Reflections on gender issues

In a period of history so fixated on misogyny, it seems more than a little appropriate to mention its opposite, misandry. Nobody seems to want to discuss the ways by which mostly women, but certainly too many men, defame, degrade, disdain, trivialize and trash males and all forms of masculinity.

The most obvious example of males demonstrating contempt for males is highly visible and even more audible in the Oval Office. Obama is, persistently and contemptuously portrayed by the current occupant as effete, weak, spineless, and even effeminate by a president so paranoid in his masculinity that he has set a course to undue everything that Obama accomplished on behalf of the American (and world’s) people. Hawks, like John Bolton, are also engaged in a dangerous display of neurotic masculinity, on behalf of America, through their overt and aggressive push for war with Iran including regime change, and potentially also with North Korea. Life-long military generals who actually know something about the ravages of war take a much more balanced and moderate and mature perspective.

Does trump think of what he is doing as misandry? Of course not! Yet, does trump think beyond the superficial impact on his personal ratings of anything he says or does? No!

Pervasive among red-neck males is another aspect of misandry: contempt, hatred and bigotry of the LGBTQ community, and especially of gay men. Red-necks really don’t give much thought to how they feel and think about whether females are lesbians, or which gender is claimed by transgenders. About homosexual men, however, red-necks consider them an affront to all forms and expressions of masculinity. (And before we go any further, let’s not confuse pedophilia with homosexuality. Pedophilia is dangerous and criminal! Last time I checked, being gay is not a crime in western countries, as it is in some African nations.)

There are other less obvious and less overt examples of misandry among red-neck sports talking heads. The preference for fighting in athletic competitions like hockey, football, baseball, basketball, as an incentive to crowd arousal, as opposed to skillful, balletic, choreographed, and disciplined play, is just another indication of the rub against the skilled players, who, by the way, as a group, do not suffer from a fragile masculinity, as perhaps the red-necks so.

There is a much more subtle and less obvious form of pandering to the violent among the news media, believing, (somewhat supported by the cultural evidence that conflict sells while compromise, collaboration and resolution does not generate high ratings), that real leaders have to be engaged in hard language and the growth of hard power if they are to be embraced a legitimate leaders. This stereotyping of hard power, elevating it, through such budget lines as the Pentagon that gobbles as much cash as all other departments combined, supported by the fixation with conflict, especially violent conflict, is another of the many distortions of healthy masculinity.

The universal disdain for anything emotional among many men, too, illustrates both a profound irony, and a tragic blindness. Naturally, in the execution of public debate and the strategizing around public policy, the factual evidence must hold a significantly higher priority than a person’s or a group’s emotional responses to the issue at hand. However, to deny the presence and impact of those emotions is to risk having them play an even more significant role than they would if they were acknowledged. None of us goes into any activity, including all professional activities like the court room, the operating room, the emergency room, the board room, the classroom, the sanctuary, the laboratory, and even the delivery truck, or the garbage truck, or the factory, without taking our emotional DNA, (linked to an agenda, whether conscious or not) with us.*

The masculine proclivity for public disdain of anything resembling human emotions in literature, film, television and, while a denial of our fragility in dealing effectively with those very emotions (especially as compared with our female partners, sisters, mothers, aunts and grandmothers), also renders us less open to learning both about their respective identities and their power, and about their subtlety and sophistication. Such a masculine umbrella over-riding the culture is a shameful indication of our deep and relenting inferiority, as passed on from our male ancestors, and effectively cripples, if not actually destroys, many relationships with our female partners. It says here that for men to learn to identify our emotions is neither feminizing nor weakening us; rather it is to enter into a world so complex and so turbulent and so awakening that our perception of ourselves, and our place in the universe can and will change dramatically, for the better.

Emotions do not have to be relegated to a functional factor in marketing (something men seem to want to do and to do rather well). And to participate inside our own emotions, and to regard them as just another facet of our identities that can be developed, grown, enriched and celebrated (in a positive manner), rather than waiting until they explode and sabotage our very lives, is a potential gift that many men will never accept, appreciate or engage.

We do not have to “work” at being different from our female partners; that is not something the universe (and especially women) have no trouble identifying. In fact working at it only demonstrates our unique and sad mis-perception and neurosis. Neither gender is “better” than the other; you will not find women today considering that they are, by definition, “less than” any man, and yet the world is replete with evidence that men consider ourselves much “less” and “less acceptable” than our female colleagues.

It is our very own responsibility to acknowledge that men and women, while different, are complimentary to each other, and not in some competition with the other gender. And while the emotional aspect of that responsibility might come more readily and easily to some women, there is the glaringly obvious that women collectively seem to be in an obsessive competition for wages, positions of responsibility and corporate and political power. So, it might be very difficult, if not impossible to parse the emotional from the political/corporate/pecuniary.

And, when we come to the off-hand, almost comedic, yet highly pejorative comments from women, the culture is flooded with them.

“All men are jerks!” comes quickly to mind, especially from women who have been painfully hurt by men.

“All men want is one thing,” is another of the proliferating stereotypes.

“No man listens to anything I say,” slides off the lips of women, especially among a group of women where there are no men to raise an eyebrow. And even if there were men present, it is unlikely that a single eyebrow would be raised, fearing the prospect of being labelled, misogynist.

“That dog has to be male; just look at the way he jumps around uncontrollably!” is another of the now-expected “jokes” that attempt to ridicule masculinity, however such ridicule might flow, both consciously and unconsciously from women.

And then there is the “no raised voices” mandate in the new workplace, since, it is believed, and universally accepted that “raised voices” are a form of bullying, verging on assault. We are to comport in a many fitting to the most anal fourth-grade class, commanded by an insecure, neurotic and repressive female pedagogue. It was a great surprise, and an unforgettable moment in my young life, when, as a friend and neighbour passed by desk, in such a grade four class, I reached out and gave Roger a gentle, and eminently friendly poke in the shoulder, saying “Hi” only to be commanded to the front of the room, where two lashes of the strap were administered on each hand, along with a lifetime of ridiculous, unmerited and unjust embarrassment.

 This was only exacerbated when, returning the joke, Roger appeared in our yard, and asked, in front of my mother, “What did your mother say when she heard you got the strap?” Naturally, hearing of this for the first time, she dished out an unforgettable unjust bar-soap mouth-washing over the kitchen sink.

And yet, upon reflection, after decades of voluntary and involuntary review, counselling, therapy and journaling on my part, it was that mother’s contempt for her father, transferred to her husband and her children that so shaped my early perceptions. Dangerous, malicious, vindictive and passionately inflamed women, ranging from the sneaky and deceitful to the blatant and proud have found all attempts to listen, to empathize, to “enter the shoes” and to support women, both in minor and in major turbulence that have backfired.

Some women have found their need for absolute control, especially in public, and openly collaborative situations, so gripping that when words like “I feel parented”  at their imposed, enforced agenda on the group, shot through their bodies like a electric shock. They picked up their papers, exited, and then sought blind revenge through manipulation of other compliant females.

Some have even gone so far as to send cards reading, “You destroy my image of men!” as if to say that my “masculinity” is so upsetting because it does not conform with the stereotype. Others, after opening up and disclosing some important and personal feelings, and then realizing what they had done, were so anxious that they turned on me, as if I were the problem. They had never before been so ‘open’ with a male, found the experience simultaneously supportive and scary, and preferred the latter as their ultimate interpretation. It was not, I believe, that they feared public disclosure of their emotions through a breach of confidence, but that they had been put under a light with a male. And yet, that may well have been part of their discomfort.

Others have openly sought relationships, who, when those attempts went unreciprocated, then turned on me in a vindictive revengeful manner, as if to punish me for what I considered my honest and professional “No”. Other women whose desperation and fear and aloneness became evident only after months of a very different “presentation” of their personality, became so viscious that they even openly declared, “I want to destroy men, and have become very good at it!”

We all must refuse to be content with the headline stories of men abusing women, without also wondering about what has become known as the “back story”. My father endured decades of abuse silently for the most part, and also passive aggressively, given that he either feared his spouse, or considered himself “less” than the other, a position from which too many men begin their private understanding of their relationship with women.

Only if and when men drop their need to be heroic, and need to rescue, and begin to assert our legitimate needs and desires, in open, honest, non-manipulative ways might we expect to see some move toward levelling the playing field between the genders.  (Women too might consider their part in the patronizing rescuing dramas with “weak men” in their view, in which they become enmeshed!) Patronizing,  trashing, dominating or competing at the emotional level will only exacerbate the relations between the genders. And, acting upon belief and perceptions of stereotypes (especially ones based on the other’s neurosis, thereby ironically and paradoxically exhibiting our own), by both genders will render each mere stick-persons, or cardboard cut-outs of their humanity.

Only through a process of becoming emotionally, psychologically, intellectually, physically and spiritually healthy, whole, well and self-respecting will both confront our respective fears, traumas, broken relationships (and we all have them!) and begin to break down the walls of both misogyny and misandry that threaten to imprison millions around the world. And only if and when we “are” fully able and willing to accept, respect and honour ourselves, will we begin to accept, respect and honour the other gender. This open war between our “shadows” cannot end well.


*In fact, the sanitizing of the emotional realities, (and there are many!) from the workplace has done much to exacerbate the tensions there. In this instance, we have willy-nilly thrown the baby out with the bathwater. While not all comedic exchanges in the past among co-workers was free of gender bias against women, much of it was simply good fun. And its removal as the result of a kind of scorched-earth cultural complicity, as if we are all supposed to imitate lawyers before judges, has rendered much workplace conversation stuffed into the box of technical competence, and safety rules and regs. This depersonalizes and eviscerates all “humanity” from the workplace, as if it were both dangerous and enmeshing by definition. What a boom we have complicitly generated for the “employee assistance barons” and their clinically certified minions!

Reflections on "strong men" (Part 2)

These “strong men” can only hold power because they have manipulated others, the facts, the agents who distribute the information and generally painted a picture in which the masses either believe or believe they are powerless to change.

The emasculation of the masses did not start with trump. Nor will it be over on his demise. The emasculation of the masses began with the notion that “father knows best”….back in the dark ages when some chief and tribe both believed that they had discovered the shortest path to “reconciled power” within the tribe. And even then, specific traditions limited the purview of those “chiefs”….And  there was also the notion of a God, the Pope, and the ignorance of the masses, enshrined in the notion that ordinary people could not be trusted to “read” the Bible correctly. Only the “educated elite” in the Vatican were so enlightened as to be able to with promulgate the real “truth” of God’s word. And since we absolutely abhor uncertainty, chaos, and the complexities of ambiguities, we prefer the “order” imposed by a single voice.

Noel Coward notes: It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.

T.S. Eliot reminds us: people cannot tolerate too much truth.*

Of course, truth-telling is a reliable approach to being marginalized in any organization, family, or government, especially truth telling that exposes the abuse of power by others. Having held secrets deeply hidden in my heart and mind, forhalf a century, believing that to expose the truth would embarrass those who “parented” my sister and me. I now recognize the futility and the failed responsibility of my silence because the pattern spilled over into my own marriage. Meagre attempts to open the Pandora’s Box of the real truth of what was going on inside what was then 104 Gibson not only were fruitless, but actually back-fired with even more violence, now triggered by whispered disclosure by letter to distant family members.

Whistle-blowers, we all know, are despised by those in power. They represent if not the greatest, then certainly one of the most virulent threats to anyone in power who is abusing that power. Legislation to “protect” whistle-blowers, too, is so ineffective that it is virtually useless. Any negative public disclosure of the failings of an organization, or specifically a leader (one of those strong men) is so abhorrent, especially when one considers the fragility of the character and the ego’s of such men. Rage, unfettered rage and revenge are the immediate reactions of “strong men” to the disclosure of their longest, best-kept and most heinous secrets. Even secrets that would not impact negatively the personal reputation of a discloser, but perhaps the honour and public reputation of a family, have to be sealed from public light, in a repression of the truth that can and does compromise the secret-bearer as well as the family or organization.

Mental and emotional health, deeply and inextricably linked even enmeshed with the freedom and openness to receive and to honour the full truth, especially when it is hard to digest, is compromised through the rigorous silence that some of us impose on our family history. “Black” Uncle Tom, the drunk, who is never spoken of by family rule and tradition, is an example. The unwed teen who had to leave home to have her baby is just another of the many “secrets” that haunt the streets and the coffee shops of many towns and cities. The family, or organization, too, is compromised by the repression of its “darkest” secrets, given the notion that only the truth can and will ‘set everyone free’. To live under a cloud, without either acknowledging or opening up and confronting the secrets, is to render much of what goes on there as a form of play acting.

The church, too, has its own “secrets”…like the many kangaroo courts that have been summoned, to discipline someone who is challenging the status quo. While it is no secret that the ecclesial body has adopted both the administrative hierarchical top-down structure of organization and the deployment of power, such a structure puts the few at the top, including the top honcho on a kind of pedestal, a target really, for the critics to focus their attacks. And having declared itself the “keeper of the morality” of the culture, (either officially or unconsciously) the church has embraced the notion of defining sin, and then taken to manufacturing both inadequate processes and even more suspect decisions as ‘punishment’ or exclusion as its way of living out a theology of “forgiveness”.

So, within the structure of that culture, it has felt obliged to place a veil, or perhaps a reredos, on the vaults of its many secrets. Pursuing a culture in which it expects people to place ultimate confidence and trust, as does the military, the medical profession, the legal profession, as well as most governments and bureaucracies, only enhances the potential for accumulating secrets, which in themselves, might not be all that serious, nevertheless places those in charge in a position of having to choose between looking the other way, or taking action that is “decisive” and “strong”. Overlooking, or preferring to ignore the basic truth of nature that both change and imperfection are “baked into the cake” of everything human, we have entrapped leadership, as well as our perception of what passes for acceptable and trustworthy and integrous, in a vice so narrow and so inflexible, as to seriously impair the effective, open and honest dynamic of civility, mutual respect and the potential of readily accessible reformation.

Capital punishment, for example, is demonstrated not to provide a deterrent for others, and yet, in our unbridled and voracious appetite for revenge, some 38 American states have re-instituted it in the last decade. Similarly, “war” on opiods, or illicit street drugs, manifests a wanton disregard for the conditions in which people are living, that lead them to medicate their inordinate psychic, emotional and even physical pain. It does, however, underly, enhance and reproduce a culture so bound up by its own fear of failure that it falls victim to that very fear, (just another of the many secrets that we refuse to deal with honestly, openly and moderately).

Another secret that we refuse to discuss is our dependence on hard power, as the panacea for protecting us from potential “invasion” by a foreign power. It is a mere shibboleth that no one wins in any military conflict, and yet, the American budget for the Pentagon consumes by far the largest percentage of the national budget, while people starve, live on the streets, or have to choose between needed medications and food or rent. Keeping others in power, under such specious foundations, only exaggerates a culture of both denial and self-sabotage.

The denial of human agency in global warming and climate change, too, is a glaring reality that threatens the survival of the planet and all of us. And while there are voices crying in the wilderness, and voices taking some steps to confront our own dependence on fossil fuel, for example, as one of the more significant contributors to CO2 emissions, we are both slow and reluctant to be honest and open in our public policy to address the danger. Of course, there are arguments, in the short term for the preservation of jobs, incomes and family stability. However, creative approaches to this and many other public issues, tend to struggle under the weight of opposition from those seeking to preserve their personal, and their temporary and fleeting grasp of the brass ring.

Leaders like trump and putin are using the public’s attraction, even obsession, with stories of trite and tawdry human sex and private money “dirt”, as distractions from the truths that such leaders are carving out the very foundations of a healthy society and political culture. They are also depending on our being overwhelmed with the sheer volume and weight of stories that our memories will be drowning in “stuff” and we will either forget or ignore their nefarious obsession with their own power.

Deceit shows itself, and we can hear this story in every coffee shop and bus stop, and waiting room, in how we have participated in and permitted a culture of refusal (denial of) to accept responsibility, linked to the demolition of the notion of shame. To hear someone acknowledge “this is on me” today is so jarring to our ears that we actually wonder if there might be a loose “screw” inside the head of such a person. Employers too cover their obsession with greed and profit in the mascara of crumbs of classical conditioning rewards, while denying they are increasing the workload of every worker, without once bringing those workers into the planning and discussion of the very changes those workers will be expected to carry out.

The notion of corporate team, and the circle organizational model, once considered a healthy way to build a workplace culture of respect has been replaced by a regression return to scientific management enabled by the proliferation of digital technology that can and does measure every piece of work by the nano-second. Obvious such measurement feeds the insatiable appetite for “data” from managers, who then seek ways to wring out more work for less cost from all of the departments in his/her responsibility.

Having secured the virtual etherizing of all labour unions, and the voices of the workers, in a seemingly compulsive and obsessive march toward “entrepreneurship” and the engine the drives the economy, the establishment has gutted pensions, benefits and worker protections and replaced all of the safety net with contract positions that have no security, no benefits and no RESPECT! Even bringing in “interns” with the promise of a glowing “line” in your resume, is another deceit, playing to the exclusive advantage of the power structure. And yet, in order to even glimpse a potential hire in the future, young grads are compelled to play this game of corporate deceit.

Affairs, by the president, are now disregarded  as to whether they are acceptable in the public arena and replaced by the details over silence payments in the public media’s coverage of current events. And even then, those stories are buried in the  obfuscations of the administration’s talking heads, simply because even they have no idea where the truth lies. Such is the drama of deceit that is playing out before our eyes, under the cloud of a mere headline “fake news” attributed to formerly legitimate news outlets.

We are enmeshed in a culture of deceit, the foundations of which are rooted in fear of disclosure, fear of rejection and fear of abandonment shared by every single person. However, it is the people in positions of responsibility who have abrogated the design and delivery of the public messages to their own specific, unique and narcissistic purposes, deceiving even themselves, because there is no way they can or will remember what lies they have previously told, when, where, to whom or with what consequences.

As for me and my own family, I deeply and profoundly regret and am sorry for my own participation in a culture of silence, repression, and fear of rejection. I enabled such a culture to ensnare others in the perception, which easily becomes belief, that the truth would be too “hard” for others to handle. A veneer of “protection” can and does only mask authentic and viable connections between people, and while I was attempting to remove the masks from public figures, I was perpetuating my own mask, at the time, probably mostly unconsciously; now, not so much!

It would do all of us well to spend some time reflecting on the “secrets” we are currently hiding, in fear of disclosure from the very people we love and who love us. And such reflection might well ask questions like, “How am I sabotaging this relationship, and my own person, by burying these often deep and painful truths under a sand hill of silence, distortion or outright denial.

Such deceit, notwithstanding the warnings from some heavyweight thinkers, can and will continue to entrap us and so clip our wings from undergirding our full potential as to deprive us individually, our families and our workplaces and nations of one of the more powerful and under-accessed and under-utilized human resources. And we do not need huge rigs or monumental environmental disasters to mine this energy.

Perhaps, if we all were to find the words, the courage and the sensitivity to express our full truth, those shibboleths about not being able to withstand too much truth would fade into the mists of myth and history. And, perhaps ‘strong men’ could climb down from their vulnerable pedestals, acknowledge their fragility, and permit and enable the free-flow of human creativity, energy and real power to take responsibility for our shared lives.

Now there’s a reformation waiting to be “birthed”!

*I have been confronted directly and personally in private by a now deceased bishop anxious that the people in the church were unable and unwilling to tolerate too much honesty and truth, in conversation about prospective entrance into active ministry. I was so shocked and appalled that decades later, the scene of the conversation remains vivid, coloured, scented and clouded with the appalling self-protective bubble in which he had encased himself and his ecclesial leadership.

Another bishop, attempting to rationalize the approach taken following a church tragedy, applauded the model, spirit and leadership of Winston Churchill, as precisely what was needed, rather than the obvious choice of grief counselling. “Strong men” have embedded their image deeply even into the culture deployed in flawed and futile pastoral care.

Can we mount a campaign to rid the world of "strong men" leaders?

Time magazine’s cover is displaying what Time calls the era of the “strong man”…a montage of photos of allegedly political leaders who have adopted the mantle of the “strong man”….putin, trump, erdogan, kim jung un, sisi, duterte, and even xi jinping (having just arranged a life appointment as Secretary of the Communist Party) and a couple of others who, taken together, along with the multiple sex offenders, terrorists, spineless ‘moderate’ leaders of the male gender demonstrate what is most objectionable, heinous and repulsive about the current menu of masculinities, grabbing the headlines.

Not satisfied with circumscribed, constitutional, historic, moderated and mediated power, determined to inflict even a violent, dictatorial and exclusionary imprint on their moment in history, these men are so tarnishing the long-term reputation of masculinity, (as if it needed more pummelling!) without a concerted, conscientious, thoughtful, and collaborative push-back from the mainstream of moderate, reasonable, respectable and even attempting to be honourable men.  Commentary on the exploits of these men, for the most part, demonstrates their abuse of power, certainly not their exemplary deployment of it. They imprison or otherwise ‘wipe-out’ dissent; they manipulate the information concerning their rule; they take for granted that their power is too restricted by norms previously considered essential to their people; they consider their career ambitions, legacies and ‘triumphs’ more significant than the welfare of their people; and they dominate their own “news outlets” as if some movie magnate(s) had taken over their domains in the production of some “heroic” super-man hero movie….

Far removed from the days of the Lee Iacoca’s, the Jack Welsh’s, when corporate governance included as an important agenda item, the support of the community in which their companies operated, it is not only the visages on the Time cover who are abusing their power. For too long, at a much lower echelon, and much less visible to the public, corporate boards and CEO’s, supported by their government pawns, have been vacuuming into their own executive field of play, the ruthless, and unobstructed pursuit of both profit and thereby dividends for investors, at the expense of committed and contracted pensions, wages, environmental and health and safety protections not to mention the viable and effective existence of labour unions which have become virtually dead.

We are witnessing an oligarchic take-over, globally, that is clearly dedicated to its own narrow narcissistic and greedy goals, without caring a ‘fig’ for the long-term health of the planet, the long-term resolution of serious and ever-morphing conflict, the strength and viability of international institutions like the UN, the WHO, the ILO, the International Criminal Court, the IMF, and then World Bank. Rape and pillage of natural resources, for immediate profit and dividends, surgical removal of regulations that would impede the unfettered pursuit of corporate profit by their puppet legislators (of so many nations and languages and ethnicities and geographies) and the dropping of a few “crumbs” of pennies in tax breaks, for example, just to keep the “dogs” of starving, un-and-under-employed, desperate and mostly hopeless people at bay.

They build up “their” military bastion, both because they can and because they never know when they might need it to retain power. They demand “loyalty” which really means a sell-out of any principles of decency, leaving only sycophants willing to assume positions of responsibility, even if their tenures will be short-lived.

It is not just the cover story that appals. It is the ‘back-story’ that infuriates ordinary people around the world. We all know that instant global communication has permeated the borders of almost all countries, (with some blatant and dangerously controlled exceptions using Canadian technology to repress internet access to their people). We also know that global markets have unleashed the lowest common denominator of corporate greed, narcissism and the unfettered and unaccountable movement and hiding of cash under the guidance of the most costly accounting and legal firms.

Oligarchs, armed with a coterie of “loyal” protectors, body-guards, lawyers, accountants and legislative pawns, walking on mountains of secretly-stashed cash, striding the corridors of their own media slaves (dependent on the ratings their “heroes” generate and the advertising dollars that ensue), dismissing negative voices as if they were mere packaging on their latest Big Mac, (a record number of jounralists, 262, have been jailed this year!), seducing more weak and gullible sycophants to replace those already carelessly thrown under the bush, denying even the merest appearance of indecency, lawlessness, and deceit.

And the story goes even deeper: these thugs in public life, striding their respective stages like self-declared super-heroes, give cover, and even role modelling to millions of young men, most of them desperate for a moment in the limelight, barely being able to distinguish fame from infamy. In a star-drugged culture, supported, aided and abetted to the social media, we are at risk of sabotaging many of our best men, who no longer seek public office, given the sacrifices required in time, resources and reputation, and of so tainting the overall reputation of men generally, that we are all at greater risk.

And because most of the “strong men” champion free enterprise, for-profit at the expense of the planet’s rising temperatures, raging fires and floods and the displacement of millions through both military conflicts and starvation, poverty, disease and infant malnutrition and the impacts of those conditions on every  newborn in the developing world. Taken together, these men represent a plethora of political parties, all of them veering far right, nationalistic, catering to their own “sub-oligarchs,’ wanting walls to keep out the most desperate, and more and more power, money and influence for themselves.

In such a climate, we need far more Macrons, Trudeaus, Merkels and articulate moderates everywhere. And yet, will the moderates be strong enough to bring serious reflective approach to world affairs, given the obstreporous intransigence of these tyrants? It is legitimate to fear that many will not see behind the headlines or this cover on Time, to tease out the black holes of vacuity, narcissism and empty ego’s that threaten the health, sanity and well-being of millions with impunity.