THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 28, 1994 TAG: 9411250380
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: [Philip Walzer]
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
``There's something wonderful about this development - I mean the practice of men welcoming their own `feminine' consciousness and nurturing it - this is important - and yet I have the sense that there is something wrong. The male in the past twenty years has become more thoughtful, more gentle. But by this process he has not become more free. He's a nice boy who pleases not only his mother but also the young woman he is living with. In the '70s, I began to see all over the country a phenomenon that we might call the `soft male.'. . . They're lovely, valuable people - I like them - they're not interested in harming the earth or starting wars. . . . But many of these men are not happy. You quickly notice the lack of energy in them. They are life-preserving but not exactly life-giving. Ironically, you often see these men with strong women who positively radiate energy.''
- Robert Bly, ``Iron John'' (1990)
Blacks were forced, via slavery, to risk their lives in cotton fields so that whites might benefit economically while blacks died prematurely. Men were forced, via the draft, to risk their lives on battlefields so that everyone else might benefit economically while men died prematurely. . . . Slaves had their own children involuntarily taken away from them; men have their own children involuntarily taken away from them. We tell women they have the right to children and tell men they have to fight for children. Blacks were forced, via slavery, into society's most hazardous jobs; men are forced, via socialization, into society's most hazardous jobs. . . . Apartheid forced blacks to mine diamonds for whites; socialization expected men to work in different mines to pay for diamonds for women.''
- Warren Farrell, ``The Myth of Male Power'' (1993)
What is the future of masculinity? Hopefully, it is a new generation of men who feel less pressure to look, feel and act like `real men' and more of an urgency to look, feel and act like the people they truly are. It is a group of men who can hear the voices of women, children, other men, Nature and the self, and who can connect more deeply with all of them. It is a group of men who can retain a vigorous masculine energy and direct it into breaking the cycles of violence and self-destructiveness that have stood in place for centuries. It is a new generation of men who can love, work and play in different ways. It is the reconnection of the masculine self with the human self.''
- Mary Washington College professor Christopher Kilmartin, ``The Masculine Self'' (1994) ILLUSTRATION: Photos
Robert Bly: ``Many of these men are not happy. You quickly notice
the lack of energy.''
Christopher Kilmartin: It is a new generation of men who can love,
work and play in different ways.
KEYWORDS: MEN'S MOVEMENT by CNB