When an acquaintance of mine recently shared his experience with family therapy, I was not shocked to learn that he felt removed from the process—that the therapist created an environment that made him feel isolated and alone.
Paul, thanks for this informative response and making sure we do not forget the cultural component that dehumanizes the male and does not address male needs and pits males against females. A case in point is the recent announcement by Jill Biden that the Dept. of Defense will be adding 1/2 a billion to women's health. She suggested that research ignores female bodies. This is completely untrue. This cliché remains overused and wrong, and the CDC has already reported there is “no evidence of any systematic under‐representation of women in clinical trials.” Besides, men instinctively want to protect women. It's time for the dialogue to include men too.
Sean, your point about differences between male and female brains is well taken. It took many years for me to understand that, but I do now. And yet I worry that you go too far in stressing the primacy of nature over culture. The relation between them is not that simple.
Though constrained by nature, culture is always, perhaps ironically, a product of nature. Every man is a combination of maleness and masculinity (no matter what the latter's form in any time or place), just as every woman is a combination of femaleness and femininity (no matter what the latter's form in any time or place). By definition, humans are innately--biologically--culture-creating animals. A cultural system, such as gender, does not amount to a superficial veneer. I'm not suggesting that any particular gender system is either healthy or unhealthy, only that gender, like sex, is a reality in every society. We ignore it at our peril.
You won't disagree with that. But that's merely the prologue to what I really want to say here. Boys and men suffer not only from this or that notion of masculinity--whether "traditional" or "progressive"--but also from this or that notion of femininity. This is because boys and men live in the same world as girls and women. In other words, girls and women (especially mothers) always have a say in how culture defines masculinity.
But here's my point. I suggest that one of the central problems for boys and men in our time is the relentless and implacable attack on masculinity and even on maleness by feminists (including those who happen to be male). This is a gender war, not a genetic one (although it could ultimately have genetic effects if enough men and women fail to marry and reproduce society, which is already becoming problematic in every Western country). I say this because the animosity is cultural in origin, not natural.
From this, it follows that personal therapy will not solve the problem of cultural hostility between
men and women (although a competent therapist could, of course, help individual patients cope effectively with that conflict in everyday life). What we need is collective therapy, something that I've called "intersexual dialogue." Unlike debate, dialogue is not about one side winning and the other losing. It's goal is not toleration but something more like sympathy, compassion or intimacy. The goal, in a word, is interdependence. And that is possible only by cultivating a gender system that fosters interdependence.
This supports what you've been arguing so well, Sean, but I want to underline how important it is to avoid the extremes of both "social constructionism" and "biological determinism."
I am riveted Sean by your piece and Paul’s response above.
Working in the MH field as a therapist for 20+ years I see the blind spots of many colleagues towards understanding and serving boys and men.
One expression that a seasoned male therapist mentor revealed to me earlier in my career is how terrible we (in the acculturated therapy field) are at validating and accepting our client’s anger as valid… I would add the male anger, even when expressed respectfully, calmly and clearly triggers most therapists (especially female ones and those who I’d as feminist of both genders).
I would agree with Paul that understanding sex differences as well as gender cultured ones is equally key. And how in each man and woman it plays out differently based on their hormones, upbringing and how they grew up relating to the other gender.
I started a cross gender working committee to explore how we recognize and work to heal our reactions to the other gender.
Thank you for sharing your reflections and experiences.
Thanks David for this response. The more we bring male psychology into the culture the more we can align our nature with our nurture. We cannot ignore the cultural component.
Thankfully I'm six years past my 15-year era of constant family court and evil ex wife. I did everything I could. I'm proud that I was string enough to have made it out alive. In the end it didn't matter.
Now, I am not sure if the right thing to do is to not fight considering the courts and society are against fathers. Perhaps, I don't know, we should tell young fathers to move on. After all, like we were told when I was an engineer at the refinery: "Don't try to save your buddy if the refinery is on fire, because it most likely means two dead."
Paul, thanks for this informative response and making sure we do not forget the cultural component that dehumanizes the male and does not address male needs and pits males against females. A case in point is the recent announcement by Jill Biden that the Dept. of Defense will be adding 1/2 a billion to women's health. She suggested that research ignores female bodies. This is completely untrue. This cliché remains overused and wrong, and the CDC has already reported there is “no evidence of any systematic under‐representation of women in clinical trials.” Besides, men instinctively want to protect women. It's time for the dialogue to include men too.
Sean, your point about differences between male and female brains is well taken. It took many years for me to understand that, but I do now. And yet I worry that you go too far in stressing the primacy of nature over culture. The relation between them is not that simple.
Though constrained by nature, culture is always, perhaps ironically, a product of nature. Every man is a combination of maleness and masculinity (no matter what the latter's form in any time or place), just as every woman is a combination of femaleness and femininity (no matter what the latter's form in any time or place). By definition, humans are innately--biologically--culture-creating animals. A cultural system, such as gender, does not amount to a superficial veneer. I'm not suggesting that any particular gender system is either healthy or unhealthy, only that gender, like sex, is a reality in every society. We ignore it at our peril.
You won't disagree with that. But that's merely the prologue to what I really want to say here. Boys and men suffer not only from this or that notion of masculinity--whether "traditional" or "progressive"--but also from this or that notion of femininity. This is because boys and men live in the same world as girls and women. In other words, girls and women (especially mothers) always have a say in how culture defines masculinity.
But here's my point. I suggest that one of the central problems for boys and men in our time is the relentless and implacable attack on masculinity and even on maleness by feminists (including those who happen to be male). This is a gender war, not a genetic one (although it could ultimately have genetic effects if enough men and women fail to marry and reproduce society, which is already becoming problematic in every Western country). I say this because the animosity is cultural in origin, not natural.
From this, it follows that personal therapy will not solve the problem of cultural hostility between
men and women (although a competent therapist could, of course, help individual patients cope effectively with that conflict in everyday life). What we need is collective therapy, something that I've called "intersexual dialogue." Unlike debate, dialogue is not about one side winning and the other losing. It's goal is not toleration but something more like sympathy, compassion or intimacy. The goal, in a word, is interdependence. And that is possible only by cultivating a gender system that fosters interdependence.
This supports what you've been arguing so well, Sean, but I want to underline how important it is to avoid the extremes of both "social constructionism" and "biological determinism."
I am riveted Sean by your piece and Paul’s response above.
Working in the MH field as a therapist for 20+ years I see the blind spots of many colleagues towards understanding and serving boys and men.
One expression that a seasoned male therapist mentor revealed to me earlier in my career is how terrible we (in the acculturated therapy field) are at validating and accepting our client’s anger as valid… I would add the male anger, even when expressed respectfully, calmly and clearly triggers most therapists (especially female ones and those who I’d as feminist of both genders).
I would agree with Paul that understanding sex differences as well as gender cultured ones is equally key. And how in each man and woman it plays out differently based on their hormones, upbringing and how they grew up relating to the other gender.
I started a cross gender working committee to explore how we recognize and work to heal our reactions to the other gender.
Thank you for sharing your reflections and experiences.
Thanks David for this response. The more we bring male psychology into the culture the more we can align our nature with our nurture. We cannot ignore the cultural component.
Despair and hope are two sides of the same coin.
Thankfully I'm six years past my 15-year era of constant family court and evil ex wife. I did everything I could. I'm proud that I was string enough to have made it out alive. In the end it didn't matter.
Now, I am not sure if the right thing to do is to not fight considering the courts and society are against fathers. Perhaps, I don't know, we should tell young fathers to move on. After all, like we were told when I was an engineer at the refinery: "Don't try to save your buddy if the refinery is on fire, because it most likely means two dead."