The outbreak of the #MeToo led to the women hoarded the debate about feminism. Some, more radical, even argue that men should not participate in the conversation
Many experts believe, however, that already the time has come to listen to them, that discuss how to convey the idea of being a man among generations and recognize that sexism also hurts them
What is to be male in the TWENTY-first century
How to be a man in the new age of feminism
it Happened in October in The Hague (the Netherlands). A man took the stage in front of thousands of young people and shouted: “Me too! Me too!”. Was Terry Crews, an american actor, former football player and the first man who, last year, when the hashtag feminist began, he used, as them, the social networks to expose, who also tried to abuse him at a party in Hollywood.
On the fore, that of a global gathering of young leaders, One Young World -the Davos junior, they call him-, gave a speech entitled, ” The end of the cult of masculinity. Then said that the time had come for men to take the next step. After a year of monopoly feminist -“sometimes radical, urging the men not to enter into the conversation”- and given that the objective is the understanding and the problem -sexism – can suffer both genders, the time has come for the men, “many of them are very confused about feminism that they feel that threatens them”, and begin to speak and to be heard. More simple: #MenToo (men also).
“The phenomenon, in reality, has nothing to do with sex, but with the power”, was later extended Crews. “Women, historically, they have been manipulated by the fear and men were manipulated through pride, which is the blood of the manhood. There is nothing more foolish than five men walking towards his next spree. I have been a part of this, I thought, and I believed that by being a man was more valuable, even with my own family; but it was the pride that didn’t let me listen.”
From his perspective, one of the obstacles of equality is a superb male. But he also proposed an antidote: the “vulnerability”. And if one is brave enough, even to address a process of personal construction that try to revive what we lived to serve and not to aturda: disassemble beliefs, perhaps forgive, to be tested thoroughly, and also to think before you speak.
The actor Terry Crews posing in a presentation Mike Segar
A man grabbed me by the genitals, nor even knew him and worked for my agency. It is the dynamic of power
The own Crews says that only he understood when his wife left him. “All men live in their own action movie, and I think that I’m just too big for me to be responsible sexually, but so it was. A man grabbed me by the genitals, someone who didn’t even know and that he worked at my agency, and what made it even a second time. White man, a millionaire, and I this black so great. This is called dynamic power,” ditch. Felt “violated” and thinks that one of the major consequences of machismo among men is the silence. Men who do not speak of the abuses that were small, and not of how it was transmitted to masculinity by his parents; ideas not yet so far on what is to be a man, and even what is a man of truth. Of course, there is the alternative women, what is a true woman? But still have not heard anyone, in the middle of the battle, talk about what it means to be, simply, person.
The silence that mentioned Crews is the one that also attempts to knock down the mexican journalist Lydia Cacho, who has just published in Spain the book with this to get it: #EllosHablan, testimony of men, the relationship with their parents, the machismo and violence. (editorial Debate). “To understand how they process their masculinity and the relationship with women and power and women, I interviewed men of various ages on the examples of manhood that were able to stop prescribed that macho behavior in their emotional memory as something inescapable,” he explains.
She believes that “men are not ready” but have confidence in them. “They have not done the task. The women took centuries socializing the emotional experience, centuries socializing empathy and solidarity and not men, because they have not been educated to do this and, in addition, because you do not have needed”. It also says that “many women believe that you cannot talk to them because they are guilty, but not all are guilty, and the machismo they also close the door to them.” A sort of impasse socio-cultural in the that “women have thrown in a wall and they are picking up the pieces while, on the other hand, there are millions of men who do not know what to do.”
Your publication is vital in a publishing world that, since the advent of feminist, it has become a gateway of the same. In the last year, each week we will publish two or three books that examine some aspect of the woman -motherhood, sex, work, relationships, patriarchy – or, directly, to reflect on feminism (or feminisms) in itself. A trend that started in 2015 and who, between the years 2017 and 2018, also began to have its reverse male. Ritxar Bacete analyzed “the maculinidades in the age of feminism” in her essay, New good men. And Octavio Salazar reflected on “the revolution male that so many women have for centuries waiting for” in the volume the man that (does not) should be.
But the book of Cacho is the first that places the voices of men in each of the pages and the account continues: “at The beginning, only three of the men that I interviewed told me that they had suffered abuse or violence. The rest asked ‘why, if they had never suffered that kind of trauma. Because what interests me is how you transmitted your masculinity’, they answered me. Then they were aware of the paradoxes that had within its own existence, and, as they spoke, they were recalling stories and realizing, ‘ah, yes, well, used violence against me and did not know it, or I didn’t notice it or do not consider it as violence at that time'”.
For example, Gerardo: “Since a child we were told that being a man was to be like my father and my uncles, all military. I knew what it meant to be a man to seedad the first time I saw my father hit my mother for disobeying him. It was something very trivial, I was always glued to her skirts, and he would get upset about that. He said that I was going to become a weak, feminine”.
Or Bartholomew: “In my nightmares, my father entered the room in which we slept my sister and I went to bed my sister and abusing her”. Or Matthias: “They are the example of the way in which power works in families, in businesses. It is our responsibility, but do not assume”.
it Is assumed that we cannot recognize that there are feminist super aggressive because it seems that we attacked our group
Lydia Cacho is, in addition, one of the few feminists that, in recent times, does not hesitate to affirm that there is “a feminism rabid”, which urges men to be silent. “You are right to be rabid, no doubt, but what is important is what we do with that anger. Why should he shut up if men are talking about this everywhere?”. On this feminism antihombres -or feminazi, that being said – it also reflects often in their networks Loola Perez, sexologist and president of the Association of Young Women of the Region of Murcia. Considers that there are “feminists antihombres” but he adds that discourses of this nature “do not go in front of but also, indirectly,” because “if would not be frowned upon”. “If we do this,” continues She, “would also be committing the same error that the machists. The angry of the world are many and it is assumed that the feminists cannot acknowledge that there are feminist super-aggressive, violent, and descalificadoras because it seems that we attacked our group.”
What She proposes is the same thing that prompted Crews, and also the same option that encourages the working group on sexual abuse was formed, precisely, in October in The Hague. The organization One Young World, which meets annually to young leaders from more than 100 countries of the world and invited Crews to talk about “toxicity male”, also formed a group of 12 experts, during two years, to design strategies to prevent the sexual abuse and gender-based violence in the world, at the time, they argued, adhered to the phenomenon #MeToo.
Among the 12 chosen, were three men, which shows, or is beginning to demonstrate at least that the consciousness of men must be present on the road to real equality exists. One of them is Luke Hart, a young briton whose father murdered her mother and sister while he was with his other brother’s camp. Now, he lectures in his native country by raising awareness of how not to continue to transmit a masculinity harmful that can reverse on-male violence.
Another is Stephen Land, an american who suffered sexual abuse by family members from the age of five and that, as Luke, wanders the united States, questioning everything that, until recently, was considered own of men -authority, ability, control, superiority – and that, now, begins to be seen as traits that should be clarified, or at least complemented with others, such as the ability to be sensitive, empathy or vulnerability, said Crews, who described himself as “a former member of the club of masculinity”.
Perhaps serve as a more words of this actor to encourage you to give this new step: “there Was a little voice in me that began to tell me that like I am, that the same isn’t it, that as I am not an interesting man really. I had to admit that it was not invincible, shoot down that myth and recognize how it has been my life up until now.”
According to the criteria of
Learn more