the work of integration so that the personal becomes the global. Men engaged in /that /work are the ones the media would be well advised to report on if they truly want to be fair and balanced. But whether they do or not, it’s up to us as men to take a long, hard look at how we’ve been socialized—from boyhood on—and to decide what to keep, what to transform.

This is the moment to ask the deepest questions of ourselves, to wake up to our potential as full human beings. The urgency of these times—environmentally, politically, spiritually demands we take our place with women in the work of global transformation. The world is waiting.

In the midst of the celebrations that a historic key first step has been taken to fix the horrific profits-over-people U.S. health care system, men’s voices need to ring out in protest against any efforts to limit a woman’s right to make independent decisions about her reproductive health. Simply put, I urge men to join a chorus singing “No!” to the back room deal-making cut by Michigan Congress member Bart Stupak exchanging a “Yes” vote on the health insurance overhaul for a pledge from President Obama to issue an executive order prohibiting paying for abortions as part of the new law. As Michael Moore, the filmmaker who made Sicko and who lives in Stupak’s district, has pointed out: Stupak wants to ensure “no woman who buys her own insurance with her own money is able to have a medically-insured abortion (emphasis added).”

The stipulation doesn’t address federally-funded abortions—those were outlawed long ago through the (Henry) Hyde Amendment. Stupak objected because the bill didn’t prohibit private insurance programs—set up for those whose employers don’t provide it—from providing abortion coverage if they get any federal funding, even to an individual woman paying without any government help.

While it was no small feat to have moved the U.S. deplorable health care system forward, to have done so at the expense of women ’s rights seriously dims any celebration passing the new law invites.

March has already been a powerful month for men showing support for gender equality. As the temperature warmed and the snow drops and crocuses began peeking through the softening earth, I felt a lightness knowing how many men are putting their shoulders to the wheel of positive social change. Here’s a glimpse into the editor’s date book this first third of the month:

The Massachusetts State House in Boston was the scene of a gathering of several hundred men, young men and women allies on March 2 commemorating White Ribbon Day. Part of the international White Ribbon Campaign where men pledge not to commit, condone, or remain silent about violence against women, the Massachusetts effort brought together men from government, sports, law enforcements, business, and the activist world in a remarkable show of solidarity. At the reception that followed, while I didn’t take a scientific poll, nearly as many copies of Voice Male were scooped up as were coffee and cupcakes. Kudos to event organizer, the tireless Craig Norberg-Bohm, coordinator of the Men’s Initiative for Jane Doe, Inc, the Massachusetts umbrella organization for the several dozen domestic violence and sexual assault prevention organizations across the Commonwealth. A highlight of the event was the number of high school age young men at the gathering.

Two days later I was in a hotel ballroom next to Grand Central Station in New York City listening to a powerful panel discussing some of the ideas in “What Men Have to Do with It”, a new publication of the Men & Gender Equality Policy Project, examining public policies to promote gender equality in Mexico, South Africa, Chile, India and Brazil. The gathering, hosted by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, included a luncheon panel moderated by Klas Hyllander of Men for Gender Equality in Sweden. Publication of the new report was coordinated by the International Center for Research on Women in Washington and Delhi, and Instituto Promundo in Rio de Janeiro. Panelists Edford Mutama of Planned Parenthood in Zambia, and Saghir Bukhari of Partners for Prevention and UNIFEM, Asia and Pacific region, joined Gary Barker of International Center for Research on Women, and Dean Peacock of the Sonke Gender Justice Network in South Africa, in a hopeful exchange about challenges, progress and possibility. There’s a long way to go in achieving true gender equality and the gap between language and legislation and action and implementation still needs to be spanned. If the work is to be accomplished, we’ll need the keen strategic thinking and the big brave hearts of the men and women who indeed are moving the wheel of positive change forward.

On March 8th, I sat with old friends and colleagues at an annual International Women’s Day breakfast, hosted by the Greenfield, Mass.-based New England Learning Center for Women in Transition (NELCWIT), a foremother in the battered women’s shelter movement. The room was alive with energy as Kathy Alexander, former education director for the Northwestern District Attorney’s office, a passionate advocate for gender justice and women’s safety spoke truth to power in a cadence inviting comparisons to an electrifying preacher. The room of veteran activists was moved.

Serving women and children in a rural county just below Vermont and New Hampshire, NELCWIT offers hope, safety and inspiration–key ingredients as we continue the walk toward justice. Men supporting battered women’s shelters is a key part of our responsibility in taking steps from the sidelines of inaction to the playing fields of change.

By Rob Okun

From members of the baseball team at the University of Massachusetts to the state’s Lieutenant Governor, Tim Murray, men are taking a pledge not to commit, condone or stay silent about domestic violence or sexual abuse. They are part of a week of activities that get underway statewide March 1 in advance of International Women’s Day on March 8th. A proclamation day gathering at the statehouse in Boston is being celebrated on March 2.

Why should men get involved in what many have called a “women’s issue?” It’s simple: domestic abuse and sexual assault against women are community issues impacting wives and partners, mothers, daughters, sisters—everyone. As men, White Ribbon Day gives us an opportunity to proclaim, “From this day forward, I promise to be part of the solution in ending violence against women.”

Dozens of men came down from their seats at a UMass basketball game last month to take the pledge read by Lt. Gov. Murray, a longtime advocate of domestic violence prevention efforts. The Massachusetts undertaking is part of the White Ribbon Campaign (WRC), an international crusade to engage men and boys to help end violence against women. Besides the baseball team, members of fraternities said no to violence at the halftime event.

Spearheaded in the Bay state by Jane Doe, Inc., the statewide coalition working to prevent domestic and sexual abuse, WRC is a powerful symbol of a social movement aimed at transforming men from perpetrators of—or bystanders to—violence against women, into advocates on behalf of girls’ and women’s safety. It was founded in Canada in 1991, after the Montréal Massacre on December 6, 1989 in which 14 women students at a polytechnical institute were brutally killed and 13 students wounded by a lone gunman. The first year 100,000 men across Canada wore white ribbons. The campaign is now worldwide operating in nearly 60 countries, and has gathered more than five million signatures of support.

According to Craig Norberg-Bohm, coordinator of the Men’s Initiative for Jane Doe, in 2008 the organization first organized the Massachusetts component of what now is an “international effort for human rights, engaging men to help end violence against women, men and children.”

The campaign focuses on men’s violence against women because of its fundamental connection to all forms of personal, economic and structural violence and oppression throughout the world. Not all men are violent and the campaign is not about individual acts of violence. It focuses, Norberg-Bohm says on “a broader framework that confronts unhealthy behaviors and promotes positive masculinity.” It has adopted an international human rights perspective, because, he believes, it “challenges us to change the ways in which male authority has been equated with power and control over others’ individual freedoms and liberties and the world around them.”

In my work with men, I have witnessed a slow and steady openness among a range of men to speak up about the minority of males who perpetrate abuse. Events like White Ribbon Day are raising the profile of this work. Across Massachusetts, Norberg-Bohm says there are nearly 400 White Ribbon Campaign “ambassadors” promoting the campaign and its message of nonviolence in Massachusetts.

Despite the harrowing cases of domestic abuse and brutal sexual assaults occurring in communities from small towns and cities in the U.S. to the Congo in Africa, antiviolence efforts by men are gaining adherents. It’s especially encouraging to see the number of college-age men initiating campus campaigns to challenge male violence. I met scores of them at a first-ever conference of campus males committed to gender equality in Minnesota last November, and was heartened to learn they are developing campus cultures that promote respect and safety for women and girls. They are the future—emerging leaders in the work of ending gender-based violence.

Any campaign that has as goals “changing societal attitudes and beliefs that perpetuate and make excuses for violence against women; promoting safety and respect in all relationships and situations; fostering a positive image of masculinity, and inviting all men and boys to join in a celebration of personal peace and cooperation” are ones everyone should get behind. I know I can.

To take the pledge or to learn about more go to www.janedoe.org/whiteribbonday.

What an image. With tears in his eyes New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Blees held his son, Gaylen, aloft moments after the Saints stunned the Indianapolis Colts to win their first-ever Superbowl.
The boost to the city of New Orleans notwithstanding–even as the new energy that marvelous city feels can’t be overstated–there’s an important moment in the evolving definitions of masculinity that shouldn’t be overlooked in the midst of all the celebrating in the French Quarter and around the country.

For several minutes it was a teary-eyed father looking into his son’s eyes, holding him, transmitting love and care before an audience of millions. The high fivin’ and shuckin’ and jivin’ with teammates was playing second fiddle to a father beaming love to his son. We need lots more of that expression of manhood seen and celebrated, affirmed and acknowledged.

For so many dads that moment prompted memories of their own teary moments with their children, moments that were never televised but are just as real. We see too many images of men behaving badly–bad news seems to take care of itself–so every opportunity to put the loving face of fatherhood and manhood before the public should be celebrated. I’m not so naive to believe that, among the revelers in N’awlins “who dattin’” all over town, there are a few saying “You go, Drew!” to the Saints quarterback, winner of the MVD–Most Valuable Dad award–at least on a glorious Sunday night in Miami.

Originally published in June 2008.

It was no accident that New Orleans was the site of the 10th anniversary of V-Day, a dizzying two-day celebration in April of the global movement to end violence against women and girls. The vibrant, pulsating city, though far from healed in the two and a half years since the levees broke, flooding the city in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, offered safe harbor for the slam poets, artists, writers, healers, hell raisers, and hope mongers — activists all in the struggle for truth, justice, and a new American way. I was part of the tribe that converged on the Big Easy, in my case to also speak at Tulane University and to visit one of my daughters.

While it was a far cry from Mardi Gras, colorful costumes, laugh-outloud T-shirts (“Viva las Vulvas” read one), Native American dancers, and the Mahalia Jackson Choir made for a celebratory mood. We needed all that upbeat energy as a counterweight to the grim stories of violence against women recounted from the main stage. It was both chilling and hopeful that V-Day was held in the Superdome where so many suffered, primarily New Orleanians of color who had no way to get out of the city after the storm. Transforming the space from a suffocating container of despair to a vessel of great hope was accomplished by imaginative art—installations suggesting vaginal canals and portraits of “sheroes” of the women’s and civil rights movements. Upper floors had places for women to go for free health care, a hair salon, and yoga instruction. An “activists’ lounge,” open to women and men, was filled with literature, art, books, and animated conversations.

An imaginative, urgent effort to raise consciousness and money, V-Day grew out of playwright-activist Eve Ensler’s wedding of art and activism. Her awardwinning play, The Vagina Monologues is expected by the end of 2008 to have been performed at more than 3700 V-Day events around the United States and the world. A star-studded performance of the play, featuring Jane Fonda, Julia Stiles, Salma Hayek, and Jennifer Beals, capped off the two-day gathering and included music by Jennifer Hudson, Faith Hill, and the New Orleans Gospel Choir.

Among the conversations Eve Ensler facilitated from the stage was one with women activists from conflict zones — Iraq, Bosnia, Afghanistan, the Philippines, and the Congo. The struggle for women’s lives in these war-torn countries was as heartbreaking to hear as it was inspiring to learn of women’s vision and small victories.

At V-Day, men were also visible, albeit a minority of all who attended. Some were activists working to prevent violence against women; others were eager to learn what they could do. A men’s panel featuring local and national figures in the antiviolence men’s movement held the attention of the audience with a sophisticated discussion of men’s roles in perpetuating and preventing violence.

As more men — from high school to middle age — are encouraged to examine (and break out of) the box of conventional masculinity men have been socialized to inhabit, a burning question looms large: How can we inspire more men to acknowledge that some men’s violence requires all men to reject any kind of abuse of women? There is no middle way. To paraphrase the current tenant of the White House, “Either you’re for the abusers or you’re against them.” We have to continue to challenge ourselves to find our voices and to shift our position from the “I’m-a-good-guy-I-don’tabuse-women” bystander to someone who won’t tolerate men who act abusively. Men’s participation in inspirational gatherings such as V-Day is a part of the strategy.

Perhaps the most compelling expression of the possibility for men in the movement to end violence against women was the conversation Eve Ensler conducted with Dr. Denis Mukwege, director and founder of the Panzi General Referral Hospital in Bukavu, in South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The lone physician at Panzi Hospital, Dr. Mukwege said the hospital is the only center for victims of sexual violence in eastern Congo. The level of violence against women there is unthinkable: vaginas violated with bayonets, bottles, sticks. “This is not rape,” Dr. Mukwege said, “this is a decimation, destruction, the destruction of life force, of life.” At Panzi Hospital, he repairs and reconstructs that which has been destroyed.

After 10 years of the world knowing about these unprecedented assaults, why has there has been no real progress? Ensler asked Dr. Mukwege. “The world needs to be altered,” he said. “The world comes, sees, is moved and then forgets.” He said V-Day inspired him with the spirit of healing and hope it engendered. “I see the image of a snowball gaining momentum, of change coming.” To the question, “What about you, as a man, keeps you in the Congo, keeps you giving your life to women?” he answered: “We live with women. We understand the strength of women. Women’s work – unlike men’s — extends throughout the day. When you’ve been raped, when you are without your strength, it is necessary to help women regain their strength, to work beside women.” Dr. Mukwege is currently overseeing construction of the City of Joy, a refuge for healed women, survivors of torture and rape who have no family and no community.

Throughout the gathering, Dr. Mukwege’s words came back to me, like a call and response one might hear out on the bayou. “Every day… every day …Say no to violence, say no to rape… Say no to violence, say no to rape… In each community… In each community… Each individual should say No! Should stand up and say No!… Each individual should say No! Should stand up and say No!… If everyone would do that, things will change… If everyone would do that, things will change…

V-Day’s 10th anniversary brought together women and men of conscience from around the United States and around the world. By being held in New Orleans, symbol of struggle and possibility for a renewed America, the gathering radiated a moral urgency. Creating a world safe for women and girls means creating a world safe for boys and men. Women have long been doing their part; as men we must redouble our efforts to do ours.

Originally published in December 2007.

“From this day forward, I promise never to commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women, sexual assault and domestic violence.” — White Ribbon Campaign pledge

Is that a pledge you can sign onto?  I hope so.

At the Men’s Resource Center for Change, we care about men and support men.  So it makes sense that from the earliest days of our organization that in addition to looking at how we could support men we would also want to address how we could compassionately but directly confront men who’d crossed a line in their behavior. Among the range of programs and activities we coordinate (including several drop-in support groups for non-abusive men), are batterers’ intervention groups in all four western Massachusetts counties. Why do we do this work? Because the epidemic of men’s violence against women compels us to do nothing less. Society needs to hold men accountable for their behavior, pure and simple. We also do this work because we believe in men. We believe in men’s capacity to grow, to learn, to heal, to change. (That’s why we also run groups weekly for non-violent men.)

Today we are committing to continue to that work by lending our name and experience to a new effort here in our home state of Massachusetts — the White Ribbon Campaign (WRC). White Ribbon was founded and launched in Canada, two years after the Montréal Massacre in which 14 women students at the Montreal’s École Polytechnique were systematically killed and 13 other students wounded by a lone gunman on December 6, 1989. One hundred thousand men wore ribbons across Canada that first year. Today, the WRC is a worldwide campaign in 47 countries, with well over 5,000,000 signatures and counting.

Our friends at the Men’s Initiative for Jane Doe, Inc. in Boston, and other colleagues and friends across the Commonwealth, have concluded that is “time for Massachusetts to join this international effort to engage men to help end violence against women, men and children.  It’s a chance for all men – heterosexual, gay, bisexual and transgender – to challenge the to challenge the notions of masculinity that equate strength with violence and control and instead foster positive images of masculinity that will help us create a world free of abuse.” We couldn’t agree more.

Through the Men’s Initiative — and with the assistance of organizations including the Men’s Resource Center — Jane Doe Inc. is launching an annual statewide White Ribbon Day Campaign in Massachusetts on next February 14^th.  Valentine’s Day was specifically chosen to launch the campaign to highlight the need to combine safety and respect with romance and love. (On Valentine’s Day 2005, the Men’s Resource Center organized a full-page newspaper campaign headlined “A Valentine’s Day Message from Men of Heart” in which 155 men signed on to a message that urged “… creating a society where women are safe from violence every day,” and encouraged men “to reject a masculine culture of violence and to support an egalitarian culture of peace.”   (To see the entire ad, which, provoked protest from some men who felt the ad’s text ignored abuse men experience, go to Men of Heart 2005).

Outlined below are the goals of the Massachusetts White Ribbon Campaign

• Invite men throughout Massachusetts to take the pledge (cited at the top of the page), put on a white ribbon and speak out against violence against women, sexual assault and domestic violence;
• Send the public message that men must and are taking responsibility to end men’s violence against women;
• Highlight the inspiring and creative work being done by and with men in nearly two dozen communities throughout Massachusetts and encourage their replication;
• Engage more men in transforming social norms that perpetuate and support sexual assault and domestic violence create an environment that promotes respect and equality by connecting them with their local Jane Doe Inc. member program and with JDI’s statewide efforts; and
• Raise funds to support the work of local victim services groups and the state coalition.

To learn more about how you can participate — including becoming a White Ribbon “Ambassador”, “Sponsor” or “Affiliate”, please visit Jane Doe or Men’s Initiative for Jane Doe Inc.

Originally published in October 2007.

Can advocating for a new brand of masculinity find a place in the national conversation about next year’s presidential election? Manhood — even with the presence of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in the race — is still a central aspect of presidential politics. In post 9/11 America, the question, “Who is the toughest and strongest, firmest and most decisive candidate to best protect me from the terrorists?” is one most voters would admit, on some level, they are asking themselves. For many, “Who is thoughtful, deliberate, compassionate and collaborative?” is not. It’s not a question we read about in the paper or hear a talking head on a television news program ever raise, and rarely see blogged about online.

Gender, of course, is on display in the campaign; so is race for that matter. The candidacies of Senator Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama have helped to assure us of that. But we’d be missing a lot if we only focused our attention there. Each has bowed under the weight of conventional masculinity’s strong grip: Senator Clinton sounding at times like Margaret Thatcher and, with Senator Obama’s strongly expressed sentiments about sending troops into Pakistan and/or Syria, he sounded a “No More Mr. Nice Guy” message. On the Republican side, all the candidates seem to share at least a common desire to be seen as tough, no-nonsense guys whose shoe sizes are big enough to fit into George Bush’s shoot-first-ask-questions-never cowboy boots.

Nothing out of the ordinary here and, of course, that’s the problem. There is very little questioning of the framework in which the manhood debate is presented. “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists” still seems to be the subtext of political life in the United States, a life overrun by male bluster and blather. Candidate Dennis Kucinich, the longtime Ohio congressman, would qualify as an exception, but he continues to be marginalized, in part because of his advocacy for creating a Department of Peace. (What kind of a real man would sponsor a bill like that!?)

Senator Obama and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards have offered tantalizing looks at their “kinder, gentler” sides. Yet their campaigns have carefully studied what happens when they do so and more often than not they have retreated, fearful of the way they have been feminized — seen as too kind, too gentle. Blending the best of new ways for men to be—nurturing, vulnerable — with the best of conventional manhood — decisive and courageous (to carefully name a couple of attributes) creates a middle way, a path wide enough for a lot of different kinds of men to pass through. Whatever one thought of his presidency, for those interested in an example of a political figure representing this middle way blend, think of Jimmy Carter in the years since he left the White House. For those interested in a more contemporary example, think of Al Gore. Both spent time after leaving electoral politics learning more about themselves and sharing with the rest of us a lot of what they learned. Each presented himself as more vulnerable, more open, more real. Maybe not perfect examples, but certainly steps in the right direction.

Showing support for candidates at all levels of elective office who are, for example, actively involved fathers (and who acknowledge the stress running for office places on their role as dad) is one step we can take. Even if we don’t agree with other positions such candidates take — and we choose not to vote for them—we can raise the profile of a more balanced way to think of manhood by pointing to that aspect of their candidacies.

Just as the country as a whole has been well served by having the voices of women in leadership positions across the spectrum of government, so, too, will our future be more secure if the voices of new kinds of men are heard.

It’s up to us to help identify those men, to support them to know they won’t be denigrated for speaking from the heart some of the time. There is no aspect of society—education, sports and entertainment, medicine, the courts—that couldn’t benefit from an infusion of men committed to replacing bravado with humility. Male presidential candidates may not be willing to do so in this coming election, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t demand they do so anyway, or that we shy away from articulating what we want from men in the days — and elections — ahead.

A version of this September 2007 web editorial, “Women’s Equality, Men’s Liberation” originally appeared as “Men Also Share Fruits of Women’s Equality Day” in the cutting edge, online publication WomensEnews (www.womensenews.org).

On August 26, 1920, 72 years after the struggle had begun, women in the U.S. had at last won the right to vote. Eight days earlier, suffragist (Anita) Lili Pollitzer, a 25 year-old activist, had successfully persuaded Tennessee state legislator Harry T. Burn, 24, to cast the deciding vote. The 19th Amendment to the Constitution was finally the law of the land and the nation’s 26 million voting-age women were at last enfranchised. Woman Suffrage Day (now named Women’s Equality Day), beyond commemorating the date women succeeded in getting the right to vote, also symbolizes women’s ongoing quest for equality. While acknowledging that pivotal anniversary, the day can be more than only a celebration for women. It affords men a chance to learn from women’s struggle for independence valuiable tools we can apply to our own liberation.

If we’re willing to honestly examine our long held fear of powerful women–and the false notion that we lose some of our power as women gain more of theirs — there’s much for men to learn from Women’s Equality Day. Not the least of which is a direction for leading rewarding lives, including understanding our inner world more profoundly.

In this arena, women have long led the way. If that’s a problem for some of us guys, well, it’s time for us to get over it. Healthy leadership knows no gender.

Four decades ago, when women began renewing their demand for self-determination and freedom across the board–including the ongoing process of examining all female roles in society — they uncovered a silver lining of independence from which men can benefit too.

But first we have to unflinchingly examine our fears. Many of us have felt confused, unsure, angry and threatened by the gains women have made. In some households, being supplanted as top wage earner has triggered men’s insecurity; in others, it’s been women returning to school to finish a long-delayed degree. Some men feel they’re paying a steep price for sharing power: not just losing control but also self-respect.

What a set up. For healthy men, sharing power can have such a healing, eye-opening upside: offering us an opportunity to lighten the load of responsibility so many of us still feel we have to carry.

Danger Lurks

Danger lurks, though. Many unhealthy men, too shut down to examine their own lives, may cross the line, exhibiting controlling, even abusive behaviors. These behaviors must be confronted.

Some believe the advances women have made — increased job and career opportunities, improved wages, better child care — have come at men’s expense, as if freedom and independence were finite: “If she has it, then I’ve lost it,” the thinking goes. Truth is, liberation is like love: there’s an infinite supply.

Instead of men feeling resentful about the gains women have made, we might study women’s accomplishments and apply what we learn to our own lives.

For instance, many women have been public about their struggle to balance the world of work and career with that of relationship and child rearing. The public conversation about the “mommy track” may be a difficult one for women, but it reminds women they are not alone.

Sadly, men wrestling with those same issues usually do so in private, too often silent and isolated. In groups I’ve facilitated and with individual men I’ve counseled, I’ve heard the same refrain: “I was always too ashamed to talk about it.”

Unsympathetic supervisors have frowned upon, or have been outright hostile to, men who tried to organize their work schedule in order to make the game, the recital, the doctor’s appointment. As a result, many spoke about the despair they felt, the lack of support. Some described developing physical conditions that seemed to develop out of their inner condition: high blood pressure, depression, even suicidal thinking.

Sharing Stresses

For many men, the idea that sharing with others the stresses they were carrying could actually play a crucial role in shifting their experience had never occurred to them.

The world inhabited by my three daughters — 29, 26, and 22 — and son, 19, has been informed by the struggle for equality women have been waging since before they were born. They’ve all benefited greatly from their mothers’ many acts fierce acts of independence. That one daughter is in Tibet right now working on a film about Buddhist nuns, that another just completed an emergency medical technician certification training in Montana, and that the third is in North Carolina beginning a nurse practitioner graduate program speaks volumes about what women can achieve.

Does their younger brother, a college sophomore, feel undermined by their stepping into the big, wide world, arms flung open, reaching for the sky? Hardly. He’s inspired. Just as I am. He knows there is room for him to think big, too. He freely acknowledges how their many trips, when he was in elementary, middle school and high school to Asia, the Middle East, and Central and Latin America, emboldened him to begin his own international travels.

Like many men, I’ve backed away from admitting the fear and vulnerability I’ve sometimes felt navigating my life. Long before I began finding strength and hope, wisdom and love, friendship and healing, in the company of men, I found it with women: women in the anti-war movement in Washington, D.C., in the late ’60s; strong leaders in the anti-nuke movement in the ’70s, proponents of feminist political art in the ’80s. Their uncompromising honesty all contributed significantly to my learning how to open up to myself.

I didn’t have the language for it at the time but women were modeling a kind of courage I was hungry for, going for a full life without limits.

Men Join the Celebration

It’s fitting that men join a celebration of the 19th Amendment that the suffragist movement left to the world 87 years ago.

While we’re celebrating, let’s include a generous dollop of hope for what’s possible for our sons, too.

So thank you, sisters, for being unwilling to accept the restricted lives society imposed on you for so long. Thank you for setting no limits for who you could become. Thank you for articulating the link between the civil rights and the women’s rights movements. Thank you for expanding that link to include so many other vital causes, from gay and transgender rights to environmental justice and immigrant solidarity; to name just a few. Thank you for your leadership in the anti-war movement, then and now. You are an inspiration.

As important as Women’s Equality Day is in marking what women have accomplished, there is still a long way to go.

Yet as a powerful symbol for men to consider, it raises a question: Can men commit to appreciating women’s lives and women’s leadership on more than just this one day? Absent our fears, jealousies and unfulfilled longings for connection, can we unabashedly commemorate this holiday and, in the process, open to our own possibility, our own questions?

I hope so. For those of us who can, we will be well on our way to celebrating our own Independence Day.

Originally published in June 2007.

Inspiration. How do you bottle it and keep it with you for those times when you’re feeling down?  I was wondering about that conundrum the other day after I participated in a rally for gender equality organized by a group of high school students.

About 40 people gathered on the town common in Amherst, Massachusetts on a sunny late afternoon at the end of May for a Speak Out on Gender Equality organized by the Women’s Rights Club of Amherst Regional High School (a group of 60 students, more than a quarter of whom are male). I’ve written about this group before in this spot and in the pages of Voice Male magazine. The Women’s Rights Club, some may recall, is the group which, among its other activities, successfully staged the Vagina Monologues at an area arts center last February—and did so completely on their own.

The movement for gender equality is growing on college campuses and in communities in pockets around the country. It is fueled, in large measure, by women and men who decry men’s violence against women. But it is also energized by the growing ability of younger women and men to communicate honestly and openly with one another about relationships, their different gendered experiences, and their hopes for a better world. If you want to feel hopeful consider this: one young women told rally-goers that she joined the Women’s Rights Club because her boyfriend knew it was a great group and thought she’d find it worthwhile!

Both women and men spoke. Older women and younger women took the microphone at the rally, sharing personal experiences of the damaging effects of media representations of women (and the stereotyping of men). It felt good to be among kindred spirits who shared an analysis of the media: television’s dumbing down of women and men and its unrealized promise as a vehicle for raising consciousness and hope was roundly castigated. Their was a sense of outrage that today, several decades after the movement to challenge men’s violence against women began, women are still being assaulted physically, emotionally, sexually in alarming numbers. And yet. And yet when it was announced that when the club resumes activities next September it will be co-chaired by a female and male student I felt a surge of inspiration and hope. That this group, less than a year old, has reached the place many women’s and men’s organizations of longstanding are just now arriving at—collaborating more intentionally and regularly—should give us all pause. I found myself breaking out in a broad grin when I heard the incoming male co-chair announce that one of the club’s goals for next year is to recruit more young men to at least attend a club meeting.

Among the many remarkable speakers–professors of women’s studies and media criticism, astute high school women whose wisdom balanced both what was in their heads and in their hearts–one other speaker’s message stayed with me. It was a man who had been walking by the rally and stopped to learn what was going on. After listening for quite a while, he took a turn at the microphone to say he was moved by what he had heard. He said he initially had had no intention of speaking but felt compelled. He was 27, he shared, and in every relationship he’d ever had with a woman, somewhere early on in the process of getting to know one another, all had shared that they had been abused in some way by their male partners. He was saddened and upset to be remembering that but being in the company of those at the rally, he felt hopeful too, he said. It only took a few dozen young people a half a generation behind him with a wisdom a half a generation ahead of them to make the difference. Neither he nor I may have the elixir bottle to fill with the over-brimming sense of inspiration we shared, but both of us have our memories of that day. I hope each of you has some of your own.