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FROM THE EDITOR
Letting Go of Privilege
By Rob Okun
To listen to the vitriol coming from a
chorus of men whose voices regularly
clog the airwaves, it’s easy to
conclude there’s an epidemic of foul mouth
disease threatening to overrun the country.
The harsh voices warning of Armageddon
during the health care debate, and the bitter
diatribes directed at President Obama, as well
as civil rights veteran John Lewis and liberal
Barney Frank (both members of Congress,
one an African-American, the other gay),
have primarily been male. (Okay; there is also
Sarah Palin, a pit bull with lipstick.) While
the media highlights mean-spirited expressions
of manhood, 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 that understand the crucial
need for men and women to question conventional
attitudes and expectations about gender
roles in achieving gender equality. Among their
efforts is a men and gender equality policy
project under way in Brazil, Cambodia, Chile,
China, Croatia, Mexico, South Africa and
Tanzania. Founded in 2004, MenEngage is
dedicated to involving men and boys in
working to end violence against women and in
redefining old-style notions of manhood.
As a member, Voice Male shares the alliance’s
core beliefs that 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 or straight.
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 privilege we’ve
long enjoyed 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
Voice Male
So tightly have men been
holding on to what we
perceive as our birthright,
few of us have considered
what treasures await us
if we let go.
for us when we no longer assume that 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, children—everyone in our lives.
So tightly have we been holding on to what we
perceive as our birthright, few have considered
what treasures await us if we let go. How
to compare discovering one’s heart opening
versus needing open heart surgery? How to
equate surrounding ourselves with symbols
of wealth versus surrounding ourselves with
circles of friends?
A new Men and Gender Equality Policy
Project report by MenEngage members 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 have 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 combination.
While Voice Male has long reported on
both, we cultivate the middle ground where
men are exploring life after letting go of the
pressure and giving up the privilege. This issue
is a good example of that exploration.
We are previewing two new books on
fatherhood, Don Unger’s Men Can: The
Changing Image & Reality of Fatherhood in
America (page 14) and John Badalament’s
The Modern Dad’s Dilemma: How to Stay
Connected to Your Kids in a Rapidly Changing
World (page 16), due out later this spring.
Longtime important voices in the profeminist
men’s movement—Voice Male national advisory
board members and contributing editors
Michael Kimmel, Jackson Katz, and Michael
Kaufman—expose the Dockers “Wear the
Pants” campaign in responses to a story beginning
on page 10. Lillian Hsu’s imaginative
reaction to degrading images of women on
magazine covers—BEAUTIFUL Just the Way
You Are”—is another side of the story of how
consumer culture seeks to portray the genders
(page 18). And Imani Perry’s insightful critique
of the issues neglected in the film Precious
(page 8) suggests much to consider in our
understanding of the social conditions women
and men endure. Filmmaker Tom Keith’s
provocative “When Men Challenge Sexism”
(page 20) is a thermometer gauging the temperature
in a not yet “post-sexist” society; and
therapist Charlie Donaldson offers a hopeful
account of men growing emotionally in unexpected
places (page 24). Finally, in a story on
“Boys to Men” (page 27), Richie Davis looks at
young men on the journey to healthy manhood,
a journey MenEngage members are following
closely around the world.
The director of the Equal Justice Institute,
Bryan Stevenson, has famously said,
“The opposite of poverty isn’t wealth. The
opposite of poverty is justice.” If a corollary
exists about men and privilege it might
read, “The opposite of men giving up privilege
isn’t powerlessness; the opposite of
men giving up privilege is liberation.” May
this spring be a liberating one for us all.
Rob Okun can be reached at rob@voicemalemagazine.org.

Spring 2010
Volume 14 No. 49
Changing Men in Changing Times
www.voicemalemagazine.org
7
Features
7
10
18
20
23
27
We Can Change the Culture of Rape
By Patrick McGann and Neil Irvin
Who Wears the Pants?
The Dockers Man-festo
Women’s Bodies, Men’s Minds
By Lillian Hsu
Men, Misogyny and the Future
When Men Challenge Sexism
By Thomas Keith
A Call to Men and Boys
Masculinity and Peacemaking
Young Men’s Journey to Healthy Manhood
From Boys to Men
By Richie Davis
8
10
Columns & Opinion
2
4
5
8
14
16
24
31
32
34
From the Editor
Letters
Men @ Work
ColorLines
Fathering
Fathering
Men and Health
Books and Film
Resources
Poetry
A “Precious” Paradox By Imani Perry
Fathering in the 21st Century By Donald N.S. Unger
From Dilemma to Deliverance By John Badalament
Men Coming in From the Cold By Charlie Donaldson
Atonement By Michael Burke
23
ON THE COVER:
Voice Male contributing editor Byron Hurt and his wife, Kenya Crumel, became parents for the
first time on August 4, 2009. He is pictured with his daughter Maasai Amor Crumel Hurt
Photo: Devin Kirschner - www.devinphoto.com
Spring 2010

Mail Bonding
Rob A. Okun
Editor
Lahri Bond
Art Director
Michael Burke
Copy Editor
Mary Kate Schermund
Zazie Tobey
Elizabeth Tuttle
Interns
National Advisory Board
Juan Carlos Areán
Family Violence Prevention Fund
John Badalament
All Men Are Sons
Eve Ensler
V-Day
Byron Hurt
God Bless the Child Productions
Robert Jensen
Prof. of Journalism Univ. of Texas
Sut Jhally
Media Education Foundation
Bill T. Jones
Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Co.
Jackson Katz
Mentors in Violence Prevention Strategies
Michael Kaufman
White Ribbon Campaign
Joe Kelly
The Dad Man
Michael Kimmel
Prof. of Sociology SUNY Stony Brook
Charles Knight
Other & Beyond Real Men
Don McPherson
Mentors in Violence Prevention
Mike Messner
Prof. of Sociology Univ. of So. California
Craig Norberg-Bohm
Men’s Initiative for Jane Doe
Chris Rabb
Afro-Netizen
Haji Shearer
Massachusetts Children’s Trust Fund
Shira Tarrant
Prof. of Gender Studies Cal State Long Beach
Voice Male
Stop Feminizing Men!
Editor’s Note: In response to a column by
Voice Male editor Rob Okun in support of the
White Ribbon Campaign—which invites men
not to condone, commit, or remain silent about
violence against women—the following correspondence
arrived in the editor’s email inbox.
I read with interest about the work you’re
doing concerning male
violence against women. I do
not condone violence against
women. My concern is that
you’re turning men into guilty
sissies. Those men who took
a [White Ribbon Campaign]
pledge [at halftime during a
University of Massachusetts
basketball game] should be
embarrassed. Women want
strong men who can protect
them. They do not want wimpy
pansies who pour their feelings
out in front of audiences.
Violence against women is
wrong. But taking a public pledge? Should they
also pledge that they will not molest children?
Kill people? How about a public pledge against
public urination in parking lots? Enough of
your grandstanding! Let men be men and stop
feminizing our male population.
Marc S
(via email)
Growing Up with Voice Male
A few years ago I was browsing the net looking
for feminist resources and after following
several links I stumbled on a link to Voice
Male. Needless to say, I was thrilled that there
is a magazine like this. Thank you so much for
your wonderful magazine and the message you
send to all men and women. I have recently
given birth to a little boy and I want him to
grow up with Voice Male in his home. Thank
you for making it possible for us.
Marzena Buzanowska
Woodmere, Ohio
Men’s Social Terror
I was moved by the Brendan Tapley article,
“The Male Straitjacket” (Winter 2010). How
deeply, sadly true, the social terror that we
men carry about our great capacity to love
others of our own gender, and how profoundly
influential that fear is in just about our every
human interaction, not just around hate crimes
and the like. And how under-examined, except,
I suppose, in the few small
forums like Voice Male and the
occasional counseling session.
When I felt how strongly I
reacted—powerfully both
drawn and repelled—by the
idea of physically, non-sexually
expressing love for, and
being loved by, a fellow man
without fear of committing
masculine suicide, I realized
how much I grieve for not
having it. I wanted it, originally,
from my father. I expect
my sons want it more readily
from me. I continue to want
it with friends. With them and with my sons,
I will try to be much more conscious of the
straitjacket operating in us. John Sheldon’s
piece also spoke to me—threw a beam of
light down there in similarly dark areas of my
psyche where I actually recall constricting my
spirit, sacrificing my up reaching nature, to
protect my father’s ego and position. A child
has a lot of power, chi, spirit, maybe even
wisdom, that a parent has to feel big enough to
nurture. Seems like, given this sort of cultural
conditioning, we should all undergo counseling
before even thinking of having kids.
Jonathan von Ranson
Wendell, Mass.
Letters may be sent via email to
www.voicemalemagazine.org
or mailed to Editors: Voice Male,
33 Gray Street, Amherst, MA 01002.
VOICE MALE is published quarterly by the Alliance for Changing Men, an affiliate of Family
Diversity Projects, 33 Gray St., Amherst, MA 01002. It is mailed to subscribers in the U.S., Canada,
and overseas and is distributed at select locations around the country and to conferences, universities,
colleges and secondary schools, and among non-profit and non-governmental organizations. The
opinions expressed in Voice Male are those of its writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of
the advisors or staff of the magazine, or its sponsor, Family Diversity Projects. Copyright © 2010
Alliance for Changing Men/Voice Male magazine.
Subscriptions: 4 issues-$24. 8 issues-$40. For bulk orders, go to voicemalemagazine.org or call
Voice Male at 413.687-8171.
Advertising: For advertising rates and deadlines, go to voicemalemagazine.org or call at Voice
Male 413.687-8171.
Submissions: The editors welcome letters, articles, news items, reviews, story ideas and queries, and
information about events of interest. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcomed but the editors cannot
be responsible for their loss or return. Manuscripts and queries may be sent via email to www.voicemalemagazine.org
or mailed to Editors: Voice Male, 33 Gray St., Amherst, MA 01002.

Men @ Work
Kevin McCullough and Stephen Baldwin promoters of “true masculinity.
Űber Masculinity on the Rise?
Actor Stephen Baldwin has a message for the millennial
generation: Jesus is cool, Jesus is rad, Jesus will kick
your butt, Jesus will help you kick the butts of secular
liberals. Yet while Baldwin seeks to be the hip new face of evangelicalism,
promoting the Jesus of skateboarders and cool kids,
beneath his radical chic is the ideology of the old men behind
the Cold War–era John Birch Society and Christian Crusade. So
wrote Sarah Posner in an article posted on Alternet.
Together with Christian activist and radio host Kevin
McCullough, Baldwin has launched a youth-targeted forprofit
Christian media company, Xtreme Media, LLC, and the
radio program Xtreme Radio with Stephen Baldwin and Kevin
McCullough. The aim of Xtreme Media, according to Baldwin,
is to create “a content reality we want to utilize to fire up the
conservative movement to stand up and push back louder and
more ferociously.”
Addressing a 2008 religious-right conference, the annual
Values Voter Summit sponsored by FRC Action, Baldwin
explained that he uses “extreme sports” to recruit young evangelicals
“because I believe the way to ensure a better America
in the future is make more Christians.” At religious right
conferences across the nation, Baldwin struts before young
and not-so-young audiences, deploying his über-masculine
Christianity as a rebuke to the Hollywood liberals he claims
are ruining America.
Kevin McCullough is the brains behind Xtreme Media,
a point Baldwin readily admits. A prolific writer and soughtafter
speaker on the Tea Party and Christian right circuits,
McCullough is the author of two books, The Kind of Man
Every Man Should Be: Taking a Stand for True Masculinity,
and MuscleHead Revolution: Overturning Liberalism with
Commonsense Thinking. Their radio show is syndicated by Fox
News Radio, the American Family Association and Christian
media giant Salem Communications.
“We are the hands of the Lord Jesus in this realm,” Baldwin
told the Values Voters. “And I don’t know about you…I’m
puttin’ some boxing gloves on mine.” To read a longer version
of Sarah Posner’s article go to Alternet.org.
A Safer World
for Women
The organization A Safe World
for Women is inviting participation
in an international campaign
aimed at getting a million people
to call for worldwide justice for
women. The campaign is focusing
on March 8, 2011, the 100th anniversary
of International Women’s
Day. The organization will present
a petition with signatures to the
United Nations calling on the
UN and all world governments
to enact or enforce laws against
violence towards women. A Safe
World for Women says its aim is
to end violence in the world, with
a particular emphasis on sexual
violence. To learn more, contact
mistymiller4asafeworld@yahoo.
com; (607) 241-2750, or visit
http://asafeworldforwomen.org/
endorsement/sw_endorseform.
html.
The Testosterone
Election Effect
Researchers at Duke University
and the University of Michigan
examined the testosterone
levels of students following the
2008 presidential election. Men
who voted for John McCain exhibited
significant decreases in
testosterone upon learning that
he lost, whereas the testosterone
levels of men who supported
Barack Obama were stable. These
were among the findings of the
study “Dominance, Politics, and
Physiology: Voters’ Testosterone
Changes on the Night of the 2008
United States Presidential Election,”
as reported in the Boston
Globe. This effect remained even
after controlling for political values,
intensity of support, alcohol
consumption, and social environment.
Meanwhile, despite having
political feelings similar to men,
women exhibited no significant
difference in testosterone levels
regardless of which candidate
they supported. The findings are
consistent with earlier research
showing that male testosterone
fluctuates in response to winning
or losing dominance contests.
What researchers would have
learned from testing male Boston
Red Sox and New York Yankees
fans after the Sox won the 2004
American League Championship
sadly remains a mystery.
“Rhymes” on iTunes
Byron Hurt’s masterful film, Hip-
Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes
is now live on iTunes. The film,
which deconstructs the misogyny
and homophobia in hip-hop, is
available for download from the
movie/documentary section on
iTunes. Hurt, a member of Voice
Male’s national advisory board,
is working on a new film, Soul
Food. He still speaks frequently
about issues related to masculinity
and manhood. He is encouraging
viewers of BB&R to help
promote the film on iTunes. The
link is: http://itunes.apple.com/
WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/
viewMovie?id=350088022&s=1
43441.
Women, Work
and Families
“Our Working Nation: How
Women Are Reshaping America’s
Families and Economy and What
It Means for Policymakers” is a
new report offering a comprehensive
look at the American woman
and how her work has transformed
today’s workplace.
“Our Working Nation” grew
out of a collaboration between
the Center for American Progress
and The (Maria) Shriver Report:
A Woman’s Nation. It explores key
transformations in families, workplaces,
and society, noting:
[continued on page 6]
Spring 2010

Men @ Work
• For the first time in American
history, women now make up half
of U.S. workers.
• Mothers are now the primary
breadwinners—making as much
as or more than their spouse or
doing it all on their own—in nearly
four in 10 families.
• Nearly half of families with children
consisted of a male breadwinner
and a female homemaker
in 1975. Today, that number is just
one in five.
• In 1975, single parents made up
only 10 percent of U.S. families
with children. Today, the number
of single-parent households has
doubled to one in five.
Visit our new website voicemalemagazine.org
Voice Male
for the latest news and updates
Written by Heather Boushey,
a senior economist at the Center,
and Ann O’Leary, a senior fellow
there and executive director of
the Berkeley Center for Health,
Economic & Family Security,
the new report is described as a
roadmap offering practical suggestions
to help American workers and
families meet the dual demands of
work and family. The recommendations
in the report are designed,
the authors believe, “to help families
by strengthening our economy
and enhancing the well-being of
our parents and their children…
[B]y laying out specific, tangible
action items for lawmakers and
businesses, this report gives policymakers
and business leaders the
tools they need to update today’s
workplace.”
The Center for American
Progress is a nonpartisan research
and educational institute dedicated
to an America that ensures opportunity
for all by working to find
progressive and pragmatic solutions
to significant domestic and
international problems.
Mississippi
Misguided
A Mississippi school district
canceled this year’s prom at
Itawamba Agricultural High
School following the Mississippi
American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) request that the school
allow a lesbian couple to attend.
The school cited “distractions to
the educational
process caused
by recent events”
as reason for
canceling the
event, but 18-yearold
Constance
McMillen, a
Constance
McMillen
lesbian who
wanted to bring
her girlfriend to the prom,
said the decision was based on
“retaliation” for speaking out.
The ACLU sued the high school
in U.S. district court for northern
Mississippi.
“All I wanted was the same
chance to enjoy my prom night
like any other student,” Constance
McMillen said. “But my school
would rather hurt all the students
than treat everyone fairly. This
isn’t just about me and my rights
anymore—I’m fighting for the
right of all the students at my
school to have our prom.”
If the school refused to
reinstate its prom, which was
scheduled for April 2, the students
had another option. After hearing
about the students’ predicament, a
New Orleans hotel owner offered
to pay for the students to come to
New Orleans and use one of his
hotel facilities for their prom.
Congo Men Create
New Peace Alliance
In the midst of the horrific
violence visited on women there,
a new network of Congolese men
has formed to combat gender
injustice.
“Our vision is to have a
peaceful Congo where anyone
finds joy in life without discrimination,”
said Ilot Alphonse Muthaka,
a spokesperson for the group. The
Congo Men’s Network, COMEN,
was one outcome of a training of
men from 17 countries held in
the Netherlands last December.
Officially launched on March
8, International Women’s Day,
COMEN said that approximately
“1100 cases of sexual violations
are recorded each month”
in the Congo “with the majority
of victims…girls between 10
and 17.” What that means, Ilot
Alphonse said, is an average of
36 women are raped every day.
In acknowledging that Congolese
women live in a state of
“prolonged terror” —and are
victims of violence in many
forms—COMEN is urging men
“to reflect, meditate and pray for
our daughters, sisters, mothers and
wives who continue to suffer the
most shameful abuse and cruelty
ever known to humankind.” And
they are urging the international
community to support ending the
immunity perpetrators have long
enjoyed.
“We suggest that women’s
and human rights organizations,
and those who work to promote
equality are supported—both
technically and financially—to
continue their outreach and awareness
of United Nations Security
Council Resolution 1325.1820 on
women, peace and conflict,” as
well as CEDAW, the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women.”
COMEN pledged its commitment
to promoting “gender
equality in our communities while
providing support to women in
general in the fight against injustice
and gender-based violence”
because they believe without
gender equality “peace and development
will be impossible.”

We Can Change the Culture of Rape
By Patrick McGann and Neil Irvin
Phil Date
Everyone would agree that the gang
rape outside Richmond (Virginia) High
School last fall was horrific. While this
criminal act is particularly troubling because of
the large number of perpetrators and witnesses,
the incident should not be viewed in isolation.
According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest
National Network (RAINN), a sexual assault
occurs every two minutes in the United States.
In Men Can Stop Rape’s view, rape happens
because we as a country have not committed
to creating cultures of prevention focused on
sexual and dating violence in our schools and
communities.
If we pay attention to who commits rape,
we see that the majority of assaults are perpetrated
by men attacking women and other men.
The majority of men do not commit sexual
violence and therefore are potential allies with
women. By providing a blueprint for transforming
bystanders into active agents of social
change, we mobilize young men across the
country to create cultures of rape prevention in
their schools and communities.
What gets in the way of prioritizing
creating these cultures nationwide? Victimblaming,
for one. We worry that people will
hold the young woman in Richmond accountable
for her assault, especially since there were
reports in the media that she had been drinking
alcohol. No rape survivors are ever at fault
for their assault, whatever the circumstances.
To place responsibility on her is a way of
diverting responsibility from the young men
who committed the rape.
Outsiders typecasting sexual assault as
occurring in communities with troubled youth
serves as another way of not addressing rape as
a social issue. In an article in the Contra Costa
Times last October, one student was described
as being deeply disturbed that all Richmond
High students were described as animals in
response to the assault. There were 400 students
at the prom who did not commit rape. And there
were female and male students who took steps
to call the police. What enabled them to act in
a humane manner? These students should be
part of the story.
So, what can we do? First, we need to understand
that preventing rape is broader in scope
than currently believed, that it involves females
and males, and that it is based on respecting our
cultures and ourselves. Historically, preventing
sexual assault has been thought of in terms of
females engaging in risk reduction, such as
walking in pairs or dressing conservatively.
For lasting change to occur, however, men
and women can prevent sexual violence by
challenging the attitudes and assumptions
that dehumanize women. In the Contra Costa
Times article, recent Richmond High graduate
Atianna Gibbs was quoted as saying, “That
could easily have been [the assailants’] sister,
their mom. Nobody deserves that.” She’s
right. Her comment suggests it is easier to hurt
someone who is of no importance to us than
someone who is. This act of dehumanization
is an attitude connected to rape
and other forms of violence. Rape
clearly shares this dynamic with
racist violence and gay bashing,
among other abusive acts.
Fathers can serve as role
models of healthy masculinity
for their sons and daughters by
treating everyone with respect
and empathy. Mothers and fathers
can discuss with their children
what consent and healthy relationships
look like. They can become
involved with groups like PTAs to
work to ensure there are multiple
approaches schools can engage in
to create rape prevention cultures,
including: classroom curricula,
after-school groups, teacher
trainings, and public education
campaigns. Parents should support
their sons’ involvement with youth
programs that encourage healthy
masculinity and relationships,
like Men Can Stop Rape’s middle
school and high school Men of
Strength Clubs.
Through the clubs, young men choose
to define their own masculinity by evaluating
whether messages about manhood, like
“Don’t take ‘no’ for an answer,” play a role in
creating unhealthy and unsafe relationships.
They learn skills to speak out effectively when
they see attitudes and behaviors that degrade
women and girls. Club members translate their
curriculum lessons into public education and
peer education, uniting a wide cross-section
of the community—students, parents, educators,
administrators, and business leaders. The
young men in the club pledge to be men whose
strength is used for respect, not for hurting.
Men and women can prevent rape by
sharing responsibility and by recognizing that
if our cultures are going to be healthy, everyone
must play a part in caring to make them so.
If we want healthy cultures, empathy must
occupy the center of a culture’s core, nonviolence
must be a shared value, and everyone
must matter.
Patrick McGann, PhD, is vice president of
communications for Men Can Stop Rape in
Washington, D.C. Neil Irvin is Men Can Stop
Rape vice president of programs and a member
of the Forrest Knolls PTA of Silver Spring,
Maryland. A version of this article appears
on PTA magazine’s website, http://www.pta.
org/3675.htm. To learn more about Men Can
Stop Rape, go to http://www.mencanstoprape.
org or write, info@mencanstoprape.org
Spring 2010

ColorLines
A “Precious” Paradox
By Imani Perry
h e s e a r e
rising unemployment
strange days
indeed. We are
firmly into the
21st century,
and yet the 1980s
are haunting us. For
African Americans it
is yet again a decade of
dream and deferral.
Back in the eighties,
for the young Black
and college educated,
the doors of corporate
America and other
professions opened
up and broadened the
spectrum of the Black
middle class like never
before. But also, back
in the eighties, crack
cocaine and the aftermath
of deindustrialization
crippled areas
of concentrated blackness
in major urban
centers.
and imprisonment.
That was troubling. But
then again, it is easier
to fire off a blog post or
provide a commentary
about a movie than it
is to write a concise
response to a complicated
web of policy,
law, and economics.
However, I believe the
film elicited so much
engaged response
precisely because it
highlighted the challenge
of this moment
when it comes to race
in America.
The film tells an
individual story, a
poignant one, about
an abused young
woman in Harlem in
the 1980s. If we attend
to the individual story,
fictional though it may
Now in the 21st
be, our hearts go out
“We are tired of the story of
century, a new Black
to Precious. We see
elite floods the popular
pathology we see yet again in
in her story personal
imagination as Capitol
resilience, possibility,
Hill, the president and
Precious. We want a story that
healing. Those are
his administration
reveals the laws and policies and
good things. The film
become more and more
also tells a collective
colorful. But also now,
economic conditions that produce
story. The story it tells
in the 21st century, the
concentrated poverty and
is about the devastation
that the eighties
recession hits Black
communities hardest,
its violence.”
wrought on Black
and at the intersection
of devastating rates of
imprisonment, joblessness,
and inadequate
education lies a critical,
hurting, mass of Black
Americans.
communities, and the
failure of the public
school system to
provide a path out for
“the underclass.”
In both the collective
story and the individual
Then came the
story, there is
movie Precious.
truth. There is a real
The film, released in
the fall of 2009, elicited
a flurry of responses.
The debates over the film
were complex, nuanced, impassioned. In fact, among the Black intelligentsia
there seemed to be more discussion about Precious than there
was about President Obama’s education agenda, the stimulus package, or
Precious out there. The
story is fictional, but it
is human. The problem
is that fictional stories,
especially ones on film, don’t just stand as individual stories, but they
do “representative work.” They become part of the way we make sense
of the world in which we live. The story of one novelist or filmmaker’s
Voice Male

imagination becomes the story of entire groups of people or “types”
of people. This is especially true when the kind of social location
depicted in the story is remote from the experience of the majority of
the viewers.
On the one hand, many of us who are familiar with the way the
story of Black America in the eighties was told, and the way the story
of the rise of imprisonment in contemporary Black America is being
told, are frustrated with the spectacle of Black violence, deviance, and
dysfunction that appears over and over again. We are tired of this story
of pathology that we see yet again in Precious. Instead we want a story
that reveals the laws and policies and economic conditions that produce
concentrated poverty and its violence. We also yearn for the stories
of those who sustain humanity and decency in the face of devastating
poverty and marginalization. We would prefer for those stories to be told
because they are, after all, far more representative of Black life than the
wreck that is Precious’s life.
And so, we balk at a film like Precious, rhetorically asking: Doesn’t
it just recycle those old images of Black pathology? And isn’t it reviving
those stories just when we are beginning to suffer so much again, just
when we don’t need a convenient explanation of “they are pathological”
to facilitate the nation turning its back on the responsibility to provide
conditions for all citizens to lead productive lives as participants in the
democracy and economy?
On the other hand, some of us want to embrace a film like Precious
because it highlights a kind of suffering that our society fails to respond
to. Children who are poor and of color are inadequately protected in our
society. They are more vulnerable to predators, more likely to be victimized
on the street and in school, and less likely to have families that are
able to marshal resources to deal with trauma, mental illness, and addiction.
At the same time, poor, emotionally scarred parents who become
abusers have virtually no resources to repair themselves. So when we
see a movie like Precious, we applaud it for encouraging sympathy and
investment in young women like Precious. We think, “Yes, the reality of
her life deserves to be depicted; maybe it will inspire action.”
The film does both kinds of work on the audience at once. Strange
indeed.
When it comes to race the challenge of this moment is for critically
thinking members of this society to consider the implications of
symbolism (like the Black president, or the Oscar-worthy dysfunctional,
sexual abusing welfare mother played by Mo’nique) at the same time
as we consider the messy, complicated content of our society, without
assuming that these things have a clear or consistent relationship to
each other.
Precious demands we bring more to the table than just an analysis
of it as a piece of art. If the film stands alone, it gets deployed and
interpreted every which way. But if we use the film to open the door to
conversations about society, ones that are filled with knowledge, data,
and careful analysis, rather than mere anecdote and fiction, then it can do
some useful work in our social and political lives. Perhaps it can inspire
solutions to problems of representation and policy challenges.
Imani Perry is a professor in the Center for
African American Studies at Princeton University.
She is the author of Prophets of the Hood:
Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop (Duke University
Press, 2004) and the forthcoming More
Terrible and More Beautiful: The Embrace
and Transcendence of Racial Inequality in the
U.S. (New York University Press, 2010) www.
imaniperry.com. A version of this article first appeared on Afronetizen,
which provides substantive news and information on and of
relevance to people of African descent. www.afronetizen.com.
Spring 2010

The Dockers Man-ifesto
Who Wears the Pants?
10 Voice Male
Dockers khakis had become synonymous
with the “soulless office
cubicle and suburban capitulation.”
So says Jennifer Sey, Dockers,
senior vice president of global marketing,
responding to criticism for its ad campaign,
“Wear the Pants.” Introduced before the
holidays last year, the ads struck a nerve.
According to company research, Sey wrote,
“Men have suffered 80 percent of the layoffs
in the last year. Women outnumber men in
the workforce for the first time... Women
also outnumber men in higher education.”
The culture, Sey says, “heralds the ‘manbaby’—best
represented by the leads in beer
commercials (he always chooses beer over
his girlfriend)…who does his own thing,
which is apparently nothing. He loves video
games and bongs and he shuns obligations.
These pop culture man-babies are unkempt,
unfit, have no direction and seemingly no
pride. Sure they are funny. I laugh as much
as anyone. But our culture has elevated this
type of immaturity amongst men to unconscionable
heights. Aren’t men insulted by
this man-baby phenomenon?” The corporate
antidote? The “Wear the Pants” campaign.
What follows is an excerpt from Sey’s article,
posted on mommytracked.com.
Is it a lot to ask a company to be at the
forefront of social change? Maybe. But
I’d venture to say that companies have an
obligation to be a part of it. Levi Strauss
and Company (which owns Dockers) has
done so for many years: first company to
integrate factories in the south in the 1960s
before it was legally mandated, the first
Fortune 500 company to offer benefits to
same sex partners in the early 1990s and
the only company in California to file an
amicus brief with the courts against Proposition
8. The men’s movement is underway.
There are academics that study it (“Gender
Studies,” formerly the domain of feminist
theory, seems to have shifted to include Male
Studies)… all focused on what is driving the
epidemic of underachieving young men and
what we can do about it. It’s not absurd to
think that Dockers, a brand with a predominantly
male constituency, could participate
in heralding positive change. The [Wear the
Pants] campaign has generated heated and
profound talk amongst consumers.

The general factions are:
1. Feminists. Some are angry, claiming that by asking men to wear the
pants we are asking women to step back in time to when women couldn’t
literally or figuratively wear pants.
2. LGBT community. Some have interpreted
the efforts as promoting very
traditional and damaging notions of
masculinity, a retro ideal…
3. Christians. Some are interpreting our
statement as championing traditional
gender roles. They like this.
4. Lots of other people who are straight,
gay, male, female who interpret it as a
little bit true. A little bit funny. Something
to think about.
As a mother, wife, professional woman,
writer, feminist, former N.O.W. intern
and longtime LGBT friend, here’s what
I think…
Men have been at the center of
practically every scandal of the last
decade. From sports (Tiger Woods,
Barry Bonds) to politics (John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer, Mark Sanford) to
the economy (it was men, after all, at the helms of the banks, the hedge
funds, the car companies), to corporate malfeasance (Enron). Boys, our
future men, are struggling in school. Dropping out at alarming rates,
suffering from ADHD at several times the rate of girls.
We all have a lot to gain from men getting on track and standing up
with authority to say: We’re going to embody a new masculine ideal
built around integrity, accountability and ethical behavior. We denounce
frivolity and excess in favor of utility and purpose. We’re taking care of
our families and the people we love. We are great dads and husbands and
friends and boyfriends. We embrace sensitivity and empathy and behave
chivalrously towards men and women alike. We will maintain our collective
sense of humor, but we’re going to
be serious human beings that contribute
to the world in a positive manner.
Women aren’t perfect. Just ask my
husband. I can be impatient, petty,
humorless, demanding, unforgiving.
But, speaking in overt generalities, men
have just fallen off the wagon of late.
The way it works in my house is
pretty non-traditional—I work full
time, my husband does most of the kid
caring-for while taking on part time
gigs. It is an equal albeit unconventional
partnership. I certainly don’t want to go
back to the days of yore when men ruled
the roost. But I wouldn’t mind if rude
young men stopped pretending they
didn’t see pregnant women on the bus
and maybe offered up a seat to a tired
lady with sore feet. And I wouldn’t mind if men in leadership positions
took their responsibilities on with integrity. And I for sure wouldn’t mind
if my own two boys grew up to be strong and loving and polite and able
to clean up their own rooms. Yep, I want them to wear the pants. Just like
a lot of the women I know seem to be doing in today’s world.
—Jennifer Sey
[FOR MORE DOCKERS COMMENTARY BY MICHAEL KAUFMAN
AND JACKSON KATZ, GO TO PAGES 12 AND 13]
Pretty much every day someone sends me some link to
some YouTube video, a new commercial, or a blog post
that lowers the bar even further for men. During the
Super Bowl, we were imagined as such henpecked weenies
that we went shopping with our partner instead of watching
“the” game (which is, really, any game), or so downtroddenly
politically correctified that our only recompense for being nice
to her friends and her mother, recycling and putting the toilet
seat down is an utterly retrograde “muscle car” straight out of
Miami Vice.
Clearly Madison Avenue believes we need help in retrieving
our manhood from the dustbin of emasculation. And they have
just the restorative products for us!
Ordinarily, I see such cultural effluvia as signs of progress.
Advertising is often a rear-guard action trying to recapture
something that has already changed. There’s an old axiom that
what we lose in reality we re-create in fantasy. So as our world is
becoming more gender equal, and as we, men, are—for the most
part, and with some noisy exceptions—increasingly, quietly,
accommodating ourselves to it, we’re fed a steady stream of
sexist and homophobic images as a sort of running commentary
on how far we’ve come—and how far we have yet to go.
The latest version is the Dockers khaki ads. Here, too,
guys are depicted as emasculated wimps who have lost their
manhood. But the article by Dockers’ Jennifer Sey reproduces
this problem, while actually compounding it.
Of course there are also feminists who want men to “man up,”
but they aren’t nostalgic about it. The whole ad has a “Once upon
a time” feel to it—men once were “better” than they are now.
Little old ladies crossed the street unmolested. In other words,
What Do Real Men Wear?
the ad effaces all the gains for women. It is without doubt better
for women now than it was back in those khaki days of Mad
Men. Or doesn’t the author of the piece remember expressing
her womanhood through bunny slippers and fixing the perfect
martini for her man? In other words, the nostalgia is for a pre-
[Betty] Friedan world where everyone “knew their place.”
I hate that sort of nostalgia. Yes, Scarlett, once upon a
time, blacks and whites got along, cared for each other at Tara,
and were equally fulfilled, in their respective stations. But
now, sadly, that world is gone with the wind. In other words,
bullshit.
But has anyone also pointed out the hilarious irony that
the whole campaign is for, of all things, khakis! Has anyone
mentioned to Levi Strauss that khakis are viewed as “gay”? Real
men don’t wear them! Have you ever seen Ah-nold in khakis?
Not bloody likely.
It’s likely they did surveys that found men consider khakis
sort of wimpy and preppy—which they are. So ultimately, the ad
is not about manning up men, it’s about “manning up” their pants!
It’s not that they think khakis will make you a real man—it’s
more that they think that if real men wear their preppy clothes,
the clothes will suddenly appear more butch. Which, frankly,
sounds like a repeat of 501s on Christopher Street to me!
—Michael Kimmel
Voice Male national advisory board member and contributing editor
Michael Kimmel is the author or editor of several books on manhood and
masculinity including Manhood in America, Men’s Lives, and Guyland. He
is professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
www.michaelkimmel.com
Spring 2010 11

I’d just lit up my Marlboro, saddled my horse, and was heading
out to cut a few steaks off one of our steers when I noticed I had a
tear in my jeans. Ever since the wife decided she wanted to earn
a bit of dough (“my own money” she calls it!) she’s been in a bit of a
flap and tells me I should fix my own pants.
Yeah, right.
So I go inside and strip down to my Calvin
Kleins. Although I’m spending more time at
the ranch these days, I still get a lot of phone
calls trying to get me to model their underwear
for magazine ads and billboards. I’ve
always said no because Dad taught me what
it meant to be a man. Showing off wasn’t part
of it. (And when I say taught me, that man
didn’t overlook a chance to pull out his trusty
belt. No sir. I didn’t like it much at the time,
but I can tell you now, I’m glad he did. I’ve
been able to teach my own son and I’m sure,
someday, he’ll do the same to his.) I’m not
going to show off, but I don’t mind telling you
if you’re not ripped like me, you don’t qualify
in anyone’s book.
I glance over at the Mattel Mad Men dolls
we’ve just bought for a friend’s daughter.
Teach her the way things go before she starts
to pick up any feminist ideas.
I change into my new pair of Dockers. Once I look after the cattle,
I’ve got to helicopter back to the office. The Dockers take me nicely
from the rough-and-tumble world of the ranch to the rough-and-tumble
Walking Dockers Tall, Pard’ner
world of business. I don’t mean I wear them to work. They’re for in
between, but I can tell you, when the old lady sees them, she has no
doubt who wears the pants in the family.
You might think I had her buy them for me because I needed some
new slacks. I’ve got a million pairs. No,
it was to show her who’s in charge. I like
telling her what to do and I like knowing
she’s scared of what will happen if she
doesn’t. I liked the thought of her seeing
those new ads talking about the days when
men were real men and women knew their
place. I want her to know I’m not the type
of soft-hands, pussy-whipped, talk-abouthis-feelings,
limp-wristed guy you see too
much of these days.
I don’t care if you’re a Tea Party type on
the lunatic fringe, or a middle-of-the-road
guy like me who doesn’t worry much about
politics. What I do know is that it’s about
time that we show the gals who is the boss.
Besides, these slacks have got those
nice big loops where you can hold your belt
between uses.
Princess Sparkle Pony’s Photo Blog sparklepony.blogspot.com
—Michael Kaufman
Voice Male contributing editor Michael Kaufman is cofounder of
the White Ribbon Campaign. www.michaelkaufman.com © Michael
Kaufman, 2010.
12 Voice Male

Campaigning by the Seat of Whose Pants?
As Dockers’ marketing director,
Jennifer Sey has certainly done
her job: drawing attention to her
product. But those of us in the reality-based
community see through Dockers’ “Men
Wear the Pants” campaign, especially troubling
at a time when the right wing is finding
new energy—and potentially millions of
white male votes—in their opposition to
the Obama presidency, including even the
mildest progressive legislation.
Ms. Sey calls herself a feminist and
makes some insightful observations about
what a more progressive men’s movement
would do for our culture. But does anyone
really believe the “Men Wear the Pants”
campaign is promoting progressive masculinity? The ad copy could
have been written by James Dobson or Phyllis Schlafly. When I first
read the ads, I thought immediately of Rush Limbaugh, who has
been ranting for years against the “feminizing effects” on men of
the women’s movement. Listen to Limbaugh, the country’s leading
conservative polemicist, in 2008:
“Who do liberals consider real men? Michael Kinsley, Alan
Alda, the guy that played…Frank Burns on M*A*S*H, you know…
this guy was practically a pet on a leash for ‘Hot Lips’ Houlihan.
And I think they’ve become Democrats. Some Republicans, too.
But I think they’ve run for office, and they have become Democrats.
Tom Daschle, Harry Reid, soft-spoken, concerned about everything.
They’re little wusses and they’re constantly voicing their concern
over every little thing that fits their template into a Democrat
America. Why do you think I’m so hated
by the feminists? Cause I am not feminized.”
Passage of the historic health insurance
reform bill—which, however watereddown
and corporate-friendly it might seem
to many of us—generated immense anger,
catalyzing a white-male-led backlash that
threatens to derail any further progressive
developments come the mid-term elections
in the fall. Ms. Sey says that the Levi
Strauss company embraces “sensitivity
and empathy” in men, the very same qualities
that conservatives like Dick Cheney
have bitterly attacked Barack Obama for
displaying.
Yes, as she says, it would be great if men would be willing to
“embody a new masculine ideal built around integrity, accountability
and ethical behavior.” But many people continue to be
confused about what it means to be a strong man. Profeminist men
and other progressives need to say firmly and frequently: Men who
stand up for justice and against violence are strong men. Men who
support gender and sexual equality are strong men. Whether or not
we feel like wearing pants. Even if, after this unfortunate and reactionary
advertising gimmick, we still choose to buy Dockers.
—Jackson Katz
Jackson Katz, a Voice Male contributing editor, is author of The Macho
Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help and
co-founder of Mentors in Violence Prevention. www.jacksonkatz.com.
Rob Okun
TEN WAYS TO BE A MAN
Join Voice Male magazine editor Rob Okun and Mark Matousek,
author of When You’re Falling, Dive and Ethical Wisdom (forthcoming) for a
workshop on May 14-16 at the Rowe Conference Center entitled
“Ten Ways to Be a Man.” Rob and Mark are part of V-Men, an arm of Eve
Ensler’s V-Day organization, inviting men to integrate their own personal
growth work with a sense of caring and responsibility to address the
epidemic of violence against women.
Mark Matousek
Nestled in the Berkshire Hills of
northwestern Massachusetts, Rowe
is a comfortable, relaxed center with
great food, beautiful surroundings and
a powerful sense of community.
To learn more about this important
weekend exploring men’s lives go to:
http://rowecenter.org/schedule/current/20100514_
MarkMatousek&RobOkun.html
May 14-16
Kings Highway Road Rowe,
Massachusetts 01367 (413) 339.4974,
www.rowecenter.org
Spring 2010 13

Fathering
Fathering in the
21 st Century
By Donald N.S. Unger
When we examine change, we often look as well at why things
often don’t change. I am particularly interested in the not
uncommon resistance to the notion that the quantity and
the quality of the time American fathers spend with their children have
changed meaningfully. Ironically, I see this resistance coming from both
the right and the left.
Philosophically, resistance on the right is easier to explain. Both
men and women in more politically or culturally conservative families
are apt to have a traditional view of gender: men are the breadwinners;
women stay home and take care of the children.
To publicly admit to sharing domestic labor would amount to an
admission of emasculation on two counts for the husband: for his failure
to earn sufficient money “as he should” in order to permit his wife to stay
home with the children, and for his own taking up of “women’s work.”
For the wife, it would amount to a public admission of her failure to take
care of home and children “as she should” and her inappropriate usurpation
of the prerogatives of the “proper head of the household.”
Women work outside the home. That’s no less true in conservative
families than in progressive families. The economic pressures are the
same; the economic lifeline—a second salary—is the same.
What is often different is what happens with child care and, of
particular importance to what I am arguing, how this matter is discussed
publicly. We have a national ambivalence about preschool day care,
but this is closer to hardcore resistance in blue-collar or lower-middleclass
conservative households. Day care, entrusting one’s children to
strangers—the financial costs aside—is more often viewed by such
families as a shamefully unacceptable betrayal of family values and
a potential venue for exposing children to a variety of dangers, both
cultural and physical.
As a result, evidence shows a large and vastly underreported increase
in the number of conservative households in which men and women are
sharing parenting to some degree, as a matter of necessity, both real and
perceived. Most often this is true in families where both parents do shift
work: nurses, utility workers, police officers, firefighters.
On the left, I believe people resist acknowledging progress, in part,
for fear that doing so will blunt the drive for further and more comprehensive
change. I understand that concern; it is not my contention that
we have reached some sort of postgender, egalitarian Promised Land
where all are “Free to Be You and Me,” but it is simply counterfactual to
claim that we have not made substantial progress toward equality, along
a variety of axes, in the past 35 years or so.
This resistance, which I would characterize as essentially tactical, is
buttressed by an emotional reaction—on the part of at least some women
and men of egalitarian bent—that might be summed up as:
“You want me to listen to men’s problems and complaints now?
Puh-lease!”
In examining the cultural impact of Kramer vs. Kramer, the 1979
Dustin Hoffman/Meryl Streep movie, New York Times film critic
Molly Haskell, writing three years after the movie’s release, was both
irritated by and dismissive of the movie in significant part because of
this perceived inequity. “The supreme irony of Kramer vs. Kramer,” she
fumes, “was that here at last was a film that took on the crisis central to
the modern woman’s life, that is, the three-ring circus of having to hold
Ratnakar Krothapalli
14 Voice Male

down a job, bring up a child and manage
a house simultaneously, and who gets
the role? Dustin Hoffman.”
I understand the emotion; I understand
its basis. But I don’t believe that
what she wrote was useful to fathers
or mothers.
A medical analogy might help illuminate
this. In the 1980s, AIDS activists
began to reshape medical care,
from the drug testing and approval
process, to hospital visiting regulations,
to end-of-life care. AIDS was
then almost exclusively a terminal
illness; the patients were, as a group,
Writer Donald
Unger and his
daughter
Rebecca
younger than most other people in that situation, sometimes radical to
begin with, sometimes radicalized by their experience with the illness;
they fought to change the terms of their treatment and the terms of
their deaths.
Some cancer patients and their families resented the changes the
AIDS patients and their allies were able to initiate. Why should they
get privileged access to drugs still in clinical trials? Why should they
have liberalized visiting policies? What gives them the right to challenge
their physicians when the culture of medical care says we can’t
challenge ours?
Some of those plaints—not often voiced publicly—were doubtless
colored by homophobia. But they embody an obvious and powerful
emotional logic untainted by that consideration: I’m dying too! Don’t I
deserve the same attention?
Ultimately, that’s the narrative that won out, not a competition, not a
zero-sum game in which the gains of one set of patients were construed
to be the losses of another: The AIDS patients’ rights movement birthed
a broader patients’ rights movement, rather than remaining at the level of
“sectarian warfare” between patients suffering from different illnesses.
Attention to the issues around fathers—married or divorced; custodial
or noncustodial; working as primary parents, sharing child care, or
working outside the home—should not be taken to be competition for
attention to the issues faced by mothers. Indeed, while there may be
some short-term, emotional benefit
to guarding the territory of child care
as a “women’s issue,” doing so also
contributes to the ongoing marginalization
of what I would instead
call “parents’ issues” in our political
discourse. I understand Haskell’s irritation.
She brings up an issue, and
an irony, that bears discussion. To
launch that discussion as a public
attack, however, amounts to parents
arranging themselves in a circular
firing squad.
Sometimes gender matters.
Sometimes mothers and fathers have
different concerns in terms of what makes our home lives or our professional
lives either easier or more difficult (men don’t get pregnant, for
example). More often, however, our concerns overlap: We are more
powerful when we stand together as parents than when we set ourselves
up as fathers against mothers or vice versa.
So where are we now?
We may be on the cusp of fundamentally—and to my mind positively—shifting
to a much more open definition of family and of
caregiving generally, opening up and broadening what it is possible, or
perhaps more accurately what it is acceptable, for a man to do with his
life. A shorthand way of looking at this would be that in the next decade
we may see the home open up to men in the same way that the workplace
began to open up to women in the 1970s.
I believe this would be good—for men, for women, for children—
though I would never assume that change is always easy or that it is
ever neat.
Writer Donald N.S. Unger, a longtime contributor to Voice Male, is a
lecturer in the program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. This article is excerpted from his book
Men Can: The Changing Image & Reality of Fatherhood in America,
forthcoming from Temple University Press, May 2010, and reprinted
with their permission. www.temple.edu/tempress. The author can be
reached at donunger@mit.edu.
“It’s not easy being a mother, is it?” the librarian says, smiling
over my shoulder, as I change my six-month-old daughter’s diaper
on a desk in the back room.
I close my eyes very briefly, try not to grit my teeth, remember
to breathe.
“I’m not being a mother,” I tell her, as softly as I can manage.
“I’m being a parent.”
“You’re doing what mothers usually do,” she tells me.
And I think it best to let the conversation die there.
I don’t have the time, the energy, or the tact to respond.
Situations like that were almost a daily occurrence when I was
out and around with my daughter when she was an infant, and often
it was as if I’d lost my voice; I am by nature a combative person, but
if parenthood does nothing else it tests the limits of your energy and
endurance.
Even your outrage has to be carefully rationed.
On that particular day, I had been “invited” to work, to score
entrance exams for the freshman writing course I was teaching; I was
taking care of Rebecca four days per week that term, but, in a fit of the
kind of flexibility that I realize is rarely extended to working mothers,
my department chair had simply suggested that I bring the baby with
me for the morning rather than miss all the fun.
Can Fathers “Mother?”
So I came in early, folding playpen in tow, took my daughter into
the back offices in the library, where we were going to be working,
stripped her, fed her, cleaned her up, changed her, and got her dressed
again, while the librarians buzzed in and out, doing their work.
But there’s always commentary.
Does it sound lighthearted, a slightly cynical, but essentially harmless,
observation about statistical reality—perhaps even well meant,
an honor accorded an exceptional man?
Does complaining about this make me seem thin skinned?
Try this if you’re a woman who works outside the home, particularly
in one of the professions, a doctor, a lawyer: Someone observes
you at work and says, “It’s not easy being a man, is it?”
Lighthearted? Well meant? Essentially harmless?
In today’s atmosphere, a statement like that is closer to legally
actionable.
What irritated me about what the librarian said didn’t have to do
with law or even etiquette, although both of those lurked in the background—was
she creating a hostile work environment for me?
I’m sure that wasn’t her intent, yet the language she used certainly
felt inflammatory to me.
—Don Unger
Spring 2010 15

Fathering
How to Be a Modern Dad
From Dilemma to Deliverance
By John Badalament
t the age of 25, not yet a dad myself,
I walked into my father’s office to
reconcile our past — he thought we
were going out for lunch. Up until
that point I had not yet discovered
the courage to speak honestly and directly with
my father about the past. All that would change
in just ten short minutes. I told my father that
we weren’t actually going to lunch, that he
should stay seated and not respond to anything
he was about to hear. He had been given plenty
of time to speak over the years; now it was
my turn to talk. Barely able to breathe, I said,
“You’ve done a lot of great things for me as a
dad.” After describing a few, such as how he
had supported my love of baseball and patiently
taught me how to drive, I said, “And . . . I want
you to know that growing up with you was also
very, very difficult. You were irresponsible,
alcoholic and abusive. As a consequence, I
have struggled, and still struggle to this day, to
feel good about myself. I don’t want you to do
anything. I’m an adult, and these are my issues
to deal with now.”
He opened his mouth to speak, and for the
first time ever, I raised my hand and without
a word, motioned for him to stop. I knew
that if I allowed him to talk, he would almost
certainly try to explain, minimize, or deny
what I was saying, and like most loyal sons, I
16 Voice Male
Kenya Crumel
would back down from speaking the truth of
my experience.
Confronting my father at the age of 25
was the single most difficult, emotionally raw
moment of my life. As a kid, I was taught that
vulnerability got you nothing but trouble and
thus learned to hate it. The currency of my
upper-middle-class boyhood was as follows:
being tough, “getting” the girls, and holding
your own in sports. If you had no currency,
you were at risk of verbal or physical reprisals.
I spent a great deal of time and energy
avoiding situations in which I could be taken
advantage of, proved wrong, or made to look
like a “wimp.” Implicitly, discussing feelings
and relationships with or around other boys
was forbidden.
When I left my dad’s office that day, I
assumed my departure would mark the end of
our relationship, that he would want nothing
more to do with me. Paradoxically, once I
found my voice and spoke up—as uncomfortable
and frightening as it was—our relationship
actually grew stronger. While we didn’t
necessarily spend more time together, speak
more often, or agree on everything (past or
present), a more honest dialogue developed
between us. There was no longer one voice, one
truth, or one authority. We became two adults,
not a father and a child. Don’t get me wrong;
my dad didn’t enjoy the experience of being
confronted with his past, but the effect of that
one conversation was deep and long-lasting.
Four years ago my father became ill from
years of neglecting his diabetes. As his condition
worsened, it became clear he wouldn’t be
leaving the hospital. I remember looking him
in the eye one afternoon and saying, “You can
go now, Dad. There’s nothing left to do here.”
He looked back at me, smiled, teared up, and
nodded. Our peace was made. A few days later
he quietly passed away.
I feel fortunate for having had the chance
to reconcile with him—by holding my father
lovingly accountable, as each new generation
must do—but sad that so much of his story was
shrouded in mystery. I knew very little about
his life as a husband and a dad: What did he
love about being a husband and a father? What
did he worry about as a father? What brought
him joy? When did he feel like he was doing
a great job as a father? What did marriage and
fatherhood mean to him?
It’s never too late for the truth. This is
why I remind dads—myself included—of
that all-too-common movie scene in which
the dad is on his deathbed and finally tries to
talk to his adult child (usually a son) to admit
his mistakes, to reveal his humanity, thereby
giving the purest possible expression of love.
Finally, in the fading light, his vulnerability
opens the door for the child to have a voice,
to reconcile a lifetime of distance, conflict,
absence, or emotional silence. As modern dads,
we must rewrite this scene for our children.
They need not wait so long.
In my educational consulting work, I do
an activity with students in which they anonymously
write down two questions they’ve
always wanted to ask their dad. No matter
what their ethnic, cultural, racial, or socioeconomic
background is, the students’ two most
common questions are almost always: “What
was your relationship like with your father?”
and “What was your childhood like?”—sometimes
worded as, “What were you like at my
age?” Though they may not ask, children want
and need their dad’s stories, even if they never
knew who their dad was. I call it the elephant
in the living room of child development: the
missing stories of men’s lives, particularly
men’s emotional lives.
Like many dads, growing up I did not
have the kind of close, emotionally connected
relationship with my father that I want with
my children today. Are there aspects of his

legacy I want to keep or pass on to my children?
Yes. Are there mistakes I’m determined
not to repeat? Of course. This is not, however,
a matter of intention only—what dad doesn’t
want to be close with his children? The question
is how: How can I give what I didn’t get?
In my workshops for parents, I often ask
dads to describe the kind of relationship they
are trying to build with their children. Whether
I’m at an elite private school, a prison, or a
public library, the responses are similar. Most
dads and dad figures want to have a strong,
close bond with their children, to always be
a trustworthy and vital presence, and to be
someone to turn to for advice, support, or just
to talk with. Most dads want their sons and
daughters to feel secure in knowing that they
can always come to them and share what’s
going on in their lives, good and bad.
In the past decade of working with dads of
all backgrounds, I have heard this chorus grow
louder: modern dads want connection, closeness,
and intimacy. Unlike fathers of generations
past, whose lives were so often cloaked in
silence and mystery, dads today are increasingly
vocal about this vision. Modern dads want to be
the competent, caring, and supportive parents
and partners that deep down we know we are
capable of becoming. This is my cause for
hope. It starts with modern dads speaking the
truth about what fatherhood means to us—how
it challenges our beliefs about manhood, raises
fears about repeating mistakes of the past, and
ultimately reveals our capacity to love another
human being unconditionally. It starts with also
making space in our relationships to truly listen
to our loved ones. Our children and families not
only want but need us to deliver on this new
vision of fatherhood.
Excerpted from The Modern Dad’s
Dilemma: How to Stay Connected to Your
Kids in a Rapidly Changing World, ©2010
by John Badalament. Printed with permission
of New World Library, Novato, CA.
www.newworldlibrary.com.
Voice Male contributing
editor John
Badalament is director
of the acclaimed PBS
documentary All Men
are Sons: Exploring
the Legacy of Fatherhood.
His work has been
featured on National
Public Radio, in Men’s
Health, and the Los Angeles Times. A graduate
of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education,
John consults with schools, parent groups, and
organizations about modern fatherhood. To
learn more, go to www.moderndads.net.
The Modern Dad’s Relationship Checkup
Having what I call
an “ongoing heartto-heart”
is a great
way to bring two
key elements of
emotional connection
— knowing and being
known — together. It
is a practical way for
you and your children
(adult children
included) to communicate
consistently
and honestly about daily happenings and,
most important, about the quality of your
relationship. It also provides you both with
a built-in mechanism for handling difficult
conversations, whether the subject is unresolved
from the past, currently happening,
or in the future. Specifically, the Relationship
Checkup is a series of questions
designed and sequenced to initiate and
encourage ongoing dialogue. There is a
version for children aged five to ten, and
another version for children aged eleven
and above. Below is an excerpt from a Relationship
Checkup completed by a divorced
dad, Jonah, and his daughter, Hannah.
The Modern Dad’s
Relationship Checkup:
Excerpts from Jonah and Hannah (age
nine)
Jonah and Hannah first found a quiet place
where they wouldn’t be interrupted (his
apartment), reviewed the list of questions
together, separated and each wrote their
individual responses to all the questions,
and finally came back together and shared
their responses to each question aloud.
Hannah’s Responses
1. Positive qualities I bring to our relationship
are:
That even though I don’t get to see you as
often as I see Mom, when I do get to I make
sure we have fun and try not to get in arguments,
which we hardly do.
2. Positive qualities you bring to our relationship
are:
That you know when to be serious and when
to joke around and be funny.
3. Ways that I sometimes make our relationship
difficult are:
I sometimes disagree with you, even though
I know you are saying the right thing.
Sometimes I just do it to get my way, even
though what you are saying is the better
thing to do.
4. Ways that you sometimes make our relationship
difficult are:
I don’t think you make anything difficult. It
is just kind of hard to see you be all nice and
funny and then turn into the firm dad.
5. One way I can strengthen our relationship
is:
To focus and listen more to what you’re
telling me, because it’s usually important.
6. One way that you can strengthen our
relationship is:
To not be on the phone as much, even
though you have gotten way better at that.
Jonah’s Responses
1. Positive qualities I bring to our relationship
are:
That I am encouraging and supportive and
that I maintain a good balance between
having fun and being responsible. I listen
to you and try to let you make up your own
mind.
2. Positive qualities you bring to our relationship
are:
You’re honest with me and very caring.
You listen to my advice, but you still think
for yourself.
3. Ways that I sometimes make our relationship
difficult are:
Being scattered or in a hurry, not managing
my time well, being on the cell phone and
the computer too much. Being too firm
sometimes when I just need to be patient
or gentler.
4. Ways that you sometimes make our relationship
difficult are:
Asking for things too much when I’ve
already given an answer. Not saying or
asking for things directly (asking questions
leading up to what you really want
to ask).
5. One way that I can strengthen our relationship
is:
By being clearer about my schedule and
managing my time better, so that when
we’re together, we can make the most of our
time and have as much fun (and get as much
done as we need to) as possible.
6. One way that you can strengthen our
relationship is:
By being more direct with me about your
feelings and being more patient when you
can’t have what you want right away.
Spring 2010 17

Women’s Bodies, Men’s Minds
By Lillian Hsu
I
grew up with boys—two doting
brothers, a father who loved me unconditionally,
and seven boy cousins. My
aunt told me there was rejoicing when
I was born—finally a girl! I remember
wanting to be a boy. At 17 I went to college
at an all-female institution. It was during the
women’s movement of the 1970s.
I married and had children—a boy and a
girl. I saw how our culture shuts down whole
swaths of a boy’s humanity by the time he
reaches third grade. I saw how our culture
teaches girls to be pretty objects as soon
as they can walk. I saw that my children’s
preschool lessons about Rosa Parks and
Sally Ride and Amelia Earhart were not
enough to combat the later lessons of “wife
beater” tank tops, pornography normalized
and glorified, and the parade of women in
movies and media who are used, prostituted,
hypersexualized, and consumed.
I continued to listen to men. I wondered
what definitions of masculinity my late
brother had believed when he left heterosexuality
for homosexuality. I read books
about hidden male depression and the inner
life of boys. I saw the cultural landscape of
gender roles change and stay the same. I saw
the definitions of masculinity and femininity
expand and contract.
The women’s movement of the 1970s
offered a vision of equality for women and,
for those men tuning in, an invitation to men
to leave behind the constraints of the “man
box.” Of course it was not so simple. Being
groomed for masculinity meant most men
were unlikely to take up the invitation.
Still, I kept seeing men in pain, men
addicted, burdened by the pressure to perform
and provide, and saddened but too paralyzed
by the messages of conventional masculinity
to weep. A woman I know says, “If I didn’t
drink I would cry all the time.” A man I know
says, “If I didn’t drink, I would turn into a
monster.” I think the man would not be a
monster. I think the man would cry, too—if
he did not think he had to “be a man.”
My frustration grew. While some men
began challenging and examining how they
had been socialized and, as a consequence,
began to change, far too many men remained
complicit with everyday sexism. I heard
people say there were no longer barriers for
girls—they could go where they dreamed to
go. At the same time, misogyny intensified. I
observed a relentless objectification of women
colored by implicit and explicit violence. The
notion of what was “beautiful” grew ever more
18 Voice Male
Beautiful Just The Way You Are?
disturbing, and the discomfort and self-denial
women endured in order to be “attractive” felt
desperate. The predatory quality of the male
gaze over women’s bodies grew more intolerable
even though the catcalls had decreased
and we got more jobs. Protest had shrunk to
a whisper. Girls were making themselves into
cartoons of sexual prey and calling it empowerment.
I heard women say they did not need
feminism. I heard men who were addicted to
pornography say they were feminists.
I thought men and women shared a human
desire for connection, mutual respect, and
understanding. I felt deep sadness and anger at
how important I saw it was for men to assess,
rate, and consume girls and women, how
easily men deny the connection between their
behavior and the continuation of violence
against women, how perniciously the demand
for girls and women to serve up their bodies
seeps into our culture, how urgently men
align themselves with their gender to affirm
the righteousness of their entitlement. I was
incredulous at the ordinariness of verbal and
visual cruelty. I felt ill at the eroticizing of
torture and humiliation of women and girls. I
wanted to weep. I wanted to tell men to leave
our bodies alone.
There is a good speech in the movie The
Devil Wears Prada, where Meryl Streep, the
“high priestess” reigning over the staff of a
major fashion magazine, attempts to teach
a new hire a cold truth about the world of
fashion. A woman selects a cerulean blue
sweater she sees in a department store and
thinks she is making a personal choice that
reflects her individuality. She does not think
of the fact that the particular cerulean blue
of the sweater was determined by someone
nine months ago, made it through manufacturing,
and ended up in thousands of
department stores, where it will be selected
by thousands of women, each thinking she
has made a personal choice.
I think of this speech when I hear men
or women speak about what they think is the
most universally “attractive” body type. We
are fed thousands of images a day through
advertising and media that tell us we want
bodies, not people, and exactly what that
body should look like, and then individuals
will say their personal favorite is that body
type. What we think of as “beauty” is culturally
determined and changes over time.
We have been robbed of the ability to see
beauty in everyone. And yet we choose to
be robbed if we allow such tyranny to distort
our humanity and determine how we think.
We try to teach our children this lesson.
We tell them they only want that Jumping
Jubilee party because the media has taught
them to want it, but we fail to see how the
same media dictates what we as adults value
in human experience. Advertising works.
The car ads on television tell men they will
get a woman who looks like the hired model if
they buy that car; you’ll get a woman like this
if you stay in our hotel; you’ll get that woman
if you buy these socket wrenches. You’ll get
a woman like this receptionist if you buy our
plumbing supplies. You’ll get women if you
attain political power. You’ll get women if
you win. And for all of these women, what
is the cost?
Men have mothers, sisters, daughters,
granddaughters, aunts, nieces, and female
friends and loved ones. I want men to understand
that all of these loved ones are seen as
objects of sexism and male violence in every
one of its forms—insults, predatory behavior,
demeaning comments, threats, domination,
rape, assault, and humiliation—all based
on the simple fact that they are female.
All women will experience some of these
behaviors in their lifetime. Does it matter
that your daughter has to consider whether to
cross the street when she sees a line of men
seated ahead of her, while your son does not?
Would it be okay if your friend and her friend
were tortured, filmed, and used by millions of
men to get off? Does it matter that one of the
reasons she might have found herself there

was because she learned as a child that she
should degrade herself to serve men? Does
it matter that your wife has to swallow insults
and predatory glares every day but does not
think it is significant enough to tell you when
she comes home? Does it matter that your
girlfriend has learned that her value goes up
if she makes herself more of a sexual object,
while your value goes up proportionate to your
accomplishments? Is it okay that your niece
was raped at 14 and hasn’t talked about it in
20 years because she suspects no one will care
to listen or will believe her? Does it matter
your daughter will pay a man to carve up her
body and alter its shape so she can please more
men? Would you carve up your body to please
more women?
Does it matter that the women in your
life are compared to a piece of meat, and men
laugh?
There are voices telling me, “Don’t be
too hard on the men; don’t make them feel
badly, don’t hurt their feelings; don’t shut
them down.” I wonder: Why do I have to be so
delicate with men’s feelings when so many men
have violated and disregarded the feelings of
women? Even though I am furious, I want men
to listen and know that I am treading gently. I
will take care because I want a conversation,
not a battle. But I want men to hear that women
are outraged, hurt, saddened, and silenced.
Despite my anger, I will not let go of my
connection to men. I will not quit searching
for positive change. I will not stop inviting
men to walk with women and change our lives
together. I will keep listening to men and
asking, challenging, stubbornly assuming (I
think sometimes unreasonably) that men want
to have freedom to be fully human and would
like to have relationships of mutual respect,
love, and intimacy with
women. How many men
would say I am wrong?
Lillian Hsu is an artist
living in Watertown,
Massachusetts.
A “Beautiful” Magazine Cover Protest Campaign
In the spring of 2009 I began a protest campaign I dubbed “BEAU-
TIFUL Just the Way You Are.” I designed a BJTWYA poster to mimic
a magazine format but it only carries the common phrase, a kind
of mantra—“BEAUTIFUL Just the Way You Are.” People use it when
they mean we all have beauty and need not fuss over our appearance to
conform to a false notion of “beautiful.” BEAUTIFUL Just the Way You
Are invites anyone to participate wherever magazines are displayed. All
you have to do is place one of the 8½ x 11 BJTWYA posters over every
magazine that uses a woman’s body to sell a product, a lifestyle—or the
magazine itself. The magazine racks assault us with the message women
are flawed, our bodies need fixing, commanding we become “better”
objects for male consumption. BEAUTIFUL Just the Way You Are offers
a simple, subversive counterpoint to protest this tyranny.
Although the project focuses on magazine covers, the voice of advertising
is the voice of the culture, the voice of the “Other,” telling us our
body parts are being measured against a checklist and, no surprise, we
are seen as lacking. Take the woman who wrote me to request posters
because her daughter is in a residential program for eating disorders—a
symptom of a deep cultural sickness. How toxic is our culture to create
such anguish? I wish every man would see in that girl his responsibility
for her well-being, for the demands imposed on women and girls to
make our bodies into a consumer product, not for ourselves but for men.
Turning a person into a thing is the first step toward condoning all forms
of violence—visual, verbal, psychological, or physical.
On the BJTWYA blog I have begun to address the moments in our
daily lives when objectification can be resisted. These moments occur
often—when we are buying eggs and milk, having dinner with friends, or
on the job. Violence against women is not just for police stations, shelters,
and the evening news. The large majority of men, and many women, share
the values that make rape, pornography, and other violent expressions of
misogyny possible. We are all indoctrinated in the same culture, so it is
no surprise that women and men alike devalue women. Some women do
not. Some men do not. But we are all responsible.
My father often said to me, “Hope for the best; prepare for the
worst.” I don’t have high expectations that many men will become stealth
agents covering over sexist magazine covers with BEAUTIFUL Just the
Way You Are posters. I do hope the campaign gives men reason to pause,
to reflect on how women in this society are treated. (And how men are,
too.) I know not all men, or all women, think or act alike. But the painful
stories of women, girls, men, and boys, the statistics on violence against
women, relationship problems, body image disorders, and cosmetic
surgery suggest to me we need a national conversation about these issues.
Am I wrong in thinking that too few men want to have this conversation?
To learn more about the BJTWYA campaign, go to www.bjtwya.com.
To comment or ask a question, write bjtwya@yahoo.com
—Lillian Hsu
Spring 2010 19

Men, Misogyny and the Future
When Men Challenge Sexism
By Thomas Keith
Tom Keith’s film Generation M: Misogyny in Media and Culture, is a searching examination of the media’s sexist
depictions of women. In an industry largely controlled by men, Keith critically explored images of women that
permeate popular culture in music, television, news media, film, games, and radio. He says he wanted to better
understand the culture he inhabits and examine what those depictions of women say about us as a society, how
our thinking is affected—from early childhood on—both as males and females. Since its release in September
2008, Generation M: Misogyny in Media and Culture, which is distributed by the Media Education Foundation
(www.mediaed.org), has become a staple in college and university classrooms around the world. What he wasn’t
prepared for, he says, was the response some people had to the film.
20 Voice Male

fter Generation M was released, I
traveled the country screening the
film, listening to what audiences
had to say. Across age and gender
lines, people were overwhelmingly
supportive. Many teaching at colleges and
universities told me they use the film in their
classrooms, seeing it as a great resource for
creating class discussion and raising a host of
issues about sexism in popular culture.
Still, I didn’t realize how powerful a nerve I
had struck. I was not prepared for the backlash
that came from men and women alike who
felt strongly that a man should not be making
a film about what is traditionally thought to
be a “women’s issue.” The ad hominem style
of the attacks was particularly unexpected.
Comments included: “The only reason a man
would make such a film is to get laid,” or “A
man cannot know what women go through,” or
“Men, just keep your opinions to yourselves.” I
also heard the obligatory comment from some
males: “This guy must be a faggot.”
It is troubling to think there must be a
barrier between the sexes when discussing
gender issues, a divide that is not supposed to
be crossed. In fact, the exclusionary tone of the
criticism I received reminded me of the hackneyed
notion that there is an alleged “battle
between the sexes.” That we were waging a
war where men and women should consider
one another enemy combatants rather than
allies, and where those who cross gender lines
are traitors. It was a rude awakening. In my
critics’ minds, my view was naïve—believing
men and women are interconnected, are people
who need each other, who laugh and cry, live
and die, together.
Let me be clear. Throughout all the amazing
progress the women’s movement made—a
movement spearheaded and carried out almost
exclusively by women—they did not need
men to help them, and they certainly do not
now need any men telling them how they
should be as women. If anything, that attitude
has been the central problem of the history
of gender: men telling women how to act,
dress, think, and live. Because of this history,
women have rightly met male, pro-feminist
support with suspicion. Similar suspicion was
cast on Caucasians who lent their support to
African-Americans’ struggle for rights and
recognition during the civil rights movement.
The same might be said today for heterosexuals
who support gay rights. It is understandable
why some members of historically oppressed
groups would look at support from members of
the oppressor group with trepidation.
Against this background, in screening
Generation M around the country, the number
one question I hear, from both women and
men, is “Why did you make this film—what
was your motivation?” In introducing it, I
tell audiences how I am frequently challenged
by people, including colleagues, about why
“Simply put, men do not benefit from
being sexist. There are men who
don’t believe this, who fear giving up
their privilege. They are the men who
often have distant relationships with
women, whose children aren’t close
to them, who work and drink too
much, whose health is
compromised, whose friendships
are superficial and few.”
Thomas Keith,
Director of Generation M
I, as a man, would make such a film. Questions
almost always focus on my gender. The
more I heard this question, the more I began
to realize that the question itself highlights a
problem in discussing gender issues. Consider
the literature in gender studies: the lion’s share
of books written about masculinity are written
by male authors, while the vast majority of
published materials on women are written by
women. Sure, gender-specific authorship is
largely due to men’s and women’s knowledge
of and interest in our own genders. Yet I can’t
help thinking that lurking in this dichotomous
separation is an unaddressed problem. When
authors do cross gender lines (consider, for
example, Shira Tarrant’s book Men and Feminism,
see Voice Male, Spring 2009), a rare
opportunity opens allowing readers to escape
the linear box of homogenous thinking, to foster
new ways of approaching issues, perceive and
solve problems, and create a richer and more
satisfying dialogue.
Sadly, those who believe in gender
inequality and gender dissension often reinforce
their beliefs by raising children to believe
as they do. Yet when I think of my mother, my
daughter, my wife, my aunt, my niece, my
female friends, I don’t think of alien people—
opposites—rather, I simply think of people I
love. I think of the men and boys in my life
in the same way. I have a teenage son and I
have rhetorically asked audiences many times,
What kind of world do I want my son growing
up in? A sexist world? To those who suggest,
“Why not? If it’s a man’s world, your son will
benefit,” I reply, You’re wrong! Men do not
benefit from living in a sexist world where
men dominate and women are subordinate.
Men do not benefit by training their sons to
think primarily of women as objects of sexual
gratification. Men do not benefit from teaching
their sons to use aggression, intimidation, and
violence to settle their differences with others,
including differences they may have with the
women in their lives. Men do not benefit by
placing glass ceilings between women and
career opportunities. Simply put, men do not
benefit from being sexist. Of course there are
men who don’t believe this characterization,
who fear giving up their privilege, their sense
of entitlement. They are the men who often
have distant relationships with the females in
their lives, devoid of real intimacy, whose children
aren’t close to them. These are men who
usually work too much, drink too often; whose
health is compromised, and whose friendships
are superficial and few.
Yes, I am a man who made a film about
sexism in contemporary media and society.
I don’t apologize for that. I am not a gender
traitor as much as an ally in the movement
for gender equality. I am glad to be part of a
movement with many voices, many points of
view. I believe in a community where people
care about one another; support one another;
work together, lean on each other, share ideas,
constructively lend criticism, and respect each
other. I view the plurality of thought around
shared goals as strength. I stand for a community
peopled by diverse thinkers who share the
dream of creating a more progressive society.
Some might characterize me as unsophisticated
for believing in the idea that we are first and
foremost a community of sisters and brothers
who care about each other. To them I say, I plan
to hold on to my naïve view that all who care
about social justice are part of a family. Why
not join us?
Writer, director and producer of Generation
M: Misogyny in Media and Culture, Thomas
Keith teaches philosophy at California State
University, Long Beach. His new film about
contemporary masculinity, The Manual
For Building Dysfunctional Men, is due
out next year. He works with “Schools on
Wheels,” an organization mentoring and
tutoring children living in homeless shelters
and domestic violence shelters throughout
greater Los Angeles. He can be reached at
americanphilos@aol.com.
Spring 2010 21

Voice Male gives us fuel and fresh ideas
for the work of ending male-dominated
societies and supporting new roles for men
and new relations between
the sexes.
—Michael Kaufman,
co-founder, White Ribbon
Campaign
I celebrate you for standing with women
in the struggle to end violence against
women and girls. Your brave magazine
is bringing forward the new vision
and voices of manhood which will
inevitably shift this paradigm
and create a world where
we are all safe and free.
Bless you for it.
—Eve Ensler,
award-winning playwright
(The Vagina Monologues)
What’s happening with men and masculinity?
That’s the question Voice Male tries to answer each issue as it chronicles manhood in transition.
The changes men have undergone the past 30 years, our efforts following women in challenging
men’s violence, and our ongoing exploration of our interior lives, are central to our vision.
The magazine’s roots are deep in the male positive, profeminist, anti-violence men’s movement.
We draw inspiration from the world-changing acts of social transformation women have long advanced
and the growing legion of men agitating and advocating for a new expression of masculinity.
At this key moment in the national conversation about men, Voice Male has much to contribute. Join us!
4 issues-$24 8 issues-$40
To subscribe—or to make a tax-deductible gift—please use the enclosed envelope or go to:
voicemalemagazine.org
22 Voice Male
—

Masculinity and Peacemaking
A Call to Men and Boys
Nineteen men from 17 countries participated in a groundbreaking training in the Netherlands last December,“Overcoming Violence: Exploring Masculinities, Violence & Peace”,
a program of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Women Peacemakers Program (WPP). Co-facilitators were Steven Botkin, front row, on left, and Patricia Ackerman,
front row, second from right. WPP program manager Isabelle Geuskens is seated at left, second row; WPP information officer José de Vries is in front row, far right.
Convinced that in order to transform
cultures of war and violence to ones of
peace and justice, women peace activists
have begun to work with male allies. Nineteen
men from 17 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe,
America, the Middle East and the Pacific gathered
in the Netherlands at the end of 2009
for a training of trainers on gender-sensitive
active nonviolence. The two-week training,
“Overcoming Violence: Exploring Masculinities,
Violence and Peace” was organized by the
International Fellowship of Reconciliation’s
Women Peacemakers Program (www.ifor.org/
WPP.) At the end of their time together, the group
drafted a document to express their commitments
in a call to men and boys issued last International
Human Rights Day. According to one
of the trainers, Men’s Resources International’s
Steven Botkin, participants at the historic gathering
intend to implement initiatives in each of
their home communities. A follow-up training is
scheduled for July.
A Call to Men and Boys
We understand that men and women are
socialized in a patriarchal system that
legitimizes the use of different forms of violence
to gain, restore, and control power affecting
powerless and marginalized sections of society.
We fully acknowledge that women suffer far
more than men from gender oppression.
We understand and recognize that women
have always been a agent of change.
Women worldwide are standing up against
all forms of discrimination and violence to
bring social and gender justice and peace to
the world. Some men are now standing as
allies with women’s struggles but notions of
dominant masculinities across cultures have
posed challenges for gender equality and social
justice. Both men and women are suffering in
this system and they need to join hands to bring
about transformative change. Men also have
much to gain in health, general well being and
safety through this change.
We believe that all individuals have
equal human rights irrespective of their
gender, origin, nationality, age, religion, caste,
class, race, color, occupation, physical and
mental abilities, and sexualities. All human
beings have the right to a dignified life free
of threats of discrimination. We assert our
commitments to all international conventions
and declarations, especially the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
Against Women, Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights, UN International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, UN Security Council
Resolutions 1325, 1820, 1888 and 1889. These
need to be fully implemented in their true spirit
and further steps need to be taken to improve
policies and programs pertaining to women and
gender justice.
We strongly speak out against gender
inequality and discrimination towards
women in all forms and show our deep commitment
towards gender-sensitive active nonviolence
as a way of life. We are inspired by and
committed to this work and the prospect of
change in our lives and in our societies. We
believe in people’s capacity to bring transformative
change in nonviolent ways.
Therefore we call on all men and boys
to:
• Adopt gender-sensitive active nonviolence as
a way of solving problems
• End violence against women in any form
• Engage in constructive dialogue with
women
• Provide space for equal and meaningful
participation of women in private and public
spheres including peace-building processes
•Stop militarizing resistance and peace
processes
• Promote policies that bring dignity to all
people
We call on men and boys to join us on
this journey.
Spring 2010 23

Men and Health
Men Coming in from the Cold
By Charlie Donaldson
To writer-therapist Charlie
Donaldson, the dioramas depicting
family life many of us viewed on
school field trips to natural history
museums offer a window into a
contemporary understanding of
masculinity. In the dioramas he
remembers, mothers and children
are central, situated close together
in rustic huts, the women cooking
over an open fire. A single man,
the father, is seen in the distance,
squatting at the edge of a shallow
cave, club in hand. “Such scenes,”
Donaldson believes, “represent
a homey Fifties mentality. They
represent gender role characteristics
that still challenge us as a
society, particularly those of us
who are educators, therapists, and
especially including those aspiring
to be liberated men.” Donaldson
believes that all dioramas over
the last several thousand years,
right up to the end of the 20th
century, would look remarkably
the same. “Other than electronic
trinkets, acrylic surfaces, and
vinyl siding, scenes depicting individual
roles and family life haven’t
significantly changed. Women
and children remain at center
stage, engaged and lively; father
is distant and removed, guarded
and guarding.” But, Donaldson
believes, things are changing.
Family dioramas featuring
aloof and distant men
remind us of a history we
know all too well: a chronicle of
anger and aggression in which
the suffering of victims is ignored
and the spoils of war go to the
bully. I’ve given some thought
to what the diorama of the first
decade of the 21st century would
look like. There are certainly male
diehards (there’s a hypermasculine word for you) among us, clinging to
the old description of men as the strong and silent type. There remain
male diehards for whom manhood is measured in self-control, invulnerability,
and intimidation. But it is a hopeful sign, remarkable actually,
how many men are moving to the other end of the continuum—wearing
their role as men more loosely, embodying qualities such as self-examination,
accountability, sensitivity, patience, respect. No longer represented
by the Marlboro Man on the edge of our field of vision, these are
men who’ve come in from the cold
and, in a contemporary diorama,
can be found inside the hut with
their partner and children.
The ongoing transition from
conventional masculinity to a new
definition of manhood tells part
of the story. Men are speaking
out at workshops and conferences
decrying violence against
women; others are mentoring
boys and teaching fathering
skills; collaborating with women
in social service and social justice
organizations; and making films
and writing books critiquing the
old ways and championing the
new. Beyond these more visible
instances, unseen powerful forces
are contributing to the creation of
the new man. They include organizations
and activities with specific
missions other than male liberation.
Nevertheless, their work
contributes to developing attributes
of the new man. Consider
these examples:
Court-mandated
treatment
There’s a quiet revolution going
on in the court system. Financial
exigencies and high rates of
recidivism have pressured courts
to decrease incarceration and
increase treatment. Courts are
sending men to therapists like
me for many reasons—domestic
violence, assault, drunk driving—
and the men are attending programs
lasting up to six months.
Consider:
John was very angry. In his
first group therapy session, he
shifted restlessly in his chair at
the back of the room, apart from
the group, staring out the window.
It was obvious that he was not actually looking at anything through the
glass; his goal was to keep his eyes off the other group members, the
room he was forced to be in, and, especially, me. He spoke tersely and
only when required to do so. At his second or third session, I asked John
to tell the group what he did that resulted in his conviction for domestic
violence. He said that his best friend was having an affair with his
ex-wife, and that got him arrested. I asked him what he had done that
led to his arrest. He denied doing anything. Three months later, after
24 Voice Male

epeated confrontations with group members, John finally admitted
that he was intoxicated on the night of his arrest and was stalking his
ex-wife outside a motel room. As the weeks passed and he was able to
think more clearly, he recognized he had been controlling and abusing
his wife through all the years of their marriage. Through the group, John
learned to examine his destructive core beliefs, to replace anger with the
underlying feelings of hurt, fear, and shame, to empathize, and to find a
new level of intimacy with both men and women.
Groups can be effective because elders pass mores to initiates just as
they have for thousands of years. If someone calls his wife a bitch, an
elder says, “We don’t talk that way here.” Men resocialize other men,
who in turn resocialize newer guys. Many men leave feeling different
from when they first came to group. They stop seeing women as prey.
They admit their wrongs. They come to value, both in principle and
pragmatically, egalitarianism. Sometimes they say to me, “You know
we never talk like this anywhere else.”
The objective of court-mandated groups is to reduce recidivism.
The criminal justice system doesn’t want these men to hurt their wives
again, get into bar fights, or wipe out a family driving drunk. But the
group process often produces so much more: a man who not only avoids
antisocial behavior but goes deep enough inside that he tells the truth
about himself, makes room for feelings without letting them run his life,
recognizes the dangers of power and control, and lives with sensitivity
and respect.
Twelve-step groups
Lionel’s been drunk most every night for almost a decade. Over
the years, three wives have left him, and he’s had four arrests for drunk
driving. It’s a Friday night, and he parks his car outside the Congregational
church a half-hour early for the eight o’clock meeting. He keeps
the car running because it’s January and cold, but mostly in case he
decides to run. A few minutes before eight, other people park their cars
and go in. He counts them—16, 17, 18—and then finds himself getting
out of the car—19.
People tell their stories. Getting into a fight with a friend and waking
up with broken ribs. Trying to commit suicide. Spending a year in jail
after a fifth drunk driving arrest. Getting divorced by a spouse who was
sick of their drinking. Promising to see a son in the playoffs and getting
drunk at the bar instead. Then they talk about how much better things
have gotten since they stopped drinking. How they appreciate their
family. How they’re less competitive. How they go out of their way to
help others, especially other alcoholics.
Lionel is stunned. Not so much by their stories as by how they tell
them. He’s never heard people admit what they’ve done so openly, in
such detail, with so much honesty. Lionel doesn’t know it, but this is
his introduction to intimacy. When his turn comes, he says he knows
he drinks too much and that he’s gotten in trouble with the law. That’s
all he can bring himself to say on this first night.
If Lionel keeps attending AA, he’ll learn to disclose, shed some tears,
find empathy for others, and feel a sense of camaraderie without the aid
of a bottle of gin. The purpose of AA and other twelve-step groups is
not to emancipate men from traditional manhood. Nevertheless, many
a man started out on his own road to liberation at a meeting in a church
basement.
Couples counseling
Women often demand their partners agree to couples counseling if
they want to avoid divorce. Women usually articulate their concerns and
disclose their feelings more clearly than men, who may not exhibit the
same psychological insight. The way males are socialized undervalues
a relational approach, putting men at a disadvantage. Still, men can be
surprisingly quick learners—there’s a lot at stake in couples counseling—
and they often morph into more empathic and gentler men.
Gerry and Lynn had been married 25 years. Their daughter had
left for college and the house now seemed empty. Gerry was an engineer,
and he used his not inconsiderable planning skills to lay out the
schedule of Lynn’s days. When I initially interviewed him, he sat at the
edge of the couch looking at the wall. I made an observation about the
relationship, to which he raised his finger and said, “I don’t agree with
that.” When the session ended, he commented, “Well, it doesn’t seem
like we accomplished much today.” I wondered what it would be like
to be married to a man who censured one’s best efforts so sharply and
probably so often.
But Gerry wanted to stay married, and in our couples counseling
sessions he worked hard to add a new dimension to himself—the feeling
one. He entered a men’s therapy group and quickly became an insightful
group leader. One day, the men had a discussion: How to know when
it was time to leave the group. Gerry said, “It’s when you’ve gotten
enough in touch with your feelings that you notice you can be intimate
with the ones you love.”
Individual therapy
Men usually come to treatment in crisis. Bill reported that he and
Marla, his partner of two years, had a good relationship. Last Thursday,
they argued and, when she said she wanted to end the relationship, he
pushed Marla into the wall. Scared by his behavior, he showed up in my
office the next day. Crisis is not the best motivator for treatment, but he
nonetheless attended 16 sessions, where he came to understand he didn’t
trust people, seeing the world as essentially unsafe because of his childhood
history, with a wayward mother, and alcoholic father. At points
in counseling, he had tears in his eyes. He learned to talk more openly
with Marla about his fears, making the prospect of further violence less
likely. All things considered, Bill became a considerably more open man
over the course of counseling.
Other influences
Traditional churches spoke with authority, in terms of moral absolutes.
The new church is personal. The pastor speaks of his private life,
and after the service, people head off to their Bible study or addiction
recovery groups, which are often less study and more therapy. Conventional
pastors were upright men of God who bore no apparent human
blemishes. Today they are failed people in recovery. When I went to
one of these churches with a friend, she pointed to the pastor and said
proudly, “He used to be a cocaine addict.”
EMS personnel are taught to provide empathy; human resource staffs
are trained in personality inventory and relationship skills; the military
provides grief counseling. Public schools teach about respectful relationships,
including anti-bullying. In medical school, physicians learn
how to tell patients about terminal illness. State programs offer counseling
to judges and attorneys for substance abuse and burn out.
So what about a diorama for the 21st century? You’ve probably
concluded you’d need several, if not many. One might still depict the
man away from the family; another might find him in the center with
his partner and children. Another might show him with children alone.
Still another, with another man. In a time of transition, roles are in flux
as men grow in new directions. But one thing is clear: the influences at
play in creating new definitions of manhood are powerful, and they’re
coming from many sources.
Charlie Donaldson is a therapist, writer,
and former codirector of the Men’s Resource
Center of West Michigan. He is coauthor (with
Randy Flood) of Stop Hurting the Woman You
Love: Breaking the Cycle of Domestic Abuse
(Hazelden, 2006).
Spring 2010 25

26 Voice Male

From Boys to Men
Young Men’s
Journey to
Healthy
Manhood
By Richie Davis
Kai Chiang
ike his fellow Journeymen, Noah Koester
says he looks forward to hanging out
together with the guys for four hours of
biking, hiking, disc golf, wrestling …
and heart-to-heart talking.
The five teenagers from around Franklin
County, Massachusetts, just south of Vermont
and New Hampshire, have been meeting the
past several months with their four mentors.
They are part of Boys to Men, an international
organization that tries to support and encourage
boys on the journey to healthy manhood—
navigating the challenges of adolescence in
the absence of communal bonds that once were
common in a more family-oriented, villagecentered
time.
“People always say there’s a ‘road of life,’
but it’s more like a field,” said Koester, a 14-
year-old high school student from Warwick,
Mass. “You choose your own path, you follow
who you choose.”
Last August, Koester took part in a
weekend-long Rite-of-Passage Adventure
Weekend at a camp near Brattleboro, Vt., along
with two dozen other boys from around the
Northeast. Koester’s father, David, also took
part and remains one of five adult mentors for
the Journeymen, or “j-group,” in the year that
follows.
The rite-of-passage initiation is for teenage
boys, a part of the 12-year-old Boys to Men
program that began in California as a way to
help young men through what can often be a
difficult transition into adulthood. The younger
males are guided by adult mentors, who also
volunteer to help the Journeymen
John Berkowitz of Shelburne, Mass., a
former human service worker, who coordinates
the Boys to Men Network in the southern
Vermont, northwestern Massachusetts area,
says, “We believe that today’s boys have lost
what boys have had in every culture throughout
history: a support network of elders, fathers,
uncles and other males who initiate and mentor
them into young manhood.
“Along with a nearly 50 percent divorce
rate, this has led so many boys to fill the void
by joining gangs, abusing alcohol and drugs,
perpetrating violence toward themselves
and others, becoming addicted to the video
screen, engaging in unhealthy sexuality,
experiencing declining academic performance,
and distracting themselves by increasing
consumerism and materialism.”
Boys to Men, with groups operating in
Germany and South Africa, supports boys and
encourages them to trust in one another and
open up.
The “boy code,” as defined by William
Pollack in his book Real Boys, trains males
to be tough and independent, to dominate
others, distrust other males, and to suffer in
private without ever crying, never examining
or expressing feelings other than anger. The
effects can include bullying, domestic violence
and suicide, say Pollack, Berkowitz and
members of the j-group themselves.
“I think it leads to pent-up emotions that
sort of overflow when you reach a certain age,
and that can lead to all sorts of confusion,” says
13-year-old Jonah Ferdman-Hayden of South
Hadley, Mass., a participant in the less than
year-old group. “Society tells all the males to
just ‘man up,’ don’t let your emotions out, just
keep them in.”
David Koester, 53, recalls that when he
was growing up, there wasn’t any similar
organization, other than a church group that
“conceivably could have done a little of that
role, but I don’t think it did. For me, there
wasn’t really an opportunity. I was getting
Spring 2010 27

28 Voice Male

the wrong messages: A boy was supposed to
learn to handle things, mostly on their own,
(to) cowboy up and tough it out and not pay
attention to your feelings. That’s the reason I
really wanted to get involved in this, to change
that.”
Koester signed up for the rite-of-passage
with his son and became a mentor after first
trying a 24-hour men’s workshop, “Finding
Your Teenage Fire,” that also serves as a
mentor training and includes j-men teens in the
reverse role of mentors to their elders.
Boys to men, has trained more than 3000
youths, and “helps not only the boys but the
men,” Berkowitz said, “in healing some of
those old wounds from their teenage years,
making sure boys today get the support they
didn’t have.”
Berkowitz, who had worked with
adolescents at a Vermont-based community
mental health agency and other programs,
became interested after seeing a documentary
film about it three years ago.
“I think most of the men who get involved
with this feel that this is something we missed
as teenagers,” he said. “We’re trying to get
back and understand ourselves, to things we
think teenage boys really ought to get in terms
of supporting and understanding in themselves,
being able to express what they feel in a way
that isn’t going to hurt somebody else.
“Every man here, we all struggled in our
adolescence. It was painful stuff, with wounds,
hurt that somehow gets in the way of our adult
selves and prevents us from fulfilling our best
dreams and mission in life.”
All Boys to Men gatherings—rites-ofpassage
weekends, mentor training and biweekly
j-men sessions—provide an opportunity for
participants, young and old, to share together
through play and heartfelt discussions.
Unlike scouting and other youth activities
that are activity driven, the group emphasizes
The organization
helps not only boys
but men, who heal
wounds from their
teenage years.
sharing feelings, and unlike programs like Big
Brothers Big Sisters, doesn’t try to match a
single mentor with a single teen.
“I feel a lot of times like I’m the only one
with a problem, that no one understands,”
said Noah Koester. “But in j-group, with all
the experience of the mentors, if they’ve been
through the same thing, they can tell you how
they got through it and that can help you choose
the right path.”
A different youth group he’s part of includes
group discussions, as well as similar fun
activities, but the sharing isn’t nearly as deep.
“If I say I felt very stressed this past week,
someone will say, ‘I’m sorry’ and move on to
the next one. In this group, if you say that, the
mentors and others would say, ‘What stressed
you?’ ‘How did it stress you?’ ‘How do you
think you can deal with it?’ ‘Do you need
suggestions about how you can deal with the
stuff stressing you?’ Here, we’re all out playing
a game, if something’s bothering you, you can
just pull one (mentor) aside and say, ‘Can I talk
to you?’”
The j-group remains together throughout
the year and ideally for three or four years,
through its members’ adolescence, teaching
the young men how to resolve conflicts without
having to hurt the people around them.
Cost of the weekend initiation and the
year’s program is $450; most teens receive
some kind of financial aid and no one’s ever
turned away because of lack of funds.
The program tries to help young men learn
to be comfortable with themselves and with
each other, Berkowitz said, “to learn to speak
your truth, to speak your feelings. And as men
we’re learning that ourselves. We just want to
make it so that it doesn’t take so long for the
men of tomorrow to get there.”
For more information, visit www.boystomen.org
or, boystomennewengland.org.
Richie Davis is senior writer for The Recorder,
a daily newspaper in Greenfield, Mass., where
a version of this article originally appeared. He
can be reached at rdavis@recorder.com.
Spring 2010 29

30 Voice Male

Books and Film
Books
Awakening Joy:
Ten Steps That
Will Put You
on the Road to
Happiness
By James Baraz
and Shoshana Alexander
Hardcover: 336
pages, Bantam
Books, 2010
Here’s a book that works like a locksmith’s
tool opening a door; in this case it’s into
a more fulfilling life. An outgrowth of
James Baraz’s successful online course of the
same name, Awakening Joy: Ten Steps That Will
Put You on the Road to Happiness is an accessible,
anecdote-rich guide filled with valuable
tips to understanding both the roadblocks that
pose challenges in our lives and the open road
we can reach to drive on the highway of our own
personal happiness.
As a longtime meditation teacher, Baraz
distills three decades of inquiry into the mind
into this down-to-earth primer. Co-written with
longtime colleague and student, the gifted editor
Shoshana Alexander, the book evokes the warmth
of a satisfying conversation—actually a series of
conversations—with a wise friend. And make
no mistake: Baraz is wise. And compassionate,
giving and optimistic. He’s also a gifted teacher.
Among his gifts? Promoting joy as a gateway to
pass through on the journey to self-awareness.
To those whose upbringing emphasized a
narrow-minded, “should” oriented approach to
living, awakening a sense of joy as a means of
achieving personal growth might seem contraindicated.
How can we “jump ahead” of struggle,
pain and suffering—the trinity of stages of
personal growth many believe people must first
pass through to reach higher states of happiness?
Such an approach misses the mark—by a wide
margin. Baraz is not so much advocating an “eat
dessert first” approach to living as much as saying
“dessert” is available all the time in succulent,
small bites.
Rooted in mindfulness meditation practice,
which Baraz has been practicing and teaching
since the seventies (he is one of the founding
teachers of the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in
Woodacre, California), the book is peppered with
quotes from a range of teachers, as well as participants
in the Awakening Joy course. The book also
draws on paths to happiness found in a range of
spiritual traditions. Another of its strengths is the
accessible, open-minded and open-hearted way
Baraz introduces readers to Buddhism.
While dealing with life’s adversity is certainly
addressed in the book—we appreciate Baraz all
the more for being open and vulnerable in sharing
many painful episodes in his own life—time and
again he brings readers back to an appreciation for
wholesome states of living. After an eye operation
left him with seriously compromised vision—“the
world looked like a Jacques Cousteau underwater
documentary filmed on a cloudy day”—Baraz
relied on his meditation practice to see him
through. When a risky operation eventually
restored his vision, he felt a surge of gratitude that
just never subsided. “… [T]he gratitude I felt at
my good fortune became a continuous backdrop
to everything else in my life,” he wrote.
Baraz says that over a long period of time he
has trained himself to examine his experiences
carefully, “not only for my own spiritual growth
but also to share my findings with students.” As
a result of the appreciation he felt at his clear
vision, he became fascinated with the question,
“What is gratitude?” In many ways, this book
answers that question—a first hand account of
his experiences as “an explorer of the landscape
of the grateful heart.”
—Rob Okun
Men’s
Healing:
A Toolbox
for Life
By Alan Lyme,
David J. Powell,
and Stephen
Andrew
Hanley Hope, 185
pages
A
powerful aid for men to not just locate
the map to their inner lives but also know
what to do once they’ve arrived, Men’s
Healing: A Toolbox for Life is an essential book in
any male traveler’s carry-on or backpack. Using
the metaphor of the toolbox, the authors cover
a lot of ground with sections from growing up
male to psychological and emotional treatments
for issues men uniquely face. A section with
resources, homework, activities, and a questionnaire
makes the book a useful manual and includes case
studies and exercises which, the authors recommend,
are best completed in a separate journal.
According to the authors, Men’s Healing
is designed as a self-help book to be used by
men and the therapists and counselors who
treat them, and they urge doing more than
just reading through the stories. To grow and
transform oneself, they believe, requires more
than a change in mental activity; it calls for a
shift in attitude. For the book to be helpful means
making a serious commitment to using the tools
and doing the recommended exercises.
“Ultimately,” the authors write, Men’s
Healing: A Toolbox for Life “is a spiritual book,
asking questions not only about how to live but
also about why we live.”
Among the key topics in men’s lives that
the book addresses are substance abuse and
addiction, emotions, sexuality, work, money,
fatherhood, and barriers to personal fulfillment.
Like much about contemporary expressions
of masculinity, men’s resistance to reading books
about their inner lives is changing, too. Men’s
Healing is part of that transition, a welcome
course correction on the journey to wholeness.
Film
Red Moon:
Menstruation,
Culture &
the Politics
of Gender
Directed by Diana
Fabianova
2009, 53 minutes
Distributed by
Media Education
Foundation (www.
mediaed.org)
When filmmaker Diana Fabianova
reached puberty, she found herself
irremediably trapped in menstrual
etiquette. She carefully hid the evidence from her
father and brother first, and later on, from most of
the other men in her life. And no matter how bad
she felt, she pretended she was fine. The taboo
far exceeded the scope of her family: it was all
around her. Periods were a “girl thing.” Periods
were shameful. Periods were inappropriate for
public discussion. End of the story? Not quite.
Something in her was reluctant to accept and
suffer in silence. Why did the sign of what all
societies consider a blessing—women’s ability
to give birth—happen to be described with names
and expressions like “The curse” (in England), the
“English war debarquement” (France), and “to be
on the rags” (U.S.)?
With humor and refreshing candor, Fabianova’s
Red Moon provides a fascinating, often ironic,
take on the absurd and frequently dangerous
cultural stigmas and superstitions surrounding
women’s menstruation. As educational as it is
liberating, the film functions as both a mythbusting
overview of the realities of menstruation,
and a piercing cultural analysis of the ways in
which struggles over meaning and power have
played out through history on the terrain of
women’s bodies. While ideal for women’s studies
and health courses, as well as anthropology, sociology,
and cultural studies, the film may prove
to be important for young men on the journey
to healthy manhood in understanding young
women’s journey to healthy womanhood.
Visit us on the web at
Voicemalemagazine.org
Spring 2010 31

Resources for Changing Men
A wide-ranging (but by no means
exhaustive) listing of organizations
engaged in profeminist men’s work.
Know of an organization that should be
listed here? E-mail relevant
information to us at
info@voicemalemagazine.org
100 Black Men of America, Inc.
Chapters around the U.S. working
on youth development and economic
empowerment in the African American
community
www.100blackmen.org
A Call to Men
Trainings and conferences on ending
violence against women
www.acalltomen.org
American Men’s Studies Association
Advancing the critical study of men
and masculinities
www.mensstudies.org
Boys to Men International
Initation weekends and follow-up
mentoring for boys 12-17
www.boystomen.org
Boys to Men New England
www.boystomennewengland.org
Dad Man
Consulting, training, speaking about
fathers and father figures as a vital
family resource
www.thedadman.com
EMERGE
Counseling and education to stop
domestic violence. Comprehensive
batterers’ services
www.emergedv.com
European Men Pro-feminist
Network
Promoting equal opportunities
between men and women
www.europrofem.org
Family Violence Prevention Fund
Working to end violence against
women globally; programs for boys,
men and fathers
www.endabuse.org
Healthy Dating, Sexual
Assault Prevention
http://www.canikissyou.com
International Society for Men’s
Health
Prevention campaigns and health
initiatives promoting men’s health
www.ismh.org
Paul Kivel
Violence prevention educator
http://www.paulkivel.com
Lake Champlain Men’s Resource
Center
Burlington, Vt., center with groups and
services challenging men’s violence
on both individual and societal levels
www.lcmrc.org
Males Advocating Change
Worcester, Mass., center with groups
and services supporting men and
challenging men’s violence
www.centralmassmrc.org
ManKind Project
New Warrior training weekends
www.mkp.org
MANSCENTRUM
Swedish men’s centers addressing
men in crisis
www.manscentrum.se
Masculinity Project
The Masculinity Project addresses
the complexities of masculinity in the
African American community
www.masculinityproject.com
MASV—Men Against Sexual
Violence
Men working in the struggle to end
sexual violence
www.menagainstsexualviolence.org
Men Against Violence
UNESCO program believing education,
social and natural science,
culture and communication are the
means toward building peace
www.unesco.org/cpp/uk/projects/
wcpmenaga.htm
Men Against Violence
(Yahoo e-mail list)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/menagainstviolence/
Men Against Violence Against
Women (Trinidad)
Caribbean island anti-violence
campaign
www.mavaw.com.
Men Can Stop Rape
Washington, D.C.-based national
advocacy and training organization
mobilizing male youth to prevent
violence against women. www.
mencanstoprape.org
MenEngage Alliance
An international alliance promoting
boys’ and men’s support for gender
equality
www.menengage.org
Men for HAWC
Gloucester, Mass., volunteer advocacy
group of men’s voices against
domestic abuse and sexual assault
www.strongmendontbully.com
Men’s Health Network
National organization promoting
men‘s health
www.menshealthnetwork.org
Men’s Initiative for Jane Doe, Inc.
Statewide Massachusetts effort coordinating
men’s anti-violence activities
www.mijd.org
Men’s Nonviolence Project, Texas
Council on Family Violence
http://www.tcfv.org/education/mnp.
html
Men’s Resource Center for Change
Model men’s center offering support
groups for all men
www.mrcforchange.org
Men’s Resource Center of South
Texas
Based on Massachusetts MRC model,
support groups and services for men
mrcofsouthtexas@yahoo.com
Men’s Resources International
Trainings and consulting on positive
masculinity on the African continent
www.mensresourcesinternational.org
Men Stopping Violence
Atlanta-based organization working to
end violence against women, focusing
on stopping battering, and ending rape
and incest
www.menstoppingviolence.org
Men’s Violence Prevention
http://www.olywa.net/tdenny/
Mentors in Violence Prevention—MVP
Trainings and workshops in raising
awareness about men’s violence
against women
www.sportsinsociety.org/vpd/mvp./php
Monadnock Men’s Resource Center
Southern New Hampshire men’s
center supporting men and challenging
men’s violence
mmrconline.org
MVP Strategies
Gender violence prevention education
and training
www.jacksonkatz.com
National Association for Children of
Domestic Violence
Provides education and public
awareness of the effects of domestic
violence, especially on children. www.
nafcodv.org
National Coalition Against
Domestic Violence
Provides a coordinated community
www.ncadv.org
National Men’s Resource Center
National clearinghouse of information
and resources for men
www.menstuff.org
National Organization for Men
Against Sexism
Annual conference, newsletter,
profeminist activities
www.nomas.org
Boston chapter: www.nomasboston.
org
One in Four
An all-male sexual assault peer
education group dedicated to
preventing rape
www.oneinfourusa.org
Promundo
NGO working in Brazil and other
developing countries with youth and
children to promote equality between
men
and women and the prevention of
interpersonal violence
www.promundo.org
RAINN—Rape Abuse and Incest
National Network
A national anti-sexual assault
organization
www.rainn.org
Renaissance Male Project
A midwest, multicultural and multiissue
men‘s organization
www.renaissancemaleproject
The Men’s Bibliography
Comprehensive bibliography of
writing on men, masculinities,
gender, and sexualities
listing 14,000 works
www.mensbiblio.xyonline.net/
UNIFEM
United Nations Development Fund for
Women
www.unifem.org
VDay
Global movement to end violence
against women and girls, including V-
men, male activists in the movement
www.newsite.vday.org
32 Voice Male

Resources for Changing Men
Voices of Men
An Educational Comedy by
Ben Atherton-Zeman
http://www.voicesofmen.org
Walk a Mile in Her Shoes
Men’s March to Stop Rape, Sexual
Assault & Gender Violence
http:// www.walkamileinhershoes.org
White Ribbon Campaign
International men’s campaign decrying
violence against women
www.whiteribbon.ca
XY Magazine
www.xyonline.net
Profeminist men’s web links (over 500
links) www.xyonline.net/links.shtml
Profeminist men’s politics, frequently
asked questions www.xyonline.net/misc/
pffaq.html
Profeminist e-mail list (1997–)
www.xyonline.net/misc/profem.html
Homophobia and masculinities among
young men www.xyonline.net/misc/
homophobia.html
Fathering
Fatherhood Initiative
Massachusetts Children’s Trust Fund
Supporting fathers, their families and
theprofessionals who work with them
www.mctf.org
Fathers and Daughters Alliance
(FADA)
Helping girls in targeted countries to
return to and complete
primary school
fatheranddaughter.org
Fathers with Divorce and Custody
Concerns
Looking for a lawyer? Call your state
bar
association lawyer referral agency.
Useful websites include:
www.dadsrights.org
(not www.dadsrights.com)
www.directlex.com/main/law/divorce/
www.divorce.com
www.divorcecentral.com
www.divorcehq.com
www.divorcenet.com
www.divorce-resource-center.com
www.divorcesupport.com
Collaborative Divorce
www.collaborativealternatives.com
www.collaborativedivorce.com
www.collaborativepractice.com
www.nocourtdivorce.com
The Fathers Resource Center
Online resource, reference, and
network for stay-at-home dads
www.slowlane.com
National Center for Fathering
Strategies and programs for positive
fathering. www.fathers.com
National Fatherhood Initiative
Organization to improve the well-being
of children through the promotion of
responsible, engaged fatherhood
www.fatherhood.org
Gay Rights
Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against
Defamation
Works to combat homophobia and
discrimination in television, film, music
and all media outlets
www.glaad.org
Human Rights Campaign
Largest GLBT political group in the
country.
www.hrc.org
Interpride
Clearing-house for information on pride
events worldwide
www.interpride.net
LGBT Health Channel
Provides medically accurate
information to lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender and allied communities.
Safer sex, STDs, insemination,
transgender health, cancer, and more
www.lgbthealthchannel.com.
National Gay and Lesbian Task
Force
National progressive political and
advocacy group
www.ngltf.org
Outproud - Website for GLBT and
questioning youth
www.outproud.org
Parents and Friends of
Lesbians and Gays
www.pflag.org
Have an idea how to spread the
Voice Male message?
Contact editor Rob Okun at:
rob@voicemalemagazine.org.
www.Voicemalemagazine.org
Spring 2010 33

Atonement
The dreams we had
burned
but the house
came true today.
Doors
barked fierce
and wild
before
curling up
to sleep through
flames.
Children
were born,
bright
in the sky
like strangers.
Who let them
in,
then closed the stars
behind them?
* * *
I
thought to look for you,
went outside
and waited
for you to come:
willow, tornado,
dish of olives.
Hanging garden
by the waters of,
black swan
gliding.
We have no
need of it:
it will always
be with us.
* * *
If it rains in the east
go fishing in the west:
trees
exchange apparel;
the wind
still comes and goes.
We live out a series
of hard
bargains,
and we take home
what we pay for.
by Michael Burke
Voice Male copy editor Michael Burke
is a poet and writer who lives in
Belchertown, Massachusetts.
34 Voice Male

General Support Groups:
Open to any man who wants to experience a men’s group. Topics of discussion reflect the needs and interests of
the participants. Groups are held in these Western Massachusetts communities:
Hadley, at North Star, 135 Russell Street, 2nd Floor: Tuesday evenings (7:00 – 9:00 PM). Entrance on Route 47
opposite the Hadley Town Hall.
Greenfield, at Network Chiropractic, 21 Mohawk Trail: Wednesday evenings (7:00 – 9:00 PM).
Group for Men Who Have Experienced Childhood Neglect, Abuse, or Trauma:
Open to men who were subjected to neglect and/or abuse growing up, this group is designed specifically to
ensure a sense of safety for participants. It is a facilitated peer support group and is not a therapy group. Group
meetings are held on Fridays (7:00 – 9:00 PM) at the Synthesis Center in Amherst, 274 N. Pleasant Street
(just a few doors north of the former MRC building).
Group for Gay, Bisexual, and Questioning Men:
Specifically for men who identify as gay or bisexual, or who are questioning their sexual orientation, this group is
designed to provide a safe and supportive setting to share experiences and concerns. Gay or bi-identified
transgendered men are welcome! In addition to providing personal support, the group offers an opportunity for
creating and strengthening local networks. Group meetings are held on Mondays (7:00 – 9:00 PM) at the
Synthesis Center in Amherst, 274 N. Pleasant Street (just a few doors north of the former MRC building).