Dear Friends,
Last week I wrote about The Red Pill, a documentary a couple of filmmakers I admire had asked me to review. The movie looked at the so-called “Men’s Rights Movement” and I would give it a mixed review. On the one hand, the film did a great job of chronicling the inner journey of one of the filmmakers, as she became acquainted with the Men’s Rights Movement and, in the process, ended up rejecting the Feminist orthodoxy that, for years, had shaped her self-identity.
In many ways her journey illustrated the process all of us go through as we learn to think independently and to express ourselves as individuals and not as part of a larger group. Hers was the process I experienced as I rejected the orthodoxy of Evangelicalism, and it’s what a lot of folks go through when we discover our parents aren’t perfect or that the politics of our upbringing is designed to preserve privilege. I liked the film for the story of the filmmaker’s journey out of an orthodoxy, even though the film’s rejected orthodoxy is an orthodoxy to which I happen to adhere.
What I didn’t like about the film was its presentation of the activists in the Men’s Rights Movement. The activists interviewed identified some really important issues with which our society needs to deal, but rather than be creative about addressing those issues, the activists tended simply to blame feminism. For example, the activists point out that men and boys commit suicide three times more often than do women and girls, yet few people express concern for mental health issues particular to the male psyche and soul. The activists go on to suggest that if women and girls were committing suicide at such a high rate the feminist movement would be raising awareness and taking action, which probably also is true (for evidence of this one can compare the relative public attention given to breast cancer and prostate cancer, which occur at roughly the same rates), but the activists then blame feminism for our society’s silence on issues surrounding male mental health, which, to me, seems silly. I am a feminist and I know a lot of feminists, and I doubt any of us doesn’t want to talk about male mental health. I’d much rather see men and our allies learn from what feminism has accomplished, and building on that learning, address the gender issues that affect men in ways that can bring healing to everyone.
In the end, the Men’s Rights Activists presented in the film ended up sounding like White suburbanites, who’ve never been to Harlem, Compton, or East Oakland, out on the golf course talking about how All Lives Matter.
A few days after I watched The Red Pill, I had the displeasure of watching the hot-mic-on-a-bus footage of Donald Trump, in which the would-be President brags of possessing the privilege of sexual-assault-with-impunity because he is a celebrity.
My take away from both viewing experiences is this: we need to do a better job of talking about what it means to be male. It’s a conversation that should begin in the company of men, but it can’t stop there. It needs to be a conversation for the whole community, for the whole society.
As a starting point, I’d like to revive the men’s group at Montclair Presbyterian Church. This is something for which a few folks already have asked, and so if you are interested in joining the men’s group, please let me know. Once I’ve gathered a few names, I’ll send out a Doodle poll so we can set a date for our first meeting. Once the men’s group is underway and the conversation on masculinity has begun, we’ll find ways to expand the conversation as broadly as possible. Let’s talk!
God’s Peace!
Ben