Awesome - it's nice to see a company that makes billions (Nike owner Phil Knight is worth about $16 billion all by himself) donate a couple of hundred thousand dollars to a worthy cause. If Knight would personally donate once to this cause in the same manner he does for University of Oregon athletics (he's given them $300 million over the years), he could reach the whole country and not just people who wear Nike shoes or are sports fans.

Nike Uses #BeTrue Campaign To Make $200,000 Donation To LGBT Sports Coalition

By Travis Waldron on November 1, 2013


CREDIT: Nike

Earlier this year, Nike, the world’s largest sporting apparel company and an absolute icon in sports, launched a line of shoes and other products meant to promote LGBT equality in sports. The #BeTrue line wasn’t just a marketing ploy from Nike, since it also pledged to donate all proceeds from the shoes and clothing line to the LGBT Sports Coalition, which is fighting to end homophobia in sports by 2016.

In October, that promise came to fruition when Nike donated $200,000 to the coalition. The donation, according to Campus Pride, one of the groups affiliated with the coalition, is the first-ever made to the LGBT Sports Coalition and the largest Nike’s employee network has ever made to an LGBT cause. The funds will go to support all of the projects the coalition has worked on since Nike sponsored the first-ever LGBT Sports Summit at its headquarters in June 2012, the same year it launched the #BeTrue apparel line.

“Today we need more corporations to speak up and take a stand against anti-LGBT bias and bullying in sports,” said Shane Windmeyer, executive director of Campus Pride, said in the release. And I think that’s a key point that Nike’s partnership here is going to drive home.

That a huge company like Nike jumped to the front of efforts to fight homophobia in sports might seem radical, the actual strategy isn’t. The shoes and clothes Nike produced to market the cause fit squarely into a trend in sports fashion that was already pushing the boundaries of acceptability and comfort for the stereotypical straight male athlete. That trend — Grantland’s Wesley Morris has called it “the quiet queering of professional sports” — has blurred lines between men and women and what might be perceived as unacceptable or gay or simply weird.

What Nike has done is take that trend and run with it. Inclusivity has always been a staple of Nike’s advertising, and now it’s expanding that to an LGBT audience that has often been left out of the sports world. It’s promoting its #BeTrue line and endorsing athletes like Brittney Griner and letting her market men’s clothes for the company, all the while telling sports fans and apparel buyers that it’s cool to be who they are, no matter whether they’re part of the LGBT audience, sympathizing with the LGBT audience, or someone who just likes the shoes. At the same time, they’re going one step farther, not just preaching that message but putting considerable weight behind the causes that matter to that audience too.

That obviously gives Nike ample business opportunities. But a more equal sports world is in and of itself a better business opportunity for everyone involved. That’s what Nike’s involvement here is saying, and judging by the actions of other companies, including Nike’s competitors — Adidas endorsed Oregon’s marriage equality amendment two weeks ago — that message is starting to sink in to the corporations Campus Pride and the LGBT Sports Coalition are asking to step up.

On Being a Woman in Public (from Groupthink at Jezebel) - and Being a Man in Public

 

Over at the Jezebel blog called Grouthink, TyrannosaurusBataar posted a brief article on being a female in public - the dread, or even fear, that you will be approached by a man who wants to hit on you, seduce you, talk to you, or some other form of annoyance. While I am sure this is the case for a lot of women (thanks to the men who are creeps and predators, all of whom have given men in general an unfair stereotype, "all men are dogs"), I am not convinced that all men are so loathsome as one might assume from an article such as this.

One brave man tried to present a male version of this story in the comments, addressing without naming the double bind many single men experience when trying to connect with a woman he finds attractive (whether it's beauty or that she is reading a book of Beat poetry, or whatever).

I have included the exchange between the author of the article and the brave man who replied.

Being a woman in public

By TyrannosaurusBataar

Sometimes you just want to go home, but you're stuck being a woman in public.

You get on the train after a long day. The doors are trying to close and a guy jams them open to let on another guy. A man in a military uniform takes his earbuds out and says to the door-holder, "Don't hold the door open."

"What did you say?"

"Don't hold the door open."

"Oh, who are you, man? Who are you?"

You take a seat as far away from the conflict as possible and try to disappear into your Kindle, averting your eyes. Everything finally calms down.

The door-holder, who's already proven himself to have zero qualms about confronting strangers, is looking at you. You can see him in your peripheral vision and you can feel him looking. You're at a distance, but your hair is pretty bright and you're wearing lipstick so you know he noticed you. Keep reading, keep looking down. You briefly wish you were less attractive or had mousy hair or had an invisibility cloak. He keeps looking at you.

The person on the inside of your seat needs to get off. You hold your breath as you let them out and you move in, thinking of all the things you'll say and do when he tries to sit down next to you and talk to you when you just want to be left alone.

You exhale when an older woman rushes to take the seat you've vacated. You're safe and insulated by the window now.

Door-holder exits at the next stop and the tension leaves with him.

It's only been a few minutes, but this is what goes through your head when you're existing as a woman in public.

The comments are mostly from women who are sharing their own version of this story. However, one brave male commented and offered a male perspective on the double bind we feel as the one who is expected to pursue the female for a date, but also knowing that many females (as this story makes clear) dread being approached by an unknown male.

Here is that exchange - his version of the same story, her comment, and his reply. In my opinion, she totally missed his point, or chose not to see it.

Phenawn offers a scenario familiar to many single men who wish not to be single. But Ms. Bataar seems to only see men in these situations as predators.

Phenawm

Wanted to make this its own post on group think as a rebuttal but I don't have permissions :(

Sometimes you just want to let a woman know she’s beautiful and hopefully connect with her, but you’re stuck being a man in public.

You hold the door open on a train politely for someone who’s rushing to get into the train before the door closes. Some asshat in a military uniform gets butthurt and looks at you in a not too friendly manner. The man in a military uniform takes his earbuds out, initiates a confrontation and says,

"Don't hold the door open."

"What did you say?"

"Don't hold the door open."

"Oh, who are you, man? Who are you?"

Seriously, who does he think he is? He doesn’t identify himself as any authority or official representing the train company, who is he to be barking orders at you? Of course you would take offense and not comply immediately.

What makes things worse is now your gesture of kindness has created a scene and now you must fade off into a corner so Commander asshat doesn’t make things worse for you.

You see a beautiful girl reading her kindle at the far end of the train. You try not to stare but she is the best kind of Medusa, looking her has left you frozen in awe. You notice her bright hair and lipstick. You applaud her style and wonder what kind of girlfriend she could be.

You remind yourself that, being a guy, you must make the first move or nothing will happen. You remind yourself that you don’t really look that good today. You remind yourself that you have nothing cool to say. You remind yourself that this isn’t a bar or club so you’re not allowed to approach. You know you might never see this girl again and you have to at least try. You hope you don’t scare her, creep her out, seem rapey or a million other terms used to discourage people from connecting. You come up with a million scenarios where she rejects you in the worst ways if you dare say “hello”…

(In your imagination land…)

You: “Hey, nice Kindle, what do you like to read? –smiley face-

Her: “Wow is that the best pickup line you got?”

You: “N..no.. what? I’m just being friendly I don’t even use pick up-

Her: “That’s great, stop talking to me Mr. Out of shape, do you even lift?”

You: “I don’t even like lifting … I... I’m just going to go home and die now”

-moonwalk away in failure-

(End Scene)

The whole time you’re day dreaming you realize you haven’t stopped staring at her. She ends up noticing, you panic inside, and you must make a decision. Should you try to approach her? You wish you had more confidence, you notice the person sitting next to her leaves. You see an opportunity…

An older woman looks at you, shakes her head as if to say, “Nope, you got no chance” and sits next to her. You feel like a failure, you’re embarrassed. You immediately leave at the next stop in shame. Another day of surfing the net alone in your studio apartment and ending your night with a disappointing release following your third viewing of a Hawt tattooed girls on Xhamster, awaits you.

This is what constantly happens to you when you’re a man in public. 10/17/13 11:16am

* * * * *

TyrannosaurusBataar

You probably actually don't want to post this to Groupthink. You do not understand the point of this post. Read some of the (many, many) responses to this and tell me you women don't have any reason to blow off or be afraid of men in public. But it's really funny that you think this is a burden you carry, constantly defending against rude girls.

Also: if you've never been on the DC metro, the doors don't open again when they're closing. They'll close on your arms/legs/bag whatever. It's not "politely" holding the door. It's jamming yourself in between closing, heavy doors, putting yourself in danger, and potentially holding up the whole train as the doors keep open/closing or the driver makes you offload. 10/17/13 11:22am

* * * * * 

Phenawm

Thanks for taking the time to reply, I'm surprised as this has gotten so many replies and you have been kind enough to read all of them. I realize that there is a ton of creeps out there that don't know when it is ok to approach and don't know how to take subtle hints that a woman gives, to let guys know that they are not interested. I never implied rudeness on the girls part, I just want to bring awareness that women aren't the only ones who carry all the fear and self-consciousness.

I wrote it from the guys point of view of how its also difficult for a guy to find someone incredibly attractive and want to connect, how a guy can project his feelings of fear on to her and struggle with his role in that situation. I wanted the readers to be able to see this from all points of view. I get that it's scary for women but its scary for men too, we don't look for people to harass, even if we are prone to getting into conflicts with other men. That's not the same attitude we bring or think of when we want to approach or attract a woman. On the RARE occasion that a man even approaches a female stranger.

Also, you're correct, I don't know about the DC metro, where you're story may have been true, mine was just a fictional rebuttal. 10/17/13 11:50am

Jennifer Ouellette - What Does Sexual Harassment Look Like?

A couple of weeks ago, the "sexual harassment" scandal at the Scientific American blogs, centered on the ways Bora Zivkovic was inappropriate with female writers, was all the news in the science blogosphere. 

A very well-known science writer and blogger, the Blogs Editor at Scientific American, and co-founder of ScienceOnline.com - Bora Zivkovic - was accused by first one and then several science writers - all female - of sexual harassment.
The pattern is pretty distinct in each of their stories: 

[Bora] contacted her, showed interest in her work, met with her, and then proceeded to steer the conversation straight towards sex (such as repeatedly telling her he was a "very sexual person.")

This is all so effing disturbing as a man - I work with women who go through this is much less public ways. Often, as is the case with Kathleen Raven, this kind of harassment devolves into rape.
I am so proud of these women for speaking out and revealing the culture of control and power in which they work. And I applaud Ed Yong for featuring this story on his blog this weekend.

Jennifer Ouellette, another blogger, at Scientific American's Cocktail Party Physics blog, has some thoughts about what happened and how we discuss and define sexual harassment. While she commends the women who came forward and expresses dismay with what her friend has done, she also feels some empathy for Bora and his wife:

I have spent the last week, like many others, grieving for what our small community has lost, and what the three young women who came forward have suffered. Each subsequent revelation was like a hard punch to the gut. Monica, Hannah, Kathleen — I’m so sorry. I truly had no idea.

And yes, I grieve for Bora himself, and his wife, Catherine, although I cannot condone his behavior, or deny the damage this has wrought. I cannot place concern for his well-being above that of the young women he has harmed through his actions.

She makes some excellent points of what this kind of behavior - and the atmosphere it creates - does to women. It's worth the few minutes it takes to read this.

Jeepers, Creepers: What Does Sexual Harassment Look Like?

By Jennifer Ouellette | October 22, 2013 | Cocktail Party Physics (Physics with a twist)


I have been largely silent publicly about the events of the past week that ended with the resignation of our blogs editor, Bora Zivkovic, mostly because (a) I was waiting for all the facts to come in and trying to process those facts in the throes of considerable cognitive dissonance, and (b) others have addressed so clearly and eloquently the many knotty issues I would have raised. Honestly, I’m suffering from metaphorical PTSD (Note: this is not meant to diminish PTSD; it accurately reflects my shellshocked emotional state): Bora is a longstanding friend and colleague. I have spent the last week, like many others, grieving for what our small community has lost, and what the three young women who came forward have suffered. Each subsequent revelation was like a hard punch to the gut. Monica, Hannah, Kathleen — I’m so sorry. I truly had no idea.

And yes, I grieve for Bora himself, and his wife, Catherine, although I cannot condone his behavior, or deny the damage this has wrought. I cannot place concern for his well-being above that of the young women he has harmed through his actions. But human beings are complex, a mass of contradictions, and we are all, at various times, laid flat by our own frailty. His fall was just more precipitous than most, and because of his substantial influence, the fallout and collateral damage were more severe. As Ashutosh Jogalekar phrased it,

We can applaud the substance of Bora’s foundational contributions to the rise of science blogging even as we continue to denounce his actions. This episode is a reminder that human beings are flawed and that the same person can reach both the heights of achievement and the depths of failure.

Ashutosh is a thoughtful man, and he chose his words carefully, with plenty of caveats. But there was one phrase elsewhere in his post that bothered me, because it is one that I’ve heard echoed in comments all over the Web: that “in none of the three cases did Bora’s behavior descend into overt sexual or physical harassment.” It’s the same point Hannah Waters made in her post when she talked about “not-quite-harassment,” and when Monica Byrne confessed that at first, she wasn’t entirely sure what happened to her constituted “real” harassment.

I wish I didn’t feel compelled to talk about this. I just want to explore through my writing all the cool science and culture stuff out there and share my enthusiasm with others, augmented with the occasional funny video. But clearly we need to talk about what sexual harassment looks like, because it’s not always black-and-white, and no two cases are exactly alike. I would argue that the insidiousness of those borderline gray areas can sometimes be more damaging, in the long run, than the blatantly obvious cases — particularly for fields that wish to attract and promote more women within their ranks. An accumulation of incessant little things can gradually create an intolerable environment, and sexual harassment is a often a significant part of that. (Cf. the “chilly climate.”) It’s especially impactful when it happens early in one’s career. As this post noted: “Events at the beginning of your career timeline are, by definition, formative.” So it’s important that we openly acknowledge when these kinds of things happen, and act swiftly to address them.



Like pretty much every woman out there, I am no stranger to harassment. It’s just part of what a friend recently described as the persistent “background noise” of being a Woman in Public: the whistles and catcalls, the random slurping sounds, the public masturbators and the gropers, the chatty men next to you on the subway who keep trying to make “friendly” conversation when you just want to be left alone to read your book, the exhortations to “smile, sweetheart,” and, when you protest, the defensive insistence that they were just “being friendly, geez, what a bitch.” It’s a daily barrage, and frankly, it gets exhausting. (One of the loveliest things about married middle age is that one is increasingly invisible as a sexual target — and I mean that sincerely.)

Matters become more complicated when it’s someone you know in a professional or even a semi-professional setting, especially if there is an imbalance of respective power. I’m going to describe two separate case studies from my own misspent youth to illustrate how fuzzy the lines can be. Which would you consider overt sexual harassment? And which do you think had the greater impact on me and my future professional development?

Case #1:

I was just 22, quiet, painfully shy, and achingly naive, working as a copy editor at a publishing company. One of the male senior staff offered to buy me a friendly drink after work, just to welcome me to the fold. I thought it was a little weird but didn’t want to appear impolite when I was just starting a new job, plus I didn’t know many people yet, so I agreed. More than 20 years later, I still vividly recall the sudden chill when the joke he was telling unexpectedly turned sexually explicit. Very explicit, deliberately so. Leering slightly, he stared intently in my eyes as he savored every naughty detail, oblivious to my attempts to avert his gaze, my crossed arms, my nervous chuckle as I sought escape. It wasn’t remotely sexy or erotic; he sounded like a horny 12-year-old sniggering over Daddy’s old Hustler rags.

I told him that I needed to get home, insisted on paying for my own drink because I didn’t want to feel obligated in any way to this man. He remained oblivious, taking my elbow as we walked down the street, leaning close and murmuring that it was too bad he’d given up his apartment in the city because then we could have gone there for the night. I was stunned. Did he honestly think he had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting me into bed? Had he really not noticed my growing discomfort, my stiff posture, my instinctive pulling away, my incredulous expression at the very idea of sleeping with him?

Yes. He did. And no. He hadn’t. I was just a prop in his personal fetishized sexual fantasy, in which he was the erudite, sophisticated sex god offering to initiate the pretty ingenue into the delights of carnal pleasure. My wishes were irrelevant, my boundaries disregarded; he didn’t see “me” at all.

His self-delusion reached new heights when he stopped by my cubicle a couple of days later and condescendingly informed me that he felt we should really just be friends, that he was actually seeing someone. He hoped he hadn’t led me on and that I could “get over” him and move on with my life. I just stared at him with a “WTF?” expression and finally shrugged and said sure, no problem. He seemed a bit taken aback by my nonchalance; I’m sure he convinced himself I was frigid. Clearly any woman who found him repulsive had to be frigid. It was my first encounter with the manipulative, “If you weren’t such a prude, you wouldn’t find this offensive” line such men routinely feed their targets. It wouldn’t be my last.

This man was senior to me, but he was not my direct superior and he mostly left me alone once he’d determined I wasn’t an easy mark, apart from occasionally brushing against me in the hall (his office was near my cubicle) and giving a knowing smirk. No harm, no foul. Men will be men, right? It’s not like we all have a god-given right to never feel socially uncomfortable. But it poisoned my experience on the job. I was wary of socializing with co-workers after-hours, even in groups, unless my one trusted friend (who remains one of my best friends) was present. I largely kept to myself, and leapt at the first new employment opportunity that came my way. Later, I heard through the grapevine that he’d been cited for sexual harassment; apparently he’d been sending anonymous dirty emails regularly over the company servers to a female colleague, who tracked him down and reported the abuse. I have no idea if he kept his job.

Case #2:

I was working at a different company, a little older, not much wiser. At an official company dinner, I found myself seated next to a 60-ish high-ranking administrator — let’s call him X — who became progressively inebriated. When I felt his hand slip onto my thigh under the table, gently squeeze and start to slide upward, I quickly stood up and said I needed a refill from the bar. And I stayed in the bar for the rest of the evening, enduring the ribbing of several co-workers, who guessed why I had left my seat. The man had a reputation as an incorrigible horndog.

At first I had no intention of reporting him. I’d gotten a bit more jaded by then, intent on playing the role of Post-Feminist Free Spirit. (Spoiler alert: it really didn’t suit me.) A spot of drunken groping paled in comparison to the PR rep who insisted on meeting at his home office to discuss the freelance article I was writing. That guy answered the door wearing nothing but a bathrobe, and promptly laid down on the oversized sofa, suggesting that if I wanted access to his client, perhaps I could “massage” his legs — especially the upper inner thigh region. The sight of those flabby white thighs and barely-visible testicles peeking through the robe’s folds haunted me for days. (You’re welcome for that visual. Share my pain!) And no — I never wrote that article. I guess I just didn’t “want it enough” to pay that high a price.

I figured I just had to avoid X from now on. Except the ribbing from co-workers continued for the next couple of days, with people teasing that I was the “future Mrs. X” — someone even pasted a doctored photo on my computer monitor, with my face and X’s imposed on a stock wedding pose. Finally, embarrassed and fed up with the breezy acceptance of X’s lecherous behavior more than the behavior itself, I marched into Human Resources and said I wanted to lodge a formal complaint. I was lucky: the woman seated on the other side of X that night had witnessed the whole thing — and she just happened to be the head of HR.

X denied it when she first confronted him, but she countered, “I was there. I saw you.” And he caved. With his guilt established, she asked what I wanted to be done about it. Honestly? I just wanted it to go away. I didn’t even want an apology. Ultimately I asked that he get a stern talking-to about how poorly his behavior reflected on the company and how he should probably regulate his drinking at future company events. Despite this uncomfortable incident, I enjoyed my employment there. It was easy to avoid X, given the company’s size and his seniority. Looking back, did I make the right choice? I don’t know. I’d like to think that black mark on his personnel record chastened him somewhat, but it’s just as likely that he continued to cheerfully get drunk and grope young women all the way until retirement.

Case #2 is a fairly straightforward example of mild sexual harassment, and there is comfort in that kind of clarity. It happened in a professional work environment and — crucially — when I spoke up, someone believed me, and appropriate action was taken, which, sadly, is not always the case. (Having a witness didn’t hurt.) So that work environment, to me, was a safe space, and the incident didn’t really prey on my psyche.

Case #1 falls into that nebulous gray area; it happened while socializing outside of the office. I doubt the HR department of that company would have been able to do anything even if I’d reported it. It was really just your standard creeper scenario, apart from the work connection and the close proximity of our work spaces. Had I been a little older, not so wet behind the ears — heck, had his office just been on another floor so I could easily avoid him — I could have shrugged it off more easily. Instead, I quit my job, even though I had been aiming for a career in publishing. And as it turned out, the man was a sexual harasser with a particular fetish for talking dirty to women he worked with; his behavior toward me was insignificant on its own, but was part of a broader pattern.

I don’t share this because I’m psychologically scarred. The incidents were mild and happened so long ago, I wouldn’t even have thought about them had last week’s drama not jogged my memory. Things turned out pretty okay for me. I did end up in publishing, eventually — I just took a more circuitous route and ended up on the authorial end of the spectrum. But that doesn’t excuse the behavior of those men.

Every woman of my acquaintance has multiple stories like this — yes, even in the world of science writing. Over time, you develop a thick skin and learn to take these things in stride. You shrug wearily and figure this is just how things are, comparing harassment war stories with your female colleagues over drinks, ridiculing the pathetic creatures because what can you do except laugh about it ruefully? We watch each other’s backs and run interference when necessary. We’re taught to stay silent, and we don’t fancy the inevitable attacks on our credibility and character that ensue when we violate this unspoken social compact. Just ask Monica, Hannah, and Kathleen Raven, all of whom offered very credible accounts, confirmed by the man in question, and were still sharply criticized for daring to speak up. (“Why didn’t they do X? Why did they do Y? He never harassed me, so clearly those women are lying.”) We get tired of arguing and trying to convince the nitpicking skeptics that yes, what happened to us really did constitute harassment and no, we didn’t “misunderstand” — and we certainly didn’t “ask for it.” So we rarely name names publicly, on the record (but we know who you are!), and we rarely stop to question whether it has to be this way.

But this system we’ve developed also supports the perpetrators and impedes change, as Alice Bell pointed out:

We should be able to give a lecture without a colleague eyeing-up our legs. We should be able to bend down and tie our bloody shoelace on campus without someone making a comment about our bum. The gateways to particular people, jobs, ideas and spaces should not be guarded by questions of whether or not we are willing to entertain the idea of screwing someone in a position of power. We should be able to talk about stuff like this and call it out without being made to feel like some sort of sour killjoy.

This problem is much bigger than Bora Zivkovic, extending far beyond the science blogosphere. It’s everywhere. His voluntary resignation was the right the thing to do: he gets points for (finally) copping to his guilt and sparing the community he helped build further heartbreak and strife – shades of the idealism and generosity that made the “Blogfather” so beloved. But I admit, it kind of chafes that, off the top of my head, I can think of a handful of prominent men in the science-related sphere alone who have behaved just as inappropriately, if not more so, toward women and have paid zero consequences – because the protective herd instinct kicks in, or because they are better liars, or because the women they target just can’t bring themselves to risk naming them publicly.

There has been much denouncing this past week of “trial by Twitter,” and while it’s better to wait to get one’s facts straight before expressing outrage en masse (or defending the indefensible), the reason women resort to public “naming and shaming” in the first place is because the situation has become intolerable and this is the only way they feel they can be heard. Perhaps it would help if there were more than two possible outcomes: remaining silent, or the “nuclear option,” which the science blogging community experienced last week. Kelly Hills weighed in with a couple of thoughtful posts offering a possible way forward, but reiterated that “power and authority must be removed when a harasser is identified.” And the Guardian offered four useful tips to “avoid becoming a leading sex pest.”

It’s a start. Can we have accountability without all this fallout? Can we call someone out for inappropriate behavior and still leave space for redemption and reform? I would like to think so, if only to make it easier for women to speak out. How many women have remained silent, guilt-tripped into doing so by people reminding them to think of the man’s family and his future? “You don’t want to ruin his career over something like this, do you?” we are told. And when you put it that way, no – we don’t. But it’s interesting that nobody asks what this might do to our careers.

It’s time to stop asking women to pick up the tab for some men’s bad behavior. It really doesn’t have to be this way.

(P.S. I promise to get back to science now.)

(P.P.S. I was tempted to turn off comments on this post, but opted to instead moderate carefully. The first comment, which I hesitated to approve, is inflammatory — and kinda Spammy, since the same comment has been left on other people’s post on this issue — but can nonetheless be useful for fostering discussion. See my own comments at #8 and #9. There is still much hurt and anger swirling about, and I ask people commenting to please respond to the substance, not the tone. Don’t make shut down comments!)


~ About the Author: Jennifer Ouellette is a science writer who loves to indulge her inner geek by finding quirky connections between physics, popular culture, and the world at large. Follow on Twitter @JenLucPiquant.

The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

The Good Men Project - Call for Bloggers: A Conversation About Men

Do you care about men? Do you want to help create the conversation about how men are or can redefine masculinity for the 21st Century? The the Good Men Project is looking for you - whether you are XX, XY or one of the many variations is not relevant.

Call for Bloggers: A Conversation About Men

October 26, 2013 by the Editors

We’re having a conversation about what it means to be a man in the 21st century. It’s the conversation no one else is having. And we’re hoping you’ll join.

—

We’re looking for people want to talk about men, and want to better understand the rapidly changing roles that are happening in the 21st century. If writing about the trials, the tribulations, and the joys of manhood appeals to you, we’d love for you to become a regular blogger. You will get a terrific platform (the total network is steadily growing, but right now gets almost 8 million pageviews a month) and an opportunity to help shape not only The Good Men Project itself, but the conversation about men in the world. There really is no limit to what you can blog about, as long as it relates in some way to things that men in today’s modern world care about (And trust us, that’s a whole lot of things). We are also looking for humor, insights, and raw honest truths. But mostly we’re looking for your own unique voice. First person narratives that lead to some deeper, universal understandings are always welcome here. Check out our about page if you want to learn more about who we are and how we’ve grown.

Virtually any well-written post about anything you can imagine that relates to men in the 21st century is something we’d consider publishing.

If you, or someone you know, is interested in becoming a blogger at The Good Men Project, please email Lisa Hickey at lisa@goodmenproject.com with a pitch. We’ll want to know who you are, what you want to write about, and how you expect to do it. Some sense of your writing (and life) experience would help too. You will need to show that you have good ideas, the capacity for brutal honesty and, hopefully, a sense of humor. You will need a social media platform—be prepared to tell us your twitter following, facebook fans, g+ profile and any other places you have a social media footprint. (Redditors get brownie points). We are happy to help you grow your network—in fact, one of the benefits to working with our platform is that you can expect to double your network size if you combine our platform with your own efforts towards growth.

Answers to FAQs: a) unpaid b) 2 month minimum commitment c) write only when you have time, but we are looking for people who want to write at least four times a month—and up to 20 times a month—because they see the value to their own brand, name recognition and platform-building opportunities d) you will get editorial help, direction, and story ideas—as much or as little as you want and need e) you can always link back to your own blog or repost their after e) the majority of your posts will need to be unique content e) once you get into our system, you will upload and format your posts, however, we will have final editorial say f) yes, we work with many large media companies and have a large social network, and we will not only help push your work outward but teach you how to grow your own network. Regular writers also get first crack at interview opportunities, appearances on our own video panels, and the chance to do paid sponsored posts or move up to paid editorial positions.

 

Around the internet, the tributes to rock icon Lou Reed continue. en|Gender offered their own tribute with a selection of videos that deal with gender, sexuality, and transgender realities.

Great collection of songs.

Here is a audio-remastered video of Reed's classic, Walk on the Wild Side, from 1973.

Lou Reed: Sex and Gender Songs

Posted by helenboyd – October 28, 2013

• Lou Reed wrote a song about undergoing electroshock therapy because his parents thought he was gay. It was called “Kill Your Sons.” 

• He wrote “Candy Says” about Candy Darling, one of the Warhol Factory’s out trans women. (There were quite a few trans women involved in Warhol’s stuff, including – Ms. Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis and Jayne County.) 

• He wrote “Walk on the Wild Side” which inspired a ton of trans people to say “Wait, what? That’s possible?” when it came to gender transformation. 

• He wrote “Coney Island Baby” – and the whole of that collection of songs – for a trans girlfriend of his named Rachel. 

• Then of course there’s “Venus in Furs”, too, which is a whole other thing altogether, but certainly of interest to a certain subset of y’all.

Mike Robertson - Everything You Need to Know to Do Front Squats

The traditional squat that most people do - from bodybuilders to weekend athletes - is the back squat, with either high bar position (bodybuilder style) or a low bar position (power lifter style) and every possible stance from very narrow to very wide.

Fewer people do front squats, especially guys (and gals) who are concerned about looking like they are lifting heavy weights. When you first do front squats, you may be working with half of the weight you use for a back squat - it's humbling. It also blasts your quads in a way back squats can't. And for some of us, seemingly taller guys, it's easier to go ass to floor on a front squat than a back squat (I could be wrong about this and it might just be me).

In the post below, Mike Robertson of Robertson Training Systems, teaches you everything you need to know to do good front squats in a variety of forms, with different types of weights (bar, kettle bells, etc.), and with different types of grip - videos included.

Front Squat

October 25, 2013




Front squats are a different animal.

After years of dedicated powerlifting training and back squatting, I read an article by one of my strength training mentors, Brad Gillingham.

“Big Brad” is one of the strongest human beings on the face of the planet, and his 5×5 squat program had worked wonders for my back squat.

In this article he mentioned that he front squatted a lot in the off-season, so I figured I’d give it a shot as well.

And all I can say is, I got dominated!

I was squirrelly under the bar, my thighs were burning, and my core was crushed for three days straight as a result.

And needless to say, I loved the pain, and I’ve grown to love the lift.

The front squat is an amazing exercise, and one that’s well worth your time and attention to master. In this article, I will take you step-by-step through the process, to help you learn everything possible about the front squat.

Let’s start with the big benefits you get from the front squat.

Benefits of Front Squatting

There are numerous reasons you should learn to front squat. Here’s just a short list.
 
Mobility

 

One of the biggest benefits you’ll receive from front squatting regularly is improving (or at least maintaining) your mobility through all the key joints: The ankles, knees, hips, shoulders and elbows.

Too often people assume that if they want to be mobile, they have to do extensive mobility or stretching routines day-in and day-out forever.

And this simply isn’t the case.

Instead, what it often requires is a block or period of time that’s dedicated to improving mobility, and then maintaining that mobility going forward.

Front squatting can help you build the mobility, and by regularly including them in your programming they will keep you mobile for years to come.
 
Core Strength

Another benefit to front squatting is improving core strength.

This is where a key distinction needs to be made; while back squats tend to put more stress on the posterior core such as the lower back/spinal erectors, front squats put more stress on the anterior core.

This area is typically very weak and underdeveloped, so front squatting can be a great tool to bring this up to snuff. And don’t worry, I’ll make sure to give you some resources later on if this is an issue.
 
Muscle Mass – Quads

Let’s be honest – quads get a bad rap, and if your goal is to get flat-out huge quads, I could think of worse ways to go about developing them.

The front squat is at the end of the squat/hinge spectrum. If you want big quads, training with an angled tibia and upright torso (like you do when front squatting) is a sure-fire way to look like Quadzilla come next Halloween.
 
Strength Gains

Front squats are an invaluable tool to get stronger, regardless of your ultimate end-goal.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a team sport athlete, a powerlifter or an Olympic lifter – getting stronger in the glutes, quads and anterior core is rarely a bad thing. When you combine that with the mobility you can develop as well, you have a first-class exercise you should be using routinely in your programming.

And while we’re talking about Olympic lifters….

Foundation for O-lifts

Last but not least, if you have any dreams or aspirations of Olympic lifting in the future, you need to learn how to front squat.

The front squat is the foundation for catching/receiving a clean. Failure to catch a big clean in the bottom position will force you to either power clean every rep of every set, or simply find a new sport to pursue.

As you can see, there are tons of benefits to front squatting.

Now that we’ve covered them, let’s get down to brass tax: How to front squat. 

Read the whole article.

Don't be this dad, okay? Please . . . .

Dad’s Been On A Parenting Kick Lately

ISSUE 49•44 • Oct 28, 2013

AUSTIN, TX—In the most recent of a long string of hobbies and obsessions to completely absorb the local father’s attention, friends and family reported Monday that Jacob Rossbach, 35, has been on a serious parenting jag lately. “In the past few days, he’s just been going nuts with the paternal encouragement and affection stuff—he’s really gotten into it lately,” said daughter Jenny, 7, adding that while she’s not sure what put the parenting bug in her dad’s ear, her father now spends nearly all his free time on activities such as doling out advice, providing material assistance, and imparting wisdom to his two children. “A few minutes ago he stopped by my room just to tell me he was proud of me. He’s done that five times today. It’s like, huh, guess he’s going through a little nurturing-his-children phase or something.” The sudden burst of commitment to his paternal duties reportedly replaces a fiscal responsibility kick that dominated the previous week and a half of Rossbach’s life.

Matt Forney Is a Douche

This is Matt Forney, he is a douche. He recently posted an article entitled The Case Against Female Self-Esteem that has set the internet ablaze with commentary, most of it suggesting that Forney is a douche, or much more explicit things I am choosing not to repeat (despite full agreement).

Forney represents what the men's rights activists, or MRAs (i.e., all feminists are evil) call a red pill/anti-feminist (men who are feminists have apparently swallowed the blue pill, or are white knights [used as a derogatory term], or are manginas).

The red pill/blue pill thing is taken from The Matrix, where it represented the choice between embracing the sometimes painful truth of reality (red) and the blissful ignorance of illusion (blue). In the MRA and PUA worlds (PUA = pick-up artists) being a male feminist (i.e., believing that biological sex and gender should be invisible before the law) is to have taken the blue pill.

Men like Forney (really just a sniveling little boy) are why we have something as ugly as rape culture in this era. For him, women should not get college degrees, should not have jobs, should not do anything other than submit to him sexually. Fortunately for the rest of us, those of us who are adult men, little boys like Forney are decreasing in number with each successive generation.
On the downside, they will never be fully extinct.

His article is frustrating, infuriating, and deeply flawed (at best). Rather than try to summarize his nonsense myself - it makes my brain hurt just reading the stupid flowing from this guy's keyboard - here is a post called 60 sexist incoherent things matt forney believes.

60 sexist incoherent things matt forney believes

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Clara 

 

In the event that you’re confused, check out this glorious masterpiece: The Case Against Female Self-Esteem. It has made me so angry that I have literally spent an hour (which I could and should have spent at the GCB) writing this blog post. Basically, he writes that women should stop having self-esteem because it’s killing his boner. Enjoy.

1. Women have “natural biological social functions.” Somewhere in our DNA, femininity is encoded as a series of ACGT sequences that spell out sugar and spice and everything nice.
2. America is not currently waging a war against female self-esteem. No, America is way too woman-friendly as far as media goes.
3. America ought to be waging a war against female self-esteem.
4. Girls (only girls, definitely not boys, not at all) are bombarded with pro-self-esteem propaganda from childhood.
5. We live in “a man’s world.” For some reason.
6. “Girls should be discouraged from being confident.”
7. “Most girls have done nothing to deserve self-esteem.”
8. Men get respect (and self-esteem) by accomplishing things, but women expect it to just be handed to them like a free cookie.
9. Men deserve to have self-esteem because they do important things
10. Women don’t deserve to have self-esteem because they do unimportant things.
11. Women’s achievements are “complete jokes.”
12. “Having a college degree is a strike against a girl,” because it demonstrates that she thinks education is like, important or something.
13. Women all do silly things like teach elementary school.
14. Men do the really important things, not because of any glass ceiling, but because men are better.
15. We are “girls,” and we want to “play” in the man’s world.
16. We (girls) have to obey their (men’s) rules.
17. We are “girls” or “females,” but members of the other gender are only known as “men.”
18. A couple of guitarists on Matt Forney’s street corner provide a more useful service to society than a career-driven woman.
19. “Insecurity is integral to femininity.”
20. Emotional vulnerability is the same thing as fragility. This is so wrong. Vulnerability is absolutely an integral part of any real relationship between two human beings. You need to be able to be open with your partner, trusting that they won’t hurt you, even though they can. Basically, Matt Forney thinks vulnerability is the opposite of confidence.
21. “Insecurity is the natural state of woman.” Yes, womanhood has a natural state, and that state is insecure.
22. “Given their lack of physical strength, a woman on her own should be frightened as hell without men to protect her.” That is a direct quote. I didn’t have to embellish that one bit.
23. There is a predetermined relationship between men and women, and any deviation from that script is backwards and wrong and leads to misery for everyone forever.
24. Part of the male identity requires women to need them, either emotionally or materialistically.
25. “Female insecurity is a crucial ingredient for unlocking our inner masculine instincts.” Again, I wish I’d made that up.
26. Women should be concerned with unlocking Matt Forney’s “inner masculine instincts.”
27. If only women looked weaker, men would look super strong! And that would give Matt Forney a boner!
28. “Confidence doesn’t give men erections; vulnerability does.”
29. All men get erections from the same things. (That’s why there are only three or four porn videos out there. Once they figured out what turns on the all-encompassing male hive mind, they quickly realized there was no need for any more porn, ever.)
30. My purpose is to give Matt Forney an erection.
31. Vulnerability and confidence are opposites.
32. Women need to be more vulnerable than men, in relationships, because women like confident men, and men like insecure women.
33. That’s just how it is, for everyone, forever. If you disagree, then you’re either a feminist or a manboob.
34. Girls get mental illnesses because they deny their feminine instincts.
35. Women have “inborn insecurity.”
36. “The modern woman has become an emotional cripple.”
37. Considering yourself an “equal” in the dating world is the same as viewing your partner as “a life support system for a penis.” Because I consider myself a life support system for my vagina. Hooray for equality!
38. “Confident women are incapable of viewing men as human beings.” This is the most insane jump Forney makes. He describes a vulnerable, fragile, needy girl, and then describes a totally heartless and frankly horrible-sounding alternative. None of these people are emotionally healthy! A confident woman is not a sociopath!
39. If women are confident and empowered, “men are nothing more than fashion items to help women show how cool or sophisticated they are.” Because a confident woman couldn’t possibly see a man as a human being.
40. “If I’m not the center of a girl’s world, I’m not going to be in her world period.” Matt Forney literally demands to be the center of a girl’s world. Nothing else will do, because Matt Forney is so fucking special that he deserves it, as a man.
41. “So-called confident women are as threatening as a pile of dog turds.” Matt has just described all of the horrible things a confident woman can do to a man (e.g. throwing him in the trash, exchanging him for cash and prizes, etc), but now he’s saying they’re all totally harmless, for reasons that are unclear.
42. “Women don’t want to have high self-esteem.”
43. Women with depression are only depressed because their lives are a total lie. Also, women with depression are “confident.” Because if there’s one quality I’d say I associate with depression, it’s confidence.
44. Their lives are a lie because they’re being confident, and it would be better if they were weak and submissive.
45. Women “despise their strong, independent lives.” You can tell because they take all that Prozac. You can also tell because they’re so notoriously unhappy.
46. Women “want nothing more than for a man to throw them over his knee, shatter the Berlin Wall around their hearts, and expose the lovestruck, bashful little girl within.” I cannot even begin to comprehend this.
47. Pick-up artists are only successful because women need insane displays of dominance to overpower their artificially confident psyches.
48. Lana Del Rey is popular because women all want to pretend we’re all sixteen years old.
49. Women write songs about men, because we are all totally nuts for men. Men don’t write songs about women, ever, because men are smart and women are stupid.
50. Women need men “far more” than men need women.
51. “Girls will all but die without masculine attention.”
52. Rape culture is just a made-up thing that lets women feel vulnerable, because we just love feeling vulnerable. This is the part in the article where Matt Forney’s argument goes from insane to sickening. It’s not even a little bit funny.
53. Feminists lie about rape all the time, for fun. Lying about rape is super fun.
54. “At the end of the day, there are no Strong, Independent Women™. There are only shrews pleading for a taming.” Women are like pets. Disobedient pets.
55. Girls don’t want a six-figure job.
56. Girls don’t want an apartment.
57. Girls don’t want a master’s degree.
58. Girls don’t want sexual liberation.
59. Girls want to be led back to the kitchen.
60. Girls want to make Matt Forney a sandwich.

Gender Fluidity: Gabrielle Burton at TEDxColumbus

This is a nice, though TED-style brief talk on one of my favorite gender-related topics - gender fluidity. Burton explores the notion that gender is fluid, revealing insight into a culture that makes us question social roles and assumptions we may not even be aware we are promoting.

Gabrielle Burton: Gender Fluidity (TEDxColumbus)

At one point a few years ago, Gabrielle’s worlds of being a filmmaker, conscious observer and parent collided. Fueled by her upbringing by thoughtful, feminist, and creative parents and being in business with her four sisters, her current project has put her ‘out there’ in ways she’d never imagined. By challenging presumptions and misunderstandings, Gabrielle will explore the notion that gender is fluid, revealing insight into a culture that makes us question social roles and assumptions we may not even be aware we are promoting.

Gabrielle Burton
Filmmaker. Writer. Activist.

Gabrielle’s Website
Facebook
Twitter
Email

About Gabrielle:

Gabrielle is a writer/director/actor whose current project is as director of Kings, Queens, and In- Betweens, a documentary about the fluidity of gender identity as seen through the window of drag queens and kings in Columbus, Ohio. Her feature and short film credits include: Manna from Heaven (MGM/Sony), Temps (Netflix), Just Friends (AMC/We Channel), The Happiest Day of His Life (MTV/Logo), Letting Go of God (Showtime), as well as nationally released commercials and PSAs. As a director, Gabrielle got her training in film school at the Ecole Superieure d’Audio-Visuel in Toulouse, France, where she received a DEUP degree with High Honors. Gabrielle worked on the television program Law and Order in their director training program. After an Isobel Briggs scholarship to study music at Berklee College of Music, she won a Rotary Scholarship to study film in France. Her short, Sage and Time, was selected for the La Corrida International Film Festival in France, and Gabrielle was invited as the opening night speaker to show Manna from Heaven at La Corrida’s 10th film festival. A graduate of Harvard/Radcliffe, Gabrielle is a published poet, and also wrote and directed the full length plays Sage and Time and Club Venus at the ART’s Loeb Ex theater. She was featured on the Voice Of America program and in the Harvard CRIMSON. She just received the Thomas A. Milhelmus Editor’s Award for an essay she wrote on the giant turtles in Malaysia, which will be published this fall by the Southern Indiana Review.

* * * * *

Ms. Burton's next project, Kings, Queens, and In- Betweens (see here for more about the film), also looks very interesting and fun.

Kings, Queens, and In-Betweens (to be completed this year) is a documentary on the fluidity of gender identity as seen through the window of drag queens, kings, and transgender performers in Columbus, Ohio. Perhaps surprisingly, Columbus has one of the most imaginative, diverse drag scenes in the country, set in the middle of Ohio as a complex, politically important swing state. Drawing on interviews and performances by entertainers (from those who only do drag as a form of show business to those who use drag for personal exploration), KQIB challenges common assumptions about drag and gender.

KQIB will be the first film to include the whole gender performance spectrum — queens, kings, and transgender performers.

Twenty years since the groundbreaking film “Paris is Burning” was shot, this is a chance to move the conversation forward, showing how drag both entertains and pushes the envelope — making us question binary categories of male/female, gay/straight, butch/femme. KQIB captures how these terrific performers tackle the complexities and pathos of gender expression, personal identity, and human rights — all with humor, great music, big hair, and duct tape.

Jim Palmer - Jesus Was Not a Christian

"Jesus was not a Christian. He is not the founder of Christianity. Christianity is a religion created in the name of Jesus, and is much different from the actual truth that Jesus taught. Were Jesus alive today, I don’t think Jesus would be a Christian. Jesus is still one of best-kept secrets because his truth has been grossly distorted by those who claim to speak for him. There is a religion-free Jesus who belongs to all of humankind. Christianity does not own or have first rights to Jesus. His truth has universal significance. It’s often the case that you have to disentangle Jesus from institutional Christianity in order to uncover his truth." 

- Jim Palmer, Notes from (Over) the Edge - (a new book-in-progress)

Jim Palmer describes himself as a "Religion-Free Jesus Follower."  Here is a recent blog post the offers some insight into his spiritual journey.

Common objections to shedding religion

October 25, 2013

I began sharing my faith journey as an author in 2005, publishing Divine Nobodies: Shedding Religion to Find God (and the unlikely people who help you) (2006). The book struck a nerve, and my Inbox was flooded with emails from others who were trying to untangle their lives and faith from religion. Ordinary people, mainly from a Christian background, they had come to the end of their rope with faith and God, but felt understood and validated through my story, and inspired by the possibility that it could be different.

Seeing that people often got stuck in their disenchantment with religion, my follow-up book, Wide Open Spaces: Beyond Paint-by-Number Christianity (2007), gave a glimpse into what it might look like to live a religion-free relationship with God. I also noticed that many of these people in the throes of spiritual crisis chose to abandon God and Jesus altogether. My third book, Being Jesus in Nashville: Finding the Courage to Live Your Life (whoever and wherever you are) (2012), spoke to this issue as I shared my story of discovering a religion-free Jesus who finally set me free from my religious pathologies and led me forward in my spiritual pilgrimage.

People often take issue with and object to people who are “shedding religion” to know God. I decided to identify and address some of the most common objections I hear.

You don’t go to church anymore

If a person’s involvement in a church feeds and reinforces a message and perspective that hinders their knowing God, then it makes complete sense not to involve yourself there anymore. Many Christians receive their understanding about God through the institution of Church and when they discover this understanding is deeply flawed and they see how this flawed understanding has damaged their lives, they remove themselves from their church. The reason most people object to this is because these confuse leaving one’s church with leaving one’s faith. Research shows that “church leavers” grow stronger in their faith, as opposed to digressing in their faith. The issue is also controversial because people wrongly equate “church” with their specific form of church. There are an endless number of forms of church ranging from highly organized to practically no organization at all. Many people who leave organized church eventually connect in smaller, more informal types of community, which may not comply with the letter of the law when it comes to institutional church but fulfills the true spirit of “church.”

You are reading some really weird books

Many Christians in the “shedding religion” process will read books that: a) looks at their Christian faith with a critical eye, b) promotes spirituality over religion, c) offers a different and fresh view and perspective on faith and God. Shedders will be drawn to authors who offer something beyond institutional Christianity and offer the prospect of knowing God and following Jesus as a way of life as opposed to check-list Churchianity. many of these authors, including myself, get hammered by the Christian establishment. If you mess with city hall, you’re going to pay for it. People criticize such authors as having “bad theology.” In my opinion, many of the criticizers have “bad theology,” and so I’m not sure where that argument ends. People who are “shedding religion” are also drawn to books that promote and speak to spirituality over religion or books that focus on nurturing your inner world. You’d be surprised to know even how many church-going Christians secretly read Eckhart Tolle books but would never admit it. For some people, reading one chapter from The Power of Now was worth more than one year of sermons. This is also the reason why some Christians become interested in Buddhism and Eastern spirituality; these seem to speak more deeply to the root condition of humankind and one’s inner spiritual world as opposed to the focus of a lot of pop-Christian writings. At first, some people are not aware that there is a rich Christian tradition of contemplatives and mystics who lived a very robust Christ-centered spirituality. A few contemporary examples might be Thomas Merton, Ricahrd Rohr, Bede Griffiths, and Flora Wueller.

You are in danger of going off the deep end

Perhaps one of the most annoying things (to those who judge them) about people who are shedding religion is that they begin thinking for themselves. Some Christians have come from churches where the idea is fostered that congregants should only expose themselves to church-approved leaders, teachers, writers, musicians, politicians etc…because doing otherwise would be the equivalent of purchasing a one-way ticket to the flames of hell. Apparently, only a very select few people are capable of discerning truth on their own, the rest of us are ill-equipped for doing so and would be easily lured into all kinds of error if left to our own. I know this may be difficult for some to believe, but people are capable of being exposed to all kinds of differing views of God, and can discern for themselves what truth is present in these views, and what of these views seems inconsistent with truth. I have a Buddhist friend; i have detected truth is things he believes but i did not become a Buddhist. I have an Atheist friend, and I totally agree with this person’s views on all kinds of things, including some of their objections to God, but i did not become an Atheist. I have a N.Y. Yankees friend, i agree that the Yankees have some of the best baseball players but I did not become a Yankees fan. People are truly capable of doing this sort of thing.

When people begin thinking for themselves and base their opinions on firsthand personal experience, they realize that the world doesn’t fit so nicely into all the labels and boxes that religion is sometimes prone toward imposing on things. Religion and politics seems to share a difficulty in disagreeing with others without demonizing them, and wants to slice up the world into the “us” and “them” camp or the “right” and “wrong” camp. I’m not talking about turning a blind eye to evil in the world, or pretending that one’s beliefs doesn’t fuel such evil. All religions, including Christians, have justified evil in the name of God.

You can’t give a straight answer

Lots of questions aren’t so easy to answer anymore for Christians in the “shedding religion” process. For example, questions like: “Are you a Christian?” or “Do you believe in the Bible?” or “Do you go to church?” or “Do you believe in the gospel?” are no longer “yes” or “no” questions for a person who is “shedding religion.” He or she is immediately wondering what is your definition of a “Christian,” and what is your interpretation of the Bible, and how you delineate what “church” is, and how do you understand the “gospel?” By not answering “yes” or “no” it is not a sign that the person is “dodging the issue;” they legitimately cannot answer with a simple “yes” or “no.” It would be better to ask more open-ended questions like, How is Jesus Christ relevant to you?

[My disclaimer: Some people say I am “too hard” on the “Christian establishment.” Let me be the first to say that I know many people who identify themselves as “Christians” who are deeply spiritual, and not guilty of the things I described above. Some of these Christians have had a big influence on my own journey. I also know there are organized forms of church that promote true and authentic Christ-centered spirituality, as well as open, honest, and authentic relationships. I know many Christian churches that are wonderful expressions of love, compassion, and service in the communities where they exist. Since my personal experiences are in some cases related to churches (including my own) and Christians (including myself) that were guilty of the above judgments, I am prone to speak of it. Based on my experience the last several years as an author and spiritual director/coach, I have encountered countless numbers of people who have a similar experiences. I mainly wrote the above post in hopes of encouraging more understanding about many people who are in “shedding religion” mode.]