I Love When Marketing Practicality Lines Up with Busting Up Sexist Social Mores

Cary Tennis Advises a Women in an Abusive Marriage

In his latest column, Cary Tennis advises a woman in an abusive marriage. His advice touches on themes of the history of women's subjugation to men, male privilege, and the connection between fear and anger. It's a candid and fresh perspective on these topics that doesn't rely on Public Service Announcement speak to make a point, nor is his point as one-sided as PSAs.

I read this and, though I think about these issues often, learned something new and was reminded of the sort of nuance that can be lost in considering these clearly-wrong topics. Just because we take a singular stand against domestic violence doesn't mean domestic violence is singular in meaning. Tennis' response reminded me of that today.

Kissinger on the Battle of the Sexes

Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There’s too much fraternizing with the enemy.

-Henry Kissinger

Why Rape-aXe Bites

So by now you may have heard of Rape-aXe, which is basically a female condom with piercing hooks in it removable "only by doctors" who, it is assumed, will automatically turn in to police all patients bearing them.

So, an "anti rape" device that literally requires me to be raped in order to exact physical punishment on a rapist? Gee thanks, Ms. Ehlers, I feel "empowered" now.

Of course, this device doesn't guarantee justice, like its inventor suggests. That would assume that:

1- Said rapist actually went to a doctor to have it removed,
2- Said doctor actually reported him, and
3- Said justice system actually arrests, tries, convicts, and properly sentences said rapist.

And we all know that this, in theory, should happen everywhere. But we also know how rarely, in practice, it actually does.

On a related note, it's always extra disappointing when fellow women perpetuate rape culture by putting the onus to prevent rape on the victims.

Slice of Life

I wanted to share a little slice of life with you. This happened last year and it remains an example of how one’s history of living as a woman or man can affect their experience of the same everyday events.

So I was walking in midtown Manhattan with my friend, who happens to be a big ripped Marine guy. We were crossing a street when a car passed by. The driver yelled something indecipherable out the window as he passed. My friend turned to me and asked me if I heard what the screaming driver said.

I raised an eyebrow and said, “I dunno, who cares?”

Friend: What if he was trying to tell us something important?

Me: I’ve had countless things yelled at me from men in car windows and none of it was ever important information. I don’t even listen to them anymore. Have you never had dumb shit yelled at you from a guy in a car window?

Friend: No.

It hadn’t occurred to me until then that I was reacting to a lifetime of street harassment that he had never experienced. He, probably, had generally experienced guys yelling stuff at him in the military, so it was probably important to know what they were saying.

I felt like I could trace years of my life to that exact moment. I wasn’t just reacting to a single episode of street harassment. The reaction I had was the product of years upon years of street harassment. These incidents don’t exist in their own individual vacuums, they exist in one’s life and each incident interacts and relates to those that came before and influence future incidents. Our reactions to incidents like these are the product of our life histories.

I had a similar moment with Tyler when I kept my name after marriage.

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.

Stuff What Boys Can Do

I've been meaning to write about one of my personal favorite blogs, Fugitivus. The blog initially gained a lot of attention from the now-classic post 'A woman walks into a rape, uh, bar' about how rape jokes sound like triggers to rape survivors.

Since then, blogger Harriet Jacobs added a new section to Fugitivus: Stuff What Boys Can Do, which really excites us here at the Guide!

The new section is a place where people can leave their own stories of things guys did to challenge minds and support women and the people around them. Tyler and I decided to add our own stories to the list. (We're waiting for them to get through the mediation process because Harriet Jacobs runs a tight ship!) And we've included them below to share with you. Check them out and be sure to take a moment and add a story of your own.

From Tyler (the Guy from the Guy's Guide):

So this is around February or March 2005, very soon after Lawrence Summers (who was president of Harvard at the time, not sure if he still is) made those comments suggesting there are less female tenured professors in the math and sciences because women do not have as strong innate abilities for these disciplines as men do.

I'm out to dinner with a group of guys. Most of the members of the group I'm with fashion themselves as Ayn Rand Objectivists, so they are obsessed with ideas of self-interest and pure capitalism.

But really they are just North Carolina conservatives and staunch supporters of Bush/Cheney Republicanism (AKA they are neo-conservatives.) But because they are young, they try and give their views a hip, libertarian twist.

Anyway, so one of the guys works for a Beach resort as part of the catering/events staff. His boss had recently been promoted, and the person they brought in to replace his old boss was a woman.

From what I understood, this woman was already the #2 to the old boss, so the promotion was pretty much a given based on the woman's seniority, experience, performance, etc.

But my friend was angry b/c he felt that i) she wasn't as capable, ii) there wasn't a full interview process (in his dreams he felt that he was qualified, though he in no way had the requisite experience to even merit an interview), and iii) he outright said that he believed his new boss got her position because she was a woman.

Though the L. Summers' stuff did not come up directly in this conversation, I had had plenty of debates in the wake of those comments a month or so before with this very same group. So I know that those sentiments played into this guy's feelings.

Obviously, everyone but me agreed with this guy. They chalked it up as another overreaction to gender inequalities and affirmative action politics that, they felt, are crippling free enterprise.

Quelling my initial reaction to just laugh and say, "You're just sexist, why not just admit it?" I decide instead to try and have all of these guys reach this conclusion through a simple series of questions.

Their love for all things capitalist and Ayn Rand related was clearly the best entry point... So I asked something to the effect of, i) What's one of the main benefits of a pure free-market economy? and ii) What is the goal of policies that look to rectify institutionalized gender or race inequalities in the workforce?

Their answer to the first question was the predictable long spiel that could be boiled down to the naive idea that if everyone acts in their own self-interest, markets will work efficiently, everyone will have the same motivation to work hard and achieve, there are no free-rides, etc., etc.

Their answer to the second question was so muddled and mean and riddled with political rhetoric that I had to prod them for an "objective" answer. Essentially, I had to ask them what they thought the philosophy behind a policy like Title IX truly is.

Eventually, through this line of inquiry (a couple of the guys were philosophy majors in college, so they at least understood my method and sort of appreciated it) I got them to admit that such measures were enacted because women (and non-whites) did not have the same initial advantages as men (whites). They also made the connection that in their free-market dream world, it is assumed that every person starts on the same level playing field. So if their dream world were ever to become a reality, we would have to work damn hard to create a workplace where everyone has the same opportunities (hence, things like Title IX and affirmative action policies).

Lastly, I asked if his new boss had any connections at his workplace that could have influenced her promotion (she's related to the owner, etc.) He admitted that she did not.

So when I asked him that, given the place where we live and the area's predominate politics (largely traditionally conservative), was it safe to assume that his new boss probably had to work a little extra hard to get to where she is b/c she probably had to endure similar biases like the ones he (the guy I was talking to) was espousing a half hour earlier...

And he admitted that that was probably the case.

Who knows if any of what we spoke about that night stuck, but it was a small victory.

From Marie (Editor at the Guide):

Well, I was a Jr. in High School and I did set construction and was a stage manager for HS plays. When new people joined up, we'd have someone with more experience show them around and explain the different jobs and how stuff worked and, literally, show them the ropes (that tied up curtains, backdrops, etc.)

So, as someone with a few years experience, I took this new freshman boy around. He was generally known as someone's weird, awkward and scrawny little brother and was definitely not a 'cool kid.'

I was almost done showing him around and as we walked out of the prop closet I saw my big, older ex-boyfriend struggling to hand-saw a gigantic piece of wood he had propped up on two chairs (our equipment was so pathetic we re-used screws and nails.)

Each time the ex tried to take the saw to it, the vibrations would vibrate the wood off the chair and fall, which is a disaster waiting to happen. So, without any conversation, I took one end of the wood and held it in place so he could saw the thing w/o chopping off his arm.

He proceeded to saw the wood (while I kept it in place) and then told me to "Fuck off." I replied that I was just helping him and his wood would have fallen off if I hadn't. He cursed at me again and I just shook my head and walked away.

The freshman was there the whole time and started to follow me out but went back in. He told my ex not to be such an asshole and that he should thank me for saving him from hurting himself or destroying equipment.

I heard my ex saying as the freshman left (something like) "You little shit," which is how I know the freshman actually got to him. ;)

I thanked the freshman and told him that took some guts. I hadn't realized how used to guys letting other guys treat women and girls like dirt I had become. I guess I took it for granted that guys don't question one another until the least likely guy did.

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.

Changes we Like to See here at the Guide

By now you may have read Aaron Traister’s piece in Salon, And may your first child be a feminine child. You may have even read this XX piece in response to it. But what I have to say is more personal to this blog than what you’ve read so far.

I would like to take this moment to say that Traister’s piece is an example of the kind of change we’re working toward here at the Guide. Here’s the synopsis of what I saw in that piece:

• A man wrote about noticing the difference in people’s reactions when he announced he was having a baby boy (his first child) as compared with when he announced having a baby girl (his second child).
  
  
• He noted that people kept acting like they pitied him or there was somehow less to look forward to with girls.
  
  
• The pace of the piece was a slow and deliberate; an indication of how the author thought this through. He raised an eyebrow, he didn’t repress or suppress his gut feelings, and he didn’t jump to conclusions, either. There was much to question about this situation. There were benefits of the doubt to give.
  
  
• Here's the change we're working toward at the blog: a man takes notice of these things and has an understanding of what it means to him and the women in his life.
  
  
• It doesn't matter whether or not he identifies as a feminist himself, though this lesson would not be possible without the contributions of feminism.
  
  
• It doesn't have to be a 'women only' issue.
  
  
• It's everyone's issue.
  
  
• He's not entering off-limits territory commenting on this subject.
  
  
• Or stepping on anyone's toes.
  
  
• He's just a dude with awareness of what's going on around him and has something to say about it. And, most importantly, he did say something about it.
  
  

If you wanted an idea of what our goal is here, it is to foster moments like these in the world.

"To Protect" or "To Support"...

Recently, Salon’s advice columnist Cary Tennis received a letter from a man whose wife was a victim of rape some twenty years ago (“Since You Asked…” 10/28/2009). While his wife has seemingly come to terms with the event, the husband is still, after two decades, unable to move on:

My problem? I can’t let it go. I think about it daily, 20 years after the fact. I wonder about the details. I’m angry at the friend who let it happen. I blame (only to myself) current behaviors of my wife on the fact that she was raped then. I fantasize about causing harm to the man who committed the crime. But this was so long ago, and our lives are so different, and reasonably happy, now. Why my obsession?

Tennis’s advice is standard. He reassures the man that the rape was neither his nor his wife’s fault and encourages the man to open up to a therapist (something the man had also been unable to do, according to the letter) and perhaps consider supporting rape prevention programs. Good advice? Yes. But with delicate subjects like this, it’s tough to expect something revelatory from a major media outlet.

But it’s not Tennis’s response that makes this column so striking. Rather, the letter writer’s unflinching honesty highlights an aspect of trauma that often goes unmentioned in the aftermath of rape crimes. Having been through a similar predicament as the letter writer myself, and so experienced many of the same sentiments and feelings, I was struck less by the longevity of the man’s inability to “get over” his wife’s rape and more with the way the man avoided the proverbial elephant in the room: his own personal guilt. Hovering over his expressed feelings of anger and blame and his fantasies about causing harm to the rapist is the husband’s clear feeling of guilt over even considering making himself an issue in his wife’s trauma recovery.

This, I feel, is a very common roadblock in situations such as these. Many men whose wives or girlfriends (or sisters or friends, the list goes on) have been victims of sexual abuse tend to fall immediately into a sort of paternal or fraternal protective mode. Yet for all the chivalric romanticism attached to these modes of protection comes equal amounts emotional distress. In playing the role of protector, men like the letter writer automatically deny themselves a chance to “get over” the event because 1) they’ve already failed (they did not prevent the rape) and 2) the misplaced notion that it is their place to be the emotional rock in the relationship. In essence, the patriarchal ideal of Relationship Protectorate that guides most men whose spouses are victims of sexual abuse is often the seed to obsessions like the one afflicting the letter writer.

The larger misnomer here is the false notion that ‘to protect’ is the same as ‘to support.’ The letter writer is overtly concerned about his own unhealthy obsession with his wife’s rape largely because he feels wife has seemingly come to terms with the event. One thing I’d be curious to know is whether the man has considered the fact that his obsession may in fact be holding back his wife’s ability to “get over” the rape. As many people who have experienced or spent time around those who have experienced trauma know, triggers exist everywhere. Perhaps if the letter writer recognized that his obsessive behavior could in fact itself act as a trigger that sets his wife back in her own trauma recovery, perhaps then he could more easily overcome his inability to cope with wife’s past rape.

It’s clear that the man’s heart and motivations are in the right place—he genuinely cares for his wife and her safety, happiness and well-being. Otherwise, he would not harp on her past trauma so greatly. Patriarchal notions of protection are reductive, though. In cases like that of the letter writer’s, the notion of protection often completely blinds men to the fact that they are not really supporting their partners—a complex issue involving the emotions of two individuals is collapsed into one simplistic patriarchal ideal. Their compulsive desire to protect actually holds themselves and their partners back. I don’t wish to imply that adherence to unhealthy patriarchal ideals is the only thing preventing men like the letter writer from moving past their spouse’s personal traumas. It’s important to realize just how easily elided notions of protection can be: while they are often beneficial, protection does not equal support.

We're Not Alone

Trigger warning: the video clip, included in the article linked to below contains hurtful, derogatory, and offensive language toward the gay community and more.

So, it turns out we’re not the only ones following the emergence of a new masculinity. As you’ll see here, the very conservatives who continue to make feminism relevant and necessary have conducted a panel on ‘The New Masculinism’ at the Value Voters Summit. As Tracy Clark-Flory reported, the VVF

focused on how “feminism has wreaked havoc on marriage, women, children and men" and discussed the need to get "the principles and ideals for a new ‘masculinism’ right.”

The punchline of this article, “Boys beware: Porn turns you gay!” brings up one of the panel’s methods for fostering their ‘new masculinism’: telling boys that straight porn is ‘homosexual’ and will turn them gay. (The logic of which is based on so many false assumptions that would require a catalogue of encyclopedic proportions to account for all of them…or lots of comments…) Now, this raises some questions, which I hope you’ll help me expand on through your comments.

Question #1: Is it just me, or does the panel’s ‘New Masculinism’ sound a lot like the Old Masculinism? The only new additions to this new masculinism that I can see are hatreds that have been updated for today’s conservative insecurities. Pornographers, move over! Make some room for feminists and gays!

Question #2: Do they realize that feminists derive as much power from our accomplishments as from the power given to us by groups like the VVF? They’re basically saying without question that we have the power to have an impact on issues like marriage, women, children, men, and gender. Thanks, gentlemen, for the recognition and your unwavering faith in our social powers!

Question #3: Aren’t these the same people who generally like to say that feminism is irrelevant? That there’s no longer a need for feminism? But if feminists can no longer make a difference, how is it that we’ve made such a noticeable dent in ‘marriage, women, children and men’ that our work needs to be reversed? Can the VVF fight the very same power they themselves give to us? And wouldn’t that sort of be like they’re fighting with themselves?

Question #4: So how does your run-of-the-mill straight male porn not fall into traditional masculinity? Doesn’t the very porn they’re talking about rely on antiquated attitudes and tropes regarding how men and women relate to one another?

Irreference

In our third and final counter-example to those Shira Tarrant offered in her article in Bitch (“Guy Trouble: Are young men really in crisis, or are these boys done just being boys?”), I’m taking on her assertion that the Marc Jacobs fashion ads featuring guys in dresses represents a positive step away from stereotypical masculinity. My counter-example looks at the men’s hairstyles recently featured in the New York Times’ Fashion & Style section. (The article’s not available without signing in to the Times’ website, but I’ll provide you as much as you’ll need here.)

David Colman reports:

There is a minor eruption of major hair atop the country’s young male populace — and, as hair is wont to do, it’s growing.

Curiously, the look is not one of style as much as degree. There is no army of winsomely tousled RPattz clones. Instead, there are Afros, mohawks, dreadlocks and pompadours. There are “Idol”-ized punky pincushions, Allman-esque hippie cascades (with matching beards) and Bowie-style, parti-colored shags. And these are just the styles that have names. Often enough, these clever young dandies are crossbreeding styles into hybrids unknown to the Rock ’n’ Roll Hair Hall of Fame.

So, young guys are opting for a wide range of hairstyles that reach across genres and recent history. What’s the big deal about hairstyles anyway?

Often guys who are after a more extreme look will drop the name of some rocker — Robert Plant, Simon Le Bon, Robert Smith, Anthony Kiedis — as inspiration. But what makes this curious trend even curiouser is how little connection the hair actually has to the moment, the man or the music that spawned it. That guy with the long, brown hair and beard may well have techno on his iPod, and the guy with the dyed blue shag is as likely to be drumming his fingers in time to death metal.

“You can never tell what they’re into from their hair,” Ms. Jukes said. She pointed out that her boyfriend, Ben Koller of the metalcore band Converge, has gone for the early-1970s look of the teenage John Michael Osbourne (back when he was the lead singer of Black Sabbath). His band, however, favors a chaotic clash of punk and metal that makes Black Sabbath’s 1970 hit “Paranoid” sound like Doris Day. And however you though Adam Lambert’s hairstyle pegged him, it was clear to “American Idol” audiences that musically, at least, the man’s got range.

Once upon a time — say, 40 years ago this week, when long-hairs thronged to Woodstock by the hundreds of thousands — you got a hairstyle to show the world your affiliation, to brandish a cultural identity defined by your musical tastes, your political views or how depressed you were. But such literal interpretations of hair appear to be utterly passé, even if the hairstyles themselves are not.

Here’s what’s special. There used to be a time when men’s hairstyles were a sort of uniform or identifier. They were symbolic of one’s adherence to a particular culture and that culture’s values and aesthetic. The hair expressed its signified group’s point of view. In other words, you used to be able to make assumptions about men based on their hairstyles. Not anymore. According to one guy interviewed in the article, “I don’t think it defines people at all anymore.”

What is at work here is the new approach to masculinity we at The Guide have begun describing with our two most recent posts about Tim Gunn and Dennis Rodman. While the traditional approach makes masculinity itself a guy’s end goal, the new approach treats masculinity as a means or a tool a man can employ towards achieving a goal specific to him as an individual. This makes the end goal not some masculine stereotype but something more unique. Tradition doesn’t get to set men’s goals anymore, men themselves do. With this new approach, the number of potential results is endless, whereas with tradition, the result is inherently always the same.

The difference here is semiotics, or how we look at signs or symbols and interpret them. In semiotics, according to its seminal scholar, Ferdinand de Saussure, linguistic signs are made up of two things: 1) the signified and 2) the signifier. In the Times’ article, the signs in question (conceptual stereotypes like “punk”) are a product of the relationship between signifieds (a young guy with anti-establishment tendencies) and signifiers (a spiked, dyed hairstyle). The guys in the article destroy the power of the sign (or, as I’ll refer to it from here on out, the symbol). They do this by changing the signified. The guys determine what the hairstyle symbolizes; they don’t let tradition speak for them. So when you see a guy with a Goth hairstyle or a punk hairstyle, there’s a chance that the guy has reinterpreted the concepts and symbols traditionally attached to his hairstyle according to what holds personal meaning for him. Fashion or society’s definition of what those styles symbolize no longer always define the guys wearing these styles. Guys like those in the Times’ article have taken the act of defining themselves into their own hands. Now, in order to find out what it all means, we would have to actually get to know the guy’s perspective and aesthetic to make sense of what it means to him.

Traditional masculinity, like the hairstyles here, is populated by symbols. What makes traditional masculinity (or traditional anything) so establishment-friendly is that society has agreed upon the definitions of signs and how to read them. What disrupts the establishment is when those definitions are no longer under their control. Remember Tim Gunn’s use of the suit or Dennis Rodman’s use of leather in his Sports Illustrated cover. They determined what those symbols mean for them. They determined how to use masculinity and its symbols not to speak the language of patriarchy, but to speak their individual minds.

To return to the article, “‘I know I’m not a trailblazer,’ said Mr. Cooper, the fashion stylist, ‘to me it’s just personal. It’s a creative outlet.’” In a way, he’s right; it is just one small thing, and a tiny part of something much bigger.

Why Dennis Rodman is the Man

It’s been over ten years since Dennis Rodman was a relevant presence in the National Basketball Association. That’s a long time in professional sports, a lifetime culturally. Since Rodman’s last full NBA season—the 1997-98 season in which Rodman helped the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls win their sixth title in eight years—we’ve witnessed, amongst many other things, the meteoric rises of both the internet and reality television. I mention these two mediums specifically because, over the last decade, each has contributed to a pop cultural democratization that makes the “antics” of a guy like Dennis Rodman look antiquated. With social networking and blogging websites like Twitter, every person has the ability to make their opinions heard to near-worldwide audience. Professional athletes tweet from the locker room during halftime. Everyday fans converse directly with their favorite celebrities in 140-character increments. Reality television works in a similar manner. Never before has the idea of celebrity been so attainable—there are television channels now wholly dedicated to producing and airing shows starring everyday people who just want to be famous.

These cultural shifts are important to keep in mind when discussing Dennis Rodman because, as wild as it is to think of now, our culture in the mid-90s was much more close-minded and unwelcoming to provocateurs like the Worm. Then, the prime movers of pop culture were print magazines and television networks and cable channels owned by large corporate entities. Nascent independent and non-establishment cultural forces did not yet have the access that, today, the internet provides. Take 1996 Dennis Rodman and plug him into today’s pop culture and NBA and he would not really be as sensational a story. Remember Dennis Rodman in the proper mid-90s context and you’ll realize the threat he represented.

The 1990s NBA in which Rodman played was a microcosm of traditional patriarchal culture, one that thrived on the deification of its ideal, stereotypical masculine stars. More than any other major American professional sports league, the NBA is a league of superstars first, of teams second. This business model can be attributed to the greatest player to ever play the game, Michael Jordan, and the NBA’s management, led by league commissioner David Stern. As Jordan’s skills and worldwide fame crested in the 1990s, the NBA thrived on exploiting the images of its good-natured, family-oriented superstar players. This has always been a contentious dynamic from a racial standpoint. You have a white commissioner molding and controlling the professional destinies of a set of players, over 80% of which are black. Beyond racial issues, though, the NBA has also been (especially in the Jordan era) directly involved in perpetuating archaic, stereotypical masculinity—the strong, straight, family man that plays within the society’s (in this case, the NBA’s) rules and codes. Unlike superstars like Charles Barkley, who controversially proclaimed “I am not a role model” in 1993 Nike commercial but never really departed from the star-driven system beyond that statement, Dennis Rodman rejected the NBA establishment tradition completely. As he described in his eye-opening 1996 memoir, Bad As I Want To Be:

The NBA image of a man is the one they put out on the commercials, with guys smiling and waving to the crowd. All the happy horseshit. They want everyone to be Grant Hill—a guy from Duke with all the flashy moves. Grant Hill can play, I’ve got no problem with him, but isn’t there room for some other kind of player out there? Some other kind of man?

I don’t fit into the mold of the NBA man, and I think I’ve been punished financially for it.

What stands out in this excerpt is Rodman’s call for a new kind of man. After a night in 1993 in which he nearly committed suicide, Rodman chose to “kill the imposter”: “I killed the Dennis Rodman that had tried to conform to what everybody wanted him to be.” His transformation—most strikingly in personality and physical appearance—went completely against the NBA’s preferred image. Bleached hair, wild tattoos, diverse and unexpected outfits off the court, Rodman outwardly projected the multi-faceted personality he had always been. But in finally being true to himself, he was met with utter resistance by an establishment that refused to recognize his personal emancipation as a positive. Despite the NBA’s best efforts to force Rodman into conformity—Rodman was fined nearly $1 million throughout his career—the Worm never acquiesced, staunchly remaining himself:

This [his refusal to conform] scared the NBA. This was out of their control. I was coloring outside the lines, and the league didn’t know where it would lead next.

I know what scared them: they were afraid I might bring something totally different back to the game, and that’s dignity. Dignity for all players. Being human. They’re afraid of that. They don’t want to see guys going out there and getting tattoos or voicing their opinions.

The NBA could never defeat or silence Rodman because he was just too good. Over the course of his career, he was a part of five NBA championship teams; he won two Defensive Player of the Year awards, seven rebounding titles, and appeared on the All-NBA Defensive First Team seven times. Unlike many athletes who struggle to keep their fledgling careers alive with wacky behavior and publicity stunts (think of Freddie “FredEx” Mitchell, the Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver who tried to stave off irrelevance with crazy outfits and outrageous press conference comments), Rodman’s “off-beat” personality and behavior was genuine, and his performance on the court never suffered—it thrived—because of it. In fact, the best years of Rodman’s career came when he directly challenged the NBA’s notion of masculinity. Only when he refused to let the dominant, image-making power structure define him as a person—to use the Worm’s own words: when he refused to let the NBA make him into a “robot that can dunk”—did Dennis Rodman peak as a professional and individual.

This, in my mind, is Rodman’s enduring legacy: his active attempts to bring dignity and individuality to a culture that prided itself on conformity and perpetuation of unhealthy masculine stereotypes and images. While most people unfortunately remember the Worm through unfairly negative media representations, it’s important that Dennis Rodman be recognized for the ways in which he challenged a staunchly patriarchal culture. In refusing the be the stereotypical man they demanded he be, and in performing better than anyone else at his position on the court, Rodman can actually say he beat the patriarchy at its own game. That’s an example worth hyping.

Why Tim Gunn is the Man

In my last post, I pointed out the responsibility that comes with “hyping” certain pop culture figures as harbingers of a progressive masculinity. And while this process, if that last sentence is any indication, sounds super academic, it shouldn’t. The idea is a simple one: choose wisely the men you think represent positive, non-stereotypical masculinity. Otherwise, it’s easy to fall into the same trap as Shira Tarrant, when she hyped Brody Jenner and “gender-bending” Marc Jacobs ads. Remember, an important part of rethinking masculinity is rethinking the idea that being a guy comes down to performing a certain set of character traits. Tarrant’s exemplars fail to represent any new form of masculinity because they simply flip a common stereotype: Brody Jenner hangs with his boys in a hot tub and Marc Jacobs dresses his models in dresses. This inversion is not so much thought-provoking as it is gimmicky. Both examples are still firmly ensconced in the box we’re trying to find a way out of. In thinking of a new, progressive masculinity, we need to bypass, as difficult as it may be, the idea of stereotypes altogether. We don’t need a guy who does the opposite of what the stereotypical guy does. To borrow a phrase from a former professor of mine, we need to find examples of men whose entire being-in-the-world is new and fresh and sheds light on just what masculinity (in general) and guys (in particular) can be.

This is where the man pictured above comes in. In a time when masculinity could use a mentor and life coach of its own, Tim Gunn (step back, Ironman!) provides an appealing template for what a new, progressive masculinity might look like.

Interestingly enough, when comparing Tim Gunn against common masculine stereotypes, it’s amazing just how closely he aligns with traditional notions of what it means to be a man. However, for Gunn masculinity acts as a vehicle or means—not an end—towards arriving at a broader sense of personhood than stereotypes allow for. For the misogynists and sexist men of the world—and sometimes even for average guys in their day-to-day lives—masculinity is always the end result. Their lives and perspectives, therefore, can be easily summed up by a set of stereotypes (e.g. a guy acts tough because guys are supposed to act tough). This is not always as bad as it sounds. What it is is limiting. Traditional masculinity artificially caps the space in which a guy’s perspective can grow. Since masculinity is always the end result, thinking beyond masculinity’s restraints never occurs.

This is why Tim Gunn is the man. Because masculine traits and traditions are only one of many available means he uses to express—not define—his perspective, Gunn achieves a more unrestrained sense of individuality. Yet he never loses touch with his own masculinity. He doesn’t eschew or suppress the qualities that traditionally brand him a man. This is very important. When talking about redefining or remaking masculinity, it’s easy to fall into the trap of just throwing out masculinity altogether. What Tim Gunn shows is that by tempering one’s sense of masculinity—by making it a vehicle—the baby doesn’t have to go with the bathwater.

To clarify by way of example, just look at Tim Gunn’s signature suit-and-tie. The suit-and-tie is the traditional outfit of the professional, power male. For most guys the suit truly makes them; it fully represents the masculinity they strive to achieve—“I’m a powerful man because I wear this uniform.” Essentially, the masculine stereotypes embodied by the suit define these men. For Tim Gunn, the suit represents a means of expression. This may seem like an easy example because of his background and career in fashion, but that makes it no less important:

When Gunn arrived in New York City in 1983…he was still wearing his “D.C. uniform” of “boxy, ample suits.” Once in New York, he had “an outer-body experience and realized that no two people on any given street corner are dressed the same. “This is a city that accepts you for however you choose to present yourself.” (He insists that he didn’t have his “real fashion epiphany” until he became the chair of the fashion department at Parsons: “I was 18-months into my time as chair when I had a meeting with Diane von Furstenberg, I’m sure she doesn't even remember this meeting, but I could tell by her quivering eye [that she thought of me] ‘I don't know if this is going to work for you in this industry, this particular look.’ And I thought to myself, I can’t disappoint Diane! So I got a black leather blazer tailored like a suit jacket. That was my solution.”) [Hat tip to Jezebel]

Gunn’s use of the masculine suit-and-tie staple as a means of expression represents a positive way in which he broadens his perspective beyond the traditional limits imposed by rigid adherence to masculine stereotypes. Beyond single vehicles of expression, though, it’s Tim Gunn’s unflappable nature that truly displays the emotional core of his progressive masculinity. Think for a minute about the stereotype that men are the more stoic of the two sexes, that men are less prone to outbursts of emotion. Traditional masculinity assumes that men remain in-control and detached; in other words, they remain unflappable. Men don’t cry over split milk, let alone major emotionally-charged events. They deal with everything internally or else they run the risk of being scolded by their masculine peers. Unfortunately, this sort of detachment typically involves men suppressing their emotional responses.

This makes Tim Gunn’s unflappable nature so impressive and, in this guy’s opinion, revelatory. On both of his television shows—Project Runway and Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style—we see Tim Gunn knee-deep in the emotional moments and transitions of a variety of individuals. Being that he acts in the role of mentor on both shows, Gunn is not afforded the luxury of being there only to console and support each shows’ participants, he must also offer them guidance and advice and criticism. And he does all of this with marvelous effect, all while never losing control of his own emotions. He doesn’t buy into the notion that becoming emotionally involved in a situation necessarily means giving up one’s self control. Men tend to avoid emotional involvement and conflict because of the false belief that these types of engagements mean they must sacrifice their own objectivity or unflappability. So they choose to suppress their emotions. For Tim Gunn, there is no such suppression. He shows that men can remain completely emotionally engaged in a situation without sacrificing their masculine unflappability. Perhaps this is why both the people on his shows, and audiences of all sexes and genders, have embraced him so openly.

Adhering to traditional masculine stereotypes and making these stereotypes the end result—every time—inherently limits the range of personhood possible for men. Tim Gunn doesn’t work for masculinity; he makes masculinity work for him. And in doing so, he achieves a broader range of personhood and enhances our understanding of his perspective.

Remodeling Masculinity

From Shira Tarrant’s feature “Guy Trouble: Are young men really in crisis, or are these boys done just being boys?” in the Spring 2009 issue of Bitch magazine:

What does it mean to be a real man these days? Is it possible to find models of manhood to replace the old stereotypes that no longer seem to fit, or never felt right in the first place? And if these tropes are nothing new, then what is?

Fortunately for all of us, what it means to be a guy is getting a new spin, thanks to a slew of recent commentary about men and masculinity. A group of male feminist thinkers and activists are exposing the sexism and rigid ideas of masculinity that run rampant in movies, music, sports, and video games…

Hey, that sounds sort of like a plug for the Guy’s Guide! Seriously though, it is great to see articles like Tarrant’s recognize the growing number of men facing down age-old cultural representations of idealized masculinity. In the age of the internet, pop culture carries an unrivaled level of influence. And as pop culture is America’s biggest export, it fits that the men and women in our country produce and consume more images, texts, music, advertisements—any manner of media you can think of—than any other place on the planet. A dominant majority of these pop culture products reinforce a hypermasculinity that puts the patriarchal “lessons” of the twentieth century nuclear family to shame. Seeing hard-at-work dad come home to a meal that stay-at-home mom prepared has nothing on gossip sites, reality television, leaked sex tapes and cartoonishly violent video games and films.

For the Guide’s audience, I assume such recognition is regular practice. The hard work, both for Marie and I in writing this blog and for our readers or anyone with a vested interest in making an impact and facilitating positive change, is taking the initial steps towards some solutions. For this particular discussion, that means scanning the pop cultural landscape and identifying those few diamonds in the rough that illustrate a new, progressive masculinity—a masculinity that would make feminist women and men proud. This task is important because it involves “hyping” certain things or people. This is a necessary evil in any sort of situation where a person takes the risk of stepping out and saying, “I believe such-and-such sets a positive example.” I take very seriously the idea of singling out someone and saying “They’re progressive; they’re not perpetuating archaic, misogynist ideas masculinity.” I don’t think it’s too much to ask, in these cases, that the writer or critic be able to stand by their decision and give a solid explanation of their reasoning. I expect that of myself.

All this said, I’d be remiss if I didn’t single out a disappointing portion of Tarrant’s feature. Unfortunately, I’m referring to the section in which Tarrant singles out some recent pop culture nuggets that she’s sees as representative of the “rumblings of change in mainstream commercial media”:

Take, for example, the ads currently sprouting from fashion magazines that feature gender-bending young men wearing Marc Jacobs dresses…There’s MTV’s new series Bromance, which tries (perhaps unsuccessfully) to flip the usual reality-TV setup by getting guys in the hot tub trying to be The Hills star Brody Jenner’s new BFF. In the music world, the pop-singing Jonas Brothers have made virginity pledges—traditionally something that is emphasized as the realm of girls.

If these are the harbingers of a new age of progressive masculinity in pop culture, consider the battle lost. Putting guys in dresses and putting them in an ad is “gender-bending” at its most empty. There’s no narrative to it, no soul. It’s attention-grabbing nonsense. Bromance is corporate reality show dreck, the sole goal of which is to produce clones of the womanizing, hypermasculine male (i.e. Brody Jenner) we’re trying to get away from. And virginity pledges are not “the realm of girls.” They’re a patriarchal creation, re-popularized by evangelical conservatives, that tastefully allows a father to control the sexual and emotional development of his daughter. This is the culture the Jonas Brothers are (hopefully unwittingly) supporting.

My assessments may sound harsh, but I want them to point out how important it is to find and back the right examples. I don’t think Tarrant got lazy (well maybe a little) when she mentioned Brody Jenner. I just think she forgot to look at the big picture. Bromance may have used non-traditional male reality show tropes. Sure, getting in a hot tub may usually be a girl’s thing. But redefining masculinity does not mean turning masculinity into femininity. You can’t just put a guy in women’s clothes and say, “Here’s the new man!” That’s not doing the work; that’s the same old guy in a dress.

So in the post to follow this one, I’m going to offer up a pop culture nugget of my own, one I truly believe represents a positive step towards a new, progressive form of masculinity. So stay tuned. In the meantime, if you have any ideas of your own to offer, let’s hear them!

The Beginning of a Long-Term Project Here at the Guide

I came up with the idea for starting this blog when one day this summer I Googled something like 'preventing violence against women.' I scrolled down and read everything that came up in that search for over thirty pages. What I found were plenty of organizations that were women preventing violence against women, but only two organizations that were men preventing violence against women. Considering that men are the most common perpetrators of violence against women, the results of the search seemed unbalanced to me. I heard loud and clear women calling out, "Stop doing this!" but men had no such voice. If we're going to achieve the goal of preventing (and ultimately ending) violence against women, men have to be in on it, too. A stronger male presence in this struggle means the difference between doing something because someone told you to versus doing something because it's the right thing to do. It means that non-violence and respect for women's rights is not a front men put on while women are around and then drop as soon as they turn around. It means changing the context in which violence and the attitudes that support it occur.

In her book Understanding Sexual Violence, Diana Sculley posited that a way we can prevent rape is to change the cultural context in which it is excused. We need to change the cultural context to no longer allow for excuses for rape like slut-shaming, not putting up a physical fight, or impairment. I suggest we take that thinking exercise and apply it to all forms of violence against women and women's rights. I am saying that our work here at the Guide (work that can always be applied to our everyday lives) is to change the context in which violence and the attitudes that support it are excused so that they are no longer excused. This means that respect for women is not a front, it's a choice we own in public and in private. This means that men-only spaces cannot create contexts in which these attitudes and actions are allowed, and only men can change the context of men's spaces.

So I thought of the man who introduced me to feminism, Tyler. (That's right ladies and gentlemen, it was a guy who brought a woman to feminism.) At a time when I wasn't so sure of how I fit into feminism and lacked an education in it, the effect of a man feeling so passionate and at ease with feminism was an unexpected and life-changing inspiration. I thought, "How is it that a guy feels more at home here than I do? If there is space for him within feminism, there has to be space for me." After I did my Google search, I told Tyler how much a guy's voice is needed here. I told him, "You're the perfect person to show men (and women like I was) that there are guys who are committed to these issues. You'd be the perfect person to start balancing that call to stop violence against women through your perspective as a man navigating feminism."

To begin our long-term project of creating a guide for exploring these issues, I will be putting together a running archive of resources for men to explore feminism and what role they can play in the fight against violence against women. Below are just a few such discussions of these issues. If you have more to add, link them or reference them in the comments.

For some reading, consider:
Male Feminists March On by Natalie Hanman for a discussion of the emergence of male feminists.
My Black Male Feminist Heroes by Mark Anthony Neal for a discussion of male feminism from a black perspective. It also references numerous other reads both in black feminism and Womanism and black male feminism and Womanism.
Men! Feminism Needs You! (Not Your Privilege...) by Anne Onne at The F-Word for some thoughts on how men can approach feminism and feminists.
Check out another brand new blog, Step Up, for thoughts and a chance to comment on how men can end violence against women and some links to organizations dedicated to that cause.
And, for some more links to anti-violence organizations and a guy's reaction to 'Men's Rights Activists', check out this post at youth4change by Joseph.

And, don't forget, we want your links! Let's start building a discourse, a community, and a new context.

The Death of Who?

Discussions about the decline (or outright demise) of the male-dominated workplace have been a side effect of the current recession. Just take a look at the July/August 2009 issue of Foreign Policy. In it you’ll find a feature by Reihan Salam titled—cue the orchestra—“The Death of Macho.” Salam, a writer with a penchant for the dramatic, begins with, “The era of male dominance is coming to an end.” Apparently, the recent failures of finance capitalism are only harbingers of something more ominous. Sure, the economy will eventually recover; housing bubbles will once again emerge and grow. But the modern male? He has no such luck:

What will not survive is macho. And the choice men will have to make, whether to accept or fight this new fact of history, will have seismic effects for all of humanity—women as well as men.

If you sift through these grand pronouncements (seriously, where is the line separating ‘grabbing a reader’s attention’ from ‘argument-killing hyperbole’?), Salam indirectly makes a great point about the static nature of masculinity. In the age of late capitalism (translation: the modern, post-Industrial Revolution economy we all know and love), a man’s role in society—what Salam calls “macho”—has not changed much or at all. I’ll spare you the laundry list of examples that prove this point (stuff like men’s roles as primary income earner; men making up the vast majority of power positions, government and corporate; etc.). Suffice it to say, it’s a fact that men have dragged their feet or outright fought to stop efforts towards sexual and racial equality in the workplace, even when it is an ultimate detriment to success.

Contrast this against the fluid nature of feminism. Over the last century or so, one of the most impressive features of feminism has been and continues to be its adaptability. When a newbie glances at the history of Western feminism, the first things they’ll likely notice are terms like ‘first wave,’ ‘second wave,’ and ‘third wave.’ These waves each revolve around different set of concerns (e.g. voting rights, workplace equality, gender identity). Feminism, in other words, evolves; it’s principal concerns shift to match the major issues of the era. Rather than fight change, feminism embraces and thrives on it.

Feminism’s fluidity presents a great lesson to men and masculinity in general. Returning to Salam, he has no problem pinning the current economic crisis on men and their “macho” ways. But rather than announce that these men are now in their “death throes,” I’d rather ask the old guard to take a look at feminism, and not just its messages but its method. “Macho” does not have to die. Men can still be men. To invoke the cliché, “macho” men just need to evolve. As feminism proves, especially in comparison to the masculine ways that killed the economy, this sort evolution is not only realistic and possible in theory; it is vital and effective in practice.

Switching gears for a second, I want to point out that while there’s a lot of truth in Salam’s article, his doomsday scenario for men drowns out the very important fact that men and women are already working across job sectors in more equal ways. Across industries (even the “macho” world of finance capitalism) women hold positions of all levels. All Salam’s article, as well as a companion piece by Valerie Hudson (which pretty much only buttresses Salam’s main points), does is state the obvious: that women’s influence in the workplace is growing in size and scope.

This workplace co-existence, and the meritocracy that is emerging, highlights for me one of the key emotions involved in any sort of male approach to feminism: empathy. Things—emotions, facts, food, whatever—are much easier to appreciate and understand not when they are simply pointed out to you but, rather, when they are experienced. Empathy provides the most effective bridge to understanding for those moments when we cannot experience something directly. It is easier for guys to warm up to and engage with feminism once they can identify something that allows them to relate to the struggles women face. The workplace is a common ground we both share. We share the same offices, the same positions; we share the same nagging bosses and the same paths of advancement.

In the American workplace today, men must understand that their sex does not guarantee them the same lifetime career security it may once have just as women must accept the fruits of the labor of nearly a century of feminists. Granted, the sexual politics of the American economy are still not completely level for women. Still, the possibilities, realities and responsibilities of high-level positions do exist for and are already being met by talented women across America. The expectations for modern women extend beyond merely getting the job and into how far they take the job. On-the-job expectations, in other words, are as equal as they’ve ever been; and they represent a shared experience that is so easy to overlook yet, at the moment, is so helpful. By recognizing that there is a common ground on which we both deal with the same shit, guys gain a degree of understanding with women and the struggles they face that may have otherwise remained invisible.

Guy's Guide Takes on Void!

The absence of any sort of guy’s voice in today’s feminism is staggering. This is a problem. Men need to understand feminism. Feminism needs sincere male understanding in order to effect the changes it ultimately hopes to gain. Guys and feminism are practically always portrayed as being at odds or in conflict. And judging by the feminist blogs and websites from around the world, the lines of communication between men and women are still not open. Still, the fact remains that there is a vital place within broad discussions of feminism and the women’s movement for a genuine male perspective, one that sets aside the snarky male takes on the subject and enters into something a little more honest.

The Guy’s Guide to Feminism takes on this void. The blog is not a masculine critique of feminism, just as it does not subscribe to the satirical, insecure, and often downright hateful approaches of most men’s magazines and blogs on the subject. Grounded in the belief that anyone who can benefit from open thought on feminism should benefit, The Guy’s Guide is just that, a guide promoting male understanding of feminism in a way that supersedes the stereotypical images and lessons our culture passes down to us. After all, superseding stereotypes is a big reason why guys benefit from understanding feminism. By putting traditional ideas and expectations of themselves into new contexts, guys can develop new ideas and understandings of what it really means to be a man.

The Guide looks at feminism from the inside out:

• Where do guys fit within feminism?
• How can guys better understand their place in a world where feminism is a matter of fact?

These are valuable questions worth discussing not just because they carry cultural significance. Feminism is so much more than a catalogue of historical events or a series of arcane theories left to academics; it is one of our time’s most visceral and exciting movements. It’s in action across our entire landscape. From our home and work lives, what we watch and read, all the way down to the way we think and interpret the world in front of us, feminism is at work. And it involves everyone, men and women. Too often have discussions of feminism centered on men’s relationships towards women. The Guy’s Guide considers men’s relationships with women, with feminism.

While our blog’s title mentions guys specifically, The Guy’s Guide works in and promotes a spirit of inclusiveness. We encourage and hope that men and women of all ages, backgrounds and levels of interest read, comment on, and push each discussion further.

Welcome to The Guy’s Guide to Feminism!