Voice Male Fall 2011

FROM THE EDITOR

Anita Hill Told the Truth

By Rob Okun

F

or those men who still don’t understand how other men can describe themselves as “male positive and pro-feminist” (as this magazine and a movement of men here and abroad do), look no further than what’s happened in the 20 years since Anita Hill testified that Clarence Thomas sexually harassed her when he was her boss at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The stakes couldn’t have been higher: it was October 1991 and Thomas, an African American, had been selected by George H.W. Bush to be a Supreme Court justice. For her part, though not auditioning for it, Hill was about to become the Fannie Lou Hamer of the gender justice movement. Her credentials?

She had the audacity to claim that Thomas had repeatedly sexually harassed her and testified to that effect in vivid and graphic detail. If the hearings had been held, say 10 years ago instead of 20, it is highly unlikely he would have been confirmed.

After a rushed three-day hearing over the Columbus Day weekend, the Senate confirmed Thomas by a vote of 52–48, the narrowest margin in a century. In the end, Hill won the larger victory—bringing the long sordid history of sexual harassment out of the closet and onto a televised, national stage. By speaking truth to power, Anita Hill put a crack in the wall of male privilege rivaling the one in the Liberty Bell.

Legions of women resigned to the idea that being sexually harassed was just the way life is found in Hill a dignified, graceful champion who in breaking her silence gave permission for other women to break theirs. In the weeks, months, and years that followed their stories

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came pouring out. Don’t believe me? Ask your grandmother, your aunt, your mother.

While a tiny number of women before Anita Hill had challenged their harassment, the overwhelming majority said nothing. If they reported the perpetrator they put their jobs, housing, and friendships at risk. Then came Anita Hill. Of course women are still being harassed—ask your sister or your daughter.

But things have changed. Because of Anita Hill. There are now strong laws against sexual harassment. Even though most of society does not—like a brightly lighted mall parking lot—continuously illuminate the dangers women and girls regularly face, it nonetheless no longer turns a blind eye.

When Anita Hill looked across the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing room at the beginning of her testimony, 14 white male senators looked back. It’s painful to recall the way many of them treated Hill, then a University of Oklahoma law professor (now a highly regarded professor at Brandeis University and an accomplished author). Rude. Demeaning.

Hostile. The way the bosses on Mad Men treat

Ask a woman who trusts you about her story of harassment and see if you don’t feel humbled, sad, and inspired by what women have had to carry—and still carry. the women who are their secretaries. That there are still men who “just don’t get it”—the rallying cry of women outraged at the obtuseness of the senators—and who think that it’s all better now, that men bear scant responsibility for how other men treat women, is a painful reminder of how much farther men have to go.

(And that begins with us, with me, in our own relationships, acknowledging the vestiges of privilege and entitlement that still hold sway.)

Maybe their journey to understanding would have been accelerated had they been in New York in mid-October to attend a conference called “Sex, Power and Speaking Truth: Anita Hill 20 Years Later.” They would have been in an audience of several hundred people when the memories came flooding back— made vivid as they watched a seven-minute clip from Julian Schlossberg’s documentary film about the hearings, Sex & Justice. They

would have recalled—or learned about—the national conversation about sexual harassment that began then, about the audacity of out of touch middle-aged senators unsuccessfully trying to ask questions without revealing their heterosexual male sexual fantasies.

Ask a woman who trusts you about her story of harassment and see if you don’t feel humbled, sad, and inspired by what women have had to carry, and still carry, ever vigilant for their safety from sexual harassment and sexual violence.

Watching the hearings women looked at the 14 white men on the Judiciary Committee and saw a boys’ club that “too easily dismissed Ms. Hill’s accusations and did not allow the testimony of other women who might have corroborated or helped buttress her account to prove a case of sexual harassment,” as The New York Times wrote in a 2008 story about the hearings. What might have happened if those witnesses had been allowed to testify?

At the center of the hearings, was Joe Biden, then chair of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Biden was accused of treating “Mr. Thomas too even-handedly” because of the racially charged nature of the hearings and not intervening forcefully enough when Ms. Hill was being, well, manhandled. Remember Thomas’s complaint that he was the victim of a “high-tech lynching”? The counterargument— which never got as much airtime—was Ms. Hill as victim of a modern-day witch hunt.

Now the vice president, in the ensuing two decades Biden has put women’s safety—from domestic violence to sexual assault—at the top of his list of political priorities. Among the strongest of advocates working to enact the Violence Against Women Act in 1994, earlier this year he took the lead in passionately urging America’s schools—from secondary through university—to do more to prevent sexual assault.

Joe Biden isn’t the only man to have grown over the past 20 years. His notoriety, though, can be an inspiration to others. He now better understands the truth of women’s lives than he did in 1991. Here’s the question for the rest of us: Do we?

Voice Male editor Rob Okun can be reached at rob@voicemalemagazine.org.

Fall 2011

Volume 15 No. 55

Changing Men in Changing Times www.voicemalemagazine.org

7

Features 8 The Guy’s Guide to Feminism

By Michael Kaufman and Michael Kimmel

10 Men Care: Inspiring Fathers Around the World

By Allison Floyd

14 Presidential Masculinity: Barack Obama and the Mythology of Black Men

By Dr. Charles Johnson

16 My Father’s Breast Cancer

By Laura Barron

10

20 Defining Masculinity in Our Own Terms

By Frederick Marx

21 On Being Male Positive and Pro-Feminist

By Michael Kimmel

24 Ending the SlutWars: Fight Rape, Not Each Other

By Shira Tarrant

28 To Find The Violence Within Just Step Outside

By Dan Griffin

Columns & Opinion 2 4 5 7 12 22 27 30

From the Editor

31 32

books

16

Letters Men @ Work Engaging Men

Challenging Violence Across the Globe By Vava Tampa

Gender in America

Equality Still Out of Reach to U.S. Women By Sarah Seltzer

Outlines

Queer Youth of Color Moving Beyond “Keep the Faith” By Sikivu Hutchinson

Men & Media

Is Men’s TV Protecting itself from Feminization?

Poetry

A Colored Leaf and Snow By Charlie Donaldson

22

Resources

ON THE COVER One of the many striking images found on the Men Care website: www.Men-Care.org

male positive • pro-feminist • open-minded Fall 2011

Staff

Mail Bonding

Rob A. Okun

is a gift subscription to him. I am hoping to be able to have some conversations with him based on some of the articles. Thank you for continuing to do this very important work.

Editor

Lahri Bond

Art Director

Michael Burke Read Predmore

The Rev. Dr. Qiyamah A. Rahman Director of Contextual Ministry Chicago, Ill.

Zach Bernard, Chelsea Faria, Allison Floyd, Herb Scribner

Swimming Upstream Together

Copy Editor

Circulation Coordinator

Interns

National Advisory Board Juan Carlos Areán

National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families and Communities

John Badalament The Modern Dad

Eve Ensler V-Day

Byron Hurt

God Bless the Child Productions

Robert Jensen

Prof. of Journalism Univ. of Texas

Sut Jhally

Media Education Foundation

Bill T. Jones

Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Co.

Jackson Katz

Mentors in Violence Prevention Strategies

Michael Kaufman

White Ribbon Campaign

Joe Kelly

Fathering Educator, The Emily Program

Michael Kimmel

Prof. of Sociology SUNY Stony Brook

Charles Knight

Other & Beyond Real Men

Don McPherson

Mentors in Violence Prevention

Mike Messner

When Ken Hit Barbie When I found an old copy of Voice Male recently, I was intrigued and impressed with the quality of the articles and the standpoint of the writers. I felt like many of the sports figures and some of the males were individuals that my son might listen to. He and his youngest sister spent the weekends in the shelter in Washtenaw County in the 1980s when I was doing my internship social work internship. I once found his sister and him playing with Ken and Barbie dolls at home. Ken hit Barbie and Barbie went to the battered women’s shelter. My son was in kindergarten then. He was not allowed to play with guns and he had an anatomically correct male doll that he played with. I had to explain why he could not take it to school. Others might not understand why he played with dolls.

I was, at one time, very involved with the battered women’s movement, served on the national steering committee of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, worked at the Georgia Advocates for Battered Women and Children and eventually headed up the Family Violence Program for the state of Georgia. I facilitated battered women’s support groups and worked with batterers for a year.

I have traveled to Ghana and South Africa conducting research on the issue of violence against women.

My son is now 31 and in the military. All my hard work with my son has not protected him from developing very macho socialization.

And while he is not a batterer he could easily become one because it is so prevalent in the military—and society in general. The magazine

As a 46-year-old woman who has been strongly “humanist” for about 27 years, what a relief to read writings from sane men who know the current system doesn’t work for any of us. I feel like I’m swimming upstream alone so much of the time and reading an issue of Voice Male straightens my shoulders. On the other hand, why should I thank you for doing the good work that all of us need to do? It’s like dishes: it’s still a big deal for some reason when men do them. So I’m caught between “The cavalry’s here!” and “Well, finally. Let’s get going.”

I call myself a humanist because I’ve known since college that the patriarchal system chews up and spits out people all along the gender spectrum. I couldn’t be just a feminist while watching my male friends struggle with the system, too. But we all know that there are ways that male privilege can work to change the system that women can’t access. Your work reaching out to men, as men, is something that women will never be able to do. So thank you. I welcome all men as fellow warriors, standing up together to work toward all of us being all we are capable of being. I’ve been borrowing issues for about a year and it’s time to put my money down to support you.

Karen Steward Montague, Mass.

Letters may be sent via email to www.voicemalemagazine.org or mailed to Editors: Voice Male, 33 Gray Street, Amherst, MA 01002.

Prof. of Sociology Univ. of So. California

E. Ethelbert Miller

African American Resource Center, Howard University

Craig Norberg-Bohm

Men’s Initiative for Jane Doe

Chris Rabb

Afro-Netizen

Haji Shearer

Massachusetts Children’s Trust Fund

Shira Tarrant

Prof. of Gender and Sexuality Studies, California State Long Beach

Voice Male

VOICE MALE is published quarterly by the Alliance for Changing Men, an affiliate of Family Diversity Projects, 33 Gray St., Amherst, MA 01002. It is mailed to subscribers in the U.S., Canada, and overseas and is distributed at select locations around the country and to conferences, universities, colleges and secondary schools, and among non-profit and non-governmental organizations. The opinions expressed in Voice Male are those of its writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the advisors or staff of the magazine, or its sponsor, Family Diversity Projects. Copyright © 2011 Alliance for Changing Men/Voice Male magazine.

Subscriptions: 4 issues-$28. 8 issues-$45. Institutions: $40 and $55. For bulk orders, go to voicemalemagazine.org or call Voice Male at 413.687-8171.

Advertising: For advertising rates and deadlines, go to voicemalemagazine.org or call Voice Male 413.687-8171.

Submissions: The editors welcome letters, articles, news items, reviews, story ideas and queries, and information about events of interest. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcomed but the editors cannot be responsible for their loss or return. Manuscripts and queries may be sent via email to www.voicemalemagazine.org or mailed to Editors: Voice Male, 33 Gray St., Amherst, MA 01002.

Men @ Work

The Rape Factory of Jordan Still Open It’s become known as the “rape factory” of Jordan.

“We only went to Jordan to earn money to help our families; we had no idea that factory managers would rape so many of us young girls,” said a young woman using the name Nazma to protect her identity.

Nazma is one of the dozens of Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi young women who have been sexually assaulted by supervisors at Classic Factory in northern Jordan, which makes clothes for American brands like Walmart, Target, and Macy’s.

A Classic supervisor was charged with rape and expected to go to trial earlier this fall. The Jordanian government promised that Anil Santha, the manager accused of rape, would not be allowed to return before the trial yet he was allowed back on the factory floor.

Target and Macy’s claimed that they were investigating conditions at the factory, but are deferring to the Jordanian Ministry of Economy and Labor—which has claimed there is no evidence of sexual abuse.

As of this writing Walmart, Target, and Macy’s were still buying Classic clothing.

In addition to imprisoning women inside the factory, managers had begun removing all the male workers—in some cases even deporting them— cutting the staff to older male supervisors and vulnerable young women.

“All we can do is cry,” Nazma said. “We ask the people who buy our garments, please end this abuse and torture we

Room at the Inn? Not if You’re Gay!

Ming Linsley and Kate Baker were denied holding their wedding reception by the Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville, Vermont.

Kate Baker and Ming Linsley are planning to marry in Vermont later this fall. But getting married as a gay couple isn’t always easy, even in a state where gay marriage is legal. After they got engaged, Ming’s mother, Channie, took the

lead in helping the couple find a venue for their reception.

At her request, the Vermont Convention Bureau (VCB) sent information about possible sites and the Wildflower Inn in Lyndonville was on the list. The

face. We should be able to work without fear of sexual assault.”

Outside pressure and attention can ensure that victims and witnesses are freed and can testify against their rapists; otherwise, the manager and supervisors will continue to imprison, assault, and rape girls and women with renewed impunity.

To s i g n a p e t i t i o n urging Walmart, Target, and Macy’s to force Classic Factory to free imprisoned victims and witnesses—and end its human rights abuses against women, go to: www.change.org/petitions/ tell-walmart-to-stop-rape-andtorture-of-young-women-in-itsfactories.

Voices Against Campus Violence Legislation is not enough to effectively combat sexual violence on college campuses.

Two national organizations— Security On Campus (SOC) and Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment (PAVE)—have Wildflower Inn said the inn would be the “perfect location” to host the reception.

A year ago Channie spoke by telephone with a representative of the inn to discuss details.

When the inn employee referred to “the bride and groom,” Channie corrected her, clarifying that there would be two brides.

A few minutes later, Channie received an email stating Kate and Ming were not welcome at the Wildflower Inn. “After our conversation,” the email read in part, “I checked in with my Innkeepers and unfortunately, due to their personal feelings, they do not host gay receptions at our facility.”

The Wildflower Inn, a multiroom resort offering a variety of recreational opportunities and vacation packages, claims on their website they are the “Four Seasons for Everyone.” But

partnered to sponsor the “Safe Campus, Strong Voices” national campaign. The campaign aims to prevent sexual assault, raise awareness of the underreporting of sexual crimes and empower students as bystanders.

The campaign was announced following the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination (SaVE) Act legislation introduced by Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and Patty Murray (D-WA) last April—and on the heels of new guidelines on campus sexual assault for schools receiving federal funds.

According to the proposed bill, between 20 and 25 percent of female students experience some form of sexual assault at an institution of higher education.

Nearly 3 percent of all women in college become victims of either attempted or completed rape each academic year. Less than 5 percent of these rapes, however, are reported to campus authorities or law enforcement.

Toolkits assembled by SOC and PAVE are components apparently “everyone” did not include Kate and Ming.

The Vermont Human Rights Law has prohibited public accommodations from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation for nearly 20 years. In October the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Vermont filed a complaint in Vermont Superior Court asking the court to declare the Wildflower Inn’s no-gayreceptions policy is illegal and to issue an injunction prohibiting the Wildflower Inn’s owners from continuing to enforce their discriminatory policy.

“When a business open to the public refuses to serve two people and their guests solely because the two people are a same sex couple,” the ACLU says, “it is no different than restaurants not serving individuals because they were black, or other businesses keeping out women or Jews. It is discrimination and it is illegal.”

Fall 2011

Men @ Work to the campaign and include educational handouts and DVDs students can use at awareness events, according to Melissa Lucchesi, SOC’s outreach education coordinator.

The campaign aims to change campus cultures to promote awareness about sexual assault and to encourage more open environments to report their occurrence.

“Eventually we’re hoping this campaign will become part of mandated education [if SaVE passes],” Lucchesi said. “We don’t want [sexual assault] just to be something that’s an issue for just survivors themselves or people who know survivors.

This is [everyone’s] issue.”

To learn more, go to www.

StrongVoicesCampaign.org or contact StrongVoices@securityoncampus.org.

Coaching Boys into Men Plans National Summit A “Coaching Boys into Men” national summit is being planned for 2012 convening partners and leaders from 20 communities with demonstrated

leadership in engaging men and boys in violence prevention.

Organizers include the Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention (wivp.waittinstitute.org/) and Futures Without Violence (www.futureswithoutviolence. org, formerly Family Violence Prevention Fund). The summit was announced at the Clinton Global Initiative.

According to organizers, the summit is being designed “to capture best practices and lessons learned, since the Coaching Boys into Men program (www.coachescorner.org) was launched in 2001. Coaching Boys into Men focuses on “guiding and inspiring athletic coaches to address issues of relationship violence and abuse” with their athletes. Supported by public service announcements, collateral materials, an online

toolkit, Playbook, and strategies and resources to help athletic coaches prevent gender-related violence, Coaching Boys into Men equips coaches to teach their athletes about respect for women and girls and that violence never equals strength.

“The reality is that men do care about ending violence against women and children and they are ready and willing to act,” said Cindy Waitt, president of the Waitt Institute for Violence Prevention. “Fathers, grandfathers, uncles, teachers, coaches, and mentors can play a crucial role in helping to prevent domestic and sexual violence in communities all around the globe.”

To find out how to bring Coaching Boys into Men to your community, visit www.

CoachesCorner.org.

DADS LOWER TESTOSTERONE SUGGESTS IMPORTANCE OF MALE PARENTING

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estosterone drops after a man becomes a father and the more he gets involved in caring for his children—from changing diapers, giving baths and reading bedtime stories—the lower his testosterone drops.

That was the conclusion reached by researchers who studied 600 men in the Philippines in the first large study measuring testosterone in men when they were single with no children and years after they had children (www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/ pnas.1105403108).

In a New York Times front page story published on September 13, experts report the research has implications for understanding the biology of fatherhood, hormone roles in men and even health issues like prostate cancer. “The real take-home message,” Peter Ellison, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard (and not involved in the study), told the Times, is that “male parental care is important. It’s important enough that it’s actually shaped the physiology of men.”

Still, Dr. Ellison added, “Unfortunately, I think American males have been brainwashed” to believe lower testosterone means that “maybe you’re a wimp, that it’s because you’re not really a man. My hope would be that this kind of research has an impact on the American male. It would make them realize that we’re meant to be active fathers and participate in the care of our offspring.”

“Humans give birth to incredibly dependent infants. Historically, the idea that men were out clubbing large animals and women were staying behind with babies has been largely discredited,” said Lee Gettler, an anthropologist at Northwestern University and co-author of the study, published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “The only way mothers could have highly needy offspring every couple of years is if they were getting help.”

Voice Male

Experts say the new testosterone study could offer insight into men’s medical conditions, particularly prostate cancer. Higher lifetime testosterone levels increase the risk of prostate cancer, just as higher estrogen exposure increases breast cancer risk.

In the new study, said Christopher Kuzawa, a co-author and Northwestern anthropologist, having higher testosterone to start with “actually predicted that they’re more likely to become fathers,” possibly because men with higher testosterone were more assertive in competing for women or appeared healthier and more attractive. But regardless of initial testosterone level, after having children, the hormone plummeted.

Scientists say this suggests a biological trade-off, with high testosterone helping secure a mate, but reduced testosterone better for sustaining family life.

Many questions remain. Does testosterone, which appeared to decline most steeply in fathers during their child’s first month, rebound as children become older and less dependent? How often do levels fluctuate?

The lowering of their testosterone did not prevent the men in the study from having more children. “You don’t need a lot of testosterone to have libido,” Dr. Kuzawa said.

“If guys are worried about basically, ‘Am I going to remain a guy?’ ” said Dr. Carol Worthman, an anthropologist at Emory University (also not involved in the study), “we’re not talking about changes that are going to take testosterone outside the range of having hairy chests, deep voices and big muscles and sperm counts. These are more subtle effects.”

For more information, go to www.pnas.org, website of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Engaging Men

Challenging Violence Across the Globe

By Vava Tampa Born in the Congo, where over 5.4 million have died from what has been described as the “world’s most lethal conflict since World War II,” and “the worst humanitarian tragedy since the Holocaust,” Vava Tampa uses what he describes as the transformative power of story to challenge, inform and entertain audiences on key issues of the day.

Her story changed the aims and objectives of my life. We have dozens of teenage girls in my family, and I could not imagine what we would do if this had happened to us. On that day, because of that girl, I made a decision to use all of my strength and conviction to make sure that neither her experience nor her voice would go unnoticed or unheard. I made a decision to fight for the rights of women as long as I live, so that women and girls might be safe to rowing up, I do not recall having ever thought deeply about walk the streets of Ituri, Kiwanja, and Masisi without the fear of equality of the sexes.When friends ask, why I work for being raped.

Save the Congo, I always responded I became an activist by I am a V-Man (a man challenging violence) because of this 13accident; and remained one out of necessity. Never in my wildest year-old child. I am a V-Man because in my beloved Congo an dreams did I imagine that I would become a foot soldier in the cause average of 48 women and girls are raped every hour of every day. I of justice and human dignity. The fact that men and women were am a V-Man because, in the 21st century, when millions of females not treated equally did not in Africa are subjected to occur to me as a boy. sexual mutilation, I refuse The first time that I to allow my own children began to realize the degree and grandchildren to of inequality between grapple with the same fate. the sexes was the day I I am a V-Man because found my aunty weeping I want my daughter and hysterically after my uncle my niece to enjoy rights, died. I was six years old. freedom and opportunities Her husband had just on the same scale allowed been buried and this poor to my son and nephew. I lady had been chucked am a V-Man because of out of her house with her Dr. Denis Mukwege, who, kid, with nothing but the beneath the cloud of wars, clothes on their back and insecurity, and inhumanity, what they could carry. has been working day This was when I learned and night to surgically that tradition entitled a and emotionally rebuild husband’s birth family to women whose insides all of his possessions after Women and girls must be safe to walk the streets of the Congo without the fear of being raped. were blown apart by rifle death, while guaranteeing no blasts and whose bodies now leak uncontrollable streams of urine inheritance for women. My aunty lost everything, even those things and feces. Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel once said: “. . . there may that had belonged to her. be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must This was shocking enough, and the more I learned, the worse I never be a time when we fail to protest.” That is the credo I live by. felt. Women in Congo need written permission from their husbands My motto is very simple: do what you can with what you have, before they can be employed. This has been the case since the where you are, right now. The way I see it, the human family will country gained independence in 1960. Mobutu, who was in power gain its true dignity only when women are honored, protected, and for 32 years—before being chased out of the country in his pajamas seen for what they are: the fountain of life itself. in 1997—said Congolese women were so beautiful that they must Vava Tampa is the founding director of Save the Congo, a not-forbe driven everywhere (thus preventing women from driving). And profit and non-political global campaigning organization working they were so special they were forbidden from lifting anything that to raise awareness of the human tragedy weighed more than five kilograms which, of course, precluded most overwhelming the Congo. A version of this article appears on the VMen page of Vday.org, forms of employment.

My biggest wake-up call came in 2007. I ran across a story of the global activist organization playwrighta girl from the Kivus in eastern Congo who had been gang raped. activist and Voice Male national advisory board After the ordeal, the perpetrators shoved a corn cob inside her, which member Eve Ensler created to end violence caused her to develop a fistula. It was the first time that I learned against women and girls. To reach Vava on the meaning of fistula. She was 13 years old. Thirteen! I could not Twitter go to @VavaTampa or contact him at www.savethecongo.org.uk . believe it.

G

Fall 2011

• The Guy’s Guide to Feminism • The Guy’s Guide to Feminism • The Guy’s Guide to Feminism •

By Michael Kaufman and Michael Kimmel

A minister, a rabbi, and an imam were having a coffee.

The imam said, “This sounds like the beginning of a bad joke.”

The minister said, “We’re all the children of Abraham.”

The rabbi said, “Yes, but which of his wives?”

The imam said, “Is that why feminists are so angry?”

The minister said, “What do you mean?”

The imam said, “They’re angry at us for several millennia of bad things that men have done.”

The minister said, “I like to tell my flock that women aren’t angry. They’re just insistent.”

The rabbi said, “What’s so wrong about a little anger? Imagine the world from their perspective.”

At that moment another friend, a Buddhist monk, arrived. They told him what they were talking about. The monk said, “See the world from women’s perspective? Well, let me start: How would you feel if every time you went out on a date, you worry you could join the one in four women who’d been sexually assaulted?”

The rabbi said, “Or what if there were people who wanted to make it illegal for you to have control over your own reproductive system?”

The imam said, “Or if you earned less for doing the same work as a man?”

The minister said, “If half the human race felt it was entitled to stare at your body or make comments about your breasts.”

“And then, if you get angry, they accuse you of being a lesbian—” “—as if that were a crime—” “—or say how pretty you are when you’re angry.”

The four men thought about this for a moment.

“And it gets worse,” said the minister. “Imagine that you start speaking out against these daily injustices and people start telling you to lighten up. Stop taking things so seriously. It’s only a joke.”

The rabbi said, “I wouldn’t just be angry. I’d be ballistic.”

It was Friday, and the imam soon went off to Friday prayers.

“Anger,” he said to the worshippers, “is a rational response to

Voice Male

injustice. Anger can be a healthy emotion to feel, an expression that something is wrong.”

The next morning at Sabbath services, the rabbi said, “Anger can be a motivating force, an impulse to get up off your heinie and do something, to at least say this inequality is not okay.”

That afternoon, the monk said to those he had meditated with, “The problem isn’t anger, it’s finding appropriate ways to express it.

Perhaps only by expressing it can we ever let it go.”

The next morning in his sermon, the minister told his congregants, “Anger can also be coupled with a desire to change things. It can carry a belief that things can change for the better.

Resigned despair is what happens when you don’t think you can change things. Anger can mean hope.”

On Monday, the four men got together again for a coffee. They were joined by another friend, a Hindu priest.

The priest said, “But you’re not saying that anger is the main thing that these feminists feel.”

Now, this coffee shop had a waiter who’d been serving perfect cups of coffee for years. He’d heard the men talking the previous week and now heard this exchange. He’d often had this very discussion about women’s anger with his girlfriend, so when the priest asked whether anger was the main thing feminists felt, he didn’t hesitate to jump in.

“Excuse me,” he said, “but when a woman feels angry, perhaps she is most angry that she has to feel anything but love and trust and how it feels to be an equal in the world.”

The minister, rabbi, imam, monk, and priest nodded sagely to each other.

And that is no joke.

• The Guy’s Guide to Feminism • The Guy’s Guide to Feminism • The Guy’s Guide to Feminism •

The Mad Hatter perched his cup of tea on a giant toadstool and said, “Now, Alice, we need to discuss men’s rights.”

Alice said, “Don’t you mean women’s rights? Aren’t women the ones who’ve gotten the short end of the stick?”

The Mad Hatter clicked a finger on one of his long front teeth.

“Sad, so sad. You’ve been brainwashed like the rest of them.”

“By whom?”

“Feminists, of course. You see, the tables have turned.”

“Here, through the looking glass?”

“No, Alice, everywhere.”

Before she could reply, the Mad Hatter put on his reasonable voice. “These days, my dear, men are the true victims of gender discrimination. All those poor men who have to pay child support when maybe they didn’t even want the kid in the first place. All those millions of men who are falsely accused of rape. All those affirmative action programs where women take away our jobs. All those divorced men who don’t get custody of their own flesh and blood. All those boys discriminated against at school while girls get ahead—why, at this rate there will be no males at university in ten or twenty years.”

Alice started getting that strange, tumbling, disoriented feeling again. Up was down, and black was white.

“I do feel bad, sir,” said Alice, “when either a man or a woman gets a raw deal when they’re divorcing. That does happen. But the overwhelming majority of divorcing couples get the custody arrangements they say they want.”

“Tut, tut.”

“And sir,” she said, “false charges of sexual assault do occur, and it is terrible, but they are very rare, likely only 5 percent, compared to 95 percent of reported cases (and many unreported ones) that are true.”

The Mad Hatter sipped his tea.

“And sir,” she said, “don’t you think it’s every parent’s responsibility to support their children whether they have custody or not?”

The Mad Hatter studied his nails.

“And,” said Alice, “what makes you think those are ‘your’ jobs anyway?”

The Mad Hatter smiled.

“And the education system you say discriminates against boys is exactly the same one that only boys used to succeed at. Only now, girls are also doing well while a lot of boys appear lost in a strange land of video games.”

The Mad Hatter said, “Once again, you are so confused. I tell you, we need men’s rights.”

Alice said, “Mr. Hatter, here’s a word riddle for you. It was the motto of a 19th-century pioneer of feminism, Susan B. Anthony.

She said, ‘Men, their rights and nothing more. Women, their rights and nothing less.’”

Excerpted from The Guy’s Guide to Feminism by Michael Kaufman and Michael Kimmel. Available from Seal Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright 2011. http:// guysguidetofeminism.com/ Voice Male contributing editors Michael Kaufman and Michael Kimmel are two of the leading profeminist figures promoting gender equality in the world. Kaufman, author/editor of six books on gender issues, democracy and development studies, also wrote the award-winning novel Possibility of Dreaming on a Night Without Stars. His last article in Voice Male, “Nuclear Manhood,” appeared in the Spring 2011 issue. Kimmel, the distinguished professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is the author most recently of Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men. His article in this issue, “On Being Male Positive and Pro-Feminist” appears on page 21.

Michael Kaufman

Michael Kimmel Fall 2011

Men Care Inspiring Fathers Around the World

www.men-care.org

By Allison Floyd

Men Care’s message is simple: Fatherhood is something men can gain great fulfillment from; it shouldn’t be seen as a burden in a man’s life.

“In a society where the word ‘manhood’ and ‘caring’ are usually not discussed in the same breath, we need to encourage and support fathers to play an active and supportive role in the lives of their children.” So says Wessel Van den Berg, project manager of an exciting new effort in the movement promoting positive masculinity.

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en Care (www.men-care.org) is an inspired new campaign to spread awareness about positive fatherhood and masculinity around the world. The initiative is part of a global effort to reshape our understanding and improve how we conceive of fathers and their interactions with their children. Men Care believes in educating and creating awareness by encouraging a more involved relationship between a father and his children, preventing violence against women, and promoting a more positive image of fathers as caregivers and active parents, as well as giving them the tools to do so.

The campaign itself grew out of a collaboration of genderequality groups worldwide: Sonke Gender Justice in South Africa (www.genderjustice.org.za), Instituto Promundo from Brazil (www. promundo.org.br) and MenEngage (www.menengage.org), the 10

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umbrella organization coordinating positive masculinity campaigns globally. The South African Department of Social Development is also a partner in the effort. The organizations banded together to launch Men Care not only to improve the interests of children—who benefit from having both parents actively involved in their lives—but also to benefit fathers.

The campaign began this summer in South Africa, where the number of actively involved fathers is staggeringly low, according to Men Care, and had its North American debut in November in Washington. Men Care’s message is simple: fatherhood is something men can gain great fulfillment from; it shouldn’t be seen as a burden in a man’s life. Men Care also plans to celebrate actively involved fathers by using them as an example of caring men who, hopefully, will inspire other fathers to do more. While the focus of the campaign is on fatherhood, it also explores the broader role of masculinity today, beginning with reevaluating what it means to be a man in today’s society.

Men Care not only hopes to spread awareness, but also to encourage public involvement on the local level with the “You Are

My Father” campaign, a template replicable in any community to promote positive fatherhood. Men Care’s website offers suggestions for “You Are My Father,” particularly on using the campaign’s collection of moving photographs of fathers and their children.

(Organizers also encourage local campaigns to create their own images and promotional material to bring the effort to life in their lives and communities.)

“There are many fathers out there who want to be active and involved and this campaign aims to provide them with tools, support and encouragement,” Van den Berg said. Men Care also encourages governments and organizations to incorporate the message of fathers as caregivers in their work.

Why is the campaign important? Men Care reports that globally four out of five men will father children at some time in their lives, and believes more men will become invested in caregiving when they see positive images of fatherhood. The campaign cites studies that show children who grow up influenced by a father with whom they

have a positive relationship are likely to be healthier both mentally and emotionally than those who do not.

Encouraging positive attitudes and conceptions of fatherhood benefits not just children and fathers, but society as a whole, Men Care believes. And the campaign’s Van den Berg is adamant that promoting positive fatherhood is the key.

“At a time when not enough men are caring for their children, we need to celebrate the positive role models in our communities… serv[ing] as an example to encourage all men to share in the joys of active parenting.” If Men Care is successful, men will move away from the old notions of disengaged, underinvolved fatherhood and toward a role where fathers are active, caring and engaged.

For more information on the MenEngage Alliance, visit www. menengage.org. For further information about men in gender equality globally, go to www.engagingmen.net.

Voice Male intern Allison Floyd, a graduate of Fairfield University, is a writer, online content editor and blogger.

You Are My Father

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www.men-care.org

en Care identified 10 priority campaign themes for reaching men all organized around the catch phrase: “You are my father.” In tests of messages – in multiple contexts and multiple languages – men reacted positively to this personal appeal.

For each theme, Men Care partners use local images and locally tested language to adapt the messages for their settings. At www.Men-Care.org community partners can find open-source, prototype messages and photos that can be used or adapted and feature messages and campaigns from around the world.

Messages, of course, are only part of a campaign. They are vital, however, in that they seek to create a local—and global—buzz that hopefully resonate with men and women about how, and why, to engage men in caregiving and as fathers.

In addition to those already fathers, nearly all the world’s men have some connection to children as stepfathers, brothers, uncles, grandfathers, teachers, mentors, coaches or simply as friends. A growing and overwhelming body of evidence from the Global South and the Global North confirms that engaged, responsive fatherhood and men’s participation in the lives of children are generally positive for children, women—and for men themselves.

Globally, women and girls continue to carry out the majority of domestic activities—even though women now represent 40 percent of the paid work force. Men’s limited participation in caring for their children and others in family settings continues

to be a major barrier to gender equality and women’s empowerment by, among other things, keeping women’s income lower than men’s.

Men Care is a powerful complement to global and local efforts to engage men and boys in ending violence against women and children. And, by providing high quality community and mass media messages—as well as technical assistance and training, policy and program recommendations and evidence to support local NGOs, women’s rights organizations, governments and UN partners—Men Care can play a pivotal role in those organizations efforts to engage men and boys in caregiving.

Together with efforts like the White Ribbon Campaign (encouraging men to actively challenge violence against women, www. whiteribbon.ca), Men Care is part of the global mission of the MenEngage Alliance. The alliance works to achieve equitable, non-violent relationships and caring visions of what it means to be men. Men Care partners strive to work in collaboration with women’s rights organizations–and directly with women and mothers, as well as men—to identify and promote shared, nonviolent, gender-equitable caregiving as well as safe childbirth.

In the end, the Men Care campaign is about embracing and supporting fatherhood and men’s caregiving--in all of its rich diversity.

To learn more, log on to www.Men-Care.org.

Fall 2011

11

Gender in America

Equality Still Out of Reach to U.S. Women

Detail from Rape of the Sabine Women by Pietro da Cortona (1629)

By Sarah Seltzer

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eady for some sobering news: Many Americans—16 percent, in fact—think it’s okay for a man to hit his wife or female partner. The wage gap remains massive between black and Latina women and white men. Until recently, it was almost impossible for Native American women to file rape charges if they were assaulted on reservations.

And, the U.S. is positively the worst “developed” country when it comes to parental leave, bar none.

As the war on women, middle-class workers and poor families continues unabated, steadily whittling away at women’s status in the U.S., equality of all kinds is still out of reach. A new global report sheds light on some surprising numbers highlighting that imbalance.

The report, Progress of the World’s Women, focuses on access to justice for women worldwide and was produced by a dynamic new group, UN Women, headed by Michele Bachelet, former president of Chile. The group hopes to be a nascent force for accelerating global gender equity. UN Women has released individualized information on all regions; the North American fact-sheet highlights some fascinating, surprising and disturbing statistics that provide context for the current social and political climate.

When stacked up to other countries worldwide, the facts show that the U.S. is not some pillar of opportunity for women compared 12

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to other countries and regions, but rather saddled with major problems. Despite its well-researched approach, the report does not address either LGBT issues or abortion and reproductive health issues, which is unfortunate given their frequent close link with gender, race and class inequity. Still, there’s a lot to learn about ourselves from the report.

Here are five of the most shocking facts pertaining to the U.S. from the Progress of the World’s Women and the way they affect a current climate that can only be described as bleak. (The end of the article offers a few slightly more positive trends.

1. Dogged by Violence This pervasive inequality extends far beyond the pay gap, threatening the physical and legal safety of women of color, and indeed, all women. Regardless of the changing nature of the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case, it has brought into focus the economic, racial and sexual bias that informs the pursuit of justice in rape and domestic violence cases. And the numbers found by UN Women back up the way the media has reacted to this high-profile case: “Evidence shows that jurors in the U.S. are especially likely to question the credibility of African American and Latina female witnesses in rape cases.”

One of the most shocking statistics in the report is the public perception that gender violence is sometimes acceptable within the context of marriage. “In the USA, 16 percent of women and men agree that it is sometimes justifiable for a man to beat his wife,” the report says.

Sure, one could say 16 percent might represent a fairly standard number for representing the lunatic fringe of American culture, but the fact that these respondents willingly admit they think it’s okay certainly sheds a disturbing light on why violence against women remains widespread: “Prevalence surveys in the USA show that 22 percent of women have experienced physical violence, and eight percent have been targeted for sexual violence in their lifetimes.”

One other element to these statistics that may be less known is the issue of rape against Native American women, which is astoundingly high. Native American women are more than twice as likely as other women to be raped.

Compounding the problem was confusion over judicial jurisdiction, as the report points out: “Crimes committed by non-Native Americans on reservations often went unpunished, due to uncertainty over which jurisdiction applied.

This is thought to have contributed to the high levels of rape of Native American women.”

In other words, a culture of impunity existed.

Last year, UN Women notes, the Tribal Law

and Order Act was passed, which hopefully will increase centralized coordination and aid women seeking protection and justice.

2. Persistent Pay Gap Congress passed Lily Ledbetter, right, so why is this still an issue? Well, the gender pay gap remains at 23 percent in the U.S., according to the UN Women fact sheet. If that number isn’t dismaying enough, for African American and Latina women, that gap swells: “On average 39 and 48 percent less than white men, respectively.” Add to that number what’s happening now—public workers losing their benefits and their right to collectively bargain, layoffs and festering unemployment—and the result is a staggering level of racial and gender stratification.

3. Underrepresented in the Justice System One of the hindrances to women seeking a fair application of the legal system is a lack of women’s representation in that system’s hierarchy. While three female Supreme Court justices is certainly a step in the right direction, even that huge stride gives women disproportionately small representation. Women are underrepresented as prosecutors, judges and police officers throughout North America. Data from 40 countries cited by UN Women indicate that “where women are present in the police reporting of sexual assault increases.”

4. Packed Prisons

A Few Heartening Numbers

As our ballooning prison-industrial complex— and the drug war that feeds its engines—comes into greater focus, it’s worth remembering the women caught in the gears of this incarceration machine. A lesser-known fact about U.S. prisons is that we have one of the highest rates of women’s incarceration in the world, UN Women notes. Adding insult to injury, women in prison “are typically young, have low levels of education and have dependent children.

Many have histories of substance abuse and violence.” These are often the women who need help, not imprisonment.

The report did have a few interesting, more positive trends to highlight, a counterweight to the onslaught of bad news.

5. Miserable Maternity—and Paternity—Leave

Small steps, yes, but evidence that progress is not just possible but is happening. To learn more, read about how the United States stacks up to other regions in the world at progress. unwomen.org.

The United States is the only—that’s right, the only—developed country in the entire world that does not offer paid maternity leave. Yes, under federal employment law, there has to be maternity leave. But it doesn’t have to be paid.

And, the report notes, “The USA is one of only a few developed countries that do not oblige employers to offer paternity leave, which is proven to help encourage a more equitable division of childcare responsibilities.” (And, as for free daycare, which the report doesn’t even mention? That sensible idea seems laughable given our current obsession with “austerity” and slashing government program).

• Research shows that since the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was passed in 1994, non-fatal, violent victimizations committed by intimate partners have declined by 49 percent.

• Between 1997 and 2010 the proportion of women in the U.S. Congress increased from 11 percent to 17 percent, and a third of ministerial positions are held by women—almost double the world average.

Sarah Seltzer is an associate editor at AlterNet (where a version of this article appeared), a staff writer at RH Reality Check and a freelance writer based in New York City.

Her work has been published in Jezebel.com and on the websites of The Nation, the Christian Science Monitor and the Wall Street Journal.

You can find her at sarahmseltzer.com.

Fall 2011

13

Presidential Masculinity

BARACK OBAMA

AND THE MYTHOLOGY OF BLACK MEN

By Dr. Charles Johnson Last January, noted poet and activist E. Ethelbert Miller, director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University and the newest member of Voice Male’s national advisory board, initiated a project to spotlight the ideas of renowned novelist Charles Johnson.

When Miller told Johnson he was assisting Voice Male to develop an article on presidential masculinity—including looking at President Obama and black manhood—and was interested in his thoughts on the topic, Johnson replied that it felt like Miller had “rolled a grenade into the room.” What follows is Johnson’s effort to defuse the explosive question.

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id the election of Barack Obama force Americans to look at blackness in new ways? Do white men have a problem with a black man with power? How do we explain the rudeness shown Obama? Is it simply politics, or is race a factor? Is the attempt to define Obama as an alien linked to his blackness or the “sound” of his name? Would black women embrace Obama the same way if his wife was white? If Obama is defeated in 2012, how might this alter the American narrative? Will we jump to the conclusion that “Reconstruction” failed again?”

In the 1980s, my friend Dr. Joseph Scott, then director of ethnic studies at the University of Washington (where I also taught), expressed his belief that black women had done a very good job of publicly defining themselves since the 1970s—creating an image (or meaning) for themselves and their lives that was positive and widespread in popular culture. And then he said, “When it comes to black men, people don’t know who we are.” In that same decade, writer John McCluskey Jr. and I published Black Men Speaking, which begins with Joe’s powerful and moving memoir of his life growing up in Detroit in the 1930s, entitled, “Making a Way Out of No Way.” I’ve never forgotten Joe’s observation. People don’t know who we are. A library of books could be devoted to examining that remark. In fact, for a time I was on the editorial board of the Journal of African American Men, an academic publication devoted to studies of the situation of black males. Naturally, when McCluskey and I worked on Black Men Speaking, we discussed this matter—Who are black men in America?—and he, like Joe, made a memorable remark. He said: Since the beginning of this republic, and probably starting during the time of the colonies, black men have always been a “problem” for white men. In just Darwinian terms, the black man was the white 14

Voice Male

man’s competitor—for power, the means of survival, prestige and, of course, women. The power white men enjoyed during slavery meant, to put it bluntly—they could pass their genetic information along to white women and rape black women with impunity.

Black males had to be prevented from any and all sexual dealings with white women. One of the most powerful tropes—or mythologies—in American pop culture is that of the black man during either the eras of segregation or slavery being hunted, killed, lynched or burned for making overtures that were interpreted to be of a sexual nature toward a white female. (Ah, yes, remember Bigger Thomas’s rooftop run across a building in Chicago after he kills Mary Dalton in Native Son?) The ground-breaking, classic film Birth of a Nation was popular for a reason—it depicted black men (actually white men in blackface) during Reconstruction rampaging and raping across the South until the “knights” of the KKK suppressed their “bestial” and uncivilized behavior. Black women, then as now, obviously did not pose the same threat to white male power, and perhaps this is one reason why they have done so much better than black males in terms of integrating into American mainstream society—that is, gaining advanced academic degrees and jobs in greater numbers than black males, many of whom feel (or so August Wilson once told me) that passage through the white man’s institutions is basically a form of cultural (and racial) indoctrination, and this is something August said young black males rejected. Indeed, many literary works by black women since the 1970s reinforced the popular—and I would add, dominant—image of black males being violent, animal-like, stupid, and dangerous.

Whole libraries have been written about the American practice of emasculating the black male. Remember how sexually neutered the film roles were in the 1950s for Sidney Poitier prior to his appearing in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? (And during the Black Exploitation film period of the 1970s that sexual neutering was reversed with a vengeance; that did little to improve the imagery associated with black men.) In the iconography of black men in America, there were several carefully reiterated images. Black men are often granted by whites the status of being physically superior—as animals are. That meaning is dwelled upon in sports (football, basketball, boxing), and such a meaning leaves in place the racial propaganda of the intellectual as well as creative superiority of white men (except in an area like jazz or black music, where excellence is reluctantly acknowl-

edged). There is a territory the majority of white males categorically is threatening. And they feel they must try to understand and interpret refuse to relinquish—that of the mind. (By the way, I seldom talk him in terms of a 300-year-old mythology about black men. That’s about being a lifelong martial artist because, back in the 1990s, I blunted a bit because he chose a black wife rather than a white one noticed that white interviewers seemed way too interested in that (i.e., he chose not to compete with white men for their women). dimension of my life—because it suggests violence—and not at all But—and this is quite amusing to me—columnist Peggy Noonan, interested in my equally life-long passion who writes for The Wall Street Journal, for philosophy. I’ve always noticed with has, since Obama’s election, been reequal amusement how in the book world turning again and again to her feeling For some white Americans, my Ph.D. in philosophy, represented that Americans don’t “know” Obama, Barack Obama’s very by “Dr.” before my name, is frequently that he doesn’t fit any previous cultural existence is threatening—they dropped, as if the work required to earn molds for a president. She’s right. He a doctorate in a field dominated by white doesn’t. And lately, she and others have feel they must try to understand males for 2500 years never took place.) been chipping away (since the debt ceiling him in terms of a 300-year-old I was recently conversing via email deal) at both his intelligence and compemythology about black men. with filmmaker Brian McDonald about tence. how in popular culture we simply never Americans don’t know or understand see a black man who is a visual a black man like Barack artist, who can draw, who has Obama. What he culturally James Baldwin Richard Wright that natural talent (there are represents—a black male many such images of white who is brilliant, not bestial; males). Similarly, we seldom eloquent, not inarticulate; if ever see portrayed in the confident, comfortable in his popular imagination black own skin and even at times men who are geniuses—scienarrogant, not humble; cool tists, inventors, authoritative and rational, not emotional or scholars. After six decades of “angry”—is the annihilation living, and studying, American of every cherished, bigoted culture, I understand full well notion about what black men that the very idea of a black are or should be in a EuroIshmael Reed Langston Hughes man who is intellectually or centric culture. That image is artistically superior brings well understood to be a threat tremendous discomfort to to white supremacy. Many the white racist mind, even white Americans want him to the liberal white mind. to fail so that the mythology (Ishmael Reed once called of black male inferiority can this “liberal racism.”) For 15 be maintained. years, August Wilson and I Long ago Ethelbert Miller discussed this matter long came to believe that this situinto the night. He was a twoation that I’ve described for time Pulitzer Prize–Winning black American males will playwright, a man who domi- Black males have lived with being demonized, and their talents and gifts ignored or denied, not change in our lifetimes. nated the American stage for since the time of slavery. The evidence in the historical record is overwhelming.

We can only do, one day at two decades, but the incidents a time, what the ancestors we of disrespect he received and told me about were—well, endless. revere did, and what Obama seems to try to do: take care of busi(He always noted each year how many plays by white playwrights ness—the duties and responsibilities given to us in this life—step became motion pictures while his 10 plays, year after year for two over racism as if it were a puddle at his feet, strive for personal and decades, remained unadapted for that medium.) And I, of course, had professional excellence, and take some small comfort in the fact that countless examples of my own since childhood to share with him. we, like the predecessors who inspire us, fought the good fight.

This is what we live with, as black American males. (Just for the record, let me add that black females in the popular imagination Scholar, novelist, short story writer, and today are granted moral superiority and professional competence, essayist Charles Johnson addresses a broad but, like black males, not unquestioned intellectual or artistic excelrange of issues related to African American lence.) We have lived with being demonized, and our talents and gifts life. His first novel, Faith and the Good Thing, ignored or denied, since the time of slavery. The evidence for this in was published in 1974 and he is known for the historical record is overwhelming so I don’t need to repeat any several other novels including Middle Passage of that. And it is what Barack Obama must live with, too. He has an and Dreamer. A version of this article was I.Q. of 147. (There are white people who will say that is because he featured in E. Ethelbert Miller’s “E-Channel” had a white mother.) For some white Americans, his very existence (http://ethelbert-miller.blogspot.com).

Fall 2011

15

My Father’s Breast Cancer

By Laura Barron

The author and her father, David Barron, who was diagnosed with breast cancer at age 69.

I

had my first mammogram not long ago.

I’m 42 and felt that I had avoided the inevitable breast vise grip long enough.

A recent visit to an old friend who had just completed chemo, radiation, and reconstructive surgery prompted me to finally bite the bullet. To my knowledge, no one in my family had ever had breast cancer. Somehow I always thought I was immune to this beast—which ravages one in nine women at some time during their life. I have little stress, love my work, sleep well, eat a high-soy vegetarian diet, exercise and regularly practice yoga. Of course, one of my favorite childhood teachers boasted this same healthy lifestyle yet the disease took her at only 37. So, I should have known better.

But this is not a story about my own surprising diagnosis. I just got my results and all the tests were normal. One down. However, a recent turn of events has me wondering if the cards won’t be stacked in my favor for long.

My parents visited my husband and me in Vancouver for the holidays. They arrived

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a week before Christmas, just two days after “the news.”

Honey, the doctors have found a lump.

Where, Daddy?

Well, I never had big tits before, but, believe it or not, it’s in my breast.

Oh, that’s weird. But I guess that means it could be anything. Men don’t get breast cancer.

That’s what I thought. But maybe they haven’t called me “one in a thousand”my whole life for nothing. So, the lab ran a biopsy just to be safe. I won’t have the results until we get back to Arizona.

Apparently, his interest in protecting me from the truth, at least until the holidays were over, prevented him from telling me what else the doctors said. I am not one to worry. I reminded myself, Lots of people find lumps.

We Barrons never get cancer. But then, I faced the facts. Four years ago, my dad’s brother went in for a routine colonoscopy on a Friday, only to discover that he had a small, local-

ized tumor. They promptly removed it the following Wednesday. He didn’t need chemo or any other therapy. He doesn’t even consider himself a cancer survivor. Just a bump—or a lump—in the road. Considering that, I was still sure that my dad’s lump would be just fine. At least that’s what I was going to tell myself in order to fully enjoy the first ski vacation we’d had together in 12 years. And, of course, there was the Feast of the Seven Fishes to prepare. A decadent, six-course meal that had been a treasured Christmas Eve tradition in my mother’s Southern Italian family for years.

The holidays passed with the usual overindulging, out-of-tune Christmas carols with Dad at the keyboard, and general good cheer.

But as soon as Boxing Day rolled around, I began to notice the pall that hung over my parents, usually chipper demeanors. In fact, as former captains of their respective high school football and cheerleading teams, their excessive conviviality normally rivaled that of Kelly Ripa on Ecstasy. But over Saturday brunch, they were both unusually quiet and distracted. We went through with our plans to

visit the Aquarium. But upon returning home for a leftovers lunch, I finally asked, So, is one of you finally going to talk about the elephant in the room?

My mom spoke first.

We already know it’s a mass, not just a cyst. The sonogram results were immediate.

Sonogram? Neither of you even mentioned that they already ran other tests. But aren’t lots of masses still benign?

With more fear than I’ve ever seen on my invincible father’s face, he said,

because of late detection; that’s three times the rate of spreadable cancers in women’s breasts.

Now, I was totally freaked. But there was a silver lining. The lucky 1 percent had growths that were called fibroadenoma. Though I was never normally one to be superstitious, I typed that word into my computer 64 times (my lucky number) trying to influence the fates.

But secretly, I realized the unlikelihood of this fortune. So, I prayed at the top of a mountain, in a yoga class, before bed, while driving,

And then, finally, our wait was over. My father was in the lucky 10 percent: the marblesized growth under his nipple was a localized tumor with no signs of having spread!

“I never thought learning I had cancer would feel like winning the lottery,” Dad said.

“Mom and I already bought the champagne.

We’re so relieved! But, if you can imagine it, your father is having a mastectomy in a couple of weeks.”

That’s great! I exclaimed. Now you have an excuse to go out and buy yourself a chest full of new bras.

I got my sarcastic sense of humor from him so I assumed he’d appreciate the joke. And I was feeling elated to think that there were now dozens of years of his dry one-liners ahead of me. That is, until his pre-surgical appointment. The phone rang at nine o’clock Tuesday night.

You should have seen the pessimism in the doctor’s face. Who wants to hear, “I definitely do not like the look of this?” A retired dentist himself, my father puts a lot of stock in professional medical opinions.

Now it was my turn to be the cheerleader.

Well, there’s no point worrying about it until we know.

They got the biopsy wrong. I do have an invasive cancer. It has spread beyond the nipple into my breast tissue. They think they caught it early, but we won’t know if it’s in my lymph until the surgery next week. And there’s something else. Remember my puffy cheeks I told Mom not to worry about? Well, they informed me I have swollen saliva glands and they’re quite concerned. They can’t even operate until they rule some things out.

Adi Bemak

But, of course, that’s all any of us could do for the next four days until the results came.

I took them to the airport on Monday morning and cried the whole way home, just releasing the hypothet- When Dan Dalvino, left, learned his college roommate and best friend of ical grief I was terrified I might have 50 years, David Barron, had been stricken with breast cancer, he became a to face. Of course, I knew I would one part of the family support team. This past summer he joined Barron in the day lose my parents. But they are both Susan G. Komen 3-Day Walk for the Cure to Boston. Both 71, the pair were What things? the oldest participants in the 60 mile walk. so unusually healthy and youthful.

Well, honey, it could also be cancer, And three of my grandparents lived anywhere I could that at least his cancer had or even HIV. They’re running more tests. past 90. So, I believed that that inevitability not spread. Ductal carcinoma in situ. I never was still decades away. It shook me to the core thought I’d be memorizing such medical terms.

Waiting for the truth verdict, my family imagining that I might be wrong.

But I figured that this localized form of breast endured another week in purgatory. I went As soon as I returned home I Googled cancer—that only required surgery and no to very dark places I didn’t even know “male breast cancer.” Never, I repeat, never use chemo or radiation—was the best of the worst existed. The dread of previously unimagined the Internet during a health scare. Within five news we could hope for at this point. possibilities clouded everything. Happily, minutes, my stomach was in knots. My mother In the meantime, I spoke to my brother all Dad’s tests came back negative. “It’s had mentioned that Dad’s lump was just under every day until the “verdict” came in. He was nothing,” the doctors reassured him. But his nipple. She even told me I could touch it if even more of a wreck than me, since his wife’s we’d heard that before. Part way through his I wanted. (I declined, thinking that this was an father had just died of lung cancer only three ordeal, my father admitted he had actually invasion of my father’s privacy.) But it turns months earlier. When Wednesday came, I discovered the lump months earlier only to out that that’s exactly where all male breast found myself useless until one o’clock, the have his family doctor dismiss it as “nothing” cancer is located. And it most commonly hits time I knew my father would be visiting the lab at his annual physical. Reader take note: men 60 to 70, due to hormonal changes at that for the results. It took two more hours after male breast cancer is so rare many of the best age. My dad was 69 at the time. Strangely, that for him to call before he called. physicians are still uninformed. My father’s it’s even more common among Jews and my unwavering confidence in the medical system The results? “Suspicious but inconclusive,” grandparents were Jewish immigrants from was certainly being tested—as was mine. So, Russia. This was not looking good. Then I read my parents reported.

I felt pretty unmoved by this sliver of good the clincher: Only 1 percent of lumps found to My family optimism had apparently news. I needed to hear that the lymph nodes be masses in men’s breasts are benign. rubbed off on me, to some degree. I chose to were clear before I could breathe easy.

Holy sh**! There’s a 99 percent chance my take this as good news since I’d never heard And then they were. of a biopsy that was unable to detect an actual father has breast cancer!

They didn’t find any cancer in his lymph cancer. If it was truly aggressive, of course it And that was not the worst statistic that would be obvious. But we wouldn’t find out nodes and they say they got everything. I I learned. Unfortunately, 90 percent of male for certain until the following Monday. Not can even take him home tonight, my mother breast tumors are already metastasized— knowing was absolutely the worst part. reported.

Fall 2011

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After a month of Academy Award– winning performances acting as his “rock” without ever even shedding a tear, my mother sounded exhausted but extremely relieved.

“Your dad’s too tired to speak on the phone. But you can call him tomorrow.”

The next day, when Mom answered the phone, I could hear Dad playing Scott Joplin on his old keyboard. Mom always made him keep the unsightly thing under their bed between uses. It simply clashed with their pristine southwestern décor she’d say. But now she was going to let him keep it out permanently. Nothing like cancer to get your priorities straight.

The latest prognosis revealed that doctors reported that Dad wouldn’t even need chemo.

“In all likelihood you’ll live another 30 years,” his oncologist told him. And that news was not even the sweetest: Our already close family was reminded how much love a daughter and a son can have for their father.

Our perspective on so much had shifted. This harrowing experience rendered many valuable lessons. Before, I hadn’t even known that men could get breast cancer. It is being considered such a rarity was glaringly obvious to me when I completed my recent mammogram survey, and I was confronted by this question:

18

Voice Male

David Barron and his daughter celebrated his being breast cancer free by hiking the Grand Canyon.

Question #1: Is there any history of breast cancer in your family?

• Mother • Sister • Grandmother • Aunt There wasn’t even a box for “Father”! Of course, I wouldn’t have checked it anyway, since it was still the day before my dad got his biopsy results, and I was not about to jinx him. Through this experience, I learned I was hardly alone in my ignorance. By bringing

light to this important health concern, I now encourage everyone to let their husbands, brothers, fathers and sons—all the men in their lives—know that women are not the only ones who should practice regular self-breast exams.

We can all benefit from vigilance and early detection.

When he got on the phone, Dad sounded ecstatic.

“I was thinking,” he said. “How about you fly down here this spring and we hike the Grand Canyon together.” The year before, at 68, my dad had accomplished this amazing, 20-mile, round-trip-in-a-day feat twice—first with a friend, then with my brother. Before the cancer, I’d tried to convince him to do it once more with me, but he’d sworn, after that second time left him limping for weeks, he would never do it again. It’s amazing what a genuine health scare can inspire. I can’t wait.

Flutist and writer Laura Barron lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she is engaged in a variety of interdisciplinary, community-engaged art projects. Her second mammogram—and her father’s third, semiannual, post-surgery check-up—show them both to be cancer-free, and they continue to look forward to years of hiking together. She can be reached at laura@laurabarron.net.

“I celebrate you for standing with women in the struggle to end violence against women and girls. Your brave magazine is bringing forward the new vision and voices of manhood which will inevitably shift this paradigm and create a world where we are all safe and free.”

“Among the things I like about Voice Male is the racial, ethnic and sexual diversity in both its articles and features and its fearless engagement with controversial issues related to masculinities and feminism. It is our movement’s ‘magazine of record,’ playing a role analogous to the one Ms. magazine plays in the women’s movement.”

—Jackson Katz, writer-activist

—Eve Ensler, activist-playwright

(MVP Strategies)

(The Vagina Monologues)

What’s happening with men and masculinity?

That’s the question Voice Male tries to answer each issue as it chronicles manhood in transition.

The changes men have undergone the past 30 years, our efforts following women in challenging men’s violence, and our ongoing exploration of our interior lives, are central to our vision.

The magazine’s roots are deep in the male-positive, profeminist, anti-violence men’s movement.

We draw inspiration from the world-changing acts of social transformation women have long advanced and the growing legion of men agitating and advocating for a new expression of masculinity.

At this key moment in the national conversation about men, Voice Male has much to contribute. Join us!

4 issues-$28 / 8 issues-$45 Institutional Rate: 4 issues - $40 / 8 issues - $55 To subscribe—or to make a tax-deductible gift—please use the enclosed envelope or go to:

voicemalemagazine.org Fall 2011

19

Filmmaker Frederick Marx (Hoop Dreams, Boys to Men, Journey from Zanskar) has long been involved in men’s work and is at work on a new film, Boys Become Men (see Winter 2011). Although he is a strong supporter of Voice Male, which he describes as “a hugely important magazine in these days of shifting male roles and identities—I love what it has to say,” he also has a critque “to make the magazine better.”

I

don’t want to define men and masculinity in terms of doing right by women. I want Voice Male 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 nine. The culturally derived nonsense message my uncle bequeathed me at the funeral (“Freddy, you’re the man of the house now)” kick-started 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 somehow end up feeling I was somehow to blame by virtue of being born male.

In college I read Susan Brownmiller, author of the important book Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape. “[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 onto Type A straight males, I shrank from powerful men from my teens through my thirties. I unconsciously sought the company of women, gay men, intellectual men, and “weaker” straight 20

Voice Male

men—projecting onto them an emotional o p e n n e s s , v u l n e rability, and flexibility I didn’t sense in Type A straight males. But the true bottom line was this —I unconsciously feared any man remotely hypermasculine. I labeled them as “macho” and dismissed them.

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. 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 thousands 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.

When I read some articles in Voice Male 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 Voice Male, in fact in all “men’s work,” I want to experience some joy at arriving at the future I am cocreating—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 some samurais may have understood, that maybe some Knights of the Round Table understood, that maybe some warrior monks and priests understood, that maybe the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King and Gandhi 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.

Frederick Marx can be reached at frederick@warriorfilms.org

On Being Male Positive and Pro-Feminist “I admire Frederick Marx enormously. Hoop Dreams is among the best documentaries I have ever seen. Perhaps the best. I don’t say that lightly.”

So begins a response to Marx’s article, “Defining Masculinity in Our Own Terms,” by Voice Male contributing editor Michael Kimmel, author or editor of some two dozen books addressing men and masculinities and a longtime member of the national advisory board of this magazine.

W

hile many of the conclusions Frederick Marx arrived at about the feeling some men have reading Voice Male may well ring true, the analytic path he used to reach those conclusions is subject for debate. Certainly men need comfort to soothe our fragile, tender hearts. The way to do so, say men who saw—and see—great wisdom in feminism, is through honest reconciliation for the crimes that have been committed—not by us, but in our name. Imagine a genderbased truth and reconciliation commission in which women would be able to explain how that “date” felt coercive, or, at work, how that touch felt too intrusive, or that comment made her wilt inside. Men will be well served hearing all of those feelings in the kind of honest environment a truth and reconciliation commission could provide.

It seems as if Frederick has taken feminism both too personally and not personally enough. Too personally in the sense that he thinks all those expressions of women’s indignation and anger at inequality were actually expressions of anger at men individually and personally. Men do need to take feminism personally in that we benefit from women’s subordination.

(Materially, for example, it is far more expensive to be a woman— say, an urban woman, who needs to live in a nicer neighborhood, has to takes more taxis, have an expansive wardrobe to be seen by men.) Reading the statement by Susan Brownmiller, I took it as a sociological observation, not a criminal accusation.

Imagine the following, if written by a middle-age German guy in the 1960s: Though I’ll do my best today to combat all forms of crimes against Jews, I’ll not accept personal responsibility for any act I myself did not commit. Though I’ll be there to support Jews if they’ve suffered at the

By Michael Kimmel

hands of other Germans, I’ll not take it on emotionally as my own. I will recognize whatever systems privilege me as a German, 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 thousands of years of antiSemitism in the past or the present.

Or this, perhaps, written by a guy carrying a Confederate flag out of “pride” for his southern heritage: Though I’ll do my best to combat all forms of racism, I’ll not accept personal responsibility for any act I myself did not commit. Since I did not own slaves, I am not to be treated as a racist. Though I’ll be there to support any black person as best I can through whatever suffering he may receive at the hands of racist whites, 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 thousands of years of black people’s past and ongoing suffering.

Well, you get the idea. Opting out of systemic privilege is, well, not an option. It’s not a jacket that you can decide to wear or not, whether made of sack cloth or gold lamé. Indeed, it is a mark of privilege itself to think you can decide which injustices you can opt out of responsibility for, and which you will actually stand up about. The subordinate don’t get that choice.

In the end, Frederick poses a false dichotomy between doing something because it is right and doing something because it serves his growth as a man. Standing up for justice, and against violence, is just and right.

And only by standing up, speaking truth to power, can one claim to call himself a good man. Throughout his career, Frederick has spoken truth to power and is, indeed, a good man. Yet, like all of us striving to be good men (and women), he would be well served continuing to investigate how to best express his male voice promoting men’s liberation in harmony with that of his sisters’ call for women’s full freedom.

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Outlines

Queer Youth of Color

Moving Beyond “Keep the Faith”

http://homocouture.wordpress.com

By Sikivu Hutchinson

P

icture an LGBTQ youth conference where sunny-faced volunteers from gay-friendly ministries and other faith organizations hover around tables stocked with attractive promotional literature.

Their message is simple: God is merciful, forgiving and accepting of difference. And it is important for queer youth to know that Jesus loves them too. Each ministry claims to offer sanctuary from the draconian storm of Christian fundamentalism. As a visible and vocal faction in the LGBTQ youth movement, these faith-based organizations fill a moral, cultural, and social void that humanist organizations have yet to proactively address.

A recent summit on improving the visibility of LGBTQ issues in K-12 curricula, instruction, and faculty training within the Los Angeles Unified School District highlighted the gaping void in secular humanist outreach efforts—from programs to films. Secular humanism seeks to provide a moral and ethical context steeped in human dynamism, reason, scientific materialism and social justice—and, as a consequence, lies beyond the parameters of god-belief and organized religion.

During the summit, the San Francisco–based Family Acceptance Project (familyproject.sfsu.edu/) screened a film called Always My Son (familyproject.sfsu.edu/family-videos) chronicling a Latino family’s journey to acceptance of their gay son. Finding a church that welcomed LGBTQ youth and families was critical to their transition. The boy’s father spoke eloquently of how he struggled to come to terms with his own hypermasculine identity as an ex-Marine. The relationships the family developed in their new gay-friendly church inspired them to open their home to other families with LGBTQ children looking for community support.

In the summit’s breakout sessions, representatives from the faith community touted ministries accepting of LGBTQ families and youth. They maintained that the model of an angry punitive god was 22

Voice Male

inaccurate. Several condemned the religious right for perpetuating the view that being gay and Christian was incompatible. They stressed involvement opportunities for LGBTQ youth struggling to come out.

They also spoke of providing a bridge for religious families seeking to reconcile their faith with the dominant culture’s heterosexist notions of “morality.”

In large, predominantly black and Latino urban school districts like Los Angeles, secular humanist voices are rarely included in these school-community dialogues for several reasons. First, for better or for worse, social acceptance of LGBTQ youth often begins with family, and a majority of the students in the school district come from religious family backgrounds. Second, it is assumed that making organized religion kinder and gentler is the end goal for disenfranchised queer youth hungry for moral acceptance. Since faith is an important source of cultural identity in many families of color, it stands to reason that educators and resource providers working with gay youth develop culturally responsive approaches to engaging families around homophobia, LGBT identity, and religious belief. Third, and, perhaps, most important, humanist organizations that do this kind of work are few and far between. One exception is the American Humanist Association (AHA), which has LGBT Councils (lgbthumanists. org/). As part of its efforts around LGBTQ inclusion the AHA was a co-sponsor of a Mississippi-based LGBTQ “Second Chance” prom.

Proms and other life transition rituals can be important social vehicles helping youth to come out. And humanist organizations can bridge the gap for questioning and non-believing youth grappling with the authoritarianism of some religious traditions.

Countering the homophobic dogma of organized religion is only one aspect of a humanist approach to enfranchising LGBTQ youth. Developing culturally responsive humanist approaches that

http://homocouture.wordpress.com

In discussions about homophobia in black and brown communities, we deconstructed the insidiousness of religious influences and media stereotypes.

contextualize morality, self, and identity from the unique historical perspective of people of color is also critical. For example, black bodies have always been marked as “immoral” and “other.” Racist and sexist notions of black female hypersexuality and pure white womanhood inform the way black women are perceived in the dominant culture.

Even as it has embodied homophobic, sexist traditions, the black church has served as a refuge from American racial segregation and cultural otherness.

The needs of LGBTQ youth of color (who represent a significant segment of homeless youth in many major urban areas including Los Angeles and New York) cannot be adequately addressed by culturally homogeneous or colorblind approaches that don’t acknowledge the intersection of heterosexism, white supremacy, and racism. During the summit there was much discussion about how the absence of significant numbers of out faculty, administrators, and staff of color on K-12 campuses makes dealing with homophobia tougher for LGBTQ youth of color.

As an educator, teacher trainer, and mentor to LGBTQ youth I have seen firsthand how the dearth of progressive humanist approaches to teaching and training fuel their sense of disaffection. This past school year, my Gay/Straight Alliance mentees courageously presented at an annual youth media education conference, braving the usual ignorant brickbats from peers about God condemning “fags” to eternal damnation. In our many discussions about homophobia in black and brown communities we deconstructed the insidiousness of religious influences as well as the prevalence of media stereotypes that render LGBTQ communities of color either marginal or invisible. As workingclass black and brown youth they must deal with the homophobia of religionists and the all-too-mainstream white supremacist belief that they are all gangbangers, illegal “aliens,” and criminals. Given these factors, is it any wonder that family rejection, harassment, social invisibility and the absence of adult mentors at school contribute to high rates of queer youth of color becoming homeless?

Progressive humanist models of teaching and training that emphasize the cultural knowledge, lived experiences, and community contexts of youth of color could address these risk factors. The California legislature recently passed SB48 (latimes.com/news/local/la-me-gayrights/ 201110706.0.3768798.story), a bill requiring textbooks and high school history courses to include the contributions of gays and lesbians.

The mandate might provide greater visibility for the connection between LGBTQ communities of color and social justice movements.

Currently, in high school curricula examples of prominent gays and lesbians of African descent rarely go beyond Langston Hughes. In the mainstream K-12 imagination, Hughes has been sanitized, his body of

work reduced to the universalist metaphors of the now canonical poem “Dreams.” High school students are far less familiar with his political radicalism, critiques of organized religion, and conflicted quest to achieve visibility as a black gay artist in the thick of the masculinist identity politics of 20th-century black liberation struggle—all of which made him a humanist model for queer selfhood and alternative masculine identity.

Part of the appeal of gay-friendly faith organizations is the premise that being out, moral, and “good with God” are compatible. Another key part of their appeal is that they provide spaces that validate the rich lived experiences of queer youth whose families may or may not be supportive. In mainstream American culture the term LGBTQ—from high-profile gay suicide victims to pop icon Ellen DeGeneres—still signifies whiteness. Paradoxically, queer youth of color often feel that they don’t have anywhere else to turn for affirmation other than their faith. If humanism is to have any widespread institutional traction there must be a movement to create cultural spaces that address the void left when queer youth of color reject organized religion. There must be a raw reckoning with an antidote to the belief that faith and inclusive religious traditions provide for queer youth of color steeped in hostile to indifferent school communities. The next humanist frontier lies in building culturally relevant spaces that offer worth and visibility to the lived experiences that faith, white supremacy, and heterosexism have rendered expendable.

Sikivu Hutchinson is the author of Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars, available on Amazon.com. She can be reached at shutch2396@aol.com.

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23

Fight Rape, Not Each Other

Ending the

SlutWars

http://www.seattlerex.com

By Shira Tarrant

This is a call to end the SlutWars.

O

n the off-chance the global SlutWalk (http://www.slutwalktoronto.com) movement hasn’t hit your radar, here’s a brief primer: SlutWalk is a worldwide grassroots movement challenging rape culture and working to end sexual violence. It started in January 2011, when a Toronto cop warned students that to avoid getting raped they shouldn’t dress like sluts. By April, anti-rape activists took to the streets demanding the end to victim blaming. The rest is history—still in the making.

TV cameras came calling. The feminist blogosphere lit up. Antirape listservs raged. Late-night Twitter debates followed. Controversy ensued.

Some charged that SlutWalks perpetuate the unchecked privilege that gives a pass to white women chanting the word “slut” in their underwear. Some called out SlutWalks for ignoring the impact of race, class and ethnicity in matters of sexuality and sexual assault. Some accused mainstream feminists of making the problem worse.

But the problem is that rape is mainstream, feminism is not.

Most people go about their business every day while anti-rape activists fight mightily to prevent and address sexual assault. Parents may be thinking about their grocery list; students their midterm exams; workers paying their bills well before any would worry about feminist politics.

The point is there is strength in numbers and we need as many as possible involved in preventing rape and sexual assault. Critical selfreflection is important to any political movement. But self-critique can be unproductive if it becomes an end unto itself. Even worse, selfcritique can divide a movement from within.

In the spirit of loving critique, I suggest the following: Instead of condemning the shortcomings of SlutWalk, what if well-known activists use their media access to attack rape instead of other feminists? Rather than dismissing the good intent of SlutWalk marchers as silly, I request that established authors use their public forum to explain the far deeper concerns about sexual assault that underscore these events. Done well, 24

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we have the opportunity to simultaneously confront the problems of sexual assault and the shortcomings that occur within a movement. If we denigrate potential allies we risk diluting important efforts to end rape.

We owe it to rape victims, survivors—and a safer future—to keep the matter of sexual assault firmly in the spotlight.

To be perfectly clear: I am not suggesting that SlutWalk is one-sizefits-all. Many have raised astute and warranted critiques. The word “slut” is obviously contentious. It is also the reason media pays attention to SlutWalk demonstrations in the first place. Activists have been addressing sexual assault issues for centuries. If it takes a controversial word to encourage people to sit up and listen, that’s fine. We owe it to ourselves to take our activism —and our critiques—to the next level. We owe it to ourselves to maximize our collective goals, not our individual differences of opinion.

SlutWalks are a spectacle to grab attention and encourage people to shake off complacency. SlutWalks provide information about sexual assault prevention and resources for recovery. SlutWalks have been safe space to publicly speak out against sexual assault. People show up wearing sweatpants, jeans or everyday shorts, carrying signs that read, “This Iis What I Was Wearing When I Was Raped.” They wear flip-flops, thigh-highs, clogs, and running kicks. A particularly heartbreaking sign held high at one SlutWalk announced, “I was raped when I was four. I didn’t know that footsies were slutty.”

I’m not opposed to those who want to reclaim the term “slut” by sartorial display. Personally, that’s not my political priority. Stopping rape is. That said, ending rape and reclaiming the term “slut” do not have to be mutually exclusive goals. After great deliberation, I spoke at SlutWalk L.A. to say yes to freedom and to say no to sexual assault.

Like others who showed up on the grass that day in West Hollywood, I was there because I want to see an end to rape. I spoke because I want to see an end to blaming victims and survivors for their own sexual assault.

People of all backgrounds need to support one another in resisting rape. The SlutWalk Movement is visual evidence of this need. As filmmaker Nancy Schwartzman writes on behalf of The Line Campaign

(http://whereisyourline.org), “Women have organized across the world, from Toronto to Buenos Aires to Mexico City, in Kyrgizstan and Morocco under the universal agreement that we, as women, have had enough.”

The facts about rape and sexual assault are cause enough to unite those who care about the safety and well-being of all:

anti-rape activist Jaclyn Friedman, or the countless number of people who remain anonymous, in blog posts such as Speakout UNC (http://speakoutunc.blogspot.com/), yet bravely tell their stories.

•The United States has among the highest rate of rape among industrialized countries.

Nearly two women are sexually assaulted every minute. About 3 percent of American men experience rape at some point in their lifetime. As Voice Male contributing editor and authoractivist Jackson Katz (http://www.jacksonkatz.com) points out in his book The Macho Paradox, over 95 percent of sexual assault perpetrators are men, regardless of the victim’s gender. Consider: • Only 20 to 50 percent of rape or sexual assault is ever reported to the police.

• The FBI only counts rapes that include penetration of a penis into a vagina by force. This means that coerced rape, men’s rape, drugged rape, anal or oral rape, and rape by objects or fingers don’t even count as rape to the FBI. After 80 years, the FBI is finally considering a change to this archaic definition.

• A survey conducted by Koss, Gidycz and Wisnieweski (authors of a study on sexual aggression among college students) found that one out of 12 college men had committed acts that met the legal definition of rape.

Yet most of those men did not believe that what they did was rape.

• Sexual assault is never the survivor’s fault. Just ask rape crisis counselor Kimberly Inez McGuire, Iowa graduate student Rebecca Epstein,

It’s time to change our culture to one that would never dream of asking, “What was the victim wearing?” It’s time we hold rapists and assaulters accountable because the question is never what was she wearing but why is he raping?

It’s time that we stop victim blaming and rape because all of us have the right to be safe in our homes and in our streets. No matter what we look like. No matter who we love. No matter what we wear. It’s time to fight rape, not each other.

It’s time to end the SlutWars.

Voice Male contributing editor Shira Tarrant is the author of several publications about feminism and sexual politics, including Men and Feminism (Seal Press), Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex and Power (Routledge), and Fashion Talks: Undressing the Power of Style (SUNY Press, forthcoming). Dr. Tarrant is associate professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at California State University, Long Beach. Read more at http://shiratarrant. com. A version of this article appeared on Huffington Post on October 6.

RESOURCES The following is a list of links to articles, organizations and people referenced in “Ending the SlutWars.” Topics range from female and male rape statistics to articles, in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and on Huffington Post and in various magazines. An article on Slutwalks by Gail Dines and Wendy J. Murphy, appeared in the Summer 2011 issue of Voice Male (www.voicemalemagazine.org/summer.

What sparked the Slutwalks—http://www.slutwalktoronto.com/ about/why Activists take the street—http://www.alternet.org/story/152603/ %27hey_rapists%2C_go_fuck_yourselves%27%3A_slutwalk_ arrives_in_nyc/?page=1 Slutwalk march or not? —http://rabble.ca/news/2011/05/slutwalkmarch-or-not-march Slutwalks vs Ho Strolls—http://crunkfeministcollective.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/slutwalks-v-ho-strolls/ Open letter from black women to Slutwalk organizers -- http:// www.huffingtonpost.com/susan-brison/slutwalk-black-women_ b_980215.html Female rape statistics—http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics and http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/frequencyof-sexual-assault Male rape statistics—http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbNa me=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=32361

Overall rape, sexual violence statistics—http://www.rapetraumaservices.org/rape-sexual-assault.html and http://www.feminist. com/antiviolence/facts.html FBI considers redefining rape—http://www.latimes.com/news/ nationworld/nation/la-na-rape-fbi-20111001,0,5720055.story Rebecca Traister article critiquing SlutWalks http://www.nytimes. com/2011/07/24/magazine/clumsy-young-feminists.html?_ r=4&pagewanted=all Fraternities and collegiate rape culture—http://www.girlarmy. org/reader/Fraternities.pdf Kimberly Inez McGuire article on victim-blaming—http://www. fem2pt0.com/2011/03/11/why-victim-blaming-hurts-my-story/ Rebecca Epstein article on rape cases—http://jezebel.com/5820022/ how-a-rape-case-went-off-the-rails Jaclyn Friedman article on collegiate rape cases—http://www. washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/12/ AR2010031201792.html Ms. magazine articles on what qualifies as rape—http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/tag/would-your-rape-be-counted/ Anonymous first-hand accounts of rape—http://www.startbybelieving.org/ShareYourStory.aspx

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Voice Male

Men & Media

Is “Men’s TV” Protecting itself from Feminization?

­I

n the past few years there has think that hazelnuts were invented by been an uptick in the number women to castrate dudes. of television shows about Of course, this hand-wringing strong, professional women (CBS’s over the death of the dominant male The Good Wife, NBC’s Parks & is nothing new. Over the past decade Recreation, NBC’s 30 Rock, FOX’s there’s been a lot of shallow writing Bones, NBC’s Harry’s Law, to name about the decline of men that blames a few. That doesn’t mean things are women (Christina Hoff Sommers’ better for women with shows still The War Against Boys, Kathleen portraying women as sex objects Parker’s Save the Males, Dennis (ABC’s Charlie’s Angels, Pan Am Neder’s Being a Man in a Woman’s and, can you believe it, NBC’s The World, etc.). So why are these shows Playboy Club—happily, canceled cropping up now? The network after its third episode). execs would be better served reading Meanwhile, what about the Michael Kimmel’s Guyland: The guys?

Perilous World Where Boys Become With shows taking women back Men. Apparently they aren’t after the to a time when their “place” was truth of what’s going on with men clearly defined and their sexuality and young men. was their currency, we sense some Two other shows about men use defensiveness. That seems all the the shaky economy for their hook. more clear when looking at the The first, Worth It, comes courtesy shows about men, which belie a of ABC (again). The network’s What all the new man shows have in common is the fake premise that men deep cultural anxiety about gender. promo line: “With unemployment and masculinity are being threatened by women and/or feminism. One of ABC’s sitcom Last Man Standing stars an ongoing issue and women now them, sitcom How to Be a Gentleman is billed as “Prude meets Dude.”

It stars David Hornsby and Kevin Dillon. that icon of stereotypical televised outnumbering men in the workforce… masculinity, Tim Allen, in a show the Worth It follows two alpha males network describes as being about a who realize the only way to beat the “What happened to men?” Tim man “on a mission to get men back to current ‘mancession’ and land a job Allen’s character asks. “We built in pharmaceutical sales is to pass their rightful place in society.” civilizations—and when necesHuh? Allen plays Mike Baxter, themselves off as women. Add to who works at an outdoor sporting that CBS’s How to Be a Gentleman, sary—we destroyed them! We goods store (manly!) and whose which follows a prim-and-proper guy invented beef jerky.” home life features a strong wife and who’s struggling to keep his job as daughters—uh oh, a threat to his a columnist: “Bert’s a man’s man, masculinity. The men of this world Andrew’s a gentleman. This fall they have been feminized, a supposed problem that manifests itself in will teach each other a little bit about becoming a better man!” tanning and grooming. At one point, Allen’s character loses it: Exclamation point! Pl-eeze!

“What happened to men?” he asks. “We built civilizations. And The basic premises of these two shows may differ, but they share an when necessary, we destroyed them! We used to get stuff done. We underlying sentiment: Men must change in order to make a living. In drove cross country in Studebakers. We invented beef jerky. We got our Worth It, we have an economy that has literally forced men to become hair cut by men named Hank! But men these days can’t even change a women, and in Gentleman, a man must reclaim his “lost” masculinity tire. Hell, they run from responsibility, they run from fatherhood, and in order to keep his job. (Sounds like an awesome column.) they even run from catalogs!”

In all of the aforementioned shows, men and/or masculinity is His (half-pound of) beef? Men are supposed to invent and lead threatened by women and/or femininity. You can thank the phony and kill things and generally “be men!” His passionate lament nicely mancession for that; the media has so hammered into men’s brains that articulates that masculine insecurity and anxiety at the hands of the they’re the real victims while women in the workforce aren’t in such women who supposedly run the world. bad shape. What world are they living in and what are they smoking Of ABC’s other dude-centric pilot, Man Up, the network declares: in it? Television culture seems to be doing the bidding of the rest of “Three modern men try to get in touch with their inner tough guys corporate-controlled America: divide the people to keep them from and redefine what it means to be a ‘real man’ in this funny and relatable rising up, implying in these new male-targeted shows that the rise of comedy…Will’s grandfather fought in WWII. Will’s father fought in women is tied to the fall of the economy.

Vietnam. Will plays Call of Duty on his PS3 and drinks non-dairy Whatever name they give it—class warfare or the battle of the hazelnut creamer. So what happened to all the real men?” sexes—the aim is not to educate or even inspire. This is entertainment?

C’mon! What we gather here is that ABC, which is the home of At the rate the networks are going, we’ll soon be having fond memories new femme-sploitation shows Pan Am and Charlie’s Angels, seems to of Father Knows Best.

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To Find The Violence Within Just Step Outside

By Dan Griffin

M

y understanding of trauma comes primarily from my experiences as a young boy, first growing up in a violent, alcoholic home and then having to deal with the impact of that trauma well into my thirties—and long into my sobriety.

I still have vivid memories of sitting on the top stair outside of my parents’ bedroom, hearing my mother screaming and crying as I was trying to get up the nerve to open the door or bang on it, once they/he had finally got smart enough to lock it. Or crying myself to sleep through the only slightly muffled sound of my parents’ yelling, cursing and belittling each other—only to pretend nothing had happened the next day. Or my dad grabbing me by my leg as I was trying to get away from him, pulling me down the stairs, and then proceeding to hit me. I could go on. Believe it or not, I had a lot of confusion about whether or not the home I had grown up in was actually violent. It was only when I got into relationships with people who did know the difference that I began to see that how I grew up was far from normal.

One thing that’s clear to me is the effect men’s trauma has on women and children. While compassion for men is essential, we have to be careful that compassion does not become enabling or minimizing of the horrific violence that women and children endure on a daily basis.

Here are some sobering statistics to keep in mind when talking about men and trauma: • Approximately 1.5 million women are raped or physically assaulted by an intimate partner each year in the United States. Because many are victimized more than once, approximately 4.8 million intimate-partner rapes and physical assaults against women are committed annually.

(Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2000) • Women aged 16 to 24 experience the highest per capita rates of intimate violence (19.6 victimizations per 1,000 women). (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2003; National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 2009) • One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. Eighty-five percent of domestic violence victims are women.

Most cases are never reported to the police. (National Coalition Against 28

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Domestic Violence, 2009) • In 2007, approximately 5.8 million children were involved in an estimated 3.2 million child abuse reports and allegations. Most cases are never reported to the police. (National Child Abuse Statistics, 2010) • About 30 percent of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children, continuing the horrible cycle of abuse.

(National Child Abuse Statistics, 2010) (In addition to the approximately 1.5 million women assaulted, the report said each year 834,732 men in the U.S. are raped and/or physically assaulted by an intimate partner (p. iii). “Even fewer rapes, physical assaults, and stalking perpetrated against male respondents by intimates were reported” supporting the widespread belief that men are less likely to report abuse (p. v). Both of these citations support the notion that the problem of men’s IPV victimization is much worse than is often acknowledged. The issue needs more attention and men’s voices need to be more regularly heard.)

Violence is much more than what I thought it was. I was often so focused on my internal experience that I did not look at my external behavior. “How can I be scaring anyone when I feel so afraid?” I would say angrily, yelling, after having been confronted. Or maybe I would laugh that patronizing laugh we men can have, the one that essentially says, “Stop being such an f’in baby” (echoed by so many who we followed into manhood). Like my alcoholism, so long as I maintained a fixed definition of violence then it meant I was not violent. In fairness, I was not shown what love and peace really looked like—or better, felt like. I did not understand what it meant to really feel safe. I did not realize that punching a wall was an act of violence—I thought it was avoiding violence!

Here are some other examples of violence, taken from my book, A Man’s Way Through the Twelve Steps (dangriffin.com/a-mans-waythrough-the-12-steps):

It is not unreasonable to assume that most men, especially those of us in recovery from any addiction, have had some experience of trauma. We should expect this to be the rule not; as it often is now, the exception. But nothing guarantees sobriety will stop a man’s violence or heal the trauma destroying so many people’s lives. Helping a man to understand that his experience was indeed traumatic is not easy. The way too many of us still raise boys to be men overlaps far too much with violence and abuse, which leads many of us to confuse that kind of behavior with love.

With that in mind, we should also assume that most men in recovery do not have a full understanding of violence, and so it is incumbent upon those of us who have come to a different understanding to share it, and to even take an unwavering stand against violence against women, children, and men! One of the greatest ways for me to heal has been the commitment to peace and safety I have made to my wife and my daughter—and even our little Shih Tzu dog, Haley. The more I am able to be the man I always hoped to be, the more I can see that is who I have always been.

Violence is so much more than I thought it was. I was so focused on my internal experience that I didn’t look at my external behavior.

• Raising your voice at your partner in an effort to intimidate or silence • Using your physical body to intimidate in any way by size and strength alone. Most men are intimidating to women and children; few men understand this • Slamming doors • Threatening harm to yourself or to your partner • Punching or kicking a wall or door with someone else in the room • Taking car keys or doing anything else to prevent your partner from leaving your presence or your home, or doing any other act that prevents your partner from seeking safety • Chasing your partner as he or she tries to leave or escape from you and your threatening behavior In our trauma-informed curriculum, Helping Men Recover (dangriffin.com/helping-men-recover), we make one thing clear throughout: Whatever happened to you as a child—no matter what you did—was not your fault; and, whatever you do or have done as an adult that has harmed another—no matter what someone else has done—is your responsibility and it needs to stop.

The last thing I ever wanted to do was continue the cycle of abuse.

I hate violence, have a pure heart, and never wanted to see anyone in pain. Yet, I found the same words coming out of my mouth with the same anger and violence from which I used to cower. I behaved in ways toward others that were exactly the same kind of behavior that still had me afraid of being in the dark—as a grown man! While it is hard to write these words, I feel I must because until we men begin to truly own our behavior—and call it what it really is—nothing is going to change. We must shine the light of honesty and compassion.

Nobody wants to be an addict; so many of us swore we would never become one. Maybe that is the same fear that gets in the way for so many of us men to acknowledge the impact of abuse on our lives—the fear of being our fathers (or whoever it was that abused us). Of course, with all the bullshit we have about being a man in our society, a man acknowledging the pain of abuse sometimes feels comparable to admitting he is not a man at all. Hell, there is still a part of me that feels like a [fill in the epithet] for writing these words. There is no question that at the heart of the vast majority of abuse is a stagnant well of toxic shame corroding the spirits of some very good men.

Beginning in graduate school, Dan Griffin has been studying the social construction of masculinity in the culture of Alcoholics Anonymous. A Man’s Way Through the Twelve Steps is believed to be the first book to speak directly to men’s experience in recovery. Co-author of the groundbreaking curriculum Helping Men Recover, a pioneering gender-responsive and traumainformed curriculum specifically for men, Dan lives in Minnesota and can be reached at dan@dangriffin.com

Men at Work Training February

22-24

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Poetry A Colored Leaf You refuse the savory supper that’s served you.

Your gracious niece gives you a geranium, but it reminds you of Sunday school, of wool pants in spring, its petal you see as a colored leaf.

You drive past the skateboard park, and there’s your son again.

You’re embarrassed: here’s your daughter showing cleavage at thirteen years of age.

Nothing’s quite right: Your wife, your work, your town.

After many winters, you irritably surmise the world Won’t give you what you want.

Listen, there is more here than you could love If you lived to ten thousand years.

Look! You fill yourself with fury and scorn: So much, you are not worthy Of the generosity of soil, water, and grass.

And yet it’s presented to you, an offering, day after day.

You were born a lover: Now, your interpretations of life render you a dying man, Dark, shriveled, like an ancient king in a tomb.

Here, now, by the lake, And always everywhere at dusk, at the end of each day, For two million years, Sandhill Cranes call, a throaty rattle, Playing off one another, Discordant, hilarious, endearing, Across fields and hills and waters.

Oh man, rise up, spread your arms Open your throat.

Holler with these outlandish Prehistoric birds.

Celebrate the day, get greedy for more.

Snow Dear good pilgrim.

Life, you sometimes think To be a conspiracy of immaculately planned ambushes: You get on your feet from one assault, only then thrown to the ground from another.

The car won’t start in the morning The electric line goes down in the wind The stomach flu keeps you in bed.

Your partner, you find, has a lover.

Then, there’s the snowstorm.

You step off the stoop, It slaps you hard On the face, Like your mean, wooden aunt.

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By Charlie Donaldson You slip and fall on your side into a drift; You’re not hurt but foolish, And you imagine seeing yourself on TV with the caption, Victim of snow drift.

You brush off the car, Creating a small intense flurry: Snow trickling into your gloves, Down your neck, around your ankles.

Now late and irritated, An unhappy person, You take the 45 degree turn on Mrs. Redding’s Trail too quick.

Suddenly you enter that old nausea of free fall As your car loses touch with the earth, Coming to rest in a plot of small trees and memorials to other poor drivers.

You start to shovel your way out, (Hoping no one will drive by to tell the story) The front wheels first, Around the back tires, the underbelly.

Now sweating, Cold little Amazons run down your back.

Finally, mostly done, You stop to rest.

You lean against the old dented red shovel, You look up, and there it is!

White, so much white, white in the distance until it’s a blur.

Lines in snow, contours across the fields, Trees, dark branches tufted in white.

You’ve stood in places like this before But you have forgotten how it takes your breath away.

You struggle to get yourself shoveling again, But the snow’s transfixed you by now, And then comes a prayer: Oh, you Giver of Snow, Snow, white: the color of clean and fresh and light.

Snow, unlike the rest of our lives, unsoiled and sparkling, Snow, sometimes friend, sometimes foe, But like a lover, always beautiful.

Thank you, beneficent Giver of Snow.

And now you know, dear good pilgrim, That you’re here for one reason, Off the road, in the field, leaning against the old shovel, Riveted by the wild expanse of white For one purpose, And that, you’ve just done: To fall in love again.

Therapist and writer Charlie Donaldson creates environments for men, including himself, to blossom into the lovely flowers they really are.

Co-author of Stop Hurting the Woman You Love: Breaking the Cycle of Abuse (Hazelden), Charlie is at work on a resource guide featuring a step-by-step recovery plan for abusive men. He lives on Beaver Island in northern Lake Michigan and can be reached at chasdonaldson@ rocketmail.com.

Books

Sexual Harassment and Bullying: A Guide to Keeping Kids Safe and Holding Schools Accountable

By Susan Strauss Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2011 Hardcover, 208 pages, $34.95

Bullying in schools is often discussed, but sexual harassment in schools—and how it differs from bullying—is often overlooked. In fact, though, sexual harassment (committed by both students and school personnel) is more common and yet more

easily and quickly dismissed by those involved, though its consequences for the victim can be profound. Those are some of the observations found in Sexual Harassment and Bullying, a guide for parents, teachers, school officials, and others that compares and contrasts sexual harassment and bullying as they relate to behavior, laws, and impact on children.

Author Susan Strauss, R.N., Ed.D., harassment and bullying consultant, trainer and speaker, wrote the book for parents and other adults to navigate school policies, barriers, and responsibilities. While emphasizing that no child should be subjected to bullying or sexual harassment, using practical examples and in-depth legal analysis, Strauss argues that schools need to take responsibility for stopping and preventing harassment or bullying, and that parents and other concerned adults often need to be involved and advocate for the child—even, sometimes, in the wake of resistance from those in the school system.

Strauss is also author of Sexual Harassment and Teens: A Program for Positive Change, and numerous journal articles, book chapters, curricula, and other works focused on sexual harassment and bullying in schools

and at work. She is an adjunct faculty at DeVry University and the University of Phoenix.

Throughout Sexual Harassment and Bullying Strauss uses examples from actual cases that made it to the courts—and have been precedent setting—as well as cases in which she was involved as an expert witness or consultant. A resource section is provided at the end of the book.

For more information or to order, go to www.rowmanlittlefield.com or call 1-800462-6420.

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Resources for Changing Men Family Violence Prevention Fund Working to end violence against women globally; programs for boys, men and fathers www.endabuse.org Healthy Dating, Sexual Assault Prevention http://www.canikissyou.com International Society for Men’s Health Prevention campaigns and health initiatives promoting men’s health www.ismh.org Paul Kivel Violence prevention educator http://www.paulkivel.com A wide-ranging (but by no means exhaustive) listing of organizations engaged in profeminist men’s work.

Know of an organization that should be listed here? E-mail relevant information to us at info@voicemalemagazine.org 100 Black Men of America, Inc. Chapters around the U.S. working on youth development and economic empowerment in the African American community www.100blackmen.org A Call to Men Trainings and conferences on ending violence against women www.acalltomen.org American Men’s Studies Association Advancing the critical study of men and masculinities www.mensstudies.org Boys to Men International Initation weekends and follow-up mentoring for boys 12-17 www.boystomen.org Boys to Men New England www.boystomennewengland.org Dad Man Consulting, training, speaking about fathers and father figures as a vital family resource www.thedadman.com EMERGE Counseling and education to stop domestic violence. Comprehensive batterers’ services www.emergedv.com European Men Pro-feminist Network Promoting equal opportunities between men and women www.europrofem.org

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Lake Champlain Men’s Resource Center Burlington, Vt., center with groups and services challenging men’s violence on both individual and societal levels www.lcmrc.org Males Advocating Change Worcester, Mass., center with groups and services supporting men and challenging men’s violence www.centralmassmrc.org ManKind Project New Warrior training weekends www.mkp.org MANSCENTRUM Swedish men’s centers addressing men in crisis www.manscentrum.se Masculinity Project The Masculinity Project addresses the complexities of masculinity in the African American community www.masculinityproject.com MASV—Men Against Sexual Violence Men working in the struggle to end sexual violence www.menagainstsexualviolence.org Men Against Violence UNESCO program believing education, social and natural science, culture and communication are the means toward building peace www.unesco.org/cpp/uk/projects/ wcpmenaga.htm

Men Can Stop Rape Washington, D.C.-based national advocacy and training organization mobilizing male youth to prevent violence against women. www. mencanstoprape.org MenEngage Alliance An international alliance promoting boys’ and men’s support for gender equality www.menengage.org Men for HAWC Gloucester, Mass., volunteer advocacy group of men’s voices against domestic abuse and sexual assault www.strongmendontbully.com Men’s Health Network National organization promoting men‘s health www.menshealthnetwork.org Men’s Initiative for Jane Doe, Inc. Statewide Massachusetts effort coordinating men’s anti-violence activities www.mijd.org Men’s Nonviolence Project, Texas Council on Family Violence http://www.tcfv.org/education/mnp. html Men’s Resource Center for Change Model men’s center offering support groups for all men www.mrcforchange.org Men’s Resource Center of West Michigan Consultations and Trainings in helping men develop their full humanity, create respectful and loving relationships, and caring and safe communities. www.menscenter.org Men’s Resource Center of South Texas Based on Massachusetts MRC model, support groups and services for men mrcofsouthtexas@yahoo.com Men’s Resources International Trainings and consulting on positive masculinity on the African continent www.mensresourcesinternational.org

Men Against Violence (Yahoo e-mail list) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/menagainstviolence/

Men Stopping Violence Atlanta-based organization working to end violence against women, focusing on stopping battering, and ending rape and incest www.menstoppingviolence.org

Men Against Violence Against Women (Trinidad) Caribbean island anti-violence campaign www.mavaw.com.

The Men’s Story Project Resources for creating public dialogue about masculinities through local storytelling and arts. www.mensstoryproject.org

Men’s Violence Prevention http://www.olywa.net/tdenny/ Mentors in Violence Prevention—MVP Trainings and workshops in raising awareness about men’s violence against women www.sportsinsociety.org/vpd/mvp./php Monadnock Men’s Resource Center Southern New Hampshire men’s center supporting men and challenging men’s violence mmrconline.org MVP Strategies Gender violence prevention education and training www.jacksonkatz.com National Association for Children of Domestic Violence Provides education and public awareness of the effects of domestic violence, especially on children. www. nafcodv.org National Coalition Against Domestic Violence Provides a coordinated community www.ncadv.org National Men’s Resource Center National clearinghouse of information and resources for men www.menstuff.org National Organization for Men Against Sexism Annual conference, newsletter, profeminist activities www.nomas.org Boston chapter: www.nomasboston. org One in Four An all-male sexual assault peer education group dedicated to preventing rape www.oneinfourusa.org Promundo NGO working in Brazil and other developing countries with youth and children to promote equality between men and women and the prevention of interpersonal violence www.promundo.org RAINN—Rape Abuse and Incest National Network A national anti-sexual assault organization www.rainn.org Renaissance Male Project A midwest, multicultural and multiissue men‘s organization www.renaissancemaleproject

Resources for Changing Men The Men’s Bibliography Comprehensive bibliography of writing on men, masculinities, gender, and sexualities listing 14,000 works www.mensbiblio.xyonline.net/ UNIFEM United Nations Development Fund for Women www.unifem.org VDay Global movement to end violence against women and girls, including Vmen, male activists in the movement www.newsite.vday.org Voices of Men An Educational Comedy by Ben Atherton-Zeman http://www.voicesofmen.org Walk a Mile in Her Shoes Men’s March to Stop Rape, Sexual Assault & Gender Violence http:// www.walkamileinhershoes.org White Ribbon Campaign International men’s campaign decrying violence against women www.whiteribbon.ca XY Magazine www.xyonline.net Profeminist men’s web links (over 500 links) www.xyonline.net/links.shtml Profeminist men’s politics, frequently asked questions www.xyonline.net/misc/ pffaq.html Profeminist e-mail list (1997–) www.xyonline.net/misc/profem.html Homophobia and masculinities among young men www.xyonline.net/misc/ homophobia.html

Fathering Fatherhood Initiative Massachusetts Children’s Trust Fund Supporting fathers, their families and theprofessionals who work with them www.mctf.org Fathers and Daughters Alliance (FADA) Helping girls in targeted countries to return to and complete primary school fatheranddaughter.org Fathers with Divorce and Custody Concerns Looking for a lawyer?

Call your state bar association lawyer referral agency.

Useful websites include: www.dadsrights.org (not www.dadsrights.com)

www.directlex.com/main/law/divorce/ www.divorce.com www.divorcecentral.com www.divorcehq.com www.divorcenet.com www.divorce-resource-center.com www.divorcesupport.com Collaborative Divorce www.collaborativealternatives.com www.collaborativedivorce.com www.collaborativepractice.com www.nocourtdivorce.com The Fathers Resource Center Online resource, reference, and network for stay-at-home dads www.slowlane.com National Center for Fathering Strategies and programs for positive fathering. www.fathers.com National Fatherhood Initiative Organization to improve the well-being of children through the promotion of responsible, engaged fatherhood www.fatherhood.org

Gay Rights Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Works to combat homophobia and discrimination in television, film, music and all media outlets www.glaad.org Human Rights Campaign Largest GLBT political group in the country. www.hrc.org Interpride Clearing-house for information on pride events worldwide www.interpride.net LGBT Health Channel Provides medically accurate information to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and allied communities.

Safer sex, STDs, insemination, transgender health, cancer, and more www.lgbthealthchannel.com.

National Gay and Lesbian Task Force National progressive political and advocacy group www.ngltf.org Outproud - Website for GLBT and questioning youth www.outproud.org Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays www.pflag.org

The Prison Birth Project working to provide support, education and advocacy to women and girls at the intersection of the criminal justice system and motherhood.

www.theprisonbirthproject.org Fall 2011

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Visit us on the web at Voicemalemagazine.org

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General Support Groups: Open to any man who wants to experience a men’s group. Topics of discussion reflect the needs and interests of the participants. Groups are held in these Western Massachusetts communities: Hadley, at North Star, 135 Russell Street, 2nd Floor: Tuesday evenings (7:00 – 9:00 PM). Entrance on Route 47 opposite the Hadley Town Hall.

Greenfield, at Network Chiropractic, 21 Mohawk Trail: Wednesday evenings (7:00 – 9:00 PM).

Group for Men Who Have Experienced Childhood Neglect, Abuse, or Trauma: Open to men who were subjected to neglect and/or abuse growing up, this group is designed specifically to ensure a sense of safety for participants. It is a facilitated peer support group and is not a therapy group. Group meetings are held on Fridays (7:00 – 9:00 PM) at the Synthesis Center in Amherst, 274 N. Pleasant Street (just a few doors north of the former MRC building).

Group for Gay, Bisexual, and Questioning Men: Specifically for men who identify as gay or bisexual, or who are questioning their sexual orientation, this group is designed to provide a safe and supportive setting to share experiences and concerns. Gay or bi-identified transgendered men are welcome! In addition to providing personal support, the group offers an opportunity for creating and strengthening local networks. Group meetings are held on Mondays (7:00 – 9:00 PM) at the Synthesis Center in Amherst, 274 N. Pleasant Street (just a few doors north of the former MRC building).