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.

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