This is a comment I made to someone else the other day who was asking, "How do we get men to care."
The analysis I've seen, mostly from men who study this and who are trying to help create a better culture, is that we are far better off appealing to men's self-interest in reducing patriarchal norms that harm them as well than in trying to appeal to a sense of civil rights or humanity.
Without shifting patriarchal Man Box messaging, we're fighting against a constant headwind where many men double down on their entitlement and right to dominate and control women rather than do the "feminine" work of introspection. As Mark Greene notes,"For men raised in our bullying dominance-based culture of masculinity, self-reflection is forbidden, punished. Who we authentically are doesn’t matter in Man Box culture. We are trained instead to model our identity on a narrow set of rules for how to be a man. The rules of Man Box culture.
Don’t show your emotions.
Be tough, never ask for help.
Be heterosexual.
Never talk about anything deep.
Be a breadwinner not a caregiver.
Have control of women and girls.
Have lots of sex.
All these rules require we show dominance over those around us, expecially over the women in our lives.
Living by the generations-old rules of the Man Box means asserting dominance in little and big ways in every interaction. Our response to pushback? Double down on bullying, etc.
"https://medium.com/@remakingmanhood/the-gop-has-weaponized-the-man-box-f498a7594700
Jackson Katz teaches men how to stand up for women and others as a leadership quality, making it more palatable by masculinizing it, but this needs to become much more widespread if it's truly going to have an effect.
I've had several interesting conversations with guys who admitted to feeling irrationally defensive around any criticisms of patriarchy that comes from women - even when they are aware of the problems it causes and that it causes for men as well. None has been able to articulate for me what’s truly going on for them and why they feel so defensive.
We've been talking about this for more than 50 years, and it's improved a little bit, but there's also currently a giant backlash to that progress. I honestly think the only way we are ever going to have anything resembling real equality is if a significant enough number of men start taking on this social system in order to improve their own lives and the byproduct will be all the ways that it improves things for women. Men are only the problem because of who they have been taught to be in this culture. Shift the culture away from masculinity being equated with violence, domination, and control of women and a lot of this stuff improves drastically.
I've been meaning to write something new about how shifting the culture away from a patriarchal dominance hierarchy helps men, so maybe now I'll get to that sooner rather than later.
Edit:
In reality, real men can be very selective about what truths they are willing to confront. Until recently, men as a group have been largely AWOL from the fight against gender violence. In one sense, it is easy to see why. Men’s violence against women is a pervasive social phenomenon with deep roots in existing personal, social, and institutional arrangements. In order for people to understand and ultimately work together to prevent it, it is first necessary for them to engage in a great deal of personal and collective introspection. This introspection can be especially threatening to men, because as perpetrators and bystanders, they are responsible for the bulk of the problem.
Katz, Jackson. The Macho Paradox (p. 24). Sourcebooks. Kindle Edition.
