Inside the conversation at The Good Men Project.
Publisher’s note: Every Friday, we hold an hour-long conference call for any ongoing contributors to The Good Men Project. On each call, we talk about different aspects of the changing roles of men in the 21st century. These posts are a glimpse into what is said on the calls. More posts about the calls and the conversations in the FB Writers group can be found here.
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A recent article on suicide was the source of much discussion in our Facebook Writer’s Group. And I don’t want this focus of this call to be suicide, but I do want people here to notice the similarities between this paragraph and what we’ve been discussing about the Man-Box.
“In 2014, clinical psychologist Martin Seager and his team decided to test the cultural understanding of what it means to be a man or woman, by asking a set of carefully designed questions of women and men recruited via selected UK- and US-based websites. What they found suggests that, for all the progress we’ve made, both genders’ expectations of what it means to be a man are stuck the 1950s. “The first rule is that you must be a fighter and a winner,” Seager explains. “The second is you must be a provider and a protector; the third is you must retain mastery and control at all times. If you break any of those rules you’re not a man.” Needless to say, as well as all this, ‘real men’ are not supposed to show vulnerability. “A man who’s needing help is seen as a figure of fun,” he says. The conclusions of his study echo, to a remarkable degree, what O’Connor and his colleagues wrote in a 2012 Samaritans report on male suicide: “Men compare themselves against a masculine ‘gold standard’ which prizes power, control and invincibility. When men believe they are not meeting this standard, they feel a sense of shame and defeat.”
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I’d also like to look at women’s roles in policing the man-box.
I sometimes say “men often feel as if they were sold a bill of goods with the man-box”. That is what I am hearing. That men are told they have to do certain things to fit in (“man up”, “don’t be a sissy”, “win at all costs” etc.) —with the implicit ‘bargain with the devil’ that if they do all that they will get all the benefits and privileges that come from being a man, come from being in power, come from being a financial success. But then when all that doesn’t happen, they feel as if the bargain was broken and they didn’t get the “so-called privileges that society had promised them.”
And I also want to put it out there that women were sold a bill of goods too. Women are socialized to want the men who are in the Man-Box, much as men are. For example, we’ve talked about men are seen as financial providers and not nurturers. So women are told early on that the most desirable men are rich men. Many women break past that socialization and simply look for a man they can connect with or value for something else, but it’s still a big part of the narrative.
And almost every stay at home dad has had the experience where they go to the park and are told, often by a women, “Oh are you babysitting the kids” or “giving your wife a break, are you”. There’s this sense that a man doing the nurturing just isn’t part of the norm. So women certainly do some of the policing too.
And so part of the reason we bring women into the conversation is so that they can understand their part in this dynamic and make more conscious choices. We want to be the definition of manhood in the 21st century to be as expansive as possible. We don’t want to ignore the very real differences between men and women. We don’t want to shame men or imply that there is anything wrong with being a man. And we want women to understand their role in perpetuating harmful stereotypes so we can break them down.
Let’s open it up to the group:
Jed Diamond
“This topic really resonates me. I’d like to make a few points: 1) These roles, these boxes we are in, have been learned over he course of many years and take a long time to change. 2) A lot of roles we take on as men are unconscious—and our subconscious still plays out. It’s why what we’re doing is so important—to go beyond just intellectualizing, but show through examples and insight. It’s why storytelling is som important. 3) I’m glad you brought up women’s role in this—in the past, I’ve had women chide me for being too emotional. Or ask me to open up emotionally, but then not be able to handle it when that emotion was anger or rage.”
Ashley Michelle Fowler
“One of the first articles I wrote had some similar themes. And as a women talking about masculinity, I got some supporters but also some very negative feedback—hate even—from men who feel women have no role in this discussion of masculinity.”
Jed Diamond
Suicide is the ultimate expression of despair and male suicide is much higher for men. Part may be the impossible standards but part might be that we feel so alone in the box. I know for a long time I felt that I was the only one who felt the way I did. As we share more our lives, as celebrities come out and say “I am depressed” it encourages me.
Tyler Beaty
I’m 44 and always grown up feeling along. I was the guy who cried at movies. I’m one of the few fathers at my child’s school who volunteers. And these types of discussions are just not something I talk to my friends about.
Rick Gabrielly
Men have historically been providing and protecting and women are expecting that. We don’t have the training to step into other roles. Seeing other examples is the first step. The more out front we are, the more people will talk about their own experiences. But there is still a lot of fear around stepping into new roles. There is still a lot of fear and confusion about wht they think is the model for the successful life. And the way we teach our sons and young men can play a large part of the future.
Mike Patrick
One of my favorite sayings is “It’s not the problem, it’s how you look at the problem.” I have always looked at what I am capable of doing and not what I am incapable of doing, despite the fact that I have a power wheelchair and can’t get dressed in the morning.
Rick Gabrielly
I would like to affirm that everything we do makes a difference.
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“One of the first articles I wrote had some similar themes. And as a women talking about masculinity, I got some supporters but also some very negative feedback—hate even—from men who feel women have no role in this discussion of masculinity.” If this is in refererence to the comments under your first article, that wasn’t quite the same thing as what is being discussed here. The topic here is women’s role in reinforcing the man box. Your article claimed that men probably weren’t the experts in overcoming the man box, which is a whole ‘nother thing entirely. If the genders… Read more »
Another problem with women looking for successful financial men is that when a her current man is longer financially successful or the woman finds another man who is even more financially successfully than her current husband/boyfriend,, the woman will dump her present man after secretly establishing herself with that other financially successful man. If women are so smarter than men, then they should be able to make their own financial success and not depend on a man. Woman should be supporting for stronger worker rights so that all men and women and can be financially successful. I have seen too… Read more »
The role of women policing the “man-box”can’t be overstated. On top of being told we’ll get all the goodies of being the winner, women give men messages that they’re looking for a guy they can make an emotional connection with but will only consider those who are financially successful as part of their candidate pool.. It’s no secret that there are books, manuals and websites catering to hooking women up with rich men and the connection is reinforced when men discover that the guys getting all the attention, dates and approval from single women are the ones with the financial… Read more »
The roles of Provider and Protector are iconic male roles. In a world economic and social upheavals can make fulfillment of those roles impossible and where we now can share those roles with women, are there any roles that touch the soul as deeply as Provider and Protector?
As always a great discussion on an important topic. I’d like to recommend the original article that was the source of the discussion of the Facebook Writers Group. http://mosaicscience.com/story/male-suicide. It reminds me that we still have a long ways to go to break down the barriers that keep men and women locked in boxes that keep us from being all we can be for ourselves and each other. GMP is one wonderful way to share our soul-learnings. Growing up with an out-of-work Dad, I also grew up with a Dad who felt ashamed that he wasn’t “the provider.” My mother… Read more »