Mail Bonding

Glad You’re Not a Monthly

A year or two ago [a friend] had you send a copy of Voice Male to me. I read it and liked it but did not subscribe at that time. Maybe I did not understand that it isn’t [a monthly and] therefore something I could keep up with. This year I again received another copy of Voice Male which I read, liked and decided I wanted more of. Now I have started reading the Voice Male book.

Katherine Youngmeister
Santa Fe, NM

Frogs, Snails and Puppy Dog Tails

I may not know much, but your magazine seems to do what most current past literature does: it promotes men/boys as the “problem” and woman/girls as “innocent victims” in all this—as if there is not a problem with female on male violence, that woman do not sexually abuse men. Tommie (sic) J. Curry in his book The Man- Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood documents the prevailing myths around black men and patriarchy. You should read it because no one wants to admit that many relationships are and always have been dominated by women. No balance; same female propaganda as always. One would think that with all the labels females use to describe many in a negative light in their homes and in front of boys, and that is heard on the streets, TV, movies, that a magazine for men might address those things. Of course that would be to much to ask because it is not equality you seem to want but to change men with no equivalent change for women. When I was growing up the saying was girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice whereas boys are made of frogs and snails and puppy dogs tails. Boys get abused from the time we come into this world. Your magazine seems to have a facade of helping boys/men but it typically carries out the feminist agenda especially as it relates to black males as one author states we are the black bogey men.

Herschel Chapman, Jr.
via email

Voice Male Across the Pond

I had been meaning to subscribe to the magazine and get a copy of the Voice Male book for several years now. For some time I’ve been interested and involved in profeminist politics here in the UK, especially work to end men’s violence against women. I finished my PhD on this topic last year (which specifically looked at engaging men and boys in violence prevention in England), and seek to do whatever I can to contribute to feminist social change through research, teaching and activism, for which Voice Male looks to be a fantastic aid. I think it must have been relatively early on in my ongoing political education that I first heard about the magazine, possibly thanks to Michael Flood’s XY online website—people are clearly aware of Voice Male here in the UK and around the world! So it was high time I got a subscription. I think you all deserve a lot of plaudits for keeping the magazine going for so long.