What is the purpose of men today? What is their place in society, culture, relationships? Do men even have a purpose?
Simply put, what are men for?
The readers of The Good Men Project are uniquely qualified to answer this question and to share it far and wide. That’s why I need you to help in an ongoing project to compile the most insightful, sarcastic, thought provoking, funny, heartfelt, ironic, etc. answers for an upcoming article that will try to answer this one, essential question or, at the very least, spark a significant and ongoing conversation. But we need your input to make this project a success.
And whether or not you have ever considered the question, you do have an answer lurking inside you.
Women and men, we need your answers. There are no rules or guidelines in how you phrase your answer – we only need your honest opinion.
What are men for? Just contribute your answer in the comment section below or go to the special Facebook page that has been established and post your answer there.
Please don’t let this unique opportunity pass you by. Take a few moments and tell us what men are for. We truly need to know!
About Raymond Bechard
Men are needed to be fathers, brothers, uncles and husbands and partners. They are needed to be breadwinners and stay at home parents. Men are needed to be leaders, to be followers. Men are needed to be role models, to teach, to be taught. In other words , men are needed for all the same things they have always been needed for.
Personally I find the question, insulting, it makes me feel like i have to justify my very existence just because I am a man.
Men and women aren’t *for* anything. We are moral ends, not means to an end. Kant would throw up his hands in despair at this question.
I used to believe men were utterly useless, but I realize that was because I was very successful in being self-sufficient, being my own man/woman, needing neither emotional nor financial support from anyone. I was living on the assumption that we are all the same, confusing sameness with equality, an assumption I had to recognize as false before realizing the value of men.
When I found the courage to let go of my toughness and open my heart, I discovered that we are indeed, different. Now I no longer see men dedicating themselves to their work or art, rather then me, as irrational behavior, but as expression of their disposition. I no longer see their apparent inability to express emotions and their apparent dysfunctional communication skills as defects, but as expressions of masculine nature, different from mine, but equal in value.
But most of all, men of honor and integrity open my heart with their strength, with their conscious presence. Everything else, really, I can get on my own, my girlfriends, my toys, or my cat, but none of comes close to the value of the gifts of a man’s spirit to the world and women.
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Note: I disregarded the Facebook requirement because I do not have an account there.
I’m right there with SamLL–this question is very insulting, and quite frankly, pointless.
The only thing men are *for* is to grow to be responsible adults, mentors, and parents–however that looks like. Obviously, I can say the same about other genders…so this question, to me at least, does nothing but provoke answers tied into essentialist garbage.
Yeah but, Kaleb aren’t Men in general asking that “very insulting” question anyway? It’s ironic that such a prevalent internal dialog can be so verboten.
Sure, maybe some men are asking themselves that question. I personally think it’s such a waste of time and incredibly counter productive. Why would I waste time asking myself what men are “for” (and I use “for” begrudgingly because it adds a sense of “men are only good for” mentality, like we exist solely for a primary job function) when there’s no end-all be-all answer?
My main point is that we can all sit here and discuss what men are “for”, but we’d be prividing answer that seek to essestentially define all men. We’re not going to find one answer, and no one’s answer is better than the next. So why ask? Why seek to answer this and why seek to put men in a box? We all have different upbringings and definitions of that shape who we want to become as men, and that’s as far as we’re going to get.
Every time I partake in a discussion on what it means to essentially be a man I see what becomes a kind of democratic vote on what it means to be a man. Some men feel like men should be like *this*, some feel like men should be like *that*. The only time it’s civil is when all men can agree that not all men will be like anything. “What are (all) men for?”–you can’t answer that, unless we’re literally talking about reproduction.
Each man defines his own purpose. I can only speak for myself.
Mr. Bechard, Respectfully, just the fact that you have to ask this question speak volumes. I see it as part of the whole “what is the future of maleness” meme currently fashionable in insular, reality-challenged metrosexual/feminist circles.
As the Who once sang, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
@Mark: ““what is the future of maleness” meme currently fashionable in insular, reality-challenged metrosexual/feminist circles.”
Care to elaborate?
Kaleb, Just the fact that you are on this site puts you at ground zero for the debate. Before I became associated with the Good Men Project, I had no idea that masculinity was in crisis, because the vast majority of men that I know aren’t. (Sure, we’ve all got our challenges.) I quickly gathered that Amanda Marcotte (sp?) with her laughable “end of men” trope was one of the feminist thinkers and writers that put the debate on radar. Again, and admittedly this is just based on my own perspective, I don’t find maleness, and the masculine role in society to be in any kind of crisis, and that’s why I consider the debate to be insular to feminist-minded progressive urban academics of both sexes.
Look, I’m no expert, but, like others who have posted comments, my sense is the question reads like something of an affront to men who feel they are not in any kind of crisis.
Objects have a function, people have free will.
“What are men for?” … well, I could ask, “What are women for?”
My answer is simple:
We (all inclusively) are “for” whatever we want to be.
Gender should always come second to that of being a person. We are all people. Humans. And we are “for” that which we choose to be “for”.
If we could all stop thinking in terms of “men” and “women” and starting thinking in terms of “human”, there would be no worry in terms of fulfilling any gender requirements, abiding by commonly held stereotypes, so on and so forth. All that just causes unneeded stress.
Everyone believes they have some purpose to serve. And this is true. However, the purpose is not set in stone. Nor is is something we are told to do. Our purpose is what we decide it to be. We choose.
Our “for” is our choice. Both men and women alike.