The Men Taking Classes to Unlearn Toxic Masculinity

Submitted by Mastodon on Mon, 2017-10-23 17:38

Article here. Excerpt:

'For some time, Stephen Hicks had felt like something was off. “My relationship ended, then a lot of things started collapsing in front of me,” Hicks says. He began attending therapy, which made him realize that he needed to make a bigger change: “I wasn’t doing really terrible things, but I also wasn’t being the most ideal Stephen I could be,” he says. “The bar is really lowered for cisgender guys.”

So earlier this year, Hicks signed up for the pilot Rethink Masculinity class, a partnership between the Washington, D.C., Rape Crisis Center, Collective Action for Safe Spaces, and ReThink, an organization that works to prevent sexual assault.

The program bills itself as a class where men “learn how social constructs of masculinity harm them and the people around them, and work to construct healthier masculinities.” Or, as Hicks puts it, “It was eight weeks of guys discussing how they can address their actions with better self-awareness and less toxicity.”

“We spoke of emotional labor, consent, violence, communication, empathy, and vulnerability,” he adds, noting that the last subject, in particular, was a struggle for him: “[I was] trained and conditioned to be tough growing up.”

The Rethink program is the latest in a growing number of courses targeted toward people who identify as men, including the Men’s Project at the University of Wisconsin, Masculinity 101 at Brown, and the Duke Men’s Project at Duke. The goal, proponents say, is to help men examine their own biases and behaviors in order to cut down on misogyny and gender-based violence.'

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... men took boys to teach them how to be men of the tribe in manhood training. They took them and "constructed masculinity" in a way that served themselves and the tribe well, as it produced productive, reliable young men with a sense of place and notions of honor.

Contrast that with this: Take boys away and DE-construct masculinity, which hasn't even quite been constructed in them yet, and leave them with a sense of constant self-doubt, endless self-analysis, and a prescription for neurotic self-obsessiveness that could light up Toledo.

Just what feminists, et al., hope to get from all this, I dunno. Do they think that by programming boys to become men plagued with self-doubt and in a constant state of second-guessing themselves that it will somehow be good for WOMEN??

I don't see it being much good for anyone.

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Submitted by Matt on Tue, 2017-10-24 02:18

African men once taught boys to be men, they were not alone in this practice by a long shot. the same thing went on with just about every successful ancient society. Australian native boys went out at a young age w/ an older male(s) (walkabout) to learn, as did American Indians in similar ways, and many, many other cultures. I think feminists know and understand this and intend on intercepting and diverting this necessary teaching time to cause chaos w/in our society. they can't defeat masculinity on an even playing field and by following the rules.

their playbook is alinski's 'rules for radicals'. its why they align themselves in their support w/ socialists, communists, minorities and so other so called 'victim's groups', even radical muslims. the enemy of my enemy sort of thing. 'splains a lot to me.

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Submitted by daveinga on Sun, 2017-10-29 19:30