The Little #MeToo Book for Men Read online

  Man box culture conditions men to be change averse in a world that is fueled by ongoing change. It is a static wall of inertia, slowing the pace of our collective evolution and growth. The world will continue to evolve and grow. The only question is, how much human suffering, our own and others, will men create before we evolve, too? We can continue to allow man box culture to dominate us, or we can start fighting for our basic human freedoms. We can start pushing back, making space for a much more diverse range of masculinities, creating more options for how men can live their lives.

  Millions of men are already doing this work, expanding boundaries and creating more fluid expressions of gender, especially among millennials. Millions of fathers are taking on the role of full-time parents and primary caregivers. Homophobia, long used to enforce the man box, is in decline among younger men.

  As men, we can choose to engage our relational capacities for growing connection and community. When we marshal our courage and step into those socially dynamic spaces, we discover a world that is less predictable and more generative. In the process, we can learn from others how to sit with our uncertainty, embracing it as the natural byproduct of new ideas and processes being born.

  The courageous choice for men is to lean into our uncertainty, against the weaker aspects of our natures that seek predictability and control over evolution and growth. In exploring and engaging uncertainty, we discover the heady awakening of our personal sense of adventure.

  Know this: pushing back against man box culture will NOT get you kicked out of the club. There is no club. Man box culture is, by definition, isolation. Standing up against man box culture, at the cost of some of our surface level relationships, will open the door to more diverse, creative and authentic relationships, any one of which is invaluable by comparison.

  It’s well past time to marshal our courage and choose connection. It’s time to create something better.

  15 /THE ART OF RELATIONSHIPS

  This chapter was written in cooperation with couple and family therapist, Dr. Saliha Bava. It is designed to share some relational practices that can be helpful in creating more supportive and generative conversations regardless of the subject. These capacities can be especially helpful in the context of #MeToo.

  When we, as men, seek to engage and better understand women’s lives and the #MeToo movement, we can choose first and foremost, to be mindful of context. Who are we seeking to connect with and what are the issues that underpin our relationship with those individuals? Remember, these are not conversations women are obligated to have with us. Go lightly. Be mindful. For those of us who are survivors, we know how challenging it can be to tell our own stories. If the offer to talk about our experiences makes us feel obligated to comply or worse, debated with or lectured to, then the trauma of our pasts is compounded.

  We all have a wide range of relationships in our lives, from deeply personal to more casual. These relationships can be with members of our families, with co-workers, with people in our neighborhoods, with others at our school or our local market. Understanding when and where it is appropriate to engage in a conversation about #MeToo is an important gateway to deciding to do so. Giving thought to the ways in which our approach to these conversations can be harmful or helpful is crucial.

  For many men, the degree of sexual harassment and abuse the women may be facing, even daily, can be somewhat invisible to us. The women we know may have chosen long ago to keep their stories to themselves. For those who are close to us, we can perhaps begin with a simple question. Being mindful that we ask at the right time and in the right context, we can ask if they want to share their thoughts on how it is to be a woman. It seems a simple question, but it can open the door to many stories.

  For men, inviting women to have this conversation can be challenging, both for others and for us. First and foremost, we must judge correctly whether or not there is a conversation to be had. For example, this is not necessarily a question to automatically ask of past romantic partners.

  Additionally, some women report being hit with a barrage of questions that can easily be answered with a little research online. Women report men asking questions that seem to be searching for the “all clear.” As challenging a time as this is, we need to keep a central message in mind. Women are asking men to do better. If our actions make room for others (men and women) to feel respected and safe, we have already made a huge contribution to the movement.

  That said, the conversation about #MeToo and women’s lives is one we can offer to have with women in our families, or women with whom we have close personal or professional relationships. There needs to be a degree of trust already in place for this conversation to happen, but it can be an opportunity to practice and grow powerful relational capacities.

  1) Listening with curiosity

  Any conversation is an opportunity to listen, but a conversation about #MeToo allows someone close to you to speak into a space that may be entirely new for you both. As men, we might respond by attempting to fix or explain, as this is the role-based version of manhood we have been trained to perform. If we can instead seek to listen with curiosity as our friends, family members, or partners share their thoughts we can experience how powerful listening can be. It’s a process by which we focus on relationships instead of our role.

  Like most aspects of communication, listening can be less than helpful if reduced to a process by which we are simply waiting our turn to speak or preparing to engage in a debate. When we learn to listen with curiosity, a new process can take place. We can enter the conversation with the expectation of hearing something new and powerful. We can be curious, listening for things we do not expect, instead of focusing on the parts of a conversation that might reinforce our expectations. We can listen with the understanding that we’re not here to fix or solve, but instead to allow others to simply speak out loud what they are feeling, which sometimes is all they need from us.

  Not every woman has a story about surviving abuse. But when we do encounter stories of abuse or even rape that others sometimes share, it can be deeply challenging. In response, we might seek to express our anger at an abuser, look for solutions to the feelings being expressed, suggest actions to be taken, or in some other way try to fix the situation.

  For many of us, this urge to fix things is actually born out of our own emotional discomfort. As men, we may not have had much practice sitting with the challenging emotions of others, of being there for people who are feeling grief or anger. We simply have had no practice doing this kind of work. So, in our discomfort at witnessing others pain or sadness, we end up trying to fix the problem, thinking in these moments, “There I fixed it for you, so don’t show me those emotions anymore.”

  When men are in “fix the problem” mode, here are some of the kind of things we might be inclined to think or even say:

  “I’m sorry it’s this way, but this happens to a lot of people. You’re not alone.”

  “Are you sure he or she meant it that way?”

  “If you toughen up a little, these things won’t bother you so much.”

  “That happened a long time ago.”

  “For your own good, you need to move past this.”

  “You have had good relationships since then, right?”

  Instead, we can try these kinds of responses:

  “I’m sorry for what you went through.”

  “I hear what you are saying.”

  “How would you like for me to be listening right now?”

  “How does it feel to be telling this story?”

  “Would you like to pause and start again in a little while?”

  What is central here is to avoid becoming emotional, expressing personal anger, seeking to define ourselves as different, or telling stories of how we might have been abused. There will be time later to share our stories. Think of hearing the stories of others as a sacred space. It is in this mindset that our most helpful responses will come to us.

  2) Asking quest
ions

  Which brings us to the powerful relational capacity of asking questions. Often men and women pose questions in an effort to drive a conversation toward a solution. If questions are designed to point to solutions or challenge the assumptions of the person who is telling their story, it will not be a helpful process. When we instead ask questions that indicate our calm interest, that help the storyteller clarify what they are saying or feeling, it can have a calming and trust-building effect on both parties. When we take some time to just be a witness, we create a relational space in which our friend or partner can share what they need to share. Asking, “How would you like me to listen?” and, “Do you want to continue?” signals clearly that we are ready to create a calm and supportive space for them to share their story.

  3) Holding uncertainty

  When we engage in conversation with others, especially about challenging issues or subjects, we can often feel intense uncertainty. “Where is this conversation going to go?” For men, long trained to present confidence and leadership, we may feel compelled to seem knowledgeable and confident, even when we are actually feeling alarmed.

  In order to be a calm engaged witness to the stories of others, we can work to grow our capacity to sit with the uncertainty that can arise. Over time, we can grow this capacity, but it can be challenging initially.

  We can learn to manage our uncertainty, and the anxiety it can produce, in several ways:

  Physically: We can take a moment to breathe deeply and calm our physical response.

  Emotionally: We can check in with ourselves, reminding ourselves not to collapse into our emotions but instead focus on doing the important work of creating a calm space for our friend or partner to share their story.

  Re-framing the experience: We can change our relationship to uncertainty, seeing it instead as a sign that something new and powerful is emerging. Uncertainty can be a highly generative, creative space, once we give up the need to control what is coming next.

  4) Holding ideas lightly

  One powerful way to resist collapsing into the emotions that arise in the back and forth of difficult conversations, is to hold our ideas more lightly. When we do this, we are less inclined to filter for others’ points of view that might seem to be in opposition to our own, and instead listen in a more holistic way, ensuring we can better hear all that is being communicated.

  It is often our fears and concerns, born out of closely held beliefs, that block us from hearing all that others are saying. When we hold our ideas more lightly, we reduce our reactivity. This is not about giving up our beliefs. It is about not letting them limit the ways we can listen and connect in the world. It’s about learning to co-design and collaborate across difference with others in our lives.

  Relational practices like these center our personal and professional relationships as the primary source of our health and well being. In the daily back and forth of relating, we create and redesign who we are in partnership with those around us. It is in the mindful back and forth of relationships that we grow our sense of belonging, creativity, connection and joy.

  “When we seek for connection, we restore the world to wholeness.”

  - Margaret J. Wheatley

  16 /MEN’S POWER

  Men are in crisis. We are collectively traumatized and often deeply isolated. Our collective solution going forward is to create connection. Human beings rise or fall together. All of us.

  For men, learning to relate, connect, and collaborate holds the key to breaking out of our man box culture. The movement for more wide ranging, diverse, and authentic masculinities holds the promise of reawakening for men nothing less than the art of being in relationship.

  In order to undo the isolating impact of man box culture in our lives, men must take everything we have been taught about gender and flip it on its head. We must call up every relational capacity we were taught to deny, every capacity degraded and wrongly gendered as feminine, including empathy, play, compassion, collaboration, connection, and that greatest of human capacities, bridging across difference.

  We can choose to come in from the cold, learning daily to negotiate, explore, and play in the context of a world that remains trauma-inducing and trauma-informed. We can do the work of connection and self-reflection, knowing all the while that the trauma we seek to address in ourselves and others will not likely be fully resolved in our lifetimes.

  We can gain powerful new capacities. We can learn to sit with the anxiety we feel, created by not knowing what is emerging while the human heart does its mysterious work. We can learn to sit with issues that will not be easily resolved and in doing so, perhaps, some day, resolve them.

  Human beings heal in the back and forth of relating and connecting. We don’t heal in isolation. We heal in relationship. When we learn to connect in the back and forth of sharing our stories, something remarkable happens. We’re not alone any more. We become family. We become community, and any of us — regardless of our histories, our challenges, or our past sins — can begin this work. We can make the world a safer and more joyful place. We can leave the anxiety behind. We can be free.

  The first step is simple. We need only admit that we want authentic connection with others. What follows is the miracle of being human. Even if we have been bullied and trained out of forming relationships over the course of a lifetime, the capacity to fully connect remains, just beyond the door, waiting for us to let it back in. And there are others waiting to help us open that door.

  Good, decent, empowered men are working to help others rediscover their gifts for connection, based on the following simple truths. Men do not want to be angry. Men do not want to be alone. Men are not naturally inclined toward the toxic confines of the man -box. If we were, it wouldn’t be killing us.

  Groups like the Mankind Project and others are tearing down the walls of isolation that trap men in cycles of anger and reactivity. If you are a man who is struggling, who is tired of being alone, reach out to these guys, or to other men’s groups. When you enter a room full of men who are not judging you, not skeptical of you, not looking to undercut or dominate or reject you, the difference is palpable.

  If you are a man, reading this book, consider this your personal invitation. In whatever way is right for you, begin the work that we as lovers, fathers, brothers, husbands and sons have put off for too long. Together, we can become the radical love and compassion that mental health counselor Jay Sefton speaks of.

  All we have to do is open the door.

  RESOURCES

  National Sexual Assault Services Hotline

  RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network)

  800.656.HOPE (4673)

  Gender equality and addressing violence against women

  Promundo

  A Call To Men

  The Good Men Project

  For men seeking a group:

  The ManKind Project

  Evryman

  On relational practices: The Taos Institute

  Books:

  Deep Secrets by Niobe Way

  Men’s Work, How to Stop the Violence That Tears Our Lives Apart by Paul Kivel

  When Boys Become Boys by Judy Chu

  The Relational Book for Parenting by Saliha Bava, PhD and Mark Greene

  Remaking Manhood by Mark Greene

  MARK GREENE

  Mark’s articles on men’s issues, parenting and culture have been shared over 250,000 times on social media, resulting in twenty million page views. He has written and spoken about men’s issues at The Good Men Project, Salon, Shriver Report, Uplift Connect, Yes! Magazine, Medium, BBC and The New York Times. Mark is also an Emmy-winning animator and cartoonist.

  Mark’s book, Remaking Manhood, is available at Amazon.

  Saliha Bava and Mark Greene’s book The Relational Book for Parenting is available at Amazon. Watch our video at ThinkPlayPartners.com.

  You can follow Mark on Twitter @RemakingManhood

  Mark's Remaking Manhood Facebook Page is h
ere.

  Visit our website ThinkPlayPartners.

  New from Saliha Bava, PhD and Mark Greene:

  The Relational Book for Parenting - The ability to create healthy, authentic relationships will be the key to our children’s personal and professional success over the course of their lifetimes. Co-authors Saliha Bava and Mark Greene’s book is a playful mix of comics, fables, games and powerful hands-on relational ideas. It’s a playful path to insure our children’s ability to connect, collaborate, and innovate by growing their relationship super powers. Available wordwide at Amazon.

  Learn more at ThinkPlayPartners.com

  ALSO FROM MARK GREENE

  Remaking Manhood is a collection of Good Men Project Senior Editor Mark Greene’s most popular articles on parenting, fatherhood and manhood. Available world wide at Amazon.

  “This is writing that unites men rather than dividing or exploiting them. It speaks to the very best part of men and asks them to bring that part to the fore—as fathers, as sons, as brothers, as husbands, as friends, as lovers, and as citizens of life.”

  —Michael Rowe, author of Other Men’s Sons