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June
Men
Until I was in my 30s, I had very few close male
friends. I was raised surrounded by women, and as I
went into adolescence and early adulthood, I tried
to make certain that women were always around me.
It wasn't just romantic or sexual relationships
that I was seeking; it was emotional support.
Through high school, college, and graduate school,
I prided myself on the large number of women who
were close to me, with whom I had mutually
supportive, generally non-physical relationships.
Of course, the real truth was that I was absolutely
terrified of intimacy with men. Men were colleagues
and rivals, but never friends. I made all sorts of
excuses as to why I didn't have more male friends;
the most frequent one was that "most American men
are sexist pigs, and I can't relate to that." (That
was a lie on several levels!)
Oddly, it was my work teaching women's studies
that forced me to work on my relationships with
men. About 1998, it finally hit home to me that
much of my academic interest in women's studies was
rooted in my own fear and dislike of my fellow men.
I liked being in classrooms (as a student or as a
professor) where I was often literally the only man
in the room -- I felt safe. As I did the work of
questioning why I felt so safe when men weren't
around, I realized to my shock that the judgment of
women did not carry as much weight in my life as
the judgment of men. In nearly all-female
environments, I was at least temporarily free from
the fear of being evaluated -- and found wanting --
by other males. It was a hard realization to come
to at 31! The great mytho-poetic men's studies
guru, Robert Bly, describes the type of guy I
was:
In the seventies, I began to see all over the
country a phenomenon that we might call the "soft
male"... perhaps half the young males are what I'd
call soft. They're lovely, valuable people -- I
like them -- they're not interested in harming the
earth or starting wars. There's a gentle attitude
toward life in their whole being and style of
living.
But many of these men are not happy. You quickly
notice the lack of energy in them. They are
life-preserving, but not exactly life-giving.
Ironically, you often see these men with strong
women who positively radiate energy.... the journey
many American men have taken into softness, or
receptivity, or "development of the feminine side"
has been an immensely valuable journey, but more
travel lies ahead.
That travel leads to learning to live not merely
as a male, but as a man. Many writers in the field
of men's studies talk about the concept of
"homosociality". It's a simple principle: in
American culture, young men are raised to value the
approval of other males far more than the approval
of women. Any young woman whose boyfriend acts
completely differently when he is alone with her
(as opposed to when he is with his buddies)
recognizes this phenomenon instantly. As a shy,
unathletic, narcissistic child, I had had a pretty
unhappy and rough time in elementary and junior
high school -- mostly from my male peers. I
realized, with that sudden mixture of shame and
relief that accompanies such a realization, that as
a consequence of these early miserable experiences,
I had spent two decades avoiding intimacy with
other men.
In the past six years, my relationships with men
have been transformed. Not surprisingly, I have
discovered that running has played a very helpful
part in that transformation. Though our informal
running group does have women within it, we are
primarily a male bunch. I find that men build trust
and intimacy when they aren't looking directly at
each other. When we run through the mountains, up
and down fire roads and single-track trails, we run
single-file. (We get excellent views of one
another's backsides, but that is not generally
considered a source of excitement.) Running single
file, sweating together, we can talk and talk and
talk while still having an activity that
legitimates the conversation. (Even after years of
workshops and consciousness raising sessions, it is
still tough to meet a male friend just "to talk"!)
I have brought countless problems into the San
Gabriel Mountains with my friends; two, three, or
four hours of hard physical (and emotional) work
later, my burden has been eased.
I've become convinced that only other men can
make men grow. Relationships with women can provide
us with healthy challenges. They can inspire us to
want to change, but they can't show us how to do
it. Our wives, mothers, girlfriends and other women
can only share with us what kind of man they would
like us to be -- they cannot "role model" that for
us. As Robert Bly puts it (and I know he raises
some feminist hackles): Women can change the embryo
to a boy, but only men can change the boy into a
man.
I've made it a point in my life to surround
myself today with three kinds of men: older men (my
father chief among them, but others as well) to
whom I can look for advice and inspiration; men my
own age (whose experiences are similar to mine);
younger men (teens and early twenties), for whom I
can serve -- with luck and by grace -- as a role
model. It's a good week if I spend time with all
three groups of men.
We are a culture with precious few non-violent
yet deeply masculine role models. Our schizophrenic
popular culture oscillates between idealizing the
endlessly conflicted, feminized men who struggle to
grow up (I always think of Ross, on "Friends") and
absurd caricatures of aggression (think of Vin
Diesel in most of his films). I don't have the
secret to living a balanced life as a man, but I am
convinced of this: living life surrounded by other
men, men who offer encouragement, accountability,
and male energy, is an essential part of that
healthy life.
©2005, Hugo
Schwyzer
* * *
Women really must have equal pay for equal work,
equilaity in work at home, and reproductive
choices. Men must press for these things also. They
must cease to see them as "women's issues" and
learn that they are everyone's issues. - essential
to survival on planet Earth. - Erica Jong
The assorted
musings of Hugo Schwyzer: a progressive,
consistent-life ethic Anabaptist/Episcopalian
Democrat (but with a sense of humor), a community
college history and gender studies professor, an
avid marathoner, aspiring ultra-runner, die-hard
political junkie, and proud father of a small
chinchilla. hugoboy.typepad.com
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