From: dgross@zeus.calpoly.edu (Dave Gross)
Newsgroups: soc.men,alt.dads-rights,alt.feminism
Subject: Proposed introduction to men's movements -- comments?
Date: 15 Dec 92 07:41:13 GMT
Organization: Manumission:  The Campus Men's Forum


	The soc.feminism FAQ of sorts includes a very brief introduction
	to the various branches of the men's movement that I wrote some
	time ago.  I have since been working to update it.  Most of the
	updates have been in the "history" section, but I also changed
	the format a little.  Part of what I did was to "show, not tell"
	by using quotes from the different branches of the movement to
	illustrate the differences between the branches, and the
	philosophy each branch holds (in a nutshell).  I also included
	a very brief bibliography for each section of books that were
	IMHO some of the most important in that category.

	I'm looking for comments, additions and suggestions.  The
	version I'm working on follows:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Men's Movements:
  [Contributed by Dave Gross.]
V 2.1

Most men's movement historians date the men's movement back to the early
seventies.  In 1970, according to Anthony Astrachan ("How Men Feel" p. 291)
the first men's center opened in Berkeley, Calif. and the magazine
"Liberation" published an article by Jack Sawyer entitled "On Male Liberation."

The men's movement equivalent to the catalyst provided to the women's movement
by Betty Friedan, was "The Male Machine" by Mark Feigen Fasteau in 1975.  My
edition has a forward by Gloria Steinem in which she writes:  "This book is a
complement to the feminist revolution, yet it is one no woman could write.  It
is the revolution's other half."

But a reexamination of the male gender role certainly predates the 1970s.  In
fact, the book "The American Male" by Myron Brenton, complained that "when the
plight of woman is given such intense scrutiny, a curiously distorting effect
tends to be created.  Suddenly the world is seen only through the feminist
prism."  This quote, which would be comfortable coming out of Warren Farrell's
mouth in the 1990s, was published in 1966.  The book was essentially a male-
friendly, pro-feminist examination of the male sex role, and started a theme
of portraying masculinity as dangerous and destructive (physically and
emotionally) to men -- a theme that was to also provide the basis for the
works of Fasteau, Goldberg and Farrell in the 1970s.

And R.F. Doyle, who was to form one of the rare traditionalist men's groups,
was already fighting for male-friendly divorce reform in the early 1960s (his
Divorce Racket Busters in 1960 is in a direct line of parentage to his Men's
Rights Association in 1973).

Barbara Ehrenreich in "The Hearts of Men" traces the men's movement back even
further.  She believes that the current men's movement is only the latest
representation of a long-term male revolt against the "breadwinner ethic:"

	"I will argue that the collapse of the breadwinner ethic had
	 begun well before the revival of feminism and stemmed from
	 dissatisfactions every bit as deep, if not as idealistically
	 expressed, as those that motivated our founding 'second wave'
	 feminists." -- p. 12

Furthermore, she writes that

	"The great irony... is that the right-wing, antifeminist
	 backlash that emerged in the 1970s is a backlash not so
	 much against feminism as against the male revolt." -- p.13

In the mid- to late-1950s (although she traces the roots even further back
than this), non-conformity becomes a hip topic.  Playboy magazine started
publishing in 1953, and by the early sixties had started offering "something
approaching a coherent program for the male rebellion" (p. 50).  The
magazine's trademark T&A was only a side-issue, designed to make the rebellion
against the male sex role (aka The Playboy Philosophy) a safely heterosexual
one.

The Beat movement "establish[ed] a vantage point from which the 'normal' could
be judged, assessed and labeled -- square" (p. 67) and then "cardiology...
passed its own judgement on the 'normal' masculine condition, and [came] down,
without fully realizing it, on the side of the rebels" (p. 87).

The Human Potential Movement combined with cardiological concerns encouraged a
change in men's lives; the Vietnam War further tarnished the image of
masculinity; the 60s counter culture allowed androgyny; the second-wave of the
women's movement pushed for a critique of gender roles; gay liberation groups
differentiated themeselves from heterosexuals, allowing straight men to change
their roles without being accused of homosexuality.

Voila!  The genesis of the men's movement in a nutshell!

The men's movement, as a movement, has from almost the beginning been split
into various camps based both on ideology and on what concerns the members
most wish to concentrate on.  What were once scattered "consciousness raising
groups" have evolved into the following sub-movements:

	+----------------------------------------------------+
	| MEN'S MOVEMENT HISTORY:                            |
	|	Astrachan, Anthony "How Men Feel" 1988       |
	|	   Anchor Press/Doubleday                    |
	|	Brenton, Myron "The American Male" 1966      |
	|	   Fawcett Publications                      |
	|	Ehrenreich, Barbara "The Hearts of Men" 1983 |
	|	   Anchor Books                              |
	|	Fasteau, Marc Feigen "The Male Machine" 1975 |
	|	   Dell Publishing                           |
	+----------------------------------------------------+

    Feminist Men's Movement:
    ------------------------
These groups are closely aligned ideologically with the feminist movement.
The California Anti-Sexist Men's Political Caucus gives a good summary of the
beliefs of this branch of the movement in their "Principles of Unity:"

	We, as members of the C.A.M.P. Caucus, agree that we live
	in a patriarchal society in which men have and use socially
	approved oppressive power over women, and in which some men
	oppress other men according to class, race and sexual
	orientation.

	Our experience of loving and working together with other men
	and women leads us to respect effective anti-sexist action
	as an expression of self-respect, love, anger and justice.

Most of the [City-name] Men Against Rape groups fall under this category.  The
largest feminist men's group is the National Organization for Men Against
Sexism (Formerly the National Organization for Changing Men).  A publication
from this viewpoint are "Changing Men," the journal of NOMAS.

James Doyle ("Sex & Gender" p. 341) differentiates these groups from men's
liberation groups.  "For these men," he writes of feminist men's movement
members, "the question of unfair divorce settlements, child-custody cases, and
the like are a ruse used by some men who favor perpetuating their own dominant
status in society."  This perhaps is a little harsh, but many in the feminist
men's movement are suspect of those who would work for men's political
concerns without first relinquishing the patriarchal reins of political power.

"They may feel only a vague pricking of conscience about their own complicity
in the imbalance," writes Anthony Astrachan of the feminist wing of the
movement (How Men Feel, p. 302), "or they may openly acknowledge that men as a
class (which does not mean all men) oppress women as a class (which does not
mean all women).  In either case, what they feel is guilt."  (Astrachan
dismisses what I will call the Men's Liberation movement as "the no-guilt
wing.")

Criticising a men's conference, Bob Lamm wrote ("Men's Movement Hype" in
Snodgrass "For Men Against Sexism" p. 155):

	"There is no mention of feminism.  There is no mention
	 of male supremacy.  There is no mention of woman-hating.
	 There is no mention of rape, abortion, child care, or
	 forced sterilization.  Just men 'sharing men's issues
	 and concerns with other men.'  How is /that/ different
	 from other men's movements?  Women are as invisible and
	 unimportant to this men's movement as they are in any
	 other corner of our male supremacist society."

Fred Hayward, of Men's Rights Incorporated, on the other hand, characterizes
the men of the feminist men's movement:

	"These are very UNliberated men.  The traditional male image
	 is of the brute -- and they still buy it; they accept
	 the blame for a system we all inherited and we all help
	 to perpetuate.  The traditional male role is to protect
	 -- and they still buy that; they still see women as helpless
	 without them, and now that there is a women's movement,
	 they must protect that, too."

Established feminist women's groups aren't quite sure what to make of
the feminist men's movement.  While it definately aims to please, this
wing of the movement can't seem to get no respect.

	"When these changes spring solely from his desire to please,
	 there's no guarantee that actual comprehension has happened.
	 Fred understands feminism only as a set of rules:  Don't
	 call women 'girls.'  Let them open their own doors
	 (sometimes).  Let them have their own names and credit cards.
	 Don't beat them.  Don't rape them."
		-- Mary Kay Blakely, Ms. Magazine, October 1982

	+-----------------------------------------------------+
	| FEMINIST MEN'S MOVEMENT                             |
	|	David, Deborah & Brannon, Robert "The Forty-  |
	|	   Nine Percent Majority" 1976 Addison-Wesley |
	|	Snodgrass, Jon (ed.) "For Men Against Sexism" |
	|	   1977 Times Change Press                    |
        |	Stoltenberg, John "Refusing to be a Man"      |
	|	   Breitenbush Books 1988                     |
	+-----------------------------------------------------+

    Men's Liberation Movement:
    --------------------------

Other names: Masculist movement, Men's Rights movement.  These groups, while
quite similar to feminists in several areas (gay rights, belief in equal
opportunity in the workplace, etc.) generally do not believe in the theory
that we live in a patriarchy in which men oppress and women are oppressed.

	"My thinking has led me to conclude that men as a class do
	 /not/ oppress women as a class.  Nor do I believe that women
	 as a class oppress men as a class.  Rather, I feel that men
	 and women have cooperated in the development of contemporary
	 male and female sex-roles, both of which appear to have
	 advantages as well as disadvantages, but which are essentially
	 restrictive in nature, growth inhibiting, and, in the case of
	 the male, physically as well as psychologically lethal."
	 -- Richard Haddad
	   "Concepts and overview of the men's liberation movement"

If the feminist men's groups get very little respect from the women's
movement, these groups get outright antagonism:  "I find it laughable," says
Molly Yard.  "Men have had their way for 300 years.  For women, it is catch-up
time."

Warren Farrell, who was for a long time on the board of NOW in New York but
has now crossed over into the men's liberation camp, reports that his old
friends Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem no longer will talk to him.  James
Doyle, of the feminist men's movement, writes that "it seems that the men's
rights groups react much like white men and women who feel discriminated
against when society enacts laws to give minority groups an edge in
employment."

This characterization of the men's liberation wing as being a reactionary or
traditionalist movement, with men like Fred Hayward and Warren Farrell playing
in the gender arena the part that David Duke plays in the racial arena is
common among feminists, but doesn't seem to hold under closer observation.
Fred Hayward addressed this view in his keynote speech to the National
Congress for Men in 1981:

	"We must not reverse the women's movement; we must
	 accelerate it...  [Men's liberation] is not a backlash,
	 for there is nothing about traditional sex roles that I
	 want to go back to...

	"We must give full credence to the seriousness of women's
	 problems and be willing to work toward their solution,
	 but if the others do not return the favor, it is they who
	 are the sexist pigs.  It is they who are reactionary.
	 When I look at feminists today, I don't want to call them
	 names -- I only want to call their bluff."

Some of the groups with this viewpoint are: Men's Rights Inc., National
Coalition of Free Men, National Congress for Men, and National Center for Men.
Some of the publications from this viewpoint are "Transitions," the journal of
the NCFM, and the following books:  "Why Men Are the Way They Are" by Warren
Farrell, "The Hazards of Being Male" by Herb Goldberg, "Men's Rights" by Bill
& Laurie Wishard, and "Men Freeing Men" ed. by Francis Baumli.

	+------------------------------------------------------+
	| MEN'S LIBERATION MOVEMENT                            |
	|	Baumli, Francis ed. "Men Freeing Men" 1985     |
        |	   New Atlantis Press                          |
        |	Farrell, Warren "Why Men Are the Way They Are" |
	|	   1986 McGraw-Hill                            |
        |	Goldberg, Herb "The Hazards of Being Male"     |
	|	   1976 Signet                                 |
        |	Gordon, John "The Myth of the Monstrous Male"  |
	|	   1982 Playboy Press                          |
        |	Wishard, Bill & Wishard, Laurie "Men's Rights" |
        |	   1980 Cragmont                               |
	+------------------------------------------------------+

    Mythopoetic Men's Movement:
    ---------------------------
    
These are the ones you see on TV and in magazines wearing masks and beating
drums.  Robert Bly, the father-figure of this movement, says:

	"I see the phenomenon of what I would call the 'soft male'
	 all over the country today.  They're not interested in
	 harming the Earth, or starting wars, or working for
	 corporations.  There's something favorable toward life in
	 their whole general mood and style of living.  But
	 something's wrong.  Many of these men are unhappy.  There's
	 not much energy in them.  They are life-preserving, but
	 not exactly life-giving...."

	"Men are suffering right now -- young males especially.
	 But now that so many men are getting in touch with their
	 feminine side, we're ready to start seeing the wild man
	 and to put its powerful, dark energy to use.  At this point,
	 many things can happen."
			-- interview by Keith Thompson
		   	   Utne Reader, Nov/Dec 1989

This talk of "powerful, dark energy" worries some, including Bly's ex-wife,
who compared this movement to fascism:

	"The men's separatist movement is frightening.  Separatism,
	 breeds feelings of superiority and imbalance -- male
	 bonding usually offers permission to regress."
			-- "The danger in men's groups"
			   Utne Reader, Nov/Dec 1989

A more common reaction to these groups by outsiders is bewilderment and
ridicule.  "[T]heir words revealed a kind of gooeyness wrapped in clinical
psych jargon," wrote Jon Tevlin of his Wild Man Weekend:

	"How did I get to this particular orange shag carpet at
	 this particular Methodist bible camp in Mound, Minnesota,
	 crawling around with a dozen middle-aged men with torn
	 athletic socks and smelly feet, snorting and mooing and
	 sniffing under the orders of a diminutive psychologist
	 from San Francisco."
			-- Utne Reader, ditto.

It's possible though, that these groups outnumber all other men's groups
combined.  There are a surprising number of magazines, books, journals,
retreats and gurus associated with the mythopoetic men's movement.  "Iron
John" led sales of hardcover nonfiction longer than any other best seller in
1991, according to the 1993 Writer's Market.

	"What I'm interested in is the return of mythology, and
	 the importance of initiation -- I think that's essential...
	 I'm not interested in all the men having opinions on men's
	 rights, and attacking women.  I'm not interested in a
	 national men's movement."
		-- Robert Bly, quoted by Tim Warren in
		   the Baltimore Sun, 28 October 1990

    On the other hand,

	"I don't want to omit people like Warren Farrell and Herb
	 Goldberg who are doing men's stuff; they get omitted far
	 too often when the Men's Movement is discussed.  If Robert
	 [Bly] is one of the leaders and perhaps the father of the
	 mythopoetic Men's Movement, then Goldberg, Farrell and
	 Pleck are the Grandfathers..."
		-- John Lee, quoted by Woody Harper in the
		   Men's Council Newsletter, August 1990

This movement is less political than spiritual, and it's difficult to identify
just what these folks stand for.  They tend to attract the same sort of crowd
as the New Age or Recovery movements.  But if you want to try, check out the
interviews with Bly and with Shepherd Bliss in the Nov/Dec 1989 Utne Reader,
or pick up "Men's Council News."

	+-------------------------------------------------------+
	| MYTHOPOETIC MEN'S MOVEMENT                            |
	|	Bly, Robert "Iron John" 1990 Addison-Wesley     |
        |	Fossum, Merle "Catching Fire:  Men Coming Alive |
	|	   in Recovery" 1989 Harper/Hazelton            |
        |	Keen, Sam "Fire in the Belly - On Being A Man"  |
	|	   1991 Bantam                                  |
        |	Lee, John "The Flying Boy -- Healing the        |
	|	   Wounded Man" 1987 Health Communications      |
        |	Moore, Robert & Gillette, Douglas "King Warrior |
	|	   Magician Lover" 1990 Harper Collins          |
	+-------------------------------------------------------+

    The New Traditionalists:
    ------------------------
    
I don't know much about these groups.  The only one I'm aware of is the
National Organization for Men run by Penthouse columnist Sidney Siller.  Maybe
R.F. Doyle's Men's Rights Association (if it still exists) qualifies as well.
These groups look, on the surface, much like the Men's Liberation groups, but
underneath there is a current of resentment that the old sex roles have
dissolved.  Some openly say that women just aren't men's equals, and should
have stayed home with the kids.  This is that "male backlash" you've probably
read about.

	+-------------------------------------------+
	| THE NEW TRADITIONALISTS:                  |
	|	Doyle, R.F. "The Rape of the Male"  |
	|	    1976 Poor Richards Press        |
        |	Vilar, Esther "The Manipulated Man" |
	|	    1972 Bantam                     |
	+-------------------------------------------+

    The Fathers' Movements:
    -----------------------
    
Some people hold that this is a separate group from the Men's Liberation
Movement.  There are some groups that are only interested in issues like
divorce reform, and ignore issues like violence toward men, gay rights, and
the draft.  Many of these groups are very similar to Men's Liberation groups,
and only differ by their concentration.  Some explicitly exclude issues like
gay rights in order to not risk offending some of their members, and this
could itself be considered an ideological position which would separate them
from the Men's Liberation groups.  Anthony Astrachan ("How Men Feel," p. 311)
reports that some Father's Rights men boycotted the 1983 National Congress for
Men meeting in Los Angeles, and speculates that this was because men's
liberation members had proposed resolutions supporting gay rights.

	+-------------------------------------------------+
	| THE FATHERS' MOVEMENTS                          |
	|	Kiefer, Louis "How to Win Custody"        |
	|	   1982 Cornerstone Library               |
	|	Silver, Gerald A & Silver, Myrna          |
	|	   "Weekend Fathers" 1981 Stratford Press |
	+-------------------------------------------------+
-- 
***************** INTERNET: dgross@polyslo.csc.calpoly.EDU ********************
     He wants a shoehorn -- the kind with teeth.  People should be beat up
     for stating their beliefs.  He wants a shoehorn -- the kind with teeth
     -- `cause he knows there's no such thing.
Newsgroups: soc.men