insideMAN

The Confused Male: Do women really want what they say they want?

by 49 Comments

For many men the rapidly shifting landscape of gender roles and expectations can feel like a minefield. Here couple’s counsellor and insideMAN reader, Jennie Cummings-Knight, reflects both on the conflicted feelings she has about the new gender order and the mixed messages some women seem to be sending men.

In January of this year, I both witnessed and played a part in what was perhaps a typical incident of male confusion with regard to how to behave towards women in 21st century Britain.

I was on the station platform at Norwich after a football match, when the train came in after a long wait and a points’ failure. All the football supporters got on in a body, and I was left on the platform with one foot in the doorway. I asked the tightly-packed fans to let me on and they replied “there is no room”, so I called out to my husband who, already on the train, had not realised that I was still on the platform, and he pulled me on to the train through the crowd.

I was very annoyed at having nearly been stranded on the platform for the evening and I said in a loud voice, “I see the days of ladies first have long gone past!”  Suddenly there was a sheepish shift in attitude from the (mostly male) crowd of supporters. They looked around and found me a small jump seat to sit on.

It seemed that I had effectively reminded them of the manners of a bygone age and they had responded by instinct to a phrase that 30 years ago, everyone knew off by heart. It was an interesting moment!

Simpler times, clearer rules?

There was a time when men in the UK knew how society expected them to behave around women that they had personal relationships with — the rules were much clearer: They were supposed to be providers – to protect, to be good earners.

Men did not need to be good looking but they needed to be fit, active and in gainful employment. There was a tacit understanding that they probably knew more about sexual matters than most women and this was welcomed as long as the sexual experimentation stayed in the past once a commitment to a woman was made.

Women were considered to be the “weaker vessel”, and as objectionable as this is to contemporary sensibilities, they were nonetheless treated with a particular kind of care and respect, (in the majority of cases).

Women liked to be admired and noticed, but not usually for their successful careers, but more for their companionship, and their ability to provide a nurturing home environment and it did not hurt if their good looks were a factor too.

Things have changed… or have they?

Women apparently liked the fantasy of being “swept off their feet” by the confident and successful male — as long as he brought home a good wage and did not “play the field” that was pretty much all that was required. Children were welcomed as built-in likely by-products of the relationship, and a woman would be expected to look after the home and take the major share of responsibility in child care.

Now things have changed – or have they?

Women say they want to be equal with men – we say we want to be treated as strong and independent people – we no longer “need” the old fashioned “knight in shining armour” image – but is this true in your experience?

I personally remember the days of being “looked after” by men – (when they were viewed as emotionally tougher, physically stronger, and responsible for shouldering the main financial burden of the homestead) – with nostalgia.

Women say that they want to be admired for what they can achieve – not for how they look. But that’s not true for me, and therefore I suspect not for all women either. Yes, I want to be admired for what I can achieve, but that does not mean that how I look no longer matters. Far from it!

We women have also often complained that men take advantage of positions of power – but do we make the same mistakes?

Double standards

We want equal status in the workplace, but we like to run things the way we want in the home.

We complain that women are under-represented in high prestige jobs, but we stay quiet about the fact that it’s mostly men who do the most dangerous (e.g. tasks in the forces) dirty, (refuse collecting, for example) and low status (farm labourers, brick layers, etc.) jobs.

With regard to sexual advances, I have seen a certain hypocrisy at work, where men are increasingly accused of inappropriate behaviour, but where women think it’s OK to behave in exactly the same way themselves, and yet there tends to be a very different reaction than if a man were to accuse a woman of doing the same — the result for him would far more likely to be ridicule.

I saw a young lady one evening (it all happens at the train station, it seems!) offer her train ticket to the guard by sticking it in her cleavage and asking him to take it from there. He did so, but he was at risk (in my view) in this response because she could have accused him of being inappropriate later.

How is a man supposed to navigate his way through the complex maze of what women say they want, and what they appear to really want?

Let me know your thoughts!

By Jennie Cummings-Knight

Counsellor/Lecturer/Writer www.goldenleafcounselling.com

Photo: Colin Kinner/Flickr

Founder of new men’s issues radio show on why he decided to join the debate

by 8 Comments

This morning will see the first broadcast of PonderLab, a brand new men’s issues radio show, live on All FM 96.9 every Wednesday from 9-10am.

This week’s episode will take a look at the male mid-life crisis, celebrate Barbie’s birthday, and see how the show’s presenter deals with the shock of a new start at the gym, plus more besides.

Here the show’s producer and presenter, Paul Davies, explains why he believes there is a need for more platforms such PonderLab to address the issues facing men.

I’ve been asked why I’ve decided to make a radio show/podcast about men’s issues. Well it’s simply because there isn’t much out there in popular culture that really engages with men. It’s also become apparent that men’s issues have become a subject of much derision. To be honest, there isn’t enough being done to challenge the status quo. Meanwhile issues like male suicide continue to rise and misinformation spreads. So here is the full story as to why I wanted to debate men’s issues…

I’m not an anything…

I often go through little bouts of insomnia where I end up surfing the internet for nothing in particular. Recently I’ve discovered the oh-so-magical world of radical feminism, neo-masculinity, social justice warriors and men’s rights activists. On one side we have people who claim that you hate women if you are not a feminist. On the other we’ve got men getting in touch with their alpha status in a bid to stop being a “pussy”. I would like to be a million miles away from both of these groups. For some reason we’re all being coerced into nailing our colours to a mast. To have a point of view that falls outside these polarized ideologies makes me a ‘weak beta male that wants to deny women their rights’. I’m nothing of the sort. Let me explain.

Women have battled hard to get rights. The right to vote and the right to fair pay are two very good examples. It blows my mind that people had to go out onto the streets and demand these rights. I was taught about it at school, I’ve seen films about it (“Made in Dagenham” being a fantastic example) and I’ve read so many accounts about suffrage. I think we forget these things at our peril. But there are struggles that we have forgotten and they have put the equality debate at a disadvantage.

Women over the age of 30 got the right to vote in 1918. It was only 34 years prior that male suffrage entitled men paying an annual rental of £10 or all those holding land valued at £10 their right to vote.  It sill meant that 40% of adult males were still without the vote. The same act that granted women the right to vote in 1918, abolished property and other restrictions that affected men.  The story that I believed for much of my adult life ignored the suffrage of men and that alarms me. Why is it that we seem to only get half of the story?

Self-censorship

It’s only from doing a bit of research for this article that I discovered that the majority of men suffered the same inequality as women when it comes to voting rights. The interesting thing is that when I think about that fact, my stomach lurches. There is an internal self-censorship that tells me that I must not demean the idea that women have suffered in their struggle for equality. By acknowledging that working class men also faced discrimination, a part of my brain feels like I have committed a hate crime. I don’t feel comfortable. Sadly that’s because the narrative that I am familiar with is that men are the perpetrators and women are the victims. But, as I’ve discovered, it’s not as clear cut as that.

The fight for rights

When you look at the hard won rights of the worker in the UK, both men and women had to fight for them. There is no denying that it took longer for women to catch up, but working class men have never had it easy themselves. Those with power and money have fought hard to keep a divide between them and the lower classes. Let’s not forget those women in high society that were anti-suffrage. The fight against inequality should be against the establishment and not against men. The average man in the street has no power over women, nor does he want it. I’m not a feminist, but I believe that women should be treated equally. I believe that men should also be treated equally too.

Some are more equal than others

So here we are. After years of fighting and campaigning both women and men should be applauded for the steps forward in equality. Sadly the struggle that men have faced has been widely forgotten or disregarded. The struggle of the working class man isn’t a narrative that sits comfortably alongside feminism. This is because feminism relies on the narrative that men have had it easy. We didn’t have to fight for the vote, we didn’t have to fight for a living wage, we didn’t have to fight for equality in the workplace. But here’s the thing… We did. It’s just that my teachers forgot to tell me about that. Films don’t celebrate unfashionable male suffrage. According to popular culture – it didn’t happen. But now men are starting to talk about their own equality and the issues that face them.

Come on… Men have all the rights… Don’t they?

Do men have all the rights?  No. They don’t. But some feminists seem to think so. Type in “White Male” into Google. It will do the familiar auto-complete based on widely searched terms. In all cases it seems to add the word “privilege”. This is because many (if not all) feminists believe that white men were born into privilege. Most of the men in my family, including myself, we’re born into an ex-mining community with no investment, jobs or future. I could look forward to a life of unskilled low-paid work or take a far more risky path. I left my home with no money and no employment. I was technically homeless while I tried desperately to find somewhere to live in Manchester. Did being white and male open any doors for me? No! Here’s why.

It’s hard to find demographic data on homelessness, but the figures from 2011 show that 84% of the homeless are men. Over half of those who are homeless are white (55%). I don’t think anyone who sleeps rough would consider themselves to be privileged. If you add into the mix my history of depression and suicide I fall into a very familiar pattern of homelessness. At the time I was doing a mixture of rough sleeping and staying in B&B’s in Chester while I looked frantically for a place to stay. A friend offered me a spare room thankfully after just a week. Some aren’t so lucky.

In terms of suicide men aren’t privileged at all. Male suicide outweighs female by 4-1 and that gap is growing. These figures only take into account those who are successful in ending their lives. We don’t know how many men actually make an attempt or think suicidal thoughts. I don’t feel privileged that I’ve ended up in hospital more times than I care to remember because of my mental illness.

I’ve had to work damn hard to get the opportunities I’ve had. I’ve never had people give me things just for being a man or for being white. But feminists tell me that I’ve had it easier than them. They tell me that men, like me, conspire to keep them down. I do nothing of the sort. I have no logical reason to do so. But when it comes to inequality I hear arguments on both sides, both with their fair share of the legitimate and the idiotic.

Feminism is about the rights of men too!

While some may suggest that feminism is the fight for male equality as much as female equality, that doesn’t always seem to be the case. Here is one very chilling example as to why feminism is not on the side of men. Even though a third of domestic abuse victims are men and the number of women convicted for domestic violence rose by 30% in the year to April 2015, from 3,735 to 4,866; when the issue of male victims was highlighted in The Independent one feminist blogger wrote: “Denying women’s much greater suffering as victims of domestic and/or sexual violence is a political act.” The thing is, no one denied anything of the sort. They gave the facts as they were. But the blogger felt compelled to debunk the facts, putting forward the age-old argument that women are the victims and men are the perpetrators. The use of the phrase “political act” in her blog is an irony lost on the author.  But what about the general discussion of men’s issues in society?  Well…

The 19th of November 2015 saw “International Men’s Day” take place — a day when we raise awareness of issues that men face. The date made headlines, but not for the reasons you might think. When a group of MPs suggested debating issues around the event they were met with derision. Jess Phillips MP found the idea laughable claiming that, “everyday is International Men’s Day.” Meanwhile, a group of students and staff at York University got a programme of events to mark the day cancelled. In fact feminists have derailed so many similar events across the world claiming that men’s freedom of speech is nothing short of misogyny.

You’re either with us or against us.

Some feminists argue that you are either with them or against them. I’m neither. I want to discuss the things that affect me in the way I want to. To claim that men don’t have the right to talk about men’s issues without acknowledging some non-existent hatred of women is nothing short of totalitarian thought. It’s as if we have to do what they want or they’ll deny us our right to speak, debate, think or even to be. That takes us to the other extreme. The rise of neo-masculinity — a group of people who are as fragile and damaged as the women they rally against. Meanwhile the rest of us are cannon fodder, sitting in the middle. We become the enemy of both for not choosing a side.  But there is a side that we can all choose, one that doesn’t favour race, gender, sexuality, age or nationality.  It’s called Egalitarianism – which is the belief in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities: a fairer, more egalitarian society.

So to everyone fighting for equality and their rights — more power to you! But a word of warning: Don’t scapegoat an entire group of people for the actions of a minority. Don’t deny anyone their right to debate. Don’t claim to be campaigning for my rights when I’m big enough to do it myself. Finally, do not think that because I don’t identify in a certain way that I am automatically your enemy.

This is why I chose to start a debate about men’s issues. I want a positive platform that’s out there in the open. It’s not behind closed doors so you can keep an eye on what we’re up too. It’s sad that we have to do it like this, but it will help. I hope that the show can engage with the vulnerable, the disenfranchised, the lonely and everyone in between. The most important thing I want to say is…

We’re all in it together.

To read more of Paul’s writing and learn more about PonderLab, visit the show’s blog and Facebook page here and here

A thank you letter to mothers who fight for 50:50 post-separation parenting

by 1 Comment

One of insideMAN’s readers recently got in touch to tell us how he worked with a mother whose commitment to 50:50 post-separation parenting with her former husband was both moving and inspiring. So much so in fact, that he decided to write her an imaginary letter, setting down how much he admired her dignity and conscientiousness in standing against the formal systems and informal pressures that in his experience invite and expect mothers to act very differently. Here it is.

Dear Linda,

First, I’m truly sorry for your children in the situation they find themselves. And I’m truly sorry for both of you as parents and as human beings. No matter how right in conscience the decision to separate, the path ahead is never easy.

That’s why I respect and admire you both for making the commitment to sharing equally the parenting of your children – genuinely putting them first.

In some other countries in Europe you would not have had a decision to make. Where 50:50 shared parenting is the default position the parents can go on to discuss the finer details that suit not only their children at their age and stage of development but also allow both parents to continue the careers that give them their self-respect and financial stability.

That approach makes sense. The children who probably didn’t really want their parents to separate in the first place are spared the distress of finding themselves the prize in a tug of war.

Wealth of research

It isn’t like that in the UK. Here, Linda, you had to opt in to doing the right thing and I admire you for doing it. That’s why this letter is addressed principally to you.

Of course many parents like you and your husband do behave well even while they work through the traumas of separation. There is a wealth of research that confirms that in general children whose parents live apart, but are both equally and fully involved in their child’s lives and have equal public recognition, do better in measures of educational attainment and personal well-being than children who live primarily or exclusively with one parent.

A recent study in Denmark and Sweden showed that shared parenting is not only better for the children but also for BOTH parents.

Only last month the Ministry of Justice published a large scale “Analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study, exploring child outcomes after parental separation” which found similar patterns of experience for children in the UK.

‘Unhelpful disincentives and perverse incentives’

But despite such positive evidence the default position in the UK remains that when parents separate that one – usually the mother – will become regarded as the principal carer and the other – usually the father – will be secondary. The terminology has changed over the years but the reality has remained the same.

There are unhelpful disincentives within the UK to genuine shared parenting and perverse incentives for separated parents to compete for time with their own kids.

The disincentive is that the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue & Customs want there to be one main parent who will get the child benefit and the child tax credit and child support. It can cost one parent and probably both hard cash to share parenting.

The incentive is the moral zero-sum game that sucks in parents if they can’t agree on sharing time with the children they both love. They are invited by the law as it stands to disparage each other’s character and parenting capacity in the name of the children’s best interests. Children’s best interests are rarely served by encouraging their parents, already usually hurting and often angry at their estrangement, to deride each other further.

‘Not a level playing field for dads’

It’s not a level playing field. I spend a great deal of time helping non-resident fathers cope with discovering that they now have to prove their worth as human beings to continue to do the things with their children that were regarded as normal parenting without a second thought up to the date of separation.

They are shocked and diminished as individuals when their legal advisers tell them not to ask for too much time with their kids in case a judge decides they are being confrontational or impractical or ideological. They’ll be told – accurately – that some judges here have a visceral dislike of even the phrase “shared parenting”.

Even as weekend dads (with maybe a midweek meeting with their kids) they will have to explain themselves over and again to their children’s school or GP and brave the isolation of the school gate mothers’ meeting. They hear politicians who should and do know better talking about “lone mothers” and “absent fathers” when they are doing their damndest to be as present as possible. I am lost in admiration at the effort so many make and the humiliations so many swallow just to stay in their kids’ life.

And that, Linda, is why I admire you for what you are doing. I know it is not easy for you.
Sharing the parenting equally will be good for the kids in the long term but hurts like hell for the parents. Like so many non-resident parents, I have no doubt you also feel the sense of bereavement when you hand your kids over for their time with their father while you return to your home still ringing with the echo of their voices, picking up their bits and pieces that have to be put away til next time. He will feel the same when it’s their time with you.

And, like your husband, when they are with you will overthink the things you do with them that previously didn’t require thought at all. They came naturally.

You will wonder if you are doing the right thing and whether the hurt is worth it. Please believe me, Linda, you are and it is.

Vlogger receives out-pouring of support after recording heart-wrenching account of domestic abuse by his ex-girlfriend

by 2 Comments

In September 2015 vlogger Matthew Santoro made a private video in which he opened his heart for the first time about his experience of being abused by his ex-girlfriend.

Two days ago, he accidentally made the video public before realising and quickly taking it down again. But the outpouring of support he received from people who watched the video after it initially went live, prompted him to re-upload it in the realisation that his story could help other men who had been in his situation.

To date the video has been watched more than 100,000 times, received nearly 35,000 likes and more than 13,000 comments.

His eloquent and painful words are inspiring, heart-wrenching, courageous and important in equal measure.

Thank you Matt.

You can see more of Matt’s videos on his YouTube channel here and follow him on Twitter @MatthewSantoro

If you are a male victim of domestic violence in Northern Ireland and the UK, are concerned about a man you know who may be in an abusive relationship, or would like to help support services for male domestic violence victims, please contact The ManKind Initiative here

 

Is there a male positive way to talk to young men about sexual consent?

by 14 Comments

Following the controversy over Warwick University student George Lawlor’s criticisms of sexual consent classes, one young man argues that if we want to engage men in discussions about consent, we need to have genuine empathy for how this might make them feel.

Anyone who follows discussions about “gender issues” in the news will probably have heard the story of how a student at Warwick University named George Lawlor recently caused an uproar with an article that he wrote for an online student newspaper about his negative reaction to being invited to attend a workshop on sexual consent.  His piece provoked a negative and often mean-spirited response from many people on social media and in the press, although he also received plenty of support.

Watching all of this unfold was a thought-provoking experience for me.  I asked myself how I would have responded if I had been invited to attend a consent workshop when I was at university, just over 10 years ago.  I would not have responded like George did although I can see why he took offense to the invitation – he described the invitation as “loathsome”, “the biggest insult that he had received in a good few years” and “incredibly hurtful” because it implied that he “needed to be taught how to not be a rapist”.  I am aware that I am coming to this subject quite late and that much has already been written about it.  But as a straight man who has been through a process of overcoming a great sense of shame about my sexuality and who also supports teaching about sexual consent in schools and at universities, I feel that I have something to add to the subject.

I want to begin by explaining to you why I can empathise with George’s reaction.  In teaching young men about sexual consent, it seems inevitable that we would need to ask them to consider whether they could potentially carry out an act of non-consensual sex – a crime that would hurt another human being, which in our society carries more shame than almost any other crime.  There is no reason to believe that this should be an easy subject to talk to young men about.  Most people want to believe that they are fundamentally good people who would not be capable of harming anyone and are likely to react negatively and become defensive when asked to consider the possibility that this might not be the case.  Whatever your opinion on the necessity and effectiveness of consent workshops, I hope that you can see that many young men will feel that these workshops implicitly place their sexuality under suspicion  and as a result it is an understandable human response to take offence at the suggestion that they should go to one.

‘Don’t assume I might harm someone because I’m a man’

If we want to have constructive conversations with young men about sexual consent then we surely need to accept and engage with them when they react negatively to being asked to talk about it.  Sadly, much of the negative response to George’s article took a shaming and derisive tone which will only serve to make it more difficult to engage young men in the conversations about sex that they need to have.

Much of the negative response focused on the picture that accompanied Gorge’s article – of himself holding a card reading “this is not what a rapist looks like”, which many people took to be a ridiculous statement that potential rapists can be identified by their appearance.  I think that his inclusion of the picture was very misguided but given the context of his article, I found it clear that he was saying “don’t assume that I have the potential to harm women just because I am a man”.  I can imagine many people who feel they are being negatively stereotyped feeling the need to say something along the lines “this is not what a [negative stereotype about the group to which I belong] looks like” and for the message to be broadly understood, but when it comes to a subject as highly emotive as rape, this message was obviously never going to get across.  It was an open goal that people on social media weren’t going to miss and so a lot of the responses to his article took the form of commenting on how “rapey” he looked.

The fact that a potential rapist cannot be identified by their appearance or broad demographic group also formed the basis for some of the responses in the press.  Bridget Christie wrote a piece for The Guardian entitled “What does a rapist look like anyway?” and Rebecca Reid wrote an article for The Telegraph entitled “Breaking news: rapists can be nice university educated boys”.  These articles express many reasonable ideas that most people will have heard many times before and could not rationally disagree with.  However, I think that both articles also indicate that we are still missing a key aspect of this discussion – the emotional reaction of young men when they are asked to talk about and be educated about sexual consent.  If we fail to address this, then writers like Bridget Christie and Rebecca Reid will have to continue making these same points over and over again.

Are sexual consent classes really ‘simple and benign’?

Sadly, both authors seem to be almost wilfully tone deaf about this aspect of the discussion.  The authors of these articles, being women, will never have been asked to consider the possibility that they might rape someone yet they presume to understand what it is like to be young man who is asked to do that.  The summary of Christie’s article stated: “If anyone has a right to be offended, it probably isn’t George Lawlor for being invited along to a sexual-consent workshop” and describes Lawlor’s response as an “extreme reaction to a simple, benign request which shows how far we have to go in terms of how we tackle, and even discuss, the issue of rape”.  There is nothing “simple and benign” about being asked to consider the possibility that you might seriously hurt another person and she does a disservice to everyone by referring to it as such.

Reid writes:  “If you don’t start consent education in childhood then you end up with young men, like Lawlor, who whether they understand consent or not, believe themselves to be above even having the conversation at all.”  Reid’s article is the more measured of the two and I agree with her that consent education should be started earlier in schools but her tone is unhelpful.  As a woman, she can already consider herself “above” being invited to consider whether or not she might rape someone, and therefore has no reason to consider how deeply uncomfortable and emotionally painful it might be for young men to go through the process of assessing their attitudes to sex and to women and considering whether they might be harmful.

The worst thing about both these articles is the tone of mockery and judgement that they take towards what George wrote, something that they have in common with much of the negative response on social media.  If young men feel that their understandable resistance to talking about sexual consent will be met with this kind of mockery and judgement, then they are likely to disengage with the process altogether and potentially seek out less healthy places to discuss how they are feeling.

‘Young men increasingly feel they are being judged’

The Telegraph also published a far more constructive article by Radhika Sanghani entitled “Calling this naive student a ‘rapist’ ain’t helping anyone”.  In it, she writes “it is a sad indictment of our society that people have reacted to Lawlor’s views with hatred and anger” and “the only way to educate more people about the complex reality of rape is by talking about it and creating an environment where questions can be asked.”   She quotes an expert who says about the response to George, “it would be better if people challenged him productively, without judgement and with respect”.  I am in agreement with much of what she wrote, although she doesn’t seem to acknowledge how difficult it has become for young men to feel like they won’t be judged and will be respected, especially when discussing highly-politicised and challenging issues such as sexual assault.

Men of my generation grew up in an environment where we were bombarded with negative messages about men and there seemed to be no understanding from society that this might be affecting us.  We were constantly being asked by society to assess our thoughts, feelings and sexual urges for anything that might be harmful to women yet there was no consideration of how this was making us feel about ourselves – it was just seen as something that we had to do, otherwise we would potentially become the kind of monstrous men that we heard about on the news who harmed women.

As a young man I found the messages I received about my sexuality frightening and alienating and they certainly did not create an environment where I felt like I would not be judged and would be respected.  Moreover, the nature of the public discussions about these issues made me feel like my emotional and sexual development simply did not matter other than in terms of how it might affect girls and women.

I am not suggesting that we stop talking about difficult and important subjects just to spare the feelings of boys, but we need to make sure that boys don’t feel overwhelmed by negative messages about being male.  We need to meet their defensiveness about certain subjects with compassion rather than contempt.  As a society we also need to do more to support the emotional development of boys – and to make sure boys know that we are doing this because we value their well-being rather than just because we want to reduce the chances of them becoming harmful to women

Things need to change if we are to have constructive conversations with boys and men about sexual consent.  Many of the same things need to change if we are to support boys in growing into healthy confident men in their own right, and this should be seen as no less important a goal.

Sometimes men want to be rescued too

by 1 Comment

The poet Shaky Shergill confronts his vulnerability as he rises to the new challenge of becoming a counsellor.

As a trainee counsellor who will soon be seeing clients I’m always on the lookout for tools or theories which I believe will help me support clients who may feel that they are stuck. After having seen one of my tutors using them I recently bought a set of archetype cards to include in my toolbox. As is my way and I think that a lot of other trainees do the same thing I decided to try them out on myself.

Shuffling the deck of cards I expected to draw one, look at it, read the message on it, have some kind of recognition and move on. So imagine my surprise when the archetype card that I pulled at random from the pack was that of ‘the damsel’. As I saw it and read what it represented, the line that read ‘always beautiful, vulnerable and in need of rescue’ struck a nerve. There was a part of me which felt anger at that line. The rest I could discount as not relevant to me, but the words ‘vulnerable and in need of rescue’ grated against something within me.

Over the years I’ve learned to not turn away from those feelings of discomfort and once again I decided to look at the card and the lesson it had for me. What was it about the card, that particular sentence and what it represented that had raised my ire? It wasn’t the ‘beautiful’ bit as I could accept that there are times when I am beautiful in a variety of ways.

It was the ‘vulnerable and in need of rescue’. The more I thought about it the more I realised that it was true, digging deeper I could see that part of what I felt was the indignation that stemmed from the messages I had about being a man; as a man I didn’t need rescuing, as a man I should be able to look after myself, as a man I shouldn’t need or want to feel vulnerable.

The more I looked at the card the more I realised that in so many ways society had done its job very well. I had bought into the belief system that as a man I should be ‘big and tough’ and not need anyone else. However I also began to realise that alongside that big and tough man there was also a little boy who at times did feel vulnerable and wanted rescuing. Sometimes the world can feel like a scary place regardless of how big or tough you or others think you are.

As I sat with those feelings I became aware of the emotions of sadness and anger for both the little boy and the big man (both equally vulnerable) who had wanted to be rescued and how he had stepped back into the shadows by isolating himself or frozen in place ‘waiting for it to all be over’. I realised how over the years that took me from a boy to a man I had slowly frozen into place the image of a strong and confident man. Someone who always had to be ‘on’ as a protector and guardian. I wondered if one of the people I’d been protecting had been the vulnerable part of my self who I believed wouldn’t be accepted by a world that thinks men should be a certain way.

As a father my thoughts then turned to my son, what would I tell him about this experience, what could I share about how as he grew others would see and judge him on his outer appearance or more specifically his size and gender and have certain beliefs about him. Would those beliefs include that it is OK for him to be vulnerable and if not want rescuing then at the least want to be supported as he walked difficult parts of his path. Also, what is my role in my son learning to express and accept his own and others’ vulnerabilities? Is it enough that I tell him it’s OK to be sad? Is it enough that I can acknowledge the times I’m feeling sad, lonely or vulnerable and if not be able to deal with them then show that I am at least trying to accept those feelings rather than hide or suppress them?

Before beginning this article I discussed the card and what it meant to me with a friend who then thought it might mean something else and perhaps it does, but I think that’s for another article.

—Photo: Flickr/Christopher Crouzet

See other articles from Shaky on insideMAN:

 

 

 

Men are being asked to open up, but are we prepared to listen when they do?

by 1 Comment

The cultural conversation around men and masculinity often feels less like a public discussion and more like a rhetorical battleground.

But if it’s a chaotic and hard-fought debate during most of the year, this November, during the month highlighting men’s health issues and International Men’s Day, the thrusts and parries were enough to make your head spin.

In Parliament, we saw Jess Phillips MP’s derision at the idea of a debate about men’s issues on International Men’s Day, lead to that exact thing taking place for the very first time; at the University of York, a veto on marking the day by 193 feminist academics and students, prompted a feminist-led petition in support of the day signed by thousands; and most recently, student George Lawlor, who was attacked across the national press for refusing to attend a sexual consent course, was offered a compassionate hearing on about as mainstream a TV show as there is – ITV’s This Morning.

On International Men’s Day itself, there were a slew of articles mocking the day, but it also felt as if more national news outlets than ever gave a platform to powerful and informed defenses of why there needs to be public recognition of the gendered issues men face.

At the heart of each of these stories is the same conflict – our society’s deep ambivalence and discomfort about men speaking out about the issues they face.

Men given mixed messages

On the one hand, men are being told more than ever that they must open up, that their refusal to overcome traditional masculine ideals of strength and stoicism is the source of a multitude of their own and society’s problems — the need to help men express their anxieties in order to stem the tide of male suicides, became the unofficial central theme for this year’s International Men’s Day.

But on the other hand, men are also repeatedly told their voices are too dominant, that speaking about the issues that affect them amounts to giving a special platform to the already privileged, and as a result of this perceived privilege, the only gender issues they should really be speaking out on are those that affect women.

At times, men even appear to be asked to do both at once: called on to open up about the experience of being a man, but then told which parts of that experience are acceptable to discuss.

November’s fraught public discussion about men and masculinity was book-ended by last weekend’s Being A Man festival at London’s Southbank Centre. Now in its second year, I attended the event with no small degree of trepidation, because the first BAM in 2014 was very much driven by the belief that when it comes to exploring men’s issues, there are only certain issues that are acceptable to discuss — the ones sanctioned by feminism.

An evolving conversation?

For example, there were talks about why men should be feminists, but none on why they shouldn’t be; there were discussions about why male violence against women is a problem, but none on the problem of female perpetrators and male victims; while another panel explained why porn is bad for you, but offered no perspectives on how men can explore, express and celebrate their sexuality.

But on attending the Saturday session of this year’s three-day event, despite my heart initially sinking when the first talk I heard was a keynote speech about male sexual violence against women, it seemed to me the range of issues tackled during the rest of the day and how they were addressed, was yet another indicator of how rapidly the conversation about men and masculinity is evolving.

At a talk about depictions of men in TV and film, both the audience and panellists warmly accepted the idea that society is far too tolerant of violence against men in the media and that this is a reflection of our greater tolerance of violence against men and boys in real life; at this year’s panel debate about porn, there was none of the demonising of male sexuality that had gone on in the previous year; and most powerful of all, there was an extraordinary panel discussion about the need to raise awareness and support for male victims of rape.

I think it’s fantastic that this discussion is now breaking into the mainstream, from Parliament to the Southbank Centre, because I believe it’s imperative that men are encouraged to speak about what it means to be a man. But I also believe it’s essential that people truly listen when they do speak out. That doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything these men say, but it does mean listening in a way that allows them to be heard.

During this November’s high-profile skirmishes about men and masculinity, it was telling that the core issue under discussion was the crisis in male suicide. What everyone appeared to agree on, was that a central plank in tackling this public health emergency is finding ways to encourage men to talk more openly about their fears and anxieties. But what is still very much up for grabs, is whether we’re really prepared to hear them when they do.

By Dan Bell

Image Credit: Beyer Projects

Three insideMAN book contributors to speak at Being A Man festival

by 1 Comment

Three of the fantastic writers who contributed to the insideMAN book are to speak at the Being A Man festival at London’s Southbank Centre this weekend.

The three-day festival, which aims to “address the challenges and pressures of masculine identity in the 21st century”, will feature former Loaded editor and Telegraph Men columnist Martin Daubney; Leading men’s personal development practitioner, Kenny D’Cruz and the man who coined the term “metrosexual”, writer and journalist Mark Simpson.

Daubney will lead an afternoon mentoring session and appear on a panel discussion addressing the impact of pornography; D’Cruz, known as ‘The Man Whisperer’, will feature as one of the speakers in “Bam Bites”, to talk about what it means to be a more authentic man; and Simpson will appear on a panel discussion entitled, Mad Men, X Men and Grand Theft Auto, to explore what impact the limited depictions of men in the media may be having on men in real life.

Each writer has fascinating and challenging contributions in the insideMAN book. Daubney’s article, White Male Football Fans: The Scum it’s Great to Hate, unpicks the double standards and prejudices of the mainstream media towards working class white men; D’Cruz’s article, The Day I Realised I’d Married My Wife into a Lifetime of Racism, explores his heartbroken response to racist abuse towards his wife while they were on their honeymoon; while Simpson’s article, Crisis? What Crisis?, is a razor-sharp, not to mention very funny, dissection of the objectification of the modern male body.

To read these powerful stories and many more buy the insideMAN book here!

Now in its second year, the festival will take place from Friday 27th November to Sunday 29th November at London’s Southbank Centre.

The festival is billed as “a frank, thoughtful and often humorous look at the challenges, pressures, myths and pleasures around being born a male in today’s society. Traditional roles are changing and yet for many expectations of what makes a ‘proper man’ remain intact.”

Discussions slated for the weekend include, “everything from fatherhood to fitness, depression to racial stereotypes, the power of sport, the complications of monogamy, pornography, violence, the importance of banter and why James Bond won’t die!”

You can see each of the insideMAN book’s great writers speak in the flesh at the following times during the weekend:

  • Mark Simpson on media portrayals of men: Saturday, Level 5 Function Room at Royal Festival Hall 12.30pm – 1.30pm
  • Martin Daubney’s porn debate: Saturday, Level 5 Function Room at Royal Festival Hall 3.30pm – 4.30pm
  • Kenny D’Cruz’s exploration of what it means to be a more authentic man: Sunday, Festival Village under Queen Elizabeth Hall 12.30pm – 1.30pm

For more information about the Being A Man festival, including a full schedule of events and how to buy tickets, visit the festival website here.

My name is Gary and I’m mental. Maybe you are too. Let’s talk about it.

by 2 Comments

My name is Gary and I’m mental. No really, I am. I live with depression, acute anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder on an everyday basis. I’m tri-mental. I really don’t care who knows, so let’s talk about it.

The majority of people who seek help and support for their mental health are women, yet around 78% of people who kill themselves are men. These figures are echoed all around the world. Mental illness is an equal opportunity affliction so there’s a huge disparity somewhere. Mental health has long been a taboo subject. It’s something we’d rather not discuss in polite conversation. Why is that? Every one of us has mental health so why not talk about something we all share. We might not all have mental ill health, but the way we deal and talk about it has to change.

One in four of you reading this are as mental as I am. That is to say, you’ll experience mental illness at some point in your life. Maybe that time is now, perhaps it’s in the past or it could be still to come. Who really knows, but the fact is it really doesn’t matter. Mental illness, in all its guises, form part of who we are, but it’s not there to define who we are. I learned that lesson the hard way, I hope you don’t have to.

My mental health deteriorated when I became ill. During most of 2008 I was suffering with severe stomach pains. They would appear for a couple of days and they would go again. Like an unwelcome house guest, gradually the pain would come and stay for longer and longer periods and it hurt more and more. Despite not being a massive fan of going to the doctors, the pain was so bad that I couldn’t stop myself. I went every few weeks for about six months.

‘My life turned upside down’

Every time I visited, I was given ‘something’. Medication for a stomach bug….or spasms…or kidney infections….or Irritable Bowel Syndrome. None of them fixed it, because the root cause of my problem wasn’t identified. One night in late October the pain was too much to bear. My wife rang NHS Direct who, in turn, called an ambulance. My local A&E said it was gastroenteritis and sent me home. Two days later I was back and they finally admitted me. Within 48 hours, my life turned upside down.

From a Saturday night admission to a Sunday night bout of emergency surgery, I woke up in the High Dependency unit of my local hospital with tubes and wires coming out of almost every orifice and some-sort of bag stuck to my side. The morphine pump kept me sedated, but the chaos around me was about to get very real. I had developed diverticulitis and the internal damage had cause my colon to burst. You know that face you’re pulling right now, imagine how I was feeling!

Afterwards, as my physical health was starting to improve, my mental health was deteriorating. The sheer shock of what had transpired had a massive impact on me and my family. I’d also recently lost my only uncle and my beloved dog. On top of that my wife and I had become parents just two months earlier, so life as I knew it was unrecognisable. My head was struggling to keep up.

‘I didn’t seek help, but I needed it’

I don’t mind admitting that I didn’t cope with having a colostomy bag very well. I didn’t cope with it physically or mentally. I felt weak against those who live with one all the time and seem to manage just fine. All I know was that I couldn’t…and I didn’t. I became withdrawn from my family and friends and I became easily irritable. I was embarrassed and ashamed, but I wouldn’t talk about it. It’s not what men do is it. I wouldn’t seek help because I didn’t realise, or maybe accept, I needed it. But I did. Oh boy did I!

Even after the operation was reversed a year later, I could still feel the bag on my skin, I could still smell it in the air, I could still see it under my clothes, even when it clearly wasn’t there. It began to haunt my dreams, night after night. I began a blog to help me cope. I’ve always loved to write and so, to help myself make sense of things, I began to document my thoughts to try and understand why I felt like that. Could the internet help me understand what I couldn’t? Gradually that blog grew, it attracted more followers and then….it died. Well it didn’t die, but it certainly went into a coma for a while. Until this year when it was reborn, not solely as a blog, but a website devoted to men and mental health called Men Tell Health. See what I did there?

Men Tell Health is designed to be different. There are many great sites out there when it comes to mental health, but they all seem to look the same way and they all talk about an admittedly difficult subject in the same way, but the thing is, we’re all different, so we are trying to do something different.

I want to help those men who, like me, go through life fighting the good fight, keeping that ‘stiff upper lip’ and stubbornly refusing to accept they have a problem. Men? Stubborn? I know, right!

The fact is life is a pain in the arse at times. As people, never mind as men, we’re simply not designed to cope with everything life can through at us. We simply are not. Sooner or later, something is going to break and asking for help is not a matter of pride or weakness, it’s a matter of fact.

I said at the beginning that something has to change and the site is here to try and stimulate that change. It’s not arrogant enough to believe it has all the answers, but if you’re looking for information and signposts to people who can help you, or to explain mental illness in a way that delivers knowledge and humour, with just a touch of honesty, it’s a good place to start.

Do you want to make preventing male suicide a national health priority? To help raise awareness about this emergency join the International Men’s Day social media shout out by clicking here

Are shaming men for weakness, suicide and resistance to International Men’s Day connected?

by 9 Comments

The increasing problem of male suicide has been in the news a lot in recent weeks.  Across all the articles that have been written on the subject, one word keeps re-appearing: “shame”.

For example, we hear that men feel ashamed of expressing their emotions and we are reassured that there should be no shame in experiencing depression.  Shame is mentioned often but rarely is it properly examined.  Shame, by its very nature, is something that we do not want to discuss.  As a man who is recovering from mental health problems and who has struggled with suicidal thoughts in the past, I have had to face up to shame and discuss it in detail.  It has been a painful and at time’s frightening process but one that has been key to my recovery.

I think that we, as a society, need to start having a discussion about shame and the dark places that it can lead to when people’s feelings of shame get out of control.  When we look at the problem of male suicide and men’s mental health in general, we need to look at how our society sets up young men to experience potentially unmanageable levels of shame and we need to work together to build a society where this is no longer the case.

Profoundly frightening

Shame is an incredibly complicated emotion and I’m not a psychologist so my input here will be very limited.  My aim is only to share my own experience of shame, my reflections on it and how I am reducing its negative influence on my life in the hope that my story will help others and will do something to bring the problem of male shame to the forefront of the discussion.

When shame really takes hold of you it’s a profoundly frightening and painful experience.  It’s the sense that you are deeply flawed.  It’s a nagging voice that tells you that you are not clever enough, not strong enough, not attractive enough, not charismatic enough, not capable enough.  It’s the feeling that makes you sink into despair or lash out when something reminds you of how flawed you feel.  It’s the sense that you are bad, worthless and unlovable and there’s nothing that you can do about it. Your basic human need to be loved and accepted feels like a sick joke.

You don’t talk about how you are feeling not because you find it embarrassing or uncomfortable or don’t want to make a fuss, but because you feel that your entire sense of self will disintegrate if you fully acknowledge how you feel about yourself.  You can’t grow or develop yourself because it’s too painful to acknowledge even your slightest imperfection.  To fail at something is so painful that you can’t learn from your mistakes.

You certainly can’t ask for help.  If anyone notices you are struggling and offers help then they have effectively pointed out your imperfections and so you will push them away.  You spend long, exhausting hours chasing your thoughts in circles trying to build some sense of self-worth.   If you made a mistake you can’t let it go so you try to convince yourself that it was because you were distracted or weren’t really interested in what you were doing anyway since you had more important things to do.  If someone didn’t like you then you try to convince yourself that they’re an [insert expletive here] anyway.

‘Society sets boys and men up to feel shame in a particularly destructive way’

You might look for shortcuts to achieve something that would prove to yourself that you are wonderful really but each shortcut leads nowhere – it’s another failure that fuels that nagging voice telling you that you really are hopelessly flawed after all.   A life lived like that is incredibly painful so you start to look for escape.  Escape can take the form of fantasy, perhaps of being the unflawed person that you think you must be or the fantasy of being loved in a way that would make the pain of being you go away.  Escape can take the form of zoning out in front of the TV, drinking until you aren’t aware of your feelings anymore or any number of ultimately unhealthy activities.  In extreme cases, escape can take the form of suicide.

Of course, women as well as men can feel like that so why do I say that shame is a particularly important topic when we’re look at men’s mental health?  It’s because society sets boys and men up to feel shame in a particularly destructive way.  Our society has, quite rightly, spent much time and effort sending girls and women the message that they can be strong, capable and successful.  We have, however missed the fact that we have kept on sending boys and men the messages that they must always be strong, capable and successful.

The first of these messages is helpful and empowering, the second is potentially disastrous since it sets boys up from a very young age to have unrealistic expectations of themselves which can lead them to feel unhealthy levels of shame when they are unable to live up to those expectations.  And this shame will be reinforced by those around them.  Boys will be bullied if they are not always strong, men will be dismissed as “losers” if they are not always capable and successful.

‘We need to foster empathy for men’

Even in the way that society seems to value boys, it doesn’t get it right.  Boys are too often seen as little potential doctors, lawyers, businessmen or sports stars to be.  This may look like encouragement and support but when it gets in the way of seeing boys as children, it can become positively harmful and stops them from growing and learning.  A father’s shame of failing to live up to the unrealistic expectations placed on him can be passed on in the form of unrealistic hopes and dreams for his son – shame masquerading as nurturing.

We miss all of this because we have assumed that because the messages that girls received from society for so many generations were disempowering, then all of the messages that boys received from society must have been empowering.  It is because people cannot see past this assumption that they react with confusion, silence or mockery when boys start to fail at school and men’s mental health suffers.

When people talk about the “fragile male ego” they usually don’t realise that they are actually talking about the consequences that men suffer from having grown up in a world that feels almost designed to induce shame in them.

Psychologists will tell you that a key tool in combatting unhealthy shame is empathy.  Empathy is when people understand your pain, accept you as you are and help to create an environment in which you can learn to accept yourself and realise that you are ok despite your imperfections.

Phrases like “fragile male ego” and comments like “we don’t need an international men’s day because every day seems like one” are unhelpful precisely because they contribute to a culture where there is little empathy for men.  It’s my hope that we can use International Men’s Day 2015 as an opportunity to rebuild some of that empathy for men and start to heal the epidemic of male shame.

Dealing with my unhealthy levels of shame has changed my life.  Not all of my problems have gone away but without the influence of shame, I can now identify those problems and work on them, try things and fail, learn from my mistakes and grow, relax and enjoy life and connect with others in a way that I was never able to before.

The author is an aspiring blogger with a particular interest in mental health, culture and how the two interact.  He was inspired to take the leap and start putting his thoughts out there by the recent discussions about International Men’s Day. As a man who is recovering from mental health issues himself, he is especially interested in how culture interacts with mental health for men in modern day western society. He hopes that by sharing his personal experience and reflections he will be able to contribute to the discussion and encourage others in their journey towards recovery.  He also enjoys film, music, socialising, hiking and he has recently learned to enjoy the gym and keeping fit. He also loves dogs.

Do you want to make preventing male suicide a national health priority? To help raise awareness about this emergency join the International Men’s Day social media shout out by clicking here