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. More posts about the calls and the conversations in the FB Writers group can be found here. 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’d like to start with a story.
I was talking to a partner who is helping us launch video, and he said that he was talking to someone who heads up a very fast growing media company, a media company who at one point had gotten to #27th biggest media company in the US in just 3 years. The so my rep at the video company and this guy at this fast growing media company were talking about The Good Men Project.
And the media company head mentioned that The Good Men Project is one of the few media companies he has seen that has actually done what they set out to do. Everything GMP does reflects the brand—from the content they run to the partners they work with, to their ads and sponsored content. He remarked how we are truly are changing the conversation about men. He also said something interesting, that we do a great job of running liberal content without alienating the conservative side—something he knows from experience very difficult, if not almost impossible. And he concluded by saying “GMP does many things right.”
And the interesting thing about that—to me, is the perception that we run content that is seen as “liberal” but don’t alienate those who are more “conservative”. It has, in fact, been a part of our strategy since early on, and is something we are always striving to do—even on these calls—and I want to talk about that a little. We have certain core values—for example, no sexism, racism or homophobia—and yet part of what we try to figure out is how do we create change with people who ARE sexist, racist or homophobic. Because it seems to me that if you alienate people too far, you will simply drive them out of the conversation, and then they will go off and form their own groups that may sometimes turn into hate groups. And that is counterproductive. So this is something we DO actively work on.
I want to talk about change — change is hard because so many people fear change. They fear change, I think, because it is not just the outside world that is changing—but as things change, who you are at your core changes too. Change changes us. And that is scary.
And becoming more open-minded requires change.
The other thing is we really try NOT to engage in name-calling. There was an short post on Seth Godin’s blog about name-calling, and he sees it the same way I do. So I’ll read you a short part of his post:
When we call someone misogynist or racist or sexist or a capitalist, a socialist or an abstract expressionist, what are we hoping for? Every one of us is on the ‘ist’ spectrum, so the label becomes meaningless. Meaningless labels are noise, noise that lasts.
Instead—Seth Godin suggests, think about this question: “What would happen if the behavior stopped?”
If that person stopped acting like a _____ist, what would change? Because if there’s nothing we want to change, the labeling is useless. And if there’s a change that needs to be made, let’s talk about what it is.
And I think this is something we have always strived for at The Good Men Project — trying to envision the world as we want it to be, and working towards creating that type of world together with other like-minded people.
I’d like to open it up for discussion now.
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Jed Diamond: I resonate a lot with what was said here. Very few companies are able to grow their business but also able to keep their core values and core connections that were there from the start. Also, calls like this where we can meet and greet others are also unique in that process. I really like that at Good Men Project, we are able to embrace the larger community without shaming and blaming and without making other people feel bad for who they are.
Dan Gordon: I participate in men’s groups and I’d like to share a story that gives some context for why. For boys, around the age of 6 it becomes clear that they cannot live life emotionally as they once did. At age 6 they have to turn down their emotional volume. When we talk about change—I think it’s important to give context because men want that closeness. But because the breath and depth of their emotions got turned down, it often gets turned into a more physical experience for men.
Mark Sherman: I’m pleased at the idea that we have a liberal viewpoint without angering the conservatives. One reason may be simply that there are not many sites on the internet that talk about men and talk about men sympathetically. Often sites don’t talk about men sympathetically if they even talk about men at all. But I’d also like to note that I think we should be careful of placing value judgments about how people treat their emotionality. I have a friend who has a son and a daughter, and the daughter doesn’t share much, but the son does. If someone says, “I don’t want to talk about that,” I think we should respect that.
Matt Sweetwood: I am somewhat conservative, and I’d like to state that I am not at all racist or sexist or homophobic and I think we should be careful about implying that conservatives are those things. I’ve also broken traditional stereotypes—I raised 5 kids by myself as a single father. I also agree that we should continue to talk about the multi-dimensionality of men and that will ultimately drive the popularity of the site.
Rick Gabrielly: Not a day goes by that I don’t hear a positive reference to the Good Men Project. I get rave reviews from both men and women. It is especially warming to my heart when I hear women complimenting what we are doing.
Mike Patrick: I don’t believe being a good man has anything to do with being a liberal or conservative—it has more to do with being progressive, and being open to change. Part of it too is that before GMP, it seems that good men were never talked about. We need to highlight more of the goodness of men.
Kozo Hattori: I like the idea of progressive to describe what we are doing, because it ties right into this notion of change. Some people are resistant to change and to change their identity. But the truth is, nobody can say their identity hasn’t changed—you were once a baby that couldn’t talk so your entire identity has obviously changed. Even the definition of “good man” has changed over time. It used to be that doing things which are now seen as sexist or racist in another time period were seen as a part of being a good man. It’s this idea of change that makes being a good man a moving target. Back in the 50’s, being a good man was defined by Mad Men stuff—financial support, being stoic, reserved. Now it’s all about empathy and compassion—and caring for the planet, you can’t be a good man without caring for the planet.
Jed Diamond: I like this idea of acknowledging the changing nature of goodness without blaming or shaming others. What we understood to be a good man in the 1950’s—were not necessarily “bad men”. In today’s time, we need men who are more connected to their children, more connected to others, more connected to the planet. The dialogue and the conversations are expanding.
Thaddeus Howze: The idea of a good man might have changed geo-temporally, but it’s important to understand that the media creates what is important. And the economic reality of the time creates what the media sees as important. It’s not that environmental issues weren’t important during the 1950’s—the people who believed that became the hippies of the 1960’s. Profit has always driven the engine of what we care about. But the kind of change we want to see is one where the values ultimately improve the species, improve the planted and help each other accomplish our goals.
Maria Keckler: I’m new, but getting on calls like this get me even more excited. The ideas that are being shared today seem to me to center around the idea of bridge-building—especially in that we are building bridges to people who have not been open to change.
Manuel Solis: As a new contributor at The Good Men Project it has been an absolute privilege in hearing every one of you. I heard about Good Men Project and fell in love with the vision. What I have to contribute is often directed to young men—men who are so affected by social media, and in that social media the idea of how to be a better man is constantly changing. At the end of the day, we each have to decide the type of man we want to be.
Mark Sherman: I’d like to talk about preferring the word “progressive” over “liberal” I agree it means changing in a positive way. However, I am a little concerned with the “traditional progressives” (and I know that sounds like an oxymoron) – particularly when it comes to boys and men. When I look at the data, there is need of attention and concern for this group. And I hope the word “progressive” will soon be concerned with how boys are progressing. To be concerned about boys and men IS progressive.
Ashley Michelle Fowler: I’d like to first welcome the new contributors. And Mark Sherman, I’d like to offer you an olive branch of hope. I work on a college campus, and people are doing dedicated men’s work—myself included. To Thaddeus’ talk which was so eloquent, I just want to say that looking at things from a macro-level can be overwhelming, but that at some point all of us here have decided we can affect change in some way. And I just don’t want to lose site of the micro-level as well—sometimes it is a conversation off to the side with one person that can change me.
Sandy Weiner: I’m a dating coach for women and part of my passion is brining to women an understanding of men. We look through one lens which is ours, and I think that by opening up that lens the understanding could be much greater. I’m a divorced mom who has 3 children with a son in the middle who is now 24. He is one of the most evolved men I have ever met. Thoughtful, conscious of how he speaks, concerned with women, with everyone. He’s a musician, artist. There definitely is hope.
Kozo Hattori: I’d like to add onto Ashley Marie’s point with this saying: “Never underestimate the effect that one positive change may have.” Also, I’d like to bring up the idea of “righteousness”—if men are not righteous the land is going to die and so are we. Right here, right now—how we treat others, children and land. That is ancient wisdom, but it is more relevant today than ever.
Thaddeus Howze: When is the last time you had an original thought? Many of us don’t realize that we do things that are pre-programmed for us. I’m not saying people aren’t responsible for what they do. But at some point, it is important to be “thinking about thinking”. Meta-cognition. For example, labels are easy to use. And that’s why it’s so important what we do as writers and media companies. It’s a grave responsibility.
Dixie Gillaspie: Once something has been planted in our brain, we can no longer unlearn it. We just put it in the attic and store it and know we disagree with it. So maybe it’s not so much about our own original thoughts—but our own original expression of those thoughts. And being conscious of, actively looking for those default settings.
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Lisa with an announcement: One of the big pushes for us as a business is to kick off the Premium Membership program and really scale that up. One thing we’ve found is that people really want to be a part of a community—-something meaningful. And in order to be a part of what is meaningful here at The Good Men Project—you can’t just read all the content we have but you have to participate in some way. In fact, we’ve called it “participatory media”. It’s so different than the old-fashioned media companies that figured out what they wanted to tell the world and did so in a very structured way. And so—there are a lot of ways you can participate. You can write posts and stories and articles for us. You can comment on our website or one of our many FB pages. You can go deeper in on fB to our writers group. You can join in Twitter chats. Or our storytelling events. You can join in these calls. You can become an Editor, or a member of our leadership team. We now have 35 Editors from around the globe, and 7 people on our leadership team. There are many ways you can participate. And so one of the things we are going to do is to allow that deeper participation not just to people who contribute, but for those willing to pay for membership. And what we hope is that this will allow us to have a deeper, wider, more engaged, community.
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Photo: John Mayer / flickr
“At age 6 they have to turn down their emotional volume….” That is a very interesting insight….I learn a lot from this site…I am trying to learn how to be a better parent to my 14 yo son, a better partner to my husband, and a better friend to my male friends….different tribes behave differently….when I relay certain stories on different FB groups, I get different responses…in my all female FB group, it is a different dynamic…. It seems a bit tragic and restrictive that men may sometimes feel that it is easier to express anger and violence in a… Read more »
Don’t underestimate the importance of good language skills in conveying credibility and respect. For me the fact that the blog is written in good (often lyrical) English, proper grammar without slang, urbanisms or too many abbreviations makes it a pleasure to read, and that opens my mind to the ideas conveyed therein. It’s a bit like how you’re more likely to listen to someone who is well presented. Of course the underlying ethos is great too!