Helping Men Find Their Place in Building a Just and Pluralist America
I’m exploring three issue areas as I look for my next work. For the past few weeks, I’ve been having conversations with folks about each of them, and I’m blogging 1) as a method of thinking through the issues, and 2) to share the way I see things in case that’s helpful to you.
In this post, I’ll share what I’m thinking about helping men find purpose in building a more equal society.
Organizing men. This has been a difficult topic that leaves me conflicted.
The conflict stems from the implication that organizing a group gives people power. So any organizing effort targeted towards men empowers a group of people who unjustly have more than our fair share of power right now.
The fact is that men, especially white like me, are privileged. Historic legalized discrimination that granted white men more positions of power and greater wealth than any other group. But even setting that aside, we benefit from presumptions of default authority and competence in group settings.
The statistics are clear on the result of this: in the US, “women make 77 cents to every man’s dollar and occupy just 15% of upper management positions and less than 4% of CEO positions in Fortune 500 companies.”
So all of us who believe in fairness, justice, and equality put ourselves into balancing things back, and giving more political power to marginalized or disenfranchised groups.
But in the meantime, the political right has started a counter narrative: efforts to make a more equal society have gone too far and men are now alienated and oppressed.
Stat sheets like this one from the American Enterprise Institute are an example of the mainstream portion of this narrative.
Things get worse from there, on a sliding scale of marginal figures like Jordan Peterson to full-on extremists like Gavin McInnes.
What they all have in common is they are targeting men with a specific political message and inviting men to join a group on the political right in order to organize and take action for their own political future.
Iman Amrani at the Guardian does a great job of talking with some of the issues surrounding masculinity and the type of thinking, conscientious men who could be open to feminist and progressive messages, but are perhaps slowly inching toward more conservative politics.
On the left, the majority of organizations targeting men, are those who helping create space and community for feminist progressive men who already have an interest in building a more fair and inclusive society. Organizations like Promundo and Standing Up for Racial Justice are good examples of these organizations.
The challenge I see is: I don’t think we are doing enough to communicate with the potentially persuadable men who don’t yet identify with socially progressive causes.
Talking to other men in the progressive space, I’ve heard broad consensus on this point. Many of us know men who are actively being recruited towards the increasingly fascist right wing of America because we aren’t doing a good enough job targeting them as a constituency to bring them into the progressive movement.
My hypothesis is there are a large number of men who are open to aligning with socially progressive causes, but they do not live in communities where this is the norm. So we should seek to create community experiences that help these men crystalize their progressive beliefs, and make them comfortable and confident in expressing values of justice and equality in their daily lives.
The three ideas I’ve heard discussed, and agree would be useful in this space, are: sports media, sports leagues, and men’s gatherings.
First: Sports Media
Multiple people I’ve discussed this issue with say the answer starters with sports media. The specific example two different men used was Barstool Sports, but with a basis of progressive values behind the banter.
This idea makes heaps of sense to me. Sports is one of those things that still transcends partisan identification. It’s a chance for people to connect with something they love and subtly hear re-enforcement of the progressive messages so many athletes are expressing these days.
But I’m not the person to work on such a project. I grew up outside Albuquerque, NM, one of the largest metro areas in the US without a professional sports team. And the University of New Mexico lobos simply don’t generate the same following of many university sports programs around the US. So I didn’t grow up in American sports culture. I’m just not native to it.
So while I see the value of a progressive sports-media company, I don’t think I’m the one to work on such a project. I hope someone picks it up though.
Second: Sports Leagues
I talked to someone who worked on de-radicalization of Somali youth who would otherwise be susceptible to recruitment to Al-Shabaab. Their message was that well organized and very competitive football leagues were the most effective intervention they’d seen to prevent radicalization. It makes sense: it gives people a good outlet to socialize, focus on self improvement, and earn respect from others.
I do think there need to be more adult sports leagues in the US. Talking with an Australian friend about this, he noted that the majority of his male friends play team sports regularly. I can only think of a few notable examples among my friends in the US. Indeed, surveys have found that only 25% of adults play sport, and I would bet that overstates the case on team sports as it includes running. I’m a regular runner, and as much as I love running with others, it would be a far cry to call my hobby a team sport.
But that’s not true in other countries. When I lived in the UK, track clubs felt normal and part of everyday life. Anecdotally, I was also regularly invited to play football there. The only person who has invited me to play a team sport in the US is a Brit.
I think growing these activities demands community leadership to be successful. Perhaps with good grant funding programs for adult sport, participation could be increased. But in the meantime, I think my most effective role will be to try and be one of the community members who helps organize teams and competitions. So this won’t be a professional pursuit for me, but I will try to make it part of my life.
Third: Men’s Gatherings
This is intriguing to me, as I think the potential here is huge, it seems like you’d need less of someone’s time to have and impact, and I think there is a group doing just about exactly what I think should be done. Check out Sacred Sons, a company that does men’s gatherings.
Here’s a sample of what they do:
The combination of ritual combat and a trans-inclusive definition of masculinity is striking. To me, it challenges my stereotypes of men who seek combat, and hopefully it’s an experience that is challenging them too.
Now, I’m pretty sure this gathering isn’t for me. I have no desire to punch someone nor to be punched. But I do think that this sort of men’s gathering is the type of space that could attract men from a broad array of America (and indeed many western cultures). If it’s a space that helps men connect with values of caring and compassion and does that through fostering a sense of strength and agency, then it’s basically bang on what I’d hope to see in this world.
If you know of other groups like this, I’d love to hear about them. And if this is an issue that’s interesting to you, please do get in touch if you want to chat.
In Conclusion
I don’t think helping men find purpose in building a pluralistic America is issue I’ll continue actively investigating for full time work. I think I’m culturally the wrong person to connect with the men who I am most hopeful about persuading.
However, I will put energy — in a voluntary capacity — in helping men find their place and their voices building a more inclusive society, where it will be a happier and healthier place to be a man.
