I was reading an article recently in the Smithsonian Magazine which pointed out that much of scientific research is predicated on a pre-existing assumption that researchers make -- and want to prove. The scientists often gather evidence that proves their assumption, and ignore evidence that proves the contrary or even proves something else entirely, not related to the focus of the research. As a result, many 'breakthrough' scientific discoveries are ignored for many years, because the outcomes don't match those that the researchers are looking for. In other words "you see what you want to see and ignore anything to the contrary."
All of us have grown up in societies which have cultural expectations that are 'bred' into us. We believe certain 'truths' because our parents say they're true, our friends agree, we read books that buttress our assumptions, and the society around sometimes is in agreement as well. Then, having spent an enormous amount of emotional capital on believing something is 'true', we either ignore evidence that contradicts our belief system, or, even more importantly, fail to ask questions in such a way that will elicit perspectives that might move our perception of reality in a completely different direction.
This is the focus of this week's blog, and a subject I will return to often. In particular, this week I want to talk about our cultural assumptions, and the expectations they lead to, around sexual abuse perpetration and victimization.
Many people in our American culture, including mental health and social service providers, are indoctrinated with two societal 'beliefs': that a certain cohort of men, when they have experienced trauma in their own childhood, will later sexually 'act out' abusive behaviors toward women and children, but that women, generally, given the same set of similar traumatic experiences, are not likely to do so. As a society, we tend to believe men capable of this because they're bigger, generally stronger, and 'lack empathy' (due to not being able to express their emotions), but that women, since they are 'good mothers', 'nurturing people', and 'always have the interests of children and families foremost in their minds', are incapable of this kind of behavior.
The first cultural expectation I want to address is that, in sexual relations between adult males and females, if anyone is going to 'act out' in an abusive manner, it is simply assumed, a priori, to be the males.
Traditionally, in surveys on heterosexual relationships, questionnaires about perpetration are given to males and questionnaires about victimization are given to females. And, given our cultural 'blinders', based upon pre-existing cultural assumptions about male and female behavior, sure enough the 'evidence' 'proves' that the cultural expectation is accurate: males are the perpetrators and females are the victims. However, a number of years ago, a thoughtful group of psychologists asked "What if the outcomes are predicated primarily upon our pre-existing assumptions? And if we ask the questions using quite a different methodology, would we obtain different results?" So this group (as outlined in the study Sexually Aggressive Women by Peter Anderson and Cindy Struckman-Johnson) gave perpetrator questionnaires to females and victimization questionnaires to males. And, lo and behold, it turned out that, in some adult heterosexual relationships, females were the perpetrators of sexual abuse and males the victims, to a statistically significant degree. Given that our society, in the past 30 years, has allowed women a greater degree of 'sexual freedom' and greater economic security in professional employment, it should not be surprising that some women have chosen to 'act out' sexually in the same abusive predatory manner that they have observed men engaging in. Or, maybe, this was occurring long before the era of 'sexual freedom', but nobody ever thought to ask the questions in this manner.
The second cultural expectation I want to address is the assumption that, as a result of women's greater socialized capacity for childcare and the social allowance for being 'more in touch' with their inner emotional life -- partly, as the assumption goes, as a result of having a 'natural maternal instinct' -- such socialization predisposes them to not act out in a sexually abusive manner toward children. However, in contrast to this expectation, as Michelle Elliot points out in Female Sexual Abuse of Children, more in-depth and extensive research has shown that as much as 30% of the sexual abuse of children is perpetrated by females [and this figure may itself be too low, given that children often feel that reporting such behavior will be unsupported by adults or the legal and mental health system].
Now, this is not to 'blame women' nor allow the burden of male perpetration to be less noticeable; far from it. The sexual abuse of children by either sex is a horrible and intensely traumatic event. But, as a result of our pre-existing cultural assumptions and expectations, this statistical percentage often makes people aghast with incredulity. "No, it's only men who sexually abuse children!" Not so.
What is so amazing about that incredulity is that, given the greater number of females who were, themselves, sexually abused as children, objectively it should not really surprise anyone that some females, without sufficient and competent intervention, would 'act out' their sexual trauma on others around them. After all, it is well documented that at least 1 out of 5 girls and 1 out of 7 boys are sexually abused as children. Further, given that women continue to be the primary caregivers of children, it is not surprising that some of those females will perpetrate sexual abuse on defenseless children, much as was done to them when they were children. [It should be noted that 85-90% of female and male victims of sexual child abuse do not become perpetrators; we are focusing here on those that do.]
I stressed last week that the cultural denial of male victimization was serving males poorly; I would note that the denial, by our society, of female perpetration, is also serving females poorly. Most of the social service agencies focus on females as victims, thereby ignoring male victims, and focus on males as perpetrators, thereby ignoring female perpetrators. Hence, funding cycles of health foundations and social service delivery systems concentrate on what they perceive to be true based upon their cultural expectations, and thereby fail to address services to those clientele that don't fit within the boundaries of that belief system. By doing so, they, much like the society in which they exist, deny the full spectrum of perpetration and victimization.
Monday, September 27, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Refusing To Accept That Men Can Be Victims
I concluded last week's blog with a statement that, given how our culture trains males from infancy forward to 'not display' their emotions on pain of "not being a man", blaming males for displaying a limited range of emotions was a bit like 'blaming the victim'. I concluded with that statement for two reasons: both because I believe it is accurate, and as a segue to this week's blog on how our society refuses to accept that men can be victims.
We have a culture which has little difficulty viewing females or infants as 'victims' -- when they have been victimized by others -- but, in contrast, has a very difficult time allowing males to be viewed as victims. Now, I'm not pointing this out to further wallow in 'victim culture'. My concept of men's emotional wellness is focused on seeking a solution to deep-seated cultural and psychological dysfunction, not driving the problem even deeper. But it is also true that in order to receive empathy for the harm that is done to an individual, one must be allowed to be seen, at times, as a victim of others' behaviors or of the circumstances ['stuff happens'] of life. Our patriarchal culture is singularly unwilling and/or unable to display that empathy toward males. The message is that boys and adult males, in order "to be men", need to 'tough it up', 'display courage', and 'be a warrior in the face of adversity'.
The problem with this cultural imperative, though, is that certain categories of trauma -- such as childhood sexual, physical, and psychological abuse, rape, warfare, domestic violence, severe physical injury from working in one of the 'death professions' [mining, structural steel construction, fire fighting, garbage collection, etc.], being the recipient of the violent behavior of others -- result in such severe psychological and physical impairment that such an injunction does not do justice to the individual experiencing the trauma. Males who experience these crises -- and fail to have access to sufficient social service or mental health service interventions -- often experience lives that are profoundly negatively affected by poor relationships and marriages, high rates of alcoholism and drug abuse, employment-related deficiencies, poor emotional boundaries, and a host of other negative psychological and medical outcomes.
Males can be (and about 16% of the males in our society are) sexually abused and raped as children, or raped as adults (such as in abusive gay encounters or in prison). They can experience severe psychological and/or physical disabilities due to warfare. They can be on the receiving end of rage generated by their female or male partners in domestic violence situations. A large percentage of boys experience physical beatings as children. In all of these situations males are the victims of other people's brutality. Yet, we have a culture which does not willingly accept 'the reality of such victimization', and this denial is directed at males by other men, by women, and by men toward themselves. The result of this cultural denial is that men are unable or unwilling to 'reach out' and seek effective intervention for their issues.
On the other hand, if a man does have the courage (and, in my estimation, this is true courage) to reach out and seek help, such help is rarely available. In a society that has had mental health services for females and children [though insufficient], at least in the past 30 years, there have been and continue to be almost no mental health or social service agency assistance for issues related to male victimization. The excuse is that "men wouldn't access such services even if they were available"; but it is difficult to ascertain whether this is true because such services are so rare in the first place.
As an example, a prominent health foundation here in Missouri does not have any funding that addresses the issues of males [though there are many funding categories for issues faced by women and children], and hence no funding for the issues faced by, for instance, adult male sexual abuse survivors, or male victims of domestic violence. (It is important to note, though, that this foundation is hardly unusual in this regard; this gender-based bias is widespread in corporate and foundation funding.) And while social service agencies exist that address a multitude of issues faced by women and children, there exist few social service delivery systems for the psychological issues faced by males, except those that are homeless, on parole, or are veterans of military conflict [and even those are insufficiently funded].
Providing assistance only to women and children is not only unfair, but also addresses only one side of the gender equation. The progressive advancements and outcomes for females in this country, so important to the feminist improvement of the lives of women during the past 30 years, will be limited if we, as a society, fail to bring men along on the road to changed and improved outcomes.
If we, as a society, continue our pattern of refusing to accept that men can be victims, and deny that such males need competent, well-funded mental health intervention and assistance, those males who have been victimized will continue to experience the trauma perpetrated upon them, either as children or as adults, without access to effective solutions to their PTSD-related issues. This continued denial will not only affect the positive life outcomes for these men, but will continue to have a deleterious effect on their intimate and familial relationships, their work life, and the lives of men, women, and children who interact with -- and attempt to love -- them.
We have a culture which has little difficulty viewing females or infants as 'victims' -- when they have been victimized by others -- but, in contrast, has a very difficult time allowing males to be viewed as victims. Now, I'm not pointing this out to further wallow in 'victim culture'. My concept of men's emotional wellness is focused on seeking a solution to deep-seated cultural and psychological dysfunction, not driving the problem even deeper. But it is also true that in order to receive empathy for the harm that is done to an individual, one must be allowed to be seen, at times, as a victim of others' behaviors or of the circumstances ['stuff happens'] of life. Our patriarchal culture is singularly unwilling and/or unable to display that empathy toward males. The message is that boys and adult males, in order "to be men", need to 'tough it up', 'display courage', and 'be a warrior in the face of adversity'.
The problem with this cultural imperative, though, is that certain categories of trauma -- such as childhood sexual, physical, and psychological abuse, rape, warfare, domestic violence, severe physical injury from working in one of the 'death professions' [mining, structural steel construction, fire fighting, garbage collection, etc.], being the recipient of the violent behavior of others -- result in such severe psychological and physical impairment that such an injunction does not do justice to the individual experiencing the trauma. Males who experience these crises -- and fail to have access to sufficient social service or mental health service interventions -- often experience lives that are profoundly negatively affected by poor relationships and marriages, high rates of alcoholism and drug abuse, employment-related deficiencies, poor emotional boundaries, and a host of other negative psychological and medical outcomes.
Males can be (and about 16% of the males in our society are) sexually abused and raped as children, or raped as adults (such as in abusive gay encounters or in prison). They can experience severe psychological and/or physical disabilities due to warfare. They can be on the receiving end of rage generated by their female or male partners in domestic violence situations. A large percentage of boys experience physical beatings as children. In all of these situations males are the victims of other people's brutality. Yet, we have a culture which does not willingly accept 'the reality of such victimization', and this denial is directed at males by other men, by women, and by men toward themselves. The result of this cultural denial is that men are unable or unwilling to 'reach out' and seek effective intervention for their issues.
On the other hand, if a man does have the courage (and, in my estimation, this is true courage) to reach out and seek help, such help is rarely available. In a society that has had mental health services for females and children [though insufficient], at least in the past 30 years, there have been and continue to be almost no mental health or social service agency assistance for issues related to male victimization. The excuse is that "men wouldn't access such services even if they were available"; but it is difficult to ascertain whether this is true because such services are so rare in the first place.
As an example, a prominent health foundation here in Missouri does not have any funding that addresses the issues of males [though there are many funding categories for issues faced by women and children], and hence no funding for the issues faced by, for instance, adult male sexual abuse survivors, or male victims of domestic violence. (It is important to note, though, that this foundation is hardly unusual in this regard; this gender-based bias is widespread in corporate and foundation funding.) And while social service agencies exist that address a multitude of issues faced by women and children, there exist few social service delivery systems for the psychological issues faced by males, except those that are homeless, on parole, or are veterans of military conflict [and even those are insufficiently funded].
Providing assistance only to women and children is not only unfair, but also addresses only one side of the gender equation. The progressive advancements and outcomes for females in this country, so important to the feminist improvement of the lives of women during the past 30 years, will be limited if we, as a society, fail to bring men along on the road to changed and improved outcomes.
If we, as a society, continue our pattern of refusing to accept that men can be victims, and deny that such males need competent, well-funded mental health intervention and assistance, those males who have been victimized will continue to experience the trauma perpetrated upon them, either as children or as adults, without access to effective solutions to their PTSD-related issues. This continued denial will not only affect the positive life outcomes for these men, but will continue to have a deleterious effect on their intimate and familial relationships, their work life, and the lives of men, women, and children who interact with -- and attempt to love -- them.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Males, As A Sex, Are Not Suffering From Alexithymia
I'm continually talking to people and reading articles and books that purport to have evidence that males are incapable of expressing their emotions, that they're just 'shut down', and that others, especially their intimate partners, have a difficult time 'breaking through' the wall of silence. I especially hear this complaint from females who are involved in heterosexual relationships with men, and from more empathic males who are involved in gay relationships. "I try to get him to talk about his deeper feelings, about what is bothering him, and about the intimacy between us, but he just clams up and refuses to talk to me. It's like talking to a wall."
The inference is that somehow males can't talk about their emotions, as though they are suffering from some organic problem. But when one steps back from the individual experience and looks at the larger cultural socialization processes, it's hardly surprising that many men behave this way. We live in a society that teaches males from infancy to not feel, and especially to not feel pain (or at least not have the audacity to express pain if they do feel it). Males are socialized from early childhood to stuff their emotions, to treat emotions as an alien mental process, and to see the expression of emotions (other than anger) as 'girlish stuff'. While females are encouraged to openly express their emotions - to in fact delight in the expression of a whole range of emotions - and therefore learn the 'language of feelings', boys are given quite a different message. And the result is that, as boys grow to adulthood, they are told thousands of times by peers, parents, older adults, movies, and the media, that "being a man" is all about not expressing 'feelings' [other than anger, which is the one 'feeling' allowed to them].
When I give presentations on men's emotional wellness, I often ask the women present what their experience is with men in dating and marriages. By and large, the immediate reaction is that no matter how much they encourage their partners to 'open up' emotionally, the effort is mostly wasted (from the standpoint of the women, anyway). I then ask if any of them have male children. I ask what happens when their male children get into a fight or fall down and injure themselves, and start to cry. Many of the women invariably say they tell the boys to "stop crying and be a man" or "stop crying and be a big boy". And then I make a connection between those two situations, of their relations between themselves and adult males and their upbringing of their male children. I note that, when we say to young boys to "stop crying and be a man", what we are really saying to them is "stuff your painful emotions and don't feel the pain that naturally arises when we are injured." We (both female and male adults) continually relay that message to boys as they grow up, with the added injunction that by stuffing those emotions, they will successfully 'become men'. So, then I say to the women "If you don't want your daughters, when they grow up and date males, to have the same problems with 'silent men', stop suppressing the emotions of your sons."
When I mention this to my female colleagues, they often retort that many females nowadays actively encourage their male partners to "express their deeper emotions", and 'work alongside them' in that process. But there are ample anecdotal stories (some told to me by other males) that when the men start talking about their deep inner emotions - and especially the painful, often traumatic, ones - their female partners quickly back away from active support of such a process and suddenly express negative feelings about their male partners continuing to express such emotions "because you're not being a man anymore."
The writer bell hooks discusses this dilemma in her book The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (a book about which I've written a review that is posted on the MMWI website, under 'Men's Emotional Wellness'). In her relationship with her intimate partner, she actively encouraged him - as she was taught to do as a 'liberated feminist' - to express his inner emotions. But when he started expressing feelings that ran contrary to her deeper socialization as a woman who expected a man to protect her, she quickly squashed that expression. When her male partner pointed out the contradiction, she realized she had a 'walk your talk' paradox on her hands. She realized that there was a definite contradiction between women asking men to 'open up emotionally' and then not being able to handle the painful emotions that often arise when men engage in that process. This was due to women's 'older' socialized expectations suddenly arising, and their worrying that their partners were 'no longer acting like men' - quite paradoxical impulses.
One of my favorite "Sylvia" cartoons has the female character saying to her girlfriend "someday every man in America is going to start talking about his deeper emotions", and then the next cartoon block says "...and women are going to wonder why they ever asked." It's hardly an easy paradox to solve. Both males and females are raised and socialized in a culture that has gender expectations of either sex, and in spite of our modern 'feminist challenge' to those historical cultural limitations, often the 'traditional' expectations about gender role behavior trump the more 'enlightened' ones.
Men, as a sex, do not suffer from alexithymia (excepting sociopaths, mentally disturbed individuals, and those suffering from PTSD). Rather, they are raised in a culture that actively encourages them to 'not express' their feelings and fails to teach them 'the language of feelings' that many females have been encouraged to express. Until the larger culture understands the effect that their training and gender expectations have upon men, labeling males as incapable of expressing emotions falls in the category of 'blaming the victim'.
The inference is that somehow males can't talk about their emotions, as though they are suffering from some organic problem. But when one steps back from the individual experience and looks at the larger cultural socialization processes, it's hardly surprising that many men behave this way. We live in a society that teaches males from infancy to not feel, and especially to not feel pain (or at least not have the audacity to express pain if they do feel it). Males are socialized from early childhood to stuff their emotions, to treat emotions as an alien mental process, and to see the expression of emotions (other than anger) as 'girlish stuff'. While females are encouraged to openly express their emotions - to in fact delight in the expression of a whole range of emotions - and therefore learn the 'language of feelings', boys are given quite a different message. And the result is that, as boys grow to adulthood, they are told thousands of times by peers, parents, older adults, movies, and the media, that "being a man" is all about not expressing 'feelings' [other than anger, which is the one 'feeling' allowed to them].
When I give presentations on men's emotional wellness, I often ask the women present what their experience is with men in dating and marriages. By and large, the immediate reaction is that no matter how much they encourage their partners to 'open up' emotionally, the effort is mostly wasted (from the standpoint of the women, anyway). I then ask if any of them have male children. I ask what happens when their male children get into a fight or fall down and injure themselves, and start to cry. Many of the women invariably say they tell the boys to "stop crying and be a man" or "stop crying and be a big boy". And then I make a connection between those two situations, of their relations between themselves and adult males and their upbringing of their male children. I note that, when we say to young boys to "stop crying and be a man", what we are really saying to them is "stuff your painful emotions and don't feel the pain that naturally arises when we are injured." We (both female and male adults) continually relay that message to boys as they grow up, with the added injunction that by stuffing those emotions, they will successfully 'become men'. So, then I say to the women "If you don't want your daughters, when they grow up and date males, to have the same problems with 'silent men', stop suppressing the emotions of your sons."
When I mention this to my female colleagues, they often retort that many females nowadays actively encourage their male partners to "express their deeper emotions", and 'work alongside them' in that process. But there are ample anecdotal stories (some told to me by other males) that when the men start talking about their deep inner emotions - and especially the painful, often traumatic, ones - their female partners quickly back away from active support of such a process and suddenly express negative feelings about their male partners continuing to express such emotions "because you're not being a man anymore."
The writer bell hooks discusses this dilemma in her book The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (a book about which I've written a review that is posted on the MMWI website, under 'Men's Emotional Wellness'). In her relationship with her intimate partner, she actively encouraged him - as she was taught to do as a 'liberated feminist' - to express his inner emotions. But when he started expressing feelings that ran contrary to her deeper socialization as a woman who expected a man to protect her, she quickly squashed that expression. When her male partner pointed out the contradiction, she realized she had a 'walk your talk' paradox on her hands. She realized that there was a definite contradiction between women asking men to 'open up emotionally' and then not being able to handle the painful emotions that often arise when men engage in that process. This was due to women's 'older' socialized expectations suddenly arising, and their worrying that their partners were 'no longer acting like men' - quite paradoxical impulses.
One of my favorite "Sylvia" cartoons has the female character saying to her girlfriend "someday every man in America is going to start talking about his deeper emotions", and then the next cartoon block says "...and women are going to wonder why they ever asked." It's hardly an easy paradox to solve. Both males and females are raised and socialized in a culture that has gender expectations of either sex, and in spite of our modern 'feminist challenge' to those historical cultural limitations, often the 'traditional' expectations about gender role behavior trump the more 'enlightened' ones.
Men, as a sex, do not suffer from alexithymia (excepting sociopaths, mentally disturbed individuals, and those suffering from PTSD). Rather, they are raised in a culture that actively encourages them to 'not express' their feelings and fails to teach them 'the language of feelings' that many females have been encouraged to express. Until the larger culture understands the effect that their training and gender expectations have upon men, labeling males as incapable of expressing emotions falls in the category of 'blaming the victim'.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
The Dilemma Males Face In The Era of Political Correctness
Everywhere one turns, nowadays, the current 'politically correct' gender message is that 'men are the problem'. In articles in newsstand publications, in professional journals, in cartoons in the daily newspaper, on greeting cards, at diversity conferences - everywhere one looks and listens, males are viewed as "the Problem that Can't Be Solved". After thousands of years of a patriarchal society looking down its nose at females and people from non-majority racial, ethnic, and sexual orientation groups, in the last 40 years the culture has taken an about-face and pointed the finger at "males" as 'everyone else's problem child'. We have been witness to a cultural shift that has replaced misogyny with misandry.
Now, let me be clear about my perspective as an executive director of a nonprofit focused on men's emotional wellness: I am not saying that men don't have problems. Far from it: males [at least, white heterosexual males] still control most of the levers of political power in the society at-large. Males, generally, continue to control the destiny of families (at least families where a male provider is present) - and, even when the family involved is not their own, believe they have the right to direct the social rights of families; such control is sometimes felt as being oppressive by women and children. Men constitute the majority of prison populations, have a much higher incidence of alcohol and illicit drug use than females, are responsible for most of the physical assaults on women and other men, and do most of the killing, both on the streets in urban settings and on the battlefield.
In addition to managing a nonprofit, I'm an antiracism trainer for the Anti-Defamation League's A World of Difference program. The perspective of that program is that white heterosexual males 'sit at the top of the power and privilege scale' and oppress pretty much everyone else. And largely I'm in agreement with this line of reasoning; white males in particular do indeed have a massive reservoir of unearned cultural entitlements. [For more on this, read Peggy McIntosh's essay White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.] As A white heterosexual male, I've become, from my education and training, very much aware of the racial and sexual privilege that I possess, whether I deserve it or not.
The other 'problem', though, is that by viewing "men as the problem", the society fails to consider that men have their own issues [not just that they are a problem for other groups]. And labeling males [and especially white heterosexual males] "as a problem", that females, transgender persons, and non-white groups can laugh about or discount, fails to work in the direction of solving any of those deep-seated emotional issues. Additionally, the more males are laughed at or treated as the butt of everyone else's ridicule, the more they become defensive and entrench themselves in the very dysfunctional behaviors that others want they to face [and which they need to face, if they are to be of benefit to themselves, their intimate partners, their families, or the larger society].
Males aren't 'organically' or 'genetically' predisposed to dysfunctional behaviors. The primary obstacle to their achieving positive mental health is the cultural socialization that the patriarchal society gives males [what John Stoltenberg, in The End of Manhood: A Book for Men of Conscience, terms the 'manhood construct']. And should we forget, we are all - males, females, and transgender persons - products of that patriarchal system and both beneficiaries and victims of it. One cannot be raised in a patriarchal system without 'buying into' the system, if only at an unconscious level [which may be in direct contradiction to ones conscious desire to move beyond or out of it]. This occurs in much the same way that one cannot be raised in a racist or sexist system without having a difficult time overcoming those in-bred racist or sexist ideas about the world around oneself, no matter how much one works, consciously, to dispense with those internalized messages.
From my perspective, men's emotional wellness is the 'path to the solution' to these self-defeating behaviors. Instead of shaming males for their behaviors [which any competent mental health professional knows is counter-productive and simply drives the dysfunctional behaviors deeper into ones psyche], men's emotional wellness teaches males how to move beyond the patriarchal socialization and into a world whereby they assist in the creation of a society where equality is the password. Men needn't be the 'oppressor', as long as they realize that 'the oppression of any one of us oppresses all of us'. This is a complex issue, and this week's blog is only a starting point for that discussion, with many more postings to follow. This is an effort to elucidate and educate others about issues faced by males. The 'solution orientation' of men's emotional wellness is the goal.
Now, let me be clear about my perspective as an executive director of a nonprofit focused on men's emotional wellness: I am not saying that men don't have problems. Far from it: males [at least, white heterosexual males] still control most of the levers of political power in the society at-large. Males, generally, continue to control the destiny of families (at least families where a male provider is present) - and, even when the family involved is not their own, believe they have the right to direct the social rights of families; such control is sometimes felt as being oppressive by women and children. Men constitute the majority of prison populations, have a much higher incidence of alcohol and illicit drug use than females, are responsible for most of the physical assaults on women and other men, and do most of the killing, both on the streets in urban settings and on the battlefield.
In addition to managing a nonprofit, I'm an antiracism trainer for the Anti-Defamation League's A World of Difference program. The perspective of that program is that white heterosexual males 'sit at the top of the power and privilege scale' and oppress pretty much everyone else. And largely I'm in agreement with this line of reasoning; white males in particular do indeed have a massive reservoir of unearned cultural entitlements. [For more on this, read Peggy McIntosh's essay White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.] As A white heterosexual male, I've become, from my education and training, very much aware of the racial and sexual privilege that I possess, whether I deserve it or not.
The other 'problem', though, is that by viewing "men as the problem", the society fails to consider that men have their own issues [not just that they are a problem for other groups]. And labeling males [and especially white heterosexual males] "as a problem", that females, transgender persons, and non-white groups can laugh about or discount, fails to work in the direction of solving any of those deep-seated emotional issues. Additionally, the more males are laughed at or treated as the butt of everyone else's ridicule, the more they become defensive and entrench themselves in the very dysfunctional behaviors that others want they to face [and which they need to face, if they are to be of benefit to themselves, their intimate partners, their families, or the larger society].
Males aren't 'organically' or 'genetically' predisposed to dysfunctional behaviors. The primary obstacle to their achieving positive mental health is the cultural socialization that the patriarchal society gives males [what John Stoltenberg, in The End of Manhood: A Book for Men of Conscience, terms the 'manhood construct']. And should we forget, we are all - males, females, and transgender persons - products of that patriarchal system and both beneficiaries and victims of it. One cannot be raised in a patriarchal system without 'buying into' the system, if only at an unconscious level [which may be in direct contradiction to ones conscious desire to move beyond or out of it]. This occurs in much the same way that one cannot be raised in a racist or sexist system without having a difficult time overcoming those in-bred racist or sexist ideas about the world around oneself, no matter how much one works, consciously, to dispense with those internalized messages.
From my perspective, men's emotional wellness is the 'path to the solution' to these self-defeating behaviors. Instead of shaming males for their behaviors [which any competent mental health professional knows is counter-productive and simply drives the dysfunctional behaviors deeper into ones psyche], men's emotional wellness teaches males how to move beyond the patriarchal socialization and into a world whereby they assist in the creation of a society where equality is the password. Men needn't be the 'oppressor', as long as they realize that 'the oppression of any one of us oppresses all of us'. This is a complex issue, and this week's blog is only a starting point for that discussion, with many more postings to follow. This is an effort to elucidate and educate others about issues faced by males. The 'solution orientation' of men's emotional wellness is the goal.
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