Join us this Thursday, Jan 9, 7pm, Brew Merchant, Holland, MI
"Why are so many boys and men floundering?"
Let me start with an admission. I did not want to devote a gathering to the struggles of boys and men. My dad, Marlin, had mentioned Ezra Klein’s interview with Richard Reeves, author of Of Boys and Men. I had seen the title of the show and chosen to skip it. For basically all of recorded history, men had dominated. Only recently (very recently!) had women begun to have the freedoms and rights that they deserved. If men and boys were struggling, they only had themselves to blame.
And then Donald Trump won again.
About two months before the election, I came across an article in the New York Times that shocked me: “Many Gen Z Men Feel Left Behind. Some See Trump as an Answer.” It was this graph, in particular, that surprised and worried me.
The fact that men 29 and under were supporting Trump by more 10+ points was shocking to me. I was obviously missing something.
As I have worked through Reeve’s book and Bell Hooks’ book on masculinity, The Will to Change, I have gained a lot more understanding and sympathy for men, for myself even. Many men and many boys are struggling academically, economically, and in their mental health. Also, many men have changed and continue to change, moving away from patriarchal masculinity, which hurts women and children, of course, but also men.
As Bell Hooks wrote: “The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill 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.”
I hope you’ll join us this Thursday!