There is another way to have men’s issues reach the agenda. It is time to evolve the structures forward, and grow the capacities which have been atrophied, damaged and missing in either gender. This growth will take place not from the ground of a disempowered victim, but from the deeper truth of who we are, and what intention we are holding.

Again, I would so encourage you and your readership to sign up for the ‘calling in the one’ tele-course, the next time it comes around. http://www.callingintheone.com/ As ‘corny’ as this might sound, this has been one of the most remarkable courses for me in learning how I have been generating the relationships that I have with others. “Life is not happening ‘to’ me. It is happening ‘through’ me.” And as I said before, I hope that you will have the opportunity to meet Katherine Thomas and Claire Zammit at the Integral Theory Conference. They are amazing, and the transformational work in which they are engaged is just so much what we need now…..

I would love to see your blogs take on the evolutionary, transformational flavour of hope, non-victimization, and positive intention which start to envision not so much what is crappy and unfair, but what we do want to cocreate in a future where men and women deeply respect and love and care for each other. That we are at a place in history that this is possible for the first time in the history of the world is largely due to the feminists that have objected to the muting of women’s voices in the larger ’structural’ sphere. I thank them and realize it is time to move on to what I really do want.

Jane

If you take an instance like say how a man fires a woman over sexist reasons and gets away with it they have no problem seeing how the structure builds the individual (his ability to fire her like that is supported the supposedly patriarchy of male over female dominiation) and vice versa (he is supporting the supposed patriarchy by treating her this way). But that understanding seems to do out the window when its the other way around. For example with the way domestic violence is spoken of these days it is becoming increasingly easy for a woman to attack a man then call the cops and have him arrested. For some reason they are unable to see how the structure builds the individual (her ability to treat him like that is supported by a biased DV industry that presumes men are always guilty and women are always innocent) and vice versa (she is supporting the system by doing this and thus perpetuating the biased system).

I honestly wonder if its just a matter of them switching back and forth depending on what conclusion they need at the moment. Kind of like deciding if a source of information if biased or not by checking to see if the information supports their arguments rather by checking the source itself.

The challenge is to keep both perspectives open.

No, when we are tlaking about society we are talking about culture, and structures in culture are like rules of grammar in language, or the meanings of words. They change over time as individual speakers stretch or break them and othe rindividual speakers accept those changes, but they are not random ad hoc impressions that anyone can change or ignore at will. If you just decide to start putting all you verbs at the end of the sentence when you’re speaking English, you’re free to do it, but no one will have any clue as to what you are trying to say. And they are not likely to continue the convrsation either, as they edge away from you.

Many men are reluctant to talk about themselves in this way. Men don’t like being victims or abandoning their sense of self-reliance. In my opinion this is a good thing, and the strength of the men’s movement rests on this very attitude.
I agree that not wanting to be seen as victims all the time and to abandon self reliance (as well as personal responsibility) is a good things however what we have now is that that attitude has been taken so far that not only do people simply not regard men as victims but we see men taking on responsiblities that should not be on their shoulders and even expecting men to drop their own responsibilities in order put someone else’s first.

So what you have a perfect mix of people not wanting to talk about how society harms men and men who don’t want to talk about being harmed by society. And that mix is what allows for anti-male sentiments to run so strongly and unchecked. Now that men are really trying to step up and say something you have people who are quick to fall back on those old notions of, “men can’t victims”, “its men’s fault that ____ happened in the first place” (I actually had a woman comment on my blog last week that men should be the ones to fight wars because men are the ones that start wars. I almost laugh now when I see people trying to call men out on the things they need to be doing but will then in the next breath attack the men that are trying to do those very things or ignore them.