.:.Welcome to Voice Male Magazine .:.

This article is excerpted from a talk he gave in Portland, Maine, on March 2, 2005, to the group Boys to Men.

Recently, despite my having filled out a form authorizing my son’s high school not to release his name and address to military recruiters, Jonah, who turns 17 this spring, has been getting mail from the Marines. Already a progressive young man with three older feminist sisters, Jonah is highly unlikely to enlist. Nevertheless, he still feels the pressure conventional masculinity continues to exert on young men–40 years after the Vietnam antiwar movement began to shape alternative ideas about manhood.

In the ensuing decades, questions about masculinity’s direction have continued to be asked. Today, nearly two years after the U.S. launched the war on Iraq, there are many who believe understanding masculinity–and redefining it–is the central question society needs to try and answer. And as the war grinds on thousands of miles from our shores, the struggle over the future of masculinity is being joined in town squares from Maine to Massachusetts, and from Texas to Tennessee. The interests battling to keep old-style, conventional masculinity in place at the head of the American family and at the head of the American government are pulling out all the stops. George W. is among their most passionate (if least articulate) proponents. And he has Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, new team member Alberto Gonzalez, and honorary male wannabe Condoleezza Rice all beating his war drum.

The linguist and social critic George Lakoff, author of Don’t Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, has decoded the language of the Bush White House and of the extreme right wing of the Republican Party. In so doing, he offers insight into the masculinity debate as well. That debate is clearly spelled out in the ideas of Rev. James Dobson, the evangelical Christian right’s leading moral philosopher, who heads an organization called Focus on the Family which has inaugurated a number of moral masculinity crusades, most recently taking on the animated children’s character SpongeBob SquarePants. Dobson is concerned that SpongeBob might be–perish the thought!–gay!

But that’s not all. Mr. Dobson oversees a multimillion-dollar business enterprise that includes broadcasts carried on hundreds of radio stations and books selling in the millions. One, entitled Dare to Discipline, calls for a return to the “strict father” model of parenting. It is an instructional manual for parents on how to raise their children.

Lakoff summarizes Dobson’s position this way: “The world is a dangerous place and there will always be evil out there…. The world is competitive; there will always be winners and losers. There is an absolute right and an absolute wrong. Children are born bad, in the sense that they just want to do what feels good, not what is right. Therefore they have to be made good. So what is needed in such a world is a strict father who can:

• Protect the family in the dangerous world
• Support the family in the difficult world and
• Teach his children right from wrong

Children need to know discipline and the strict father is the moral authority who knows right from wrong. It is further assumed that the only way to teach children right from wrong is through punishment.”

Punishment is a key concept to keep in mind when thinking about masculinity. The assumption boys grow into men believing is that if they are not strong enough and tough enough, they are going to be hurt. And the internal assumptions many fathers carry is that if they don’t threaten their sons with punishment for stepping out of line, then their sons will grow up weak and unable to defend themselves in a dangerous world.

Beneath the surface connecting “grow up weak” and “defend themselves” lies the principal message boys grow up with: I may have to be a soldier someday and I may have to kill. A central question for us to consider: Can we create conditions in our society so boys can be freed from that deadly burden?

Clearly, male biology has a say in the conversation. That’s a given. But “war does not come naturally to men from biology,” according to Prof. Joshua Goldstein in his 2001 book, War and Gender. :Cultures mold men into warriors by attaching to ‘manhood’ or ‘masculinity’ those qualities that make a good warrior. Warriors,” Goldstein suggests, “require intense socialization and training in order to fight effectively. Gender identity becomes a tool with which societies induce men to fight.”

But gender identity can be redirected into other, more fruitful channels. Professor Goldstein, also the father of an 11-year-old boy, described for me how he and his wife struggled to find a suitable form of rough-and-tumble play for his son that didn’t involve toy guns. They hit upon firefighting and outfitted their then much younger little boy with all the accoutrements. The ability to think clearly under pressure, to be physically strong and to take decisive action to protect others offers a useful direction to boys and young men. One day, after firefighter play had long been established in his home, Professor Goldstein came home to discover his son playing in the living room, both arms extended sweeping the room and making a sound he presumed was imitating gunfire. “Oh, no,” he thought. Despite his best efforts to keep it at bay, the culture of boys and guns had invaded his son’s psyche. Casually, he asked him what he was doing. “Oh,” his son said, demonstrating, “I’m putting out a really big fire.”

Flash forward to the firefighters and rescue workers amid the smoldering rubble at Ground Zero at the World Trade Center in the days following September 11 and you can see how this aspect of masculinity was so movingly expressed. (Of course the bravery of women working at the scene was also fully in evidence.)

Let’s return to George Lakoff’s decoding of Reverend Dobson’s stern philosophy. Lakoff summarizes Dobson’s rationale behind physical punishment like this:

When children do something wrong, if they are physically disciplined they learn not to do it again. That means they will develop internal discipline to keep themselves from doing wrong, so in the future they will be obedient and act morally. Without such punishment, the world will go to hell. There will be no morality.

(We may cringe, but remember: this is a message an alarmingly large number of mothers and fathers in the United States are now hearing.)

Now, let’s look at Lakoff’s assumptions about how progressive people understand morality. It, too, comes out of a family model, which Lakoff calls the “nurturant parent” worldview. The strict father model is so named because it sees the father as the head of the family. The nurturant parent model is gender neutral, and assumes both parents are equally responsible for raising children. It also suggests that children are born good and can be made better. The parents’ job is to raise children to make the world a better place, and part of doing so means nurturing their children to nurture others.

If men and women cooperatively decide to raise our boys with these values, then we are undermining the strict father model by encouraging freedom over obedience. And by articulating these values in our families, by sharing them explicitly in our communities and championing them in public discourse, we are clearing the path of impediments that would slow boys’ journey to healthy manhood. Those of us concerned with our boys taking this journey have to be vigilant in intervening to prevent institutions and customs that seek to encourage boys’ allegiance to the “strict father” worldview. That may mean challenging sports traditions that promote hyper-aggressive ways of getting up for the big game. It may mean organizing alternative programs when military recruiters descend on local high schools. (In western Massachusetts, for example, an organization called the Veterans Education Project sends vets into schools to share a message quite different from the recruiters’ pitch about the experience of serving in the military in wartime.) It may mean confronting authoritarian coaches and teachers who try to limit boys’ full range of emotional expression.

Also essential to our job of protecting and educating our youth is connecting the dots between what they see and hear suggesting that war is cool–the “shock and awe” of war news on TV, the violence in video games, the armed forces’ macho recruiting pitches–and the epidemic of domestic violence happening at home. As important as it is to ask them to consider what it means that over 1,500 U.S. citizens have been killed and 7 or 8,000 have been wounded since the Iraq War began–along with estimates of Iraqi war dead ranging from 75,000 to 100,000–what do they feel about the murder of women in our own communities, killed by men who believe it is their right to control them? When are we going to begin the conversation connecting peace in the home with peace in our land and abroad?

Boys are witnessing how their fathers treat their mothers. They are seeing how male teachers speak to female teachers. They are listening to how song lyrics depict girls and women–and boys and men. They are seeing how music videos do, and television shows and movies, pornography and video games. Where is the line between fantasy and reality? Between gender equality and sexual exploitation?

It may be a surprise to some that killing does not come naturally to men. Joshua Goldstein reminds us that societies historically have had to work hard to get men to fight–drafting them, disciplining them, using press gangs to round them up, shooting deserters.

And while there’s a long tradition of pacifism, conscientious objection, and protest in time of war, COs in World Wars I, II, and Korea were a tiny minority and often ridiculed–and jailed–for their principled stands. During the protests against the Vietnam War in the sixties and early seventies, however, there emerged the first modern example of large numbers of men refusing to go to war who were seen, in an influential subculture, almost as heroes, and certainly not as cowards.

I came of age in that era, reluctantly registering for the draft in June 1968, in the midst of the generational tug of war over our country’s moral direction. By the time my draft lottery number, 64, came up, and I was called for a physical at the old post office in Springfield, Massachusetts, I knew I had no intention of serving in “this man’s army.” Four years of college, half on the streets of the nation’s capital demonstrating against the war while a student at George Washington University, made it clear I was not going to be that kind of man. Nevertheless, regardless of one’s point of view about Vietnam, all 18- to 26-year-old males did have one thing in common: we had enlisted, in the words of writer Susan Faludi, in “the central masculine crisis of [our] generation.”

I recently contributed a chapter to a new book on the sixties called Time It Was, which will be published by Prentice-Hall next year. The following excerpt may shed some light on how some of us navigated the turbulent waters of conventional masculinity in those years:

As long-haired, rebellious young men, moving to the pulsing drumbeat of the anti-war protest movement, many of us saw our path to adulthood diverging from the path our peers were taking in the jungles of Viet Nam. I remember one spring driving on the Washington beltway in my brother’s VW, seven of us packed in en route to Baltimore for a concert featuring Janis Joplin & Big Brother and the Holding Company. We came upon a caravan of seven or eight open-backed army trucks tightly filled with soldiers in camouflage uniforms, wearing matching flat-rimmed caps over their closely shaved heads. We were keeping pace with them, us in the left lane and them in the right, heading, for the moment, in the same direction. What we had in common was our age–18, 19, 20–yet we were taking such different roads to manhood. In those days when I saw soldiers I’d shake my head dismissively, not understanding what drew them to the military. We represented a movement of men rejecting soldiering as the defining ideal of a masculine identity but back then we had no language to describe what we were feeling and what we saw happening. And sadly we never tried to find common ground on which to meet. All we knew then was that our decision to reject the military put us at great risk of being seen as less than “real men.” (On reflection, I’m sure there were very few among us back then who had begun to consider the issue of homophobia.) The language of war and the growing movement for peace obscured the gender lens we would years later use to understand our experience. What us strapping hetero rebels did appreciate was the support our tribal sisters offered, affirming our virility. As a popular tongue in cheek button and poster from the period read, “Girls Say Yes to Boys Who Say No.”)

Who were these guys, I asked myself as we rode alongside the caravan. Were they shipping out soon for Nam? What must it have been like to be leaving behind everything and everyone you cared about? I was in the passenger seat up front. The folks on my side in the back seat and I rolled down our windows and started flashing the peace sign at the soldiers. Miraculously, they started flashing it back, a sea of hands raised high, index and middle fingers spread wide. In that moment I felt us joined by our youth and our idealism, even if it was an idealism existing in a parallel universe. Ours was fueled by a naïve belief that we were subverting them–right then and there!–with our long hair, our colorful clothes, our freedom. These boys–our brothers–would surely go AWOL tonight or otherwise sabotage the war machine! We could feel it. They too, no doubt, felt they could change the world. But traveling to the jungles of Viet Nam where many would end up killing people, to go through that nightmare, would make any crazy acid trip seem like an Alice in Wonderland picnic. For the moment, on the road to Washington, we weren’t thinking about getting our heads kicked in by D.C. police at an anti-war demonstration and they, no doubt, weren’t thinking about raiding a village at daybreak, or getting shot by a sniper.

As we finally began to pass the lead truck, I locked eyes with a soldier who reminded me of a kid from my home town in Massachusetts. He looked tough, unemotional, defended. I suppose I was just beginning to get an inkling of some of the ways my male peers were playing out their passage into manhood. Could it be that the smooth stock of a rifle was actually a comfort to him? I certainly didn’t yet know what my brand of masculinity would end up looking like, but I was certain it would not be one that included sleeping with my rifle–a soldier’s “best friend.”

I believe it is critical that men’s work locate itself within the larger framework of the movement for social justice. Shining a hard light on men’s central roles in perpetuating the war system is a beginning. Social activists often say: “If you want peace, work for justice.” Taking that notion a step further, we can add: “If you believe that sexism contributes to war, work for gender justice in order to pursue peace.”

A few days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, I led a group for men who have abused their wives or partners. On the night after the unfathomable attacks against the United States, I asked the men to talk about their feelings, instead of what many men might naturally do–discuss the glut of news and images that had already overwhelmed all of our minds.

Each man said he was angry and wanted to retaliate. But what else? After some silence they allowed that things were no longer “safe,” they were “unsure” about the world, they were “afraid to travel.” More silence. My female co-leader finally named the feeling they didn’t seem ready to identify: vulnerability. Ironically, that’s the feeling their partners and wives often feel around them. And that’s just what such men must learn: When something happens to trigger rage, there are other choices to make besides reacting with violence.

Why talk about men’s tendency to lash out when they are frightened during a time of national trauma? Because what could be more important for our leaders to contemplate? Our anger was justified. The perpetrators needed be brought to trial. But it was time for a different approach from “might equals right.” It was time for the president to invite peacemakers such as the Dalai Lama back to the White House for more than just a photo op. It was time for a full-scale examination of a foreign policy that evokes such rage, such boiling hatred. Self-reflection has never been a particular strength of our country; it was time now to exercise it in full measure.

We had arrived at a teachable moment many citizens hoped wouldn’t require such an overwhelming tragedy to attain. Men in particular are obliged to seize such moments, to exercise a new kind of leadership. We knew what a unilateral assault on any nation would bring: countless dead, and fresh blood on our hands as we perpetuate the cycle of violence. For U.S. men to champion a culture of compassion rather than a culture of destruction sends a critical message to the rest of the world. Men today, especially fathers, have a rare opening to model a different kind of leadership for our sons and daughters at home and to press that message in Washington.

Will men step forward to call for restraint? Will men step forward to call for insight and wisdom? And ultimately, will men step forward to end the masculine culture of violence?

With the possibility of a draft being reinstated that would put more of our sons and daughters in harm’s way, men in particular have a responsibility to demonstrate how we could work to end that quintessentially male violent culture. We have an opportunity to emancipate ourselves from the gender straitjacket that keeps us trapped in conventional masculinity’s belief that war is the answer. Will we be man enough to envision a world in which peace is the way?

Originally published in January 2005.

By Marian Kent, Becky Lockwood, and Rob Okun

On Election Day 2004 citizens in more than 100 Massachusetts communities had an opportunity to express themselves about an issue affecting the lives of tens of thousands of children in the Commonwealth–custody rights after separation or divorce. While the ballot initiative was non-binding, if they were ever enacted as law, their terms suggest a likely damaging impact on the lives of children living in post-nuclear families. The questions “passed,” drawing strong support statewide even though many who supported their recommendations later said they weren’t sure exactly what they were voting for.

Two groups described as advocating for “fathers’ rights” drafted the ballot questions calling for “shared custody”–legislation that if later adopted would require joint custody be awarded in all custody disputes. On their surface, the questions are simple, feel-good initiatives, but they’re not. In reality, they may be seen as a planned effort to undermine current custody laws. With far-reaching implications, the proposed laws could have painful and even dangerous consequences for children caught in the middle of high-conflict divorce cases and, in particular, in cases where domestic violence is a factor.

Children enjoying love from, and connection with, both parents is of course a cherished value, one that no legislation or judicial ruling can mandate. But trying to create new law, putting parents’ rights over the long-held legal standard of “children’s best interests” (as the proposed changes would) undermines efforts to create an environment where divorcing mothers and fathers can parent with peace and justice. While many citizens may be aware of an individual judge’s decision that seemed not to be in a child’s best interest, voters in the future need to recognize the distinction between the effect of a single judge’s bad decision on an individual and the implications of enacting bad law that will affect thousands.

Domestic violence prevention advocates have long recognized that a minority of vocal men have banded together, perhaps out of their own hurt and frustration over individual custody battles to try and effect sweeping system-wide change.

Sadly, many proponents of these initiatives have tried in numerous ways to weaken protection primarily for mothers by portraying men accused of abuse as being the “true victims” of a system that has gone overboard in protecting women. Equally disconcerting is when such groups use faulty interpretations of family violence data as a rationale to try to derail efforts of community-based victim service providers. To make matters worse, they often herald the plight of individual abusers.

Voters in future elections should be wary of a campaign that appears to purposefully exploit our collective desire to protect children by claiming the initiative actually furthers the “best interest of the child” standard. Not true. A close examination of the November ballot initiative suggests a disturbing conclusion: those who drafted the question appeared to be more interested in “the best interest of the non-custodial parent” than they were in the child. Whether by design or out of their enormous frustration and sense of hopelessness with family court, such an initiative eliminates, limits, or ignores a means for formal consideration of the wishes of the child. The only rights the initiative creates or enhances are those of non-custodial parents. In what we can only hope was a glaring oversight, the language of the initiative makes no explicit provision for dealing with cases where sexual abuse or domestic violence is a factor, and they rely on antiquated, oversimplified notions about relationships between parents and children.

In our opinion, there is nothing in these proposals that offers meaningful enhancements to the well being of children. On the contrary, these ballot initiatives in particular are designed to authorize a shift away from the current “best interest of the child” standard established when the Child Custody Presumption Law was passed in 1998. That law was vociferously opposed by many of the men in the very groups now claiming to carry a mantle on behalf of children.

Let’s be clear. We believe strongly in co-parenting when both parents can work together to raise their children in an environment that supports their healthy development, fosters the children’s relationships with each parent and reduces the impact of parental conflict on children. Sadly, these proposed laws are not about creating good co-parenting relationships. Nor are they going to encourage men who are acting abusively to be responsible parents. They blur the line between the best interest of parents and children and aim to circumvent, in those cases involving abuse, the “best interest of the child” standard while leaving the former spouse and the child vulnerable to continued abuse and harassment. Future voters are advised to take special note of the sweeping implications of subsequent ballot initiatives.

Massachusetts has made great strides in efforts to protect children and families in. Still, in the 12 months from October 1, 2003 to September 30, 2004, two children, sixteen women, four men and two bystanders were victims of domestic violence homicide and at least four children were orphaned as a result of these murders. Voters must not be deceived by promises of simple solutions to issues as complicated as child welfare and domestic violence.

An estimated 43,000 children in the Commonwealth who live in homes where domestic violence exists deserve nothing less.

Marian Kent is executive director of Safe Passage in Northampton; Becky Lockwood is associate director for Rape Crisis Services and Violence Prevention Programs at the Everywoman’s Center at the University of Massachusetts

From March 2004.

The Men’s Resource Center organized a signature ad campaign to celebrate women and the ongoing, significant contributions they continue to make in the service of creating a safe, egalitarian society. The full-page ad (text below) ran March 8th, International Women’s Day, in the Daily Hampshire Gazette in Northampton, Massachusetts with 170 men’s names. Thank you to all who signed the ad and contributed to our costs in running it.

As men committed to a peaceful, egalitarian world where every woman is safe from violence in her home and from assault on the streets of her community

As men committed to a peaceful, egalitarian world where every woman’s right to control her own body is a freedom fiercely defended by all

As men committed to a peaceful, egalitarian world where every woman can realize her dreams for a career and economic independence

As men committed to a peaceful, egalitarian world where every girl can grow up to achieve her full potential as a woman and a citizen

Today, International Women’s Day 2004, the undersigned men wish to publicly celebrate the strong leadership, unflagging determination and steady vision of mothers and daughters, wives and partners, sisters and aunts, nieces and cousins, friends and neighbors on every continent around the globe working to create that peaceful, egalitarian world for women and girls, for boys and men, gay and bisexual, transgendered and straight, of all backgrounds and beliefs, for this generation and for generations to come.

Broadcast on Public Radio Station WFCR-FM, Friday, February 13, 2004

Will men ever “get it”? Will we ever recognize that the days of trying to limit women’s freedom of expression are long over?

WFCR INTRO: Those thoughts were on the mind of commentator Rob Okun after he learned that an Amherst businessman was spearheading a drive to try and stop female students from performing The Vagina Monologues at the town’s high school tonight.

Those supporting both women’s empowerment and men redefining masculinity owe the play’s critic, Larry Kelley, a thank you for illuminating the need to bring more men into this crucial conversation. Certainly, Eve Ensler’s play is about women’s lives. But it’s also about men waking up to women’s reality.

Mr. Kelley’s discomfort with the “C-word”–”I can’t say it out loud,” he told a school committee meeting last month–symbolizes men’s discomfort with admitting how little we know about the dangerous world our mothers and daughters, wives and partners, sisters and nieces live in: a world where sexual harassment and sexual assault are commonplace. A world where personal security means checking the backseat of your car before getting in it. A world where going out at night means carrying a whistle, or a can of Mace. A world most men, myself included, find it hard to personally feel. It’s not easy for men to acknowledge how widespread violence against women is, nor how much further we have to go to create a safe, egalitarian society. Hardest of all is to admit that getting there means giving up some of the privilege we enjoy.

Mr. Kelley grabbed a few headlines with his complaint, alleging The Vagina Monologues is inappropriate for high school students. It’s too bad, though that he obscured the fact that no students are required to attend, and that the evening performance is scheduled when school has recessed for vacation. In addition, tonight’s show culminates a week of “V-Day” workshops spotlighting issues raised by the play—promoting greater awareness of, and actions to prevent, violence against women.

It is understandable that men are vulnerable and confused about male and female roles nowadays. And it’s natural that men are going to stumble crossing this new, unfamiliar landscape. I certainly have. But such vulnerability is not an excuse to try to censor women, including female students meeting life’s challenges head on–even if those challenges appear years earlier than either they or the adults in their lives would like.

The male students at the high school, and men in general, owe a debt of gratitude to the brave young women who discovered in The Vagina Monologues an artistic and educational forum to draw attention to women’s plight. Perhaps the support the 40 female students are showing one another will inspire their male counterparts to find their collective voice to challenge the box of conventional masculinity most are trapped in. As the father of a son at the high school, I hope so.

As for the students? One involved in the show wrote: “Is the content of The Vagina Monologues appropriate for high school students? No. Absolutely not. Teenagers should not be dealing with issues of rape, domestic violence and abuse… however…[we] already deal with these [problems] on a daily basis…. It is absolutely appropriate for women (and men) to have a forum to deal with these issues in a safe and positive environment.”

Given the highly sexualized nature of so much of popular culture–from song lyrics to computer games, from MTV to Hollywood, that The Vagina Monologues is being performed at a high school is a refreshing educational strategy. With parental permission, and during their lunch period, students have been attending a week of workshops on dating violence, healthy relationships, and men’s roles and responsibility in preventing abuse.

I am relieved to know my son will have an educational setting in which to discuss these sensitive issues. I expect the workshops will serve as an antidote to the nonstop, one-way, misogynist assault pop culture directs at all of us, particularly the young. Still, like a growing number of men worldwide, I know we must redouble our efforts. For women’s sake. For men’s sake. For our children’s sake. Perhaps one day, more and more men will stop participating in The Patriarchy Monologues, and instead will join women and men engaged in what I think of as The Egalitarian Dialogues. No doubt the ensuing conversation could be worthwhile for all of us.

In Spring 2008, Rob stepped down as executive director of the Men’s Resource Center for Change in June. A central part of the organization since 1992, Rob delivered a “farewell address” at the MRC’s 12^th annual Challenge & Change awards dinner on May 4^th. What follows is an edited version of his remarks.

Yesterday, a number of MRC staff and volunteers marched with our banner in the annual Northampton Pride March where we celebrated the rights and lives of the LGBTQ community. It was, as it is each year we march, heartwarming to be among the thousands celebrating gay rights. And it was heartwarming to hear recognition for the MRC from the throngs along the parade route.

Today, May 4^th, is another important date to mark. On May 4, 1970—38 years ago — four students were shot and killed and several others wounded at Kent State University in Ohio. National Guard troops had opened fire on an anti-war protest staged after then-president Richard M. Nixon reported he had secretly ordered a bombing campaign on Cambodia, widening the illegal Vietnam War. Days later, Mississippi State troopers killed two students and wounded 12 others at Jackson State University. The war had come home.

Here we are today, 40 years and one month after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — whose spirit I invite into this room.  Here we are today, five years and counting into the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wars that, despite the glut of images we have access to daily, remain antiseptically distant from us.

Despite all the gains social change movements have made on so many fronts over the past four decades — and, take heart! there have been many — we have not yet been able to stop the blood that stains our nation’s hands. From our vantage at the MRC, we understand well that the way boys are socialized on our school yards, playgrounds, and athletic fields sows the bitter seeds too many men reap on the killing fields in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world. We see the connection between men who’ve been over-trained to fight and under-trained to love.

At the Men’s Resource Center we know that domestic violence and abuse and international violence and abuse are branches of the same poisoned tree. Just ask the vets coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq struggling to return to their lives, struggling to return their marriages, struggling to return to their families.

Thursday night I was privileged to attend a special event for a sister organization, Safe Passage, at which the First Lady of the Commonwealth, Diane Patrick, spoke. It was a wonderful evening and the Governor’s wife gave a moving, personal account of the abusive marriage she struggled to escape long before her marriage to Gov. Patrick. I had an opportunity to speak with the First Lady before her talk and was gratified to hear her acknowledge her appreciation that more and more men are trying to do our part. In her remarks she said, “God bless the Men’s Resource Center.” How wonderful.  Every week in groups in all four counties of western Massachusetts — from North Adams across to Athol, from Springfield up to Greenfield — the MRC sees, up close and personal, the devastating effects of what happens when men act abusively. We work with men who have been ordered — or strongly encouraged — to attend our 40-week groups.  We teach these men alternatives to violence and abuse, offering them a chance to rethink harmful beliefs about exerting power and control over another and how to adopt new, nonviolent ways of being. And, we offer the women whose partners or ex-partners are in those groups a range of services — all for free.

At the same time, we also work with men who aren’t acting abusively. Thanks to a team of dedicated volunteers, we offer five groups every week in Amherst, Northampton and Greenfield where men can sit together sharing the ups and downs of their lives in a safe and confidential environment. And, our Young Men of Color leadership group, is another safe place — this one for high school age young men to talk, to begin the journey to healthy manhood together.

There is a simultaneous truth I’d like you to consider: while men perpetrate the majority of violence in the world, the majority of men are not violent.  It is within this simultaneous truth that the Men’s Resource Center for Change works to fulfill our mission of “supporting men, challenging men’s violence, and developing men’s leadership to end oppression in our lives, our families and communities and our world.” It remains an ambitious mission more than a quarter of a century after our organization first began to grow.

From my earliest association with the MRC, what has captivated me about our organization is that it invites men to ask ourselves, “What does it mean to be a man?  What does it means to show up in this world? To be accountable. To find our truest voice — and then to speak it. To champion safety for women, for children, for ourselves, for other men, for everyone. To develop our capacity as peacemakers. To exchange the privilege that invites men’s isolation for the liberation that comes with sharing power and paves the way for connection.”

We are fortunate to live in this amazing corner of the world where hope, support and great love exist in such abundance. These are among the riches awaiting us as men if we are willing to risk confronting our own fears. An evening such as our Challenge & Change annual awards dinner allows us to be nourished, to have our thirst for hope and possibility — if not fully satisfied — at least quenched for a while as we step more fully into the world to share our message of challenge and change.

In just the last few years I’ve had opportunities to represent the MRC around the country, speaking at conferences, colleges, and schools in a number of places including Los Angeles, Charlotte, Portland. In the past several months, I’ve brought our message to students at Boston College and Tufts; at MIT and Duke. In April, I spoke at Tulane University in New Orleans, where I was part of the tribe gathering to celebrate the 10^th anniversary of V-Day, the marriage of art and activism that grew out of playwright Eve Ensler’s life-altering play, The Vagina Monologues.  We gathered at the Superdome, site of such misery in the aftermath of Katrina. It was so moving — transforming that container of despair into a vessel of hope. I wrote about my experience for the progressive online news source, Alternet. The other day Eve Ensler’s office contacted me saying Eve wanted to post the piece, “V Day: Victory over Violence for Women and Men”, on their website. It encapsulates much of how I feel when I see the possibility of women and men working together.

Over these past 16 years, the MRC has been my home, a sanctuary, a place of growth, of struggle, of healing, of change. Although I am leaving the MRC, I am taking much with me — especially the powerful, creative energy we invite those involved with the MRC to maintain, a place to explore both social service and social change.

Let me share a story.

In a village, in early spring, not long after the snow has melted, is a river where something terrible is happening — babies were being thrown in the water and were floating downstream. Some villagers began lining the banks, working hard, day in and day out, pulling the children to safety.

Meanwhile, another group of villagers banded together and began making their way upstream to find out who was throwing the babies in the water and to devise a strategy for stopping them. What the first group of people were doing is social service; what the second group were doing is social change.

What makes the MRC unique is that it incorporates both approaches — providing real services to real people with real needs (pulling the babies out of the water, if you will) and agitating, advocating and educating about another way for men to be (going upstream to stop the perpetrators).

What I love so deeply about the MRC is that our mission, “supporting men, challenging men’s violence and developing men’s leadership to end oppression”, incorporates so much of what I believe. It has been a guide for me all these years, offering, in the balance between social service and social change, great hope and great possibility.

What have I learned in my years at the MRC?

That we have a responsibility as men not just to work on our own healing and individual growth, but to do so with other men. That we have a responsibility to do more than just grow and heal. That we have a responsibility to try and repair the world. That we mustn’t just take a stand privately against men’s violence; that we have to speak up about it. That we need to exchange our place on the sidelines of complacency for a place on the front lines of social change.

What have I learned in my years at the MRC?

Believe in men. Believe in our capacity to grow, to heal, to change.

What have I learned in my years at the MRC?

Talk to men about being men. Talk to young men, especially. Mentor them, challenge them. Invite them to think about and talk about the ways we’ve been socialized to be as men.

What have I learned in my years at the MRC?

To take a chance on ourselves and our brothers. As men we have a great opportunity to express ourselves about what isn’t working in our inner lives and in how we’ve behaving out in the world. Too many of us seem reticent to challenge our brothers — and ourselves — when we say or do things that are harmful and hurtful.

What have I learned in my years at the MRC?

To break the silence. It is not being a gender traitor to tell another man that his behavior is not okay with you. That part of redefining what it means to be a man means enlarging our definition of traditionally manly words — like courage. Sure, it’s courageous for a firefighter to rush into a burning building and save the children trapped inside. But it is also courageous to tell another that his anti-Arab or homophobic or sexist remark offends you and you want him to stop.

What have I learned in my years at the MRC?

To listen deeply to women. Women pushed open a portal for their own liberation four decades ago having reached a moment where they said, “Enough is enough!” They began expanding the definition of what it means to be a woman that has been growing ever since. There was, however, no sign on that door to their empowerment that said, “Women only!” As men, those of as who began to recognize the limitations of our restricted lives, as we tentatively began to explore our own liberation, we had to push past our resistance to confront our feelings of vulnerability. When we did we found a new world awaited us — of personal growth, of expanded emotional expression, of opening our hearts… of love… of self-care.

What have I learned in my years at the MRC?

I haven’t always applied those lessons as well as I might have. I have my moments of getting off track and have felt my conventional male socialization — my roots as a man — trying to regain a hold. You know the signs: not talking about what’s going on… isolating from those who love and care about you… oh, yeah — and denying that there’s anything wrong.  Ask my family. They’ll tell you. Happily, over the years, I’ve learned to recognize the symptoms and am able to get back on track pretty quickly. (It sure helps to have a loving family.)

What have I learned in my years at the MRC?

That the Men’s Resource Center offers a course correction for men: All we have to do is get out of our own way — to not be too stubborn to put on our seat belts and head out on the open road, ready to explore our own truths.

What have I learned in my years at the MRC?

To keep speaking up and speaking out. In the days ahead I intend to do just that — writing op-eds and commentaries, speaking to audiences of young people — agitating, advocating and educating for men’s hopes, men’s healing, men’s hearts.

What have I learned in my years at the MRC?

To keep collaborating with women and men. Women and men in organizations here, around the country, and around the world. I will take with me the inspiration I’ve gotten from the men and women I work with, keeping especially keeping close to my heart — the staff of the MRC. This extraordinary group of people — you have been like family to me — bring to life an extraordinary vision: men and women collaborating, working together for peace and wholeness, heart by heart, family by family, community by community. Thank you, Staff!

What have I learned in my years at the MRC?

That I may be leaving the MRC but the highest values and aspirations that the MRC represents will always be a part of me.

I may be leaving the MRC, but I am not leaving this work. The work goes on.

I may be leaving the MRC, but I am not leaving the struggle. The struggle goes on.

I may be leaving the MRC, but I am not leaving the world of possibility. The world of possibility, of so much possibility, goes on.

At the core of all this possibility is joy. The joy of connection, the joy of putting your shoulder to the wheel of change, of feeling your muscles, taut and ready… leaning in, pushing off.

What have I learned in my years at the MRC?

That I have been fortunate to have had the MRC as a place to put my shoulder to the wheel of change. Its imprint will be with me always.

Note: Originally published April 2009.

What has become of former New York governor Eliot Spitzer? In the weeks since his forced resignation following revelations he had been routinely hiring prostitutes, Mr. Spitzer has largely disappeared from the headlines. The media — not so much out of goodwill as out of the insatiable needs of the news cycle — is apparently leaving the Spitzer family alone. That’s a good thing. However, after receiving an unmarked package containing a crystal ball, MRC executive director, Rob Okun offers a glimpse of Spitzer’s life as of Mother’s Day 2009.

ALBANY, N.Y. — At a Mother’s Day press conference in the rotunda of the state capitol, with his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, by his side, the humbled fiery anti-crime crusader and ex-governor Eliot Spitzer addressed a throng of reporters, legislators, and well-wishers, while a band of protesters stood by. Standing at a podium, Mr. Spitzer gave an update of his activities since his resignation as governor of New York on March 16, 2008.

“A year ago I stood before you and offered an apology for my actions, first to my family, and then to the public which had given me its trust. I announced at the time that after a period of atonement I would devote myself to ‘the common good’. ‘From those to whom much is given, much is expected,’ I said then. ‘I have been given much: the love of my family, the faith and trust of the people of New York, and the chance to lead this state. I am deeply sorry that I did not live up to what was expected of me. Over the course of my public life, I have insisted — I believe correctly — that people regardless of their position or power take responsibility for their conduct. I can and will ask no less of myself’. When I ended my remarks that day, I pledged to return to public service outside the political realm.

“In the past year, I have done much soul searching trying to understand what was behind my actions. I have been conducting a rigorous inner investigation. I want to share some of what I’ve learned and announce some of my plans. The New York Times got something right when they described me as ‘a proud man humbled’, one who had ‘made a final nod to the enduring American belief in the possibility of redemption’. I remarked then that ‘As human beings our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall’. That’s still true.

“It is in that spirit that I wish to share with you some of the key activities I have been engaged in over the last 14 months: I am engaged in ongoing individual psychotherapy to understand my motivations, my actions, and their consequences; I have attended weekend retreats designed by, staffed by, and attended by other men motivated to look at behavior patterns that have negatively impacted our lives; I have joined, and actively participate in, a weekly men’s support group where each man speaks freely about what is happening in his life; I have been doing family therapy with my wife and daughters to help heal the wounds I inflicted on our family.

“I intend to continue all of these activities into the foreseeable future. I have also been engaged in a rigorous course of study to educate myself about the raging epidemic of sex trafficking that is plaguing many regions of the world. Early on in my process of atonement with my family, I came to an uncomfortable conclusion: that there is a direct connection between young girls being spirited away from their villages in Asia and forced into prostitution in big cities on that continent and elsewhere, and the prostitutes whose services I sought here in the United States. Whatever rationalization I might have made a year ago to deny that connection, I see as folly and arrogance today.

“Once I made that connection, the choice before me became clear. I must act. Accordingly, I am announcing today that I intend to work to dismantle this demeaning, exploitative system that brutalizes girls and women, destroys families, enriches a powerful crime syndicate, and teaches boys and men that girls and women’s major purpose in life is to provide males with sexual gratification.

“For the sake of my daughters — and yours — and for the daughters of generations to come, I pledge to turn my personal failure into a success for society. I will report on my efforts next year at this time. I invite you to join me in this effort now and in the days ahead. Thank you.”

Originally published in January 2009.

Were he still alive, my father would have turned 100 on New Year’s Day. At least that’s when we would have celebrated his birthday. Accurate record-keeping was rare in the village he came from in Pinsk, Russia. Growing up, Dad said his birthday may have been in mid-November since he was named Joseph, after the biblical figure whose Torah portion is chanted in synagogues at that time of year.

You may recall from Sunday school — or the hit musical Joseph and His Technicolor Dreamcoat — that Joseph was sold to a neighboring tribe by his brothers, jealous that he was their father’s favorite. His brothers also didn’t like the dreams Joseph had suggesting, that he, their much younger brother, was destined to lead them. When he went to find his shepherd-brothers tending their flock, they stripped him of his rainbow-colored tunic, threw him in a pit and prepared to slaughter him. Persuaded by another brother not to kill him, they settled on selling him to the Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver. The betrayal Joseph experienced may have been more dramatic than many of us have experienced — or have heard of — but his story still serves as a cautionary tale. Indeed, during his lifetime, my father and his family were betrayed by one of his brothers.

Biblical Joseph, although he arrived in Egypt as a slave, landed on his feet, eventually becoming an indispensable advisor to the Pharoah, especially valued for his ability to interpret dreams. My father, who arrived in the U.S. as boy, had a similar gift, not so much for dream work but for what’s essential to that work — understanding people and human nature. He knew that peoples’ fears and uncertainties about the future sometimes clouded their best thinking. He understood that sometimes longtime friends and allies harbor secret agendas. Nevertheless, he always did his utmost to find the best in everyone, along the way reaching for his highest self and standing for that possibilty in others. That’s one of the lessons I’ve learned from his life.

My father was patient, rarely raised his voice, and spoke so lovingly and respectfully to and about his wife, my mother, that without expressly lecturing about it, he modeled for his children both how to act toward women and how to be a man. He was unusually gentle — quiet, steady, calm under pressure, an effective leader. He was a devoted father, operated a successful business, and was honorary life president of our temple. He paid tribute to the dead by overseeing burials and maintaining the cemetery grounds. Growing up I got used to hearing the funeral director’s voice on the other end of the phone asking, “Is your father there?” Today, a hundred years after his birth and 20 years after his death, he remains my role model. I feel his presence in my life, stronger than ever.

In my work with men over the years, both at the Men’s Resource Center for Change and in my private counseling practice, I’ve always carried his quiet, steady love. I’ve witnessed the tearful yearning adult sons have for the soothing love a healthy relationship with their fathers can bring. Our work, which encourages men to cultivate their softer, gentler sides—to push past their resistance to maintaining the tough guise of conventional masculinity — invites men to open to healing the wounds of the past. MRC tries to show men how to not let those wounds obscure their vision in the present. Yet for some, it remains and arduous, perilous journey. They may appear to authentically express a gentler, humanized masculinity but are too bound up in their old hurts and the old ways to fully get there. But since a key characteristic of men’s work is that it’s an ongoing, lifelong process, a journey worth continuing.

We don’t know what Joseph’s brothers talked about on their way home after selling him into slavery. While one of his brothers went back (too late) to free him, the rest were too blind to revisit what they had done. Undoubtedly they didn’t ask themselves: “How can we uncover a more collaborative brand of masculinity when the old ways of competitive, manipulative masculinity still holds sway over us?” Today, all these generations later, conventional manhood’s grip still seeks to control our lives.

In our efforts to recognize, to understand, and to cultivate humanized masculinity, it’s important to learn to discern when that part of us is authentic and when it is pretense. This is critically important to any men’s work, essential to the process. We all need role models, our Josephs, to offer us a handhold in life. For the Biblical Joseph and for my father, it didn’t matter how heavy or how many colors adorned their coats since nothing could obscure their understanding of an open heart. May that someday be true for the rest of us.

This opinion piece from two years ago Valentine’s Day speaks about the need to organize a national teach-in on men and masculinity. While it was prompted by the senseless killings of five people by a troubled man perpetrated on a college campus near Chicago, the urgent need for a frank discussion of men—and not just those who are isolated, angry, and alone—can, perhaps, begin. With an administration in Washington more sensitive to these issues than ever before, to coin a phrase, this is our time.. Truth be told, at one time or another many men in our society feel isolated, angry and alone. I am no exception.

Even though it was again a man who went on another campus shooting spree, the national conversation has so far failed to focus on the root causes of this latest lethal outburst: men’s depression and how men are socialized. Until we acknowledge those issues, we can only expect more tragic bloodlettings.

The Valentine’s Day massacre at Northern Illinois University ended with five dead and 16 wounded before Steven Kazmierczak fatally turned one of his guns on himself. The multiple murders are the latest example of an expression of masculinity society continues to ignore at its peril. While a horrifying tragedy was unfolding on a campus 65 miles from Chicago, troubled men in tiny hamlets and big cities across the U.S. also were experiencing painful emotional episodes that few were paying attention to, including themselves. At the Men’s Resource Center for Change we meet some of them and wish we could help more.

Men’s violence of the magnitude Kazmierczak perpetuated needs more than news shows inviting the likes of Dr. Phil on for analysis. We need a national teach-in on masculinity attended by doctors, social workers, teachers, clergy, the judiciary, legislators and parents. And the facilitators need to come from the ranks of those of us who have been examining male behavior and working with men and boys for the past 30 years.

The profile of the 27 year-old Kazmierczak follows a familiar pattern — a hospitalization for mental illness, a reticence to talk about his problems, a fascination with guns and, most tellingly, recently ceasing to take his depression medication. That he was in a two-year relationship with a young woman who said she was shocked to discover he had committed such a horrific act only adds to the tragedy of men hiding the secret of their mental anguish, especially from those they love. The story isn’t about Kazmierczak opening fire at innocent students, as tragic as the loss of lives is. It’s about a society that still doesn’t acknowledge maleness as the singular characteristic tying together virtually every similar act of violence over the past decade. We’ve known it was masculinity since the shootings in Pearl, Mississippi in October, 1997; Jonesboro, Arkansas in March, 1998; Littleton, Colorado in April, 1999; Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in October, 2006; and, 10 months ago, by the slaughter at Virginia Tech. The inconvenient truth is not just that all the assailants have been male but that until we make that fact predominant all the observations the forensic psychologists the news programs trot out are pointless.

The conspiracy of silence about men and depression, men’s reticence to seek counseling, the health care community’s underreporting of the relationship between men’s mental health and a host of related problems — from alcoholism to heart disease—all have to be challenged. This is a campaign the Surgeon General needs to mount with all the resources of the one that changed social attitudes about smoking. The current social agreement about masculinity assumes a minority of men like Kazmierczak are an unavoidable part of male behavior. Certainly society doesn’t sanction horrific mass killings, but we have compartmentalized these particular aberrant acts as a kind of “boys will be boys gone wild” — not as an endorsement but as an explanation of the inevitable. We can no longer ignore the fact that too many men live lives of quiet desperation—it isn’t just the loner who doesn’t talk with anyone about life’s struggle. Most of us men, at one time or another go underground with our feelings as part of a misguided strategy to better negotiate our lives. In Kazmierczak’s case, his silence—to himself and his girlfriend—proved deadly.

It’s time to draw a new social agreement about masculinity proclaiming we will intervene with moody, shut down, angry males and not just those found on our campuses or in offices and factories. Sadly, they are also on our elementary school playgrounds and walking the corridors of our middle schools.

How many more men must lash out before we acknowledge men’s mental health is as serious a health issue as prostate cancer? Mental health treatment for troubled men must rise to the top of the national agenda if there’s to be any hope of preventing future tragedies. The killings in Illinois may have ended, but the national campaign about the crisis in masculinity has barely begun.

Originally published in February 2008 for the Men’s Research Center for Change.

Good news! The Vagina Monologues, a big story locally and nationally when a production of the play debuted at Amherst (Mass.) Regional High School in 2004, is coming back. The performance in the high school auditorium on the night after Valentine’s Day, is one of the thousands being presented around the world to raise consciousness and money for the movement to end violence against women. The local performance, organized by members of the Women’s Rights Club, a student group that blends activism and education about gender violence into an inspirational mix, is a powerful beacon of possibility spotlighting what young people can do.

While working to end domestic and sexual violence remains a daunting task, there is cause for hope thanks to students like these, members of Generation Next. Despite coming of age amid a perpetual onslaught of violence-laden and sexualized pop culture imagery, these emerging young adults are challenging a society reluctant to admit it still sees male dominance as essential to a functioning social order.

The 2004 production of the play at Amherst High drew national media attention, including an appearance by the play’s student director on the Today show along with playwright Eve Ensler. A small firestorm of protest questioning the production being performed at a high school long ago died down. Consciousness about the topics the play explores — the reality of the dangers women face—continues to rise. Also increasing is the number of students advocating for an ongoing examination of women’s equality and safety and men’s roles in challenging violence as legitimate topics to learn about.

As a symbol for other young people to follow, the Women’s Rights Club is impressive. It has 85 members, a quarter of whom are males. In fact, one of the group’s co-presidents is a young man who speaks eloquently about why men and boys should act respectfully toward women and girls.

Among males, both in high schools and colleges, consciousness about confronting violence against women continues to grow. It is good news that more male students are getting involved. From Amherst College in our home town here in Massachusetts to Pomona College in California, in increasing numbers young men are establishing groups to educate and support themselves as they challenge one another to drop the old dominating ways they’ve been socialized to believe in. On many campuses, programs exploring a range of issues young women and men face as they grow into adulthood are seeing an increase in enrollment. Through them men get a window into the world their mothers and sisters inhabit—a world where sexual harassment and sexual assault are a fact of daily life. A world where a woman’s safety requires her to look in the backseat of her car every time she gets in it. A world where before going out at night means carrying a whistle, or making sure you know how to reach campus security. A world men don’t inhabit. Many men chafe at acknowledging how prevalent violence against women is, minimizing the real and present danger women cope with every day. But a growing number of younger men, new leaders emerging from Generation Next, are finding their voices. To stay on pitch they must listen too; in their enthusiasm they mustn’t drown out their female counterparts in the chorus of change. It is appropriate for men to practice playing offstage roles in supporting women, and not just in obvious circumstances such as productions of The Vagina Monologues. While men have much to learn from each other, we have much to learn from women as we work to create a safe, egalitarian society. Among the most difficult lessons is admitting we have to give up some of the privilege we enjoy. Learning that lesson in high school or college, rather than decades later, would be a welcome sign of hope for gender reconciliation for all of us.

In a world where too many fathers and men are angry, hurt, and hurting others, maybe it’s time for a moratorium on conventional Father’s Day gift giving. Maybe some of the millions going to Hallmark and Wal-Mart could be better directed to a fund supporting women’s and children’s safety.

By Rob Okun

How can we comfortably celebrate Father’s Day in the middle of a domestic violence epidemic? Yes, suffering and celebrating are simultaneous truths in life. But there is an urgency —and opportunity— right now to transform this holiday. Fatherhood has perhaps never been more visible than today, in part because of the current occupant of the White House (and the vice-president, who for many years was a single dad). Let’s seize the moment to transform the day from one of consumerism to one of activism.

Even though it’s a minority of men who perpetrate violence against women, the results are devastating. Think what it could mean if Father’s Day became a time men stepped forward as peacemakers in our families. Grandfathers, sons, brothers, uncles, nephews, cousins, and neighbors could all be involved. There would be plenty of time for suppertime barbeques if we spent Father’s Day advocating on behalf of women’s and girls safety and, as a byproduct, for boys and men’s growth. If we can’t work to achieve peace in our homes how can we expect to end violence between nations?

Scan the headlines and there’s likely to be a story about a guy who’s beaten up his wife or girlfriend. Where I live in western Massachusetts, a man recently beat to death the daughter of friends’ of friends. It knocked the wind out of me. I never get used to it. more »