I am a Man, and I’m profoundly lost. I am the casualty of a society that has moved on and forward so quickly that not only are Men marginalized but we are a danger to ourselves and the world around us.
There is no doubting the reality that Men are being left in the dust. We’re fatter, more likely to be in jail, even more prone to fatal car accidents. For years now, more women have been graduating from college than Men; this year only about 40% of recent college graduates were male. Although there is still macro gender pay inequality, among 20-year-olds pay disparity has disappeared. And while up until about a year ago, gender unemployment rates were basically equal, the recent economic downturn has seen Men lose their jobs in far greater numbers than women. So not only are Men struggling in our society, the degradation rate is quickening. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124386767941072379.html
What’s scary is that our society is oblivious to this trend. Statistic after statistic show that Men are falling behind in crucial categories and have probably been doing so for quite some time now, and yet we’re doing little about it.
When’s the last time you heard of a Men’s Studies class in University? And if you have, how many Women’s studies classes are available at that same school?
How many programs, mentorships, organizations, groups, clubs do you know that focus on the needs of Men? Google Women’s Organizations versus Men’s Organizations and notice the quality of results.
Try saying at dinner conversation: “Men are being marginalized by our society.”
There is good reason why the support structure and ethos for women’s rights is so much more robust — thousands of years of human rights violations and a collective will to undo this injustice culminated in the greatest civil rights movement of all time: Feminism, a movement that has and continues to transform the fabric of society and is vital to this day.
And while Women continue to transform their public and private identities — better salaries, bigger titles, more prominence, reversal of traditional child-raising roles, shared responsibility for household chores — Men are growing more stagnant, confused, and directionless. The fact of the matter is that Men just aren’t as well equipped to function and excel in this world. The Good Old Boys Clubs of decades and centuries past were exclusionary, non-meritocratic enclaves designed to guarantee jobs, money, and prestige. In many ways, being a Man was the only pre-requisite for accessing the world’s treasures. In today’s world, Merit is everything — technology and the free-flow of information have thoroughly leveled the playing field — and being a man is now barely advantageous for jobs that require brute strength and even there, from sports to military to menial labor, the gap is narrowing.
In college, I took a class called Philosophy and Feminism. In it, Christina Mercer posed the question, “Is there an essential difference between Men and Women?” And if so, “What is its source?” I remember being deeply angered by the assertion that Men and Women are far more similar than we are dissimilar. I would rant in class on some variation of the simple argument, “But we have penises and they have vaginas.” Mercer and the class, at first patiently and as the semester wore on less so, might in response quote philosophers or ask me to contemplate transgendered lives, the fact that Men can physically become women and vice-a-versa — this only made me more angry and more belligerent. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what it is that’s different, but I felt it.
What I didn’t tell my classmates or anyone in my life then for that matter was that I was deeply confused about what it meant to be a Man. Growing up, it was often my father who picked me up from school, and although they owned a business together it was my mother who was the President, the face of the company, the partner ultimately responsible for getting and fulfilling business. Entering adolescence, I experimented sexually with boys as well as with girls. As a 16 year old searching for Truth, I somehow found myself spending nights with my 48-year-old male English teacher. As a 21-year-old in Christina Mercer’s class spending too much time messing around with drugs and not experiencing nearly enough success in my relationships, particularly sexual ones with women, I for the first time came toe to toe with the reality that I am absolutely clueless about what it means to be a Man. Even now, rereading this paragraph, I am convinced I’m insane for letting you in so intimately to my life. But it’s keeping the world out and consequently isolating myself that, as for many other Men, is my escape route from living my life fully and experiencing happiness.
I have come to learn that I am not alone. Our stories have different details and are expressed in different ways at different times, but many Men are realizing we can no longer continue marching in a straight line to the piper’s age-old masculine tunes. The world is charging forward, and we are increasingly confronted by the many ways we’re ill-equipped to join and flourish in this social momentum. As explained by Josep M. Armengol and Àngels Carabi in their prologue to Debating Masculinity, “[Masculinity] lacks an authentic history … because until recently, masculinity was not examined closely, its origins and functions were not (sic) analyzed and, above all, it was not seen as something culturally constructed. Paradoxically, this has led to injustice as much for men as for women.” In other words, our formal study and understanding of Men is barely more advanced than our understanding of our masculine selves.
Nonetheless, there are different people tackling the Masculinity Mystery in interesting and important ways. This is a brief list of efforts I have personally explored and/or benefitted from:
- Journalists reporting on the state of Men in our society ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124386767941072379.html)
- Academics defining Masculinity through critical thought, writing, and lectures (http://www.mensstudies.org)
- Men’s circles and teams supporting other Men to achieve excellence in all aspects of their life (http://www.mensdivisionsinternational.com/)
- Pyshologists working with victims of sexual abuse to reclaim their lives and voices (http://www.cvtc-slr.org/)
- Projects and art focused on exploring the inner lives of Men as well as their relationships (http://www.mensfriendships.org/)
- Conversations with loving, Masculine Men who mentor, support and offer friendship (http://www.mensdivisionsinternational.com/)
Personally, there is a tremendous amount at stake in this conversation, and I cannot complete this piece without telling you why I’ve written it. Half my lifetime ago, I became obsessed with writing and the fame it could bring me. In a manner I have come to recognize as typically Male, I single-mindedly pursued the promise of fame, letting friendships, family, and many of my values slip by the wayside. Frightened by how much of the world I’d ignored and how little Fame I’d accomplished, my writing became desperate — angry, graphic, anything to shock, culminating in a story I titled Mysoginist, where a young man fantasizes, in mediocre prose, about harming women verbally, physically, and emotionally. Discomforted by the negativity, fear, and confusion inside me, I quit writing. Numerous attempts over the years to write anything honestly self-expressive failed because nothing felt genuine … until now. For the first time, I’ve allowed myself to explore concepts that once seemed so taboo: I am a Man, I am lost, and I, like many other Men, want deeply to connect to the world on my own terms.
