A letter send to Gloria Steinem on July 10, 2000
Dear Ms. Gloria Steinem,
I am the man who spoke up at your presentation at the Raleigh Memorial
Auditorium on April 6th. I am very committed to respecting people as the
unique gifts they are, and also to being clear in my communication. I am
writing to you because I think my question was not fully understood and
answered.
As I stated, I grew up in Washington, D.C. during the 60’s and 70’s, and
was a young activist for African-American and women’s rights. This gave me
a unique perspective. I learned that prejudice and hatred know no color or
gender. Whites, African-Americans, men and women can all be perpetrators,
as well as victims, of discrimination.
At your presentation I mentioned that, as I become more in touch with my
emotions, I noticed that female friends were quite supportive of the
process. However to my surprise, women that I was in a romantically
relationship with were less supportive. In romantic relationships with
women, they seemed to resent the sharing my emotions, as though they were
responding instinctively to my moving through emotions as a sign of
weakness. I therefore asked you, "If we want more emotionally available
men, shouldn’t we look more carefully at how women respond to such men,
especially while they are going through the transition of getting in-touch
with their emotions?" I further pointed out that, while we have made great
progress in educating people about the dehumanization of women inherent in
viewing them as sex objects, we have made little progress in addressing
the dehumanization of men inherent in viewing them as success objects.
You responded that my views might result in my living longer, and that it
is important to support men who wish to remain at home to raise children.
While I agree, I still believe that the core of my question went
unanswered.
You emphasized the value of role reversal in seeing the larger
perspective. I think we need to evaluate the importance of women’s
responses to real changes in men. For example, what is involved in a
woman’s support of a man’s becoming more emotionally available? Many men
suppress their feelings to become more successful in their jobs, believing
that their ultimate role is as a provider. Men who have a long history of
suppressing feelings have typically covered up a great deal of pain, loss
and shame. When they start to open up, therefore, it is often these
feelings that are first expressed. Our culture teaches that this is
weakness, especially in a man, and women often reject such men.
Mothers in this culture are more excited when their daughters marry
doctors and lawyers than when they wed poets. Just as we need to see women
as more than sex objects, we need to see men as more than success or power
objects. I believe that men also have a responsibility to work toward such
changes in perspective. One powerful way to do this is through men’s
groups.
I became involved in men’s groups out of necessity when my marriage ended.
At first I was suspicious, as reportedly were the female partners of many
of the other men. Their women typically wondered why the men would need
such groups, and often made fun of the gatherings ("Oh, you’re going to
beat drums in the woods. That’s nice."). Even other men were highly
resistant to the idea, and made homophobic jokes.
After the men had been involved in such groups for awhile, however, the
women’s perspectives often changed to deep support, simply because they
liked the men who came home to them. In my own experience in men’s groups
I have seen hatred dissolve before my eyes, an experience not replicated
elsewhere. I have discovered that the "men in power" were often lacking in
freedom and self-expression, and that the groups were a place to develop
those things. I met men deprived of contact with their children and
wanting desperately to be fathers. One elderly man spoke of his
appreciation for being seen as a human being in the group, because the
culture at large "just look(ed) through me."
I began to realize that my youthful war against the "male dominated
establishment" harmed women and children by leaving no space for healing
to begin. Life was much less complicated as a white-and-black,
right-and-wrong activist, but my real commitment to make a positive
difference moved to a new perspective.
I support feminism as the right of women to full self-expression, without
invalidating any one else, including men. When a joke about men was
related at the beginning of your presentation, the woman beside me poked
me in the ribs for not laughing. To me, that is not feminism, nor was it
characteristic of most of the women there. That was a woman acting out one
of the worst aspects of stereotypical masculinity. I will always support
feminism, as I have defined it here. I will not, however, support the
blaming of others without taking responsibility for one’s own part in a
situation.
Sincerely,