The men's movement offers emotional support and friendship. It offers the company of other men, men who understand the pain and confusion. Groups allow men to share their experiences, of fatherhood, relationships, sexuality, anger and a host of other areas loaded with emotion and history. Many men are able to develop a positive male identity through their experience in the men's movement. This is an identity built not on toughness and isolation, but on emotional connectedness, groundedness and caring.
Men can learn to be playful, open, relaxed and loving.
Many men come out of a sense of distance from traditional masculinity, an unease as boys and throughout their lives with the ways in which they have been expected to hold themselves and to interact with others. While I've described some common paths to the men's movement, these are not shared by all men involved. They have been exposed to feminist and related ideals through their political involvements, their workplaces or their higher education. Others get involved through dealing with their own experience of sexual violence or sexual abuse from other men and sometime women, perhaps as children or teenagers. Much of the men's movement has had an overriding emphasis on personal growth and healing.