Happy to Announce our New Affiliation with XY!

The Guide is topping off this year with some exciting news: much, if not all, of what you see and read here on the blog will be syndicated on XY Online! "What does it all mean?! What is this XY of which you speak?" To answer these burning questions...

In their own words

XY is a website focused on men, masculinities, and gender politics. XY is a space for the exploration of issues of gender and sexuality, the daily issues of men’s and women’s lives, and practical discussion of personal and social change.

XY is:

* A forum for debate and discussion, including commentary on contemporary and emerging issues in gender and sexual politics;
* A resource library or clearinghouse for key reports, manuals, and articles;
* A toolkit for activism, personal transformation and social change.

In my own words, XY is an Australian-based web resource for all things pro-feminist, male, and anti-violent. It offers hundreds of articles on topics like gender and masculinities, class, race and ethnicity, sexuality, health, working with men and boys toward anti-violence education and social causes, and as many more topics as we contributors can think up! (You think I'm using more than a reasonable person's amount of exclamation points? Now you know how excited I am! (Shit, there I go again with the punctuation...))

XY is a digital knowledge bank for how to change the world for the better through feminist ideals of empathy, education, and activism.

XY is a one-stop-shop for action. Ever want to do something about an issue you care about? Ever think to yourself, "I wish I could organize an event or a group successfully and really make a difference"? Well, lucky for all of us action-seekers and change-makers, XY puts at your fingertips its expansive compilation of activist how-to guides.

And, though lower-key than the vast bibliography, one of my favorite parts of XY is the Image Gallery, which features pages of feminist and anti-violent pictures.

Before I go to count down to the new year, I'll end on a note of hope for action. XY is always looking for volunteers like us to contribute to their world-class database. If you want to see what you can do with XY, click here.

Review: The Good Men Project

A recent, positive development in the public discourse surrounding masculinity in twenty-first century America, The Good Men Project consists of a book of essays, a documentary film, a website and a series of events (reading, panels, etc.) held nationwide, all centered on men sharing their own stories about what they feel makes for a good man. The project takes a very “Chicken Soup…” approach. The essays are written for a very broad audience and, as such, are predictably, almost formulaically inspirational. Judging by the doc’s trailer (I haven’t seen the film), the stories in the film work in much the same manner.

Though I don’t care for this genre (self-help) or style (anecdotal personal essays meant to inspire), I don’t doubt The Good Men Project’s intentions and methods. The men behind the Project were, in their previous lives, successful executives whose savvy in the workplace could never translate to their private lives. All the contributors to the Project are like this—guys just trying to “figure it out.” Their stories are genuine and varied, and the book doesn’t feel like it was edited in calculated fashion. The “Chicken Soup…” phenomenon in the 1990s and early 2000s, and the forever popularity of venues like Oprah and Dr. Phil, show how Americans are quite susceptible to stories that tug at our heartstrings. And there are plenty of schools of thought that believe that just getting a conversation started is a victory in and of itself. If The Good Men Project gets “guy’s guys” talking about what it takes to be a good man then, hey, more power to them.

So why I am a still wary about The Good Men Project? Its goals are admirable. The guys all appear genuine. Their multi-faceted approach is unbelievably comprehensive (book, movie, web, blog, events...). Am I just cynical?

I don’t think so.

In interviews on Air America and Fox 25 News, Project co-editor Tom Matlack discussed how men typically don’t like the “Oprah approach,” which he defined as sitting on a couch a discussing one’s feelings. Instead, Matlack and his co-editors surmised that guys prefer to talk about feelings indirectly, namely in story form. More specifically, guys prefer to tell heroic stories. Matlack points out that most of the contributors to the Project depict themselves as heroes: he is a hero because he overcame addiction; he is a hero because he helped his autistic child; etc. So rather than directly confront their own feelings and insecurities, guys get to tell heroic narratives that keep them one step removed from their true emotions. In short, The Good Men Project perpetuates the myth (yes, I’m using that strong of a word) that men and women are uniquely and exclusively different in the ways in which they discuss their feelings. That’s just not a healthy thing to do.

It’s great to see collaborative, well-organized efforts like The Good Men Project. I have no doubt that it will make a positive difference for many men. But to prop up and endorse the idea that a masculine heroic narrative is just as effective as actually talking about one’s feelings—and to justify this by saying that men just naturally do the former and women just naturally do the latter—is to miss the boat entirely on what it takes to be a good man. Good men, in my estimation, actively attempt to bridge such masculine and feminine binaries. I hope that, in the future, The Good Men Project attempts to do this more proactively.