How did we go from ignoring the bad things men do to talking about them all the time? Victoria Medgyesi explores the cultural—and personal—cost of ignoring the obvious.
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It took the 14-year old son of a friend to point out the obvious. “I don’t see many good stories about men,” he said, browsing through a newspaper.
“So how does that make you feel?” I asked.
“Not very good,” he replied, as he flipped through pages filled with stories about pedophiliac priests, teenage boys who kill, financial swindlers, sadistic dictators, pimps, homophobic politicians who sleep with men, soldiers who rape, online sexual predators, serial killers, boyfriends who batter, celebrities who cheat, men who kidnap and imprison kids, and fathers who molest, kill, or abandon their families.
Prior to his not-so-innocent remark, I hadn’t thought much about how the daily barrage of negativity affects the way men and boys feel about themselves—and about other men. Neither had I asked how such sensationalized stories affect the way women and girls relate to fathers and sons, friends and lovers, husbands, teachers, colleagues, or to any man or boy they pass on the street. And that’s when it occurred to me. I was so used to mucking around in the “bad man hype” that I couldn’t see the dirt clinging to my boots. I soon discovered I wasn’t alone. So far have the scales tipped in the negative direction that many people laughed when told them I was looking for “good stories about men.”
“Are there any?” was a typical reply. It made sense. After all, the negative news comes at such a furious pace we barely notice when one horrific tale ends and another begins.
Though men clearly do plenty of bad and stupid things, has our global quest for truth and justice caused us to automatically expect the worst from them? Could the non-stop negativity in fact be contributing to the very behaviors we’d like to see eradicated?
The barriers to asking that question—let alone discussing it—are huge.
Cultural inertia is strong impediment to progress. The media clings to the tried and true—even if it’s usually far from the truth. Men are typecast as bad, silly, or incompetent. Who hasn’t laughed at the dumb dad or the dimwit boss featured on television? In advertisements, these guys can be found cluelessly pitchingeverything from frozen pies to detergent. Films and electronic games make the most of male-induced gore. The same is true for news and opinion shows. So, is the stereotype setting the commercial tone—or vice versa? Given the onslaught of negativity, could some men simply be living up to the message?
Maybe you’re thinking, “You’re talking about entertainment. I can tell the difference between that and real life. It doesn’t affect the way I think or feel about men.” Don’t bet on it. While it’s no longer necessary to prove that stereotypes such as “blacks are lazy” and “women are bitches” are harmful, it’s not necessarily the case when it comes to stereotypes about men. Most stand without comment, and we seldom ask why.
Over the past fifty years, we’ve gone from ignoring many of the bad things men do to talking about them all the time. So why aren’t we talking more about how this “shift” affects both genders?
For one thing, many men are in denial. “Nah, stereotypes don’t affect me,” they say, perhaps believing that personal power, education, money, or skin color will protect them from the fallout. Others get it. “Does a fish notice it’s swimming in water?” a male friend told me. “For men, these stereotypes have always been there. We just keep paddling around the deep end trying to survive.”
The truth is, stereotypes respect no one. If one in a group is suspect, all are. The stakes rise when gender stereotyping is paired with additional cultural baggage related to a person’s ethnicity, sexual preference, age, or disability.
So, where does this leave us? How do we change? We know stereotypes are wrong, but—damn it—somebody’s to blame for this all this bad stuff, right? What if we looked at it this way: It’s not because of women, men, religion, parents, feminism, the government, or the media that we’re in this position. It’s because of society’s attraction to violent, titillating, bizarre stories sparked by incident, fueled by myth, and spread by endless repetition.
For things to shift, both sexes need the willingness to see the advantage in moving beyond the stereotype. Doing so could be as simple as telling a few good stories. It’s a small act, but one with extreme personal power. Not stories about men who are always good, but kick-ass stories about men where a moral choice had to be made, and the real-life choice was the right one.
But are we ready to let go of the stereotypical big, bad wolf? In today’s “brand-focused” marketplace, are we willing to expand the list of attributes that cling to men to include more competent (and, dare I say it, good) behaviors and strengths?
Doing so requires a belief in this fundamental truth: Though men aren’t saints, nor are they universally sinners. Like women, they aren’t necessary good at everything they do, but neither are they bad on every critical level. And though men and women don’t necessarily feel negatively toward the men in their everyday lives, they still to varying degrees fear and make fun of men in general. Sometimes they don’t know why, or even that they’re doing it.
Which brings me back to the day my young friend pointed out how much “bad stuff” he saw in the paper. As I sat there taking in the enormity of his comment, I knew I could let the moment pass, or I could give him something to hold on to. And so I told him a story from my own life:
Many years ago, a man saved my life at great risk to his own. He didn’t have to, he just did. I was headed south from Mexico City toward the Guatemalan border when the rickety bus we were riding in came to a shuddering stop in the middle of the night. The bus was hours behind schedule to begin with now here we were—stuck in the middle of a tropical jungle. Any kind of help, I was told, wouldn’t come before dawn.
Most of the passengers were farmers traveling with crates of chickens and baskets filled with goods from the market. (Someone even brought a goat.) On a better day, I would have thought it high adventure. But that day, I was sick and my fever was beginning to spike. All I wanted was to get to my destination—a small fishing village on the coast.
The truth is, I probably shouldn’t have been on that bus at all. When I told some locals I met along the way where I was going, they tried to convince me this “milk run” was a bad idea. There were banditos along the way, and they said the market for American women wasn’t just a rumor. It was reality. Besides, they argued, there were more direct routes, and more reliable buses. “No matter what happens, don’t leave the bus until you get where you’re going,” they yelled as I waved goodbye. Even so, when the bus stalled, all that registered as an immediate danger were the blood-sucking bugs.
During the early hours of the trip, I’d spent time talking to a music student from the Universidad in Mexico City. He had thick, black hair that fell to the middle of his back, something you didn’t see much on local boys. He was headed home to visit his family, and he told me breakdowns on this route were nothing new. “You can come with me or you can stay here by yourself,” he said as he stepped off the bus and headed—along with everyone else—up a narrow path that cut through the tangled growth. A few minutes later, we came to a clearing with a small shed at the far perimeter.
I was traveling light, with just a small daypack and a bedroll. “You sleep against the shed,” the student said. He rolled his blanket out beside mine and we settled in. Sick and feverish, the roaring in my ears intensified with the sounds of the night. I had no idea how much time passed before I felt his body pressing down on mine, felt the heavy mass of his hair as it covered my face, felt the sweat from his body seep into mine. I wanted to throw him off—fight back—but I willed myself not to move. Surrounded as I was by strangers who had no reason to come to my aid, to be raped or killed seemed the obvious outcome. I asked only that my fear render me unconscious and keep me there until dawn—or until whatever was going to happen, happened.
The next thing I knew the sun was up. I sat up and looked around, and it was not a peaceful scene. Scattered about were the remains of the baskets. Some of the chickens, now free of their crates, pecked at the dirt in search of a meal. God knows what happened to the goat. Most of the farmers had moved their blankets into the shade. The student lay on his beside me, his eyes on mine.
Only then did I look down. My clothes hadn’t been touched. I had not been raped. I was alive. I was still on my blanket on that small piece of dirt in front of the rough wooden shed in some unknown—but very beautiful—spot the jungle.
“I was worried they would find you and take you and kill me for hiding you,” the student said quietly. “I was scared.” The banditos had come; banditos with machetes looking to replenish their supplies and whatever else they could find.
Slowly, I also came to realize this young man saved my life. He did so with his body and his veil of long hair; in his act of spontaneous bravery, he had risked his own life. He didn’t have to do it. He just did. Another bus arrived a few hours later, and we went on our way.
“Wow, that was something,” my young friend said when I’d finished the story. He was clearly impressed.
“You see,” I told him, “men do good things. It’s as simple as that.
Have a good story about men? Dare to tell it.
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Mark. Clearly, that’s not the norm. As Peggy Noonan said, the guy who punched the shark–and was killed–to save his wife doesn’t get nearly the applause a Woody Allen type would get for a humorous reflection on not punching the shark. And I didn’t say it should be the norm. I said that if we give these guys universal approbation, it becomes the norm and there are some guys who are afraid of such a standard. You could get killed. And, as a culture, we get to choose our norm. Some think self-sacrifice is a minimum standard in such situations.… Read more »
Perhaps you should read the comments section of those types of articles and see just how many people think it IS the norm. The expectation of what a “real man” is… and how few actually rail against that view. Let me ask you… WHY doesn’t the guy punching the shark to save his wife get as much of an applause as the Woody Allen humorous reflection? Perhaps it’s because what the guy did is what was expected of him, and isn’t seen as anything special? And while it bothers me to think that this is what is expected of men… Read more »
Here’s one that just showed up in the newspaper
http://news.yahoo.com/man-saves-mystery-cabbie-during-storm-205904928–abc-news-topstories.html
There are also the 4 men who died protecting women in the recent batman shooting.
Mark.
Ref the Batman shooting: IIRC, the guys did not receive universal approbation. Problem is…if they did good, that’s the standard. And who wants to live up to that standard? You could be killed!
I will agree that the guys did not receive universal approbation, and I think that’s the problem. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging when men do heroic stuff, as a sign of man’s potential. But I will agree with you that it has become the standard. An expectation. A man is expected to use his body as a shield to save the life of a woman. We’re told “that’s what a real man does”. The irony being that those who say that’s what it means to be a real man are often the same ones that say men are all… Read more »
I’ve seen it often, and not sure who to attribute the quote to, but it is said “a society that treats it’s men despicably will inevitably raise despicable men”. This has come about as a result of attempts to level the playing field for women. Tear men down in order to raise women up. I know many feminists will take offense to this, but I point to Dworkin and her assertions about men, male sexuality, and heterosexual sex. This isn’t an assertion that all feminists are like this, only that some feminists took this route and it has stuck. Add… Read more »
PS, you can see examples of my last sentence in this very comments section.
“dare” to tell the story? That implies there’s some risk. Don’t think so. I suppose the cumulative effect of the cumulative effect is inescapable, but most men I know or know of don’t pay any attention. Oh, they know it exists. But it’s meaningless to them. Since nobody they know is dumb and evil, or if they are, there are other men who take care of business, it’s meaningless as to having an effect on them. Except to muse that the advertisers work very hard and spend a great deal of money to appeal to a specific target market. And… Read more »
Hype? I don’t really find it hype at all. Although yes, news is generally negative, I didn’t need the news to have my life experience filled with bad men. And most of them were not friends, or any other closer relationship than stranger.
People abuse power when they have it. Nothing is more powerful right now than a straight, white, cis-male (passing or actually).
Mash that up however you want it, take out the white, the straight, whatever. We live in a patriarchy.
Men are also victims of domestic violence but the world thinks that such thing does not exist, I request everyone suffering such abuse to come out and let the world know what you are going through as silently suffering will not solve the problem but only make it worse. – http://www.lifenstory.com/frmViewStory.aspx?C1=182
I have also noted that the media is full of male hating articles. They have stooped so low that similar actions by both the gender are reported differently, they praise women for doing a particular act while criticize men for doing same thing – http://www.lifenstory.com/frmViewStory.aspx?C1=184
Here is an article I read on Jezebel a few weeks ago. It is about a research study that paints a picture somewhat contrary to what the author and many commenters seem to feel is the case:
http://jezebel.com/5914173/tv-makes-girls-feel-like-crap-about-themselves-but-does-wonders-for-white-boys
Your standards for research are very low, as are your requirements for what qualifies as a reliable source.
Here is a link to the fulltext PDF: http://www.kristenharrison.org/uploads/8/7/1/3/8713266/communication_research-2012-martins-338-57.pdf Yeah, the article was reported on Jezebel, but despite such a handicap the science seems ok. The type of social communications explored in the article is not my field of study, but the authors do a good job of laying out the theoretical framework of what they’re trying to investigate. The biggest problem is that it doesn’t look to be randomly controlled in that they did not “assign” certain amounts of TV watching to people. Depending on the social theory involved this isn’t an entirely damning observation since one can control… Read more »
So all boys are white now?
There was never a time in human history where the “bad things men do” were ignored.
You beat me to it. It’s actually the opposite.
Thank you so much for this article! I wish I had more to say, but you basically wrote all of it!
I choose not to define myself as a “good man”, because all too often it can be translated as “man who does things that only benefit women”. If women describe me as a “bad man” because of that, so be it.
Better to be hated for what you are then loved for what you are not.
I don’t see much benefit to being hated for what you are.
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Just by way of perspective, isn’t MOST of the news about bad things happening, whether men are responsible or not? It’s not like the newspaper combines stories about evil men making the world worse and wonderful women making the world better.
You haven’t seen much news, then, have you? It’s usually pretty obvious. They’ll cover a disaster like Haiti and follow the men helping out saying “this creates an open opportunity for rapists and pedophiles, so the situation is still very dangerous.” Then they’ll cover a story about a woman getting a promotion, and talk about “The brilliance of this woman to overcome the challenges of modern womanhood.” Or better yet, they’ll laugh at castration, or give comments like “so have the statistics finally shown that women are smarter?” And as I recall, there was a story about some hero in… Read more »
Probably because… it is a challenge for a woman to develop a career, especially in a corporate sense or any other largely male-dominated area since not long ago, at least in the U.S., women were expected greatly to stay home and tend to the house and children only, whether or not they wanted to get married into such a life. And nearly 100% of rapists are males. It is already happening at such a large scale, it is so common, even though it’s illegal. So imagine putting a natural disaster or other catastrophe that puts life into more chaos, people… Read more »
You’re clearly not familiar with the CDC’s study on intimate partner and sexual violence if you’re going to assert that rape is nearly 100% male committed. It is simply that rape committed by men is the only rape that matters to our society.
As to your first paragraph, you are creating an excuse for the outcomes, trying to justifying it. But that is not the same as it not happening. You may be OK with society browbeating men, but that’s part of the problem.
female on male rape is a difficult one to gauge because it is often under-reported and/or not seen legally as rape. According to a study that I cannot find but I will link to it when I do, If you count being forced, or coerced (under the influence of drugs, underage ect) to penetrate another person as rape, women make up about 40% of rape cases. This does suggest that rape is not as one sided as society of even feminists make it out to be and yes I will link to the study when I find it but so… Read more »
I do take back what I said about feminists, Many feminists writers do believe it is rape and are drawing attention to it.
“And nearly 100% of rapists are males. It is already happening at such a large scale, it is so common, even though it’s illegal. So imagine putting a natural disaster or other catastrophe that puts life into more chaos, people take advantage of it. So it’s an actual reality.” So the fact that a small portion of men are rapists (because remember just because most rapes are committed by men that doesn’t mean most men are not rapists) justifies whitewashing out men who are actually doing some good and offering aid? And that’s the problem. I watch a lot of… Read more »
Just by way of perspective, did you notice her article wasn’t limited to the news, but of how men are portrayed in all the various media?
@Craig Williamson, this is all very anecdotal evidence you’re presenting, and I don’t much see the use of it to this discussion. There is plenty of literature to suggest that all-female boarding schools, for instance, are also more egalitarian and actually much more masculine. Also, your assertion that women “prefer men who are more stereotypically male” runs contrary to evidence that women prefer feminine qualities in their mates. There are certainly differences between men and women, but proving which are nature and which are nurture is so complicated as to be typically futile. This is a fascinating article, though I… Read more »
You just spent a few hundred words pigeonholing men, calling them inferior, decrying the evils they commit. You deny and argue against anything that might speak not highly, but just non-negatively of men. In short you presented males as less than human, and then proceed to say “What needs to happen is men need to be able to get over it and be people”
Actually, this person is talking about the messages men receive. They did not say “men need to get over it and be people”, but rather that is the sort of message they get in current media. They are in fact, being sensitive to the double-edged sword that men can face
Thanks for an interesting article Victoria…. I never really thought about “hype” that way before. It may have something to do with the fact that news in general, not just news about men, is generally negative. What is that about? It just seems train wrecks are more captivating than flowers…
While this is true, there are trends that the news tends to follow that you will likely start to notice once made aware of it. You will find that stories about positive actions will ether refer to the women who did the positive thing, or the [insert job title here]. Rarely will you see an article about the men who did good. You’ll likewise see a similar thing with victims of tragedies. When a mine collapses and kills dozens of MEN (as happened recently), you will hear reports of the [miners] buried, the [victims] who died, and the [people] injured.… Read more »
Wonderful article. You make a great point
This is a rich discussion, and it would be impossible to respond to everything. On the “war” comment above (men start all the wars), remember that, if there were no women, there would probably be no wars. I’m pretty sure of this because in the only two mostly male environments I’ve been in (boarding school and the Army- 60s) there were few cliques. There was hierarchy, but it was fluid, and one could get higher status through effort. When I went to public high school, cliques abounded. And the terms of competition were more irrational and unfair. More labeling. Women… Read more »
There are ‘bad’ men…and ‘heroes’…and the other 99 percent of us average people who just plug along…
Also, it occurs to me that Wall Street is mostly a male-dominated environment that doesn’t usually fall in the ‘bad” category, but should…
A major force of perpetuating and even creating stereotypes and “exposing” and bombarding us with stories of bad men is capitalism. Men, corporations, TV stations, advertisers will say, do or report on anything that will make them money. Human nature is to be curious about everyone else, so we all eat up any stories with scandal, violence, corruption, etc. “If it bleeds, it leads” is the saying in the newsroom. The problem becomes when people start believing the BS in the media. Remember the saying, “Don’t believe everything you read?” Well, in our information overload age, it should be “Don’t… Read more »
Hello, I felt that I need to say something. As GenX male, I have seen a generation of women outperform men. Some statistics for you specifically in education: http://www.metlife.com/assets/cao/mmi/publications/Profiles/mmi-gen-x-demographic-profile.pdf At Berkeley I was the victim of intense sexism in many of my classes, add to this the racism which I palpable felt as early as four years old when I as an American born male was asked for a Green Card in preschool, never mind my perfect English and substantial IQ. The reason I mention these issues, is to clarify that I there is some background to her article that… Read more »
Victoria, I think you are so right that men are stereotyped in our society. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard women say “typical man”. I can tell you that I work for a man in an all women’s department and we all love our boss. He is very easy going, but runs our department very efficiciently and brings so much positive energy to work everyday. He once told me he that he reaaly enjoys working with women which suprised me as an all women’s department is not always drama free as ours is. I guess we broke… Read more »
What a refreshing piece! Long have I felt the same way. Along with David Lee, I believe the time has come for a positive change! As a mother of a beautiful baby boy, the wife of a very kind, sensitive and loving man, and the daughter of a wonderful man who continues to demonstrate virtue and perseverance, I am thankful for the blessings of having good, decent men in the world, and know that with work and action, damaging stereotypes can be changed. Thank you for this excellent site!! Keep up the good work!
Victoria I love this, specially the question by your 14 year old son (I have one of those too) and your story at the end. Truly my selfish reason for starting The Good Men Project was to meet men who would inspire me, who I thought were good in their own unique way. Since that time I have met many, many amazing men from NFL hall of famers to Sing Sing inmates to war correspondents. Each has shown me in a new way how to be heroic, how to be courageous, and how to be good. And as a result… Read more »
I read what i just wrote, and it seems whiney even to myself. And yes I do actually know that women are made fun of because they are women, but if they have the social skills, they can defend themselves more easily without sounding whiney, but I can’t think of anyway a man could put it that wouldn’t sound whiney.
While there is a reality that men do “bad things” I am more interested in creating change. As a man committed to ending men’s violence against women, I know that men need to be part of the solution. I applaud highlighting men doing something good to counter the dominant story of how men behave. I want to see more example of men as active bystanders interrupt men’s violence, as role models for young men and boys on respecting women, as agents of change in their communities.