Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 8, 1993 TAG: 9310070405
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The problem with the so-called men's movement, he says, is ``it's been narrowly defined by the media to be this drumming, going into the woods and beating our chests kind of thing. . . . What I'm trying to do here is something much broader.''
What Chethik is trying to do is address the kinds of issues men are conditioned to keep hidden under the surface.
His column, called ``The Men's Column,'' is a new Tuesday feature in the Roanoke Times & World-News Extra section, beginning today.
Chethik is trying to make the trendy men's movement topics mainstream - issues such as men's friendships, homophobia and sexuality in long-term relationships.
A recent column, for instance, dealt with mid-life crises, using Woody Allen and his 21-year-old stepdaughter/girlfriend as a starting point. Chethik interviewed therapists and mid-life men, concluding that a mid-life crisis is more about the fear of dying than it is about sex and morality.
Another column addressed the rarely discussed racial tensions between two male best friends - one black, one white. In another, an anonymous man related the grief he suffered when a girlfriend had an abortion.
``I'm trying to develop a new vocabulary in which men can speak about what's going on in our lives,'' the 35-year-old former news reporter says. ``Men don't have as many friends as women. We're conditioned to be competitive and strong. Our lives are geared more toward business and success, career and work.
``I'm trying to break the taboos of men speaking out about what's going on inside them.''
A former reporter for the San Jose Mercury News, Chethik shared a Pulitzer Prize with the editorial staff in 1990 for coverage of the 1989 Bay Area earthquake.
He and his wife relocated to Lexington, Ky., last year so she could begin her career as a Unitarian Universalist minister. They're expecting their first child - a subject that will no doubt make its way into future columns.
Launched last December, ``The Men's Column'' is carried by six daily newspapers so far, reaching 2 million readers. Response has been good, with Chethik receiving an average of 40 letters a week from readers, he says.
The column often ends with a feature called ``Male Call,'' in which men and women are asked to write in about column topics.
Women readers have been equally interested in Chethik's column, he says, generating half the mail. ``I've gotten a whole lot of positive feedback from women - either asking questions or saying it's been good to hear men's perspectives because men are so bad at verbalizing what's going on inside.''
Chethik got into men's issues in California a few years back, when he was asked to join a men's discussion group. ``It was the first time I'd actually sat down with men and talked about something more than sports or business, the first time we'd actually discussed intense things like relationships and work satisfaction as opposed to how to just get ahead in business,'' he says .
``Before that, we'd look around and think everybody's tough, that we're the only ones who have stuff going on that's hard to talk about. It gave me an appreciation of what's really going on with a lot of men.''
Though Chethik concedes the content of American newspapers focuses on male news makersmore than women, he believes few papers cover men's personal lives with any depth.
To this end, he hopes his column, believed to be the first of its kind, will be a trendsetter.
``I think the subject has staying power. I'm really trying to take the men's movement stuff from trendy to establishment. It shouldn't be trendy anyway because we're always going to be here, and we're always going to have issues going on.''
by CNB