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October
How to talk about Men and Politics before
it’s too late
With the election closing in on us, there seem to
be only two kinds of people left in the country,
those who have made up their minds and those who
will vote their feelings on the day of the
election. Statistically, those who vote their
feelings will decide who will win. That a
democratic country’s fate be determined in
this way would be preposterous if it were not true.
We are told that this new “silent
majority” will vote for whom they like, and
will like whom they like because that candidate
seems most like them. They will look for safety,
and comfort and self-justification in the
familiar.
Yet how much different are those who have
already firmly decided on their candidates? Again,
likeness is likely to have played a like or perhaps
even a stronger role in their decision-making.
Napoleon Bonaparte is quoted as saying, "In
politics stupidity is not a handicap." I sometimes
think that our political system is trying to turn
it into a virtue.
In this election, we men are caught between two
images of masculinity, and many of us will probably
vote our identity rather than the issues. I will
borrow some words of cognitive Scientist George
Lakoff to contrast these two images (www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml):
- The PROGRESSIVE man/father “assumes
that the world is basically good and can be made
better and that one must work toward that.
Children are born good; parents can make them
better. Nurturing involves empathy, and the
responsibility to take care of oneself and
others for whom we are responsible.”
- The CONSERVATIVE man/father “assumes
that the world is dangerous and difficult and
that children are born bad and must be made
good. The strict father is the moral authority
who supports and defends the family, tells his
wife what to do, and teaches his kids right from
wrong. The only way to do that is through
painful discipline — physical punishment
that by adulthood will become internal
discipline.”
This cleavage, however we label it, has divided
the nation into red and blue. It seems to have
defined the choice and how it is made. I see it as
a great threat to men. Why? A great deal of the
men’s movement, helping us define and design
ourselves for the time we live in has been centered
around two things:
1) Using the positive power of our
masculinity in the face of the stereotypes of
patriarchy and male aggression, which the
women’s movement reacted so strongly to. We
learned from what happened to women in the past
decades, but what we also learned most importantly
was to define ourselves rather than letting others,
present or past, to define us. Drums are a
heartbeat for so many things besides marching off
to war.
2) Seeking a balanced masculinity, one that
could be both nurturing and protective, both
expressive and reflective. We needed, as some
have put it, to find our feminine side as women
needed to find their masculine side. Doing so has
meant a lot of work in overcoming our fear and
distrust of one another. As a result of the
men’s movement, male friendship, not just
comradeship, has again become real and a delight in
our lives. We also got our fathers back.
The problem with the current political choices
lies in the fact that, despite all the progress we
as men have made on this masculine agenda, the
rhetoric of this election is aimed at driving us
not to choose executives and legislators on their
merits, but to choose which of the two kinds of men
we see ourselves as or as wanting to be. This
either-or choice then turns into the selections we
will punch into the voting machine in November.
Rather than demanding, before voting for them, that
our candidates be well-rounded human beings capable
of a range of behaviors that are appropriate for
the world in which we live, we are offered
primitive stereotypes, caricatures of ourselves to
identify with. That is the choice.
Here is a suggestion that may sound at first a
bit speculative or theoretical at first, but I feel
will pay off. It is an alternative to shouting each
other down when discussing candidates and issues.
When we gather in our men’s groups or just as
buddies over a beer, it would benefit us enormously
to discuss how our male identity is involved in the
decision to be made in November. The questions that
launch this discussion are along this line:
- How do we feel about ourselves as men right
now given the national and world scene?
- How do we want to feel about ourselves in
the future?
- How does the current choice of candidates,
policies and initiatives on the ballot support
or undermine our vision of life now and in the
coming years?
Our maleness is what we have in common. Caring
about how we live it out is what we have in common.
Caring about how we model it for our sons and
daughters (or if we are childless, nonetheless for
the next generation), is what is important.
Politics is about how diverse people can live
together and forge a society that meets the needs
of its stakeholders, majority and minority. If so,
close to half the country’s stakeholders are
men’s voices. We deserve to hear each other as
men and be heard as such, on our own terms and with
our own agenda, not driven by the stereotypes that
further other interests’ agendas. It is, after
all, a matter of our life and death.
© 2010 George
Simons
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There are no elements so diverse that they cannot
be joined in the heart of a man. - Jean
Giraudoux
George Simons
is a US specialist in intercultural and gender
communication who hangs out in Mandelieu - la
Napoule, France, as well as in Santa Cruz, CA. In
the 1980’s he was one of the founders of the
Hidden Valley Center for Men and the Cyberguys
network. He is currently the treasurer on the board
of The National Men's Resource Center™. He is
on the faculty of Management Centre Europe, where
he consults on virtual global teamwork. He has
written over a dozen books on culture and gender
including Working
Together: How to Become More Effective
in a Multicultural
Organization and
with Deborah G. Weissman, Men
& Women: Partners at
Work. (Crisp
Foundation) and is the creator of the award-winning
Diversophy® game. www.diversophy.com
or E-Mail.
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