One of the reasons I have been away for so long is because I find myself having to battle fundamental accusations, and it distracts me from the project. The project has always been to heal the wounds of abusive masculinity, and to find some way of going forward – a way that does not deny the distinctiveness or necessity of masculinity, but which embraces it in the healthiest way possible.
I still find people, however, questioning my motives, accusing me of simply vocalising my own neurosis. “Why make your own experiences a social problem?” This is what they say. “That might be true for you, but it isn't true for me.”
I lose faith completely. They are wrong, simply because they misinterpret my motives, and I think often these same people are not facing the facts about their own experiences of masculinity. The truth is that we must pick up the gauntlet of Feminism. That gauntlet is, that male dominated societies are abusive and have created deeply violent cultures, where rape and war are the norm. Our environment is enslaved to an exploitative economy. Women have little or no place in politics, and if they do, they must sacrifice their femininity for their careers. The result is a culture that values force, direct power over anything else. It is a culture that lacks nuance, lacks a balanced intelligence and which reduces everything to struggle and fight.
Those who deny the importance of what I write here, though many of them are pleased with themselves for their insightfulness, are really denying the challenges of Feminism.
Society is in crisis. I believe this is the case because it has been for too long dominated by a male ideology of power.
Where I get off, however, is that I don't see this ideology as essentially male. On the contrary, I see it is a bastardisation of the male. Men, like women, are naturally made up of both masculine and feminine traits. Somewhere along the line however, and I personally think it began with the evolution of agriculture, men developed a suspicion of the feminine. Not only did they come to repress women, but they repressed the feminine in themselves.
The latter is the most significant point. Men cheapened and subordinated women, because they came to believe that they must do the same for the femininity in themselves. Men depended on their brawn, their material strength, not just for war, but for the daily work of supporting their tribes and their families.
The imbalance here, lead to pathologies, a fetishising of the masculine body and a kind of annexing of femininity. The primacy of masculinity really rose out of a perceived uselessness of the feminine. As cultures became more and more dependent on the masculine body, the feminine decreased in importance, until it became an object of trifle only.
It was, and is, a false dualism. We are all, or at least the majority of us, born men or women. But the truth is our internal experiences are far more complex, even at the level of gender. This reality, however, is not valued by society.
Now, we are the product of imperialism. Imperialistic thinking is itself the product of pathological masculinity. Nature is fierce. Death is a force, a power that threatens to sweep through our lives at any opportunity and we must beat it back, conquer the frontier as it were. In my view, imperialism is really just a tragic metaphor for the human condition, played out across history. We use masculine values, or more accurately, imbalanced masculine values, to contend with death, not just as a reality, but as a force to be reckoned with.
Male domination arises out of humanity's inability to confront a primal terror. Material obsessions, attachment to physical strength and the outright pursuit of power become values in themselves.
This is the basis of our society. And it is a society that is destroying itself. It is an ecology in flames, and a failure to recognise the reality of that is itself a product of male-dominated self-denial.
Friday, 6 April 2012
Thursday, 26 January 2012
Experimental Maleness
The sanctity of maleness lies in fatherhood. We all talk a lot about fatherhood and fathers, but who of us has a fixed and clear idea of what a father should or should not be? We are all aware of how easy it is to fail at being a father, but what constitutes a real and good father-figure? Is it possible for a young person to grow up without such a male figure?
It is all to easy for us in the post-feminist orgy to dismiss the importance of men. But it is in fatherhood that men find their redemption. In my view, fatherhood goes way beyond biological fatherhood. It does however, start there. Contrary to the post-feminist default culture, it is also my opinion that we DO have obligations to each other. That women have an obligation to mother, and men have an obligation to father. That is, part of what it means to be a grown human being, a being who is developing maturity, is to offer leadership to the young.
With the breakdown of gender roles, I see something very worrying happening on the back of it. Post-feminism is a culture of indulgence and licentiousness. Post-feminism, erodes the sense that any of us have an obligation to each other. The idea that a woman has obligation to be a mother is treated with contempt. The idea of fatherhood barely exists at all.
Don't get me wrong, the idea of fatherhood under Patriarchy was hardly there at all either. However, in the noise and self-satisfaction of a consumerist culture the very idea that one would have a moral obligation to anyone is out the window completely. Morality is a downer. Morality does not sell products.
But the truth is we have an obligation to our young. As we grow and we develop we have to take responsibility for the emotional legacy. Particularly in these times.
The sort of post-gender culture that we are entering into offers up amazing opportunities for a new kind of leadership that's free of the cuffs of traditional social roles and repressed sexuality. However, we must be careful that this culture does not just free float into a culture of self-indulgence, where our new found freedom becomes nothing more than a opportunity to gain power where we had none before.
Despite what we are told, and what we like to think, even in the post-feminist culture we do actually have gender identities. This is not about intelligence or capacity to do this or that task. What I am talking about is that we cannot deny our gender imperatives. These are not there to control us, on the contrary, they are their to liberate us.
I am not being reactionary. I am probably saying what we all really think. We have all been let down by the parental system. We have all been let down by those who failed to offer leadership when we needed it most. Our whole culture has let everyone down. And under the guise of freedom and enfranchisement, it is my opinion that things are getting worse not better. I am not being doom and gloom about it. I think there are great opportunities ahead of us, but we must face the responsibility of those opportunities.
I'd also like to emphasise that our genders are not the sum total of who we are. I don't advocate an egotistical maleness. Patriarchy developed out of a pathological association with the male principle. It is however, a product of repression in itself. Such attachments and demonic ego-associations only come about when we are compensating for something deep-rooted, something terrifying in our own consciousness. I have a lot more to say about this and will address it on this blog in the future.
What I am trying to say is that we have a challenge ahead of us, and it is a chellenge akin to the traditional warrior, or the Bodhisattva. It is the challenge of living in the world, with a worldly identity, without being consumed by the material ideas and concepts of that world. In a sense, you could call it spiritual. However, I prefer to look at it as a logical continuation of the peaceful warrior tradition. I don't cite this out of some macho fetish, though I could forgive you that accusation. The concept is used and abused continuously.
What I am talking about is acting in the world without being attached. Having a an identity, but allowing that identity to be remain contingent. It is not essential to my humanity that I am a man. I nevertheless find myself with an obligation to live with my masculinity in a way that is ethically sound and which benefits society as a whole. Now how one does that is not a simple issue. This was what Feminism was all about. It showed us that our gender preconceptions were far from given.
We do however, have to salvage a coherence and a workable culture out of post-feminism. Culture itself should strike a balance. This is what I think a healthy culture is characterised by. It gives a map by which we function in the world, but essential to a healthy culture is knowing that the map is not the territory. That despite our moral obligations and our roles, despite the necessity for a clarity around social values, those values themselves evolve according to the evolving needs of the species.
In this blog I am constantly negotiating a tension between finding some grounded essential sense of self for men which incorporates masculinity and all that it brings, while I am also trying to avoid falling back into Patriarchal values, into an intransigence and a reactionary politics of the masculine.
This is our challenge. Despite what many of you think, I am not just rationalising a personal pathology here. I have many of those, and can do that in private any time I want. In fact, I frequently do. I am writing this out of a profound sense of responsibility. Too many of my artistic and masculine heroes have been men who have found liberation from the shackles of Patriarchal manhood, only to leave a legacy of harm and neglect and, at best, emotional abuse to their children.
All the men I would cite as heroes who have pointed me towards my own sense of liberated masculinity, have also been men who have failed miserably to offer solid leadership to their own children. You name him, and the pathology is there. From Brando, to Kerouac, through Hemingway to John Lennon. All these men have in their own way revolutionised the way men can think of themselves. They have provided some kind of leadership in the pop-culture arena.
But it is one thing to reject the old, quite another to innovate the new. Innovating a new masculinity is a massive task. It is our moral obligation. It is non-negotiable. Like experimental artists, we are constantly going to be faced with the challenge of finding a balance of free expression and workable structure. Our art must have an identity, it must take up a place in the world in order to communicate. But it must also be fluid, not defined by its structure, and garner its power by what is beyond its aspects.
It is all to easy for us in the post-feminist orgy to dismiss the importance of men. But it is in fatherhood that men find their redemption. In my view, fatherhood goes way beyond biological fatherhood. It does however, start there. Contrary to the post-feminist default culture, it is also my opinion that we DO have obligations to each other. That women have an obligation to mother, and men have an obligation to father. That is, part of what it means to be a grown human being, a being who is developing maturity, is to offer leadership to the young.
With the breakdown of gender roles, I see something very worrying happening on the back of it. Post-feminism is a culture of indulgence and licentiousness. Post-feminism, erodes the sense that any of us have an obligation to each other. The idea that a woman has obligation to be a mother is treated with contempt. The idea of fatherhood barely exists at all.
Don't get me wrong, the idea of fatherhood under Patriarchy was hardly there at all either. However, in the noise and self-satisfaction of a consumerist culture the very idea that one would have a moral obligation to anyone is out the window completely. Morality is a downer. Morality does not sell products.
But the truth is we have an obligation to our young. As we grow and we develop we have to take responsibility for the emotional legacy. Particularly in these times.
The sort of post-gender culture that we are entering into offers up amazing opportunities for a new kind of leadership that's free of the cuffs of traditional social roles and repressed sexuality. However, we must be careful that this culture does not just free float into a culture of self-indulgence, where our new found freedom becomes nothing more than a opportunity to gain power where we had none before.
Despite what we are told, and what we like to think, even in the post-feminist culture we do actually have gender identities. This is not about intelligence or capacity to do this or that task. What I am talking about is that we cannot deny our gender imperatives. These are not there to control us, on the contrary, they are their to liberate us.
I am not being reactionary. I am probably saying what we all really think. We have all been let down by the parental system. We have all been let down by those who failed to offer leadership when we needed it most. Our whole culture has let everyone down. And under the guise of freedom and enfranchisement, it is my opinion that things are getting worse not better. I am not being doom and gloom about it. I think there are great opportunities ahead of us, but we must face the responsibility of those opportunities.
I'd also like to emphasise that our genders are not the sum total of who we are. I don't advocate an egotistical maleness. Patriarchy developed out of a pathological association with the male principle. It is however, a product of repression in itself. Such attachments and demonic ego-associations only come about when we are compensating for something deep-rooted, something terrifying in our own consciousness. I have a lot more to say about this and will address it on this blog in the future.
What I am trying to say is that we have a challenge ahead of us, and it is a chellenge akin to the traditional warrior, or the Bodhisattva. It is the challenge of living in the world, with a worldly identity, without being consumed by the material ideas and concepts of that world. In a sense, you could call it spiritual. However, I prefer to look at it as a logical continuation of the peaceful warrior tradition. I don't cite this out of some macho fetish, though I could forgive you that accusation. The concept is used and abused continuously.
What I am talking about is acting in the world without being attached. Having a an identity, but allowing that identity to be remain contingent. It is not essential to my humanity that I am a man. I nevertheless find myself with an obligation to live with my masculinity in a way that is ethically sound and which benefits society as a whole. Now how one does that is not a simple issue. This was what Feminism was all about. It showed us that our gender preconceptions were far from given.
We do however, have to salvage a coherence and a workable culture out of post-feminism. Culture itself should strike a balance. This is what I think a healthy culture is characterised by. It gives a map by which we function in the world, but essential to a healthy culture is knowing that the map is not the territory. That despite our moral obligations and our roles, despite the necessity for a clarity around social values, those values themselves evolve according to the evolving needs of the species.
In this blog I am constantly negotiating a tension between finding some grounded essential sense of self for men which incorporates masculinity and all that it brings, while I am also trying to avoid falling back into Patriarchal values, into an intransigence and a reactionary politics of the masculine.
This is our challenge. Despite what many of you think, I am not just rationalising a personal pathology here. I have many of those, and can do that in private any time I want. In fact, I frequently do. I am writing this out of a profound sense of responsibility. Too many of my artistic and masculine heroes have been men who have found liberation from the shackles of Patriarchal manhood, only to leave a legacy of harm and neglect and, at best, emotional abuse to their children.
All the men I would cite as heroes who have pointed me towards my own sense of liberated masculinity, have also been men who have failed miserably to offer solid leadership to their own children. You name him, and the pathology is there. From Brando, to Kerouac, through Hemingway to John Lennon. All these men have in their own way revolutionised the way men can think of themselves. They have provided some kind of leadership in the pop-culture arena.
But it is one thing to reject the old, quite another to innovate the new. Innovating a new masculinity is a massive task. It is our moral obligation. It is non-negotiable. Like experimental artists, we are constantly going to be faced with the challenge of finding a balance of free expression and workable structure. Our art must have an identity, it must take up a place in the world in order to communicate. But it must also be fluid, not defined by its structure, and garner its power by what is beyond its aspects.
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
The Inner Experience of Masculinity
Here is one facet of post-feminism that must be examined and I take it from my own experiences. If you are anything like me then you have been educated about your masculinity, not in some coherent myth, or ritual handing down of knowledge; nor have you been given the experience of your masculinity through the guidance of your elders.
You became a man, by seeking to imitate that with which you identified. From movie actors and school bullies, to teachers and preachers. You looked to athletes and performers, even the terseness of the written word. Whatever masculine energy you had boiling in your heart, it could not find a channel, other than the variant and contradictory expression of a distracted culture.
A result of this of this default education is that we come to understand our emotional reality by objectifying ourselves. That is, there is rarely a context in a boy's life where he is able take the lead from somewhere on his inner experiences. He develops a sense of himself through identification with exterior objects.
This is not unfamiliar to the Feminist. She knows all too well how suffocating it is to become identified with an exterior ideal. How much beauty itself can become an insidious tyrant. Men are not burdened by this kind of objectification, and I would make no claim to understanding just how poisonous it is. And for the record, I completely recognise the responsibility men have, given that their masculinity is actively guilty for the enslavement of women in this way. That our demands literally create femininity, in the socialised sense.
That's a major reason why this blog exists. In deconstructing masculinity, perhaps we can deconstruct the forces of constriction around femininity. In fact, there is no “perhaps” about it, that's what is going to happen.
But men themselves are objectified in a very similar dynamic. And just as men are responsible for the forced construction of social ideal of femininity, women are also responsible and must hold themselves equally accountable for their active and continued part in constructing masculinity. That's another reason for what I am doing here. It works both ways, and this really shouldn't be as controversial as it sounds. Its just that I happen to be writing all this from within the smokey cloud that is post-feminist culture.
What I mean by “default culture” is really no culture at all, in the healthy sense of the word. In terms of the masculine emotional development, we grow up between two never-clearly-stated ideals. One is the “solid guy.” The other is the “caring protector.”
Whereas the female objectification tends to happen through too many rigid and particular ideas about what it means to be beautiful, men are enslaved by a lack of coherence in the ideals that are thrust upon them. On the face of it, the problem is of the opposite kind compared to that of the woman. However, ultimately the process is the same. It is objectification, in the sense that the inner experience of the individual remains unrecognised by culture itself.
Let's examine these ideals a little further.
The ideals are not clear for men. Perhaps one could say that they are too clear for women. But they are not at all clear for men. Men are constantly caught between two ideals of what it means to be a man. We are supposed to be dependable. Yet we are also required to be emotionally articulate.
In practice, these two ideals are nearly impossible to marry, certainly within the current culture. A clear example of this, is how men are supposed to treat their sexuality, and the sexuality of women, in the post-feminist world. We have been taught that we must abandon the aggressive and domineering sexuality of our forefathers, and it is clear why. It is a fucking abusive way to treat anyone, to force one's sexual energy on someone else.
Men must now exhibit a sensitivity to the feminine experience and those who do not are culturally redundant. If they want to get more sex, they must understand what a woman wants in bed, they must be willing to explore the layers of the female orgasm, and the sensitivities of the feminine body.
However, too much sensitivity is simply not attractive. If a man exhibits too much vulnerability, then he also risks a cultural redundancy. He must be sensitive to the woman's needs, but he cannot be too sensitive.
Men are still required to be men. Men must still be, in the eyes of the woman, a provider and protector. And I don't see any chance of these ideals being abandoned, Feminism or no.
And yet where this cultural contradiction leaves young men is in a permanent state of conflict. They must access their own femininity. Yet they must maintain the performance of an archaic masculinity. They must be willing to embrace the sensitivities of the feminine, but not rely on women to understand their own sensitivities.
Modern men are schizoid. Because our culture is default. It is not considered. It has tried to marry two realities that ultimately cannot sit together in a healthy way.
Now I am sure there are those who would try o argue that these two realities can and must sit well together. That I am making everything too simplistic and professing doom without considering the possibilities etc., etc..
Well, maybe. I am not saying that it is not possible for a man to exhibit and experience a balance of strength and sensitivity. Of course not. In fact, I would go as far to say as this is exactly what it means to be a man.
What I am getting at is that there is no way a man can get to this space of finding this emotional balance if the culture itself is caught between rigid ideas. If the culture remains unreflective and intransigent around masculinity. The problem is that these ideals don't reflect the subtlety of the masculine experience.
I think a lot of men would like to strike a better balance between their sensitivities and their testosterone. Its no mystery either, why a woman would want to see more of that balance manifested.
What pisses me off about the post-feminist culture is that it makes such demands, without leaving any space for the complexity of such an ideal. If men are to strike the balance, then we need to create a culture in which men are able to explore the tension between their hormonal drives and their vulnerabilities. As it stands, we have no mythology or coherent culture to provide for this tension. In fact, I frequently experience post-feminism as a culture that has active contempt for examining masculinity at all.
It is a question of educating young men to achieve such a balance, and giving them the emotional tools to straddle their basic human sensitivities while providing leadership and an ability to father the young. Unlike most people in the post-feminist malaise, I am happy to face the reality of social roles forming around gender identity. In fact, I think it is essential, of we are to avoid cultural burn-out.
What we need though, is a cultural environment that reflects the inner experiences of being human, one that recognises that being a man is not as simple as fulfilling certain ideals of strength, or that being a woman is not just about care-giving and beauty. The kind of culture I am talking about, would reflect the inner tensions of what it means to love – the feelings of wanting to play a role, but wanting to be an individual. Of wanting to be a man, but desiring to be more than one's masculinity.
You became a man, by seeking to imitate that with which you identified. From movie actors and school bullies, to teachers and preachers. You looked to athletes and performers, even the terseness of the written word. Whatever masculine energy you had boiling in your heart, it could not find a channel, other than the variant and contradictory expression of a distracted culture.
A result of this of this default education is that we come to understand our emotional reality by objectifying ourselves. That is, there is rarely a context in a boy's life where he is able take the lead from somewhere on his inner experiences. He develops a sense of himself through identification with exterior objects.
This is not unfamiliar to the Feminist. She knows all too well how suffocating it is to become identified with an exterior ideal. How much beauty itself can become an insidious tyrant. Men are not burdened by this kind of objectification, and I would make no claim to understanding just how poisonous it is. And for the record, I completely recognise the responsibility men have, given that their masculinity is actively guilty for the enslavement of women in this way. That our demands literally create femininity, in the socialised sense.
That's a major reason why this blog exists. In deconstructing masculinity, perhaps we can deconstruct the forces of constriction around femininity. In fact, there is no “perhaps” about it, that's what is going to happen.
But men themselves are objectified in a very similar dynamic. And just as men are responsible for the forced construction of social ideal of femininity, women are also responsible and must hold themselves equally accountable for their active and continued part in constructing masculinity. That's another reason for what I am doing here. It works both ways, and this really shouldn't be as controversial as it sounds. Its just that I happen to be writing all this from within the smokey cloud that is post-feminist culture.
What I mean by “default culture” is really no culture at all, in the healthy sense of the word. In terms of the masculine emotional development, we grow up between two never-clearly-stated ideals. One is the “solid guy.” The other is the “caring protector.”
Whereas the female objectification tends to happen through too many rigid and particular ideas about what it means to be beautiful, men are enslaved by a lack of coherence in the ideals that are thrust upon them. On the face of it, the problem is of the opposite kind compared to that of the woman. However, ultimately the process is the same. It is objectification, in the sense that the inner experience of the individual remains unrecognised by culture itself.
Let's examine these ideals a little further.
The ideals are not clear for men. Perhaps one could say that they are too clear for women. But they are not at all clear for men. Men are constantly caught between two ideals of what it means to be a man. We are supposed to be dependable. Yet we are also required to be emotionally articulate.
In practice, these two ideals are nearly impossible to marry, certainly within the current culture. A clear example of this, is how men are supposed to treat their sexuality, and the sexuality of women, in the post-feminist world. We have been taught that we must abandon the aggressive and domineering sexuality of our forefathers, and it is clear why. It is a fucking abusive way to treat anyone, to force one's sexual energy on someone else.
Men must now exhibit a sensitivity to the feminine experience and those who do not are culturally redundant. If they want to get more sex, they must understand what a woman wants in bed, they must be willing to explore the layers of the female orgasm, and the sensitivities of the feminine body.
However, too much sensitivity is simply not attractive. If a man exhibits too much vulnerability, then he also risks a cultural redundancy. He must be sensitive to the woman's needs, but he cannot be too sensitive.
Men are still required to be men. Men must still be, in the eyes of the woman, a provider and protector. And I don't see any chance of these ideals being abandoned, Feminism or no.
And yet where this cultural contradiction leaves young men is in a permanent state of conflict. They must access their own femininity. Yet they must maintain the performance of an archaic masculinity. They must be willing to embrace the sensitivities of the feminine, but not rely on women to understand their own sensitivities.
Modern men are schizoid. Because our culture is default. It is not considered. It has tried to marry two realities that ultimately cannot sit together in a healthy way.
Now I am sure there are those who would try o argue that these two realities can and must sit well together. That I am making everything too simplistic and professing doom without considering the possibilities etc., etc..
Well, maybe. I am not saying that it is not possible for a man to exhibit and experience a balance of strength and sensitivity. Of course not. In fact, I would go as far to say as this is exactly what it means to be a man.
What I am getting at is that there is no way a man can get to this space of finding this emotional balance if the culture itself is caught between rigid ideas. If the culture remains unreflective and intransigent around masculinity. The problem is that these ideals don't reflect the subtlety of the masculine experience.
I think a lot of men would like to strike a better balance between their sensitivities and their testosterone. Its no mystery either, why a woman would want to see more of that balance manifested.
What pisses me off about the post-feminist culture is that it makes such demands, without leaving any space for the complexity of such an ideal. If men are to strike the balance, then we need to create a culture in which men are able to explore the tension between their hormonal drives and their vulnerabilities. As it stands, we have no mythology or coherent culture to provide for this tension. In fact, I frequently experience post-feminism as a culture that has active contempt for examining masculinity at all.
It is a question of educating young men to achieve such a balance, and giving them the emotional tools to straddle their basic human sensitivities while providing leadership and an ability to father the young. Unlike most people in the post-feminist malaise, I am happy to face the reality of social roles forming around gender identity. In fact, I think it is essential, of we are to avoid cultural burn-out.
What we need though, is a cultural environment that reflects the inner experiences of being human, one that recognises that being a man is not as simple as fulfilling certain ideals of strength, or that being a woman is not just about care-giving and beauty. The kind of culture I am talking about, would reflect the inner tensions of what it means to love – the feelings of wanting to play a role, but wanting to be an individual. Of wanting to be a man, but desiring to be more than one's masculinity.
Thursday, 19 January 2012
Male Health and Society: Joining the Dots
Understanding male mental health is about joining the dots. This is what we have as yet failed to do. Three facts illustrate the challenges of mental health and reconstructing masculinity in the light of it.
The first fact is this: that young men, between the ages of 15 and 34 are at least three times more likely to commit suicide than women. According to the most recent statistics, 4,532 suicides were recorded in England and Wales, 75% of which were men.1
I know these facts are not unfamiliar, but the issue gains a subtlety and pressing curiosity when placed alongside the fact that female admission to health services as a result of depressive illness outweighs men by a ratio of 2:1. This doesn't add up, and it is a failure to join the dots in this regard that charactersises where we are at as a culture when it comes to male mental health.
Now the second fact.2 A new report by the European Union projects that there will be 24 million less working age men by 2060. The issue of health among men is of immediate concern, then, to the economy, as much as it is to individuals. The report confirmed that men are not as good as women at taking responsibility for their health, across the board, although the attitude towards health varies significantly according to social class and cultural background. This very fact shows that male ill-health is not a fact about gender disposition, but is a matter of cultural messaging.
The third fact is one that gets the least coverage, but which is under everyone's nose. That men are responsible for the majority of violent crimes. Nine times as many men as women were in jail in America as of 2001. In 2004, men were nearly ten times more likely than females to commit murder.3
It suits many people to explain away crime figures of any kind by creating a criminal “otherness,” around those who commit them. These people are simply born that way. In arguing for this, we suit ourselves by dissociating ourselves from such behaviour, allowing ourselves to turn away from the reality of violence in our culture and our own responsibilities towards it.
Governments and mainstream media are very fond of doing this. Create a war on crime, rather than try to understand its nature. It is easier to declare war than it is to solve issues of integrity closer to home. Just ask foreign policy makers in the US and UK. Creating evilness and “otherness” covers a multitude of sins at home.
If it is indeed an intrinsic quality of the male chromosome that it is more inclined towards violent behaviour, then why is female crime on the increase?4 It may still be a lot less than crimes perpetrated by men, but its rate of increase is a deep cause for concern and requires examination.
My point here is to bring to light the cultural forces at play generating male pathologies. There is too much variation, too many unaccountable facts in the social reality, for these pathologies to be explained as intrinsic qualities of the male gender.
If Feminism is right, then gender itself is a construction we can rise above. Why then are many of us in the post-feminist culture so eager to damn men to intrinsic tendencies? If womanhood and all that we take that to be, is a cultural construction, then it follows that maleness is also the product past constructions.
One of the problems with the post-feminist culture is that we are willing to examine our ideas about femininity in the hope of equality, but an examination of masculinity is still largely off limits. My belief is that this is because equality is one thing, but a complete overhaul of values is quite another. Examining our ideas of masculinity goes a lot deeper into our collective ideas about what it means to be human, and to function within a social unit, than examining our ideas about femininity exclusively.
True Feminism has created a domino effect. In examining femininity and its fabrications, we are necessarily faced with the challenge of understanding masculinity. Things simply will not change for women, or for anybody, if this is not done. But in examining masculinity, we examine our deepest values as a society. We are confronted with the ugliness and violence of Patriarchy.
In deconstructing Patriarchy we must also deconstruct our ideas about what it means to be human, about our so-called “enlightened values.” It is going to require us, both men and women, to take a good hard look at ourselves.
1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/03/suicide-prevention-campaign-jane-powell
2.http://ec.europa.eu/health/population_groups/docs/men_health_report_en.pdf
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_and_crime
4http://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/Herrington%20&%20Nee%20-%20Self-perceptions,%20Masculinity%20and%20Female%20Offenders.pdf
The first fact is this: that young men, between the ages of 15 and 34 are at least three times more likely to commit suicide than women. According to the most recent statistics, 4,532 suicides were recorded in England and Wales, 75% of which were men.1
I know these facts are not unfamiliar, but the issue gains a subtlety and pressing curiosity when placed alongside the fact that female admission to health services as a result of depressive illness outweighs men by a ratio of 2:1. This doesn't add up, and it is a failure to join the dots in this regard that charactersises where we are at as a culture when it comes to male mental health.
Now the second fact.2 A new report by the European Union projects that there will be 24 million less working age men by 2060. The issue of health among men is of immediate concern, then, to the economy, as much as it is to individuals. The report confirmed that men are not as good as women at taking responsibility for their health, across the board, although the attitude towards health varies significantly according to social class and cultural background. This very fact shows that male ill-health is not a fact about gender disposition, but is a matter of cultural messaging.
The third fact is one that gets the least coverage, but which is under everyone's nose. That men are responsible for the majority of violent crimes. Nine times as many men as women were in jail in America as of 2001. In 2004, men were nearly ten times more likely than females to commit murder.3
It suits many people to explain away crime figures of any kind by creating a criminal “otherness,” around those who commit them. These people are simply born that way. In arguing for this, we suit ourselves by dissociating ourselves from such behaviour, allowing ourselves to turn away from the reality of violence in our culture and our own responsibilities towards it.
Governments and mainstream media are very fond of doing this. Create a war on crime, rather than try to understand its nature. It is easier to declare war than it is to solve issues of integrity closer to home. Just ask foreign policy makers in the US and UK. Creating evilness and “otherness” covers a multitude of sins at home.
If it is indeed an intrinsic quality of the male chromosome that it is more inclined towards violent behaviour, then why is female crime on the increase?4 It may still be a lot less than crimes perpetrated by men, but its rate of increase is a deep cause for concern and requires examination.
My point here is to bring to light the cultural forces at play generating male pathologies. There is too much variation, too many unaccountable facts in the social reality, for these pathologies to be explained as intrinsic qualities of the male gender.
If Feminism is right, then gender itself is a construction we can rise above. Why then are many of us in the post-feminist culture so eager to damn men to intrinsic tendencies? If womanhood and all that we take that to be, is a cultural construction, then it follows that maleness is also the product past constructions.
One of the problems with the post-feminist culture is that we are willing to examine our ideas about femininity in the hope of equality, but an examination of masculinity is still largely off limits. My belief is that this is because equality is one thing, but a complete overhaul of values is quite another. Examining our ideas of masculinity goes a lot deeper into our collective ideas about what it means to be human, and to function within a social unit, than examining our ideas about femininity exclusively.
True Feminism has created a domino effect. In examining femininity and its fabrications, we are necessarily faced with the challenge of understanding masculinity. Things simply will not change for women, or for anybody, if this is not done. But in examining masculinity, we examine our deepest values as a society. We are confronted with the ugliness and violence of Patriarchy.
In deconstructing Patriarchy we must also deconstruct our ideas about what it means to be human, about our so-called “enlightened values.” It is going to require us, both men and women, to take a good hard look at ourselves.
1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/03/suicide-prevention-campaign-jane-powell
2.http://ec.europa.eu/health/population_groups/docs/men_health_report_en.pdf
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_and_crime
4http://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/Herrington%20&%20Nee%20-%20Self-perceptions,%20Masculinity%20and%20Female%20Offenders.pdf
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Post-feminism tells us we are free, yet everywhere we are in chains.
The realities that men face in society are down to the pressures that culture puts on them. Some of these pressures are external, tangible, and we can observe them pretty easily.
One such pressure is the idea that men should be the bread winners. At its core, this is not the idea that men should be the source of financial income in a family purely, but more the idea that men should be in some way reliable, that they should be able to perform duties in predictable and consistent ways.
This is why our culture associates creativity with femininity. Only women are allowed to be ambivalent and erratic, emotionally mysterious. For a man to be like this is one of the greatest crimes he can possibly commit. Because by allowing his behaviour to rely too much on creative uncertainty, experiment and emotional exploration, he puts a spanner in the works of an industrialised or militarised culture.
The simple fact of masculine biology, the hormonal structure, the physicality of being a man, is what has enslaved men in this culture. Men are valued for their physical output. We are literally cannon fodder. Our value is in how useful we are to the society.
This is becoming increasingly true of women, but contrary to the popular view, I do not see this "equality" as beneficial for women or society as a whole. It just objectifies women in new ways. It just objectifies them in the more subtle and, I would argue, more insidious ways that men have been objectified.
The pressure on men then, is to be useful, and not just a little bit. Crucially, male self-esteem is valued in their functionality over the piece. Men are measured, whether the post-feminist wants to admit it or not, by their capacity to suppress their true selves in the name of a particular, socially valued goal, and to be able to do so consistently and preferably over the course of their whole lives.
This is the idea of duty. It is the idea that men find their salvation as worthwhile beings, through their willingness to sacrifice themselves for the sake of loyalty to a cause, to their families, or even the simple idea of loyalty and masculinity itself.
(This is highly valued in our culture. That a man should sacrifice his instincts and creative desires in order to simply demonstrate loyalty for loyalty's sake).
The cultural feedback of post-feminism tells itself that men are no longer required to perform the sacrofice of consistent usefulness. It tells itself, that given the strides that women have made in society, men are now free from the Patriarchal bonds that used to strangle them.
This is the most destructive form of nonesense and self-delusional propaganda, and I think it charcterises the Madonna-Beyoncee-Sex In The City-malaise that we are forced to confront in contemporary culture.
Men are no more free as a result of Feminism than they ever were. In fact, there is a risk, if post-feminism is allowed to bastardise itself unexamined, that the enslavement of men will become deeper and more intangible. That men will be required to fulfill this demand of usefulness, at the same time believing that they are free from it.
There is no greater form of oppression, than the oppression done by convincing the oppressed that they are now free. This is exactly what post-feminism is. It is a form of cultural feedback, a commercial self-hypnosis that breeds consumerism out of a sincere desire to be free.
That is why the distinction between genuine Feminism and the default confusion of post-feminism is vital and timely. The politics of freedom embodied by the great Feminist heroes risks being subsumed into the capitalist pathology, in much the same way as the words of Martin Luther King are used to enfranchise black consumers, rather than black citizens.
The most dangerous idea to male liberation, and also Feminism itself, is the idea that there is no more work to be done, that in light of female enfranchisment, men are now free from the chains of homogeny and Patriarchy. If anything, the opposite is the case.
Men are required, more than ever, to make themselves useful, and in a society of prudential economics, their self-esteem is more and more about the role that they perform, rather than the humanity they naturally express.
Radical masculinity must take its own stand. It must put experimentation, and an almost infantile love of exploration of the self, back at the heart of its own self-image.
The progress of masculinity is not, and never fucking should be, measured by the extent to which a man is sensitive to his partner's needs, how good he is in the bedroom, how supportive he is of the Feminist project. All these notions are just ideas grounded in the material, homogeous idea of the male. They still value men for how useful they are.
(Incidentally, the radical, avant-garde male will naturally support the Feminist. It is a no brainer. But he would not do it out of a sense of duty or obligation. He would do it because he is an evolved fucking human being. It would proceeed naturally from his own rooted empowerment).
What I am saying comes down to this. That a truly radical masculinity would eject the language of failure from its own dialogue. One cannot fail to be a man, because one's masculinity is not measured in his capability to perform a task, whether it is DIY or eating pussy.
In fact, true masculinity is by its nature immeasurable, because true human potential is not measured against a set of arbitrary ideas of functionality.
One such pressure is the idea that men should be the bread winners. At its core, this is not the idea that men should be the source of financial income in a family purely, but more the idea that men should be in some way reliable, that they should be able to perform duties in predictable and consistent ways.
This is why our culture associates creativity with femininity. Only women are allowed to be ambivalent and erratic, emotionally mysterious. For a man to be like this is one of the greatest crimes he can possibly commit. Because by allowing his behaviour to rely too much on creative uncertainty, experiment and emotional exploration, he puts a spanner in the works of an industrialised or militarised culture.
The simple fact of masculine biology, the hormonal structure, the physicality of being a man, is what has enslaved men in this culture. Men are valued for their physical output. We are literally cannon fodder. Our value is in how useful we are to the society.
This is becoming increasingly true of women, but contrary to the popular view, I do not see this "equality" as beneficial for women or society as a whole. It just objectifies women in new ways. It just objectifies them in the more subtle and, I would argue, more insidious ways that men have been objectified.
The pressure on men then, is to be useful, and not just a little bit. Crucially, male self-esteem is valued in their functionality over the piece. Men are measured, whether the post-feminist wants to admit it or not, by their capacity to suppress their true selves in the name of a particular, socially valued goal, and to be able to do so consistently and preferably over the course of their whole lives.
This is the idea of duty. It is the idea that men find their salvation as worthwhile beings, through their willingness to sacrifice themselves for the sake of loyalty to a cause, to their families, or even the simple idea of loyalty and masculinity itself.
(This is highly valued in our culture. That a man should sacrifice his instincts and creative desires in order to simply demonstrate loyalty for loyalty's sake).
The cultural feedback of post-feminism tells itself that men are no longer required to perform the sacrofice of consistent usefulness. It tells itself, that given the strides that women have made in society, men are now free from the Patriarchal bonds that used to strangle them.
This is the most destructive form of nonesense and self-delusional propaganda, and I think it charcterises the Madonna-Beyoncee-Sex In The City-malaise that we are forced to confront in contemporary culture.
Men are no more free as a result of Feminism than they ever were. In fact, there is a risk, if post-feminism is allowed to bastardise itself unexamined, that the enslavement of men will become deeper and more intangible. That men will be required to fulfill this demand of usefulness, at the same time believing that they are free from it.
There is no greater form of oppression, than the oppression done by convincing the oppressed that they are now free. This is exactly what post-feminism is. It is a form of cultural feedback, a commercial self-hypnosis that breeds consumerism out of a sincere desire to be free.
That is why the distinction between genuine Feminism and the default confusion of post-feminism is vital and timely. The politics of freedom embodied by the great Feminist heroes risks being subsumed into the capitalist pathology, in much the same way as the words of Martin Luther King are used to enfranchise black consumers, rather than black citizens.
The most dangerous idea to male liberation, and also Feminism itself, is the idea that there is no more work to be done, that in light of female enfranchisment, men are now free from the chains of homogeny and Patriarchy. If anything, the opposite is the case.
Men are required, more than ever, to make themselves useful, and in a society of prudential economics, their self-esteem is more and more about the role that they perform, rather than the humanity they naturally express.
Radical masculinity must take its own stand. It must put experimentation, and an almost infantile love of exploration of the self, back at the heart of its own self-image.
The progress of masculinity is not, and never fucking should be, measured by the extent to which a man is sensitive to his partner's needs, how good he is in the bedroom, how supportive he is of the Feminist project. All these notions are just ideas grounded in the material, homogeous idea of the male. They still value men for how useful they are.
(Incidentally, the radical, avant-garde male will naturally support the Feminist. It is a no brainer. But he would not do it out of a sense of duty or obligation. He would do it because he is an evolved fucking human being. It would proceeed naturally from his own rooted empowerment).
What I am saying comes down to this. That a truly radical masculinity would eject the language of failure from its own dialogue. One cannot fail to be a man, because one's masculinity is not measured in his capability to perform a task, whether it is DIY or eating pussy.
In fact, true masculinity is by its nature immeasurable, because true human potential is not measured against a set of arbitrary ideas of functionality.
Tuesday, 3 January 2012
Let Men Be Men.
As men we must do whatever it takes to access our natural power.
There are ways to do this, and some of them are traditionally male, but some of them might require a little experimentation.
Being a man is not something that is measured in what you do, but how you do it.
Anything can be described as a masculine pursuit, whether it is ballet dancing or boxing. Being a man is state of mind, not a set of behaviours. This is where we go wrong.
All too often as men, we sacrifice our masculinity by trying too hard. We assert our masculinity too much and we end up falling flat on our faces. A lot of the Feminist backlash has to do with women showing that they are sick and tired of false masculinity, of male bullshit in our culture.
However, there has been an imbalance as a result. It has become fashionable for women to start adopting this kind of posturing, this sort of masculine bravado. It is a way of them saying screw you to old masculinity, to the idea that they must be little women house-bound and in awe of their man.
In a sense this is a natural transition. It had to happen. Men had to be put in their place, they needed to be shown that you can't fake being a man, you can't just act the part. You have to produce the goods. You have to respect the fact that women have fullproof crap detectors. They know when they are being lied to.
So a lot of this modern woman, she-needs-a-man-like-a-fish-needs-a-bicycle stuff is just a response to how heavy the lies became in traditional relationships.
Things have gone too far now. Though the backlash was necessary, it has also become common for men to grow up thinking that women don't want them to be men. A whole generation of men has evolved to watch their step, to swallow their assertiveness for fear that they will be condemned as archaic, old-fashionaed, even abusive.
What was a reaction to unhealthy masculinity, has started to erode any trace of healthy male expression. Men are no longer men, because they think it is wrong to be masculine. They think it is wrong to be confident, to be physical, to be sexually assertive.
Women were right to put men in their place. But the wires have gotten crossed. And it is causing social problems.
It is my honest feeling that women need to back off now. Let us be men.
There is still lots of work to be done. Equality is an ogoing project. But the point has been made. If men are not allowed to feel valuable because of their masculinity then we put the stability of society at risk.
Men need to be men, and what is more women want their men to be men. What needs to come out of this flux is a more nuanced idea of what it means to be a man. And this applies to women as much as it does to men.
Instead of bravado and pride, men need to assert their natural confidence in who they are. Instead of domination, men need to demonstrate a power over their own emotional experience.
There is nothing that characterises masculinity other than a confidence to assert one's true perosnality in a given task. You can be a male flower arranger for Chrissake and still exert a self-empowering energy through that.
Male or female we all have this energy. Whitman's procreant urge. But it when it comes to attracting women, men must cultivate and demonstrate this in abundance.
There are ways to do this, and some of them are traditionally male, but some of them might require a little experimentation.
Being a man is not something that is measured in what you do, but how you do it.
Anything can be described as a masculine pursuit, whether it is ballet dancing or boxing. Being a man is state of mind, not a set of behaviours. This is where we go wrong.
All too often as men, we sacrifice our masculinity by trying too hard. We assert our masculinity too much and we end up falling flat on our faces. A lot of the Feminist backlash has to do with women showing that they are sick and tired of false masculinity, of male bullshit in our culture.
However, there has been an imbalance as a result. It has become fashionable for women to start adopting this kind of posturing, this sort of masculine bravado. It is a way of them saying screw you to old masculinity, to the idea that they must be little women house-bound and in awe of their man.
In a sense this is a natural transition. It had to happen. Men had to be put in their place, they needed to be shown that you can't fake being a man, you can't just act the part. You have to produce the goods. You have to respect the fact that women have fullproof crap detectors. They know when they are being lied to.
So a lot of this modern woman, she-needs-a-man-like-a-fish-needs-a-bicycle stuff is just a response to how heavy the lies became in traditional relationships.
Things have gone too far now. Though the backlash was necessary, it has also become common for men to grow up thinking that women don't want them to be men. A whole generation of men has evolved to watch their step, to swallow their assertiveness for fear that they will be condemned as archaic, old-fashionaed, even abusive.
What was a reaction to unhealthy masculinity, has started to erode any trace of healthy male expression. Men are no longer men, because they think it is wrong to be masculine. They think it is wrong to be confident, to be physical, to be sexually assertive.
Women were right to put men in their place. But the wires have gotten crossed. And it is causing social problems.
It is my honest feeling that women need to back off now. Let us be men.
There is still lots of work to be done. Equality is an ogoing project. But the point has been made. If men are not allowed to feel valuable because of their masculinity then we put the stability of society at risk.
Men need to be men, and what is more women want their men to be men. What needs to come out of this flux is a more nuanced idea of what it means to be a man. And this applies to women as much as it does to men.
Instead of bravado and pride, men need to assert their natural confidence in who they are. Instead of domination, men need to demonstrate a power over their own emotional experience.
There is nothing that characterises masculinity other than a confidence to assert one's true perosnality in a given task. You can be a male flower arranger for Chrissake and still exert a self-empowering energy through that.
Male or female we all have this energy. Whitman's procreant urge. But it when it comes to attracting women, men must cultivate and demonstrate this in abundance.
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