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The state of masculinity (and other things)

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Paul Howell has many years experience of “men’s work”. Here he offers his reflections on, amongst other things, the current state of masculinity.

—This is article #94 in our series of #100Voices4Men and boys 

My friend Glen keeps hassling me for an article for the #100Voices4Men  series. I admire Glen, he’s an intelligent, stubborn and relentless man, leaning into a complex and messy arena, but I sometimes wonder why he bothers. What’s the point of gender politics?

I’m more often confused and frustrated by the lack of genuine debate than I am inspired by what can often seem like the man vs. woman vs. man vs. woman merry-go-round. For me, the term Man refers to someone who has made a sustained effort to carve his values from experience and walks a line somewhere between humility, wisdom and curiosity and has by some miracle, managed to retain enough vitality and a discerning vision to do some lasting good with what’s left.

My contributions to the conversation have been formed at the coal face of what is often referred to as ‘men’s work’, over the past 8 years. I’d like to be reporting back with some good news…unfortunately that seems to be illusive. Regarding the fate of humanity the great illuminator Carl Jung was ‘not optimistic’, neither was Freud. Dr Robert Moore, the grandfather of the men’s movement and a Jungian, who’s life’s work has distilled the core archetypal structures of the masculine psyche / soul (King, Warrior, Lover, Magician) will only say that he is not a despairing man, preferring hope and the hard work of awakening.

My personal journey started running a small men’s group, and moved personally and professionally into working with culture change in classically gender biased organisations, for example, the fire service, the police and engineering companies.

Through time with Moore, reading and listening to untold volumes of Jungian and other depth psychology texts, mythology, my own therapy and parallel explorations, working with abandofbrothers, attending The ManKind Project (MKP) New Warrior Initiation and being part of an MKP men’s group…

I naively attempted to set up the UK version of Boys to Men, which later became JourneymanUK (JMUK). Over 4 years I developed the USA boys to men material and delivered dozens of ‘man’ weekend intensives including the JMUK Rite of Passage Adventure Weekend and its associated mentoring circles for boys and men.

In addition to this my 1:1 client base has been consistently 50% male over 13 years.

The following is a summary of what I have learned so far…

The State of Masculinity 

Masculinity is adrift – rudderless and largely impotent in the face of manic passivity and denial. It has taken a blow to the solar plexus and is struggling to raise a meaningful heart felt and coherent response to the critical nature of our shared global ills. Stuck in a narcissistic trance, masculinity is spiralling down; cut away from its capacity for empathy, it’s failing to counter endemic political corruption and the daylight robbery (a phrase derived from 1690 and Tyrant King William III who taxed people based on the number of windows in their house) of true democracy which has long ago taken place.

The fatal blow to masculinity came through chronic shame, developmental and acute traumas accumulated over generations of war and the daily struggle to survive.  Beginning with the industrial revolution; we have been plotting our demise with great fervour ever since. Comfortably numb, we have simply lost touch of what is not just of utmost importance but now also urgent; our human connection to each other and our utter dependence on each other and the earth.

Masculinity, with a capital ‘M’ was dethroned; usurped, most recently by the shadow magicians of the corporate world and their shareholders who deny filling the trough with ungracious entitlements whilst systematically brainwashing future generations with the empty and destructive values of capitalism.

By replacing Justice with mere law and any kind of generative Realm with mere organisational and institutional power, we are deconstructing the psychosocial frameworks on which humanity depends.

On the side lines, religious fundamentalism opposes new age spirituality and somewhere in the distance the good earth faces the imminent catastrophic and systemic collapse of its (our) ecosystem; a fact we seem happy to remain ignorant of.

If mature masculinity is supposed to enable men to be stewards, protectors and servant leaders of noble communities and creative cultures we seem to have lost our way somewhere.

And this is nothing but a commentary on humans: all humans! We are all culpable, however, if denial is what you’re after – good news! The number of dissociative and numbing distractions are growing in direct proportion to the size of the problems we face. That’s how denial functions – until it doesn’t. When denial (the secrets we don’t know we are keeping through the active suppression of the facts by parts of the psyche that would rather not know or may indeed not be capable of dealing with the truth ) is illuminated, it presents as a crisis.

To read part two of this article see: Gender Roles – the primary task 

—Picture credit: Perspective 

Paul Howell offers personal coaching and counselling, training and facilitation, and workshops for men at Clarity Coaching.

You can find all of the #100Voices4Men articles that will be published in the run up to International Men’s Day 2014 by clicking on this link—#100Voices4Men—and follow the discussion on twitter by searching for #100Voices4Men.

The views expressed in these articles are not the views of insideMAN editorial team. Whether you agree with the views expressed in this article or not we invite you to take take part in this important discussion, our only request is that you express yourself in a way that ensures everyone’s voice can be heard.

You can join the #100Voices4Men discussion by commenting below; by following us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook or by emailing insideMANeditor@gmail.com. 

So how could it be different?

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Part 4 of 4….so, how could it be different? What do we do? Simply this: a wise man once said ‘do what you can with what you have where you are’.

Initially, get directly involved in any way you are able with your own self development. Be discerning; you will meet many people with ‘good advice’–trust your intuition around what feels right for you, don’t stay anywhere that feels off to you. Read a book, go to a talk, watch a film, go to a workshop. Pay attention to your environment and be compassionately self-reflective, think about how you feel (that stuff happens in that thing below your neck!) about the world around you and let your responses guide you forward. Trust yourself.

After a while, when you have a good sense of where you are and what you need, look for like-minded people. Maybe you can mentor teenagers, maybe you want to join a community garden initiative, maybe you want to share your creative talents with a group, maybe you want to befriend someone, and in each case, listening is a good skill to have and usually the best thing to do! Try a few things out.

Learn about boundaries yours and others. Be affirming of yourself and others. Be vulnerable, take risks to connect and listen to the opinions of others, even perhaps about you. Challenge anything you feel is unhealthy, sign as many online petitions as you feel moved to. They do make a difference. Switch off your TV, think about what you watch / play / spend money on.

The most potent places of intervention are educational establishments –if you can work to influence those along the lines of Ken Robinson’s wonderful TED Talk. Connect with Nature, your nature and the earth’s. There is intelligence there beyond your current understanding, I can promise you that.

And, above all, try hard to move beyond your personal ideas of gender, of the limits you place on yourself and others. These are constructed social ideas that are increasingly obsolete. We need a new way, we have done for about 800 years. There are many wonderful ideas out there but most of them are solving problems that were obsolete a decade ago, such is the rate of change now upon us.

One of the major problems we face as a species (whatever our preferred gender identifications!) is that we are overwhelmed by the size and number of issues we are exposed to; defining the problem is a problem itself. I’d suggest anything that enhances esteem, connects individuals and groups of all ages to each other and the earth and actively opposes institutional abuse of human moral values is a good thing to do. Good but not easy. Waiting for someone else to give you permission, invite you or show you the way is passive and unnecessary. Act as if your life depends on it…it almost certainly does.

And, seeing as it was supposed to be a gender piece about men –men do listen to other men; if young men see you doing the above, they will follow your lead. In fact, they will follow your lead whatever you are doing, so wise up. Affirm young men whenever you can, itis likely they are waiting just for that- your attention and blessing. Tell them they count. Don’t fake it, they will know. Be sincere; what you say is not as important as where it comes from. A few words can really change someone’s life, or at least their day. Women ditto for each other and young girls. And never ever shame anyone, even in jest… especially yourself!

‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world;

indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.’

Margaret Mead’

 Paul Howell offers personal coaching and counselling, training and facilitation, and workshops for men at Clarity Coaching.

Gender Roles – the primary task

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Part 2 of 4….So what about gender roles? I didn’t get into men’s work for men or boys; I did it for myself. I knew from a young age that something was not quite as it might have been for the men in my life and it has been my personal quest to make sense of the discord that led me to this.

It is without exception the masculine aspect of the collective psyche that is acting out detrimentally to the greater degree and with far more risk of negative consequences than would be produced by the equal and opposite force in the feminine.

It is the masculine soul that needs healing MOST. It didn’t matter where I went: MKP, ABOB, Boys to Men / JMUK…my experiences in the corporate arena or with private clients – pathologically adolescent masculinity is dominant. In places where one would hope to find respite the walk never matched the talk. The process of maturation in men seems arrested regardless of where I went.

The MKP rhetoric focuses on men not having to compete or prove themselves to each other, but rather to strive to compete with themselves to become ‘good’ men. this only seemed to drive to the surface high levels of shame, a lack of deep self-worth and underlined the apparent absence of belief in the essential goodness of the masculine soul.

The single common fact shared amongst the men in these circles, almost without exception,was an inability for men to authentically bless other men…I do not mean simply affirm someone else’s behaviour, I mean to see what is unique and ‘golden’ and assert the gifts inherent in another man’s simple authentic presence.

This competition theme runs deep in men. It arises from the adolescent hard wiring of the ‘hero’ archetype and will seek the marshalling it needs until it finds it or it will implode (see suicide stats for men) hopefully in healthy forms that contain and affirm it rather than dominate it or worse, ignore it.

This is what fully developed rites of passage do – locate a person psychologically within themselves, their community and their environment. Without this process we drift indefinitely in the adolescent stage of development: ‘me’ rather than ‘we’.

Belonging is the greatest human need and as men we struggle for it. And yet defining ones sense of identity from outside oneself is not something people at adult stage development do. Adult identity has come to its centre of gravity within the individuals own value structures. Recognised in a deep embodied felt sense of security, connection and self worth, a mature adult would be able to tolerate being judged and have faith that ‘I’ will not suffer a catastrophic collapse of identity.

This deep life affirming felt sense is something that chronic shame will not allow. Rather, a shamed person clings on even more fervently to the rules and suddenly, if they are stretched and you are not sufficiently internally resilient you have a cult in the making. This way only…!

Expressed in subtle and often almost imperceptible ways and brilliantly masked by protocols and procedures, symptoms of developmental trauma lurk close to the surface amongst many men. Any man who didn’t receive adequate nurturing during primary developmental stages will be compensating – running too hot or too cold in key life areas: workaholism, porn addiction, passivity… etc.

A paralysing fear of being perceived as ‘weak’ passes on implicit messages about ‘what men do’: essentially, withhold genuine affection, do not express vulnerability or sincere appreciation, avoid healthy conflict (a function of shame), whilst instead positively affirm anything that comes from within the current ‘safe & known’ paradigm and often decline to engage with anything from outside or do so simply to deny that ideas from ‘outside’ have potential value.

To read part three of this article see: Shaming and Blessing 

Paul Howell offers personal coaching and counselling, training and facilitation, and workshops for men at Clarity Coaching.