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“We need to instill the belief in our boys that they are capable and worthy of their authentic wholeness as men and, we must be intentional and deliberate in how we inspire them to be aspirational about themselves.” – Don McPherson
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Last month, former Syracuse, NFL, and Canadian Football League QB and current aspirational masculinity advocate, convened and hosted a conference on the university’s campus on the topic of “Aspirational Masculinity.” As McPherson explained, “the purpose of Aspire NY is to get a sustainable collective conversation throughout the state about how to engage boys and men.”
As discussed this article, aspirational masculinity” is “the philosophical approach to engaging men in a positive and deliberate examination of male identity and the relationships and behaviors of and between men. It is focused on fostering a broader understanding of being male that includes empathy, vulnerability, and emotional honesty around critical issues impacting relationships, sexual behavior, and personal growth.”
In his keynote speech kicking off the Aspire NY Conference, McPherson shared how he first came to advocacy work through prevention-focused groups like Athletes Against Drunk Driving. His takeaway from his experience was that prevention language and scare tactics (think the “This is your brain on drugs” campaign) ultimately do not work. Rather, the model that creates sustainable change and improves lives is coaching towards excellence, rather than not to not lose:
“If we want boys to live in wholeness as their authentic self, we need to nurture their own beauty.”
Don McPherson – Kickoff Keynote
As McPherson’s mentor, Warren Breining once said: “We must teach young people what they can become, not what they should avoid.” That is the striving for excellence that undergirds what McPherson wants for boys and men: “that they live their authentic and whole selves; capable and worthy.”
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McPherson was 29 years old and had been working with young people for a decade when he met Jackson Katz, who was giving a presentation about violence against women.
It was the first time McPherson had ever heard anyone talk about the issue or the topic of masculinity. And it was a game changer; he recognized that had never examined in himself what it meant to be a man:
“I learned to use a privilege I didn’t know I had to address a problem I didn’t know was mine.”
“We are still asking boys and men to get rid of toxic aspects of traditional dominance-based masculinity, but we also need to ask what we want for our boys, aspirationally. And the answer to that question is that we want them to live connected emotional authentic lives.”
McPherson has now spoken on more than 350 college campuses, appeared on Oprah, and testified before Congress.
We need to be intentional about what we want for them: “We don’t raise boys to be men. We raise them not to be women or gay men.” As Bell Hooks famously said, “The first act is not violence against women it’s against ourselves.” We see the powerful way the patriarchy shapes young boys everywhere, and we certainly see it in sports. .
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“Manhood is not something you arrive at and you’re done. It’s constantly evolving, constantly growing. And we need to nurture it in our boys and our men.”
Both the rareness of the conversation and the need for it are demonstrated by McPherson’s journey to publish his book on the subject: Throw Like a Girl: The blind spot of masculinity.
McPherson preaches a broader view of masculinity and what it means to be a man.
Unfortunately, after appearing on Oprah and getting connected to a high profile book publisher, it took 20 years to get the book published. The rejection he received was “Women don’t need men to tell them the problem, and men don’t like books.” Blind spots and narrow thinking, indeed.
As a Black man with privilege, conferred to him for being a star athlete, McPherson also learned about how privilege can prevent us from understanding and learning the experience of others and came to recognize that the greatest privilege as a man is silence: “Silence has kept us from examining masculinity including our wholeness and expressiveness and vulnerability. Instead, we don’t address it until it becomes painful.”
McPherson shared that thirty-three or his football player friends are now dead, and six died by suicide. Tales of depression, drug use, divorce, and difficult relationships., and also of suffering alone and in silence. His good friend, Chris Gedney, was one of them:
“Chris never said ‘I’m hurting. I’m alone. I’m struggling. I don’t know how to do this.’ From the outside it looked like he was more than fine; what problems could he possibly have.? But we all have something we carry around.”
McPherson also shared his view that the phrase, “toxic masculinity,” is problematic:
“We have been talking to boys to get them to stop violence against women. (The toxicity). But we need more than that. It needs to be about what we want for boys. Toxic is used to talk about waste. That is separated from garbage. You can’t tell people that their identify is garbage. That ignores who they are. What we want is for men to live living caring emotional egalitarian lives.”
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“We need to stop only asking boys and men to make space for others and instead ask men to make new spaces for themselves that aren’t confined to the narrow definitions of masculinity.” – Don McPherson
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The purpose of the Aspire NY Conference is to get into “the why” as well as “the how,” and to learn about what’s going on with boys in schools, communities and how to best engage boys and men on critical issues effected and impacted by traditional understandings of masculinity.
In addition to Mr. McPherson, the conference’s presentations and workshop speakers included Mark Trumbo, the Founder of Purpose Design and author of The Dream Factory: Designing a Life of Purpose, who spoke about “Why Aspirational Masculinity,” Joe Horan, who reported on the good works of the Building Men Program, which is doing incredible work on the ground creating safe space where boys can talk about these issues and in building a culture where boys feel safe and loved and can spread that love, and Dr. Jeff Mangram of Syracuse University, who talked about his own journey to authenticity and wholeness (“I was performing manhood and was rewarded for it my whole life. I finally learned what it was at age 40”) and about the power of culture and socialization.
I also got to participate as a panelist, taking part in a moderated discussion with my son, Jacob.
It was Jacob who first introduced me to Don McPherson after McPherson spoke at his fraternity at Syracuse. And it was Don who plotted to put us on stage together in a father-son conversation about masculinity that I never would have imagined possible. I am so very grateful for that opportunity.
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At the heart of all of this – in addition to Mr. McPherson himself – is the Aspirational Masculinity model, an approach that unrelentingly affirms the authentic wholeness of masculinity.
The Aspire New York platform applies the positive approach of Aspirational Masculinity, using common language across the social ecosystem that enables all boys and men to aspire to living in AWE (Authentic, Whole and Evolving).
It is indeed a vision for us all aspire to.
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Photo Credit: Author
For more information on Aspirational Masculinity and ASPIRE NY, see here.
Don McPherson is the author of You Throw Like a Girl: The Blind Spot of Masculinity, which chronicles 36 years of harnessing the power and appeal of sport to address complex social issues and focuses on a quarter century of work on gender-based violence prevention and the promotion of aspirational masculinity.
