Must Be A Guy Thing
Sermon by Stephen D. Edington, November 16, 1997
This is an absolutely true story. It took place on a check-out line at Shop and Save on a Saturday afternoon nearly one year ago in late December or early January. This was during that stretch of time when the New England Patriots were working their way through the National Football League playoffs for what turned out to be a trip to the Super Bowl. (Sure seems like a long time ago now.) In front of me in the check-out line was a gentleman dressed in full Patriots regalia--T-shirt, jacket, hat, the whole bit. He was loading from his shopping onto the counter very large quantities of soda, beer, chips, dip, cheese, crackers, and the like. He was getting well stocked up for a watch-the-game party. We were complete strangers to one another, which did not prevent us from getting into the kind of "jock talk" conversations that were going on all over New England back then:"Hey, think they're going to pull it off tomorrow?"
"Well, Bledsoe's really going to have to step up and do the job."
"Course if they punch out the Steelers, they're probably still going to have to deal with Denver."
"Yeah, gonna be a lot of banging around out there tomorrow afternoon, though, and I really think the Pats are going to get the job done.". . . and on and on like that to the point that we looked and sounded like a Tim Allen routine.
The person I failed to notice in all this was the guy's wife who was standing just off to the side. (My wife had gone back to get a few items we'd forgotten, so she--to her good fortune, I'm sure-- missed the whole repartee). I didn't see the man's wife, that is, until in a rather loud and somewhat irritated voice, she spoke the following words: "Would you two like me to walk down one of these aisles for awhile so you can get on with your male bonding?!" [I was so taken aback I'm going, "No, no, no, that's OK; you two talk all you want, and I'll just check over my groceries here.."] It seemed to me that they probably did need to be talking to each other about something, but I also decided to let this sterling opportunity for pastoral intervention to just kind of pass on by--and that was that.
The thing I'm still struck by from that little episode was the reference to "male bonding." Not all that long ago such an encounter would have been called for what it was, namely a couple of guys who don't even know each other filling up a few minutes in a grocery store line with some trash-talk about a football game. But in the America of the late 1990's a completely inane conversation like that one, and one between two strangers to boot, gets labeled as "male bonding." Granted, in this particular instance the term was being invoked with more that a little sarcasm. But it did leave me wondering-- because I actually do wonder about such things--as to how a phrase and a phenomenon called "male bonding" has come to be such a recognized part of our cultural lexicon and mind set.
The term is far from being a new one, but it has re-emerged over the past decade out of a cultural phenomenon of men trying to figure out why they are men, or how they are supposed to be men, or what "manhood" indeed is. A Boston Globe writer recently put it this way:
"These days its not so easy being a man. Bears don't need killing, woods don't need clearing, rocks don't need hauling. The 1950s breadwinner model, perfected for men by their fathers, has been co-opted by their wage earning (spouses). Television and movies portray men as insensitive and inept, at best; at worst, they are irresponsible, absent, or abusive..."At Belmont's MacLean Hospital there is now a Center for Men. Since MacLean's is a psychiatric hospital, I have to wonder if being a man is now regarded as a psychaitric disorder. The Center's Director, Dr. William Pollack notes,
"Men are very confused, angry, and frustrated as they try to figure out what it means today to be a man (and) there aren't a whole lot structures in society that help men get ahold of it."These observations are accurate. But I do feel the need for a brief personal interjection with respect to them. There are any number of things that can and do get me very confused, angry and frustrated, but I don't sense them as being all that directly tied to my gender. I can read and appreciate Robert Bly's Iron John or Sam Keen's Fire in the Belly, both excellent books, and still not feel the need to recount or retrieve ancient myths that unlock the secrets and mysteries of being a man; or to go into the woods and chant and beat on a drum. I have no problem with any of that, but for me it would be too much out of character. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough or honestly enough at myself, but I've generally seen my being male as one of several cards in the hand I was dealt along with the cards of my race, nationality, sexual orientation, and the family and the period of history into which I was born and raised. I also know, however, that we each and all have to play as best we can the hands we have been dealt; and it would be foolish, if not dangerous, to deny or diminish the role of one's gender and one's sexual identity as male or female when it come to playing out that hand. So given all that, here's where I hope to go on the subject of "guys"
First I want to offer some thoughts as to where I believe this male confusion and frustration, to which Dr. Pollack speaks, comes from. It has largely to do, I feel, with men being caught in a paradox between power and powerlessness; and from being caught between some terribly mixed cultural messages that are being dispensed right now. I then want to take a look at the "Promise Keepers" movement, in that it is one attempt to address this confusion and frustration. By touting a fundamentalist Christian based brand of "benign and benevolent male supremacy" the Promise Keeper movement has been packing men into stadiums (stadia?) all over America--and managed to pull about half a million of `em to a "guy rally and revival" gathering in Washington D.C. last month. As disturbing as I find much of their message to be, the Promise Keepers have uncovered a spiritual vacuum in the lives of many American males which in their own way they are addressing. And then finally, I'll move from one end of the spectrum to the other with some personal thoughts on what I see a liberal religious faith and community as being able to offer when it comes to dealing with the meaning of gender.
Let's start with that powerful/powerless paradox. There is little argument, as I can see, that at the macro-level the economic and political levers of power in this society are still largely in the hands of males--white males to be more to the point. Some women and some African-Americans have made some in-roads in these areas, but ours is still largely a white, male establishment. But while men remain largely in charge in the corporate board rooms and in the halls of governance--and I don't minimize the impact of that reality--on the societal and cultural level where men and women actually live and interact with one another and amongst themselves its a different scene. Its one thing to be a member of the gender that is largely "in charge" overall; its quite another to have a sense of one's own personal empowerment. From Sam Keen's Fire in the Belly:
"Many men feel as if they are involved in a night battle in a jungle against an unseen foe. Voices from the surrounding darkness shout challenges: `Men are too aggressive. Too soft. Too insensitive. Too macho. Too power mad. Too wimpy. Too violent. Too much like little boys. To obsessed with sex. Too detached to care.' Exactly what we are supposed to become is not clear."Dr. Keen may be overreaching just a bit, but he's still not all that far off the mark, and the sentiments he's reflecting certainly do not sound as if they're coming from people with a sense of personal empowerment.
Empowerment, to stay with this term for a moment, is what women have been working on for the past 30 years, with respect to the feminist movement which had its beginnings in the mid-1960s. I hope its not too patronizing of me to say that the feminism of the late 20th century is high on the list of the most positive and necessary occurrences of this century--along with the struggle for racial justice and empowerment.
The mistake some men make is seeing empowerment as some sort of a zero-sum game. If one group--like women--is claiming more power over their lives then it has to be subtracted from the power that another group--like men--has. That is not the way it works at all. The men's movement of the past decade or so is not really an attempt to "even the score" as it were; instead its an attempt to move beyond such zero-sum thinking with men saying to other men that we need to be doing some of the same kind of work for ourselves as a lot of women have been doing over the past several decades.
The paradoxes and confusions of being male in the America of the 1990s are many and varied. Like, I am sure, the great majority of men in this society I am stunned and outraged at the acts of battering, abuse, and violence that some men inflict upon women; acts which usually arise from a perverted sense of impotence and powerlessness. And then I also get disgusted when from the, admittedly, far end of the feminist spectrum comes the assertion that such behavior is really endemic to and definitive of males. When Marilyn French in her book The Women's Room declares that "all men are rapists", she hastens to add that she means this metaphorically in the sense that men exercise their power over women in a variety of ways. But to use the term "rape" even as a metaphor for male power both trivializes the horrible reality of rape and assault, and demeans those many, many men who are trying to understand and come to terms with the power they do indeed have and are actually trying to put to use in loving and caring ways.
So, what is a confused guy supposed to do? Where is a confused guy supposed to go to get some answers? One place that they've been flocking to by the thousands over the past 3-4 years is an organization and movement called The Promise Keepers. Its hard to say if the Promise Keepers peaked with their 500,000 man rally in Washington last month, or if that gathering was a harbinger of even bigger things to come. Time alone will tell. PK (its already become an acronym) was the brainchild of Bill McCartney, the one-time head football coach at the University of Colorado. An apparent born-again Christian experience led him to restore the brokenness and pain he admitted he'd caused in his own family, and from there he felt called to carry this good news out into the larger world. So he assembled himself a staff, created an organization, began generating books and pamphlets, started holding rallies, and the momentum kept building. In 1995 alone there were 13 stadium rallies across the country which attracted a total of 720,000 men. PK's message to men has its similarities to Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March of a couple of years ago; with a near-fundamentalist Christianity being used as the PK ideological base, much in the way that Farrakhan uses his own home-grown version of Islam to undergird his movement.
The basic take of the Promise Keepers is that men have relinquished their God-given authority in family matters to women in ways that have created pain and confusion for both husbands and wives, and its time for husbands to take back what is rightfully theirs. In one of PK's basic texts called Seven Promises of a Promise Keeper the author, Tony Evans, puts it this way: "The first thing you have to do is sit down with your wife and say something like this, `Honey, I've made a terrible mistake. I've given you my role...and I've forced you to take my place. Now I must reclaim that role.' [Evans goes on] I'm not suggesting you ask for your role back, I'm urging you to take it back...Be sensitive. Treat the lady gently but lovingly. But lead!" Its a benevolent patriarchy, in other words. And while PK its a largely white organization and phenomenon, it does tout a strong anti-racist message and makes what are by all appearances attempts to be truly multi-racial.
PK rallies themselves are combinations of male sensitivity sessions on a macro level, and old fashion revivalism--a lot of men hugging and crying and "sharing feelings" interspersed with rousing hymn singing, chants for Jesus, and sermons about being "Godly men." The manly urgings to "take charge" are always followed with equally urgent exhortations to be loving, gentle, caring, and compassionate towards women. OK, so what's not to like? The men go home with more of a secure male identity, with resolve to be better husbands and more respectful of women in general, and more sensitive and open to their own emotions and to the feelings of the other men and women in their lives. And if its a conservative brand of Christianity that brings them to all that, then where is the harm?
Well, there are a few "not to like" things I've come across in exploring this movement. While this theme has been muted at its rallies, Promise Keepers has a decidedly anti-gay and lesbian tenor to it. The emphasis upon "husbands and wives" carries with it the message that this is the only "God approved" form of sexual expression. More to the point, Coach McCarthy was one of the leading spokespersons supporting Colorado's "no gay rights" initiative of a few years ago, and he openly declared homosexuality to be "an abomination in the sight of God" at political rallies on behalf of that initiative.
Promise Keepers strongly, if not vehemently, asserts that it has no political agenda. I believe this is true for the great majority of men who attend their rallies, which are generally free of any overt political content. At the same time, however, the backers and supporters of this organization make up a virtual "who's who" of the religious right. An early backer was James Dobson of "Focus on the Family". Pat Robertson has given PK some very prominent exposure on his Christian Broadcasting Network; PK's national spokesman is a man named Mark DeMoss who for a time served on Jerry Falwell's staff. Prior to his taking the leadership of the Promise Keepers, Coach McCarthy had been a featured speaker at Operation Rescue rallies held outside abortion clinics in Colorado. How successful these folk might be in using Promise Keepers as a religious right political base at some point in the future remains to be seen--but there is very little question about their own political agenda.
Personally, I question whether Promise Keepers will make any significant political waves. Most of the guys at these rallies still have to go back to their real world lives, and their real world families, and their real world jobs and have little desire, I imagine, to be a part of a political movement. I came across an interesting article in Progressive Magazine by a woman named Suzanne Pharr who writes about how she found herself seated next to a man on an airplane who was returning from a PK rally in Atlanta, Georgia. In the course of their conversation Ms. Pharr, who heads up a social justice organization in Arkansas, identified herself to the man as a lesbian. To her surprise she found they were able to have an open and respectful discussion of their differences of opinion about homosexuality. She left him her phone number in case he ever wanted to talk further, and to her surprise, he called a few weeks later:
"He (said) he was just calling to keep in touch and to say what a profound effect our conversation had had on him. `It eliminated whole areas of ignorance for me,' he said. `Me too,' I replied. [Ms. Pharr then goes onto ask] How do we point out the differences between the generals in this army and their recruits?...How do we hold different beliefs and live in harmony? How do we get closer to people's real needs and values..?"
I take whatever grains of hope I can get from wherever I can get them these days, and Ms. Pharr's story gave me my "hope fix" as I pulled these thoughts together. Her last question, "How do we get closer to people's real needs and values?" is the crucial one. Its the question that men need to asking among themselves in the way that women have been doing: "How do we get closer to our real needs and values?" Even if one sets aside any political agenda it might have, a Promise Keeper approach to "guy things" is still a dead end because of the way its answers Ms. Pharr's question. The PKs assume that men's "real needs and values" have to do with asserting and reclaiming some kind of God-given superiority over women; a kinder, gentler, benevolent type of superiority to be sure, but that's what it is. It makes the assumption, as cited earlier, that gaining power within and over one's life is a zero-sum game--in order to gain power you have to take it away, or back from, someone else.
Whatever personal, or cultural, or spiritual wildernesses men--we men-- may find ourselves in these days, the way out is not by going back to some sort of benevolent patriarchy, but forward to a renewed understanding and appreciation of our humanity in its fullness. It is a humanity consisting of many complexities; complexities of strength and vulnerability; of power and weakness; of self-confidence and self-questioning; of personal victories and personal defeats. I think men's needs and values have to do with making peace with all these complexities and more. Our needs and values include finding within ourselves a way of saying "yes" to all of these complexities. Our real need is not for power over others--women or men--but for power with, and for companionship with, and for community with, one another.
Tom Owen-Towle is the co-minister, with his wife and partner Carolyn, of the Unitarian Universalist Church of San Diego. A few years ago he wrote a book of "guy thing" meditations called New Men, Deeper Hungers. Each selection or meditation begins with the words "We want.." I move to a close by reading a portion of the piece entitled We Want to Create Brother-Spirit:
"Men remain in a quandary. We can't accept the stifling, demeaning, sexist imagery and substance of patriarchal religion that has been both oppressive to women and undermining of authentic maleness. The new male is interested neither in subjugating himself to a supernatural being nor in dominating women on earth. (But we) can't merely react to or build upon feminist thought. It doesn't speak directly to our experience. Our male identity will be uncertain until we establish of version of spirituality that grows out of the soil of male pride, pain, and possibility. In our ongoing odyssey we take serious stock of our lives by asking tough, stretching questions like: [Who and] Whose am I? To Whom do I belong? What is my special task or calling on this earth? Who will be my spiritual fellow-travelers for the journey?" Tom goes on to say that these questions are not completely and fully answerable, but then adds, "we can dance with them, [and in so doing] our hearts are stirred, our minds pushed, our spirits fed."
Ours is a community of hope and meaning wherein we each and all do "dance" (to use Tom's word) with questions that are not fully answerable, but still believing that the meaning is found in the dance itself. We are here to celebrate the "Brother Spirit" and the "Sister Spirit" along with the larger Human Spirit and Life Spirit that enfolds and encompasses us all and that is present in each one of us. May ours be a dance and a journey that continues to lead us to new levels of awareness and understanding of who we are and who we may yet become.
Copyright © 1997 by the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Nashua NH. All rights reserved.
