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By Rob Okun
Iam at a point in my life where I welcome
my tears. It wasn’t always that way.
Despite the work I’ve done on myself—
and the work I do—sometimes it still feels
unsafe to let tears come. Other times I don’t
have any choice.
Such was the case on a snowy December
night when I was in the audience listening
to David Mallett, a remarkable singer-songwriter
who I first heard when I was around
30. This year, I turn 60. Throughout my thirties,
forties and fifties, listening to David’s
salty, seasoned Maine baritone would always
tear a piece of my heart. His voice does for
me as a middle-aged man what Janis Joplin’s
plaintive siren’s call evoked when I was in
my twenties. In his voice, all the more rich
with age, his songs burrow in, massaging
my heart.
More men than you’d think are like
David Mallett, sharing stories from our
hearts. His tales of lost love, hurting, healing,
and redemption are our stories, too. Listening
to him that wintry night it felt as if he was
making me an offering: “Here. Take these
songs as a gift, man to man.”
Some of the music turned over—like
clumps of rocky earth—broken pieces of
my heart. Missing my father, gone since
’88. Wounds from the end of a marriage
two decades ago (healed over as much as
those kinds of wounds can). Out of the
shards of loss I’ve made myself whole, and
I felt a brightness, too, in jaunty tunes of
celebration of nature—both human and in
the environment. They evoked in me a quiet
contentment—my heart opened wider than
ever, appreciating the great joy of a loving
wife and the blessing of four amazing adult
children.
In my travels to conferences and from
my perch editing this magazine, I sense more
men are starting in earlier to take inventory
of our lives, to more readily share what we
find. Few of us have a stage to stand on like
David Mallett, yet we’re more alike than
different—guys who have been around the
block, lines in our faces and, like the bard,
2 Voice Male
FROM THE EDITOR
Listening for the Harmony
in Our lives
Singer-songwriter
David Mallett
weathered like the Maine coast. We can
hear in his voice—a harmony of strength
and gentleness—our own lyrics, wisdom
blending with melodies that turn song into
poetry. We may not have his gifts as a poet,
yet we can tap into the same well of tenderness.
On that Sunday night at the dark of the
year, he was our balladeer playing more
than two dozen originals, songs that mapped
the human heart. One, called “Beautiful,”
professed love for his daughter. He sang,
“You are one of a kind/a wild flower on
the vine/and the whole world’s waitin’ for
you/cause you are the most beautiful girl/
you are the wonder in my life/you don’t
know but its true/I’m forever lovin’ you/
I’m forever lovin’ you…” His love for, and
appreciation of, his father was expressed in
“My Old Man.” In it Mallett sang, “My old
man/Talkin’ about my old man/He was there
at the start with a willin’ heart/He was there
when the world began/My old man was a
daddy/ Till I got too cool to call him that
any more/He took my momma to the grange
hall dance/And he waltzed her across the
floor…/My old man, talkin’ about my old
man/ talkin’ about my old man…”
Like the gentle side of most men, David
Mallett’s tenderness might have been
obscured if I’d only skimmed the surface—
seeing in him only a road-weary troubadour,
hard and stoic. How sad it would have been
to have missed the truths he was sharing,
just as it’s sad that too many of our vulnerabilities
and longings as men are overlooked.
Skimming the surface is what the culture
often does with men, missing an opportunity
to plumb our depths. For the mainstream
media and popular culture, men are usually
seen as uncomplicated beings living in the
now, without histories, moving on with few
regrets. We’re just after the big deal, the
quick fix, or the quickie. It’s not so. The next
time you find yourself—or hear someone
else—describing men simplistically—think
about the men you know, men like David
Mallett, whose lives are made up of tenderness
and tears, joys and sorrows, strengths
and vulnerabilities. We may not all be songwriters
and poets but each of our lives is the
stuff of songs and poems. Listen between the
lines every day to tap into that truth.
Voice Male readers will no doubt be
interested in two examples of men sharing
our truths more publicly. The Men’s Story
Project (our cover story, beginning on page
18) is a powerful dramatic expression of men
speaking honestly from their inner lives. And
V-Men, a kind of men’s auxiliary of V-Day,
the international effort to prevent violence
against women and girls, is beginning to
hold workshops as part of an effort to create
a new dramatic presentation entitled Ten
Ways to Be a Man. (See back cover.) The
possibilities for this next decade being one
where more men share the truth of our lives
will only grow stronger if more of us are
willing to leave the man caves of solitude for
the gardens of our hearts.
Rob Okun can be reached at rob@voicemalemagazine.org.

www.voicemalemagazine.org
Features
10
14
16
18
23
27
Columns & Opinion
2
4
5
8
12
25
29
30
31
32
No More Mr. Good Guy?
Stepping Off the Pedestal of Male Privilege
By Tal Peretz
Invisible Men
Men, the Mainstream Press and Rape in the Congo
By Jackson Katz
Is It Anger or Is It Abuse?
By Joyce and Barry Vissell
Men’s Lives, Men’s Truths
The Men’s Story Project
By Charles Knight
A Feminist Mother on Raising Sons
By Sarah Epstein
From the Editor
Letters
Men @ Work
Outlines
Fathers & Sons
Men and Health
Men Overcoming
Violence
Books
Film
Resources
Winter 2010
Changing Men in Changing Times
Imagining a Different World to Understand This One
Through the Looking Glass of Violence
By Stephen McArthur
Listening for the Harmony in Our Lives By Rob Okun
The Male Straitjacket By Brendan Tapley
Broken Father, Loyal Son By John Sheldon
Men at Greater Risk For Cancer Death?
Why Men Can’t Remain Silent By Byron Hurt
8
14
18
23
Winter 2010 3

www.voicemalemagazine.org
Rob A. Okun
Editor
Lahri Bond
Art Director
Michael Burke
Copy Editor
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
Th e 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
4 Voice Male
Mail Bonding
Facing Our Fragmented Selves:
Cracks in Patriarchy
I appreciate the personal, world and culturespanning
perspective you shared in [“From the
Editor,” Summer 2009]. Never a fan of either
subject of your piece [Michael Jackson and
Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei], they do represent
a reflection of our broad-spectrumed masculinity
and so [are] a reflection of myself. Along with
the other examples mentioned from the political
arena that show the usual face of patriarchy
(wounded and unhealthy masculinity),
it speaks to the split within
ourselves from the failure to face
and integrate the shadow. Our fragmented
selves can only act out in
wounded ways when the shadow is
unacknowledged and unintegrated.
For the patriarchal expressions you
cite, the word of caution to each
of us is that we do well to look at
ourselves in the mirror for what we
see looking back. More personally, I
need to continue to look to see what
am I doing to heal the effects of the
fragmented masculine paradigm I’ve
been nurtured in, to ask what concepts inform my
way of being a man, what actions will I pursue to
be a wedge in that widening crack of the patriarchal
plague that feeds the violence in our world?
Thanks for getting us all to stand in front of the
mirror, the primary place of transformation.
Mark Chaffin
Schenectady Stand Up Guys, Schenectady, N.Y.
www.schenectadystandupguys.org
VM Needs to Reach Mainstream
I found out about Voice Male last April at the Men
Can Stop Rape conference in Washington, D.C.
This is exactly the type of magazine we need to get
out into mainstream newsstands and bookstores to
replace the crap that’s currently available to men.
I will pass along the link to the folks on my grad
student listserv, as some of them study gender
issues/masculinity. It’s a great resource.
Mahri Irvine
Department of Anthropology
American University, Washington, D.C.
Thai T-Shirt Not a Joke
Editor’s Note: Below is a letter sent to The Onion
in response to an ad published in the humor
magazine.
I am writing to request that you stop sales
of your t-shirt referring to a friend who went to
Thailand and “all he brought back was a kidnapped
prostitute.” I’m not sure you understand how
often women are kidnapped and sexually trafficked
both internationally and domestically. The
fact book from the University of Rhode Island
on the Global Sexual Exploitation
in Thailand* (www.uri.edu/artsci/
wms/hughes/thailand) can provide
you with information regarding the
enormity of the problem and the
scale of human suffering involved.
I am sure after you have spent even
10 minutes looking at this material
that you will agree that a t-shirt of
this kind only serves the purposes
of the traffickers, pimps and slave
traders by dismissing their cruelty
as laughable. I’m sure that was not
your original intent. I would also
encourage you to develop policies
regarding the sale of material that dismisses or
condones the sexual exploitation of women and
children.
Chuck Derry
Minnesota Men’s Action Network,
Gender Violence Institute, Clearwater, Minn.
* Around 80,000 women and children have been
sold into Thailand’s sex industry since 1990, with
most coming from Burma, China’s Yunan province,
and Laos. Trafficked children were also found on
construction sites and in sweatshops. In 1996,
almost 200,000 foreign children, mostly boys from
Burma, Laos, and Cambodia, were thought to be
working in Thailand.
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, 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 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.

Are Glasgow’s
Youth Soft on
Men’s Violence?
A study in Scotland reveals that
young people have a high tolerance
of violence and abuse if committed
within an interpersonal heterosexual
relationship. In an article in Men and
Masculinities (Vol. 11, No. 3), “Justifications
and Contradictions: Understanding
Young People’s Views
of Domestic Abuse,” Melanie J. Mc-
Carry drew on empirical data from a
school-based study conducted with
77 young people in Glasgow that
explored young people’s opinions
of abuse and violence in interpersonal
heterosexual relationships. A
central finding is that there is profound
contradiction in the views of
the young people regarding what
is interpersonal violence and about
who is doing what to whom. The
young people in the study were ambivalent
about acknowledging the
predominance of men as perpetrators
of interpersonal violence, and
where they did acknowledge males
they constructed numerous justifications
to explain it. Beyond simply
presenting the findings, McCarry’s
article explores reasons why the
young people both resisted accepting
men as perpetrators of interpersonal
violence and tried to justify
their behavior. To learn more, go to
http://jmm.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/11/3/325.
Network Challenges
Hotel Pornography
A men’s network in Minnesota
is spearheading efforts to curb sexually
violent and degrading material
in public places with a current focus
on hotel room porn.
The Minnesota Men’s Action
Network: Alliance to Prevent
Sexual and Domestic Violence has
drafted the anti-porn in hotels initiative
with the Minnesota Department
of Health’s Sexual Violence Prevention
Program. The effort, according
to Chuck Derry of the Gender Violence
Institute, where the Men’s Action
Network is located, “is part of a
growing primary prevention plan to
stem sexually violent and degrading
material becoming accessible and
mainstreamed into our social environment.”
The Clean Hotel Initiative encourages
business, public and private
organizations, and municipalities
to modify their meeting facility
policy to clarify that meetings and
conferences only will be held in
facilities that do not offer in-room
adult pay-per-view pornography.
Additionally, Derry says, the recommendation
calls for travel policies to
be amended to reimburse employees’
lodging costs only when staying
at hotels that do not offer the inroom
adult pay-per-view porn.
Men’s Resource Center: Beginning Again
We live in a time of upheaval
and transformation, in which
people all over the world are
defining, questioning, and
redefining their sense of identity—national,
ethnic, racial,
religious/spiritual, political, familial, sexual, and personal. .
. The shift in thinking, feeling, and behavior experienced by a
growing number of men is one expression of this widespread
metamorphosis. Men no longer need to feel confined by definitions
of maleness that value domination and violence, nor need
they feel threatened by women’s struggle for equality. We can
embrace both non-violence and liberation as we define ourselves
in ways that allow our full development as human beings. We are
committed to helping bring about a more just and peaceful world
by redefining masculinity to exclude violence and embrace trust
and compassion.
—From the vision statement of the
Men’s Resource Center for Change
Like many non-profit social change organizations facing
challenging financial realities, the Men’s Resource Center for
Change (MRC), one of the oldest men’s centers in the U.S., is
re-envisioning its role. The MRC, which traces its origins back
27 years, recently took steps to help ensure the organization’s
future in the face of current economic uncertainties. Much
admired, the MRC has twin aims: “supporting men and chal-
Men @ Work
The Men’s Action Network has
created several documents that can
assist others interested in developing
policies at state and local levels
of government, as well as with private
businesses, organizations, and
agencies.
To learn more go to http://www.
menaspeacemakers.org/programs/
mnman/hotels.
Eat Soy, Stay Virile
Soy foods don’t decrease testosterone
levels. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
can now join President
Barack Obama chowing down on a
tofu-veggie stir fry.
A new study published by the
American Society for Reproductive
Medicine finds that soy foods
and soy isoflavone supplements
have no significant effect on male
reproductive hormone levels. Findings
recently published online in
Fertility and Sterility, a publication
of the American Society for Reproductive
Medicine, demonstrate no
[continued on page 6]
lenging men’s violence.” Among
its many pioneering efforts were
support groups for men with a
range of experiences, a young
men of color group, high school
education, and free groups for
women. (The center also launched a newsletter a quarter century
ago that evolved into Voice Male magazine.)
According to board chair Mark Nickerson, an MRC founder,
the organization sold its building in Amherst, Mass., closed its
office in nearby Springfield, transferred oversight of Moving
Forward, its widely regarded batterers’ intervention program, to
a large area social service agency (which retained all interested
program staff), and replaced remaining paid positions with a cadre
of dedicated volunteers.
“Our foresight and success in transferring [Moving Forward],
and selling the building, left us with funds that will remain a nest
egg for future MRC activities,” Nickerson said, adding that the
organization will continue with other aspects of its work. “Our
[four weekly] support groups…continue to provide a valuable
resource to many men in the community.”
The organization relocated to new administrative offices and,
Nickerson said, has retained “numerous talented and experienced
individuals available for speaking or consultation opportunities.”
The MRC was scheduled to begin a visioning process in early
2010.
To learn more, visit www.mrcforchange.org.
Winter 2010 5

Men @ Work
significant effect of soy protein or
soy isoflavone intake on circulating
levels of testosterone, sex hormonebinding
globulin or free testosterone
in men. Led by Jill M. Hamilton-
Reeves, Ph.D., R.D., of St. Catherine’s
University in St. Paul, Minnesota,
researchers assessed the effects
of soy protein and soy isoflavones on
measurements of male reproductive
hormones.
“As a high-quality source of
protein relatively low in saturated
fat, soy can be an important part of a
heart-healthy diet and may contribute
to a decreased risk of coronary heart
disease,” according to reproductive
endocrinologist William R. Phipps,
MD, of the University of Rochester
Medical Center, a co-author of the
analysis. He noted that some men
have been reluctant to consume soy
foods due to concerns about estrogen-like
effects of soy isoflavones,
often referred to as phytoestrogens.
But according to Phipps, “It is important
for the public to understand
that there is no clinical evidence to
support these ideas. After conducting
a comprehensive review of the existing
literature, we found no indication
that soy significantly alters male sex
hormone levels.”
To request a copy of the report,
write Diana Steeble at Diana.Steeble@Publicis-PR.com.
Voices Against
Violence
Voices Against Violence is a zine
publishing work from people of
color, indigenous folks, trans people,
and queer survivors of domestic
violence, sexual violence and sexual
assault. Topics include: healing from
trauma, enabling healing, life after
trauma, self-help guides/resources,
self-healing, dancing as means to
healing, healing through narration,
forgiveness (do we need it?), and
collective trauma.
Voices Against Violence is a
community teaching tool, a jumping
off point for dialogue, creative outlet,
and conversations zine editors say
‘need to happen.” A part of Café
Revolución (www.myspace.com/
caferevolucion), Voices Against
Violence accepts submissions in
English, Spanish, Tex-Mex, Spanglish
or any combination via email, sent to
noemi.mtz@gmail.com. (Translations
are appreciated but aren’t
necessary.)
THANK YOU
Boysen Hodgson
H20 Marketing, website support.
Tony Rominske
Peace Development Fund,
technical assistance.
Visit our new website for the
latest news and updates
voicemalemagazine.org
6 Voice Male
NO COMMENT
Boyzilian Waxing: “Manscaping” for Men
With a name like ours, Voice
Male receives a range of press
releases, announcements and
news about men and masculinity.
In the interest of “transparency,”
we wanted to share an
edited version of a recent press
release we received. ”
The fastest-growing segment
of the spa industry is the
male client and waxing is at the
top of the services men seek.
Male body waxing is increasingly
popular as awareness of
the types of waxing services
available for men grows. The
“cavemen look” is out, and men
are looking for more ways to improve
their look and boost their
confi dence.
Back in the late 80’s men
were experimenting with eyebrow
waxing, a far better approach
than tweezing one hair at
a time. Then in the 90’s athletes
and models expanded into body
waxing, getting hair removed
from their legs, chest, back,
arms and fi ngers; anywhere their
skin was exposed in a swimsuit.
Realizing the benefi ts of waxing,
the trends have evolved
into a “baring it all” service, the
Boyzilian.
Boyzilian waxing “is the
male version of the Brazilian
Bikini Waxing service, but provided
for men that want to feel
clean and confi dent all the time,”
says Susanna DiSotto, director
of Satin Smooth, a manufacturer
of professional wax products.
What follows are tips for the
novice client:
WHAT IF I BECOME AROUSED?
It’s not uncommon for guys
to become somewhat aroused
at the beginning of a service.
However, it is short lived as it
becomes clear with the fi rst hair
removal that this is a procedure,
rather than an encounter. While
the benefi ts will outweigh the
mild discomfort, the fi rst hairs to
come out are usually enough to
calm down anything that might
have come up in the beginning.
Shave it like Beckham?
WHAT BENEFITS WILL
I RECEIVE?
Increased sensitivity, reduced
body odors, and more
attention! Men also fi nd that
their partners enjoy the cleaner,
fresher look and the feel of a
little “Manscaping.” Plus, there
is a basic color effect, dark recedes
and light brings forward.
Things simply look bigger when
they are well groomed!
DO I HAVE TO HAVE EVERYTHING
TAKEN OFF?
While some guys like a totally
clean look, many men simply
like to have a cleanup and
shaping. More often than not,
guys just want to clean the hair
off the shaft of the penis and remove
hair from the scrotum, the
anus and in between. Some trimming
of the hair above the pubic
bone and they’re ready for the
world. It’s all negotiable, so a
clean consultation should eliminate
any surprises.
ANYTHING ELSE I SHOULD
KNOW?
Don’t consume caffeine immediately
before your appointment,
as it can increase sensitivity.
Wear loose clothing and
cotton boxer shorts. No tight
jeans or hot showers the day of
the appointment. Also plan to
wait a day before you share the
new “do” with your mate.
Editor’s Note: Have an item for
the “No Comment” section?
Send to editor@voicemalemagazine.org.

Dear Voice Male Reader,
As our country’s 30,000 Afghanistan-bound soldiers’ pounding hearts amplify the drumbeat of war, I am
moved to ask for your help. After President Obama’s speech in December announcing the troop increase,
I found myself thinking about all the stories in Voice Male that articulate a new definition of manhood.
Of course a magazine can’t stop a war. But it can help reframe our ideas about peace and about men transforming ourselves from war
makers to peacemakers. And it can contribute to redefining masculinity for our sons, brothers, nephews, cousins—and for the boys in
generations to come.
Because I so strongly believe in the message of possibility—of a new vision of manhood—that Voice Male represents, I feel a special
urgency in asking for your support. In the nearly 15 years since I first started editing the magazine, we’ve published more than 1000 articles,
all with an eye toward men rethinking masculinity. The good news is, even in these challenging times, more men are changing.
Voice Male at Historic Conference of College Males
Consider: In November, Voice Male was at St. John’s University in Minnesota at the first national conference of men working for gender
equality and challenging violence against women on college and university campuses. Interviewed for an article in Ms. Magazine online, I
suggested the historic conference “represents a sea change” in feminist/profeminist collaboration. “One of the old-timers among male feminist
allies, Rob Okun, editor of Voice Male magazine said, ‘There’s a new generation of men coming to these issues.’” And it was thrilling
meeting with them—new gender justice activists, fired up and ready to go. It was heartening to see these students taking Voice Male out
of their conference packets to read during the two-and-a-half-day gathering. (Indeed, this past year Voice Male was similarly featured at
conferences in New York and Washington, and was widely distributed to hundreds of delegates from 80 countries at an international men’s
gender equality symposium in Rio de Janeiro.) In 2009 thousands received the magazine, including many women and men representing
key agencies in the U.S and abroad inspired by our message advocating for a healthy expression of masculinity—improving men’s health,
advocating for gay rights (including marriage rights), being engaged fathers and mentors, and preventing violence against women.
At the plenary session in Minnesota at which I spoke it was clear something historic was happening. While sexual violence and domestic
abuse remain an international calamity, from the streets of our cities to remote parts of the Congo, young people deeply understand the
issues Voice Male articulates are part of—not distinct from—the greater movement for social justice. Our “voice” is advancing our cause—
and women, children, and men are the better for it. Still, we need your help.
New Members of National Advisory Board
I’m delighted to share the news that there are three new members of the Voice Male national advisory board:
• Activist-playwright Eve Ensler (author of The Vagina Monologues, and founder of V-Day)
• Profeminist activist Charles Knight (who maintains the blog Other & Beyond Real Men)
• Writer-professor Shira Tarrant (author of Men & Feminism and editor of Men Speak Out)
Shira and Charles have been involved in profeminist men’s work for a long time and are committed leaders. Both spoke at the conference
in Minnesota. In launching V-Men—the “men’s auxiliary” to V-Day— Eve articulated her passion for women and men collaborating.
In 2010, I anticipate strengthening Voice Male’s ties with V-Day and V-Men and expanding our distribution so more and more women and
men—and especially younger men and women—have opportunities to read the magazine online and in their communities.
There really isn’t another publication like Voice Male. With so many social issues rooted in damaging expressions of old-style masculinity,
Voice Male is needed more than ever. Please support us by taking out or renewing your subscription. And, please consider making a
contribution so we can grow in 2010 and beyond.
With appreciation,
Rob Okun
Editor
P.S. Please use the enclosed response form and envelope or go to www.voicemalemagazine.org.
Winter 2010 7

Outlines
Anti-Gay Hate Crimes and the Problem of Manhood
The Male Straitjacket
By Brendan Tapley
In late 2008, a different “surge”
emerged in the headlines. The
FBI released its statistics for
hate crimes in a good news bad
news report. Good news: overall,
hate crimes declined from the
previous year; bad news: there
was a 6 percent surge in incidents
against homosexuals—the
only category that increased—the
majority of which targeted gay
men (59.2 percent versus 12.6
percent for gay women). What
was unclear was the reason; the
FBI was quick to say its report did
not assign causes for fluctuations.
Now, in the wake of the Matthew
Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention
Act recently becoming law, it
seems worth proposing one.
Most men will admit that
publicly demonstrating affection
toward another man—even
platonic affection—can incite
from fellow men “the look.” Often
enough, that look precedes threats
or much worse, as in the cases
of Jose Sucuzhanay (murdered
for walking arm-in-arm with his
biological brother), Lawrence
King (shot in the head for giving
an eighth-grade classmate a Valentine
card), or any of 2008’s 1,460 hate crime victims.
So far, I’ve been fortunate not to confront anything “statistical,”
but the looks and slurs that I’ve received make me a guy who alternates
between showing affection for my male friends and someone
who worries about the implications. Whenever I’ve experienced this
disapproval I’ve resented those who generate it, which is why it was
interesting when I became the “looker.”
I was walking in Rome when for the third time that day I noticed
two men acting affectionately toward one another. I only realized my
eyes had narrowed because, when I passed the third pair, arm-in-arm,
they returned my gaze with irritation. Taken aback by the expression
I’d made and the one it elicited, I became more astonished by the
cause I knew I could assign to it. My problem wasn’t prejudice. It
was envy.
From an early age, men in this country are trained to go without
love or loving gestures from fellow men. When that principle of
manhood becomes clear, our longing for such love does a paradoxical
8 Voice Male
thing: it both intensifies and goes
underground. Men cannot help
but feel an increased desire to
fill this void; at the same time,
we rarely act on it because, by
seeming gay, such a desire still
contradicts our modern definition
of masculinity.
Enter the “danger” of gay
men. These men pursue and act
on male intimacy as though it
should be a given, even a right.
Should a man find himself in
the presence of loving gestures
from or between such men, he is
likely to feel, as I did, a psychic
split: regarding such overtures as
tempting and incriminating. This
internal clash between a man’s
long-held desire and his selfdenial
can turn a passing disapproval
into problematic envy
and that envy into resentment,
even rage.
I didn’t want to hurt the Italians;
on the contrary, they had
what I wanted: an open fraternity
that was so unassailably
appropriate its expression was
blasé. But no sooner had I felt
that longing than it mutated into
an instinctive hostility. However
absurd this reaction was, I also saw its logic.
As is often true of men, anger conceals our real feelings; in this
case, my sorrow. The scorn I’d felt for the Italians allowed me to
ignore the disappointing ways I daily surrendered to the masculine
tragedy of forgoing true male connection. Such a judgment also
excused me from being a braver man who would fight against this
fate by risking my own gestures. Indeed, the knee-jerk allegiance I
had to what a “real man” was prevented me from actually being one,
clarifying for me the real root of homophobia.
The aversion to male love—whether it remains internal or
becomes criminal—is not about prejudice. Prejudice is a “palatable”
alibi that denies a darker truth. Homophobia is a common reaction
to love between men because admitting such love is possible forces
men to reevaluate the male “contract.” And that presents men with
their own good news bad news situation.
Witnessing real male connection—becoming aware of our longing
for it—threatens masculinity, not just because it brings up in men our

uneasiness in feeling gay, but more because it exposes masculinity
for the raw deal it is: an existential cheat that has defrauded men of a
full 50 percent of human connection. Unlike women, who create rich
ties within the sisterhood, this forfeiture has lodged
an unspoken complaint within our psyches, a primal
disenfranchisement that prevents our wholeness.
But while an unapologetic conviction by men that
male love is part of masculinity would free us from
an inherent and stunting bondage (good), it would
also sacrifice male privilege (a loss that, at first
glance, seems bad).
For instance, would demanding love from our
fathers be worthwhile if it meant our accountability
as fathers became more rigorous? If love
between men was more common than exceptional,
would we have to meet a standard of brotherhood that exceeded the
frat house and was honored beyond the battlefield? If this subconscious
grievance in maleness disappeared, would we have to get on
with the business of being fully present, intimate, and responsible to
the women in our midst? If male love was no longer taboo, would
we have no one to oppress to feel better about ourselves?
Indeed the reinvention of masculinity ends with what some might
see as a Pyrrhic victory— the extinction of masculinity’s excuses, its
low expectations. Because renegotiating the male contract will strip
from us the straitjacket whose limitations we men may uncomfortably
but willingly wear.
This is the real reason men fight demonstrations of male love.
Or in the case of gay hate crimes, why we increasingly attack the
If male love
was no longer
taboo, would we
have no one to
oppress to feel
better about
ourselves?
messengers of what is a new and coming masculinity. Those who get
out of masculinity’s raw deal by no longer accepting privation enrage
those who abide by it still. Our closeted envy of gay men, rather than
letting it transform us or masculinity’s rules, instead
makes pariahs out of the pioneers. We turn their
example into a grave offense for the worst reason:
to preserve a self-destructive privilege.
Is it any coincidence that in the bluest states
in America—where homosexuality is presumably
more explicit—the FBI counted most of the hate
crimes? Massachusetts (80) and California (263)
versus Alabama (1) and Louisiana (2). In the case of
hate crimes against gays, perhaps it is not a matter
of irrational hate at all, but of rational love that men
just don’t want in evidence. Because even more
explosive than a man confronting a perception of homosexuality
and exercising his prejudice is the man who admits his crimes have
always been against himself, and he has become his own jailer.
Brendan Tapley is currently writing a memoir
on masculinity. His work has appeared in
the New York Times and Chicago Tribune,
among others. He lives in New Hampshire.
A version of this column appeared in the Bay
Area Reporter, www.ebar.com.
Winter 2010 9

Stepping Off the Pedestal of Male Privilege
No More Mr. Good Guy?
By Tal Peretz
Ilike being “the good guy.” I
really enjoy the appreciation and
approval I get from women when
I tell them that my chosen life’ s
work involves ending sexism. I love
the sense of connection I feel when
they see me as an ally, a confidant,
a guy who “gets it,” and I get to feel
like we share a very big secret: that
there are problems with the way our
society’s gender rules are set. When I
volunteer at a local women’s shelter,
or march in a protest for women’s
rights, I like to know that my presence
is appreciated. Lately, though,
I’ve been troubled by this feeling,
especially because I’ve noticed that
I sometimes get more appreciation
than the other people there, and the
only explanation I can come up with
is that I get unearned kudos because
I’m a man.
I’ve been talking with a lot
of men who do anti-sexist work,
sometimes in formal interviews
for academic research, sometimes
among friends. For me, and many
of these men, the reason we are
against sexism is, at least in part,
because of the harm we’ve seen
sexist oppression do to women. The
flip side of this is the unfair privilege
granted to men just for being
men. I worry that this unearned
male privilege is still present when
men are in anti-sexist spaces, doing
anti-sexist work. This can create
situations where, in the very spaces
devised to further the concerns of
women, men and their concerns take
precedence. To be fully honest and
complete in our work against sexism and
unfair male privilege, we have to be aware
of it within our movement as well, not just
in the larger society.
The Pedestal Effect
To maintain awareness of this unearned
male privilege and excess appreciation of
men doing anti-sexist work, it helps to have a
name and some idea of how it happens. I’ve
10 Voice Male
taken to calling it “the pedestal effect.” As
one interviewee said, it’s “things like praise
for showing up—I didn’t necessarily do
anything, I think it’s just…people are just so
pleased to see a man who actually takes an
interest, and I can see how that’s comforting
or refreshing. But a lot of times it’s just the
fact that I’ll put in the hours, and there’s
other people who do as much as I do. . . it
just seems like I get more than my share for
doing my part.”
Sometimes the pedestal effect
is used to intentionally ensure that
men know they are welcome and
wanted in spaces where they are the
minority, and so I don’t want to sound
ungrateful. Like I said, I like knowing
my presence is appreciated as much
as the next person. I just want to
make sure that the women doing the
same work as me are getting the same
appreciation.
Men working against sexism are,
sadly, still rare. A friend who has
volunteered at a domestic violence
and sexual assault shelter for a
number of years put it succinctly:
“Most of these organizations don’t
see many men come through, or
even bother caring.” Sometimes just
this rarity brings special attention,
leading to premature self-congratulation,
to paraphrase Michael Kimmel.
Kimmel also encourages us, correctly
in my opinion, to recognize and
appreciate that men do take risks and
make sacrifices in working toward
gender justice. But this means that
those men who show up seem exceedingly
selfless, perhaps even inherently
“special.” I’ve experienced
this when someone introduces me
and says “He gets it,” or “He’s one
of the good guys.” Whereas women
working against sexism are seen as
working in their own self-interest,
any effort men make for women’s
rights is seen as selfless, and thus
more virtuous than the same effort by
a woman (even if the person judging
is also a woman). This is one reason
for the pedestal effect.
A second reason is simply that pervasive
male supremacy in the rest of society benefits
men so much that it carries over. Men come
to this work from a society that has trained
them from birth to believe in their own
superiority, sometimes subtly and sometimes
overtly. Although most men never recognize
it as privilege, we are accustomed to being
listened to, to people automatically assuming
we are capable and competent, to being in

control of social situations, etc. The effects
of this training don’t dissipate automatically,
and there are very few opportunities for men
to make the sustained, in-depth effort necessary
for effective consciousness-raising (and
of course, male socialization discourages
exactly this sort of talking about emotions,
deep issues, and personal pain). So, what can
be done about it?
Stepping Off the Pedestal
A few years ago, when we both volunteered
at the same shelter, a friend—let’s call
him Mike—and I were talking. I mentioned
that I always felt a little awkward and uncomfortable
when the volunteer trainer thanked me
for coming—I noticed that she didn’t thank
anyone else nearly as much. Mike not only
confirmed my opinion, he told me that she put
him on the pedestal as well. Having been there
longer than me, Mike had developed a strategy
for dealing with inflated praise by saying: “If
you need to [thank me], let my mother know.
I’m sure she’d appreciate it.” I thought this
was clever, because it redirects the focus of
appreciation and the conversation.
Since then, I’ve noticed other strategies
some men use to reduce the effects of unfair
privilege and unequal praise. Some, like
Mike, pass along the appreciation to women
they see doing the same work as them but
getting less praise—their mothers, mentors,
or other women in the room working alongside
them. Others make an explicit point of
frequently referencing and recognizing the
contributions women have made to the work
they do, and some of the particular women
whose footsteps they are following. Perhaps
the most important thing is just being aware
of male privilege, and checking to make
sure it isn’t contributing to the creation of a
pedestal under you.
Checking to make sure you aren’t being
unfairly privileged can be awkward. It may
even mean intentionally stepping back from
rewarding positions that bring recognition
if the position came to you due to male
privilege. I was recently asked to give a talk
for Women’s Week at a distant university.
The organizers offered to cover my travel
expenses, something not out of the ordinary
in these situations. I accepted.
As the date approached I got more and
more uncomfortable, thinking about the
fact that I was invited out there to speak
because I am a man. What if some woman
hadn’t been invited, so they could afford
to fly me out there? Or, worse yet, what if
women were invited but had to cover their
own expenses? It might not be intentional,
but the scarcity of male voices speaking on
the topic might make my presence seem more
valuable, thus garnering me special treatment
that I hadn’t earned.
I spent the better part of an hour
composing a very polite and carefully worded
e-mail, asking whether that was the case and
informing them that if the budget was tight,
I’d rather the money be spent on women
presenters. I made clear that I greatly appreciated
their offer, and would gratefully accept
any funds they could make available, as long
as I could be assured that I wasn’t getting
special treatment because of my gender. They
wrote back and let me know that that wasn’t
the case, and that they would still very much
like to have me. I felt a lot better about going,
knowing that my presence was not taking
away from the women who are my allies.
Supporting and building alliances
between and with marginalized groups is
one of the most important things men can
do. Simultaneously, though, we need to be
holding each other accountable. We need to
create spaces and find ways of supporting,
coaching, guiding, and encouraging each
other in the tricky and emotionally demanding
task of working against our own privilege (as
Mike did for me). We need to make sure we
are being good people, not just “good guys.”
A graduate student
at the University of
Southern California,
Tal Peretz has been
involved in men’s
groups working to
end men’s violence
against women for
seven years. After
volunteering at a
charter high school for underprivileged
youth, working at an HIV/AIDS resource
center, and doing counseling and advocacy
at a domestic violence/sexual assault shelter,
he is focusing his energy on enhancing the
efforts of men working to end sexism.
Winter 2010 11

Fathers and Sons
Recovering from the War at Home
Broken Father, Loyal Son
By John Sheldon
What is loyalty, specifically the loyalty of a boy to his father? That’s the
question John Sheldon has been pondering for much of his adult life. The
singer-songwriter and guitar virtuoso, who toured with Van Morrison before
he was 20 and whose songs James Taylor has recorded, offers this meditation
on the complicated relationship he had with his late father and what filial
loyalty says about manhood.
In the United States of America, a young man is expected to be loyal to
his country. He is expected to defend the flag and all that it stands for.
He is expected to honor all those who sacrificed for that very same flag,
and to make sacrifices himself, up to and including the ultimate one—dying
in war.
But let’s go back. Let’s go back to look at the young man before he is old
enough to accept these responsibilities. Think of him as a boy of around 11,
an age at which the United States (or any country for that matter) is still an
abstraction. The boy doesn’t live in a country yet. He “lives” in his school,
his neighborhood, and most of all, in his family.
My father was a craftsman. He made furniture. At 11 I didn’t know if
his work was any good.
I only knew that other men visiting our house would often admire a piece
he’d made, sometimes telling me, “Your father is a true craftsman.”
It came as a shock, then, one night, to hear loud crashing coming from the
living room and to find my father standing over one of his masterworks—the
scattered remains of a coffee table he had just destroyed. He was muttering
angrily. I couldn’t understand anything he was saying. When my mother
appeared, she stood in the doorway, arms folded. She didn’t enter the room or
even speak. The coffee table, one of a pair Dad had made, lay in ruins on the
rug. To my 11year-old self, the more he ranted, the larger its splintered legs
and broken top became—no longer a pile of wood my dad had painstakingly
shaped—but a dead body. My mother retreated from the doorway.
Broken. Something broken. What was it? The coffee table, yes, but
something else. My family, maybe? I took the cue from my mother’s silence,
her folded arms; her stoicism. Something was broken, all right—it was my
father.
Are you listening to what I’m trying to tell you? From the first time my
dad bounced me, sang to me, held me down and tickled me until I thought
12 Voice Male
I’d die laughing and grateful, from the first time I felt, in his physicality, that
he could be rough and tender at the same time, there was no one in the world
that I could have ever loved more.
I’ve heard so much talk about a child’s relationship with his mother, the
suckling warmth and intimacy of it all. Not me. I was shaped by my father’s
knobby and powerful hands. When he held me or bounced me or tickled me
those hands said in language plain as day, I am strong. I could kill you easily,
but I won’t. And I could feel he wouldn’t. I could feel it in his hands. How
could anything or anyone have inspired the loyalty in me that my dad did?
Yet at 11 years old I learn that my father is broken. Why? Does it matter
why? His mother abused him. He cleaned up blood—and bodies—in World
War II. He drinks too much. Whatever it is, it’s not as important as what to do
now. I don’t have to clean up the living room. I know my mother will do that.
Everything will be cleaned back to normal—everything but my knowledge
that I have a busted father. I cannot bear carrying this knowledge.
So here’s where the loyalty kicks in, the loyalty that will determine the
direction of my life from that moment. Because, somewhere in the barely
visible outline of impending manhood, I know my job—to fix him.
But how? How could a boy possibly know how to reassemble a human
being? I didn’t even have the skill to fix the coffee table. So, in some dim
recess of awareness, I hit on an answer. I will become broken myself! Can
you see—and marvel at—the elegant logic of it all? If I am the broken one,
my father will become whole again. I know this to be true. I will take this
on, this brokenness, embody it, bear it away from him, suck the poison out
of him and, at the same time, out of my family. It is my responsibility. Being
the son, I am the protector now.
How do I become broken? The answer comes in a flash: by doing what
Dad did. Smash things. I’d done this on a small scale before, smashing a
couple of model airplanes when I messed up, but I’d never done anything
on this scale before.
Over the next several years I started to smash my life. I became a fuckup
at school, got kicked out, went to another school where they couldn’t kick
me out, then started cutting my arm with razors and broken glass, smashed
some furniture myself, and was placed on a mental ward as a teenager. There
I was, away from my friends, away from my room with the books and model
planes, my backyard, and yes, my dad.
I became the broken one.
Of course that was the opposite of what my dad wanted for me and I
fixed nothing. I only set myself on a trajectory from which I am still trying
to return.
Working with old tools in a dim workshop
I try to repair what has been damaged
I did not want the job
But now that I have it, I will snap at you if you interrupt me.
I will reject any offer to help
There is no one as qualified to do this work
Of gluing my broken father back together
To make you whole again
What wouldn’t I do
To mend your soul again
What wouldn’t I go through
Truth be told
No glue will hold a thing so vast

Nothing that will last
The time is flying
Why can’t I stop trying
To make you whole again
Oh, my father
The distance between us now
So much wider
I just don’t know how
To cross the space
Return to the place
Where we can both feel strong
It’s been too long
Midnight has come
I’ve just now begun
To try to make us whole again
I was 16 when I got out of the hospital. My new friends were all people
who had been or were still in the hospital. My father and I tiptoed around
each other, as if both of us knew the truth but couldn’t acknowledge it.
I put my life back together around music, and my ability to play the
electric guitar. I got work that way, and some sense of self-esteem. But I
could never return to the “regular” society of school and preparation for a
prescribed life. It felt as if it was all beyond me. I knew too much. I knew
the keepers of the keys were as insane as the inmates.
I took the fall for Dad because I loved him.
Tell me this loyalty for the father is not stronger than all the flags, all
the tomes about freedom and sacrifice. Tell me our leaders don’t somehow,
through propaganda and rhetoric, use this loyalty to our fathers to get us to
sacrifice ourselves again and again, in the wars they have started? Somebody,
somewhere prove to me that this is not so!
In this society few know what it means to be a man. We have few rituals
where a man can pass on a healthy manhood to his son. Sons are on their
own trying to interpret how to express love, or anger, grief or joy. What do
boys and men do? Follow in our fathers’ unsure footsteps? Totally reject
everything they stand for? What about ending it all—the ultimate sacrifice?
I know many times I thought if I killed myself then the poison I had swallowed
would die with me. How wrong I was! I had friends who did it. What
wells of pain and misery they left behind.
Most men are typecast as the fixers of things. Maybe that’s not wrong.
How many of us have opened the hood of the car to try and find the
problem? Why won’t we open the hood of our stalled lives—the fatherson
relationship? Can someone please tell me what is more important? Instead
of wasting our time trying to figure out how to fix the car—or the country,
or someone else’s country—why don’t we start with the broken love of a
father and son?
Is there any way we can look our fathers in the eye and say, “I love you,
Pop. I’ll do anything for you, but I will not break myself for you. I will not
die for you!”
I am one of the lucky ones. I didn’t die. I kept on playing the guitar and
slowly, over time, carved out a ledge to stand on, maybe not in the mainstream,
but on the edge somewhere.
I survived the war at home with both arms, both legs, and with my brain
largely intact. I had plenty of guilt about surviving, and the guilt caused me
to linger in the land of the broken. It was easier to live in the cracked image
of my father than to emerge into my own strength—probably the remnants
of my loyalty to him. I could not be stronger than him for fear that it would
break him more. It was only when he was ailing, dying of cancer, that I began
to discover the reserves of strength and resiliency I
had within me all along, qualities I felt as a child ,in
his knobby, powerful hands. I believe that, in the first
few years of my life, my father’s hands had taught me
something after all.
John Sheldon is a guitarist, composer, and songwriter.
He lives in Amherst Mass.
Winter 2010 13

Men, the Mainstream Press, and Rape in the Congo
Invisible Men
By Jackson Katz
Despite a generation of feminist
activism which inspired changes in
countless laws and social practices,
in public life it is far from clear that women’s
experiences and voices count as much as
men’s. United States Supreme Court justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently provided an
inside look at how this works in the highest
provinces of power, when she questioned
her own influence at justices’ conferences:
“I will say something—and I don’t think
I’m a confused speaker—and it isn’t until
somebody else says it that everyone will
focus on the point.”
Ginsburg was too politically cautious—or
polite—to note that the “somebody else” to
whom she was referring was coded language
for a man, whose opinion is deemed more
valid by virtue of his sex. Men’s expertise
and opinions are routinely valued more than
women’s, here and around the world.
How ironic and revealing, then, that what
came to be known in mainstream accounts as
“The Exchange” between Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton and a young man at a public
event in Kinshasa during Clinton’s visit to the
Congo in the summer of 2009 overshadowed
the substance of her trip, which shone the
14 Voice Male
spotlight on the ongoing epidemic of sexual
violence. (Secretary Clinton, you may recall,
testily responded to the student’s question
seeking “President Clinton’s” opinion about
a political issue. It turned out the student had
misspoken, and had meant to ask about President
Obama. Secretary Clinton was evidently
irritated that once again, her own opinions
and experience were seemingly being overlooked
in favor of the sexist presumption that
a woman leader is merely the mouthpiece for
a more powerful man.)
Why was so much media coverage
devoted to that during her trip to Africa
when one of the secretary’s goals was to use
the power of her voice to highlight African
women’s lives? In particular, Clinton wanted
to draw public attention to the ongoing
tragedy of mass rapes of women, children
and men in the Congo. She was the first U.S.
secretary of state to travel to the war zone,
and she announced a $17 million plan to
fight sexual violence. Among other steps, the
American government would train doctors,
supply rape victims with cameras to document
their injuries, and train Congolese law
enforcement to crack down on rapists.
Corporate and independent media did
cover this part of the story, although with
nothing like the gusto with which they
recounted Ms. Clinton’s short-tempered
response to the African student. Many
American reporters in the ever-shrinking
international press corps tried to convey the
scope of the horrific suffering of women and
children in the Congo, as well as communicate
empathy with the emotional toll it all
appeared to be taking on Ms. Clinton. “I
was just overwhelmed by what I saw,” she
said. “It is almost impossible to describe the
level of suffering.” Several news accounts
observed that Ms. Clinton seemed drained
by the emotional experience.
Unfortunately, however, the focus in
news stories on the almost-unimaginable
sexual violence in the Congo had an unintended
effect. It pushed women’s lives to
center stage, which is appropriate, necessary,
and represents a big step forward. At
the same time, it kept men out of the spotlight—at
just the wrong time. Male leaders
often get too much credit, and our opinions
are unfairly more valued than women’s. But
when it comes to being held responsible for
the negative consequences of our behavior,

including the widespread incidence of rape
around the world, men are typically rendered
invisible in the journalistic conversation.
Men’s role in rape is characteristically
hidden in mainstream journalism through a
variety of linguistic conventions. One of the
more significant of these is when writers and
speakers use the passive voice—consciously
or not—to talk about incidents of sexual
violence (e.g. “200,000 women have been
raped since the conflict began”). In addition,
men’s central responsibility for the rape
pandemic escapes critical examination whenever
writers and speakers use gender-neutral
terminology to talk about perpetrators, who
are overwhelmingly men. A New York Times
article on August 12 last year reporting on
Secretary Clinton’s trip provides a good case
study of these phenomena.
The article appeared beneath the fold
on page A8, in the International section. It
was headlined “Clinton Presents Plan to
Fight Sexual Violence in Congo,” by Jeffery
Gettleman. The passive voice began in the
first paragraph: “...Secretary Clinton...met
a Congolese woman who had been gangraped
while she was eight months pregnant.”
Passive sentence structures that hid male
perpetration appeared in subsequent paragraphs:
“...hundreds of thousands of women
have been raped in the past decade.” And
“...countless women, and recently many
men, have been raped.” Then, “Hundreds of
villagers have been massacred” and “The aid
worker told Mrs. Clinton that an 8-year-old
boy who had strayed out of the camp was
raped the other day.”
This brief catalogue of passive sentences
is not an attempt to single out the New York
Times reporter for criticism. He was merely a
vehicle for the transmission of the dominant
ideology, which routinely obfuscates men’s
culpability for rape through both conscious
and unconscious omissions. Victims themselves
often use passive voice. Gettleman
quoted one woman, Mrs. Mapendo, who
said, “Our life is very bad. We get raped
when we go out and look for food.” Another
woman said, “Children are killed, women
are raped and the world closes its eyes.”
In addition to the passive language, the
photo accompanying the story showed Secretary
Clinton in an outdoor meeting with a
throng of Congolese women. There was not a
man’s face in sight. In fact, the only mention
of the word “men” in the entire 1029-word
article was in reference to men as victims of
rape. If it had not been for that (welcome)
acknowledgment of men’s vulnerability and
victimization, a naïve reader might have
inferred that there are no men in the Congo,
only “women and children who are raped
and killed.”
The New York Times article was also
suffused with gender-neutral language,
particularly language that could have identified
the gender of the individuals and groups
responsible for sex crimes. For example:
“Often the rapists are Congolese soldiers,”
or “...Congo...has become a magnet for
all the rogue groups in Africa.” Secretary
Clinton was quoted as saying the world
needed to regulate the mineral trade to make
sure the profits do not end up “in the hands
of those who fuel the violence.”
Discussions about sex
crimes, in the Congo
and elsewhere, focus
on what is happening to
women, and not on who
is doing it to them: men.
But while the gender of the perpetrators is
obscured, the gender of the victims is stated
plainly. The following sentence provides
a clear illustration of this: “...an intensely
predatory conflict driven by a mix of ethnic,
commercial, nationalist, and criminal interests,
in which various armed groups often
vent their rage against women.” This type of
language usage is ubiquitous in contemporary
journalism. When the perpetrators are
men, their gender is not mentioned (“armed
groups”). When the victims are women, their
gender is in full view.
The result is that discussions about sex
crimes, in the Congo and elsewhere, focus
on what is happening to women, and not
on who is doing it to them. In practice, this
has obvious repercussions for so-called
prevention efforts, which as a result of their
focus on women often amount to mere
band-aid solutions. Of course rape victims
and survivors need better medical and counseling
services. But let’s not mistake those
services for prevention—which can only be
successful to the extent that men and boys
are a part of them.
The growing movement to engage men
and boys in sexual and domestic violence
prevention in the United States, sub-Saharan
Africa, and around the globe—a movement
Voice Male chronicles—faces an uphill
climb in societies where cultural norms
about masculinity both contribute directly
to the violence and prevent women and men
from speaking freely about men’s responsibilities
to end it.
This is not merely an academic debate
about linguistic practices. Linguistic choices
have practical consequences, especially in
terms of what sorts of issues get discussed,
and by whom, on main streets, in back rooms
and in the shadowy corridors of power. As
long as political leaders and policy makers—
in national and international contexts—focus
on rape primarily as a women’s issue, strategies
for addressing it will tend to emphasize
services for victims and survivors, rather
than accountability for perpetrators, or more
critical attention to how we socialize boys.
Unfortunately, the failure of journalists
and others to use active language to describe
who is doing what to whom, as well as their
hesitation to use gender-specific language to
talk about men and boys as the perpetrators
of sexual violence, make it next to impossible
to hold male (and female) leaders
accountable for addressing these problems
forthrightly. As a result, the struggle to
bring a critical mass of men into the social
change process necessary to achieve significant
reductions in gender-based violence
continues. Women—along with a small
number of male allies—continue to mourn
the victims, care for the survivors, and pick
up the broken pieces in the lives of their
traumatized children. And across the world
we lurch endlessly from one preventable
tragedy to the next.
Voice Male
contributing
editor Jackson
Katz is author
of The Macho
Paradox and
writer-producer,
with the Media
Education Foundation,
of Tough
Guise: Violence, Media and the Crisis
in Masculinity (www.jacksonkatz.com).
A version of this article appeared in
The Huffington Post.
Winter 2010 15

Is It Anger or Is It Abuse?
By Joyce and Barry Vissell
Leonard was yelling at his wife, “Damn it, Mary, when are you
going to give me any respect? I work all day long and come
home to a messy house and dinner isn’t even started. What do
you do all day?!”
Mary was clearly intimidated. She was sitting wordlessly on the
couch while he stood threateningly above her, clenching his fi sts as
if he would hit her. She was hugging herself in a desperate attempt
at self-protection, while the tears gave away her fear and pain.
No question here. This is obviously abusive and unhealthy
anger. How about this next example:
Tammie in a loud voice, “I’m so pissed off at you, Phil. You did
it again. You said you’d be home at six, and it’s now seven. You
don’t care shit about me.”
“I’m really sorry, Tammie. The traffi c was bad and I wanted...”
“I’m not done, Phil. It’s only been one week since the last time
you were late. I don’t trust your word anymore. You say you’re
going to do something, and then you don’t. Don’t I matter to you?”
“Of course you matter, I tried to call but only got your voice
mail.”
16 Voice Male
“Always with the excuses. I’m tired of your excuses. You don’t
mean anything you say. I’m done with this marriage!”
Is Tammie’s anger healthy or unhealthy? While defi nitely
healthier than Leonard’s, it is still not healthy.
How about this example. Lana and Cade went through the same
scenario and here’s how they dealt with it:
“Cade, I feel hurt and angry. You said you’d be home at six, and
it’s now seven. I felt scared that something might have happened
to you.”
“I’m really sorry, Lana. The traffi c was bad, but that’s no excuse.
I should’ve called you.”
“I’m just feeling disrespected, hurt and angry.”
Lana is being healthy with her anger. Why? Because she has
made no blanket accusations like Tammie’s “You don’t care shit
about me. I don’t trust your word anymore. You don’t mean anything
you say.” She allowed Cade to speak without cutting him off. She
didn’t make threats like Tammie’s “I’m done with this marriage!”
Instead, she kept to “I” statements, letting Cade know how she felt,
rather than making him wrong or shaming him.
Expressing anger is rarely enjoyable to your partner, but it
can still be healthy and safe. I remember going through a phase in
our early relationship where I felt expressing anger was defi nitely
not healthy or safe. Joyce would express her anger and I would
repress my anger, and even put her down for getting angry. Because
that didn’t work for her, her anger would then escalate to the next
higher level. This would feel intolerable to me, and I would leave,
regardless of where we were. Defi nitely not healthy on my part.
One day, we were outside the house, and Joyce was expressing
anger at me. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I yelled at her in anger.
First there was a look of shock on her face, then gradually a smile
appeared and she reached out and hugged me. She was actually
thanking me for my anger.
I have stopped holding in my anger. Sometimes I go to the other
extreme and let it out too loudly. At those times I imagine Joyce
wishes I would go back to the way I was. But she assures me she
would rather have me yell too loudly than not at all.
Ideally, most anger can be headed off by addressing the feelings
underneath, which are usually hurt or fear. When these deeper
feelings are expressed and acknowledged, there often is no need for
anger. For example, it is unavoidable for Joyce and me to sometimes
say or do something that triggers hurt feelings in the other. Usually
this is completely unintentional. Our goal is to say something like,
“I know you didn’t mean to hurt me by saying/doing ______, but
it did hurt me.” I have to admit, Joyce is better at it than I am.
When she makes that statement, it helps me in two ways. First, it
acknowledges that I didn’t mean to hurt her. This is very important
to me, often preventing me from going to an old tape, “I’m a bad
boy,” or “I can’t ever do it right.” Second, it allows me room to hear
her hurt and immediately apologize, which can bring us back to
love very quickly.
When the hurt or fear is not felt and expressed, anger is the next
level. Just to be very clear, here are some guidelines for the healthy
expression of anger:

1. “I” statements are rarely abusive. “I am angry,”
rather than “You did _____,” or
“Why did you do ____.”
2. Healthy anger is not intimidating or controlling.
Even “I” statements can be abusive if you are scaring
the person you are addressing. If you are physically
or emotionally dominating this person, you are being
abusive. This includes not letting her—or him—speak
or respond, and of course touching him or her in
inappropriate or aggressive ways.
3. Healthy anger stays in the present, rather than
bringing up unrelated things from the past to fortify
your argument. “You came home an hour late
without calling, yesterday you forgot to bring out the
garbage, and the day before you left your dirty dishes
on the table.” Not healthy.
4. Healthy anger does not generalize. “You’re always
breaking your commitments.”
5. Healthy anger does not make threats of any kind.
“Break one more commitment and I’m out of here!”
6. Name calling or swearing is unhealthy.
After the anger is expressed in a healthy way, then it’s time for
both of you to address the hurt or fear underneath the anger. It’s time
for each of you to take responsibility for your deeper feelings, and
apologize for hurting the other. Cade’s apology to Lana allowed her
to quickly let go of her anger. Lana’s acknowledging her hurt and
fear made it easier for Cade to apologize.
Address the hurt or fear beneath the anger and there will usually
be no need to express anger. Prevention is always more effective.
But if the hurt, or fear, remain elusive you have a conscious choice
to express your anger in a healthy way. Follow the above guidelines
and you can have an abuse-free exchange.
When Joyce and I are angry with each other, we stay connected
and work it through to the very end. We know we are done when
we can sincerely hug and kiss one another and even laugh at our
behavior. Because of this the fl ame of our love and commitment to
one another has been allowed to burn brightly.
Joyce and Barry Vissell, a nurse and medical doctor couple
since 1964 whose medicine is now love, are the authors of The
Shared Heart, Models of Love, Risk to Be Healed, The Heart’s
Wisdom, and Meant to Be. They offer a
personal mentorship/coaching program
including a January 31–February 7, 2010,
retreat, Couples in Paradise, in Hawaii; and
a Summer Renewal retreat July 18–23, at
Breitenbush Hot Springs in Oregon. For their
free monthly e-heartletter, updated schedule,
and other information, visit their website,
www.sharedheart.org.
Winter 2010 17

The Men’s Story Project
Men’s Lives, Men’s Truths
Interview by Charles Knight
Men are notorious for having
trouble sharing with others our
deeper selves, our emotional
lives. If we have trouble opening up to
friends and loved ones, imagine what
courage it might take to reveal personal
stories onstage in our own communities.
Men’s resistance to sharing our
truths—and possibly finding cause for
celebration in telling them—didn’t stop
Josie Lehrer from inviting men to open
up. She conceived and launched the
Men’s Story Project, a powerful theater
work in which a diverse group of men
share dramatic pieces they have created
about their lives—their sexuality, gender
identity, romantic relationships, friendship,
family, mentors, rites of passage,
HIV/AIDS, perpetration of and healing
18 Voice Male
from violence, immigration, personal
transformations, and the men they wish
to be—all focused on examining masculinities
and men’s roles.
The first performance was staged
in August 2008 in Berkeley, California,
before a standing-room-only house and
featured monologues from 16 presenters
from 22 to 60. Performances are multimedia,
including slam poetry, monologues,
prose, music and dance, and
are followed by facilitated audiencepresenter
discussion.
A public health researcher, community
educator/organizer and musician,
Lehrer has emerged as a strong ally to
profeminist, antiviolence men’s organizations,
crisscrossing the country and traveling
overseas to promote her new vision
of manhood. She’s shared the Men’s
Story Project at conferences in Oregon,
Minnesota, Washington, D.C., and Rio
de Janeiro. Her mission is far-reaching:
to “support healthy masculinities and
gender equality, and to help eliminate
gender-based violence, homophobia
and other oppressions intertwined with
masculinities, through ongoing events of
men’s public story-sharing and community
dialogue.”
Voice Male advisory board member
Charles Knight, who recently interviewed
Lehrer in Berkeley, says, “When
I first got introduced to the Men’s Story
Project from its YouTube site (http://www.
youtube.com/ user/mensstoryproject)
I immediately sensed the power of this
project and sought out Dr. Lehrer to inter-

view her for
Voice Male.
What follows
are highlights
from
our widerangingconversation.”
Voice Male: So
many people
have learned
about women’s
Dr. Josie Lehrer
lives through
The Vagina Monologues. It was intriguing
to learn there is something happening in a
dramatic format about men’s lives. What is the
Men’s Story Project all about?
Josie Lehrer: In each performance—and there
have been four to date—local men, including
artists, activists, and men who’ve never been
on a public stage, share stories about their own
lives with a public audience. The pieces focus
on breaking silences, talking about things that
men don’t often speak about publicly, challenging
stereotypical ideas about manhood,
and presenting a more expansive and peaceful
vision of what contemporary masculinities
can be about. It’s really about celebrating and
challenging, and taking a critical observer
stance—celebrating some of the diversity
of ways in which men can live as genuinely
expressed, peaceful human beings in the
world, and highlighting the costs of traditional
gender role expectations for the lives of men
and the people of all genders around them. The
emphasis is on men’s humanness.
VM: How did you come to create the Men’s
Story Project?
JL: It feels like a direct outgrowth of much of
my work and personal experience up to now,
and it reflects many of my values—so there
hasn’t been much distinction for me between
the personal and the professional. I have
a background in public health, community
organizing, and the arts. I write music. A lot
of my work has focused on prevention of and
response to gender-based violence and HIV/
AIDS. For the past several years I’ve been cofacilitating
a weekly support group for young
people living with HIV/AIDS. It is some of
the work that has taught me the most in my
life. On a more personal level, pretty much
every dear friend of mine has had some experience
with sexual assault or partner violence
or family violence, and these issues have also
affected beloved people in my family.
From a public health perspective, I want
to address root causes of social problems
like the nonrandom distribution of HIV and
gender-based violence in societies—and
dominant-culture prescriptions for manhood
and gender relations, including structural
gender inequality. They’re a big part of that
root-cause structure.
In the U.S., there are few ongoing, mainstream,
public forums where masculinities are
critically discussed for the purpose of social
change, so I created the Men’s Story Project
as a replicable, locally based initiative to try
to address some of that gap. And I see it as a
counterpoint to the more limited and often
oppressive messages of the mainstream media
and other social forces.
VM: Can you talk about how you see men’s
experience of masculinity as it relates to
violence and to issues of health?
JL: It’s such a huge subject. I find it deeply
compelling that a vast proportion of human
suffering in the world today is preventable and
unnecessary… a lot of it is related to dominant-culture
training regarding masculinities
and gender relations, and ways we choose to
treat each other at the interpersonal and institutional
levels based on these ideas.
In varying cultural contexts, traditional
male role ideas are often intertwined with
sexism, homophobia, racism, classism, ableism
and other forms of oppression. And research is
increasingly showing that belief in traditional
notions of masculinity is linked with significant
risks for the health and well-being of men
and the people of all genders around them.
These include greater likelihood of HIV/STI
risk behaviors such as not using condoms
and having multiple partners (because men
are supposed to want sex all the time, with
as many women as possible); men’s violence
against women; physical violence between
men; substance abuse; drunk driving; men’s
low rates of utilizing health care—because
they’re supposed to be tough and self-sufficient,
among other problems.
Also, when stereotypical “masculinity”
is defined in its opposition to a less-valued
stereotypical “femininity,” and when being
gay is equivalent to being “effeminate” or
“like a girl,” it contributes to homophobia and
transphobia, which in turn contribute to prob-
Scenes from
the 2008
Men’s Story
Project
performances
Winter 2010 19

lems like higher rates of depression, suicide,
substance abuse and school dropout in LGBT
youth, and the perpetrating of LGBT hate
crimes. And men and boys get sucked into
these social pressures—feeling pressured to
fight, posture, show their virility, suppress
their emotions, not express their sexuality or
gender identity, set aside parts of their unique
humanness, and try to fit into these boxes
which, ironically, almost no one “naturally”
fits into.
VM: How has the audience responded to
the project?
JL: It’s been overwhelmingly positive—
standing ovations each time. We hand
out feedback forms at each event, and the
comments have often included words like
“transformative,” “inspiring,” “This needs
to keep happening,” and so on. Many men
have said they found the presentations to be
surprisingly “real,” and that it was affirming
to see some of their own experiences reflected
in other men’s stories onstage. Many women
have said that the performance “humanized”
men for them, that it helped them understand
some of the challenges men may face in
trying to live self-expressed, peaceful, whole
human lives. Several people have said the
project gives them hope—that they’ve been
looking or hoping for something like this for
a long time.
VM: There’s obviously a lot going on
beyond the sheer drama and force of the
men’s stories. What are some of the “teachable
moments” you’re hoping to see emerge
from the performances?
20 Voice Male
JL: Part of my premise is the personal is
often the best way to get to the universal.
So we share personal, visceral experiences,
because that’s what gets to the heart. Audience
members have the space to come up
with their own conclusions. For example
some performances have highlighted the fact
that homophobia isn’t just a “gay people’s
problem.” It’s a straight people’s problem
too. It deeply limits ways in which heterosexual
men relate to others. One of the
participants, a 60-year-old writer, talked
about how he had never shared any of his
poems with his parents for 30 years of his life
because they would have assumed that if he
was writing poetry, he must be gay (and that
would be terrible). So he hid a beautiful part
of himself from his parents for decades.
With regard to modeling, we also explicitly
say that the presenters aren’t purporting
to be “fully enlightened human works.” In
the introduction, we acknowledge the boldness
and integrity in their willingness to step
forward, knowing full well that we’re all
works in progress. Part of the modeling here
is that we’re celebrating men who are willing
to engage in critical self-reflection and social
examination.
I think it’s a powerful modeling of solidarity
for a diverse group of men to work
together, be onstage together, emotionally
supporting each other and literally standing
side by side in the sharing of personal experience.
We also believe in locally created
presentations. There’s power when presenters
and audience members mutually belong to a
locally or culturally defined community.
That invites relevance, accountability, and
personal identification.
VM: What are your hopes for the future of
the Men’s Story Project?
JL: It’s intended to be locally replicated so I
hope it’ll spread far and wide—on campuses,
with nonprofits, and other groups. It can be
integrated with broader campus initiatives or
public health programs working with men.
We have a training manual available, and I
do a training workshop and consult on new
projects. We also have a DVD of the first live
performance that can be used as an educational
tool. It has 16 pieces as stand-alone
chapters, so teachers can choose discussion
topics. I’m excited that a new project is under
way in Chile, and I’ll be collaborating with
the Sonke Gender Justice Network in South
Africa to develop and evaluate a project with
young men who are opinion leaders in their
community. For the near future, I envision an
online Men’s Story Project Network, where
groups around the world can post films of
their productions, share experiences, and
bring visibility to this initiative as a set of
linked, emerging efforts.
Ultimately, I think a lot of the project’s
power will be in it’s being repeated in a given
community over time. For example, if a
nonprofit or university starts creating yearly
events, such as with The Vagina Monologues
or Take Back the Night. Because then it
becomes a mainstream part of community
life—it would be known that every “x”
period of time, a group of men puts together
an amazing, unusually honest presentation,
and these dialogues happen. It becomes part
of the norm that these dialogues happen, and
there emerges an ongoing counterpoint to
other mainstream forces.
For more information about the Men’s Story
Project and how to produce a performance
in your community go to www.mensstoryproject.org.
Josie Lehrer, ScD, is a postdoctoral
research fellow at the University of California
at San Francisco Center for AIDS
Prevention Studies, a community education
consultant with San Francisco Women
Against Rape, and volunteer group facilitator
at Bay Area Young Positives.
Voice Male advisory
board member
Charles Knight is
editor of a blog
called OBRM—
other & beyond real
men. Visit it at http://
otherbeyondrealmen.blogspot.com.

Winter 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
What’s happening with men and masculinity?
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.
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.
—Eve Ensler,
award-winning playwright
(The Vagina Monologues)
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
—

Creatista
Eight years ago I gave birth to my first son. Amidst the euphoria
of giving birth to a perfectly beautiful little human being, I
became growingly aware that his gender was a very big deal
for me. As we entered the various social arenas as parent and child
it became apparent that his gender was a very big deal for everyone
else as well. It was his gender that others engaged with first. Thus
I came face to face with preconceived ideas about the differences
between male and female and the innate characteristics that each
gender supposedly comprised. As a feminist, I was familiar with
the dangers of this line of thinking; as a mother of a son, I suddenly
became very fearful.
As I witnessed constant entreaties to accept the “truth” about
masculinity in our interactions with the social world, I began to
understand why my son’s gender was becoming problematic for
me. I did not want others to define him according to preconceived
notions of what a boy is, does, thinks, or will be like. I wanted them
to see my son for who he was as a little person unfolding in the world,
responding to stimulus, urged on by curiosity, and holding none of
those considered hegemonic masculinity traits that I felt would set
him up as so very separate and different from me.
I baulked at the possibility of his development into adulthood
being so sharply defined by parameters that construct masculinity; a
masculinity that is the antithesis of feminist ideals and that I believe
is so socially destructive.
I began to become increasingly concerned by concepts such as
“he’s such a boy” or “it’s a boy thing,” and horrifically, “boys will
be boys.” First, this distressed me because even though he may have
male genitals I refuse to accept that he must fit into such a narrow
and yet nondescript set of behaviors, thoughts, emotions. What does
“a boy thing” and “such a boy” mean? I heard myself ask time and
time again. Other people’s responses were not satisfying and I would
leave the situation concerned that I had come across as aggressive,
or worse, that people were left thinking that I was deluding myself,
in denial, not ready to accept my son’s constructed destiny.
A Feminist
Mother on
Raising Sons
By Sarah Epstein
Second, these concepts concerned and angered me because they
can be used to excuse behavior (the child’s) or inaction (the parents’)
and support resignation rather than responsibility for people’s
(men’s/boys’) problematic actions.
Third, I felt increasingly lonely and isolated. I had been reflecting
a lot about ways of engaging with my son that privileged his status
as a child, a human being, rather than as a boy. I felt strongly that
this was a way to open up for him choices about who he wanted to
be. Yet at the same time I was finding I had to increasingly engage in
overt acts of resistance to gendered and, as a consequence, behavioral
impositions foisted on my son.
I was struggling to find ways to name thoughts and observations.
I was trying to grasp the meaning of what I was experiencing. I found
I didn’t have the language or concepts to help me make sense of my
experiences. In my sense of isolation and feelings of marginalization
I did what I had done many times in the past, I sought out feminist
thinkers, writers, and friends. I was looking for affirmation and
strategies that would help me to take a stand against gendered
constructs that feminists have railed against for years.
Feminism has helped affirm for me that constructs around
femininity, that is, ideas about how women are, what they should
be, what they feel, and what they need were too often defined and
described by men and the social institutions that they held control
over. It was a source of comfort and inspiration to immerse myself
in a movement, an ideology, a way of life that gave me words and
living examples of how women were so much more than bystanders
to social/historical machinations. Feminist analysis of society helped
me to make sense of the world in which women lived. Feminism
gave me insight into how women could be living as women in a
postpatriarchal society. Feminism claimed more for women than
patriarchy had allowed.
As a young feminist, I relished the ideas of strength, confidence,
and passion that my feminist cohort urged and celebrated. Working
in the area of violence against women further allowed me to immerse
Winter 2010 23

myself in women-centered practice and theory. Working alongside
women and for women gave me a sense of solidarity and political
purpose that truly felt like a privilege. I experienced a feminism
that utilized the concept of “woman” for political and revolutionary
purposes.
I was energized by the idea that there was something special
about women that made us different from men. I felt lucky to
know the bonds that women create through shared experiences of
marginalization and through existing in this world as not a man.
My feminist world, the community I was familiar with, supported
these ideas too. And, I was fully immersed in a world that celebrated
women, lauded women, knew how to nurture, encourage and rally
for women. And then I had a son.
I realized that feminists too had definite ideas about boys.
Although my experience of feminism had challenged simplistic,
restrictive ideas about women and their identity, boys were still boys
and men were just men. Having a son challenged everything for me.
It realigned me with feminism because I could not agree to viewing
my child or parenting my child in any way that I felt would allow
him to grow up to be one of the men in this world who doesn’t think
about what it is like for women, or what their privileged position
means for women.
Simultaneously, having a son also exiled me from the feminism I
had become comfortable with. I was not a mother of a daughter who
could pass on feminist women’s wisdom and celebrate my child’s
strength. There were no books for boys that were written by feminists
that told them how beautiful they were, how important they were, no
“You go boy!” books.
24 Voice Male
Instead, all I felt that feminism had to teach me and encourage
me was how to help my boy emerge into manhood via a process of
negation. I noticed myself containing him, curbing his behavior,
restricting behavior, obsessively attentive to his language and his
interpersonal relations with girls. I noticed that I was always the
one at the playground or playgroup curbing my son’s “enthusiasm,”
obsessing about sharing, providing him with rationales for why he
shouldn’t be doing, saying or acting in a certain way. I was riddled
with anxiety and it was killing me emotionally, creating an even
greater chasm between him and me. I felt that my feminism was not
giving me room to breathe.
In my feminist imagination there were never any excuses or
allowances made for the boys, but much support and freedom for
the girls in feminist talk, writing, and socializing. I understood why
feminism had focused on girls and their self-esteem, I understood why
feminists placed so much stock in the younger female generation, yet
I became angry, morose, and sad for my son and me.
A part of me felt embarrassed that I had given birth to a son. I was
embarrassed by the possibility that he would not behave or interact
with the sensibility that I (wrongly) imagined a girl would or does.
But a part of me was also very angry about this embarrassment.
When I would meet my colleagues, they would ask me about my
child, they would ask me if he was a boy or a girl. Upon hearing
he was a boy there was so very often a look of resignation or
disappointment or comments about how hard that will be for me.
There were insinuations that I must be feeling disappointed, that
I was going to miss out on something because I had a boy. I felt
shunned by feminism just as I had felt shunned by the nonfeminist
community. The feminist collective that had given me strength and
helped me to formulate alternative ideas was suddenly something I
didn’t feel a part of.
I was exhausted. There had to be more out there for me and this
child of mine. I had my little boy and I wanted to, in fact had to,
believe that there was much more that he could be. And then, I gave
birth to my second son and the world of possibility opened up for
me. How could two small people of the same biological gender be
so exquisitely different from each other? I found their differences
liberating because there was suddenly a clarity that masculinity was
much more complex than I had previously imagined. Their presence
was helping me to deconstruct traditional masculinity by being
little sites of difference in and of themselves. I wondered how other
mothers of boys who had no girls as reference points were making
sense of their sons’ developing humanity. I wondered whether other
feminist mothers of sons were looking to find ways that celebrated
and supported their sons’ humanity without needing to locate it
within a gendered context. As I began to think about this more I felt
my focus on their biological gender recede. What began to emerge
more strongly was an imperative to engage with all that sits between
the gendered binary.
I experienced a more clarified concern as a consequence of
this focus. I needed to know more about the practices of gender
construction in order to understand how to challenge these practices
and resist them. I wanted to help my children explore and experience
themselves outside of a gendered norm that I believe as a feminist
is restrictive for them. I wanted to know how I, as a parent, could
help represent masculinity for my sons that is not demeaning of
their potential and that doesn’t perpetuate a privileged status that
[continued on page 34]

Men are almost 40 percent more likely
than women to die from cancer,
according to a report containing
research from England’s Leeds Metropolitan
University. The report, published by the
National Cancer Intelligence Network and
Cancer Research UK, together with the Men’s
Health Forum, claims that men are 16 percent
more likely to develop the disease in the first
place. A principal contributor to the study is
Alan White, professor of men’s health at Leeds
and chair of the Men’s Health Forum.
After excluding breast cancer and cancers
specific to one or other sex from the analysis,
the difference is even greater with men being
almost 70 percent more likely to die from
cancer and over 60 percent more likely to
develop the disease. The researchers then
looked at the figures, excluding lung cancer
as well, because the disease and its main risk
factor, smoking, is known to be more common
in men.
They expected to see that, across the broad
range of remaining cancer types, men and
women were just as likely as each other to die
from and get the disease. But they found that
for all of these cancers combined, men were
still 70 percent more likely than women to die
from cancer and 60 percent more likely to get
cancer.
Experts suggest that a possible explanation
for the differences seen for some types of
cancer could be stereotypical male behavior,
including downplaying important early symptoms
and maintaining an unhealthy lifestyle.
According to Professor White, “The
evidence shows that men are generally not
aware that, as well as smoking, carrying excess
weight around the waist, having a high alcohol
intake, a poor diet and their family history all
contribute to their increased risk of developing
and dying prematurely from cancer. More
research needs to be done before we can be sure
exactly why this gender gap exists.”
The report “clearly demonstrates that a
concerted effort needs to be made into getting
the public, the health professionals and the
policy makers aware of the risks men are
facing. Many of these deaths could be avoided
by changes in lifestyle and earlier diagnosis.”
Professor David Forman, information lead
for the National Cancer Intelligence Network,
believes “Men have a reputation for having
a ‘stiff upper lip’ and not being as healthconscious
as women. What we see from this
report could be a reflection of this attitude,
meaning men are less likely to make lifestyle
Men & Health
Men at Greater Risk for Cancer Death?
Every 20 minutes a son, father, grandfather,
husband—men across the spectrum—will
die from prostate cancer,
and Hank Oprinski wants to do something to
diminish that chilling statistic.
This year in the United States, approximately
190,000 men will be diagnosed with
the disease, a new case every two and a half
minutes. “I’m a prostate cancer survivor and
live a relatively normal life,” says Oprinski,
CEO at Capital Earnings & Research,
explaining why he is committed to helping
other men, especially in the corporate world
he inhabits.
Prostate Cancer Kills Every 20 Minutes
Last fall Oprinski launched a nationwide
tour to inform corporations, chambers of
commerce, economic clubs, universities,
other interested civic organizations to be
proactive in combating prostate cancer.
Oprinski-inspired cancer seminars are
happening across the country, he says. Presentations
demonstrate how “an organization
cares about its neighborhood and the people
who dedicate themselves to the prosperity of
that organization. It shows involvement and
organizational interest because people want
to do something to help someone else,” says
Oprinski.
changes that could reduce their risk of the
disease and less likely to go to their doctor with
cancer symptoms. Late diagnosis makes most
forms of the disease harder to treat.”
The report looked at the number of cancer
deaths in the UK in 2007 and the number of new
cases of cancer in 2006, broken down by cancer
type. The cancers that were not sex-specific
were grouped together and the researchers then
looked at the ratio of men to women in each
category.
To download the report go to the Cancer
Research UK CancerStats website (http://
info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/), the
NCIN website (http://www.ncin.org.uk/) or the
Men’s Health Forum website (http://www.
menshealthforum.org.uk/).
His presentation explores how he coped
with prostate cancer, involved his family for
support, and continues to build a successful
business while addressing some of the
following topics: a partner’s ability to help
patients through challenging times; support
groups; second opinions; getting to know
your body; controlling your destiny and
medical outcome; never-spoken-of side effects;
and preventive ways to minimize your
risk of prostate cancer.
For more information, contact Oprinski
or Hank Richards at (256) 417-6084,
editor@pronlinenews.com.
Winter 2010 25

26 Voice Male

Through the Looking Glass of Violence
Imagining a Different World to
Understand This One
By Stephen McArthur
Some people think there’s an equivalence between men’s
violence against women and women’s violence against men.
There is a huge difference between women who are guilty of
assault (or women who are violent in self-defense) and men who
use violence and physical abuse as a repeated pattern of exercising
power and control in the context of domestic violence. Yes, there are
some women who are arrested for domestic assault, but very few
women who are perpetrators of domestic violence.
I certainly recognize the sensitivities and diffi culties in
comparing or contrasting women’s violence vs. men’s. Because the
fathers’ supremacy movement, along with a large number of other
Americans, wants to move the discussion away from men’s violence
against women (away from the culture of male violence, in general),
it makes it really hard for those of us who witness and understand
the culture of male violence to have the conversation about women’s
violence. How many of us cringe every time we see violent women
on TV or in the movies? How about the YouTube videos of women
who like beating up other women? How about some of the new
video games where women kill everything in sight? What’s the
message? Women are just as violent as men. Of course, all anyone
has to do is look around the world and see how untrue that is. All
you have to do is imagine a world where reality has been turned on
its head.
Imagine an America where women are beating, abusing and
controlling their husbands and boyfriends by the millions.
Imagine an America where men have had to organize against a
tide of sexual discrimination and assault, economic and political
deprivation, as well as physical, emotional, and verbal abuse.
Imagine a world where men have had to create a network of
organizations to support and shelter men who are battered and
raped.
Imagine an America where women and girls are the perpetrators
in the vast majority of violent crimes like murder, rape, child sexual
abuse, armed robbery, and aggravated assault.
Imagine a world fi lled with men appealing to their governments
and non-governmental organizations for help in stemming the tide
of female violence against them.
Imagine a Darfur where roving bands of women on horseback are
murdering and raping an entire people.
Imagine a Congo where the majority of men have been gang-raped
by women and suffer major damage to their penises.
Imagine hospital emergency rooms where one out of fi ve men who
go there do so because their wives or girlfriends have beaten them
up. Imagine those same ERs where sexual assault nurse examiners
(all men) are dealing with men who have been raped, mostly by
women they know.
Imagine a video game industry that glorifi es violence by women
against men. Imagine a video game—“Grand Theft Auto”—
fi lled with male prostitutes who are purchased for sex by women
characters and then beaten to death with a tire iron by the main
female character.
Imagine a male victim of rape being told by a woman judge that he
cannot even use the word “rape” in his testimony about the assault.
Imagine a world where women’s economic and political power is
taken for granted as the dominant and ruling force in society, and
where men are struggling to achieve equality and parity.
Because it’s such an inconceivable stretch to believe the
“imaginings” outlined above, it is challenging to have the
conversation about women’s violence. Not that it doesn’t exist, or
that it isn’t reprehensible, but that it pales in comparison to men’s
violence against women. And quite frankly, I see so much of
women’s violence in our culture gleaned from and modeled after
the wide expertise of men’s violence. Sadly, in this respect men
have taught women well.
Stephen McArthur is prevention education
coordinator & hotline and court advocate
for the Battered Women’s Services &
Shelter in Washington County, Vermont. A
member of Vermont Approach to Ending
Sexual Violence and Vermont Sexual
Violence Prevention Task Force, he can be
reached at fsmcarthur@gmail.com.
Winter 2010 27

28 Voice Male

Men Overcoming Violence
Moving from Bystander to Activist
Why Men Can’t Remain Silent
By Byron Hurt
Longtime antiviolence activist and fi lmmaker Byron Hurt,
a Voice Male contributing editor, speaks frequently on college
campuses about men’s physical and sexual violence against women
as he shows clips from his documentary fi lm Hip-Hop: Beyond
Beats and Rhymes. As part of new student orientation at Montclair
State University in New Jersey at the start of the fall semester, he
addressed more than 2,000 incoming fi rst-year students. He spoke
about the need for men to move from inactive bystanders to active
interveners in the face of this kind of violence. As he was speaking
about gender-based violence at the college in New Jersey, Lenox
Ramsey, 25, taunted, chased, and then fi nally shot his wife, Kaidan
Ramsey, 22, in broad daylight in Brooklyn, N.Y. Surveillance tapes
show a terrifi ed Kaidan running for her life as people on the street
watched, doing nothing. Byron wrote the column below in response
to Kaidan’s murder.
As a man, I know how easy it is to look the other way and
ignore male abusive behavior when it happens, especially
when it happens publicly. I’ve been in situations like this
and I know how paralyzed one can feel—not knowing exactly
what to do. I have been in situations where I have failed to act and
remember feeling horrible for lacking the courage to raise my voice.
I have also been in situations when I have acted, and fellas, it’s not
as diffi cult or scary as you might imagine.
I understand the fear people feel when faced with intervening
when a man is abusing a woman on a busy street. We are afraid
the abuser will turn his rage onto us. This fear is real and has to be
acknowledged. But as a community, we cannot remain silent and
tolerate this kind of violence. We must speak up loudly and boldly
when men physically or sexually assault women. Honk your car
horn, yell and shout, call 911, or try to somehow distract the abuser
from attacking his victim—even if it is for an instant. But please,
do not remain silent. Help the woman out. Please understand I am
not suggesting that you jump in front of a bullet to save someone’s
life. You must be street smart and use wise judgment at all times. I
am, however, suggesting that you do something as opposed to doing
nothing at all. At the end of the day, we all have to look ourselves
in the mirror knowing that we did the right thing when it mattered
most to someone else.
As a nation, it is vital that we ramp up efforts to educate boys
and men about patriarchy, sexism, male privilege, and how men’s
violence against women is ultimately about men maintaining
power and control over female bodies. Men and women working
in the gender violence prevention fi eld have long called for men
and women in positions of leadership to make gender violence
prevention a priority in schools, churches, corporations, and the
military. Educating boys and men in prevention programs is one of
the keys to drastically reducing all forms of gender violence.
Men, this has to stop. Men’s violence against women is pervasive
worldwide, and we can no longer defl ect this issue onto women as
if they are the cause of the problem and should fi x it by themselves.
Each day, new stories emerge about men who abduct, rape, beat,
harass, and kill women. We do not need any more statistics to prove
that men’s violence against women is a real problem. It is real and it
happens each and every day, all over the world.
We cannot be silent anymore. Nonabusive men who respect
women and who are against men who abuse women have to speak
up when incidents like this occur. You do not have to be an expert or
know the latest statistics. All you have to do is care, have courage,
and speak up in defense of the women you love. (Read Jackson
Katz’s “Ten Things Men Can Do to Prevent Gender Violence” at
www.jacksonkatz.com. And, if you’re not a Voice Male subscriber,
consider becoming one.)
If you have a mother, sister, daughter, grandmother, aunt, or
female friend you love and care about, then you should become an
advocate for them and tune in to the issues that affect them daily.
Men’s violence against women is an issue that affects the women you
love. By raising our voices, men and women can use our infl uence to
collectively send the message to other men that the abuse of women
is not cool and should never go unchecked in our communities.
Voice Male contributing editor Byron Hurt is
an award-winning documentary fi lmmaker, and
an anti-sexist activist. Learn more about his
work, including his new fi lm project, Soul Food
Junkies, at www.bhurt.com.
Winter 2010 29

Books
Spots of a Leopard: On Being a Man
By Aernout Zevenbergen
Laughing Leopard Productions, Cape Town, 280 pages, 2009
The high incidence of rape and domestic
violence in Africa suggests that African
men need to have a conversation about
masculinities—on what it means to be a man in
contemporary Africa and how they define their
relationship with women. Recently, there has
been a proliferation of reports on the emerging
significance of a violent form of masculinity in
Africa—the high incidence of men using physical
might or brute force to harm and dominate women.
Though outcry has come from African women’s
organizations and international NGOs, since the
majority of African men do not participate in such
violence, the lack of contribution of progressive
African men to the discussion is of concern.
Enter Aernout Zevenbergen, a journalist and
a Dutch national born in Africa, who started a
conversation about what it means to be a man in
contemporary Africa, and set out initially to understand
the reasons for men’s lack of sexual caution
in the face of the high incidence of HIV/AIDS
on the continent. Not satisfied with either “right
wing” cultural relativism or “left wing” structural
determinism, or even the “power dynamics”
of gender studies, he embarks on a continental
journey to find his own explanations as to “what
fuels the man who feels this urge to want to plant
his seeds in as many flowerpots as possible?”
The book is based on research between
1996 and 2006 conducted in several countries
across Africa. From Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda,
Uganda, South Africa, the Democratic Republic
of Congo (DRC), to Niger and Liberia, the author
criscrosses the continent gathering narratives
from men and women on African attitudes to sex,
homosexuality, rape, domestic violence, masculinity
and changing gender relations.
The strength of the book is the narratives of
these men and women adhering to hegemonic
notions of masculinity and femininity that do not
seem to make sense in the contemporary world.
Using an impressive array of vignettes, some
extremely poignant, Zevenbergen exposes some
of the insecurities affecting men in contemporary
Africa, where economic collapse, unemployment,
war and new constitutions have seemingly
undermined what it means to be a man. These
narratives of ordinary men and women put voices
and circumstances to the statistics. As Zevenbergen
rightly claims, he “encountered confusion,
30 Voice Male
aversion, frustration,
despair
and nihilism,
balanced by times
of ingenuity, resoluteness,
laughter
and lightness.”
Many of the male
voices argue
for procreation
to carry on the
family line, for
freedom to “plant their seed,” and for children
and women to provide labor. Certainly none of
these are justifications for maintaining inequalities
or for sexual abuse.
Zevenbergen’s narratives debunk the myths
about rape in Africa: that virgin rape is a cure
for illness; that it is about lust—most seem to be
about the desperate need for respect, coupled with
low self-esteem. However, Zevenbergen’s book
reveals more than wounded male pride. The lack
of sound leadership in the face of crises is exemplified
by the young King Mswati of Swaziland
with more than 12 wives and several concubines,
and the unspoken cause of the frequent deaths of
the males in the royal family.
Zevenbergen provides explanations throughout
the text but draws no conclusion. Despite his early
rejection of explanations that focus on the vagaries
and inequalities of capitalism, the narratives
lead him to address the crisis of patriarchy and
masculinity in Africa in the context of societies
undergoing capitalist modernization. Researchers
such as Ifi Amadiume have already shown that
in some pre-colonial societies gender relations
were more equitable, and the introduction of an
aggressive Victorian-era masculinity infused with
capitalism and Christianity transformed some
matriarchal societies into patriarchal ones, and
redefined men’s and women’s roles in society; if
those changes were possible then, transforming
the destructive aspects of gender relations today
is not impossible.
However, Zevenbergen’s narratives do not
give us much hope. The Ugandan ministers
who demonize homosexuality as Western are
shown to be so blinkered that they cannot read
critically into their own history. The Ugandan
reverends’ virulent attacks against homosexuality
are contrasted with their more subdued approach
to the rape of adult women. These narratives
throw up a confusing dynamic in contemporary
Africa, where men can adopt Western practices
yet criticize any that are independently adopted
by women, and where the 20th-century European
fashion of virginal white wedding gowns is
deemed appropriate, while mini-skirts are derided
as Western and un-African.
However, it is clear from the vignettes that
the social basis of the form of patriarchy that
emerged under colonialism had disappeared by
the late 1990s. Women’s empowerment, however
limited, has left men insecure and unable to fulfil
their expected roles in the domestic and public
spheres. Many African men, in their defense,
blame women for the problems they face—“they
are too materialistic,” and even Zevenbergen
bewails materialism “as the new bar by which
people measure each other.” The vulnerability
of gender relations to economic crises is not
peculiar to Africa. The feminist geographer Linda
McDowell in her book Redundant Masculinities
reveals how the closure of the mines in
northern England in the 1980s created a crisis of
masculinity among miners whose raison d’être
was determined by the toughness of mine work.
Miners and their wives, and their sons and daughters,
had to negotiate new ways of living together
and that process was not always nonviolent.
Spots of a Leopard is also a personal quest for
Zevenbergen and perhaps that is where it loses
direction. His spiritual quest is woven throughout,
so the reader is sometimes unsure whether he is
discussing himself or the men he encounters. The
focus of the book gets somewhat lost toward the
final third of the text. Does his single, childless
status, seen as problematic by the Africans he
encounters, make him empathetic? The moving
account of his family’s reaction to the death of
his nephew serves to immortalize the boy, but
what conclusion does he want us to draw from
this personal revelation?
Apart from structural weaknesses in the
book, a key element missing is more narratives
with men who perform nonviolent forms of
masculinity. Given that only a small proportion
of the men in Africa carry out these violent
acts, understanding what it means to be a man
in Africa should involve exploring the range
of masculinities on the continent. Zevenbergen
refers frequently to the destructive effects of
materialism and individualism in contexts where
community and the spiritual once bound societies
together, where different generations and gender
are playing by different rules, with different gods
and different heroes. Is modern man doomed,
because of “a misdirected arrogance and belief
that reason alone defines where it is we go and
how we should live our lives,” as Zevenbergen
seems to argue? Though this book does not
present a way forward, it does provide the basis
for conversations about the destructive effects of
redundant traditionalism and unbridled modernity,
despite Zevenbergen’s underlying pessimism.
—Dr. Patricia Daley
Dr. Patricia Daley is a lecturer at the School of
Geography and the Environment at the University
of Oxford. A version of this review appeared
in Pambazuka News: Pan African Voices for
Freedom and Justice, www.pambazuka.org.

Be the Change:
How Meditation Can
Transform You and the
World
By Ed and Deb Shapiro
Sterling Publishing, New York & London, 2009
$19.95, 342 pages
From running an orphanage to being a political
advisor, from being held in a prison cell to
living in a crowded city, meditation has changed
people’s lives. Be the Change: How Meditation
Can Transform You and the World is a fascinating
exploration of how meditation can not only
awaken our latent potential, but also transform
the world, creating the foundation for a caring and
compassionate future.
As a prisoner in a Chinese jail, Kirsten
Westby was able to find solace by sitting quietly
in contemplation. Deeply affected by walking on
the moon, astronaut Edgar Mitchell went from
exploring outer space to discovering the vastness
of inner space. Coping with HIV, writer Mark
Matousek found healing through group meditation.
Seane Corn used her yoga and meditation
expertise to work with child prostitutes in Los
Angeles.
In the last few decades, people in all walks of
life have begun to realize the profound benefits
of meditation. While this ancient practice is
personally transformative by calming the mind
and reducing stress, awakening the heart, and
deepening insight, can meditation also change the
world for the better? That’s the question Ed and
Deb Shapiro put to a range of people with experiences
exploring this issue, reflecting on how
looking within has resolved issues such as anger
and fear. Along the way they’ve been inspired to
work toward a more caring and peaceful future.
The Shapiros, who have written 15 books
on meditation, personal development, and social
action, are bloggers for HuffingtonPost.com
and Intent.com. They say they have long sought
meaning in the midst of chaos and recognized
the significance of meditation early in their
lives, Deb at 15, Ed at 25. Be the Change was
conceived in response to a similar need to make
sense of what was happening in the world at large.
They wondered, “Could something as subtle and
understated as meditation also have an effect on
business, conflict resolution, or politics?” And
on an even wider scale, they are asking, “What
change could happen if something so simple were
to become a global movement?”
Interwoven among the Shapiros’ own thoughts
on the subject are the words of more than 100
meditation practitioners from various walks
of life, from Ellen Burstyn—Oscar-winning
actress—to Jon Kabat-Zinn—founder of the
Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care,
and Society; from Marianne Williamson—bestselling
author and renown inspirational speaker—
to Richard Davidson—professor of psychology
at the University ofWisconsin whose research is
closely followed by the Dalai Lama (who wrote a
foreword for the book).
Be the Change might be essential reading if
you’re someone who wants to make a difference
in their own lives and in the world.
RESPONSE ABILITY
A Complete Guide to
Bystander Intervention
By Alan Berkowitz
Beck & Co. Paperback, 2009, 99 pages
Increasingly, it is being recognized that the
solution to health and social justice problems
requires that we engage bystanders—those individuals
who observe a problem and want to do
something but don’t. Despite the importance of
this issue and the fact that most people want to
“do the right thing” there are almost no books that
explain bystander behavior, why it occurs, and
what can be done about it. Until now. Response
Ability: A Complete Guide to Bystander Intervention
meets this need, reviewing research and
theory on bystander behavior, explaining why
people don’t act even when not acting goes against
their conscience, and offering practical solutions
and skills for intervening in a safe, effective and
respectful way. Written by Alan Berkowitz, an
internationally recognized expert on bystander
behavior who works with colleges and universities,
communities, high schools, public health
agencies and the military to help find solutions to
common health and social justice problems, this
slim volume is loaded with gems. If you were ever
worried about someone’s behavior and wanted
to do something but didn’t, this book is for you.
For information on how to purchase, and to learn
more about bystanders and Berkowitz’s work go
to www.alanberkowitz.com.
Film
Sin by
Silence
Director: Olivia
Klaus, USA 2009
The awardwinning
film
Sin by Silence
is now available
as a
tool to help
educate and
create awareness
about
the issues
of domestic violence—something
that the Convicted Women Against
Abuse (CWAA), the first group initiated
and led by inmates in the US
prison system, has been doing since
1989.
Sin by Silence profiles the extraordinary
women of CWAA, who have worked
from behind prison walls to shatter
misconceptions and change laws for
battered women. This essential tool is
the most comprehensive educational
resource, available through Women
Make Movies, on domestic violence and
features more than two hours of
bonus discussion videos including:
• Violence and Abuse: Interviews with
experts on abusive relationships—
What Is Abuse?, Warning Signs, Why
She Stays, A Batterer’s Perspective,
Public Safety Issue, and more.
• Law Enforcement and Corrections:
Interviews with law enforcement
leaders on their response to domestic
violence, as well as inmate, staff and
experts perspectives on the prison system.
• Legal Aspects: CWAA founder Brenda
Clubine’s full hearing and interviews
with former juror and expert witness.
Alyce LaViolette, author of It Could
Happen to Anyone and founder of Alternatives
to Violence, describes the film
as “a cry for social action,” saying it
touches “the soul of any human
concerned with justice and fair treatment.
To view a clip, learn more, or order visit http://
www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c759.
shtml or contact: Women Make Movies,
462 Broadway #500LS NY, NY 10013
orders@wmm.com - 212.925.0606 x360.
Winter 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
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
32 Voice Male
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
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 Vmen,
male activists in the movement
www.newsite.vday.org
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

Resources for Changing Men
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, fi lm, 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.pfl ag.org
“VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN is found in every culture around
the world. It is one of our most pervasive global problems, yet it is preventable.
When gang rape is a weapon of war, when women are beaten
behind closed doors, or when young girls are traffi cked in brothels
and fi elds—we all suffer. This violence robs women and girls of their
full potential, causes untold human suffering, and has great social and
economic costs. On this 10th anniversary of the International Day for
the Elimination of Violence Against Women, I urge all Americans to
join with the international community in calling for an end to these
abuses.”
—Vice President Joe Biden on the Tenth Anniversary of the International Day
for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, November 25, 2009
Boldly Addressing
Environmental Sustainability
and Justice
www.nrpe.org
Winter 2010 33

21st Century Feminist Mothering
As a heterosexual woman from a privileged class, I had understood
the criticism leveled at feminism from women of color, lesbian women,
working-class women and women with different abilities. However,
I had not experienced this sense of “other” or difference outside the
solidarity of the white middle-class feminist community. It was the
experience of wanting so much more for my sons than a doomed vision
of their fate as “men” and the experience of being with them as boys,
from the very beginning of their lives, that alerted me to how traditional
feminist ideology made it hard to imagine the possibilities for difference
and to be inclusive of this difference. And so I turned to a more
contemporary feminist perspective, one that appreciates multiplicity,
difference, and the notion of masculinities. These notions have created
space to consider new ideas about mother-son relationships. I decided
that I wanted to speak with other feminist mothers of sons about their
imaginings for their sons’ masculinities.
To date I have interviewed 20 self-identified feminist mothers of
sons, all of whom are in heterosexual relationships with the fathers of
their sons. In other words, on the surface they mirror my own situation.
I conducted semi-structured conversations with these women about
their thoughts on gender, masculinity, the mother-son relationship, their
hopes and fears for their sons and the role that feminism plays in their
mothering. I asked them, too, about the role their partners play in their
sons developing masculinity. To date, I have not yet begun to review
the vital role of the father.
But as the relationship with my own sons matures, I am beginning
to see the possibilities for alliances between men and women. I
am determined to ensure that mothers of sons stake a very big claim in
teaching about who and what they can be as grown men. My sons have
helped me to re-evaluate my position regarding men and in so doing I
have further developed my feminist analysis. This continues to inspire
my research and my role as a mother.
. —Sarah Epstein
34 Voice Male
[continued from page 24]
disconnects them from diversity. I felt I had to refuse masculinity
in its dominant form so as to allow my sons’ masculinity to be
constructed in response to their humanity and ideas of difference.My
day-to-day lived experience demonstrates how difficult this is.
Feminism for me is experienced as a politics of solidarity,
although this sense of solidarity had previously been challenged
when I became pregnant. I think this was due to diverse views
within my feminist community toward mothering and motherhood.
I experienced this as a disconnection from some, as well as valueladen
comments that insinuated my impending motherhood was not
something I had wholeheartedly welcomed of my own accord.
What I had not prepared for was the sense of alienation that
bearing a son had brought me. I believe that feminism, its ideology
and commitment to solidarity among women did not make possible
the multiplicity of women’s and men’s lives. The commitment to
using the concept of women as a unitary identity for the purpose of
political change and representation precludes the possibilities for
multiple masculinities as well. As a consequence of giving birth to my
sons, I was alerted to how much this was a part of my own thinking.
Ideas about masculinity are so pervasive and persuasive that
they have become truth and norm. But, just because hegemonic
masculinity is perceived as truth and norm does not mean it is so. As
a feminist mother of sons I feel compelled to critique and challenge
this perceived truth and the practices employed within hegemonic
masculinity on a daily basis. I feel bound to do so for the sake of equity
for women and our quality of life. But, even more profoundly for
me, my feminism must somehow help me to resist and challenge the
gendered construction of masculinity for the sake of my sons.
Sarah Epstein has trained as a social worker
and for many years worked in the area
of violence against women in Melbourne
and Sydney, Australia. Sarah now works
as a clinical consultant providing group
supervision. She is currently undertaking a
PhD dissertation at Deakin University titled
Feminist Mothers: Discourses and Practices
in Raising Sons. Sarah lives in Melbourne and spends most of her
time raising two beautiful young boys who have both started school
and thus entered the “real world.”

General Support Groups:
Open to any man who wants to experience a men’s group. Topics of discussion refl ect 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.
Greenfi eld, 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 specifi cally 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:
Specifi cally 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-identifi ed
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).

V-Men
V-Men is the “men’s auxiliary” of
V-Day.org, a global movement to end
violence against women and girls.
Since 1998, thousands of grassroots
activists have staged benefit productions
of Eve Ensler’s play The Vagina
Monologues, and other creative vehicles,
to raise awareness and funds to
end violence against women and girls.
Now, men are joining in.
V-Men’s goals:
• Educate the public about key roles
men play in stopping violence against women and girls
• Inspire and support grassroots anti-violence activism by boys and men
• Connect men with opportunities and resources to support women and girls
• Promote a positive culture for boys and men, one where women and girls
are nurtured and protected
Ten Ways to Be a Man
A new Dramatic Production Is Being Developed
In 2010 workshops are being held around the country and abroad to bring men’s voices
into a new production, Ten Ways to Be a Man.
QUESTIONS TO BE EXPLORED:
What did we learn from our fathers about manhood and masculinity?
What is expected of us as men?
What does it mean to be strong?
How do we define femininity?
How does aggression play a part in sexuality?
What are our feelings of guilt or shame about being a man?
What are our experiences witnessing physical violence?
What are we going to do as men, to help end violence against women?
To become involved, please write: www.vday.org/vmen.