The medium is the message: healthy masculinity edition

I recently encountered an announcement about a training entitled, Understanding Masculinity as a Resource in Prevention.” Among other things, this training opportunity will “enhance participants’ knowledge regarding the importance of building a masculinity gender lens” and help them “become familiar with healthy masculinity.”

I don’t think I need to attend the training because I (as a woman) have basically spent my whole life enhancing my knowledge regarding the importance of a masculinity gender lens. Shouldn’t I consider how any act of resistance or attempt at liberation will be perceived in the context of masculinity?

Masculinity is a construct. It is a construct of exclusion and hierarchy. The idea of healthy masculinity supposes that violence against women occurs when the expression of maleness is sick or defective. There is no such thing as healthy masculinity. Male supremacy and oppression isn’t a perversion of masculinity, it is a result of the construct of masculinity.  Maleness is not a real thing with discrete properties. It doesn’t exist except in opposition to “not maleness.” Masculinity has no meaning or value other than bolstering systems of patriarchy and male supremacy.

The ever-increasing prioritization of men and masculinity just replicates those harmful, oppressive systems.

Audre Lorde warned us about using the master’s tools.

Are you a pro-feminist man?

An open letter to men that work to end sexual and relationship violence professionally

It’s hard for me to write this for a lot of reasons. Some of that is coming from my grief over a betrayal, but most is coming from fear. The reality is I could not say this publicly without suffering both personally and professionally. Women who speak out online are often threatened with sexual and other violence and retaliation (that is a story in itself) and I am not strong enough to open myself up for that.

I'm trying to be direct with you because women are talking about this amongst us. I've leaned that healthy relationships depend upon open communication, and that I need to communicate my needs using “I” statements.  I feel like we are in relationship...at least I used to.

So here is a list of my needs:

1) I need men and boys and folks across the gender spectrum engaged in a good faith effort to create safe and just individuals, families and communities.

2) I need men to examine their activities and efforts thru a lens that respects women and the lived experiences of women and girls.

3) I need you to know that if you understood my lived experience, your goal would not be to create a world without sexual and relationship violence. My experience of sexual violence is not about those terrifying moments. Those moments just confirmed what I already knew-- I am not safe in this world, my physical and emotional integrity have very little value. Those things have little value because of, not in spite of, the fact that women and girls have little value in this system.  

4) I need you to know that the personal is political. When you depoliticize the violence committed against me you are denying me the world I need and deserve, which is world without the conditions that facilitate sexual violence. The violence is but one tool of oppression--a tool that uses women's bodies, minds and spirits as a means to bolster men and structures of power. 

5) I need justice. We deserve something beyond just not being raped and/or battered. We deserve equal access to resources, status, power, rights, and autonomy. Then there will be justice.  As Cornel West said, "Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public."

6) I mostly need you to focus on how you may be more accountable to women and girls, because you are falling woefully short right now.

Beginning

What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?
The world would split open.
-Muriel Rukeyser