“Because of all that has happened this week, the generations after us are going to experience the world differently.” Inside the conversation at The Good Men Project.
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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. If you would like to join in the calls, please consider becoming a contributor [click here] or a Premium Member [click here].
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Lisa Hickey: I want to talk today about two different rulings by the Supreme Court within the past 48 hours and how those rulings affect the Man-Box.
We’ve talked a lot about the Man-Box on these calls. When we talk about the Man-Box, we’re talking about the societal rule and norms that pigeonhole men into a “box”, or a very narrow set of expectations about what a so-called ‘real’ men is. It doesn’t mean that we are trying to discourage men from acting as “manly” or as “masculine” as they want to—not by any stretch of the imagination. But it is the policing of that behavior—by both men and women—that we want to see go away.
And one of the huge negative parts of the Man-Box has been the policing of men to “not act gay”. And that policing has been so systematized that something like gay marriage is has not even been allowed universally.
Until today.
So when the Supreme Court rules that gay couples nationwide have a right to marry—that’s a big win for everyone and a blow to the actual Man-Box and policers of the Man-Box. Because what it is saying is, “It is OK to be gay. You have the same rights as everyone else.” That is a huge change in our culture, and I, personally, have so much gratitude that I am around to see this change.
The second thing that happened with the Supremes is the vote on Obamacare. The specifics of the ruling are that the federal government would be allowed to provide nationwide tax subsidies to help poor and middle-class people by health insurance. The media reports that this mean Obamacare is here to stay. And the reason is because the majority of justices said ‘the whole point of Obamacare is to make healthcare more affordable.’
How exactly does this ruling help break down the Man-Box?
For one thing, it helps break down the necessity of “man as provider”. For many years—for many decades of my existence—I heard about how men felt they were stuck in jobs they hated because they got the benefits of healthcare. In fact, healthcare benefits were consciously used by corporations as an employee retention tool. And it worked—men who thought of their role as one of a financial provider for their family would take a job with good healthcare benefits in order to provide healthcare for their family. Even if it was a soul-sucking job that they hated.
At The Good Men Project, we have a conversation about the type of world we would like to see—marriage equality for all or more options for health care to relieve the pressure on men! And we have this conversation, put out a vision of what the world would look like when that change happens and then we look for ways to help individuals, small groups and large groups create that change.
And that is how change happens.
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And the third event to move things forward in the US is the takedown of the Confederate flag.
I was talking to Jackie Summers yesterday. Jackie was one of the very first people to write about race for The Good Men Project (and has also written here and here and here). Jackie said:
“People are worried that you are going to make them give up their privilege.
But what people don’t realize is—-you don’t have to give up your privilege. Just use your privilege as a fulcrum to help lift up others who don’t have the basic human rights that others have.”
YES.
Let’s open the conversation up now.
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Jay Snook: It’s impressive to me, the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage. I was part of ‘No on Hate’ in California years ago. At the same time—it shouldn’t be a big deal, the fact that it’s finally available statewide. It’s more of a “It’s about time” rather than anything else. There are people who have been together for 34 years. So it’s a ray of sunshine. I just hope it lasts. It shows a lot of progress.
Mark Sherman: I feel very good about the ruling. With regards to the “I hope it lasts”…when looking at historic Supreme Court rulings—I go back to 1973, with the Right to Choose ruling, and how now it seems under attack again. Same sex marriage is completely different, of course, and I think, I hope, that it’s just a matter of getting used to it if you are not used to it.
But also, I want to address a point you made Lisa about how it is ok for guys in the Man-Box who do want to be traditionally masculine or however you define it. I think there are subtle and not-so-subtle messages that it’s not OK. For example, the only group you can really see that it is ok to make fun of is the “manly men”. Or look at boys doing traditionally “boy-ish” things in school, for example, using their fingers as guns, and how they can get in trouble for that. Also—I think that some men just don’t want to open up emotionally, and we should allow that. To be told you have to open up—well, I just don’t know. I’m not sure we should tell people they have to cry. I wonder if we are creating a new closet for men who just want traditional qualities—I worry about that.
Kozo Hattori: Last night I was dropping off my son out front of an apartment complex. And there was couple standing there. The man was crying—bawling, really—and yelling, “Please don’t leave me.” I was like, wow, you don’t see that happening. Back in the day—you would get teased, ostracized, pushed away for doing such a thing. But space is opening up now for men to express grief and sorrow.
Also, studies have shown that boys at 2 years of age are more emotional than girls. But by age 5, they are way less emotional than girls. And the natural state is to feel your emotions. But boys get caged in early on for not being able to do that. At the same time, I agree we don’t want to shame people who were conditioned not to feel emotions. So what I see is that we are in a period of transition, and like any change, that transition period may be difficult.
Jeremy McKeen: There are so many angles for writers and editors this week. From the historical happenings with race relations—where we’ve gone from seeing slaves as 3/5ths of a human to now finally taking the Confederate flag down. To making gay marriage legal and the Obamacare ruling. I agree with the points of men having historically been the providers for their families and how corporations have been the providers of health care benefits. And how some of the most forward thinking corporations have already extended some of those benefits to same sex marriage. It’s great that a 1st world married man is now inclusive to everyone.
A huge week in history.
Because of this week, the generations after us are going to experience the world differently.
Rick Gabrielly: I have two sons. I am always telling them how hard it was growing up in the 60’s—and how hard it was just being around men in general. And we were talking today about the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage and both of them were like “What took so long?” My brother is gay, and he came out in 1972, so I’ve had a gay brother for over 40 years. He’s had two gay marriages. So it’s not a big deal in our house, but it is so beautiful to see. As a family and as a man. I’m happy to see the younger people embracing this, but I’m not surprised by it.
Justin: There is a fine balance—how to define a respect for other’s lifestyle in this ever-growing age of political correctness. Also having the freedom to joke with straight friends, gay friends, black friends. Jerry Seinfeld tells the story of how his wife said to his 14 year old, ‘Well, you know, in the next couple years, I think maybe you’re going to want to be hanging around the city more on the weekends, so you can see boys,’” His daughter said, ‘That’s sexist.’” And Seinfeld asked “how the heck does she even know what sexist is?” And Artie Lange, who definitely says some problematic things, said, “I understand how great something like Caitlyn Jenner is, but don’t I get just 5 minutes to poke some fun at it?” So I wonder—what’s the acceptable line for poking fun? It’s too easy to cross that line and not be funny anymore.
Mark Sherman: Thanks Justin, that was interesting. I want to go back to something Rick said, it made me think of something. We really didn’t know what was happening to people sexually before the Kinsey Report. It was startling at the time—that we didn’t know the high amount of homosexuality. And now we know those things. But I don’t think we really know what is going on with relationships in families. Men don’t have to be the breadwinners, which is fine—but in some cases women aren’t happy about it, they think their husbands are slackers. We have such a politicized environment that we don’t really know what is going on. Things might not be as rosy as they seem—if we don’t know the truth.
Jay Snook: I’d like to get back to the idea that boys don’t cry and why that is. My dad never said “don’t cry”—but he also never cried. So I had no role model. And the place I got the “don’t cry” message was from the media. All the male role models said, “If you’re a man, you’re big, you’re tough, you’re strong—and you got things done.” I remember the men in my family crying only twice, once at a funeral, when someone died unexpectedly, and once my grand-dad cried at a wedding but he was pretty liquored up. You just didn’t see it.
Mark Sherman. I didn’t see my dad cry either. But that reminds me of laughing—how both are automatic responses. Laughter is such a spontaneous thing. You can’t control it. Same as crying. I mush up at romantic movies. I sometimes sob—I remember sobbing hard at the story of a drowning of a little kid. But again, data would be helpful. I remember Walter Cronkite announcing the death of Kennedy, and you could tell he was close to tears but he held it back. If he had cried, I think it would have been weird. But…crying is not voluntary. So I don’t know how it can be socialized.
Kozo Hattori: I work a lot with men, and a lot of them say “I wish I could cry, but I can’t.” And what I see is that men have learned to stop crying way down in their gut when it just starts. When it is just a little trickle. They know crying is healing, they know crying would help. But they have learned to stop it so often at the very start of that feeling that the stopping it is what is automatic. Also—-even when men do cry—I rarely see another man go over and console that guy. You just don’t see that expression of compassion being modeled.
Mark Sherman: One place where I’ve seen change is that you used to see men only shaking hands. Now you see them hugging all the time, you just would not see that in my father’s generation. When I have cried, it has often been frightening because it overwhelms me. Maybe men are worried that they are not going to be able to stop.
Thaddeus Howze: I have an 11 year old autistic son. And we didn’t inhibit his emotions. He is enthusiastic when he is happy, and he is almost just as enthusiastic in his crying when he is sad. One interesting thing was that he would often announce that he was going to cry. He would state “I’m going to start crying now.” It was his way of telling us that he is about to experience a strong emotion and that we should be ready for it. There are so few ways we can express any emotion today. Righteous anger is OK. But people can be righteous even when they are wrong. You can’t be too happy and you can’t be too sad. You can be happy only if you have competed with the other guy and won. And all this has made us a culture of repressed a**holes. When we get into a system we don’t like, we express ourselves poorly. I call it “misplaced aggression”. Rather than bringing to the table what are really angry about, we express it somewhere else. They blow things up and then they don’t even look at it.
I just know I wept like a child when my doctor handed me my son and I was OK with that.
Kozo Hattori: I’d love to see a time when instead of hearing “I wept like a child” I could hear “I wept like a man”. That is the change in the world I would like to see.
Dan Gordon: It isn’t a specific message of “boys don’t cry” as muc has a sense that around 5 or 6 years old boys realize that expressing themselves in social situations just isn’t accepted. Ad we move through life, we are so used to that so we simply dial down our emotions. Men become terrified because these emotions do feel uncontrollable and men want to feel in control. Feeling emotional can make men feel out of control. When men do cry, it’s often a full body think.
Also, I will ask groups of women, “What does it mean to be a women?” Women like that question. They will think about it a bit and then will give a very detailed answer. But when I ask a group of men, “What does it mean to be a man?” it’s as if I just told them 2 + 2 = a sack of potatoes. Men typically don’t have an answer to that question, they are just not comfortable having those conversations. It takes men willing to step in the fire of a whole lot of discomfort in order to figure ourselves out. When a woman says “just tell me what you’re feeling”, the word “just” implies it is easy. It’s not easy. So we need to ask women to go slow with us in our lives.
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Photo: DonkeyHotey / Flickr / Creative Commons License
If the supreme court truly wants to help break down the man box, it needs to do two things: end Selective Service as a requirement for men and criminalize routine infant circumcision. These are the two most pressing civil rights issues today.
Interesting discussion about men crying, men being (or not being) allowed to feel sad, to grieve failure and loss.
And then you go to a website like Jezebel, and whenever any issues about men or male sadness come up, loads of commenters mock “Male Tears.”
Why is this website so ineffective at calling women, and especially women who claim to be feminist, out on the ways they police the boundaries of the “Man Box”? I ask this question here since this was posted by The Editors.