Frederick Marx prefers to look at what is noble and good about being a man.
I don’t want to define men and masculinity in terms of doing right by women. I want socially conscious men to take the lead in defining men and masculinity in our own terms.
I grew up a feminist in a household dominated by a powerful Mom and an older sister. My father died when I was 9. The culturally derived nonsense that my uncle bequeathed me at the funeral a few days later –“Freddy, you’re the man of the house now.” — kickstarted my lifelong quest to define masculinity meaningfully.
Feminism, gender equality and fairness all made implicit sense to me, along with all other forms of social justice — race, religion, sexual preference, class. But in lessons I learned during adolescence from my Mom, like “You need to learn how to be a good husband to your wife,” there was always an implicit if not overt tone of shame. My mother and sister never missed an opportunity to recount parts of the endless list of male crimes against women and girls, against humanity in general — the crimes of patriarchy. Were these statements accurate? Yes. Was I somehow to blame for them? No. Yet I was made to feel that I was somehow to blame by virtue of being born male.
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In college I read Susan Brownmiller. “[Rape] is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.” I also read numerous other feminists. Partly due to this education in feminism, partly because I projected the worst aspects of my father on to Type A straight males, I shrank from powerful men from my teens through my 30s. I unconsciously sought the company of women, gay men, intellectual men, and “weaker” straight men – projecting on to them an emotional openness, vulnerability, and flexibility I didn’t sense in Type A straight males. But the true bottom line was this — I unconsciously feared any man remotely hyper-masculine. I labeled them as “macho” and dismissed them.
But the true bottom line was this — I unconsciously feared any man remotely hyper-masculine. I labeled them as “macho” and dismissed them. That was the legacy of masculinity I carried until I was 40.
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That was the legacy of masculinity I carried until I was 40. In the last 16 years that has changed. I now see weakness and strength in every man I meet, I see fragile, tender hearts in the toughest of men, I accept gruff and inarticulate speech as openly as I do professors’, I see unlimited capacities for love and caring among incarcerated murderers, corporate executives, soldiers, policemen, corner drug dealers, plumbers and roofers… even (and this is the greatest challenge) politicians. I have a much greater understanding and acceptance of how men can be wounded and harmed by women, including by domestic violence, I appreciate how divorce and paternity laws can hurt men as much or more than women. Just as women have been objectified and marketed to, I now see how men’s physical and psychological differences are also marketed as “flaws” that need “fixing” by doctors, medicines, and an unlimited array of products. To some extent, men are also “objects” of history. But saying that patriarchy also screws men is not news.
♦◊♦
Though I’ll do my best to combat all forms of crimes against women I’ll not accept personal responsibility for any act I myself did not commit.
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Though I’ll do my best to combat all forms of crimes against women I’ll not accept personal responsibility for any act I myself did not commit. Though I’ll be there to support any woman as best I can through whatever suffering she may have received at the hands of men, I’ll not take it on emotionally as my own. I will recognize whatever systems privilege me as a white American heterosexual male but I will sharply delineate what is institutional and cultural privilege and culpability from what is personal or interpersonal privilege and culpability. I will not accept personal blame, guilt or shame for 1000s of years of women’s past and ongoing suffering.
Now that I’m unafraid of “measuring up,” I delight in the company of the entire rainbow of human male expression, in whatever context I may find men. Now that I’m less afraid of conflict, I’ll confront men when I think they’re being aggressive. Now that I don’t fear my own tears I can fall more easily into the arms of another man and cry. Now that I don’t criticize my own love of sports I can accept sports on its own terms, rather than seeing them as mindless escapes from real world issues. Now that I don’t take on shaming energy from others and I’m more averse to times when I shame myself my own heart is more open and available to both men and women.
What I will accept is the responsibility to be the greatest man I can be -– to stand with both men and women to resist all forms of sexism and misogyny, to resist sexual abuse and violence against women wherever and whenever it occurs, to resist all lingering forms of exploitation and discrimination against women, to do all this and more. But I will do it not because it’s the right thing to do but because it is part of what is great and noble about being a man.
♦◊♦
What I will accept is the responsibility to be the greatest man I can be -– to stand with both men and women to resist all forms of sexism and misogyny, to resist sexual abuse and violence against women wherever and whenever it occurs, to resist all lingering forms of exploitation and discrimination against women, to do all this and more. But I will do it not because it’s the right thing to do but because it is part of what is great and noble about being a man.
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When I read articles in feminist men’s magazines I feel a haranguing tone. Is there some mother projection going on here? Probably. My mother’s tone was similar. But I don’t think it’s all projection.
Some articles just feel haranguing: “Do this because it’s right. Do this because it’s just. Do this because you should. Do this because it’s good for women.” None of these reasons are wrong of course. But it’s not just an issue of tone. They’re incomplete. They end up speaking to only half of why we as men should join these worthy battles.
The other half, the missing half, is why engaging these battles will serve me and my growth as a man. Why it will help me understand my own limitations and my own greatness. Why it will support me in my mission in life. Why it will link my heart with other hearts. Why it will fulfill me and make me happy. It’s personal rather than political. It’s poetic rather than polemical. It’s psychological rather than sociological. It’s mythic and archetypal and soulful rather than mundane and professional and altruistic.
I want to be invited to live up to my greatest potential, not scolded. I want to be called to my greatness, not made to feel somehow insufficient. I want to be inspired to be that righteous, worthy Knight I’ve always wanted to be, and I want to be celebrated for the heroic measures I already take and will take more of. In Good Men Project, in fact in all “men’s work,” I want to experience some joy at arriving at the future I am co-creating – the joy at recognizing I can and will “Be all I can be” – and have that be as palpable and powerful a motivating energy as the plea, however virtuous, to do the right thing.
Emma Goldman, one of my adolescent heroes, famously said, “If I can’t dance I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” I feel the same. If I and all my brothers can’t delight in the men of honor we are now and are still becoming, if we can’t celebrate and be celebrated for the highest virtues of masculinity we demonstrate, if we can’t revel in something sacred that binds us together as men, if we can’t define ourselves meaningfully as men without the necessity to include women in that definition, then what can we be? What will we be?
♦◊♦
Women started and to some degree have succeeded at the feminist revolution. I believe men should not define themselves through that revolution. We need to make our own.
To me that means finding a third way. It doesn’t mean patriarchy revisited. It doesn’t mean opposition to patriarchy rehashed. It means accepting the challenge to create new forms of masculinity. Forms that maybe some samurais understood, that maybe some Knights of the Round Table understood, that maybe some warrior monks and priests understood, that maybe the Dalai Lama and Bishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King and Ghandi and Harvey Milk and Malcolm X understood: Men finding the greatest fulfillment in life, the greatest realization for their potential as men, doing service to the realm, fighting for justice, aiming squarely for more harmony and good on the planet.
I call all men my brothers. I stand shoulder to shoulder with all men. But my heart calls out to those men who find that righting social wrongs need not be done because it’s the right thing to do but because it fulfills their greatest potential as men. That is the great beauty in masculinity. I stand tallest when I stand with those men.
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photo: hohumhobo / Flickr
Feminism Its a zero sum game, we live in a finite planet, 1st law of thermodynamics energy can only be converted not made, cake cannot get bigger
Thanks for this insightful article but I disagree. It is a zero sum game and feminists made it so.
I am so enjoying all of this discussion. I have six brothers and two male children.
I think the point of all the collective historical feminism stuff, from the Suffragette era to now; the “taking responsibility” thing is predicated on this:
>> Men listen to other men.
>> This is cultural to some degree. American. Not European, not indigenous culture.
First of all, the plural of “samurai” is not “samurais”. It’s a loan word from Japanese, which has no plural forms. Secondly, thank you for the article, although I have grave misgivings about ascribing gender to virtues and this kind of bombastic sentiment has always rung hollow in my ears. Your description of being blamed my your mother resonates with my own experience, although in my case it extended to being physically and emotionally abused by female social workers in the employ of the public school system (not all of them, obviously, but the vast majority were abusive. I specify… Read more »
What frustrates me most when I read articles about male priv on feminist websites is that they rarely (if ever) actually use any evidence to back up a claim. In fact a number of times they link to stats and studies that actually disprove their own theory. The gender wage gap is a prime example of this. Unfortunately of course any discourse is quickly shot down with the claim that you are a mansplainer. I have read a few definitions for this word and imho, the way people use the word, never fits the definition. Most of the time it… Read more »
This is a very well-written piece. I’m glad you pointed out that patriarchy harms men. It harms us all. It would behoove feminists and all people working for a more equal society to remember that and to forefront that truth more often. “I want to be invited to live up to my greatest potential, not scolded. I want to be called to my greatness, not made to feel somehow insufficient.” These lines really made me think. I don’t believe the intention of feminism is to make anyone feel insufficient because of their gender, but I can certainly see how feminist… Read more »
@Rebecca Bloom Cohen: “I don’t believe the intention of feminism is to make anyone feel insufficient because of their gender” IMHO, the problem with this attitude is thinking “MY feminism is THE feminism” (it can happen within any movement or group, of course). It’s thinking that reality at large reflects my own reality. It often doesn’t. Just reading many comments here, it’s obvious that some feminists want to make men feel insufficient, “not good enough”. Beware I said “some feminists”, not all feminists. When something is part of our world, our belief system, we tend to defend it and being… Read more »
Amen Sister Rebecca Cohen! The irony is what prompted my article in the first place is a feminist MEN’s magazine VOICE MALE.
“I’m glad you pointed out that patriarchy harms men.”
The author said nothing of the sort.But thanks for pointing out how feminism hurts all men.
What I found to be a zero sum equation was the lack of due process for men in the courts and pure siding with women via policies and procedures
directly in contravention to written law.
(administrative law)
This is the real club being used on men,the shaming language just keeps us from talking about it.
Frederick, bravo!!! 🙂
This is by far the best piece I’ve read here about the gender issue!
I deeply agree with most of you said, and I feel inspired by your beautiful and powerful words.
Anonymously Annoyed and TRW,
I find much of what you write worth responding to, and in some detail. But I’m going to cut to the chase and ask the question that most burns in me: Where are you going with the anger you carry?
I dearly hope you are finding safe places (maybe online is one of them!) to discharge it safely so that it doesn’t come to endanger yourself or others. I’m truly concerned.
Not that there is anything wrong with anger, expressing anger in healthy ways that don’t harm anyone is perfectly normal, my pmost comes from a place of frustration and bewilderment that we live in a society that views men as nothing more than beasts of burden, only valued by what you can get out of them, be it money, labour or self-sacrifice. I appreciate your concern, but rest assured, I’m not beating up my wife or anyone for that matter. One thing I can never understand, and maybe I’m answering my own question because you’re a male feminist, but why… Read more »
“But I’m going to cut to the chase and ask the question that most burns in me: Where are you going with the anger you carry?”.
Code Red. Yawn.
It’s not about being a zero sum game…it’s about men having the deck stacked against them and feminism claiming to be an equality movement when it clearly isn’t. Feminism doesn’t want the deck stacked against them, they don’t want a level playing field, they want the rules of the game to benefit them and only them. If something benefits a man, it must be changed so that it benefits women (gender quotas in work, lower physical standards to be police officer/fireman). If a law or policy benefits women, great! If it benefits women at the expense of men, even better… Read more »
Why then do feminists in power consistently call for quotas, women-only this and that. I think you know the answer to this, but in the interests of not having you play coy, I’ll spell it out for you. When we enact things like quotas to effect an “equality of outcome” rather than of opportunity, it impacts men in a negative way that can only be zero-sum. If you want X% more women in positions of power (of course, it always has to be positions of power, because feminists aren’t clamoring to be construction workers or garbage collectors, a larger share… Read more »
Ah, the “sum of the game” confusion again.
Listen once and for all: it does not make ANY sense whatsoever to even speak about the “sum” of the feminism vs. men game. Such sum cannot possibly be computed. The so-called “sum of a game” is a mathematical function of the game’s rules, and can ONLY be reliably derived if the game is actually played BY the rules. This is however not the case here, because feminists constantly cheat.
“Though I’ll do my best to combat all forms of crimes against women I’ll not accept personal responsibility for any act I myself did not commit.” “I want to be invited to live up to my greatest potential, not scolded.” I thought the whole piece was great, but those two parts made me feel a little like Sally in the famous diner scene of When Harry Met Sally. (Not so much the fake arousal part, but the yes, yes, yes part.) I find the concept of privilege useful to describe perks of membership that some in-group are barely aware of,… Read more »
Please read the linked kotaku piece on nerd privilige. This is symptomatic. I grew up in the eighties when there was hell to pay for being into computers. Where were all the feminists so intent on paving the way for women during those days? As far as I remember they were standing with the bullies laughing. Somehow however now 20 years later when computers and comics is hip and cool, then suddenly women have never wanted anything other than equal access and non-discrimination. This does not fly. You can’t kick the jester and except him to be lenient when he… Read more »
This is a wonderfully written piece. It almost made me cry 🙂 I am very glad you no longer feel guilty. I look forward to a world where more people think in the same vein that you do.
Oi, and I’m sorry your mother and sister made you feel guilty. Thats just… miserable. And wrong.
My apologies. GMP has now posted above two versions of the same response from me.
Why apologize? Gratitude Is never wasted! P^)
Thanks men. I’m always heartened when something which has lived inside of me for a long time touches others. It’s a no-brainer to me that as a white heterosexual American born man I inherit a lot of privilege in this world. Racism, sexism, imperialism, homophobia are the dominant historical narratives of the planet. Sure, my personal narrative is a small subset of those narratives. But do I have to take on personally and emotionally what is a cultural and institutional inheritance? No. It’s the difference between being responsible FOR something and being responsible TO something. When another man rapes a… Read more »
Dear Mr Marx I found your piece most interesting and evocative. You have evidently enshrined the examples of men such as Ghandi, King and Tutu in your heart. They all have one one thing in common, they talked and walked the walk as they talked. It’s that unification of ideal and intent that is so fulfilling and liberating. Isaac Newton said “If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants”. You are evidently a Giant who is happy to provide others with a better camera angle and view point. Should you ever need a… Read more »
Yes it is, otherwise it would have been called humanism.
Thanks men. This has been an issue sitting in me for some time. I’m glad to see it has resonance outside myself. To me it’s a fairly simple notion that as a white heterosexual American male I am afforded all kinds of privilege in a society that is racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. I can see how my personal narrative fits into bigger narratives. And as a striver for justice it’s important to me to address these issues head-on. But the difference lies in being responsible TO something vs. being responsible FOR something. I am responsible TO this world being unjust;… Read more »
Could you name this male privilege please.
I keep asking and nobody can ever tell me.
Just a sec DB, I’ll give you some articles you may (or may not) find interesting. Given the level of vitriol in your posts, I’m not sure you are asking this seriously, but I’ll offer the article to you. It might be helpful to look at privilege not in terms of male or female but in terms of systemic dynamics in place that put one group (in general the group, not necessarily individuals) higher than another group. Think of privilege as the water you swim in. You don’t see it but it makes it easier for you to move in… Read more »
I’m detecting a good deal of vitriol; from you. Why?
My ankles hurt from running 7 miles? I don’t know DB. Seems like there is vitriol to go around. One thing I’ve noticed is that it’s hard not to take the bait in either direction. Did you find my links interesting in any way?
Here in this post? This was a post designed to offer you information. No vitriol there. You keep posting about abuse in the other thread and haven’t answered my question about who you want modded. I’m trying to be helpful but I don’t know if I believe you actually want info. Very hard to read your tone DB.
You see nothing wrong with what you said to me? For example in the second sentence?
In the second sentence I remarked that I felt you’d shown some vitriol in other posts and I wasn’t sure that you meant the question seriously. What’s wrong with commenting about what I see? I didn’t call you a name, I didn’t accuse you of attacking me personally. I didn’t defame your family or threaten you. I really didn’t know if you meant the question seriously. Ive noticed what appears to me to be sarcasm and anger at feminism. You and I clearly disagree. If I was projecting that, then that’s on me, but I don’t think the second sentence… Read more »
In the first link a woman and a man have an argument about nothing much and as a result three men rush to attack the man. A clear example of female privilege. But I asked for an example of _male_ privilege. Everyone knows how much women are privileged. The 2nd link was to wikipedia article on white privilege. WHITE is not MALE, ok? Did I say “white”? No. I said male. The 3rd link — shocking I know — didn’t talk about what male privilege is either. You wouldn’t happen to be a feminist would you? And frankly the idea… Read more »
“You wouldn’t happen to be a feminist would you?” See that’s the vitriol I was talking about 😉 Or maybe it’s just sarcasm? Yep. An old school gal, liberal, humanist, all that good lefty stuff. I won’t bother you with it any more tho. “The 2nd link was to wikipedia article on white privilege. WHITE is not MALE, ok? Did I say “white”? No. I said male.” Wow, ok, did you read my post where I said I was gonna start with a different kind of priv? Just offering another option, no need to snap at me DB. I only… Read more »
I didn’t ask you if you were a liberal or a humanist or a lefty.
I am all those things which is why I oppose feminism.
I asked if you were a feminist.
And you did NOT try to engage in a nice way. You accused me of “vitriol” and then called me a troll. Remember? or is that how you do being nice?
However I enjoyed your company and etc. See you around.
Julie, I see no reason why I should ever accept arguments about “privilege” as they are never based in empirical evidence, and those that support the theory of privilege never conduct real social science research. Look at it this way: I once found a $5 bill on the ground. This makes me exactly $5 more privileged than anyone else who has never found a $5 bill on the ground. Yet there is no one out there trying to root out all the people who have ever been so lucky as to find a $5 bill and “Make them aware” of… Read more »
Lets take privilege at its face value: “the principle or condition of enjoying special rights or immunities.” We will take this a step further and say that extra economic benefit from personal choices, that others would not receive, is a ‘privilege’. From this we can define either having or NOT having children as a privilege, to the extent that members in certain groups receive more benefits than others in each choice. Then, might one consider being, pardon the term, ‘allowed’ to have progeny a male privilege? That childless women out-earn childless men is not, in and of itself, illuminating. The… Read more »
Gwen you realise — maybe you really don’t — that in our society men cannot choose to have a child? Men have no reproductive rights like all you women do. At best I suppose a man could try and adopt as a single male. Good luck with that. They’ll just call you a pedophile.
Just another female privilege you were unaware of — until I told you.
Btw if you ever think of a male privilege please feel free to tell me.
Or anybody.
Now THAT was a lovely piece of “mansplaining”. 🙂
I think the story how the concept of “white” privilege came about is interesting. Peggy McIntosh (A Radical Feminist) came up with it coz she had real trouble convincing her male collegues that they had “male” privilege
Hey Julie, you want “vitriol”, go re-read the classic works of Andrea Dworkin, Catherine McKinnon, Marilyn French, and for good measure, Andy Warhol’s putative assassin, Society-to-Cut-up-Men, Valerie Solanas. I wish I could say these represented the fringe extremists of the movement, but the last time I attended a feminist lecture on a university campus, this entire philosophy of men-are-monsters and women-are-helpless-victims was still being promulgated as gospel truth. The exceptions are made, of course, if the man happens to be a man-of-color, then no matter what he does to a woman is fair game because to protest that means we’re… Read more »
funny how a movement that claims to be about equality constantly uses patronizing terms like “what abot the mens” and “mansplainin.'”
if it was about equality, it would be called Humanism or gender equality….
no one thinks White Power is about equality….
I am a strong believer in and supporter of equality.
That’s why I could never be a feminist.
Feminism is like wife’s lawyer in divorce case who tries to gain maximum assets for her client and leave most of the liabilities with husband. Yes, feminism vs. men is not zero-sum game, it is almost always negative. Everybody loses, but men lose the most.
“Ní h’iad pacaí an athair pacaí an mac”
“The sins of the father are not those of the son”
Well said 🙂 Barricades need stormin’
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Bravo sir! Bravo! I could sing your praise to the rafters! I could shout it from the rooftops! This is exactly what I have been feeling and thinking! I will promote gender equality, but I will not be held accountable for my father’s father’s father’s sins. I believe men and women are equal, but I will NOT take punishment for a crime I did not commit.
{Expletive} Hell Yeah!!!
I am not a Feminist I am a firm supporter of holistic humanity, Justice & Nobility for the sake of Nobility.
Thanks for sharing. I appreciate your valuable insight, and you hit the nail on the head. Feminism has this desire to diminish males, which is why it is so unpopular with women and men. I was raised to be a caretaker of and sacrifice for other people, not just women, not just men, not just young, not just old – people of all stripes. Feminism, by contrast, in my experience sees males only in the context of their wants. That is, what should be done for them by males, and what isn’t being done for them by males. Never what… Read more »
I wonder if a feminist raising a male child is an act of child abuse. It sounds like your mom and sister taught you in terms of feminism’s original sin. Being born male meant that you were guilty of all the sins of any man in history. You as a male were inherently full of sin. But more than that. As a male you were not just born into sin but inevitably you would be become an agent of evil because that’s all men can be. “[Rape] is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which… Read more »
No, he wasn’t being “blamed” for being born male. He was being told, by the one person whose job it was to raise him to BE a decent person, that women were people–AND that the rest of the world was going to tell him otherwise, overtly and covertly, in large and small ways. Also: there’s no such thing as “masculine virtues”. These things that have been called “masculine virtues” are simply what it takes to be a good adult. Of EITHER sex. It’s just that there are so many cultural lies about women having either NO adult virtues or “different”… Read more »
“That’s just another way of saying that all men are rapists of course.” I thoroughly don’t agree. And I think that assessment is shallow. Unworthy. Thought-less. Facetious. Juvenile. Defensive. I don’t know ANY woman who believes that all men are rapists. To point out racism, review historical events, have a conversation, to object, does not equate to saying that all Americans are racist. Or all Caucasians are racists. Or everybody hates minorities. Or that minorities hate white people. Or anything like that. Right? Obviously, there’s deeper philosophy and academic purpose to the original premise. You cannot just toss that off… Read more »