One day this summer I was sitting on the beach watching groups of young men walk up and down the shore. They followed a rigid heterosexual masculine script, strutting along arrogantly, glaring angrily at other groups of men, and eyeing women with undisguised lust.
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As I wrote in a previous post, the media these past weeks has been repeatedly playing taped phone conversations where the famous actor/director/producer Mel Gibson can be heard ranting at his ex-partner Oksana Grigorieva. He threatens to bury Grigorieva “in a rose garden,” and the tapes seem to prove that Gibson hit Grigorieva in the face hard enough to damage her teeth – while she was holding their baby in her arms. His rants are full of racist and misogynist slurs, and one of his favourite words seems to be c***.
(This post explores the links between mental illness and abuse. The convoluted link between anger and abuse will be explored in a later post.)
I knew Lucas* to be a great guy. He is popular. Funny. Extremely bright. Totally sweet. Actively involved in civil rights and social justice work. So it was a great pleasure to see him when he stopped by my office one day at the supervised child visitation centre I was running. He asked a whole bunch of questions about the work we did there, and about dealing with the abusive men who were our clients.
“Wow, it’s quite a program you’ve got here, Bill,” he said after I gave him a tour.
“Thanks! How are things going with you?”
You need to calm down.
You are just being emotional.
You are letting your feelings get the better of you.
We need to approach this rationally.
Be reasonable.
How many times have we all heard these phrases – and even used them ourselves? We in North America are pretty good at keeping things dispassionate. And when people begin to express themselves using strong emotions, we work to shut those people down. To bring them back to “sanity.” To push them back toward “balance."
( As always this can be seen in the original context here )
One of the few 'traditionally' masculine and predominantly homosocial activities I engage in, and have (on and off) for many years, is martial arts/self-defence - and I've found it really interesting and surprising in terms of engagement with masculinity.
( As always this can be seen in the original context, and with he original comment threads of critical masculinities blog here )
Here are a few posts by me, with links back to my blog, as many of my posts contain links to other sources, and it is easier for me to link back here, than to replicate all the links on this website.
I apologise for any inconvenience this causes any readers, and welcome you all to read what follows:
All three of these links are about the life and work of Chief Wilma Mankiller.