Various Perspectives on the First International Conference on Men’s Issues

The last weekend in June, in Detroit (fittingly), the first ever International Conference on Men’s Issues was held. Monica Hesse, who covered the conference for the Washington Post, summed up the 150-200 (mostly white) men who attended: "the binding theme was that almost everyone here had experienced a version of a 'red pill moment'." For those unfamiliar with the jargon of the men's rights activists (MRAs), think back to The Matrix:


For MRAs, a red pill moment is the moment in which a man wakes up and realizes he has become a second class citizen in this country. It's the moment he realizes that feminism has taken away his rights, his freedoms, and his privilege. The red pill crowd has a very popular Reddit site.

Unfortunately, for the majority of MRAs, taking their red pill seems to lead not only to anti-feminism, but to a lot of anti-women rhetoric as well.

As you might guess, this conference was an easy target for pro-women and pro-feminist sites to make fun of and ridicule, and Jezebel took up that task with enthusiasm.

The conference was organized by Paul Elam, who hosts the MRA site, A Voice For Men. According to Jessica Roy's article for Time Magazine, Elam wanted speakers and attendees to take a more press-friendly tone:

At Elam’s request, the majority of the speakers were noticeably less anti-woman in person than many are in their writings or speeches elsewhere.

For what it's worth, Roy did the best job of trying to provide fair and balanced coverage, but apparently Elam took issue with a couple of tweets she posted during the conference, moments when she was dismayed by the commentary she was seeing.

We Hunted the Mammoth posted about Elam's response to the tweets:

Elam, evidently incensed about a handful of sarcastic remarks that Roy tweeted during the conference, denounced her as, among other things, a “hack,” “a liar and bigot” and a practitioner of “journalistic scumtardery,” whatever that is. Commenters on A Voice for Men happily joined in the hate, denouncing her as an “airhead,” a “disgrace and a liar,” “lil’ miss hair-o’or-her-eyes,” and a “little asshole [who] will look like a right nazi in five-to-ten years time.” Amazingly, no one pulled out the c-word. Evidently AVFMers are still on their best behavior.

So much for being on their good behavior.

It's unfortunate, as Tom Hawking notes at Flavorwire, that the MRAs are so caught up in hating feminism and feeling like victims - their anger and hatred do more harm to men than they do to help men.

There are many things to dislike about r/RedPill types. Many, many things. But here’s the issue: quite apart from their hatefulness, they do their “cause” — such as it is — absolutely no good at all. As with extremists in many other areas, they hijack and polarize a discussion that is worth having.

And it IS a discussion that needs to be held, with all sides open and curious, not convinced they are right and highly cynical of other perspectives.

The blog ANIMAL New York posted the conference as well, but they took the added step of including some of the key comments from the speakers. Interestingly, many of the most cogent points have nothing to do with feminism. The realms where feminism has probably done men the most harm is in family courts, education, and related areas.

Quotes from Warren Farrell:

• Millions of boys are getting their dopamine fixes from performing in video games, but not performing in real life.
• With the increased amount of video porn, boys who are failures to launch, who aren’t doing well in school, notice that not many girls are interested in them. But they have an easy escape: Video porn, 250 million options… free.
• Men questioning work full time is to this day extremely difficult especially if the man is successful.
• Why, when girls are doing much better than boys, do we have a White House council on women and girls, but no White House council on men and boys?

None of these points can be pinned on women or feminism. Farrell has been one of the loudest and most visible voices on the plight of boys in education and as young men. However, if one looks at the issues he is most known for (some of which Elam presents below), in The Myth of Male Power, these are social structures and products of power differential.

Even Paul Elam had some good points in this area:

• Men are 93% of all workplace fatalities. They’re currently 97% of combat deaths. They’re the majority of the homeless.
• Men are sentenced on average to 66% more time in prison than women for the same crime, and are twice as likely to be incarcerated in the first place, again, for the first time. It is a gap even wider than that between black and white.

It's the 1%, the wealthy elite, who are the owners of all the industries in which men are most likely to be killed (mining, oil fields, etc) and these owners fight every effort to regulate safety. Furthermore, the military that sends these men to die in battle is run almost exclusively by men. As Hawking pointed out on Flavorwire:

The prison industrial complex uses male bodies as free labor for the enrichment of a privileged elite… who are pretty much entirely white men.

When Elam gets deeper into his message, however, there is a more direct attack on the feminist assault on male rights:

• Men are subject to a family court system so corrupt and biased it represents the biggest rollback of civil right since Jim Crow. It is a system that destroys the lives of men and children by severing their bond with calculated indifference. Parental alienation is real and rampant. Sadly there is now a profit to be made in the destruction of our families.
• Under the false banner of the best interests of the child, fathers are forced to pay child support as though it were mafia protection money.
• Men are starting to abandon the idea of marriage in the first place. It’s a form of risk management for their lives.
• Despite a compelling body of evidence, that men and boys are victims of domestic and sexual assault at rates far exceeding what most would think, the current gender paradigm ignores this and dedicates to resources all but exclusively to women.

The issue of the family court system is one place where I have seen good men lose to the system, even when the mother originally abandoned the child to the father. Then she decides she wants custody and wins, three years after walking away from her child. I have seen other fathers get jerked around in court by the ex-wives, forced to pay more child support because the mother "won" more direct time with custody.

The family court system claims that equal custody is the preferred norm, but it seldom plays out that way in court, especially if there are lawyers involved.

On that issue, I am all-in with the MRAs, except that I blame a patriarchal society that sees women as the care-providers and men as the bread-winners. Until that model changes the family court system is unlikely to change.

I'm also all-in on the lack of support for men who are victims of domestic violence (and men tend to be more often the victims, while women tend to be more often injured). This is a topic that will continue to be an issue until the stigma disappears on a man who says his wife or girlfriend beat him up. Part of this problem is due to law enforcement - if they are called to a DV scene and the male is the victim, they are much less likely to take it seriously unless the female is holding a knife or something and he is bleeding.

Elam gets caught in a double standard in his comments above. On the one hand, it should be easier for men to have or get custody of their children, while on the other hand, if a man doesn't want to be a father he should not have to pay child support. Sorry, man, but if you're going to play in the rain, you need to wear a jacket. Failure to do so makes you responsible for anything that grows.

Diana Thompson, one of five women who spoke at the conference, made some good points about the family court system, and she did not blame feminism to make them:

• I’ve seen many of the grievances men and father’s face; blocked visitation and unenforced visitation orders, move-away moms who use geography to drive father’s out of their children’s lives, acceptance by the court of false accusations of domestic violence or child abuser, especially as a basis for denying custody or even contact between the father and child.
• Our current family court system is very adversarial. The only winner being the billion dollar divorce industry paid for by our children, even though study after study shows that children without fathers are at higher risk for social pathology such as: criminality, teen pregnancy, and drug use and there’s many more.

Again, these are very valid points. The system is broken and the people who are getting rich off of this system, who are invested in keeping it broken, are the divorce lawyers.

Another of the female speakers, Suzanne Venker, made some points I have often made on this blog - the television and film industry routinely portrays men and fathers as idiots.

• The lack of respect for men is palpable. The message coming from the media, Hollywood, and America’s universities, is that men are superfluous at best, dangerous at worst.
• America routinely paints a portrait of the idiot husband whose wife is smarter and more capable than he. That is a war!

But then, Dr. Helen Smith has to go and say something stupid:

• We’ve seen women with increased reproductive freedom, married men often require a note from their wives before a doctor will even perform a vasectomy.

I have never heard of this happening, and I know several men who have had this procedure. But what I have heard about, over and over, is how doctors (always male) will refuse to do a tubal ligation for a woman under 40, because she's "going to change her mind" and want kids. How disrespectful. If a woman says she does not want kids, or is through having kids, then the doctor needs to respect her wishes. She's an adult, she can make adult decisions.

One of the few speakers who genuinely seems to be an idiot was Mike Buchanan, who wants a "Men's Rights Party" in British politics. But he goes off the rails more than the rest of the speakers:

• We had for more than 30 years across much of the developed world, unholy alliances between states and radical feminism.
• Now radical feminism is without doubt a female supremacy ideology that’s driven by misandry; the hatred for men and boys.
• Legislation is routinely drafted to advantage women and disadvantage men.
• Boys are being relentlessly disadvantaged by an evermore feminized education system.
• Apparently, we need more female engineers. I’ve never quite worked out why.
• It’s time to end divorce as a route to financial enrichment.
• We’re calling for compulsory paternity testing at birth, so at long last we’ll find out just what the rate is.

The only point here that has any truth to it is that boys ARE being disadvantaged by a feminized educational system. Women greatly outnumber men as teachers in the earliest school grades, and this the age at which boys are being given ADHD meds are alarming rates. Even worse, a lot of schools have done away with recess - and if you want to make it hard for boys to learn, don't let them run around and burn off energy.

There are a lot of areas in which I am in agreement with the MRAs that there are problems and we need to fix them. But I refuse to associate with them because of their penchant for rage and vitriol. That is not how change gets done.

I have aligned myself with an "equal rights for all people" agenda, a belief in equality that sees gender as only one variable among many. And because I support equal rights for women (and men), mothers take me more seriously when I speak about the need for boys to burn off energy before sitting down to do homework, or that it's okay if your son learns how to express his emotions rather than act them out.

If we move away from the truly radical feminists on one side and the truly radical MRAs on the other side, the remaining 90% of us have much more in common than we do in difference. If we start from that place of common interest, we can affect some meaningful change. 

If you want to read more about the conference from a variety of sources, here are some links.

• What I Learned as a Woman at a Men’s-Rights Conference, Time, by Jessica Roy
• Men’s rights activists, gathering to discuss all the ways society has done them wrong, The Washington Post, by Monica Hesse
• The First "Men's Issues" Conference Makes a Good Point. And a Lot of Bad Ones, Salon, by Laura Smith
• The Most Inane Moments from Last Weekend's Men's Rights Conference, Jezebel, by Madeleine Davies
• MRAs Aren’t Just Terrorizing Women — They’re Hurting Men, Too, Flavorwire, by Tom Hawking
• Inside The First International Conference on Men’s Issues, ANIMAL New York, by Bucky Turco
• Defenders of A Voice for Men tell Time magazine reporter “we have to SCARE you into listening,” you “stinky … human monkey”, We Hunted the Mammoth, by David Futrelle 

And two from the Hatewatch blog at the Southern Poverty Law Center:

• The First International Conference on Men’s Issues: Day 1, by Arthur Goldwag
• First International Conference on Men’s Issues: Day 2, by Arthur Goldwag

The fourth installment of the Conference on College Men is now accepting proposals for talks, with a March 27 deadline. The Conference is scheduled for May 19-21, 2013 at Miami University of Ohio.

Sponsors include NASPA, ACPA, Men and Masculinities Knowledge Community, and Standing Committee for Men.

2013 Conference on College Men

Call for programs is now open! Submit here!

Conference Dates: May 19-21, 2013

Miami University of Ohio

Program Home | Registration and Fees | Conference Schedule
Call for Programs | Hotel and Travel | Featured Speakers

Submit Proposal

• Program Submission Deadline: March 27, 2013
• Notification of Submission Status: April 5, 2013

The Conference Committee encourages the submission of innovative proposals that connect theory and practice around college men and masculinities, and consider the following issues:

• Best Practices and Innovative Connections.
  This area will explore the ways in which college student practitioners implement programs and interventions designed specifically around gender and masculinities programs and services. Evidence-based approaches to blend theoretical perspectives and research demonstrating positive student outcomes are particularly welcomed.
• Intersectional Perspectives on Men and Masculinities.
  This area will explore how race/ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, [dis]ability, socioeconomic status, and other facets of identity influence college men’s construction, negotiation, and performance of gender.
• Moving from Deficit Models to Appreciative Inquiry.
  This area will explore moving away from deficit models around college men, such as focusing on the “crises” of college men to instead focus on appreciative inquiry. Appreciative inquiry includes work that aims to learn from high-achieving, successful college men in order to leverage and replicate ways of meeting other college men’s needs.
• Situating Theory and History.
  This area will explore the historical and theoretical foundations of work related to college men and masculinities. Connected with feminist theory and gender studies, work in this area highlights the journey of men and masculinity studies within the context of higher education.
• Pressing Needs and Concerns.
  This area will explore opportunities to respond to the specific needs of college men, including mental health concerns, violence prevention, and other contemporary matters within the context of higher education for college-aged men.

Bringing together the most diverse and talented educators in the field of men and masculinities research and practice, the Conference on College Men has become the premier venue to explore and examine issues related to men and masculinities in higher education. As particular populations of college men continue to struggle in their post-secondary transitions and engagement, the Conference on College Men challenges attendees to critically reflect upon how their own identification and expression of gender influences their work with college and university students while also treating them to the most recent scholarship and services in the field.

Audience

• Student Affairs, administrators of all levels, including senior student affairs officers
• Faculty

Conference History
The concept of a professional conference for student affairs administrators focusing on the topic of college men was shepherded within NASPA and ACPA by Dr. Jason Laker, then vice-principal and dean of student affairs at Queen's University in Ontario and founding chair of the NASPA Men and Masculinities Knowledge Community. The inaugural conference, then titled the Institute on College Males, was hosted by Morehouse College in May 2007. The institute theme was Creating and Achieving Successful Outcomes. The institute included an opening keynote delivered by Dr. Michael Kimmel, SUNY Stony Brook, a general session from Dr. Jason Laker, 15 educational sessions, a panel of scholars and practitioners regarding working with college men, and a closing keynote from Dr. Shaun Harper, University of Pennsylvania.

The success of this first institute led NASPA and ACPA to collaborate on a second program in May 2009 hosted by the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Frank Harris, San Diego State University, chaired a planning team composed of both NASPA and ACPA members in selecting major speakers and program proposals. The team decided to officially change the name of the program to the Conference on College Men to more accurately reflect the program structure. The conference theme in 2009 was Engaging College Men: Bridging Scholarship and Practice. The committee selected accepted 20 educational sessions speaking to this theme and focusing on the topics of intersections of identity; recruitment and retention of men; building networks of support for men; facilitating cross-cultural dialogue between men and women; and men at community colleges. The conference featured an opening keynote address from Dr. Linda Sax, UCLA; a panel of Women's Center Directors moderated by Rachel Wagner, University of Dayton; and a closing keynote address from Dr. Shaun Harper, University of Pennsylvania.

The third Conference on College Men took place May 22-24, 2011 at Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis. Dr. Jason Laker, now Vice President for Student Affairs at San Jose State University, and Dr. Tracy Davis, Professor and College Student Personnel Program Coordinator Educational and Interdisciplinary Studies at Western Illinois University graciously gave permission to share the title and borrow from the framework of their publication, Masculinities in Higher Education, in planning for the conference program structure.

The conference offered 20 educational sessions exploring theoretical and historical foundations of men and masculinities in higher education, intersections of identities, and practical considerations and effective interventions. The conference included an opening workshop exploring a shared language for men and masculinities facilitated by Rachel Wagner and Z Nicolazzo, University of Arizona, a keynote by Dr. Frank Harris and a keynote by Dr. Susan Marine, Harvard College. The conference closed with a panel facilitated by Dr. Jason Laker and featuring comments from Dr. Tracy Davis, Rachel Wagner, Dr. Shaun Harper, and Dr. Susan Marine.

An International Symposium for Men, 2013: Men and the Future: Sex, Authenticity, and Power

There is another conference on men and masculinity coming up in 2013 - An International Symposium for Men, 2013: Men and the Future: Sex, Authenticity, and Power. One of the presenters is Eivind Fiegenschau-Skjellum, the man behind Masculinity Movies, a cool site. The downside is that we have to travel to Germany if we want to b there - so hopefully they will video the talks and share them on YouTube.

An International Symposium for Men 2013 

MEN AND THE FUTURE: SEX, AUTHENTICITY AND POWER

May 23rd to 26th 2013, near Frankfurt Airport in Germany 

Come and join us and:

• contribute to a new vision for masculinity
• enjoy the stimulating presence of other dedicated seekers
• experience the guidance of men who have been involved with men's work for decades

Languages: English and German

The International Symposium is for:

• courageous pioneers
• committed men who want to be a part of the solution
• young men who will inhabit the future
• experts in Menswork as well as the curious

At the International Symposium you can expect to:

• experience the guidance of men who have been involved with Menswork for decades
• contribute to a new vision for masculinity
• enjoy the stimulating presence of other dedicated seekers
• become part of the solution not part of the problem
• feel empowered for the uncertain future
• learn how to face criticism and conflict with women
• discover a new sense of bodily wholeness
• develop confidence in your sexuality and relationships
• rediscover grounded pride in being male

At the International Symposium we invite you to:

• contribute to debates about the role and function of men
• experience cutting-edge presentations from leading facilitators
• take part in workshops with transformative goals
• honour each other in age-old fire rituals
• celebrate in physical games

• experience creative chaos in large group meetings
• discover the excitement of the World Cafe events
• meet with other seekers from around the world
• discover the solidarity of awakening males and make new friend

Who is behind this first International Symposium for Men?

We are a core team of men experienced in men’s issues and workshop presentations:

John Bunzl (UK)
Hans Georg Nelles (D)
Manu Bazanno (I)
Nick Duffell (UK)
Robert Fischer (CH)

These guys and the following will be presenters and animators of your experience:

Eivind Fiegenschau-Skjellum (N)
Daniel Glauser (CH)
Paul Wolflight (UK)
Michael Boyle (UK)
Jon Howell (UK)
Alec von Graffenried (D)
Michael ten Hövel (D)
Hank Earl (UK)
German May (D)
Ivan Verny (CZ)
Axel Klimek (D)
Tom Steininger (A)
Axel Klimek (D)
Ingo Vauk (D)
Geoff lamb (UK)
André Stern (F)
Peter Hess (D)
Jan Bili (CZ)
Gautier Hankenne (B)
Darrel Hunneybell (UK)…
and others to be announced…

Find out more about them and discover their vision by clicking on their names.

You can begin to take part in this movement NOW by joining in on our discussion forum and  BLOG.

Call for Proposals: “Multiple Masculinities and Intersecting Identities” for the 2013 Men and Masculinities Conference

For those who might be interested in presenting at a conference . . .

Call for Proposals for AMSA’s 2013 Men and Masculinities Conference

June 28, 2012 by Editor  
 

 

AMSA is now accepting proposals for the American Men’s Studies Association‘s 21st Annual Interdisciplinary Men’s Studies Conference to be held in Ann Arbor, Michigan April 4-7, 2013. The deadline for submissions is October 31, 2012.

The conference theme, “Multiple Masculinities and Intersecting Identities,” reflects the importance of exploring gender as it shapes and is shaped by other aspects of life experiences. Proposals related to this theme might include the intersection(s) of gender with age, race, ethnic identity, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, economic status, career choice, religious identity, disability, or other identities. While we particularly encourage proposals that address the conference theme we also invite proposals on a range of other topics relevant to the critical study of men and masculinities which reflect the AMSA’s mission (see the AMSA mission statement at www.mensstudies.org).

Four types of submissions will be considered:

1. Individual paper presentations (20 minutes allotted)
2. Panel presentations of three or four papers on a specific topic or theme organized by the presenters (90 minutes allotted)
3. Applied workshops addressing topics relevant to working with males, teaching men’s studies, or related applied experiences (90 minutes allotted)
4. Poster presentations.

Proposals are invited from scholars, practitioners, activists, students, and other individuals interested in men’s studies and the critical examination of men’s lives and identities as men. Presentations from other venues (i.e., art, films, etc) will also be considered. AMSA conference presenters typically come from a range of academic disciplines, as well as clinical, educational, social services, and related fields but are not limited to these areas.

• Download the complete call for proposals (pdf).

• Submit proposals online or for more information about the conference, at the 2013 AMSA Conference Information Page

• For more information, please email the AMSA Conference Chair, Dr. Daphne C. Watkins.

Owen Marcus - Men Speak about the Power of Empathy

The Center for Building a Culture of Empathy recently held an online conference called How Can We Build a Culture of Empathy and Compassion? Owen Marcus curated one of the panels, The Culture of Empathy and Men for the conference.

Here is the post Owen put up, along with the video, which is also available at the Center for Building a Culture of Empathy site for the conference. This is part of a year-long series of panel discussions, so check out the site for ones already complete, and check back for new ones when they are added.

Men Speak about the Power of Empathy

 

“Emotions” and “empathy” are words we don’t generally associate with men. But in my experience, I have found that men are just as emotional and empathetic as women. We just express it differently—different than women express, and different than the culture expects us to express.

Recently I moderated a panel on “The Culture of Empathy and Men” where we explored what empathy is for men. We looked at what is missing for men, and why it seems like we’re behind the empathy curve. But more important than just looking at what’s missing, we looked at ways to fill those gaps. We gave the viewer cues on how he could learn what was never taught to him.

Trauma and chronic stress will shut down a man’s desire to experience empathy. The panel spoke about how the PTSD response can be unlearned in the micro-communities of men’s groups, and in special trainings in corporations.

Going beyond the standard masculine approach to “fix it,” or to agree or disagree, we discussed how listening for understanding is a powerful setup for empathy. When we listen to understand, we create an empathetic dialogue that allows others to open up. The other person wants to share because he or she feels not only safe, but also feels your interest.

Not only are these men speaking to the power of empathy, now science is too.

Unlearning the frozen survival response, which shuts down empathy, changes our brain chemistry. In his book The Moral Molecule, neuroeconomist Paul Zak describes oxytocin’s role in trust, bonding and even virtuous behavior. In this interview Paul Zak speaks about how oxytocin increases as a man or woman relaxes with empathy.

How do you build empathy in a masculine way? What is it like for you to experience a man who is empathetic?

Teleconference: The Ultimate Man: Activating a Life of Integrity, Authenticity & Power

The Shift Network, the folks who put on the Ultimate Men's Summit back in June, is now offering The Ultimate Man: Activating a Life of Integrity, Authenticity & Power, a teleconference featuring 8 speakers over 8 weeks, including several men from the Summit (among them Robert Moore and Jayson Gaddis).

This one is a little more in-depth, and so it costs $287 for the 8 weeks (register here). Here is the schedule and the complete offerings:

The Ultimate Man Course Overview

Week 1 (August 3rd) Integrity: Cultivating the Signature Virtue for Men

Presenter: Lion Goodman

In the opening session, you’ll dive right into the signature virtue of integrity. Integrity means being true to yourself and being honest, upright and decent in your dealings with others. It becomes the basis for both reputation and self-respect.

For men, integrity may be the most important virtue to cultivate. If you are a man of integrity, you are trusted by both men and women. Integrity means that your words and your deeds are aligned – you do what you say you will do. You’ll be introduced to The Promise Game, a new blame-free methodology for making, tracking and keeping your promises, which you’ll practice throughout the course. During this week, you will:

• Learn how a virtue-driven life leads to happiness, satisfaction and success
• Find the source of integrity inside yourself and take stock of where you’re out of integrity
• See the connection between your virtues, values, behavior and character
• Recognize how limiting beliefs interfere with your ability to create the life you want
• Begin to hold yourself accountable for the promises you make

Week 2 (August 10th) Connection: Plugging into Your Soul and Spirit, the Ultimate Cure

Presenter: Robert Moore, PhD

The delusion of separateness causes most human suffering. When you remember that you’re always connected to everything, love flows in both directions, pain and suffering is manageable, and you can rest, knowing that there are others you can rely upon when needed.

Dr. Robert Moore is a psychoanalytic scientist whose work is at the forefront of masculine psychology and spirituality. He will address our connection to the Great Other as an essential foundation of initiation. The recognition of Other is the cure to the tendency to get lost in pathological narcissism and unconscious grandiosity. He will also discuss initiation and the role of virtues in the initiatory process. During the week you will:

• Recognize your connectedness with everything and know that you are never alone
• Turn on the fountain of love that flows between you and others
• Experience the difference between your Soul and Spirit
• Recognize the impact of narcissism and grandiosity on your relationships
• Deepen your connection to other men, to women, and to your family

Week 3 (August 17th) Leadership: Inviting Your Inner Leader to Come Out and Lead

Presenter: Keith Merron, PhD

Leadership is a quality that is inborn in some people, but can be cultivated by anyone. Keith has spent his entire career working with leaders of large corporations and entrepreneurial companies. He has interviewed hundreds of leaders to discover what qualities make Remarkable Leaders, which he describes in detail in his book The Golden Flame.

In this session, you will explore the virtue of Leadership and practices that will help you bring out your own leadership capacity – whether you lead others or not. Every man must become the leader of his own life. If a man can lead himself, he’ll be able to lead in his family, in his workplace and in his community. This week you will:

• Better understand your relationship to power
• Find your own Inner Leader and invite him out into the world
• Take control of your own life
• Identify the style of leadership that works best for you
• Cultivate your own remarkable leadership qualities

Week 4 (August 24th) Brotherhood: Deepening Your Communion with Other High-Integrity Men

Presenters: Bill Kauth and David Kaar

This week you will learn the virtue of Brotherhood, the ability to meet other men while standing in your truth and power. Teachers Bill Kauth and David Kaar, both leaders at The ManKind Project (the largest training group for men), will help you break through the social and cultural taboos that have separated us as men, making us isolated and lonely.

They will share key practices they’ve been honing for decades in their initiatory men’s work, giving you the tools to hone your virtues, cut through the bull and help yourself and others transform. During this week you will:

• Learn how to recognize other high-integrity men
• Heal past wounds from unhealthy relationships with men
• Discover a new sense of what real brotherhood can bring to your life
• Experience the true essence of being and having a brother

Week 5 (Aug. 31st) Authenticity: Becoming Radically Authentic and Comfortable with Who You Are

Presenter: Jayson Gaddis

Authenticity is more than just being who you are. It’s being ALL of who you are, beyond your beliefs, definitions, roles or boundaries of your ego. When asked, “Who are you?” most men answer with the roles they play: “I’m a businessman” or “I’m a student.” Or “I’m a husband and parent of two children.” But these roles are just a fragment of the spectacular being you really are.

Jayson Gaddis has spent decades training men to be Great Men, helping them move beyond predatory and hurtful behavior. He will help you see that the greatest growth opportunities come in relationship with others, and that authenticity – being everything you are – is a key ingredient to success in dating, marriage, friendships and partnerships. This week you will:

• Learn what it means to be radically authentic
• Experience total comfort with who you already are
• Uncover the truth of your deepest unguarded self
• Practice speaking the unbridled truth

Week 6 (September 7th) Purpose: Gaining Clarity about Your Purpose and Mission

Presenter: Tim Kelley

You were born with a specific purpose, a reason to be here and a mission to accomplish during your life. When you discover and fully live your purpose, you’ll experience deep satisfaction at the end of your life, knowing that your life was worth living.

Tim Kelley, has helped thousands of people discover their purpose and hear their Soul’s calling. You will learn some of his masterful techniques for getting clear on your purpose, and specific ways you can begin to track and live your Soul’s Code. During this week you will:

• Get in touch with your soul’s code
• Recognize the purpose you came into life to fulfill
• Learn how to manifest your mission in the world
• Find the balance between your ego and your soul
• Embody your purpose in your daily life

Week 7 (September 14th) Passion: Bringing the Passionate Drive to Everything in Your Life

Presenter: Satyen Raja

Passion is a key virtue for a man’s success in life. Nothing great happens without passion. Passion in men is what gets things done and what moves obstacles aside. If you’re light on passion, you won’t have the energy or fortitude to create the life you want.

Satyen Raja is a true man of passion. He is a black belt martial artist, an author and a trainer in the art of applying passion to life. And he knows that deep satisfaction comes from giving your all. This week you will learn practical exercises and tools to live from your passion. He will inspire you to find the source of passion within and to bring it out into every aspect of your life. During this week, you will:

• Deepen your connection to the penetrating force of passion
• Energize your life, your work and your relationships
• Find the source of inspiration and passion within you

Week 8 (September 21st) Service: Dedicating Your Life to the Greater Good

Presenter: John Robbins

Service is the culmination of all the virtues. When you serve and offer yourself to that which is greater than you, all of your virtues align and empower each other. Our life purpose is always about serving others, and our passion emerges when we are doing good. We are most authentic when applying ourselves to a goal that demands the best from us. In serving others, we have the opportunity to be a remarkable leader, in relationship with our brothers. And we can get anything done with integrity.

John Robbins knows about service. A Pulitzer Prize-nominated bestselling author and founder of EarthSave, he is considered by many to be one of the most eloquent and powerful spokespersons in the world for a sane, ethical and sustainable future. You will be inspired by his story and learn ways you can be of service to the greater good. During this week, you will:

• See the connection between purpose, passion and brotherhood in service
• Recognize that happiness and satisfaction comes from service to others
• Dedicate and consecrate your work to the greater good

What You Will Receive

1. Eight 90-minute class sessions with 8 top transformational teachers and ongoing facilitation by Lion Goodman. Includes live, interactive calls plus Q&A time. Classes are on Wednesday evenings at 5:00pm Pacific / 8:00pm Eastern.
2. Eight 30-minute small group practice sessions.
3. Weekly exercises and practices for deep inquiry and enhancement of your virtues
4. A robust online learning community and a paired practice with another participant. You’ll use The Promise Game, an accountability process, each week to keep you on track with your promises and commitments.
5. Unlimited access to recordings of all class sessions. (Listen online or download the mp3 file to your iPod or audio player.)
6. PDF transcripts for each class session.
7. Bonus sessions with top teachers from the Ultimate Men’s Summit (to be announced).

The Ultimate Man: Activating a Life of Integrity, Authenticity & Power
Price: $287

Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed! See below for our refund policy.

Tags: men, masculinity, personal growth, conferences, Teleconference, The Ultimate Man, Life of Integrity, Authenticity, Power, Robert Moore, John Robbins, Satyen Raja, Keith Merron, Bill Kauth, David Kaar, Jayson Gaddis, Tim Kelley, The Shift Network, The Promise Game, happiness, spirituality, leadership

AMSA XX: Call for Proposals for 2012 Conference Now Available

The 2012 20th Annual Interdisciplinary Men and Masculinities Conference to be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, March 29th – April 1st, 2012 is seeking proposals.

AMSA XX: Call for Proposals for 2012 Conference Now Available

June 29, 2011

The American Men’s Studies Association (AMSA) invites proposals for its 20th Annual Interdisciplinary Men and Masculinities Conference to be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, March 29th – April 1st, 2012.

Three kinds of submissions will be considered: 1) Individual presentations (20 minutes allotted), 2) Panel presentations of three or four papers on a specific topic or theme, (90 minutes allotted), and 3) Poster presentations. Proposals should address the conference theme or engage other topics relevant to the critical study of men and masculinities. We invite proposals from students, scholars, practitioners, activists, and other individuals interested in men’s studies and the critical examination of men’s lives and identities as men. Presentations from other venues (i.e., art, films, etc) will also be considered.

AMSA conference presenters typically come from academic, clinical, educational and social services and related fields but are not limited to these areas. Presentations must be based upon fully developed work or ongoing projects grounded in theoretical, clinical, educational, or research-related applications. The conference provides a welcoming interdisciplinary forum in which to contribute and receive support for work related to men and masculinities.

Proposals are to be submitted online using the 2012 Conference Page. The deadline for submissions is October 31, 2011.

Download the Call for Submissions (pdf).

Tags: American Men’s Studies Association, AMSA, proposals, 20th Annual, Interdisciplinary, Men and Masculinities, Conference, Minneapolis, Minnesota, men, masculinities, call for papers, Individual presentations, Panel presentations, Poster presentations, students, scholars, practitioners, activists, men's studies

Join Me This Afternoon at The Ultimate Men's Summit

Today at 3:30 (Pacific Daylight Time) I will be live with Owen Marcus and our moderator, Lion Goodman, as we discuss "From Boy to Man - What It Takes To Finally Grow Up."If you have not yet registered, it's not too late - just follow this link, it's all free. Once you register you will have access to download all the other excellent sessions in this revolutionary Men's Summit.

Signing up for The Ultimate Men’s Summit gives you live, personal access to the following leaders (the "personal access" part only applies to being present for the live discussion, where you can ask questions):

Jack Canfield, Robert Bly, Sam Keen, Kokomon Clottey, Neale Donald Walsch, Claudio Naranjo, Dan Millman, Sequoyah Trueblood, Gary Zukav, John Friend, Andrew Harvey, John Perkins, Hal Stone, Gay Hendricks, Satyen Raja, Derrick Ashong, John Robbins, Matthew Fox, Bill Kauth, Riane Eisler, Jed Diamond, Michael Tamura, Bill Plotkin, Saniel Bonder, Stephen Dinan, Caroline Casey, Arjuna Ardagh, Lawrence Ellis, Gordon Clay, Gordon Wheeler, Yacine Kouyate, Alison Armstrong, Brian Johnson, Steve Bhaerman, Gabor Mate, Michael Dowd, Ocean Robbins, Tom Pinkson, Keith Merron, Rick Phillips, Richard Strozzi-Heckler, Lion Goodman, Michael Taylor, Jim Channon, Terry Patten, Michael Schiesser, Craig Neal, Robert Augustus Masters, Tim Kelley, Brad Leslie, Wesley Thomas, Michael Gurian, Warren Farrell, Herb Goldberg, Michael Kimmel, Ed Tick, Anguksuar (Richard La Fortune), Barnet Bain, Chris Kyle, Jayson Gaddis, Raz Ingrasci, Robert White, Gary Stamper, Tripp Lanier, Richard Platt, Bert H. Hoff, Mark Schillinger, Luis J. Rodriguez, Owen Marcus, William Harryman, Carista Luminare, Demetri Velisarius, Jim Benson, Paul Dobransky, Britta Johnson, Jeffrey Leiken, David Richo, John Welwood, Mikki Willis, Bryan Bayer, Martin Ucik, Dan Doty, Ronn Landsman, Adam Gilad, Jeffrey Armstrong, David Kaar, Paul Elam, Greg Cortopassi, Howard Spierer, Josie Lehrer.

Event Co-Sponsors:

The Shift Network, The ManKind Project, Men's Divisions International, The Shift Movie, MaestroConference, Tribe of Men, Heartland Circle, Awakening the Bay, Compassionate Action Network, Peace X Peace, The Wisdom Connection, CSRwire, Spirituality and Health, Essentially Men, Men's Health Week.

Remember, it's all free - there are still 3 more days of sessions, so register now.

Tags: men, masculinity, conferences, personal growth, maturity, The Ultimate Men's Summit, Owen Marcus, Lion Goodman, telesummit, From Boy to Man

The Ultimate Men's Summit - The Next Level of the Men’s Movement, Featuring 75 Top Leaders - All Free

Another reminder that the Ultimate Men's Summit starts this Friday - so register now, it's all free with registration.

Are you called to be a 21st century man?

For this unprecedented virtual event, we are calling forth men from around the world who are boldly committed to lead in a new era - one in which masculine qualities are restored into partnership with the feminine, in which our models of work, family and relationships are ripe for renewal, change and discovery.

As men, we need to band together in a global brotherhood, educate ourselves and each other, and learn to thrive as we co-create this new culture. The new world we know is possible cannot happen without us. Do you feel called to play a role in this Shift?

Join us for the Ultimate Men’s Summit where 75+ experts, authors, luminaries and teachers will share their knowledge and wisdom on 21st Century Masculinity. You will:

• Discover how 21st Century Masculinity can best serve the world
• Learn to partner with women in a new model of relationship
• Activate a truly sacred, noble and powerful version of your manhood
• Gain a new view of “success as a man” in the emerging culture
• Learn from your elders - the men who began the Men’s Movement
• Understand your unique psychology as a man
• Find out how to stay alive and passionate in your relationships over time
• Connect with other inspiring men in small group discussions
• And much more... all empowering you to play your highest role in the great changes ahead of us!

Gain access to powerful sessions on topics such as:

• How to Create and Cultivate 21st Century Relationships
• Sex: The Most Fun and the Most Trouble We Can Get Into
• Five Illusions of Manhood To Get Over - Right Now
• Activate Your Purpose and Fulfill Your Mission in the World
• Knights Without Armor: The Quest for the Courage to Be Vulnerable
• What Women Need to Know about Men, and Secret Truths We Can’t Tell Them
• The Paradox of Masculine Power: What Works is Being More Fully Yourself
• The Warrior Spirit - An Ancient Imperative for Modern Man
• Why Every Man Needs to be Initiated by Other Men - and Where to Go to Find It

Our goal is to get you into ACTION to improve your life and your relationships. Each session not only offers valuable information about masculinity and manhood, but also practical tools and practices you can bring directly into your life - and out into the world.

Women who want to understand and empower men are also welcome!

There are many big names scheduled to speak, including Robert Bly, Sam Keen, Dan Millman, Gary Zukav, and Warren Farrell among the most well-known.

But I'm looking forward to hearing Robert Augustus Masters, John Welwood, Hal Stone, Michael Kimmel, Chris Kyle, and Gary Stamper, among others. So many great men (and women) lined up to speak.

Register now, it's free.

Tags: men, masculinity, men's movements, conferences, culture, Ultimate Men's Summit, free, virtual, global, telesummit, Robert Bly, Sam Keen, Dan Millman, Gary Zukav, Warren Farrell, Robert Augustus Masters, John Welwood, Hal Stone, Michael Kimmel, Chris Kyle, Gary Stamper

Join Me at the Ultimate Men's Summit, a Free Virtual Global Telesummit, June 10-19

I will be part of a discussion on Thursday, June 16 at 3:30 PDT - a one-hour Panel entitled, “Growing Up - From Boyhood to Manhood" with the prominent men's work expert, Owen Marcus, a man I was fortunate to meet last summer at Jayson Gaddis's Evolving Men's Conference in Boulder. Following the one-hour discussion, we will be available for an additional Q&A session. The event is being sponsored by The Shift Network, among other fine groups.

Free registration is available here.

Among the many excellent men (and women) involved are Neale Donald Walsch, Sam Keen, Robert Bly, Gary Zukav, Dan Millman, Hal Stone, Andrew Harvey, John Perkins, Claudio Naranjo and Gay Hendricks (plus a few great women such as Riane Eisler).

In addition, some integrally-known men are also involved, including Robert Augustus Masters, Stuart Davis, Saniel Bonder, Arjuna Ardagh, Terry Patten, Gary Stamper, Tripp Lanier, and Matthew Fox.

Among the men's studies professionals are Michael Gurian, Michael Kimmel, Jed Diamond, Michael Thompson, and Warren Farrell.

Please join us for this FREE event - it looks to be a wonderful week!

More information will be posted in the next couple of days. If you have any thoughts on men "growing up," or topics you'd like to hear, please drop me a note.

Tags: men, masculinity, personal growth, maturity, conferences, Growing Up, From Boyhood to Manhood, men's work, experts, Owen Marcus, The Ultimate Men's Summit, free, virtual, global, telesummit, Shift Network

Jonathan Liu Reviews the 2nd Males Studies Conference

It seemed there was a lot of excitement last year for the first Male Studies Conference - seems maybe not so much this time - a reported 40 or so in the room, with a presumed "hundreds" more watching online. So in the picture above is 1/8 of the attendees.

Jonathan Liu of The New York Observer offered the following review. He offers a perfect summary of my sense of their mission in this one paragraph:

That is to say, every manifest deficiency of the oppressed group is taken to be an artifact and construct of all-pervasive, willful injustice—socially engineered with conspiratorial intent. At the same time, there is one fully natural condition—so natural, in fact, that attempting to nurture away the difference is as morally repugnant as the aforementioned prejudice. Boys are, like African Americans used to be, set up by society to fail; they're also endowed by nature with special powers—the will to "breadwinning," for instance—simply incommensurable with girl-bodies.

Perfect. Here is the whole review.

It's Raining on Men: Balls Deep at the Conference on Male Studies

By Jonathan Liu

April 12, 2011 | 7:39 p.m

"The Greatest Generation were men," insisted Gordon E. Finley, a professor of psychology at Florida International University. He was onstage last Wednesday in a second-floor meeting room at the New York Academy of Medicine, where the Male Studies Foundation convened its Second Annual Conference on Male Studies.

"The Greatest Generation was men who fought in World War II. Those who survived, when they came home, they were given adulation—the war to end all wars [sic]—and they were given the G.I. Bill. They took the G.I. Bill, and they ran with it. ... And this helped to propel the economic prosperity" of the 1950s.

Indeed, it's no longer so easy to be male. If you're a frog, this is literally true—modern environmental toxins can actually turn you into a female. If you're a human, they've merely halved your sperm count since the 1940s and zapped 15 percent of your testosterone since the 1980s. Also, you've never been less employable, both absolutely and relative to women, and you now account for just 42 percent of college students, and falling. (Campus gender ratios may be a small boon for undergraduate men, but they're a giant economic impediment for menkind.)

Wednesday's program was called "Looking Forward to Solutions," which brings to mind a semi-repentant World War II collaborationist (a Dane, say) assuring the local Nazi, "but we don't have a Male Problem." But you do, you really, really do: such was the takeaway of four hours and six lectures of Male Studies.

"The point of thinking about the Greatest Generation," said Mr. Finley, is to "weaken all arguments about boys being inferior, about men being inferior, that they can't handle academic work, and so forth."

But if boys have been pushed (relatively) down by malevolent forces, might we at least give girls the credit for pulling themselves up? Of course not. "What made girls and women so successful," Mr. Finley continued, "was basically social engineering. Girls and women claimed they were being discriminated against. ... They got a lot of positive feedback, they got tons of resources, they got the educational system readjusted to their learning style."

One wonders, did the G.I.'s beat back Hitler because of all the positive feedback their soldiering got?

Boys, Mr. Finley affirmed, are being humiliated and tortured daily by the sight of T-shirts that say "Girl Power" or "Girls Rule." "The message is, you're not one of them, and you don't rule, and you don't have power."

For the uninitiated, the comical dotage of the conference's septuagenarian attendees (and speakers)—40 or so in the room, with "hundreds" more said to be watching via webcast—suggested a particularly snoozy Kiwanis Club chapter. Their politics turned out to be more like that of an exceptionally militant Nation of Islam temple.

That is to say, every manifest deficiency of the oppressed group is taken to be an artifact and construct of all-pervasive, willful injustice—socially engineered with conspiratorial intent. At the same time, there is one fully natural condition—so natural, in fact, that attempting to nurture away the difference is as morally repugnant as the aforementioned prejudice. Boys are, like African Americans used to be, set up by society to fail; they're also endowed by nature with special powers—the will to "breadwinning," for instance—simply incommensurable with girl-bodies.

The Black Muslims needed a cosmology of UFOs and mad scientists to fashion an internally coherent theology (and render external coherence moot). The Male Studiers have loud, media-savvy and youngish stigmatics like Guy Garcia, a journalist and former AOL executive who wrote The Decline of Men: How the American Male Is Tuning Out, Giving Up, and Flipping Off His Future.

Mr. Garcia perhaps lacked the academic fig leafs to be an actual presenter at the conference, but he was a smashing emcee (or "moderator"). "When I was a staff writer at Time magazine in the '80s and '90s," he dangled, early in the day, "the magazines at Time Inc. that made the most money catered to males; the most respected editors at Time Inc. were men; the president and CEO of Time Inc. was a man. Within the course of five or six years, this completely changed. [Now] they don't know why men aren't reading magazines and what's disturbing is they don't care."

Was he saying a cabal of editrixes plotted a coup? (Incidentally, showing solidarity by demanding that more of your people be employed in magazine journalism seems altogether perverse.) Are wives actually hen-pecking husbands into dropping their This Old House subscriptions for Real Simple? Happily, the gentility (and clannishness) of quasi-academia means never having to say you're saying what you're saying.

"In the media," Mr. Garcia threw out a bit later, "men and testosterone are blamed for the failure of institutions and industries that they had built." Really? The media, as such, have scapegoated men, as such, for the Great Recession? Either he's a mediocre fabulist or a hard-core masochist: Even with mighty Time Inc. laid low by skirts, one doesn't have to only read Maureen Dowd.

"Emasculation," by the way, "is a national blood sport."

Mr. Garcia's greatest hit came some time later, an off-the-cuff theory on the scandal of male underemployment. "As we all know," he said, "when boys are growing up, the way teenage males define themselves is against their mothers. They want to be not-Mom. So what do you think happens when Mom works?"

Gray-haired, gray-mustachioed Tom Mortenson, from the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, was the first speaker proper. Capable of striking sanity, he unfolded the very real problems in about 10 minutes of charts, graphs and slow talk. Men have indeed been affected disproportionately by the most recent downturn, as well as longer-term economic trends that have seen jobs in agriculture and manufacturing move to the service sector. Unlike the old lifers in factories and mines, service jobs tend either to require a college diploma or to pay too little to raise a family on. And boys, for whatever reason, have been trailing behind girls in school performance—from kindergarten through bachelor degrees and perhaps beyond.

As you'd imagine, it's the whatever reason that brings out the cranky and crackpot in Male Studiers.

According to the men of Male Studies, people are constantly saying mean things about men. Which gets to the great paradox about the "discipline," and "masculinists" in general: As much as it is invested in (these are Mr. Garcia's words) the "strength, risk-taking and single-mindedness" unique to men and devalued in our "networking" or "collaborative" postindustrial economy, Male Studies imagines the average American male as having a psychological makeup closer to Lindsay Lohan than John Wayne.

For speaker Michael Gilbert, the author of The Disposable Male and a researcher at USC, even the intimation that girls might be equal—or, let's say, physiologically comparable—so scars young men that they no longer want to be "breadwinners." In the manner of gay marriage making weddings less awesome for everyone else, he thinks it a scandal that boys can't be the only ones to play sports now, or get bar mitzvahed.

"In the trendy '60s" Mr. Gilbert explained, Jewish feminists "begot the bat mitzvah. But girls already go through a whole series of powerful, female-affirming experiences. ... Regardless of their religion, boys don't get to flower or transform in the process of adolescence.

"Their bodies don't move to lunar rhythms—menstrual cycles. Jewish boys will not get a sweet 16. They won't be given away in marriage—which is a bride-centered ceremony—behind a mysterious veil. Jewish husbands will not get pregnant, they will not go through the tunnel of birth, they will not suckle infants at their breast. All these powerful, recurring, female-affirming passages aren't available to males."

As for gentiles, Mr. Gilbert believes high-school track and field was how the Greeks tested their young men (and how!), and the presence of women cheapens the experience. Likewise, foreign relations-even in Gilgamesh!-has always been a male vocation. His slide show ended with pictures of all the women involved in Middle East policy-from Hillary Clinton to some subconsular broad in Peshawar-and a delightfully open-ended query: Will the Arabs take us seriously?

Note that nowhere is the claim that females can't do the job. Male Studies-as opposed to plain old manly pride-starts with the dispiriting idea that they appear to do most jobs better than males. But must unequal outcomes always imply "inequality," or even iniquity, in the moral sense? Yes, they're down on themselves, but how exactly are men being Jim Crowed or red-lined or denied suffrage?

"Go to any university Web site," Mr. Finley instructed the room, "and ignore the text and go to all the different pages. Count how many pictures of white males you see. ... Most of you will not need more than one hand." This reporter stopped counting at 64, but his alma mater's site is admittedly overstuffed.

Mr. Gilbert suggested even darker social control: Facing coed—but really, girl-centric-schools that care about things like "penmanship" and "sitting down and sharing values," "one in five Caucasian boys will be put on either Adderall or Ritalin during their schooling."

It's wondrous how, in certain crowds, "male" inevitably becomes a byword for "white." (Was the late Geraldine Ferraro-or Shirley Chisholm-right about what's really unspeakable in polite society?)

But what White Men! This dread demographic used to at least charm with rhetorical constancy: All we want is true color- and genital-blindness, a Western Civ that everyone can be proud of. No more. Allan Bloom, and William Buckley and David Horowitz would take the objective advance made by girls as yet more reason to abolish Women's Centers and Women's Studies programs from higher education.

The Male Studiers take it as reason to create Men's Centers that agitate for special privileges for men, because that's what they think—in 2011!—"gender" or "queer" studies does for ladies.

Men, Mr. Gilbert said, will obviously still dominate in "action fields"—"science, technology, the gaming industry and what's left of muscle work"—but the encroachment of women in what we might, crudely, call "women's work" (magazines, teaching, the humanities professoriate) threatens to demolish the whole evolutionary foundation of the species, which is "the eternal pair-bond bargain."

Put in other words, even if women are simply more capable at everything, they must accede to a sort of affirmative action for men lest the latter lash out for wont of things to do. "We know what happens," Mr. Garcia warned wanly, "when men have no hope—they turn to violence." (Women, you'll remember, already get to menstruate.)

When a break was called, the degradations to the gender only continued. A sign informed that there were "ladies lounges" on the second, third, fourth and fifth floors, but just one men's room, on the ground level. Given the composition of the crowd, and the size of everyone's prostates, and the wideness of several stances, this made for very intimate waits at the urinals.

Back upstairs, foundation director Edward M. Stephens was reciting a plea straight to the webcast camera. "Today, as I stand before you, I would like to ask for the first million dollars. ... A million dollars would simply give us the tools to expand what we've done here [in] the direction of the creation of the body of scholarship necessary to reverse ... the international epidemic of the decline of men."

A grant from the Lily Endowment is already funding pilot Men's Centers on 14 college campuses-including, most notably and aggressively, at Wagner College on Staten Island.

After the bathroom break, the panel's only woman, Marianne Legato of Columbia Medical School, presented the only original empirical natural science of the day, about why men die so much earlier than women. Hers was also the only presentation that did not suffer a PowerPoint mishap.

Next, an ironical British ad man named Michael Wilcox explained his agency's "Wear the Pants" campaign for Dockers, with the look of someone who'd grossly misread an invitation. No, Mr. Wilcox answered a questioner, he did not think that ads depicting men being struck in the groin were one of the culture's most pernicious and ubiquitous evils. Another panel member asked him whether the anchor in the Dockers logo was a penis.

From the back row, looking at the sea of shiny pink scalps, it was easy to chalk up the whole scene to a category error: Someone mistaking the biographical decline of a man—namely himself—for a historical Decline of Men. Yet, strange as it may sound, grown men still have influence—if only on not-grown men—and should perhaps not be cut the slack reserved for the subjugated and infantilized.

Mr. Garcia concluded the conference with the story of an email he received from a young man. All his life, this young man wrote, he felt different, out of place at home or school. Then he read Mr. Garcia's book and the problem was clear—a society that "has deeply betrayed the modern male."

The young man, Fabio Botarelli, sent Mr. Garcia a poem, and Mr. Garcia read it out loud, wiping away a few tears in the process. It ran for about a dozen stanzas and was called "The Plight of the Modern Man": "The plight of the modern man/ Curtails the yang ambition/ For if a man says that he can/ He's mocked into submission. Nothing he does is ever right/ His own society hates his guts/ No matter how he tries to fight/ He won't escape this prison rut ..."

What is to become of Mr. Botarelli? Despite the poetry and the correspondence with men like Mr. Garcia, the boy doesn't seem entirely lost to learned helplessness. Just graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, he has a job in real estate, a head full of brown hair and, one suspects, the first inklings that what's for him just a phase becomes, in adulthood, a lifestyle.

"I especially took a half-day off from work to come to this," Mr. Botarelli told The Observer. "But I told them I was going to a creative-writing class."

Tags: Dudes, Gordon E. Finley, Greatest Generation, Male Studies, Michael Gilbert, New York Academy of Medicine, Tom Mortenson, Jonathan Liu, New York Observer, conference, men, conferences, male studies, traditional masculinity, anti-feminist, feminism, Guy Garcia, The Decline of Men, Emasculation, masculinists, The Disposable Male, Edward M. Stephens, Marianne Legato, Michael Wilcox

Workshop: The state of play in the critical study of men and masculinities – University of Wollongong, Australia, March 17-18

Via XY - an announcement of the upcoming Men and Masculinities conference in Australia. You can contact Dr Michael Flood (mflood@uow.edu.au) for further information.

Centre for Research on Men and Masculinities Workshops

March 17-18, 2011

CROMM Workshop: The state of play in the critical study of men and masculinities.

CROMM’s inaugural workshop is intended to assess the state of play in the critical study of men and masculinities, facilitate the establishment of research collaborations, and launch the Centre for Research on Men and Masculinities.

In summary:

• The workshop will take place on March 17-18, at the University of Wollongong
• Leading scholars will attend and contribute
• The two-day event will be participatory in emphasis
• The workshop will focus particularly on three themes: (1) men and gender equality, (2) men’s violence and health, and (3) men’s movements or migrations across geographic borders and in virtual fields.

The workshop aims to bring together leading scholars or researchers in the field, and to start a series of conversations and collaborations which we intend to sustain and intensify. The event will showcase contemporary trends and issues in scholarship on men, masculinities and gender. Keynote papers will be complemented by a range of short presentations and participatory discussion. We will focus in part on how to develop critical masculinities studies in Australia, including in ways which build national and international linkages.

Tags: Workshop, state of play, critical study, men and masculinities, University of Wollongong, Australia, March 17-18, 2011, Centre for Research on Men and Masculinities Workshops, research collaborations, men and gender equality, men’s violence, men's health, men’s movements, men's migrations, men, masculinities, conferences, research, men's studies, psychology