Ending Violence Against Women and Girls

by Kevin Powell

In my recent travels and political and community work and speeches around the country, it became so very obvious that many American males are unaware of the monumental problem of domestic violence in our nation. Since October just ended and was Domestic Violence Awareness Month, this seems as good a time as any to address this urgent and overlooked issue. Why is it that so few of us actually think about violence against women and girls, or think that it’s our problem? Why do we go on believing it’s all good, even as our sisters, our mothers, and our daughters suffer and a growing number of us participate in the brutality of berating, beating, or killing our female counterparts?

All you have to do is scan the local newspapers or ask the right questions of your circle of friends, neighbors, or co-workers on a regular basis, and you’ll see and hear similar stories coming up again and again. There’s the horribly tragic case of Megan Williams, a 20-year-old West Virginia woman, who was kidnapped for several days. The woman's captors forced her to eat rat droppings, choked her with a cable cord and stabbed her in the leg while calling her, a Black female, a racial slur, according to criminal complaints. They also poured hot water over her, made her drink from a toilet, and beat and sexually assaulted her during a span of about a week, the documents say. There’s the woman I knew, in Atlanta, Georgia, whose enraged husband pummeled her at home, stalked her at work and, finally, in a fit of fury, stabbed her to death as her six-year-old son watched in horror. There’s the woman from Minnesota, who showed up at a national male conference I organized a few months back with her two sons. She had heard about the conference through the media, and was essentially using the conference as a safe space away from her husband of fifteen years who, she said, savagely assaulted her throughout the entire marriage. The beatings were so bad, she said, both in front of her two boys and when she was alone with her husband that she had come to believe it was just a matter of time before her husband would end her life. She came to the conference out of desperation, because she felt all her pleas for help had fallen on deaf ears. There’s my friend from Brooklyn, New York who knew, even as a little boy, that his father was hurting his mother, but the grim reality of the situation did not hit home for him until, while playing in a courtyard beneath his housing development, he saw his mother thrown from their apartment window by his father. There’s my other friend from Indiana who grew up watching his father viciously kick his mother with his work boots, time and again, all the while angrily proclaiming that he was the man of the house, and that she needed to obey his orders.

Perhaps the most traumatic tale for me these past few years was the vile murder of Shani Baraka and her partner Rayshon Holmes in the summer of 2003. Shani, the daughter of eminent Newark, New Jersey poets and activists Amiri and Amina Baraka, had been living with her oldest sister, Wanda, part-time. Wanda was married to a man who was mad abusive—he was foul, vicious, dangerous. And it should be added that this man was “a community organizer.” Wanda tried, on a number of occasions, to get away from this man. She called the police several times, sought protection and a restraining order. But even after Wanda’s estranged husband had finally moved out, and after a restraining order was in place, he came back to terrorize his wife—twice. One time he threatened to kill her. Another time he tried to demolish the pool in the backyard, and Wanda’s car. The Baraka parents were understandably worried. Their oldest daughter was living as a victim of perpetual domestic violence, and their youngest daughter, a teacher, a girls’ basketball coach, and a role model for scores of inner city youth, was living under the same roof. Shani was warned, several times, to pack up her belongings and get away from that situation. Finally, Shani and Rayshon went, one sweltering August day, to retrieve the remainder of Shani’s possessions. Shani’s oldest sister was out of town, and it remains unclear, even now, if the estranged husband had already been there at his former home, forcibly, or if he had arrived after Shani and Rayshon. No matter. This much is true: he hated his wife Wanda and he hated Shani for being Wanda’s sister, and he hated Shani and Rayshon for being two women in love, for being lesbians. His revolver blew Shani away immediately. Dead. Next, there was an apparent struggle between Rayshon and this man. She was battered and bruised, then blown away as well. Gone. Just like that. Because I have known the Baraka family for years, this double murder was especially difficult to handle. It was the saddest funeral I have ever attended in my life. Two tiny women in two tiny caskets. I howled so hard and long that I doubled over in pain in the church pew and nearly fell to the floor beneath the pew in front of me.

Violence against women and girls knows no race, no color, no class background, no religion. It may be the husband or the fiancé, the grandfather or the father, the boyfriend or the lover, the son or the nephew, the neighbor or the co-worker. I cannot begin to tell you how many women—from preteens to senior citizens and multiple ages in between—have told me of their battering at the hands of a male, usually someone they knew very well, or what is commonly referred to as an intimate partner. Why have these women and girls shared these experiences with me, a man? I feel it is because, through the years, I have been brutally honest, in my writings and speeches and workshops, in admitting that the sort of abusive male they are describing, the type of man they are fleeing, the kind of man they’ve been getting those restraining orders against—was once me. Between the years 1987 and 1991 I was a very different kind of person, a very different kind of male. During that time frame I assaulted and or threatened four different young women. I was one of those typical American males: hyper-masculine, overly competitive, and drenched in the belief system that I could talk to women any way I felt, treat women any way I felt, with no repercussions whatsoever. As I sought therapy during and especially after that period, I came to realize that I and other males in this country treated women and girls in this dehumanizing way because somewhere along our journey we were told we could. It may have been in our households; it may have been on our block or in our neighborhoods; it may have been the numerous times these actions were reinforced for us in our favorite music, our favorite television programs, or our favorite films.

All these years later I feel, very strongly, that violence against women and girls is not going to end until we men and boys become active participants in the fight against such behavior. I recall those early years of feeling clueless when confronted—by both women and men—about my actions. This past life was brought back to me very recently when I met with a political associate who reminded me that he was, then and now, close friends with the last woman I assaulted. We, this political associate and I, had a very long and emotionally charged conversation about my past, about what I had done to his friend. We both had watery eyes by the time we were finished talking. It hurt me that this woman remains wounded by what I did in 1991, in spite of the fact that she accepted an apology from me around the year 2000. I left that meeting with pangs of guilt, and a deep sadness about the woman with whom I had lived for about a year.

Later that day, a few very close female friends reminded me of the work that some of us men had done, to begin to reconfigure how we define manhood, how some of us have been helping in the fight to end violence against women and girls. And those conversations led me to put on paper The Seven Steps For Ending Violence Against Women and Girls. These are the rules that I have followed for myself, and that I have shared with men and boys throughout America since the early 1990s:

1. Own the fact that you have made a very serious mistake, that you’ve committed an offense, whatever it is, against a woman or a girl. Denial, passing blame, and not taking full responsibility, is simply not acceptable.

2. Get help as quickly as you can in the form of counseling or therapy for your violent behavior. YOU must be willing to take this very necessary step. If you don’t know where to turn for help, I advise visiting the website www.menstoppingviolence.org, an important organization, based in Atlanta, that can give you a starting point and some suggestions. Also visit www.usdoj.gov/ovw/pledge.htm where you can find helpful information on what men and boys can do to get help for themselves. Get your hands on and watch Aishah Shahidah Simmons’ critically important documentary film NO! as soon as you are able. You can order it at www.notherapedocumentary.org. NO! is, specifically, about the history of rape and sexual assault in Black America, but that film has made its way around the globe and from that very specific narrative comes some very hard and real truths about male violence against females that is universal, that applies to us all, regardless of our race or culture. Also get a copy of Byron Hurt’s Beyond Beats and Rhymes, perhaps the most important documentary film ever made about the relationship between American popular culture and American manhood. Don’t just watch these films, watch them with other men, and watch them with an eye toward critical thinking, healing, and growth, even if they make you angry or very comfortable.

And although it may be difficult and painful, you must be willing to dig into your past, into the family and environment you’ve come from, to begin to understand the root causes of your violent behavior. For me that meant acknowledging the fact that, beginning in the home with my young single mother, and continuing through what I encountered on the streets or navigated in the parks and the schoolyards, was the attitude that violence was how every single conflict should be dealt with. More often than not, this violence was tied to a false sense of power, of being in control. Of course the opposite is the reality: violence towards women has everything to do with powerlessness and being completely out of control. Also, we need to be clear that some men simply hate or have a very low regard for women and girls. Some of us, like me, were the victims of physical, emotional, and verbal abuse at the hands of mothers who had been completely dissed by our fathers, so we caught the brunt of our mothers’ hurt and anger. Some of us were abandoned by our mothers. Some of us were sexually assaulted by our mothers or other women in our lives as boys. Some of us watched our fathers or other men terrorize our mothers, batter our mothers, abuse our mothers, and we simply grew up thinking that that male-female dynamic was the norm. Whatever the case may be, part of that “getting help” must involve the word forgiveness. Forgiveness of ourselves for our inhuman behavioral patterns and attitudes, and forgiveness of any female who we feel has wronged us at some point in our lives. Yes, my mother did hurt me as a child but as an adult I had to realize I was acting out that hurt with the women I was encountering. I had to forgive my mother, over a period of time, with the help of counseling and a heavy dose of soul-searching to understand who she was, as well as the world that created her. And I had to acknowledge that one woman’s actions should not justify a lifetime of backward and destructive reactions to women and girls. And, most importantly, we must have the courage to apologize to any female we have wronged. Ask for her forgiveness, and accept the fact that she may not be open to your apology. That is her right.

3. Learn to listen to the voices of women and girls. And once we learn how to listen, we must truly hear their concerns, their hopes and their fears. Given that America was founded on sexism—on the belief system of male dominance and privilege—as much as it was founded on the belief systems of racism and classism, all of us are raised and socialized to believe that women and girls are unequal to men and boys, that they are nothing more than mothers, lovers, or sexual objects, that it is okay to call them names, to touch them without their permission, to be violent toward them physically, emotionally, spiritually—or all of the above. This mindset, unfortunately, is reinforced in much of our educational curriculum, from preschool right through college, through the popular culture we digest every single day through music, sports, books, films, and the internet, and through our male peers who often do not know any better either—because they had not learned to listen to women’s voices either. For me that meant owning the fact that throughout my years of college, for example, I never read more than a book or two by women writers. Or that I never really paid attention to the stories of the women in my family, in my community, to female friends, colleagues, and lovers who, unbeknownst to me, had been the victims of violence at some point in their lives. So when I began to listen to and absorb the voices, the stories, and the ideas of women like Pearl Cleage, Gloria Steinem, bell hooks, Alice Walker, of the housekeeper, of the hair stylist, of the receptionist, of the school crossing guard, of the nurse’s aid, and many others, it was nothing short of liberating, to me. Terribly difficult for me as a man, yes, because it was forcing me to rethink everything I once believed. But I really had no other choice but to listen if I was serious about healing. And if I was serious about my own personal growth. It all begins with a very simple question we males should ask each and every woman in our lives: Have you ever been physically abused or battered by a man?

4. To paraphrase Gandhi, make a conscious decision to be the change we need to see. Question where and how you’ve received your definitions of manhood to this point. This is not easy as a man in a male-dominated society because it means you have to question every single privilege men have vis-à-vis women. It means that you might have to give up something or some things that have historically benefited you because of your gender. And people who are privileged, who are in positions of power, are seldom willing to give up that privilege or power. But we must, because the alternative is to continue to hear stories of women and girls being beaten, raped, or murdered by some male in their environment, be it the college campus, the inner city, the church, or corporate America. And we men and boys need to come to a realization that sexism—the belief that women and girls are inferior to men and boys, that this really is a man’s world, and the female is just here to serve our needs regardless of how we treat them—is as destructive to ourselves as it is to women and girls. As I’ve said in many speeches through the years, even if you are not the kind of man who would ever yell at a woman, curse at a woman, touch a woman in a public or private space without her permission, hit or beat a woman, much less kill a woman—you are just as guilty if you see other men and boys doing these things and you say or do nothing to stop them.

5. Become a consistent and reliable male ally to women and girls. More of us men and boys need to take public stands in opposition to violence against women and girls. That means we cannot be afraid to be the only male speaking out against such an injustice. It also means that no matter what kind of male you are, working-class or middle-class or super-wealthy, no matter what race, no matter what educational background, and so on, that you can begin to use language that supports and affirms the lives and humanity of women and girls. You can actually be friends with females, and not merely view them as sexual partners to be conquered. Stop saying “boys will be boys” when you see male children fighting or being aggressive or acting up. Do not sexually harass women you work with then try to brush it off if a woman challenges you on the harassment. If you can't get over a breakup, get counseling. As a male ally, help women friends leave bad or abusive relationships. Do not criticize economically independent women because this independence helps free them in many cases from staying in abusive situations. Donate money, food, or clothing to battered women's shelters or other women's causes. Do not ever respond to a female friend with “Oh you're just an angry woman.” This diminishes the real criticisms women may have about their male partners. American male voices I greatly admire, who also put forth suggestions for what we men and boys can do to be allies to women and girls, include Michael Kimmel, Jackson Katz, Charles Knight, Mark Anthony Neal, Jelani Cobb, Charlie Braxton, and Byron Hurt. Of course standing up for anything carries risks. You may—as I have—find things that you say and do taken out of context, misunderstood or misinterpreted, maligned and attacked, dismissed, or just outright ignored. But you have to do it anyway because you never know how the essay or book you’ve written, the speech or workshop you’ve led, or just the one-on-one conversations you’ve had, might impact on the life of someone who’s struggling for help.

I will give two examples: A few years back, after giving a lecture at an elite East Coast college, I noticed a young woman milling about as I was signing books and shaking hands. I could see that she wanted to talk with me, but I had no idea the gravity of her situation. Once the room had virtually cleared out, this 17-year-old first-year student proceeded to tell me that her pastor had been having sex with her since the time she was four, and had been physically and emotionally violent toward her on a number of occasions. Suffice to say, I was floored. This young woman was badly in need of help. I quickly alerted school administrators who pledged to assist her, and I followed up to make sure that they did. But what if I had not made a conscious decision to talk about sexism and violence against women and girls, in every single speech I gave — regardless of the topic? This young woman might not have felt comfortable enough to open up to me about such a deeply personal pain.

My other example involves a young male to whom I have been a mentor for the past few years. He is incredibly brilliant and talented, but, like me, comes from a dysfunctional home, has had serious anger issues, and, also like me, has had to work through painful feelings of abandonment as a result of his absent father. This, unfortunately, is a perfect recipe for disaster in a relationship with a woman. True to form, this young man was going through turbulent times with a woman he both loved and resented. His relationship with the young woman may have been the first time in his 20-something life he’d ever felt deep affection for another being. But he felt resentment because he could not stomach—despite his declarations otherwise—the fact that this woman had the audacity to challenge him about his anger, his attitude, and his behavior toward her. So she left him, cut him off, and he confessed to me that he wanted to hit her. In his mind, she was dissin’ him. I was honestly stunned because I thought I knew this young man fairly well, but here he was, feeling completely powerless while thoughts of committing violence against this woman bombarded his mind and spirit. We had a long conversation, over the course of a few days, and, thank God, he eventually accepted the fact that his relationship with this woman was over. He also began to seek help for his anger, his feelings of abandonment, and all the long-repressed childhood hurts that had nothing to do with this woman, but everything to do with how he had treated her. But what if he did not have somebody to turn to when he needed help? What if he’d become yet another man lurking at his ex’s job or place of residence, who saw in his ability to terrorize that woman some twisted form of power?

6. Challenge other males about their physical, emotional, and spiritual violence towards women and girls. Again, this is not a popular thing to do, especially when so many men and boys do not even believe that there is a gender violence problem in America. But challenge we must when we hear about abusive or destructive behavior being committed by our friends or peers. I have to say I really respect the aforementioned political associate who looked me straight in the eyes, 16 long years after I pushed his close female friend and my ex-girlfriend into a bathroom door, and asked me why I did what I did, and, essentially, why he should work with me all these years later? American males don’t often have these kinds of difficult but necessary conversations with each other. But his point was that he needed to understand what had happened, what work I had done to prevent that kind of behavior from happening again, and why I had committed such an act in the first place. Just for the record: No, it has not happened since, and no, it never will again. But I respect the fact that, in spite of my being very honest about past behavior, that women and men and girls and boys of diverse backgrounds have felt compelled to ask hard questions, to challenge me after hearing me speak, after reading one of my essays about sexism and redefining American manhood. We must ask and answer some hard questions. This also means that we need to challenge those men—as I was forced to do twice in the past week—who bring up the fact that some males are the victims of domestic violence at the hands of females. While this may be true in a few cases (and I do know some men who have been attacked or beaten by women), there is not even a remote comparison between the number of women who are battered and murdered on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis in America and the number of men who suffer the same fate at the hands of women. Second, we men need to understand that we cannot just use our maleness to switch the dialogue away from the very real concerns of women to what men are suffering, or what we perceive men to be suffering. That’s what step number three in the seven steps to ending violence against women and girls is all about. So many of us American males have such a distorted definition of manhood that we don’t even have the basic respect to listen to women’s voices when they talk about violence and abuse, without becoming uncomfortable, without becoming defensive, without feeling the need to bring the conversation, the dialogue, to us and our needs and our concerns, as if the needs and concerns of women and girls do not matter.

7. Create a new kind of man, a new kind of boy. Violence against women and girls will never end if we males continue to live according to definitions of self that are rooted in violence, domination, and sexism. I have been saying for the past few years that more American males have got to make a conscious decision to redefine who we are, to look ourselves in the mirror and ask where we got these definitions of manhood and masculinity, to which we cling so tightly. Who do these definitions benefit and whom do they hurt? Who said manhood has to be connected to violence, competition, ego, and the inability to express ourselves? And while we’re asking questions, we need to thoroughly question the heroes we worship, too. How can we continue to salute Bill Clinton as a great president yet never ask why he has never taken full ownership for the numerous sexual indiscretions he has committed during his long marriage to Senator Hillary Clinton? How can we in the hip-hop nation continue to blindly idolize Tupac Shakur (whom I interviewed numerous times while working at Vibe, and whom I loved like a brother) but never question how he could celebrate women in songs like “Keep Ya Head Up?” and “Dear Mama,” on the one hand, but completely denigrate women in songs like “Wonda Y They Call U Bitch”? What I am saying is that as we examine and struggle to redefine ourselves as men, we also have to make a commitment to questioning the manifestations of sexism all around us. If we fail to do so, if we do not begin to ask males, on a regular basis, why we refer to women and girls with despicable words, why we talk about women and girls as if they are nothing more than playthings, why we think its cool to “slap a woman around,” why we don’t think the rape, torture, and kidnap of Megan Williams in West Virginia should matter to us as much as the Jena 6 case in Louisiana, then the beginning of the end of violence against women and girls will be a long time coming.

Kevin Powell is a community organizer, author or editor of 7 books, and a long-time resident of Brooklyn, New York. He can be reached at kevin@kevinpowell.net.

Dorothy Allison and the illusion of control

About a year ago I wrote this about other & beyond males:

They would work to accept the existential vulnerability of their corporal life in a world of uncertainty. By accepting vulnerability they would give up the illusion of control which drives so much of the will to dominate.

If I should get any credit for contributing a useful idea to the feminist project it may be contained in those two sentences.

It feels to me that there is something very powerful in that construct... ironically its power is in the very letting go of control that dissolves the anxious need to dominate. The power of conventional masculinity to keep us reproducing hurtful patterns and institutions of social relations depends on this illusion of control.

I had the good fortune of hearing Dorothy Allison speak about seven hours ago at the annual fund raising dinner of On the Rise, a truly outstanding organization in Cambridge, Massachusetts that

...supports the initiative and strength of women who are living in crisis or homelessness. In a physically and psychologically safe environment, we build the relationships and provide the tools that each woman needs to rise to her potential.

Dorothy Allison has said this about her writing:

I want my stories to make it possible for people to look again at people they have hated or feared or held in contempt and see vulnerable human individuals much like themselves.

Ms. Allison's speech was amazing; one of the very best I've ever heard, reminiscent in its effect of the speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr; delivered in a distinctly different manner, but similar in the way shivers emerge from the gut as one listens transfixed in the act of transformation.

I wish I could transcribe that speech here. It was not recorded and my memory is more of the consistency of pudding than of a steel trap.

In short (way too short; this subject needs a hundred writers to contribute their best!) Ms. Allison loosened my control and led me to a place of relaxed, attentive and shared vulnerability with the women she cared about and for.

And, in the course of the thing, I knew that I wanted (needed!) more than anything to be for those women ... even if that being was only a passing thing like a summer evening or, indeed, our lives.

the creative power of heresy

This I Believe essay by Guy Lancaster

We are the quiet heroes -- a tribute to good men everywhere

Martin Firrell has created two extraordinary pieces of "public art" on the necessary redefinition of male heroics. Highly recommended!

http://www.martinfirrell.com/supersecretthingy.html

http://www.martinfirrell.com/supersecretthingy2.5.html

Exploring Black Masculinity

Kevin Powell talks to NPR's Farai Chideya about "Black and Male in America" and the need to create spaces in which males can talk with each other about creating better relationships and communities. Five minute interview on 15 June 2007.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11262522

Recommended Resource: a bibliography on Constructing the Black Masculine Identity

Constructing the Black Masculine Identity

Compiled by Thomas Weissinger

Afro-Americana Library Unit at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

~~

Abdel-Shehid,Gamal. Who Da Man? Black Masculinities and Sporting Cultures. Toronto; Canadian Scholars' Press, 2005.

Adu-Poku, Samuel. Envisioning (Black) Male Feminism: a Cross-Cultural Perspective. In Murphy, Peter F., ed.  Feminism and Masculinities.  New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Alexander, Bryant Keith.  "Passing, Cultural Performance, and Individual Agency: Performative Reflections on Black Masculine Identity."   Cultural Studies/Critical Methodologies 3 (August 2004): 377-404.

Baker-Kimmons, Leslie and Pancho McFarland. "The Rap on Chicano and Black Masculinity: A Content Analysis of Gender Images in Rap Lyrics."  Race, Gender and Class 2011 18(1/2): 331-344.
 
Beavers, Herman. "‘The Cool Pose': Intersectionality, Masculinity, and Quiescence in the Comedy and Films of Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy."  In Stecopoulos, Harry and Michael Uebel, eds.  Race and the Subject of Masculinities.  Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997. 

Belton, Don, ed.  Speak My Name: Black Men on Masculinity and the American Dream. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1995.

Berry, Venise T. and Harold Looney. "Rap Music, Black Men, and the Police." In Berry, Venise T. and Carmen L. Manning-Miller, eds. Mediated Messages and African-American Culture: Contemporary Issues. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1996.

Blount, Marcellus and George P. Cunningham. Representing Black Men. New York: Routledge, 1996.

Booker, Christopher B. I Will Wear No Chain!: a Social History of African-American Males. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2000.

Boyd, Todd. "The Day the Niggaz Took Over: Basketball, Commodity Culture, and Black Masculinity." In Baker, Aaron and Todd Boyd, eds. Out of Bounds: Sports, Media, and the Politics of Identity. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1997.

_____. "A Small Introduction to the ‘G' Funk Era: Gangsta Rap and Black Masculinity in Contemporary Los Angeles." In Dear, Michael J., H. Eric Schockman and Greg Hise, eds. Rethinking Los Angeles. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1996.

Brown, Jeffrey A. "Comic Book Masculinity and the New Black Superhero." African American Review 33 (Spring 1999): 25-42.

Butters, Gerald R., Jr. "Portrayals of Black Masculinity in Oscar Micheaux's The Homesteader." Literature Film Quarterly 28 (January 2000): 54-59.

Carrington, Ben. "Sport, Masculinity, and Black Cultural Resistance." Journal of Sport & Social Issues 22 (August 1998): 275-298.

Chan, Kenneth. "The Construction of Black Male Identity in Black Action Films of the Nineties."  Cinema Journal 37 (Winter 1998): 35-48.

Clark, Keith Spencer. "Reforming the Black Male Self: a Study of Subject Formation in Selected Works by James Baldwin, Ernest Gaines, and August Wilson." Ph.D. Thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1993.

Collins, Patricia Hill. "Booty call:  Sex, Violence, and Images of Black Masculinity."  In Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism. New York: Routledge, 2004.

Connor, Marlene K.  What is Cool?: Understanding Black Manhood in America.  New York:  Crown Publishers, 1995.

Cooper, Frank Rudy. "Against Bipolar Black Masculinity: Intersectionality, Assimilation, Identity Performance, and Hierarchy," U.C. Davis Law Review 39 (2006): 853-906.

Crosby, Nandi S. "Re/constructing Black Masculinity in Prison." Journal of Men's Studies 11 (Fall 2002): 91-107.

Dines, Gail. "King Kong and the White Woman: Hustler Magazine and the Demonization of Black Masculinity." Violence Against Women 4 (June 1998): 291-307.

Duneier, Mitchell.  Slim's Table: Race, Respectability, and Masculinity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Dyson, Michael Eric. "The Politics of Black Masculinity and the Ghetto in Black Film." In Becker, Carol, ed. The Subversive Imagination: Artists, Society, and Responsibility. New York: Routledge, 1994.

Estes, Steve. "I am a Man!": Race, Masculinity, and the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike." Labor History 41 (May 2000): 153-170.

Ferguson, Ann Arnett. "Bad Boys: School and the Social Construction of Black Masculinity." Ph.D. Thesis, University of California at Berkeley, 1995.

Gabbard, Krin. "Borrowing Black Masculinity: Dirty Harry finds his Gentle Side." In Gabbard, Krin. Black Magic: White Hollywood and African American Culture. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004.

Gates, Philippa. "Always a Partner in Crime: Black Masculinity in the Hollywood Detective Film."  Journal of Popular Film and Television 32 (Spring 2004): 20-29.

Gayles, Jonathan. Stepping Off Stage: Towards a More Reflexive Blackness. Journal of African American Studies 12 (June 2008): 180-192.

Gerstner, David A. Manly Arts: Masculinity and Nation in Early American Cinema.  Durham: Duke University Press, 2006.   Chapters include "African American Realism: Oscar Micheaux, Autobiography, and the Ambiguity of Black Male Desire" and "The Queer Frontier: Vincente Minnelli's Cabin in the Sky."

Gerstner, David A. "'Other and Different Scenes': Oscar Micheaux's Bodies and the Cinematic Cut."  Wide Angle 21 (October 1999): 6-19.

Golden, Thelma. "Black Masculinity: a Long, Hard Look behind the Fierce Cool." Essence 26 (November 1995): 96-98+

_____, ed. Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1994.

Goodey, Jo. "Understanding Racism and Masculinity: Drawing on Research with Boys Aged Eight to Sixteen." International Journal of the Sociology of Law 26 (December 1998): 393-418.

Grant, Nathan.  Masculinist  Impulses:  Toomer, Hurston, Black writing, and modernity Columbia : University of Missouri Press, 2004.

Green, Herb. "Turning the Myths of Black Masculinity Inside/out." In Thompson, Becky and Sangeeta Tyagi, eds. Names We Call Home: Autobiography on Racial Identity. New York: Routledge, 1996.

Halberstam, Judith. "Mackdaddy, Superfly, Rapper: Gender, Race, and Masculinity in the Drag Queen Scene." Social Text 52/53 (Fall 1997): 104-131.

Hall, Mary Allen. "Images of African-American Males in Realistic Fiction Picture Books, 1971-1990." Ph.D. Thesis, University of Florida, 1996.

Hall, Ronald E. "Clowns, Buffoons, and Gladiators: Media Portrayals of African-American Men." Journal of Men's Studies 1 (February 1993): 239-251.

 _____. "Dark Skin and the Cultural Ideal of Masculinity."  Journal of African American Men 1 (Winter 1995/96): 37-61.

 

Hall, Ronald E. and Jesenia M. Pizarro.  "Cool Pose: Black Male Homicide and the Social Implications of Manhood."  Journal of Social Service Research 37 (Jan/Feb 2011): 86-98.
 
Hampton, Gregory J. "Black Men Fenced in and a Plausible Black Masculinity."  CLA Journal 46 (December 2002): 194-206.

Hare, Nathan. "The Frustrated Masculinity of the Negro Male."  In Staples, Robert, ed.  The Black Family: Essays and Studies.  New York: Wadsworth, 1971.

Harper, Phillip Brian. Are We Not Men? Masculine Anxiety and the Problem of African-American Identity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Harris, Keith M.  Boys, Boyz, Bois: an Ethics of Black Masculinity in Film and Popular Media. New York: Routledge, 2006.

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_____. "Killing the Author of Life, or Decimating 'Bad Niggers'." Journal of Black Studies 19 (December 1988): 216-231.

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Neal, Mark Anthony.  "NIGGA: The 21st-Century Theoretical Superhero." Cultural Anthropology 28, no. 3 (August 2013): 556-563.
 
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Powell, Kevin. "Rage and Revolution: a Nation of Hip-Hop Brothers." Essence 30 (November 1999): 127+

Pressley, Arthur. "Rap Music by Black Male Artists: A Psychological Interpretation." Western Journal of Black Studies 16 (Summer 1992): 92-97.

Price, Jeremy N. "Schooling and Racialized Masculinities: the Diploma, Teachers, and Peers in the Lives of Young, African American Men." Youth & Society 31 (December 1999): 224-263.

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Rebhorn, Matthew. "Flaying Dutchman." Callaloo 26 (Summer 2003): p. 796-812.

Reddock, Rhoda E.  Interrogating Caribbean Masculinities: Theoretical and Empirical Analyses. Kingston, Jamaica : University of the West Indies Press, 2004.

Reid-Pharr, Robert F. "Tearing the Goat's Flesh: Crisis, Homosexuality, Abjection, and the Production of a Late-twentieth-century Black Masculinity." In Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, ed. Novel Gazing: Queer Readings in Fiction. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997.

Richardson, Riche. "Charles Fuller's Southern Specter and the Geography of Black Masculinity." American Literature 77 (March 2005): 7-32.

_______Black masculinity and the U.S. South: from Uncle Tom to Gangsta. Athens : University of Georgia Press, 2007.

Riggs, Marlon T. "Black Macho Revisited: Reflections of a Snap! Queen." Black American Literature Forum 25 (Summer 1991): 389-394.

Roberts, G.W. "Brother to Brother: African-American Modes of Relating among Men." Journal of Black Studies 24 (June 1994): 379-390.

Ross, Marlon B. "In Search of Black Men's Masculinities." Feminist Studies 24 (Fall 1998): 599-626.

_____. "Some Glances at the Black Fag: Race, Same-Sex Desire, and Cultural Belonging." In Napier, Winston, ed. African American Literary Theory: A Reader.  New York: New York University Press, 2000.

Saint-Aubin, Arthur F. "A Grammar of Black Masculinity: a Body of Science." Journal of Men's Studies 10 (Spring 2002): 247-270.

_____. "Testeria: the Dis-ease of Black Men in White Supremacist, Patriarchal Culture." Callaloo 17 (Fall 1994): 1054-1073.

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Smith, Earl. African American Men and Intimate Partner Violence Journal of African American Studies 12 (June 2008): 156-179

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Staples, Robert. Black Masculinity: the Black Male's Role in American Society.  San Francisco, CA:  Black Scholar Press, 1982.

_____. "Masculinity and Race: the Dual Dilemma of Black Men." Journal of Social Issues 34 (Winter 1978): 169-183.

Summers, Martin Anthony. Manliness and its Discontents: the Black Middle Class and the Transformation of Masculinity, 1900-1930. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.

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Wade, J.C. "African American Men's Gender Role Conflict: the Significance of Racial Identity." Sex Roles 34 (January 1996): 17-33.

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Wise, Sheila J. "Redefining Black Masculinity and Manhood: Successful Black Gay Men Speak Out." Journal of African American Men 5 (Spring 2001): 3-22.

______.A Different Kind of Black Man: On Being Gay.  1 DVD (19 min.).  San Francisco, CA: Frameline, 2001.

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Source: http://www.library.illinois.edu/afx/Masculinity.htm

Black and Male in America

Feminist blogger Sassywho writes:

Other & Beyond Real Men is sponsoring this event [15-17 June, Brooklyn, NY] and I strongly encourage everyone who can to go. I've included the full schedule because it looks amazing, and the change that these men are committed to making in their communities is worth all of the support that we can give them. Please pass it on....

For Nodin upon his 13th birthday: a wish for a different sort of manhood

For Nodin upon his 13th birthday
by Vivian Todini

As you move into manhood...

May your courage be in your words and deeds.

May you keep yourself and others whom you love safe.

May your trust be grounded in instinct and self-respect.

May your fierceness be toward injustice.

May your power be strengthened by sharing it with others.

May diplomacy and thoughtful action be your sword.

May your bravery be bold yet not misguided.

May you judge neither yourself nor others harshly.

May patience and gentleness have room in your life.

May you nourish your spirit with song, art and laughter.

May you feed your intellect with curiosity and experiment.

May you embrace your fears with compassion and valor.

May the child within you always be heard.

May your passion always have voice.

May your soul receive the gifts of your passion.

May hope and vision lift the heaviness that sometimes calls.

May you love deeply, honestly and with respect.

May you hold a vision of peace for yourself and the world.

Normal Traumatization of Boys

Terrance Real describes the indoctrination of boys into patriarchal thinking:

When I first began looking at gender issues, I believed that violence was a by-product of boyhood socialization. But after listening more closely to men and their families, I have come to believe that violence is boyhood socialization. The way we "turn boys into men" is through injury: We sever them from their mothers, research tells us, far too early. We pull them away from their own expressiveness, from their feelings, from sensitivity to others. The very phrase "Be a man" means suck it up and keep going. Disconnection is not fallout from traditional masculinity. Disconnection is masculinity.

quoted in "The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love" by bell hooks, page 60.

Buy this book for every man you care about

This is an extraordinary book! I urge you to buy copies for every man, young or old, in your life - family, friend, lover. It can change their life for the better (and yours as well.) It can start them on the way to finding love without domination.

The book is The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks. You can purchase copies at only $10 each here from Amazon.com

Some excerpts:

...the will to use violence is really not linked to biology but to a set of expectations about the nature of power in a dominator culture. (p55)

...no one talks about the role patriarchal notions of manhood play in teaching boys that it is their nature to kill, then teaching them that they can do nothing to change this nature --- nothing, that is, that will leave their masculinity intact. (p11)

Indoctrination…includes a psychological initiation that requires boys to accept that their willingness to do violent acts makes them patriarchal men. (p59)

Researchers [in a national survey of adolescent males] found that boys agreed that to be truly manly they must command respect, be tough, not talk about problems, and dominate females. (p42)

Patriarchal fathers cannot love their sons because the rules of patriarchy dictate that they stand in competition with their sons, ready to prove that they are the real man, the one in charge. (p47)

...there exists a masculine ideal that young males are not sure how to attain and that undermines their self-esteem. (p49)

Ruthless patriarchal assault on the self-esteem of teenage boys has become an accepted norm. There is a grave silence about male tyranny in relation to teenage boys. (p52)

Boys brutalized and victimized by patriarchy more often than not become patriarchal, embodying the abusive patriarchal masculinity that they once clearly recognized as evil. (p28)

The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women, [but rather] acts of psychic self-mutilation, [killing] off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem. (p66)

The unhappiness of men in relationships, the grief men feel about the failure of love, often goes unnoticed in our society precisely because the patriarchal culture really does not care if men are unhappy. (p5)

Wounded males must recover all the parts of the self they abandoned in serving the needs of patriarchal maleness. (p155)

The core of feminist masculinity is a commitment to gender equality and mutuality as crucial to interbeing and partnership in the creating and sustaining of life. (p118)

Feminist writing did not tell us about the deep inner misery of men. It did not tell us the terrible terror that gnaws at the soul when one cannot love. (p4)

...most folks continue to see men as the problem of patriarchy. This is simply not the case. Women can be as wedded to patriarchal thinking and action as men. (p23)

Dismantling and changing patriarchal culture is work that men and women must do together. (p24)

Your manhood can be revoked!

~ Charles Knight

The following are adapted excerpts from my "Tough Enough? Beyond the dominion of conventional masculinity in the politics of national security" -- a presentation to the Women in Public Policy weekly seminar, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA USA, 18 October 2005.

These excerpts address the contingency of 'manhood', the social enforcement of conventionality, and how these in combination are used to create gender-based 'war parties' to pursue international violence. They also explore what's to be done to move beyond this sort of destructive politics.

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While conventional womanhood status is achieved for the most part through biological processes, conventional manhood status is granted by other males after ritualized ordeals and other social tests that often involve symbolic or actual violence. That other men are the keepers of manhood status has important consequences for gender politics. Men live with their manhood under the constant threat of revocation, and this contingency is a powerful enforcer of conventional power relations among males.

To illustrate how contingent manhood fits into the discourse about security and how it shores up a hegemonic masculinity I refer to the words of an archetypical man of action who in a moment of enthusiasm told us something interesting about how he experienced the fighting in Afghanistan.

On February 4th of 2005 the AP quotes Marine Corps Lt. Gen James Mattis as saying:

Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of hoot… It's fun to shoot some people. I like brawling. You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.

What drew my attention in this statement is that Mattis is justifying his pleasure in lethal violence within a cultural notion of 'manhood' and, in particular, the issue of who has it and who doesn't. Mattis derides the manhood of his enemy counterparts and once Mattis can judge them as less than real men he finds full permission to enjoy killing them.

Feminists have pointed out that in the stories of war the victor is usually gendered male and often the vanquished is gendered (or re-gendered) female [Goldstein p. 371]. In the binary system of conventional masculinity and femininity, if you have your manhood taken away what are you other than a woman, or in the masculinist discourse, a sissy or a girly-man? Furthermore, while a woman is tolerated in her place, in this system of thought there is no place for 'out of their place' males who are named and rejected as sissies, girly-men, fags, or queers.

From an international relations perspective the personal motivations of an individual soldier such as Mattis are well below the radar: state interests and associated motives are thought of as quite different from those of individuals in the state system. Furthermore there is no evidence I know of that most soldiers are motivated to fight by ideas such as Mattis' or that the military is a haven for men who share those ideas.

Nonetheless, Mattis's story provides me with a good introduction to a key political premise:

For every person like Mattis in the military there are undoubtedly ten, twenty or a hundred in civilian life. And in the American system of governance wars are pursued by ad hoc war coalitions that need to mobilize diverse groupings of political actors. People who are inclined to fight over matters of manhood offer a significant and reliable part of war coalitions and this group tracks closely to conventional masculine identity.

Now I want to return your attention to Mattis' seemingly gratuitous remark that he likes brawling! Brawling is fighting, usually fist fighting, for sport. People who do it tend to think of it as a worthy activity, and even if bloodied in the process, it is experienced first and foremost as fun. Participants who are usually male pride themselves with being ready for a fight at the slightest provocation. I believe Mattis made this remark about brawling because our culture includes the notion that real men are brawlers, and his affinity for brawling shores up his identity as a 'real man.'

However, brawling is not something that I have ever, ever wanted to do or thought might be fun. And when I have witnessed it I have made a point to give it a wide berth. Mattis' statement signaled that his masculinity is very different from mine.

I believe there is some more than trivial portion of males in our society who feel something like me and who exclude from their masculine identity affinity for brawling and, indeed, most any violence against males or females. I propose to you that this portion of males, when organized into self-confident identity and in alignment with other gender identity groupings, represents a potentially significant political expression in regards to national security policy. Right now organization of these males is inhibited, but with attention to this potential, this situation could change in the next decades.

However, under current conditions of hegemony the leading males who have laid claim to the title of 'real men' are able to make political use of the binary opposition of 'real man' and 'not a man' which is internalized in nearly all males. They use this to suppress opposing political expression of other males who are inclined toward different security policy preferences and to thereby rather too easily pull them into a hegemonic consensus.

If other masculinities are to challenge the hegemony of the conventional, we must resist the temptation to contest the character of a 'real man' -- to redefine this type - to say "We are real men of a different sort..."

The best strategy, I believe, is to cede to conservatives this particular ground, the lonely mountain top held by real men. Instead we need to develop multiple strong points for males in a diverse gender space of politics. I stress the word 'develop' since I believe there are as yet few alternative strong points in gender space for males to occupy. Gay man is one such point that has some strength, culturally and politically. But we need several others.

When I refer to gender space I am thinking about all of that space between and around what has traditionally been placed into a duality of masculine and feminine. I believe there is a multidimensional space of gender possibilities that don't lie in a straight line between man and woman. Gay, lesbian and transgender (and more recently queer) culture and politics has brought awareness of this gender space, especially among younger Americans who are increasingly open and accepting of a wide range of gender expressions simply unimaginable a couple decades ago.

Although GLBT and Q cultures are leading the way in this discovery, it is not my contention that they as an allied set of social movements will gain sufficient power to transform the politics of national security in the foreseeable future. Rather, my hypothesis is that there is some meaningful portion of males, many of whom are sexually straight and don't currently identify with queer culture, who have masculinities distinct from the traditional 'real man' type. This set might be composed of two or three different masculine types. Right now we simply don't know much about this male gender space and as part of a research agenda we need to learn more about these males and the gender space they occupy.

Just as women have organized themselves in opposition to conventional feminine roles and behaviors and then moved on to positive new feminine identities, there is latent potential for males to make this move away from conventional masculinity. It is time to realize this potential!

To restate my political hypothesis:

In the set of non-conventional masculinities that already exist, yet are currently subordinate, there is considerable political latency which could be organized into eventual alliance with progressive women to advance security policies that are less reliant on violence. Effective political organization will require establishing strong points of identity and confidence for these males.

The power of this set of other masculinities will remain latent as long as these males are kept within the confines of conventional masculinity by a combination of shaming and physical intimidation and the reified idea that there is only one gender choice for males - "real man" or "not a man." It is routine for boys growing up to be teased, harassed, and beaten if they stray ever so little from conventional male looks or behavior. This is something I can vividly remember from my childhood.

At the extreme, many of the most vicious hate crimes are against gays, transsexuals, and people of ambiguous gender appearance and behavior.

Returning to the potential political expression of males who are not fixed in the conventional masculine posture, the requisites for realizing their potential political power when aligned with women are these:

1. describing and "raising consciousness" about these different masculinities so that males can recognize them in themselves and have the option of identifying with one or another of their aspects or types.

2. an impassioned struggle, along the lines that gays have mounted in the last thirty years, against the shaming and physical intimidation of boys and men; and

3. following the examples of gays and lesbians, creating a proud and assertive political and social expression for these male gender variants.

I don't want to speculate on how long it will take for these new masculinities to emerge as a contending political force, but I am willing to hazard a prediction that a generation from now gender expression in politics, including national security politics, will be very different than it is now.

posted by Charles Knight

Sowing the Seeds of Fascism in Americaby Stan Goff

Stan Goff has written this interesting essay on militarism, fascism, and masculinity -- Sowing the Seeds of Fascism in America.

An excerpt:

The film genre that most closely corresponds to a fascist mind-set is the male revenge fantasy, wherein after some offense is given that signifies the breakdown of order (usually resulting in the death or mortal imperilment of idealized wives or children) in which Enlightenment social conventions prove inadequate, and the release of irrational male violence is required to set the world straight again. Any reader can list these fantasies without a cue. It is one of the most common film genres in American society.

R. W. Connell wrote in Masculinities (University of California Press, 1995):

In gender terms, fascism was the naked reassertion of male supremacy in societies that had been moving toward equality for women. To accomplish this, fascism promoted new images of hegemonic masculinity, glorifying irrationality ("the triumph of the will”, thinking with “the blood") and the unrestrained violence of the frontline soldier.

a female-male alliance supports a profound shift in the culture of violence

The following is excerpted from Security in the Great Transition by Charles Knight, published by the Tellus Institute, 2006. It is an imagined history of 21st Century warfare and international security written from the perspective of a grateful historian in 2084.

Few of the advancements in international security arrangements and in the demilitarization of nation states we enjoy today would have been possible if there had not been a deep change in culture from below. The previous century had already witnessed less glorification of warring and the rise to prominence of several outstanding leaders and movements committed to non-violent political struggle.

In the twenty-first century a deeper cultural change happened. Non-violent practice became central to many more people's lives and identities at all levels of relationships, from the personal to the global. Historians trace this “culture revolution” back to the feminist and gay liberation struggles of the twentieth century. By the second decade of the twenty-first century these movements had evolved into broad and multi-variant gender revolution that found strong resonance in the Global Citizens Movement that was then gaining strength (Kriegman, 2006). More and more people came to understand that gender identity and roles were much more of a choice (and had many more possibilities) than had been understood in previous generations. Gender identity and roles were increasingly understood as non-dichotomous, occupying a complex space of sexual and gender behavior possibilities. Gender expression was an active, creative, and inventive part of life and very much a choice in the way of being with and among others.

Although there was significant cultural resistance to this gender revolution, many observers expressed surprise at how quickly millions, especially among the young, broke with conventional identities to join in the freedom of open gender expression. For matters of security this “revolution” had several effects: a significant minority of males began to identify with a masculinity that did not include an affinity for violent or dominating relations with others and a majority of females were no longer willing to cede management of security (in their immediate lives and internationally) to males. This had political effect in that it became much harder to form political coalitions in support of wars—in particular, fewer people were willing to throw their political support behind organized violence. Also many more females aspired to be elected or promoted into positions of power and found success, often supported by significant numbers of males who preferred less violent and less dominating approaches to security issues frequently favored by female leaders.

This female-male alliance caused a profound shift in the culture of violence at the personal, familial, and community level. As the century progressed the steady decrease in the size of national armies and the numbers of wars was matched by a similarly paced decrease in violence “domestically”, the result of intensive social and political organizing by this growing female-male gender alliance. Of course, this change in gender identities and relations was not evenly paced across cultures and societies, but an unmistakable global trend was apparent that supported lower levels of international, inter-communal, and inter-personal violence.

gender
peace
masculinities

Jean Baker Miller and Relational-Cultural Theory

Jean Baker Miller was one of the founding contributors to the branch of feminist psychotherapy and psychology known as Relational-Cultural Theory. 

I can attest that she was a wonderful human being and she will be deeply missed by those of us lucky enough to have known her!  Jean died in 2006 from complications of polio she had as a child.

I repost below a 'brief summary' of Relational-Cultural Theory from the Jean Baker Miller Center at Wellesley College.  Please believe me when I say this has everything to do with liberating masculinities.

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The Development of Relational-Cultural Theory

Beginnings: Self-in-Relation

Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT) has grown from the early work of Jean Baker Miller, M.D. who wrote the best-selling book Toward New Psychology of Women. Since the first edition was published in 1976, the book has sold over 200,000 copies, has been translated into 20 languages, and published in 12 countries. In her work, Dr. Miller explored the importance of dynamics of dominance and subordination in human relationships and began to reframe the psychology of women as a psychology centered in relationships.

RCT was then further developed collaboratively when Jean Baker Miller, M.D., Judith V. Jordan, Ph.D., Irene Stiver, Ph.D., and Janet Surrey, Ph.D. began meeting twice a month in 1977. This group, later named the Stone Center Theory Group, and then the Founding Scholars, was trying to break free from what they felt were the damaging effects for women of traditional therapy. By 1981 they were writing papers, presenting at conferences, and had found an institutional home at the Stone Center at Wellesley College where Jean Baker Miller served as the first director; they were literally coming into voice.

Women Finding Voice
The group continued to question the usefulness of psychology and therapeutic practices that elevate and celebrate the notion of a hyper-individuated separate self. The dominant (white, male, middle-class, heterosexual) culture valorizes power over others, overemphasizing internal traits, intrapsychic conflict, and strive for independence and success accomplished through competitive achievement, particularly in the culture of the 21^st-century United States. To the extent that relationships are emphasized, they are viewed as primarily utilitarian, as aids to the achievement to separate self. They underemphasize the importance of connection, growth-fostering relationship and community, and often position a person’s need for interconnectedness as a sign of “weakness.”

From Woman’s Voice to Women’s Voices
As the work progressed, it brought phenomenological focus to the experience of women whose voices had been historically marginalized from the mainstream writing about women’s development. The inclusion of these voices was intended to challenge our assumptions of a power myth norm that would define “woman” as a white, economically privileged, able-bodied, and heterosexual female. Unchallenged, this norm becomes a standard against which all women’s experience is interpreted and evaluated. Therefore, the extent to which an individual woman conforms to this norm becomes almost by default the measure by which she is deemed worthy of notice or fit for connection. They began to understand the importance of connection as it also sought to move the model away from the biases of white, middle-class heterosexual experience, from woman’s voice to women’s voices: understanding the essentiality of connection across difference.

The effects of disconnection at a societal level, the ways that power differentials, forces of stratification, privilege, and marginalization can disconnect and disempower individuals and groups of people is paramount to understanding well-being on both an individual and societal level. The exercise of power over others (dominance), unilateral, influence, and/or coercive control is a prime deterrent to mutuality.

Mutuality involves profound mutual respect and mutual openness to change and responsiveness. It does not mean equality. As Jean Baker Miller once said, “In order for one person to grow in relationship, both people must grow.” This involves intersubjective, cognitive-emotional change; there is a certain, although different, vulnerability for both participants. Although we ultimately believe safety lies in building good, growth-fostering relationships and not in establishing separation from and power over others, building authentic connection is predicated on tolerating uncertainty, complexity, and the inevitable vulnerability involved in real change. It is far from easy or being perpetually “nice.”

Naming Relational and Cultural Power Structures
A critical step in the evolution of the model was recognizing the significance of cultural context to human development and the impact of culture on daily life. This awareness follows from increased acknowledgment that relationships do not exist as atomized units—separate and distinct from the larger culture. Indeed, relationships may both represent and reproduce the culture in which they are embedded. Accordingly, theories about human development must answer the question: What purpose and whose interests does the theory serve? The history of psychological theory is replete with evidence of complicity with cultural arrangements and power practices that divide people into groups of dominants and subordinates. One example of this complicity was the proliferation of psychiatric diagnoses in the 19^th century ascribing certain “personality traits” to African slaves that supposedly made them susceptible to “rascality, episodes of running away and disregard for owner’s property” (Thomas & Sillen, 1972).

More recently, feminist theorists (Broverman, Broverman, Clarkson, Rosenkranz, & Vogel, 1970; Gilligan, 1982; Jordan et al., 1991; Miller, 1976, 1987; Miller & Stiver, 1997) have noted how the traditional theories of psychological maturity tended to overpathologize women as inherently needy, overly emotional, and dependent. Rarely was there any attention to the social structures and power arrangements that circumscribed the relational roles designated for women in a gender-stratified culture. When “personality traits” are attributed to a subordinate group and pathologized, psychological theories help to justify and preserve the culture’s power stratifications. In sum, the shift from self-in-relation to RCT signifies an intentional focus on the social implications of theory development.

Through exploring connection and disconnection at both the individual and social levels, we begin to understand how the political becomes psychological/personal and vice versa. Connections form or fail to form within a web of other social and cultural relationships. As we more deeply understood the central role of culture and power differentials on relationships, we felt the model’s name needed to signal this.

Pursuing Social Justice
To place culture, alongside connection, at the center of the theory is to break a critical silence. First, it acknowledges that social and political values inform theories of human psychology, including those that valorize separation and autonomy. Relational-Cultural Theory does not pretend to be value neutral. RCT recognizes that to feign value neutrality is to perpetuate the distortions of the stratified culture in rather predictable ways. First, theory itself becomes exempt from social scrutiny and takes on an aura of truth. Second, such hierarchical “power over” theories control how all members of the culture are defined and known. Third, it does this by tending to degrade or pathologize the experiences of marginalized people. Fourth, it tends to overvalue and privilege the perspectives of people who are culturally dominant.

Miller (1976) and others have pointed out that as one gains dominance in a culture of stratified power, enabling supports and connections are rendered invisible. By placing culture at the center of the model, RCT strives to make visible the multi-layered connections that belie the myth of separation (Miller & Stiver, 1997).

In a culture that valorizes separation and autonomy, persons with cultural privilege can falsely appear more self-sufficient and so will be judged as healthier, more mature, more worthy of the privilege society affords. Those who enjoy less cultural privilege (whether by virtue or race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or economic status) will more likely be viewed as deficient and needy. They are more likely to be subject to systemic disadvantage and culture shaming.

By bringing a phenomenological focus to cultural context, a more complete and accurate picture of human experience and possibility emerges. Without such a focus, the experiences of both the socially privileged and the socially disadvantaged are subject to distortion.

Who Defines “Reality?”
The illusion of separation and the mistaken belief in autonomy contribute to the denial of the basic human need to participate in the growth of others and to being open to be moved by others. And yet the power to move others, to find responsiveness, to effect change, to create movement together is a vital part of good connection. How power is defined and expressed is crucial. For instance there is the power to name, to shame, and to define another’s value or lack thereof, the power to distribute resources. If this power is expressed unilaterally, it reduces the strength and power of the other people or group of people who do not hold this power. As it is held onto and denied to others, it creates disconnection and disempowerment. Inequalities in power distribution occur in families, in therapy relationships, in work relationships. At a societal level, unequal distribution of power among groups—those largely defined as marginal by dominant center groups—is rampant and the source of pain and disconnection among the members of the marginalized people.

Necessity of Conflict in Mutual Relationships
The complexity of connection and of relationships arises from unequal power, from working with difference, or from trying to manage conflict creatively. RCT recognizes that all relationships are punctuated by disconnections, misunderstandings, and conflict. Connecting in a real, growthful way with others is not always harmonious or comfortable; we all experience fear, anger, and shame. We move away to protect ourselves, particularly if we are not met with empathic responsiveness or if we feel we do not matter to the other person. But when we renegotiate these inevitable disconnections, the relationship is enhanced and personal feelings of well-being, creativity, and clarity increase.

The path of connection is filled with disconnections, the vulnerability of seeking reconnection, and the tension around needing to move away, possibly to hide in protective inauthenticity. But we believe there is powerful force behind the movement toward connection, a yearning for connection, a desire to contribute to others, to serve something larger than “the self.”

Finding Hope
As we move forward in the development of RCT, we ask: How can we create a radical new language of connection and fully appreciate the fundamental contribution of relationship to human development? How can we appreciate the power of “controlling images?” Described so powerfully by Patricia Hill Collins (1990), these images are often about race, class, gender, and sexual orientation, and are imposed by the dominant culture to disempower and marginalize subordinate groups. We seek to examine how cultural stratification along multiple social identities shapes developmental experiences and relational possibilities by exploring how experiences of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, and gender effect the development of authenticity and mutual empathy in relationship. In the earliest days of our work we elucidated the relational consequences of interpersonal disconnection, describing it as a primary source of human suffering.

We acknowledge the thesis that a “power over” culture is itself an agent of disconnection that, left unchallenged, diminishes the relational capacities and confidence of all its members. For example, because unilateral power breeds fear, it also diminishes the relational capacities of those who hold power over others. When the purpose of a relationship is to protect the power differential (maintain the gap between those who hold privilege and those who do not), it is highly unlikely that authentic responsiveness can unfold. Indeed, authentic engagement and openness to mutual influence may be viewed as dangerous practices.

Neuroscience
The path of connection is filled with complexity, contradiction, and uncertainty. In the face of the unknowns and the humbling blindspots, we are dedicated to learning to being responsive. In a world that is increasingly disconnected, violent, and filled with fear, where community needs are obscured by individual greed and competition, we feel commitment to connection. And in turning to connection, we feel hope.

References

Broverman, I. K., Broverman, D. M., Clarkson, F. E., Rosenkranz, P. S., & Vogel, S. (1970). "Sex-role stereotypes and clinical judgments of mental health." Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 34(1), 1-7.

Collins, P. H. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman.

Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Jordan, J. V. (Ed.). (1997). Women’s growth in diversity: More writings from the Stone Center. New York: Guilford Press.

Jordan, J. V., Kaplan, A. G., Miller, J. B., Stiver, I. P., & Surrey, J. L. (1991). Women’s growth in connection: Writings from the Stone Center. New York: Guilford Press.

Miller, J. B. (1976). Toward a new psychology of women. Boston: Beacon Press.

Miller, J. B. (1987). Toward a new psychology of women (2^nd ed.). Boston: Beacon Press.

Miller, J. B. & Stiver, I. P. (1997). The healing connection: How women form relationships in therapy and in life. Boston: Beacon Press.

Thomas, A. & Sillen, S. (1972). Racism and psychiatry. New York: Brunner-Routledge.

reposted from http://www.jbmti.org/Our-Work/the-development-of-relational-cultural-theory

the other & beyond male -- what's he like?

The following is adapted from some exploratory writing I did earlier this year:

A premise of my work on male gender identity and politics is that there is already some significant minority of males who reject (consciously or in their being in the world) the dominant male gender identity and role. I ask: around which characteristics and what behaviors might these males eventually discover each other and then combine into a new gender identity?

First, they would understand how hard it is for a male in this patriarchal society to express love and be in loving relationships of mutuality. They would consciously be in pursuit of healing this wound in themselves and of sharing the rewards of love with other men and women (thanks to bell hooks for articulating this.)

Men who reject Real Manhood would desire the joys and challenges of nurturing the young, the sick, the old, and their much-of-the-time healthy friends. They would want access to as much of their emotional and spiritual life as possible and they would be ready to struggle against cultures that seek to stifle it in the name of efficiency and order.

These men would reject violence for the deep hurt it does to the community and they would prepare themselves to struggle fiercely and with respect for others to protect that which is precious in their families, community and world.

They would work to accept the existential vulnerability of their corporal life in a world of uncertainty. By accepting vulnerability they would give up the illusion of control which drives so much of the will to dominate.

C.D.Knight

of me (the editor) and this blog

My feminist friends tell me that it is important to ‘locate’ myself when I write. And blog culture is very conducive to writing about ‘me’, so for this first post on this new blog I will take the hint and tell you something about myself and why I am taking the trouble to create this blog.

Professionally I work as a national security analyst. I work for a ‘think tank’ and I spend about half my time writing critical studies of U.S. defense policy (that should help you locate my political leanings) and the other half of my work goes to making information about national security issues available on the Web so that millions of people in the United States and around the world (we have actually reached millions with our Internet sites) are better informed and therefore better prepared to engage in the politics of security.

I am a male. My ancestry is primarily European-American. My family has accumulated and passed along considerable wealth over generations. I am sixty years-old. I have been married to the same woman for almost forty years. I have three children and two grandchildren. Pretty straight! At least you’d think so by the description so far. And I have been pretty lucky, in many ways! More about me in future posts...I promise.

Back to national security. Several years ago I started to get serious about gender and national security. I watched while George Bush and Karl Rove successfully called John Kerry’s masculinity into question around a war in which Kerry had served with distinction while Bush had used family connections to avoid going. Seemed like an unlikely formula for political success. But Bush and Rove used male insecurity and female attachment to the most fundamental of bargains in patriarchy (men protecting the women folk) to build an election victory.

It was then that I decided that in order to make it harder for men like George Bush to lead us into wars we need to free as many males as possible from the tyranny of wondering if they are ‘real men’ so that they can confidently say ‘no’ to war (as well as other destructive behaviors.) And that will take a movement of liberation of males from the confines of conventional masculinity.

A friend called my attention to the literature of people who have trans-gendered. Reading their stories really brought home to me how much of what we experience as our gender is socially constructed. If trans people can do it and if we just allow ourselves to think outside the confines of the binary Male/Female, the possibilities for liberating males is huge and obvious.

One day, inspired, I started to draft a manifesto about this type of male liberation. I showed it to some trusted feminist friends and the feedback I got convinced me that it wasn’t quite ready for prime time. And besides, a manifesto is a political document, and, as such, it is better if it represents the views of more than one person. So I will ask some others to help me revise and add their voices to it. When it appears in print I trust it will be the stronger for it.

Meanwhile, what about this blog? I imagine developing here, in a less formal way, some of the ideas that are in my draft manifesto and other essays I have written to date. There is so much that needs to be explored. I will also invite some of the wonderful people I have met in gender studies and in feminist politics to join me here with their ideas and comments. I invite your thoughts, dear reader, and will post those I judge to add something meaningful to a mutual exploration of promising new gender space. Write me at otherbeyond(at)gmail.com.

C.D.Knight