SERMON
What does it mean to you to be masculine (not just men)?
What experiences, events, or actions have made you feel virile?
How has your understanding of masculinity changed over the years?
I begin with these questions because we are in a time of tremendous upheaval in our understanding of what it is to be a man and what it is to be a woman. As we move in fits and starts to a much more egalitarian society, possibly even to a matriarchal society, the lines between male and female roles and functions in American culture continue to change. Two-career families are a new phenomena. Women are now exerting more and more control of the economy through their purchasing power. Today it takes a practiced eye sometimes to distinguish men from women in dress or demeanor on the street. This is particularly true on college campuses as the kids drape themselves in formless, baggy clothing. More and more often, women are the bosses, women bring home the paycheck while husbands care for the children, women win election to office, women approve our bank loans, care for our health needs, sell to and buy from us and advise us on our investments. We haven't seen women in the NFL yet, but by golly, they're in the locker-room after the game covering the winning team.
In such a world where outer forms no longer define what it is to be a man, where most any job or activity can be done just as well by a woman; in such a world, we simple-minded men get confused. And when we get confused, we get angry!
Oh yes, that's right: angry. You've been reading all about it in the newspapers and hearing about it from the electronic media. The angry white male voters have risen to a level of statistical significance. Men are finally beginning to feel the pervasive changes in their relationships, their workplace and in their houses of worship. The discomfort of those changes are making men feel threatened. If women take over our roles, who are we? Where do we fit? What is acceptable behavior in this unisex world? What are the social norms I can rely on? Is it an insult or an honor to open a door for a woman? Is it okay to date a co-worker? How many earrings can a man wear without compromising his masculinity? Not only do the questions go on and on, the answers don't stay the same! These are confusing times.
All these changes have forced American men to band together to figure out how to cope. There have been a proliferation of men's support groups since the sixties when women's liberation began the social turmoil which continues to grow. The first men's groups were sympathetic to the changes women were demanding and searched their souls to discover and root out their sexist behavior patterns. These men were more than happy to emasculate themselves in the service of pleasing their women.
The sad thing is, women were generally not happy with these eunuchs and soon men were discovering that something was missing from their lives as well. As men have searched for their lost masculinity, they are discovering the masculinity they thought they had was hollow as well. So today men across this continent are collectively struggling with what it is to be a man separate from our relationships with women and the expectations of society.
Today men are going at least five different directions to find their masculinity[1]. The Feminist Men's Movement (examples include NOMAS, American Men's Study Association) continues the efforts of the early men's liberation movement which identifies with the agenda of the more militant end of feminism. This faction tends to be political with support for gay rights; they are anti-military and anti-rape, and express solidarity with oppressed peoples. The Feminist men oppose any gender classification, seeing it as purely a social construct, and reject traditional values and roles for men. These guys tend to be progressive, left-leaning politically and rejecting of anything that smacks of traditional Christian religion. Academics often find a home in these groups.
The Men's Rights movement (examples include the National Coalition of Free Men, and The National Center for Men) are generally sympathetic to "egalitarian" feminists but are extremely critical of gender feminists and most of current feminism. They also see gender as a mostly social construct and are opposed to policies that treat men and women differently. They tend to be suspicious of traditional religion's gender roles and tolerant of homosexuality. An interesting concern of these men is circumcision (both male and female) which some strongly protest (although there is no consensus in these groups on this issue).
Associated with the Men's Rights movement but more narrowly focused are the Father's Rights groups such as the National Congress For Fathers and Children. These men have primarily organized around issues of single and divorced fathers and their problems with biases toward women in the courts and in the divorce industry. The growing social concern about fatherless families is addressed. These men tend to be issue-focused and come from a wide spectrum of political and religious positions. Almost all, however, are in deep pain with lots of anger. Lawyers are often found in these groups (I suspect looking for clients).
The next two groups are much more inwardly focused. The Mythopoetic Men's Movement fathered by men like Robert Bly and Micheal Mead are interested in men's inner work of recovery, working through grief issues and anger management. Although apolitical, the men who are attracted to this movement tend to be the non-Marxist left one might find in a Unitarian Universalist congregation, interested in environmentalism, pacifism, and anti-racism. The Mythopoetic Movement is critical of traditional male roles but open to different roles for men and women. There is a stress in these groups on recovering a male identity which is transmitted through the imagination of myth and passion of art. Like the Neo-Pagans searching back before Christianity to recover lost traditions, we find a similar interest in tribal societies and ritual. Mythopoetic men love drumming groups, Native American sweat-lodges, and male bonding activities. They are very concerned about a boy's or even a man's need to be removed from his mother's breast and initiated into manhood. Liberal ministers and therapists like these kinds of men's groups. Most Unitarian Universalist men would feel at home here as well, I expect.
At the other end of the spectrum but still inwardly focused are the Christian Men's movements; most prominent among them the Promisekeepers and James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Following a traditional Christian othodoxy, they are anti-feminist and embrace traditional gender roles. Primarily evangelical and fundamentalist, they steer around politics, but the people hawking the conservative agenda are commonly found in these groups. Promisekeepers now has strong connections with the Christian Coalition. They view men as innately violent and sinful, which requires conversion and social conditioning to moderate and prevent. There are interesting parallels with the Feminist Men's Movement as it decries contemporary social conditioning (media sex and violence and the drug culture, for instance) which contributes to male misbehavior and family conflict. Demographically speaking, they mostly attract young married men under 40 trying to improve their status quo marriages. One very interesting dynamic of the Promisekeepers has been its ability to include minorities in significant numbers. The Feminist and the Mythopoetic Men's Movement talk this line but the Promisekeepers seem to be able to walk it.
Of all these men's movements, it is the Promisekeepers who have caused the most concern in UU circles because of its spectacular growth since 1992 when coach Bill McCartney started gathering people in football stadiums and pitching them an evangelical locker room pep talk about responsibility and commitment. Promisekeepers commit themselves to seven promises[2] which include honoring Jesus, creating vital relationships with other men, sexual purity, building strong marriages, supporting the church and especially the minister, working toward racial and denominational harmony and obedience to the Great commandments and the Commission: to acknowledge that there is only one God and one truth and to spread the word of that truth.
The Promisekeepers agree with some of the other men's movements in defining the problems. They agree with the Feminist Men's Movement which acknowledges the deficiencies of men as fathers and marriage partners. Also like Feminist Men, Promisekeepers is critical of pornography. Both criticize men's over-focus on work and neglect of family responsibilities. From the men's rights advocates, it takes the message that fatherless families are bad. From the mythopoetics, it locates the primary problem for men in a spiritual deficit which must be filled. The Promisekeepers acknowledge the challenges of being a man in today's world.
But these areas of agreement in identifying the problems do not carry over into the solution. The Promisekeepers solution is Bible-literalist Christianity--the same one National League outfielder Billy Sunday pitched to large crowds of men in Christian rallies in 1917. The man's role in the family is as head of the household, a good provider and spiritual leader. That solution hasn't endured, and trying to recreate the past isn't likely to work in today's world either. Women are unlikely to be content with returning to a submissive role under the rule of their new promiser. We know that changes in individual behavior which endure occur slowly, and religious conversion isn't a quick fix. A few pep rallies aren't going to change most men into responsible caretakers of their families.
Still, these intensive experiences, whether they be of the Promisekeepers or the Mythopoetic variety, can initiate lasting changes in a man's sense of his masculinity. In the middle 80's I had one such experience which changed my life.
I began to mature sexually at the same time when feminism was rising--in the early seventies. My mother was a model feminist, returning to graduate school and new career while my sister and I were young. I can't remember a time in my childhood when my mother was not either working or involved in many projects outside the home. Having a Bachelor's degree in Home Economics, she broke ground for the super-mom category. Not only was I trained to be a feminist male at home as my father and I started cleaning the bathrooms, washing the floors, doing our own laundry and cooking the meals, but the girls at school I liked were also critical of male chauvinism. I internalized this as a dictum for men to be harmless as a way to be acceptable to women. Men must operate today in a "one-down" position because of the historic oppression of women. I missed out on the traditional sports activities which help other boys claim their masculinity because of my small size, sickliness, lack of upper body strength and endurance. Basically, I was your prototypical nerd in high school and college, as you would quickly see from the high school yearbook picture.
Well into my young adult life, I was generally comfortable with this emasculated identity which rendered me harmless and unattractive or exciting to women. I scorned the efforts of men to find their masculinity until a friend invited me to one of these experiences called Men, Sex and Power (great title for a weekend intensive, isn't it?). For an intensive weekend, in a carefully programmed environment, 144 men (and most important, no women) confronted the barriers to their sexual identity and pushed beyond them, seeking what was at the core of their masculine identity. For the first time in my life, I embraced as having inherent worth and dignity the masculine qualities which my mother had spent so much energy trying to tame. Rather than feeling guilty for my masculinity, I could celebrate it and its contribution to existence. Yes, qualities such as independence, emotional control, strength, and aggressiveness can be used to harm and destroy, but they can also be used to help and seek justice. I'd dislike living in a world without virile attributes such as courage, willpower and self-control, stamina, fearlessness, mastery, forthrightness and resolve.
These qualities are hardly exclusive to men, but without them, men feel a loss of identity and a hollowness. I assert that being secure in one's masculine sexual identity requires acceptance and wise use of these qualities. Without a security in our masculinity, men become confused, angry--and quite dangerous.
To be a whole human being requires going beyond one's sexual identity toward embracing the other. Men need to develop their feminine sides, but not at the expense of their masculine sides. Women need to be secure in their femininity, but also need to embrace the masculine. This is what Ken Wilber describes as the eternal dance of agency and communion, the dance between the social and the individual, the whole and the parts. Somewhere hidden in the polarity of male and female is the struggle of the universe, of all that is, to unite while at the same time desiring to be separate. Creative evolution and transformative growth happens when the balance is struck between the male and female polarities.
So men and women, let us bury the hatchet. Yes, men can be emotionally insensitive, sexually agressive noxious-slobs which leave a bad smell in the room. And women can be manipulative, oversensitive, egotistical, equivocating Medusas. The value of our sexual identity cannot be judged by its pathology. Let us seek together to affirm the best of the masculine and the best of the feminine toward establishing a egalitarian society where men can be men and women can be women, where the girls are strong and the boys are good-looking and everyone is above average!
(c) 1996 Copyright by Rev. Samuel A. Trumbore. All rights reserved.