"The Men's Issue"
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16+ years ago. Yeah, looking back, a lot has changed. 'Men's Rights' is a thing again, except that now instead of calling its adherents "pantywaists," I would call them "incels" or "fukbois."
Should I have laughed then about "male reproductive rights?" Maybe not. I don't know. Not sorry, yet. I'll assert that nothing in the article is as problematic as that magazine cover (see bottom of post).
I now get an annual PSA test. Turns out like every guy in my family ends up with prostate cancer.
I think that everyone now knows about that Nordic naming convention, on account of hearing "I am Thor, son of Odin" a hundred times in all those Marvel movies.
I didn't remember writing this article until I saw it in the hard copy of the magazine I found. It reads/feels like I got tired of writing it 2/3 of the way through it.
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by Karl Smith
If you are a guy reading this, let me ask you something: How
much do you know about feminism? Ever read any books about it? Given it a good
thinking over? Discussed it with other guys? If you answered 'no' to these
questions, then good; there are many more important issues that us men need to
spend our intellectual power resolving.*
Also, if you answered no, I'm going to take a guess that you didn't know that back in the late eighties, there arose in the United States and Canada a splinter movement from the mainstream men’s movement of the time. I hear your questions. You're asking, “What mainstream men's movement?" Ah. That would be the men's movement that arose in response to ascension of feminism in the seventies.
The early proponents of "masculism" and "men's
rights" were, and there is no nice way to say this – a big bunch of
pantywaists. They were so concerned with the rise of feminism and feminist
identity, that nobody would pay attention to the poor oppressed men-folk. Here
are some of the injustices they were worried about:
• Portrayal of violence against women as more consequential
than other forms of violence
• Men sometimes get charged with rape and sexual harassment
when there is only the word of the victim against that of the accused
• Since conscription was only applied to males, they were
the ones forced to risk their lives in military service
• Medical research funding for breast cancer is consistently
higher than that for prostate cancer, yet the fatality rate is roughly the same
for both types
• Male reproductive rights
Just so we are all clear on the above points, yes, these
guys got upset that only men were drafted and killed in wars, even though
it's men who have all the political power and start all the damn wars in the
first place! And prostate cancer? Not only should men not be concerned with
this, but I don't think guys have any business knowing what or where a prostate
is. I sure don't.** And male reproductive rights? Ha ha ha.
So, while we can ignore the mainstream men's movement as
being comprised of clueless goons, lets get back to that splinter movement. It
was called the Mythopoetic Men's Movement, and was based largely on the works
of mythologist Joseph Campbell and poet Robert Bly. If you are not familiar
with the word "mythopoetic", don’t worry. It is a made-up word coined
in the eighties. It relates to the creating and maintaining of living myths,
and how myths influence identity.
What kind of myths? Let's kick a couple of examples around:
Warrior. Father. Leader. Husband. I hear your protests. You are most likely
saying that these are not myths, they are simply roles that men play. But more than
that, they are the original models of identity (some people would call them “archetypes,”
but we won't because that's a snobby sounding word), and the concepts they
represent come with fifty thousand years of psychological and social baggage.
Baggage that we as men do not always deal with real well, because introspection
and self-awareness are not integral of any of these myths.
The Mythopoetic Men's Movement asked some pretty serious
questions about male roles, took them apart, and put them back together again with
some unexpected additions. Male bonding was a primary feature, and it involved
a lot more than hanging out with other guys, getting drunk, and watching
football. This bonding included storytelling and rituals, and re-established
what it meant to be a man in the modern world. An important ritual it tried to
bring back was the rite of passage. Many cultures have such rites, such as the
Bar-Mitzvah or the confirmation. These religious rites signified a coming of
age in ancient times, but nobody today considers a thirteen year-old a man. So,
what other ceremonies do we have today that do signify achieving manhood? High-school
graduation? Joining the military? To fill this disjunction, the mythopoetic man
borrowed from ancient European and Native American mythology, and new rituals
and ceremonies were created to mark and celebrate the coming of age.
Another key issue for these new men was what they called
'reclaiming fathers’. At meetings and get-togethers, participants would
introduce themselves like, "I am _____ , son of _____.” Although this
sounds kind of archaic and Viking-like (in fact all of those Scandinavian
surnames like Ericson, Robertson, etc. are derived from exactly this kind of
naming tradition), the idea in bringing back this convention was to tie men's identity
more strongly to that of their male ancestors. Who you are was not to be
decided by jobs, nationality or religion, but by the credo that you are your
father's son, and the father to your children. I think this would be
seen as unnecessary in a lot of cultures, where there is a strong tribal or
clan identity, or even here in Taiwan, where the veneration of ancestors is a
daily part of life. Surely those ancestor-altars in people's homes do a pretty
good job of reminding men here of their patriarchal lineage and their place in
it.
So far, nothing in this new men's movement seems
particularly bizarre. For men to get together and re-define the roles and
definitions of what it means to be a man is perfectly reasonable. But there is
a good example of why we are talking about this movement in the (mostly) past
tense: Drumming. Part-therapy, part male bonding, and part "releasing the
wild man within," bands of men took to the forests, removed their shirts,
and started pounding away their aggressions together. And what was essentially
a support group, turned into something distinctly weirder.
Robert Bly wrote: "The Wild Man encourages a trust of
the lower half of our body, our genitals, our legs and ankles, our
inadequacies, the "soles" of our feet, the animal ancestors, the
earth itself…" Now I don't know about the rest of you guys, but trusting
my genitals has not usually turned out in my favor. And though drumming may
indeed have a therapeutic and cathartic affect, common sense tells me that
doing it shirtless and in the company of other men could also have its flaws.
Besides, when women hear talk of 'releasing the wild man', their reaction is
almost always going to be negative. Most women have seen enough of the 'Wild
Man’ in their lives. And so, the Mythopoetic Men's Movement faded away to the
fringe.
Now, nearly two decades later, the questions that this
movement asked remain largely unanswered. When do we become men? How do we connect
as males without the crutches of sports and alcohol? When and how can we show
vulnerability? And what the heck is the concept of 'warrior’ supposed to mean
to men today?
I can't answer these questions, but I am pretty sure of one
thing. If Kirk was the captain, then the Enterprise would win.
* Like who would win in a battle between an Imperial Battle
Cruiser and the U.S.S. Enterprise?
** The legal department of the Taichung Voice would like to
recommend that all readers aged 50 and above talk to your doctor about prostate
cancer screening.
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