Why The Good Men Project will always be relevant, and why the conversation about the changing roles of men will always be important.
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Lisa Hickey started todays evangelist call with two stories that were catalysts for the rest of the conversation:
I had two conversations recently which gave me this “aha” as to why The Good Men Project will always be relevant, and why the discussion of the changing roles of men in the 21st century will only grow increasingly important.
It’s clear that the world is changing so quickly it’s almost impossible to process it.
And you might think as you hear these stories—how do these affect men? But hopefully I will tie that together for you and spark another one of our great conversations on this call.
The first story is men and trauma. And we’ve talked about this before so I don’t want to focus on JUST men and trauma. Which is why I’m telling you a second story today. But this is just too timely and relevant and too big an aha for me to pass up.
As many of you know, I was injured in the bombing that happened at the Boston Marathon two years ago. My leg was hit by shrapnel, I was in and out of the emergency room twice—the second time my leg had gotten infected from an undetected puncture wound and caused that leg to swell up to twice it’s normal size. I posted on on FB: “The only thing worse than a bomb injury is an infected bomb injury.” I was actually trying to made light of what happened so that I could find a way to people about it without traumatizing them.
And so now the trial of the bomber is happening in Boston. And the FBI had tried to get me to help them with the testimony for the trial – they called me up on my cell phone and said, “hey, it’s the FBI, how’s it going?” And apparently the FBI thought a more casual approach would be less traumatic and get me to talk about what happened.
But the thing that really hit me about this trial is—-the defense has all but admitted the bomber was there that day and participated in the bombing and subsequent manhunt, killing of a cop and shootout. So the purpose of the trial is to see if he will get the death penalty. And I started to get worried about all of the other survivors—that they wouldn’t realize that their testimony would be used to potentially put someone to death. And I started to really get almost a panic attack that these survivors would become re-traumatized—first they are traumatized by the attack themselves and then they are traumatized by the fact that their stories could be used to actually cause someone else to die.
So I called up the trauma specialists who are dealing the impact of the trial on the bombing survivors—they’ve been great in Boston, amazing. And I explained what I was so worried about and the trauma specialist told me that a great many of the survivors are worried about the fact that their stories are being used to sentence someone to death. I was not the only one, by far. The trauma specialist went on to say that there are married couples who were affected by the bombing—in some cases one got injured and one didn’t, or one believes in the death penalty and one doesn’t—and in some cases it is literally tearing those families apart.
It seems to me that there was a time time when you didn’t worry about arguing with your spouse over the death penalty because your actions couldn’t possibly affect whether someone would get the death penalty or not. It was always only a theoretical discussion. It seemed impossible that in real life it would matter. But that is simply not true anymore. This is real life. And if you can’t talk about issues like the death penalty long before you are put into a position where it matters, it is going to be inordinately stressful to talk about it when you do have to deal with it.
And that is part of the reason we talk about such difficult issues at The Good Men Project all the time. We tell stories of people in prison or discuss how the death penalty affects real people’s lives—because it is important. And trauma will affect men and historically men have not been given the tools to deal with trauma. And that is why we have to keep talking about it.
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The second story is not about trauma at all. It’s about the changing world and the implications on men—but it is a seemingly innocuous change. It’s about Amazon’s new one hour delivery program.
And you might well ask, “how the heck does one hour delivery have anything to do with the changing roles of men in the 21st century?
I was reading Fred Wilson’s blog, a VC whose blog I always follow. And he was talking about one hour delivery from the likes of Amazon and others and Fred and several commenters were talking about the fact that the way these things will be delivered is what will be the game changer. The way it actually changes business. That it is not that Amazon will have millions of employees all of whom will be standing by waiting for the next delivery. It’s that if you think of Uber or Lyft or Sidecar, or other car sharing services—they have a built in distribution network ready and waiting at any given moment.
You are not an employee of those companies—you are basically a freelancer, contractor, paid for work for hire. If you are around and available and have a car, then you can show up and deliver a package. I can envision exactly how that can work.
This will fundamentally change the nature of work, and in doing so will once again affect the changing roles of men.
For example, men have always seen themselves as the financial providers, or needing financial success or well being as a part of their identity—and this idea of being able to slip in and out of ways to make money at any given time is fascinating to me. How will the ability to work at any time 24 hours a day—affect the changing roles of men? I’ve written about before how—if you look at mass shootings—before the recession a much higher percentage of mass shootings actually took place in the workplace. Because men would be fired or laid off and, in the most extreme cases, it would truly affect a person’s identity as a man and “something would snap”. But an interesting thing happened—as we grew deeper into the recession, and more and more people got laid off or fired—it no longer became so shameful to lose your job. Workplace shootings declined. The fact that men no longer had to feel shame when losing their job was a *good* thing.
But now—what is the implication if there are jobs always available, 24/7? You have an app on your phone, a delivery job comes in, you get it done. You might not get paid much, but there is always an opportunity somewhere, some time. There is always a chance to provide a little more for your family, to be a little more successful financially. And I wonder if it will become acceptable to say “I’m unemployed”, or if people will just tell men “how can you be unemployed, just sign up to be a driver at Uber and make deliveries for Amazon?”
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Let’s open the discussion to the community:
Jed Diamond: Both topics are interesting and exciting to me. And I have three points 1) Stress and trauma are coing to increase in the world. Not necessarily bombings, but there will be more traumatic things to deal with. 2) I really appreciate people like you sharing their stories. Rather than making others feel bad, rather than others being traumatized, I would like to suggest that the stories themselves are healing. 3) I think that we need more platforms and more venues where people can share their stories. People also need to be able to own their own stories, so they don’t find those being used against them.
Mark Sherman: I’ve noticed on the calls recently that we don’t have too many women calling in. And that’s too bad, I miss that. I know that the reason I call in is that I feel comfortable, and Lisa, as a woman and leader, is always open, sympathetic and non-judgmental when it comes to the issues of men. Also, as an outsider, Lisa, you give a perspective that we don’t have.
With regards to the story about Amazon.com and the shift in the workplace, I’m reminded that men have always been seen as powerful. And yet there are so many men way below that powerful level at the top. Men doing these jobs—dangerous, difficult jobs that don’t pay well. Every week I see my garbage picked up—recyclables, trash, everything—and it’s always men. I’ve never once seen a woman hop off that garbage truck.
Lisa Hickey: Mark, you remind me that I’ve been wanting to do a video series, where I would go below to the men in the sewer systems or the sanitation department workers and simply ask them ‘why do you do what you do?’ I think it’s important to learn those stories.
John Stolpe: In regards to the Amazon one-hour delivery—we are all in this fast paced age and we want and expect instantaneous access to information we didn’t have in the past. I’d love to understand the effect this will have on families, this need to have things right away. Besides the obvious sense of entitlement, I think there is a deterioration of American family, from living in this limitless age. Don’t know how to solve it, but it’s an interesting paradigm.
Spencer Dryden: I think we did a poll on a previous call and most of the people on the call were over the age of 40. I come from an older generation, so this is all new to me. But I’d love to hear how younger people feel about these changes. I do get a little bit of it—I write but I’m also a handyman for hire, I work in that world of temporary jobs and show up whenever you can. It’s a skill-based job and it helps me control the hours I work.
Justin Jordan: I’m 33. If I order something on Amazon, I find myself in eager anticipation of the delivery date. I would order something I could get in an hour. But I now realize we don’t think enough about “Where will that package come from?” I’m worried about a world where men could take on an unlimited number of jobs. I have concerns for how that would affect their families, if they have to choose between, for example, sitting around the dinner table, or going to the park with their kids—of going to drop off someone’s sunglasses that they ordered on Amazon to get some extra cash—what are they going to choose? There’s always a struggle between money and time.
Jed Diamond: There used to be a broadcaster named Paul Harvey who would always sign off with “Stay tuned for the rest of the story.” These examples make me realize—we so often don’t see the rest of the story. We order something online, and we don’t think “Oh, here’s how it’s going to get here. What are the implications? What’s the rest of the story?”
Mark Sherman: I’d like to bring up the concept of economic inequality. I have a friend who goes on such a rant every time this is brought up. He’s a musician, also drives a taxi in Manhattan. He makes enough to support his family but he works very, very hard. And on one hand you have this cheap labor in warehouses and cheap drivers delivering while folks like Bezos are living in opulence. Not that people at the top don’t work very hard, they do. But maybe instead of looking at the gender gap, which gets talked about a lot, we should be talking about that fact that the people working on the bottom of McDonald’s make 5 cents for every $1,000 the people at the top make.
Lisa Hickey: Mark, this ties into something you said earlier. I often wonder if at least part of the gender wage gap is because at the low end, men take these dangerous jobs, which might pay a little more because of the danger. But women, on the whole, just don’t take those jobs. They simply refuse to take those dangerous jobs, which could conceivably skew part of the wages.
Brent Greene: There was an article on Next Avenue by Richard Eisenberg. Next Avenue is the online community for PFB. And what this article said is that America is unready for the aging workforce. There is going to be a real struggle to build a functional aging workforce. The author is looking ahead 50 years, to when the 33 year old will be 83. But will the people of that age be able to pick up odd jobs and temporary jobs? Will they be lucky to do so? The truth is, at 50+ ageism takes over.
Mark Sherman: I could well be the oldest on here at 72. I’ve long been a believer that social contact is the key to happiness. And it used to be that there were video stores all over the place. And we’d go to the video store, pick out a video, meet other people there, talk about the video and have a little social interaction. But that doesn’t happen anymore because…Netflix. It’s not that I hate technology overall…email lets me make connections with famous people in ways that never before would happen. And on the other hand—some of the changes I’ve seen in my life have been for the better—a father being there for the birth of his child for example. The changes I like are the ones that lead to more real-life connection, not less.
Mike Patrick: I’m with Mark Sherman in the older end of the group. And as an older man, we don’t need to take dangerous types of jobs that the younger people needs to take because they don’t have the experience. These younger people haven’t gone on the journey. They might have to take the more dangerous jobs because they haven’t got the experiences. Also, Mark, in relation to your story of men in the delivery room, when I got hurt, back then, the hospital I was in had strict visiting hours, and they weren’t going to let my 3 year old sister come see me. And the doctor wrote a note right in my orders “Do not stop his 3 year old sister from coming to visit because that is the best therapy he can get right now.” Allowing those real-life bonds, allowing those connections, is so important.
Lisa Hickey: Mark Sherman, what you describe with missing the small social interactions is what I worry with the changing work dynamic. If you don’t have a physical workplace, you miss those many small moments of social interaction that you have when you are together in a physical work location instead of just responding to a job via an app on your phone.
Justin Jordan: When we do have those little social interactions, they’re almost awkward now—when you do run into someone in the grocery store it’s like you don’t really know what to say to people. And we no longer do face-to-face apologies. On one hand, you are giving a man more freedom to express his emotions more by a blog post, or email and that is easier—but on the other hand there is still often this awkwardness with an apology, or showing real love, or even praise for a good job.
John Stolpe: Community is so important to our lives. We have a real opportunity to invite younger people into the group and pass the baton to them. My son is 14. We’ve had to be real intentional in the ways we get a connection to him and other men. We don’t have a land line so he doesn’t get to pick up the phone and answer it for the family and connect with who calls like I did when I was young.
Mike Patrick: Show a kid a land line these days and he literally doesn’t know what it is.
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The role of men is changing in the 21st century. Want to keep up? Get the best stories from The Good Men Project delivered straight to your inbox, here.
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Photo: Jens Karlsson / Flickr
I constantly spent my half an hour to read this
webpage’s posts everyday along with a mug of coffee.
America is not prepare for an to replace the aging workforce because the wealthy people and corporations have totally dis-invested themselves from investing in the country.
There was a great story on NPR/Marketplace yesterday?? http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/women-construction-few-and-far-between about women in trades…or lack thereof. Several of the women they talked to are trade workers who are trying to bring more women into trades. But one of the (still) stumbling blocks is attitudes of older males workers, managers, and customers who don’t or won’t respect a woman on a job. I think that until that changes, or the perception of that changes, that 10% aren’t screwing it up for 90%, women will continue to be underrepresented in the trades and miss out on the pay and job security (job security… Read more »