Natascha Yogachandra - Teaching Positive Masculinity

This is an interesting recent article from The Atlantic on how the effort to prevent sexual assaults is now (finally) being directed at men and boys - a process of teaching "positive masculinity."

Teaching Positive Masculinity

Health advocates are engaging men in sexual assault prevention, challenging the negative aspects of traditional manhood.

Natascha Yogachandra May 14 2014

Dean Courtney Robinson leads a session with students (Natascha Yogachandra)

School is out on a Wednesday and the dean of students' office at Facing History High School is full, but these kids aren't here for detention. Dean Courtney Robinson, who has thick arms covered with tattoos and hair pulled back into a braided bun, looks over the room as high school boys shuffle in and out. Some wear sweatshirts with hoods pulled floppily over their heads; others wear navy polos embroidered with a special insignia: tiny hands clasped around a globe.

They chat, complain, and tease one another until precisely 1:35 p.m., when Robinson ushers out the hangers-on while those in the polos plop into seats for a meeting of the Human United Strength Organization, or HUSO. The conversation topics range from rap music to Malcolm X but the subtext always centers on the meaning of masculinity.

"All right, guys," Robinson begins. "Let's check in."

A senior named Devante Moore usually talks about basketball. He speaks faster and faster as he becomes angrier and angrier. Apparently, this year's coach isn't his favorite. John Susana, a freshman, mentions in a mumble that his grades are good, and his small audience claps for his success.

Room 227 is a safe place. One boy shares that his favorite Christmas gift was a hug from his mom. It's a supportive place. Robinson listens intently to the students' problems and responds with short suggestions for nonviolent solutions. It's a male place, a haven for these high-school boys to talk about the things they ordinarily would find difficult to air in public.

They call it the HUSO Mentoring Group, or HMG, an after-school offshoot of the HUSO umbrella organization, which Robinson established at Facing History in Hell's Kitchen. He hopes to see his group replicated in more city schools, even though there are already a number of similar male-oriented clubs operating under other leadership across the United States.

The purpose of these programs is to give boys the chance to rethink maleness, and to change the way men treat women and each other. Moore, the one who always brings up basketball, says that the group isn't for the weak-minded. "This is for people who got strong minds; who are willing to step up to the plate and really become a young man."

Organizers say the construct works once the young men decide to participate. Getting them in the door and then finding the money to keep the doors open are often the two biggest challenges.

* * *

When Robinson started his organization, he did not know he would become part of a much larger movement that has been working for the past 40 years to engage men in the prevention of violence against women. Mentoring for him started at his home in Harlem when he was just a boy. His mother kept the front door open for any child in need, and those who came also looked informally to Robinson for advice. He now tells his club members that they're walking examples of respectful male students, ones who choose conversation over clenched fists.

The first such experiments emerged in the late-1960s and early-1970s during the second wave of the feminist movement, when male activists realized the positive impact of their support in the battle for women's rights.

Termed "anti-sexists," these men supported the rights of their female partners and initially seemed to be little more than a weak and scattered army without provisions or direction. But after the First National Conference on Men and Masculinity in 1975, structure soon followed, resulting in the establishment of the National Organization for Men Against Sexism.

As gender studies gained credibility as an academic discipline around the same time, some scholars of feminist theory began to develop a new focus, known as masculinity studies. Dr. Ronald Levant played a significant role in the development of masculinity ideology, something he defines as "an individual's internalization of cultural belief systems and attitudes toward masculinity and men's roles."

In 1992, he and his colleagues created the Male Role Norms Inventory, which measures adherence to seven norms of the Western masculinity ideology: Avoidance of Femininity, Fear and Hatred of Homosexuals, Self-Reliance, Aggression, Achievement/Status, Non-Relational Attitudes Toward Sex, and Restrictive Emotionality. Research influenced by Levant's inventory has since revealed that men who embrace more traditional Western masculine ideology are reluctant to discuss condom use with their partners, have less satisfactory relationships, and harbor attitudes that often lead to the sexual harassment of women.

So instead of putting resources into warning women about dark streets and risqué clothing, which unfairly burdens women with assault prevention, advocates for female victims of sexual abuse, such as Lina Juarbe Botella, realize that their primary focus should be on changing the behavior of abusive men. "Women cannot be safe," Botella says, "until men know how to behave." 

Tony Porter and Ted Bunch founded A Call to Men in 2002 after being heavily involved in social justice activism for several years. Botella, the organization's training director, said that the two founders "meet men where they're at physically and emotionally," to encourage them to act as positive role models for their communities. But the two men also acknowledge the debt they owe to the women like Botella's predecessors, who came before them as workers for the same cause.

Botella admitted that she originally had difficulty accepting men as partners in the field of female advocacy. But her current focus on prevention has taught her how to embrace their presence.

"I can't take any credit for it, but Tony and Ted had a lot of wisdom on how to be with men, all types of men, from the barbershop to the boardroom. This is really a men's issue," she added. "We need to engage men so that we can ensure a collective liberation."

A Call to Men's mission goes beyond working with men of violence to include community leaders, fathers, brothers, and uncles. "If I have my arms stretched out open to symbolize all the men in our society, a small percentage of them are abusers," Botella explained. "We particularly focus on men who are on the other side, who are on the line, who might stop those jokes or [help] create a society without confrontation." When someone shares a sexist joke by the office water cooler, A Call to Men wants male bystanders to shut it down before he gets to the punchline.

Jamie Utt, who describes himself as a diversity and inclusion consultant, travels around the United States to speak at schools about positive sexuality, bullying prevention, and student leadership. "So much about toxic masculinity is all about hoping the world doesn't see how hard you're trying."

"I think that we can motivate people to act," he said over Skype from his home in Minnesota, "but it so often comes from a place of charity, you know? We're trying to motivate men to change masculinity for women, but then it's this paternalistic sort of charity versus trying to get men to change masculinity because of their personal investment in it and their relationships."

Utt knows well there are no gold medals or blue ribbons for advocacy work. He said he just wants men to realize the importance of engaging with their partners and responding to their needs. That way, they can help build communities in which all members feel safe, and masculinity is inclusive and not violent.

Carlos Andrés Gómez shares a similar message. He came to realize the negative consequences of most traditionally masculine behavior through a series of shallow relationships, fights with his father, and losses both personal and material. Already an HBO Def Jam poet, actor, and public speaker, he added author to that list in 2012 with his book Man Up: Cracking the Code of Modern Manhood. In it, he writes about renouncing his identity as a guy known for liking to pick a fight and then taking up another as a poet—"a journey to becoming a man, a different kind of man, a man who lives and moves and acts outside of the predetermined boundaries of masculinity," he says in the book.

"I mean, so much about toxic masculinity is all about hoping the world doesn't see how hard you're trying," he said. "Whether it's a guy rocking 28-inch rims, or a guy outside of a party with his shirt ripped off, beating his chest, yelling at the top of his lungs, or a guy bragging how big his dick is—it's all about this performance. It's all a performance to hope the world doesn’t see that there’s a little boy in there who’s shaking and scared and hurting."

The topic of privilege repeatedly came up during our discussion—the privilege society confers on men, the privilege society ascribes to being white or sometimes even just appearing to be white, as in the case of the blue-green-eyed Gómez. He prides himself on being able to walk into a room and completely disorient those he encounters. Gómez is well-built; his large shoulders and arms signal days spent at the gym. He "plays up" his masculinity when he walks into a school, "very much by design," he assures me, but when he delivers emotional poems on stage, he leaves tears on his cheeks. Much in the way that Robinson tries to reshape masculinity in Room 227, Gómez does so when he performs in front of an audience. The two men may have different approaches, but they work toward the same goal in safe, private spaces.

Teaching young men to value the models of maleness that men like Utt, Gómez, and Robinson are forging seems to be easier in a room full of strangers than it is in the locker room or at home. Gómez recalled an expression he says he heard somewhere once: "You know, it's like anybody can confront an enemy, but it takes a true hero to confront a friend."

He told the story of a recent trip to Alabama where the men he met represented what he calls "the front lines of the battle" to change the way men think about their masculinity. Gómez says he prefers to speak at a place like this where, by the end of the session, a "pretty homophobic construction worker" was in tears talking about his son. To Gómez, watching that man's transformation in the space of a one-hour meeting is "more revolutionary and more meaningful to me than 30 people who identify as activists" parroting what they already believe. Online forums have a special appeal because they provide anonymity that gives guys the chance to be curious in private.

And those venues have become virtual as well as physical. Online forums have a special appeal because they provide anonymity that gives guys the chance to be curious in private. Blogs like Masculinities 101, MasculinityU, and Higher Unlearning have emerged as equivalents to Robinson's classroom. They encourage young men to debate, ask questions, and learn about new definitions of masculinity.

Twitter and Facebook generate numerous conversations in which postings fling around buzzwords such as "pro-feminism," "healthy masculinity" and "positive sexuality," where male advocates tackle the issues of street harassment and sexual abuse with a keyboard.

Emiliano Diaz De Leon wishes that he had social media when he started working in the field of advocacy. His reach would have been larger, he said, to help educate young boys like himself. When Diaz De Leon was a teenager, he confessed to being violent toward women he dated and said that there had been acts of abuse in his own family. He wasn't aware of the male support group at his high school and was surprised when the school counselor referred him to join after he acknowledged his need for help. Those early experiences led him to the job he now holds as men’s engagement specialist at the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault. Although not everyone who comes to be passionate about this kind of advocacy starts because of an early intervention, many do, and he thinks the existence of such groups is a plus.

"I think if we can get men to begin to do the work that early, that absolutely has an impact on their ability to continue doing the work as adult men."

Diaz De Leon became the first children's male advocate at SafePlace, the women's shelter that was his club's sponsor, after having participated in his own high-school group. Plenty of men had provided services to the organization—making repairs to the building and such—but none before Diaz De Leon had volunteered to work with the shelter's clients.

"It was really the women, both the leadership at SafePlace and in the shelter, who took a risk, who both mentored me and challenged me and held me accountable," he said. While some women were receptive to his presence, others had a hard time with it. "They had experienced a tremendous amount of violence from men who looked like me."

He felt the weight of being the first positive male role model to which most of the children had ever been exposed.

"It really forces you, every day, to think about your behavior, language, the way that you walk, the way that you talk, the way that you are around the people in the shelter," he said.

* * *

One afternoon at the meeting in Room 227, the group starts to argue about the value of money. Sentences overlap and the boys grab at any second of silence to shout out their opinions. As they debate, Robinson listens. He waits for the right moment to jump in and when he does, some of the boys are too involved in conversation to hear him. "Yo yo yo, one mic, one mic," a few call out. It's a phrase used often by the students during meetings to avoid interruptions. The rest stop to give their mentor the floor. Robinson doesn't have to ask for their respect; he's earned it.

"I've had teachers that don't come from the same type of environment as these kids, and they're like, 'Wow, Courtney, how do you do that? You ask them to do something and they do it!'"

It's simple, he says. He doesn't dictate; he explains. When discussion centers on the words "female" and "bitch," Robinson doesn't respond aggressively when a student says that he only uses "bitch" because sometimes "she acts like one." Instead, he puts the word into perspective, asking the boy how he would feel if that word was used to describe his mother or sister.

"Regardless of how you feel about her, somebody loves her," Robinson reminds the student. "And there isn't anything you can say to justify how you're treating her." They listen.

The group's members also know that when Robinson was asked to leave Facing History and become the New York supervisor for Men Can Stop Rape, he turned the offer down to stay with them. This is why: "Me seeing y'all and being here to support you all [to] graduate and move forward and be able to deal with your problems, and help you all make it through and give you all advice means more to me than whatever dollar amount they were going to give me."

"That's love," one of the students says. And the rest clap.

This Is What Real Men Do

This is what real men do. Watch what happens in under 30 seconds. Best PSA ever? Apparently, this was made by University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication students. They have just won the prestigious Peabody Award, deservedly!

Sandra Kim - 6 Ways to talk to Your Son About Male Violence and Healthy Masculinity

Sandra Kim is the Founder and Editor of Everyday Feminism. In this guest post at the Good Men Project, she offers some useful advice on talking to our sons about male violence and what constitutes a more healthy and mature form of masculinity.

It's important that mothers and women be part of this discussion with boys and young men, and that daughters are also given the same information so that they do not grow up with unconscious expectations of men that covertly keep them locked inside the man box in order to be in relationship.

6 Ways to talk to Your Son About Male Violence and Healthy Masculinity

JANUARY 23, 2013 BY EVERYDAY FEMINISM

 

Our boys are being bombarded with messages on how to be “manly”—not all of them healthy. Men Can Stop Rape pairs with Sandra Kim to help parents support their sons’ healthy development.

It’s pretty common for us to worry about how women, especially our own daughters, are put into gender boxes and encouraged to engage in behavior that hurts them, simply because they’re female.

It’s far less common for us to worry about men, including our own sons, and what gender boxes and harmful behaviors they’re taught, simply because they’re male.

But they are. Boys as young as 4 year old are told to “be a man!”, usually in response to them crying or showing fear.

And as they grow up, they’re bombarded with messages that say to be a “manly” man, they need to:

• Be big and strong
• Be physically aggressive and ready to fight
• Show no emotions – especially fear or pain but anger is just fine
• Feel entitled to objectify women and sexually pursue women regardless of whether or not she’s interested

You only need to look at our thousands year old history of warring groups that pillaged, looted, and raped to see where this dominant idea of masculinity comes from.

It doesn’t take a leap of faith to see how this history has led to our society and media promoting images of masculinity as inherently obsessed with fighting and sex.

And then having some men turn that image into a reality where they feel entitled to assault and dominate others, particularly women.

Yet we seldom hear about how this male violence is connected to our traditional notion of masculinity.

And at the same time, while most violent acts are committed by men, most men are NOT violent.

So many men are caring, responsible, and non-violent people. But while many men don’t use violence to express their feelings or control others, many don’t feel comfortable showing the other sides of them for fear of being called “gay”, “girly”, “soft,” or “emotional”.

That’s why we need to change the conversation around masculinity. We need the definition of masculinity to reflect the diversity present in men beyond the narrow box they have now.

Not only to reduce the level of male violence but to also support men in accepting all parts of themselves and expressing themselves fully—without being shamed.

One organization fighting to do just that is Men Can Stop Rape. Through their Men of Strength Clubs (MOST Club), they have pioneered a violence prevention program that provides young men in middle school, high school, and college with a structured and supportive space to build individualized definitions of masculinity that promote healthy relationships.

Based on their highly effective program, here are some ideas of how to talk with your son and other men in your life about what masculinity means for them and its relationship to their lives and violence.

Here are the six topics she suggests - go to the Good Men Project to read the whole post.

1. Meet Them Where They’re At
2. Help Them To Identify Male Role Models They Know
3. Discuss How the Media Presents the Ideal Man
4. Discuss How Traditional Masculinity Shows Up In Their Own Behavior
5. Discuss the Role of Traditional Masculinity in Violence, Particularly Against Women
6. Discuss How Nonviolent Men Can Be a Part of Ending Violence

Derek Whitney - Why Is It So Hard for Men to Cry?

One of my earliest memories, when I was maybe three or four years old, is standing near the front door of the house we lived in, wearing a belt with a gun holster and gun, a red bandana around my neck, and my mother trying to put a little cowboy hat on my head. I may also have been wearing cowboy boots.

And I was crying.

I have flashed on this memory many times in the last 20 or 30 years, but I just now realized, as I began writing this, that the reason I was crying was because my mother wanted me to go outside and be photographed sitting on a horse that was in our suburban grass yard. The photographer took his horse house to house taking pictures of boys and girls as cowboys and cowgirls. I have a picture of my father at about the same age I was, taken around 1930 or 1931.

But I had never in my life seen a real live horse. It was huge, and a little cranky after being around kids all day. I was terrified of it, and as much as I liked cowboys then, I did not want to sit on that enormous animal - no way, no how. My mother would not take "No, I don't want to," for an answer. So I was crying.

And I will always remember her words, the first time I can recall hearing them, but certainly not the last. "Big boys don't cry. Now, stop your crying." Somehow, and I don't remember how, I ended up on that horse and the picture was taken.

Why is it so hard for men to cry? Because we hear this message that "big boys/men don't cry" from our parents, our peers, our teachers, our coaches, and the culture at large, from the beginning of our lives forward.

When I say the beginning, I mean that literally. When infants are born, boys cry more and appear to need more comforting than girls. By the end of the first year, this is no longer the case - boys cry less and seek less frequent attention and comforting. As Daniel Stern has outlined his research, infants learn a lot from non-verbal, intersubjective communication.

These messages are re-enforced repeatedly, with the correlated accusation that crying is "girlie," and being girlie means we are not masculine.

In the end, this changes with parents first and foremost - as is shown in this quote from an article posted last year at the Good Men Project, Real Men Do Cry:

I raised four boys. The culture told me and them that it wasn’t okay to cry. I said to the boys ” f*ck the culture, it’s okay for you to cry.” How could I have possibly raised four healthy boys into men if they couldn’t cry? What is it about our culture that says “it’s sissy for men to cry or they need to cry privately?” Relationships are hard enough, but to tell men to shutdown, that crying is for sissies, or to be vulnerable is unacceptable does not make for a happy life.

I’ve been with my boys when they had to cry and it was OK. They felt safe enough to do it, it opened their heart up, and they were able to express to me what was going on.

If we want to raise good men, men who are in touch with their emotions and able to cry, then we need more mothers (and fathers) like Sherri Rosen (the author of the above quote).

That's my take on this topic - here is another view, from Derek Whitney.

Why Is It So Hard for Men to Cry?

By Derek Whitney

 

Although science insists that crying is natural, culture still sends messages that strong men don’t cry. 

Many parents raise their sons to cry privately, if at all. It is ingrained in many men that masculine identity means holding back the tears except during times of extreme grief. Although women have also accepted this view, more women are voicing their belief that men and boys should be encouraged to express sensitive emotions. 

One thing seems certain, though: History and biology side with tears.

Tears of Champions

Until recently, many cultures believed that tears were a sign of manliness. World history and literature are filled with male leaders who cried publicly. Tears meant that a man lived by a code of values and cared enough to show emotion when things went wrong. Medieval warriors and Japanese samurai cried during times of epic tragedy. In Western culture, a man’s capacity to cry indicated his honesty and integrity. Abraham Lincoln used strategic tears during his speeches, and modern presidents have followed suit. Despite all this, until recently, men shedding tears have been viewed as less than masculine.

After decades of berating men for their tears, culture seems to be returning to the idea that crying is a male strength. A recent Penn State study found that participants considered a man’s tears to be a sign of honesty while a woman’s tears showed emotional weakness. In both sexes, a delicate misting of the eye was more acceptable than crying.

Tears and Health

Health research has found many benefits to crying. When people suppress the urge to cry, emotions that would have been expressed through tears are bottled up instead. The underlying biochemistry affects the body differently than if the feelings had found a physical release. Over time, repressed emotions can trigger physiological changes that manifest in clinical symptoms such as high blood pressure.

Social scientists have found correlations between men’s crying and their mental health. A study published in the journal Psychology of Men & Masculinity found that football players who cried about game outcomes reported higher levels of self-esteem. They felt secure enough to shed tears in front of their teammates and seemed less concerned about peer pressure.

When to Hold the Tears

With so much feel-good press about embracing feelings, it’s easy to forget that sometimes stoicism is the better course. Emergencies usually mean postponing tears in order to accomplish vital tasks. Combat soldiers can’t stop in the middle of battle to have a good cry. In fact, since most combat soldiers have been men, warfare throughout the centuries may have contributed to the cultural rise of the tough, tearless hero.

Crisis personnel need to maintain calm in the field just as soldiers d. Men dominate law enforcement, the military and most public safety fields. These men have a professional mandate to keep emotionally steady, which sets a model for overall behavior.

Even in daily life, feelings alone rarely solve problems. Men may be healthier for allowing themselves to cry, but they often have personal reasons for keeping cool. Family hardships, for example, often require postponing tears in order to be strong for others who are in more pain. A calm demeanor doesn’t mean a man is in denial any more than tears mean he is emotionally unstable.

As cultural winds shift back toward acceptance of the emotional man, men and women will continue to adjust their personal lives around the idea. Some men maintain that raising a strong boy means discouraging tears. Others feel that the women in their lives only want to see male vulnerability when it’s convenient. As with most behaviors, crying is more appropriate in some situations than others. The real task is not only to show good judgment, but to refrain from judging men simply for shedding tears like any other human being.

~ Derek Whitney is an active blogger for the website Aligned Signs, an astrology matching website, he blogs regularly about modern psychology, astrology, and self-awareness.

Check it out. This is something my employer should be supporting, since we are also about stopping violence as well as treating it.

Healthy Masculinity Summit

The Healthy Masculinity Summit is part of the Healthy Masculinity Action Project (HMAP), the most ambitious undertaking ever to spread the message of healthy, non-violent masculinity across the country. HMAP, a two-year action project, will develop new male leadership that role models strength without violence. Men who are strong and assertive, as well as caring and connected, benefit our loved ones, schools, workplaces, nation, and the world.

HMAP kicks off with the summit in Washington, DC, October 17-19, 2012. We will gather the best of the best – male and female leaders, from business to education, from policy to sports, as well as organizations working to prevent violence against women and girls and other forms of violence.

Join us for this national dialogue about healthy masculinity. Become part of the conversation.

Learn more about the conversations that will take place at the 2012 Healthy Masculinity Summit and download the Healthy Masculinity Action Project brochure. See the HMAP Allies on the About page.

HMAP National Partners: Men Can Stop Rape, National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, Men Stopping Violence, Coach for America, Women of Color Network, and A CALL TO MEN.