Voice MaleD
Publisher
Jake Stika
Senior Editor
Emily Ptak
Associate Editor
Jonathon Reed
Next Gen Men would like to thank:
Copy Editor
Michael J. Burke
Art Director
Chris Ringeisen
Editor Emeritus
Rob Okun
The 214 Indiegogo campaign backers whose generous contributions were invaluable to our producing our first issue.
We’d also like to recognize:
Dharshan S., Katia T. & Benjamin M., Christopher L., Jeff S.J., Anne B., Ainsley R., Jennifer H., Matt C., Jermal J., and Leanne G. for their contributions.
Finally, we owe a lifetime of gratitude to Andrea M., Daniel G., York B., Michael A.M., Amanda D., Roger D., and Ravi S.!
Voice Male is published twice per year by Next Gen Men, a nonprofit organization based in Canada. ISSN 1522-5585
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The opinions expressed in this magazine are those of its writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers of the magazine.
Aside from brief passages being quoted with attribution, this magazine’s contents must not be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means without prior written permission from Next Gen Men. © 2024.
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photography by Jonathon Reed
Dear Voice Male reader,
Letter from the Publisher
While drafting this letter — my first as the new publisher of this illustrious publication — I looked back on the timeline of the journey to the printing and distribution of this issue.
“Hello Friends and Allies” began the first ever email from Rob Okun to Next Gen Men’s (NGM) general inbox on February 10, 2020. He was reaching out to share printed copies of Voice Male magazine, the publication he’d been shepherding since the 90’s. Shortly after, copies arrived, including a note that he was looking for a successor.
We Need Your Help
If you’re a regular Voice Male reader, you may be missing a couple of sections, namely Male Bonding and Men @ Work. We aim to implement these moving forward, but we need your help!
Male Bonding
If you have any feedback, clarification, or comments on articles or content in this issue or issues moving forward, please send them to:
Men @ Work
If you or your organization have news or updates about the amazing and important work you or others are doing to engage men & boys in gender justice, let us know at:
voicemale@nextgenmen.ca
We can’t wait to hear from you!
HARM
Not long after this, we came to experience a pandemic that changed the world as we knew it. Millions of lives were lost, billions of lives were impacted.
A similar sentiment of millions of lives lost, and billions of lives impacted could be written about the ‘triad of male violence’ (towards women, self, and other men) as coined by frequent Voice Male contributor Michael Kaufman.
Next Gen Men’s vision is to build a future where boys & men feel less pain, and cause less harm. In order to build, we need to acknowledge what we’re building from. In order for reconciliation, we must know the truth – as outlined in Emotional Debt (pg. 6) and We Need to Debunk Gender Norms in School (pg. 30).
It was important for us to have a dedicated department to reflect on and examine the Harm that persists in our communities. D
Despite the pandemic’s disruptions NGM was committed to continuing to change the way we see, act, and think about masculinity. We decided to publish our own one-off zine called The Future of Masculinity to meet folks where they were at — home, socially distancing, and isolated.
The NGM team was exhausted after producing just one issue of our zine (how has Rob done this for nearly 30 years?!). Our Director of Programs, Jonathon, then told me, “If someone else lands Voice Male, I’ll be pissed.”
We were forced to reinvent all our programming as schools and gathering places closed, and work-from-home began, disrupting all our established means of engaging boys and men. Discussions about the future of Voice Male between Rob and myself began in earnest in 2021.
This fortitude and resilience is not uncommon in the feminist movement. You can see it in Inside the Healthy Masculinity Movement in Australia (pg. 38), Rob’s Radical Act (pg. 42), and Training Men to Engage in Gender Equality (pg. 58).
This is why it was important for there to be a department dedicated to the physical, mental, and emotional labour poured into Healing the papercuts of patriarchy on men and the community in the face of resistance, setback, and/or apathy. F
Though the pandemic continued to hamper NGM through 2022, into 2023, we secured pro bono support from a management consulting company to learn more about acquisitions, as well as a law firm to help frame out the paperwork.
I produced a 23-page document for NGM’s Board of Directors on why Voice Male should be a part of Next Gen Men’s future. The fact that some of our pandemic pivots were starting to work helped me build my case.
In summer 2023, the last official Voice Male magazine with Rob Okun as publisher after 30 years was printed. In it, Rob and I reflected on the passing of the torch, as well as the receiving of the torch.
This act from Rob was a generational transfer of Hope. Our final department — dedicated to the work being done to prevent the Harm and the need for the Healing. Reinforce your hope with Listen to Us; We’ll Tell You (pg. 17) and Like Father, Like Son (pg. 53).
It took four years, but it’s with this hope that we begin publishing the next generation of Voice Male in 2024. NGM now holds the torch; may it burn bright as we continue on this marathon to gender justice, and may it only be extinguished when we arrive. H
Jake Stika, Executive Director, NGM
IThirteen Ways of
Looking at Patriarchy
by Samantha Nzessi, host of MASKulinity Podcast
Of all the systems in the world, The one with the most redoubtable PR machine Is undoubtedly patriarchy.
II
It’s less than 10,000 years old. It’s completely made up.
It’s like a free trial of power and strength that turned into a subscription we forgot to cancel. And overtime, that subscription shrank to dominance, anger, and loneliness. Still, society prescribes patriarchy to all of us for order and control, with little regard for connection and liberation. It just can’t fill everyone’s cup.
III
A world with no gender prescriptions might certainly be confusing… At first.
But what freedoms are we missing out on by hanging on to patriarchy, A system intended to quench an insatiable thirst?
IV
Powerful men create conflicts for other men to fight. Men are told they’re superior for fighting other men’s wars. Patriarchy welcomes them home with a parade and invisible scars.
V Is patriarchy the chicken and capitalism the egg? Did we ever figure out which one came first?
VI
Male supremacy is patriarchy. A patriarchy run by women is still a patriarchy.
VII
VIII
Womanhood does not make one immune. Some women have disdain for men’s vulnerability. That, too, is patriarchy.
Trans women live authentically despite phobes’ best attempts. But we need men’s help so the Black dolls can live past their thirties. By help, I mean, Talk to your homeboys about their violence. Patriarchy keeps you from bringing the noise of accountability.
IX
X
A decent man can fall without accountability. Every school shooter has documented instances of violence before the big day. But patriarchy says “Boys will be boys” through law enforcement. And then the cops wait outside Robb Elementary while the kids inside pass away.
Violence is a sure bet.
Men and boys can count on it to be seen and heard. Patriarchy has their anger on loudspeakers but keeps their suffering on mute. And our complicity keeps us moving in a silent herd.
XI
XII
What is liberation? A never-ending quest.
What does it require? For us to see each other. But it requires choosing yourself over patriarchy first.
A man is a man is a man. If he says so. Patriarchy speaks like there’s a masculinity thief.
XIII
We all have to unlearn, me included. Patriarchy is a beast, and its gun is always loaded.
Emotional Debt: The Cost of Emotional Mutilation
by John Feldkamp
Acting Like You Don’t Care Is Not Letting Go
Itake a dim view of going viral, and a recent experience only clarified that perspective. An organization I work with posted a video to TikTok, where it saw more views than I could have expected. Positive, encouraging comments bloomed under that spotlight.
The video in question was a compilation of our recent men’s retreat. My organization — Hey Brother Co. — shared clips of men sitting in their emotions with one another. It was a beautiful example of community, and on TikTok, it was met with a flood of comments from women asking how men in their life can do the same.
However, the video was then planted in bad faith on Twitter by alt-right actors with dated views of masculinity, who viewed it as degenerate. They saw men crying and opening up to one another and attacked the video, and our organization, with homophobic and misogynistic insults. This isn’t an uncommon experience for anyone in feminist spaces. It’s symptomatic of an erosive form of masculinity — one that I’ve also fallen for along the way. Maybe it was my memory of this incident that made me feel apprehensive at first, sitting on the grass in the sunshine of Central Park in New York City with a group of 14 men. As in the TikTok video, our group of men in Central Park, in full view of anyone taking advantage of that beautiful day, was exhibiting emotions, and I was anxious that we would be judged by passersby.
Men were hugging, holding their hands on their hearts, and comforting each other. Men were sharing and men were crying. At least one man was nearly sobbing.
His story was unique, but how he handled it wasn’t. Here he was with a group of people he was meeting mostly for the first time, and for the first time he was unburdening himself of the pain he was experiencing.
At our Hey Brother Co. meetups, we always start with a question: What does it mean to be a man? It sparks a lot of unique answers, and I’ve heard a new perspective almost every time. We like to use that conversation to guide discussions into why us men should be asking these questions in the first place, and why it should become part of our self-reflections.
Stoic, hardened men who carry unspoken burdens is an old trope.
Photo by Cemrecan Yurtman
It’s part of how we’ve been conditioned: Work harder, don’t complain, don’t call in sick, don’t call your friend for help. Suck it up. Man up.
The man sitting cross-legged across from me in Central Park, crying, was worried about his friend. She had an abusive boyfriend, and he couldn’t sit by and act as though he was fine with her situation. He felt he needed to do something, but he didn’t know what to do. That left him overwhelmed, with no outlet for his feelings. Instead, prior to that day, he had added it to his emotional debt.
What is emotional debt?
Emotional debt accumulates when someone is constantly suppressing their emotions instead of feeling and experiencing them. It’s a common thread of the male experience, one of the key ways in which the patriarchy, a system created and maintained largely by men, also negatively impacts men.
Allowing emotional debt to accumulate is negligent and damaging. It derives from a misleading cultural narrative that you can neutralize trauma by pushing through it, rather than moving with it.
Sometimes this avoidant behaviour seems positive on the surface: for example, men will often turn to fitness to reclaim their individuality and “power” after a romantic breakup.
But while focusing on fitness is a healthy practice in and of itself, attempting to use it as a shield — instead of directly addressing the root of our
by
JOHN FELDKAMP
emotional debt — is not. This, like all methods of emotional suppression, is misdirected. It is informed by a belief that by focusing on the flowers and roses in life, all thorns will somehow cease to be a problem.
But of course they don’t. And even while the roses will enjoy a time of abundance, the thorns will find a way to prick you eventually.
In Central Park that day, I saw the thorns finally prick the man who was sobbing after at least a year of letting them flourish. He had refused to acknowledge them, feeling he had to be strong for his friend, and the result was unhealthy. For many men, it’s a lifetime of letting emotional debt build up. But eventually, a debt collector comes knocking.
My emotional debt
I am an avid powerlifter, gym-goer, and an allaround active guy. Or at least, I was. Along my journey as an athlete, I have both felt in myself and seen in other men a sense of inadequacy when it comes to physical attributes, where a man’s height, bicep size, body fat, and even smaller details like facial hair become a sort of social status.
And with these status symbols, more is never enough.
Even Arnold Schwarzenegger, the iconic figure of bodybuilding, suffered this hyperfixation on physical appearances well beyond any realistic standard. Arnold himself often lamented his own EMOTIONAL
Emotional debt derives from a misleading cultural narrative that you can neutralize trauma by pushing through it, rather than moving with it.
fixation on his physical appearance. This can be dangerous when combined with a mindset that ignores the buildup of emotional debt.
As a competitive powerlifter, I spent a year-anda-half declining to acknowledge a herniation in my spine and the pain that came with it so that I could keep doing more. I kept adding weight to my training, preparing for an upcoming competition. I refused to mitigate the pain in any way, not changing my form, going back down to a lower weight or going to the doctor. This became a case in which ignoring my emotional debt — the pain I was experiencing — led to a breakdown in my physical infrastructure. “Manning up” in pursuit of physical strength and status led to me ultimately becoming physically weaker.
Because after undergoing a recent surgery to address the herniated disc I’d spent months ignoring, I will likely never powerlift again.
As men, we are trained to not seek help, not take a day off, and not see a doctor when we’re hurting. But it’s this avoidant behaviour that hurts us even more.
Some take this a step further, viewing the accumulation of emotional debt not only as an issue to avoid resolving head-on, but as a currency. Withstanding trauma not by uprooting it, but by burying it, is seen as tough, alongside other harmful modes of self-validation like accumulating financial wealth, losing weight, and “collecting” women.
In our weekly groups with Hey Brother Co., we routinely confront emotional debt as men rediscover a previously severed connection to their childhood selves. Our tools include mirrored reflections, inner child meditations, and even simple, open discussion. They are remarkably effective, but a shocking reminder that this work is, in fact, work.
by JOHN FELDKAMP
Stoic, hardened men who carry unspoken burdens is an old trope. It’s part of how we’ve been conditioned: Work harder, don’t complain, don’t call in sick, don’t call your friend for help. Suck it up. Man up.
In accumulating emotional debt, we seek to put a distance between ourselves and our emotional wounds. We build on this debt with a series of bad investments: substance use, self-harm, suppression, seeking out co-dependence in a partnership, and other forms of escapism.
The concepts of “manning up” and “getting things done” ultimately become self-destructive modes of avoiding responsibility for healing our emotional wounds. They form what bell hooks, in
her incredible work The Will to Change, described as “psychic self-mutilation.”
But this self-mutilation scarcely stops at the self. It’s projected onto others in romantic, platonic, and professional relationships. It creates and perpetuates cycles of violence and trauma, which men inflict on themselves and those around them.
The only way around it is to reject the apathy we’re taught from such a young age and develop thoughtful connections with other people. EMOTIONAL
So where does emotional debt come from?
I asked one of our men’s groups last year to reflect on this question. One man, Mikky, profoundly noted:
“For myself, the denial of expression is born from a lack of safety.”
This explanation may resonate for many men, but for others, it represents an oversight, an issue we dismiss as “weak.”
Ask yourself: When you were a boy, what happened when you cried or showed emotions? What happened when someone, a parent or a sibling, hurt your feelings? What was the response from caretakers or friends when you expressed yourself beyond the confines of who you were told to be?
Boys are taught from a young age that to express themselves is to be weak. bell hooks writes, “Sexist thinking at its worst leads many parents to let male infants cry without a comforting touch because they fear that holding baby boys too much, comforting them too much, might cause them to grow up wimpy.”
These boys then grow up around adult males who refuse to cry in front of them, embrace them, or display tenderness — adults who even mock them, with the same misogynistic or homophobic insults that were hurled at Hey Brother Co. over that viral TikTok video.
When a boy is told to “man up,” he is actually being told to tone down his feelings, to suppress
them, and to accumulate emotional debt. This creates callous boys who translate “unacceptable” feelings into “acceptable” ones. Seeds of sadness or pain grow into weeds of anger and resentment.
In the worst cases of boys’ emotions being suppressed, they begin to seek validation through actions like aggression, shouting, or physical violence. This may be a factor in what drives school shooters, nearly all of whom are male, according to the Columbia Mass Murder Database.
The lack of control, community, and instruments for emotional expression creates an emotional black hole that they feel can only be satisfied by a grandiose act of “reclaiming” one’s power.
Don't believe me? Listen to Aaron Stark’s poignant episode in the Man Enough Podcast, I Was Almost a School Shooter. After a childhood of abuse and abandonment, intermittent homelessness, loneliness, and suicidal ideation, Stark planned a final act of violence.
Only a display of male love stopped Aaron from committing this vile act. That’s all it took — his only real friend reaching out to ask if he was OK. Stark’s experience is an exemplary case of the extreme effects of the absence of a healthy community — and how community-building can provide real solutions.
I find it so fascinating how quickly we will weaponize mental illness and use rhetoric such as “monster” and “freak” toward school shooters
to subvert the discussion of the systematic ways in which we have failed them. This is, of course, not to say that the acts of terrorism committed by these individuals aren’t horrific and inexcusable, but they are more predictable than the mainstream media gives them credit for.
Fault lies not only with the shooter, who is responsible for his actions, but also with societal value systems that prime men for these kinds of acts.
How do we cope with emotional debt?
Since a man’s worth is stereotypically measured through material items and social status, coping with emotional debt often presents itself as trying to get as much of these as possible.
Growing up under capitalism, boys naturally learn to consume so they can be better than those around them. This is made more explicit and dogmatic by men like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson, who tap into men’s mental health issues by preaching doubling down on the very same toxic masculinity that led us here. But to constantly chase something “more” in hopes it will one day be enough is to seek to pay our emotional debts with an overly inflated, valueless dollar. When we pit ourselves against other men like this, we enter into a losing battle. I liken it to my experience in medical school: it’s so easy to feel incompetent when someone else in the lecture hall has a better, faster answer to the professor’s question.
When boys are told to “man up,” it creates callous boys where seeds of sadness or pain grow into weeds of anger and resentment.
In my quest to compete as a bodybuilder and powerlifter, I always wanted more — to achieve, to overachieve, and to be great. It was a competition to me, and not in a healthy way. As many men do, I was taking a zero-sum view: either I had to be the best, or there was no point in my taking part at all. There is such a thing as healthy competition that pushes you to be the best ‘you’. But this wasn’t it. When men see every passion, hobby, or interest as a rat race it leaves us exhausted at the core. And that’s where it left me — emotionally and physically.
I was pitted against myself, and every other man. That comes with a guarantee that every man has something I don’t. Not only are the goalposts constantly moving, but the opponent changes in parallel. Instead of celebrating the uniqueness of our peers, we are doomed to grieve our shortcomings through the lens of their successes.
As the wounds of emotional mutilation fester and emotional debt accumulates, what we really need is community, not competition. But we are disincentivized from using, or even developing, the skills to establish a community. Rather than broad support, we too frequently dump this emotional burden on to our closest confidante, often a romantic partner.
Since most men are reported to have very few close friends — by the Survey Center on American Life — it’s unsurprising that men in heterosexual relationships tend to be deeply codependent on their spouse or partner. And while emotional vulnerability is a sign of healthy intimacy, your partner should not be your sole emotional outlet, acting as a therapist. This codependency leaves men more vulnerable to an abusive partner if they have no one else to confide in. And without a community with which to express non-sexual intimacy, through hugging and other displays of affirmation, we risk unhealthily conflating all emotional intimacy with sex and vice versa.
We may also seek to escape emotional debt through unhealthy relationships with alcohol and other substances. Men are not only more likely to drink,
but also more likely to binge drink than women. This becomes cyclical, with the consequences of using alcohol as a coping mechanism only adding to our emotional debt. Drinking is seen as a way for men to detach from their circumstances and from consequences.
Without community, men accumulating emotional debts become dangers not just to themselves, but to those around them.
The role of men’s groups in “paying up” on emotional debt
Humans are social creatures. Throughout our evolution, community has been a keystone principle for both physical survival and mental well-being.
But while community has remarkable potential for positive impact, it can also be exploited for destructive purposes. This was the case for Graham Finochio, who told the Man Enough Podcast of his recruitment into a neo-Nazi organization in the episode The Cost of Isolation.
The reformed-skinhead-turned-feminist-activist now uses his story — of getting sucked in by a group he mistook for a genuine community when he was experiencing extreme loneliness — to empower others into joining groups that don’t embrace each other at the expense of others.
Following a similar psychological blueprint, a more common experience of isolated boys finding
DEBT by JOHN FELDKAMP
community in toxic environments is fraternity culture. Frats seduce men in need of community with offers of solidarity through harmful coping mechanisms, like excessive drinking.
But unlike these frats, there exist communities for men that offer loving and compassionate connection, accountability, and goal-setting to foster emotional skills in a safe and supportive environment. These spaces, like the one we shared on TikTok, or the one we created that day in Central Park — where the judgment I was anxious about was only in my head — help to address the mountains of suppressed emotions that burden men each day.
Lewis Kendall, a treasured friend and the content director at Hey Brother Co., offered a thoughtful reflection on this:
“This group and men’s work in general has helped me start to unpack and payoff, little bylittle,someofthatemotionaldebt.Leaning into the piled-up emotions of my past, tendingtothewoundsofmychildhoodself, andgenerallyreleasingsomeofthepressure that has built up over years and years.”
Our mission at Hey Brother Co. is to use community-building to teach men and boys to embody healthy masculinity, fully process emotions, embrace authenticity and show up as compassionate, empathetic community leaders. This can produce results our participants don’t necessarily expect. When the man in Central Park broke
down in tears, he was releasing pressure he didn’t realize was building up.
We seek to redefine masculinity as an empowering tool for active change against the patriarchal script we’re handed at birth. We create long-standing connections and ongoing communication streams to implement the lessons learned in those retreats in the real world, in real-life situations. This presents its own challenge, as we are asking the men in our groups to return to a world that still reinforces the patriarchal values that result in emotional self-mutilation — a world that expects them to plant more roses and ignore the thorns. This is frustrating for men seeking to reform masculinity, such as myself. We work within, and sometimes against, systems of employment or education that enforce competition, not community, through things like the corporate ladder or ranked curricula. Most of the time, I have no choice but to participate in this paradigm, no matter how much I detest it.
But I can make changes in the places I do have control, a lesson I model from my own experiences in our men’s groups. I can model compassion in my interactions with peers and show unconditional kindness to those above and below me on the job, instead of just fighting them for the top rank.
I can create spaces for those who are spoken over, exercise patience when addressing patient misunderstandings and withhold resentment for my superiors when they project their insecurity on me when I make a mistake.
EMOTIONAL
Most importantly, especially as it relates to emotional debt, I can hold my own wellness as sacred as those for whom I took the Hippocratic Oath and hold myself accountable for the inevitable mistakes I make along the way. And I can do this in a way that doesn’t invert self-care into another form of patriarchy.
In so doing, I provide an example for those around me who would otherwise not believe an alternative, improved script on masculinity exists.
Don’t simply turn your back on your trauma and set unrealistic goals as a distraction. Listen to your past and what your experiences have to teach you. Be mindful of the moments that brought you pain and how you responded. This isn’t just a vague suggestion; there are ways of putting this into practice: write a reflective letter of gratitude to your past self or a promising one to your future self, take these thoughts to your therapist, challenge your male friends to engage in emotionally stimulating conversation, join a positive men’s group, or simply guide yourself through a breathwork ceremony as you navigate these feelings and how they may pilot your fears moving forward.
And ask yourself these questions:
What thought patterns are preventing me from real change?
WhatemotionaldebthaveIaccumulatedthisyear?
How have I interacted with these debts in damaging ways? Healthy ways?
WhydoIturntomaladaptivecopingmechanisms?
What communities can I engage with to help me navigate my emotional debt?
Don’t try to erase the actions that haunt you, but forgive yourself of them and promise to do better.
Be kind to yourself, and take this call to action as an opportunity to be a better man. Looking forward, when met with emotional trauma, we may feel pulled to join a gym, start a diet, or apply for a new job.
But let’s redirect some of that energy toward seeking therapy, joining a men’s group, and other forms of healing practices. Choose the things that help you process, not the ones that build up your emotional debt. B
John Feldkamp is a 23-year-old poet, powerlifter, and medical student at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.
The Shades of Equality are data-informed colors that each tell a story about equality. Our goal for the Shades of Equality is to inspire, spark conversation, and create impact in homes, classrooms, workplaces, and public spaces all around the world.
We developed each color in CMYK with gender-related data in mind. In the case of Men-tal Health Moss, we highlight the fact that males make up 49% of the population, but account for nearly 80% of those who die by suicide. Every color in the Shades of Equality speaks to gender equality, equity, and inclusion — and the gendered imbalance of this issue is one that certainly merits attention.
We give visual identity to important issues in an innovative way. Hopefully, over time, we’ll see these colors get lighter or darker, as we make progress towards the gender-equal and inclusive world that we collectively hope to live in. In the meantime, we hope you’ll also use these colors to spark engaging, meaningful conversations that address the root and last mile of gender equality and inclusion (beliefs and behaviours).
by Jonathon Reed, photos by Andrew Roycroft
Iwas nervously setting up for the first session of my first cohort of after-school programs with Next Gen Men — unpacking the markers and arranging the snacks, trying to feel ready — when a boy with an Adidas hoodie and a backpack slung over one shoulder poked his head in the door. “Am I supposed to be here?” he asked.
The bell hadn’t yet rung, but I could hear students down the hall starting to head out for the day. I held on to the markers and looked at the boy in the doorway. Messy dark hair. Creased paper peeking out of his unzipped backpack. I didn’t ask him if he’d filled out the form or if he was on the teacher’s registration list. “Yes,” I said.
Next Gen Men’s work is about helping boys find their place in the movement for gender justice. Whether it’s within conversations about gender stereotypes or mental health, feminism or consent, the underlying message is simple: You belong here.
The newly established Youth Advisory Council poses for a group photo at the Jack.org office. From back to front: Hayden, Noah, Sam, Leif, Hamza, Arpit and Andrew; Samnit, Jonathon, Maria and Stephanie; Myles, Lincoln, Anderson and Ali.
and Lincoln walk together while Hayden jumps in the air to touch a street sign. Walking around downtown was an invaluable opportunity for the Youth Advisory Council to get to know each other throughout the weekend.
More than five years after that first session, my colleagues and I established Next Gen Men’s first-ever Youth Advisory Council — a group of youth who will spend the next two years helping us develop our NGM Alliance Discord server initiative as a promising practice for gender-based violence prevention. This spring, we brought them together from across Canada to kick off our work in the heart of Toronto.
LEFT: Noah turns to face Andrew underneath the Gardiner Expressway across from Union Station.
RIGHT: Stephanie
This is a glimpse of that weekend through the lens of Andrew, a ninth grader who photographed the group walking through the South Core and Old Toronto one evening.
Andrew photographs his reflection in a mirrored elevator. One of the meaningful things about photography is that in exploring how you see the world, you also change the way you see yourself.
points the
PREVIOUS PAGE Ali hands out passes for the Toronto subway system while they talk about no longer being able to ride for free by pretending to be 12 years old.
Arpit reacts to Andrew pointing the camera at him on the upper floor of Union Station.
Andrew
camera at his high tops on the cobblestone sidewalk in Old Town.
Jonathon poses with Hamza near the Toronto harbourfront. They’ve known each other since before the pandemic.
Andrew pulls off his hoodie in preparation for taking a headshot for the Youth Advisory Council. In a world of smartphones, it’s still unexpectedly vulnerable for teenagers to have a DSLR camera pointed at them.
There’s something beautifully raw about what boys bring to this work. None of it is hypothetical. The background is sometimes messy, and the lines are sometimes blurry. But we’re working hard to bring them to the table, to have them involved in setting a vision for themselves and making decisions that impact our work. At the end of the day, the message is the same: You belong here, too. B
Evidence-based tools supporting men’s mental health, social connection and relational wellbeing.
Our free online resources are ready for you!
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D
HARM
We Need to Debunk Gender Norms in School
The Role of Formal Education in Dismantling Patriarchy
by Laura Stocker
Despite progress toward gender equality over the decades, several intertwined myths about men and women persist in society and uphold harmful gender norms1 around masculinity and femininity. These myths include:
1. There are two sexes, male and female, and everyone fits into one category or the other;
2. Men are physically stronger than women and women are considered the weaker sex;
3. Testosterone is the essence of masculinity, causing behaviour such as aggression in boys and men;
4. Women are naturally more nurturing than men and are therefore better caregivers;
5. In prehistoric times, men were the hunters while women gathered and tended to children, establishing a natural sexual division of labour in which men are the providers while women are the caregivers;
6. Men and women have different brains and exhibit different psychologies and behaviours, notably with men being rational while women are emotional;
7. Society/culture (nurture) can be stripped away to uncover the innate pre-wiring of biology (nature).
Each of these myths perpetuates the idea of a sex/gender binary, ultimately pitting the two sexes against each other. Taken together, their narrative tells us that what men are, women are not, that a man is not only fundamentally different from a woman but is superior and that this is rooted in our biology: manhood endows men with strength and power, and women, therefore, must be weak and subservient. This is the underlying premise of patriarchy.2 These myths, however, paint an inaccurate and restrictive picture of what boys and girls, and men and women, can be and exclude those who do not fall neatly into the binary. Yet these myths continue to grip the collective conscience and uphold archaic gender norms around masculinity and femininity under which children continue to be socialized, despite decades of research that tells us these notions are false.
These myths are often leveraged by influential people to uphold patriarchy, usually in backlash to feminist gains. We need only look to Andrew
Tate in the post-#MeToo era as an example, a social media influencer and extreme misogynist who went viral in 2022. As already described by other commentators, what young men are learning from Tate is that “if they express emotion they are weak, if they do not have girlfriends they are failures, and if they do not receive female subservience they are not adequately reaping the benefits of manhood.”3 Tate’s rhetoric is thought to be “capable of radicalizing men and boys to commit harm offline,”4 and his TikTok videos have been viewed upwards of 12 billion times. Though Tate is now barred from social media sites for violating policies around hate speech and is facing stacks of charges relating to human trafficking, rape, and forming an organized hate group, his messaging lives on, and boys and young men are buying into it at alarming rates. A recent UK poll suggests that men aged 16–29 are less likely than men in older age groups to believe that feminism has done more good than harm and one in five men aged 16–29 who have heard of Tate hold a positive view of him.5
1 Gender norms can be thought of as collective social beliefs and practices that are well known, widely followed, and culturally approved, defining acceptable and appropriate actions for women and men in a given society.
2 Patriarchy can be defined as a system of social organization based on gender, in which men, maleness and traits associated with masculinity such as domination and aggression are privileged, and in which men hold a disproportionate amount of social, economic and political power.
3 Lawson, Robert. ‘Andrew Tate: How the “Manosphere” Influencer Is Selling Extreme Masculinity to Young Men’. The Conversation, 27 October 2022. http://theconversation.com/andrew-tate-how-the-manosphere-influencer-is-selling-extreme-masculinity-to-youngmen-192564.
4 Das, Shanti. ‘Inside the Violent, Misogynistic World of TikTok’s New Star, Andrew Tate’. The Guardian, 6 August 2022. https://www. theguardian.com/technology/2022/aug/06/andrew-tate-violent-misogynistic-world-of-tiktok-new-star.
5 Campbell, Rosie, George May, Bobby Duffy, Gideon Skinner, Glenn Gottfried, and Kirstie Hewlett. ‘Emerging Tensions? How Younger Generations Are Dividing on Masculinity and Gender Equality’. King’s College London, 2024, pp. 15, 22. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/assets/emerging-tensions.pdf.
Tate’s messaging around manhood perpetuates a glorified image of masculinity in its most patriarchal form. This image appeals to many boys and men who are falling behind in school and the workplace, who feel alienated and neglected while at the same time being told they benefit from male privilege. The notion of aggrieved entitlement is helpful in explaining these feelings of alienation, conceived as the “sense that those benefits to which you believed yourself entitled have been snatched away from you.”6 Feminist gains made by women are often scapegoated, portrayed as a zero-sum game between men and women and perceived by many men and boys as a threat to their position. Tate, and others who have come before him, such as Jordan Peterson, offer nostalgia for a bygone era in which men were seemingly on top. This is an illusion as we know patriarchy hurts people of all genders, not just women and girls. Under patriarchy and traditional masculine gender norms, rates of male-on-male violence are high, men engage more in risk-taking behaviour, suffer from loneliness and social isolation at higher rates than women, and are less likely to seek help for health concerns. Many boys struggle with living up to the masculine ideal and are bullied if they don’t conform. Many of these negative effects are compounded by one’s race, sexuality, class, and other intersectional identities. Yet Tate offers many disaffected boys and men a flashy
lifestyle and promise of dominance and success if they subscribe to patriarchal ideals.
I believe the most effective way to tackle oppressive gender norms, and counter widely spread vitriol by Tate and others, is head-on by raising awareness about gender issues with young people via the formal education system. We need to teach gender issues, intersectionality,7 and feminism in schools as part of the core curriculum so that every child has the opportunity to critically examine ideas they have already formed around gender and other power structures, such as racism, and consider whether these views are in need of reshaping. The education system has a crucial role to play in busting the persistent and pernicious myths that underpin patriarchal notions of masculinity and female inferiority and replacing them with factual truths. Although changes to a formal curriculum can take time, instructors can already start introducing this material informally into the existing curriculum. There are many opportunities to bring discussions of gender into lessons, from biology class to history and social studies, English, philosophy, psychology, economics, and even math class.
6 Kimmel, Michael. Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era. New York: Nation Books, 2017.
7 Coined by Kimberly Crenshaw in 1989, intersectionality refers to the notion that different aspects of an individual’s identity, such as gender, race, class, sexuality, etc., come together and create intersecting systems of discrimination and oppression.
These myths, however, paint an inaccurate and restrictive picture of what boys and girls, and men and women, can be and exclude those who do not fall neatly into the binary. It is an illusion.
As a starting point, I propose the following seven statements, based on extensive research, to replace the seven myths above, which are topics that can be covered in a variety of school lessons:
The male/female sex binary is scientifically inaccurate, and it is more helpful to think of sex as occurring on a spectrum.
Not all men are stronger than all women, and considerable overlap exists. (Life experiences, diet, exercise habits, etc., also impact physical strength.)
In science class: Learn about intersex people who do not have anatomy that fits into male or female sex categories, investigating how this can materialize at the chromosomal, genital, or internal reproductive organ level.
A direct causal link has not been credibly established between testosterone and aggression. Testosterone is not the essence of masculinity it’s made out to be.
In math class: Examine the differences in height or body mass between the sexes, looking at ratios, averages, extremes, dispersions, and overlap within and across different countries. What can dispersion tell us that average can’t?
In science class: Understand testosterone’s role as a growth hormone in all bodies. Investigate testosterone’s ability to enhance pre-existing behaviour (including generosity!) and respond to social situations.
Women, men, and people of all genders have the capacity for nurturing.
In science class: Understand the role of oxytocin, a hormone, in social and child bonding and how it works in new parents.
Both men and women hunted. Gathering and small game brought in more protein and calories than glorified hunting.
In social studies/history class: Look at archaeological and other evidence that indicates women hunted, and that there was almost no sexual division of roles, during the Paleolithic era.
Most of the time, you cannot accurately distinguish a male brain from a female brain; a thumb-print approach is more accurate as all brains are unique. As with physical strength, much of men’s and women’s behaviour depends on context and experiences. Humans are capable of a range of emotions.
In science or social studies class: Investigate whether men and women are more alike than different in terms of cognition, behaviour, and emotional expression. Understand the impact gender stereotyping has on these processes and functions.
The effects of nature and nurture cannot be separated out, and act to influence each other. In science class: Study the brain’s attribute of plasticity, and investigate how different environments and life experiences have biological effects on the brain. Consider, for example, the developmental impact the gendering of toys may have on children.
By demystifying these common beliefs and untying characteristics from biological assumptions, we can start to disentangle the hierarchy inherent in the gender binary and dismantle gender norms. If boys, girls, and children of all genders are given the opportunity early on in school to debunk restrictive gender norms, they will learn that humans have a range of abilities and dispositions, and they will have the freedom to express themselves more in line with their true selves than what masculinity or femininity dictates.
WE
I want to be clear, I am not denying the biology of our bodies and that there are differences (in fact, Caroline Criado Perez’s book Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men highlighted problems arising from neglecting to include women in data collection) but I am calling for us to reject the idea that men and women, boys and girls, are fundamentally different from one another, and acknowledge that the thinking we invoke when we use phrases such as “boys will be boys” — proffered as a biological explanation to excuse often inappropriate and rough behaviour by boys and men — crumbles when we take a magnifying glass to it.
In addition to demystifying the seven myths related to biology, students also need to learn about the continuity of gender inequality of yesterday and today, and patriarchy needs to be studied by students as a social means of organization, one that is not set in stone. Further opportunities for incorporating gender-aware lessons in the classroom include:
• Discuss how women were viewed as men’s property under patriarchy and how this legacy informs “rape culture”8, not to mention Tate’s views on women, today. (The common thread being the continued (perceived) male entitlement to women’s bodies, derived from (perceived) male superiority.)
I am calling for us to reject the idea that men and women, boys and girls, are fundamentally different from one another.
• Discuss whether women and their achievements are underrepresented in history. A starting point could be to explore whether some inventions attributed to men were actually invented by women.
• If women (and other historically marginalized voices) are underrepresented in required reading lists as authors or protagonists, discuss this with students and introduce supplementary material.
• Discuss how gender relations are portrayed in required reading. Are men and women depicted stereotypically?
• Examine the role colonialism played in exporting the gender binary outside of Europe.
• Learn about other gender categories, such as Indigenous Peoples’ Two Spirit or India’s Hijra.
• Investigate the impact the Industrial Revolution had on gender relations. How did this vary by race and class? Discuss why care work, when done by a stay-at-home parent, is not valued in the economy but is valued when paid for, and who has done the lion’s share of unpaid care work.
• Consider linkages between traits associated with masculinity, such as domination and competition, and the exploitation of people and planet for profit. What might the world look like if traditionally coded feminine traits such as care, nurturing, and cooperation were valued instead?
• Discuss the “male gaze”9 in cinema and advertising. Examine the different ways men and women are portrayed, the impact this may have on viewers, and whether this has changed over the decades.
Ultimately what I am advocating for is the conscientization of our students in the Freirean10 sense, which “is to provoke recognition of the world, not as a ‘given’ world, but as a world dynamically ‘in the making.’” We need to equip students with the necessary tools to understand gender and other power relations better, both historically and contemporarily, so they can engage critically in the world around them. If we don’t dedicate time to talking about gender issues in schools, kids are left to their own devices — literally11 — to learn about gender relations. It is no small feat to incorporate gender-aware lessons into the school curriculum; indeed, education, and the production and dissemination of knowledge, is a site of power. As described elsewhere, historically, school curriculum has been “shaped by powerful, white Western men in their own image and interests.”12 Yet education is also a site of resistance. We have seen cracks in recent years, namely in Canada around changes to the curriculum regarding Aboriginal history and the history and ongoing legacy of colonialism in Canada, stemming from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We are starting to see pockets of resistance related to gender, from student protests on Prince Edward
8 Rape culture can be thought of as an environment or society that justifies, normalizes, and even glorifies sexual pressure, coercion, and violence. The phrase ‘she was asking for it’ used to victim blame and excuse sexual assault is an example of rape culture.
9 The “male gaze” was coined by Laura Mulvey in 1975 and refers to the depiction of women and the world through a masculine, heterosexual lens, often rendering women as sexual objects with the purpose of pleasing men.
10 Paulo Freire (1921–1997) was a Brazilian educational practitioner and philosopher. He advocated for raising critical consciousness through education and believed consciousness-raising leads to critical actions, which are necessary for changing social reality.
11 Freire, Paulo. The Politics of Education: Culture, Power and Liberation. South Hadley, Massachusetts: Bergin & Garvey, 1985, p. 106.
12 Kenway, Jane, Jill Blackmore, Leonie Rennie, and Sue Willis. Answering Back: Girls, Boys, and Feminism in Schools. London; New York: Routledge, 1998.
Island related to harassment to various education workshops offered in schools on themes such as sexual violence. This work needs to go deeper into the formal education system to benefit all children.
In a world in which girlfriends are seen as an accessory to manhood and (traditionally coded) femininity continues to be devalued, we aren’t going to get much farther on the justice front for children of all genders. We need the upcoming generation to dismantle patriarchy in the classroom so they can help us dismantle it in the “real world.” Formal education, however, is not a panacea to dismantling gender norms and patriarchy. Children need positive role modelling not only within the education system but from family members, the media, and society at large. Ultimately, we need to equip children with critical thinking about gender and other power structures from all angles; otherwise, we risk perpetuating ignorance, harm, and injustice for generations to come. B
Laura Stocker consults for an international organization in the global health sector and is passionate about feminism and gender issues. She has a Master’s in Gender, Sexuality and Society from Birkbeck, University of London, UK, and a Master’s in Development Studies from The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland. Originally from BC, Canada, she lives in London, UK.
F HEALING
Inside the Healthy Masculinity Movement in Australia
by Hunter Johnson
In recent years, the discourse surrounding masculinity has undergone a significant transformation. It has been a long time coming. In Australia, three-quarters of the people who complete suicide each year are male, and 95% of men and 94% of women who have experienced violence since the age of 15 have done so at the hands of a male perpetrator.
Traditional stereotypes about what it means to be a man — be tough, show no emotion, be a financial provider — are being challenged. In their place, new expressions of masculinity have arisen: vulnerability, empathy, equality, and strength, to name a few.
This shift towards healthier expressions of masculinity – expressions that don’t harm men or those around them – has been growing in
momentum with every passing year. We know this because, for the past decade, The Man Cave has been working with 65,000+ young men, their parents, educators and mentors to create long-term, positive shifts in attitudes and behaviours for the benefit of society as a whole.
Our organisation, The Man Cave, is a preventative mental health charity empowering communities to raise healthy young men through positive, impactful programs, role models and resources.
Jamin Heppell, Al Green, and I co-founded the Man Cave in 2014. Our first workshop took place at Frankston High School in Melbourne. At the end of the day, just before leaving, we found a Post-it note left behind by one of the boys. It read, “Thanks for the lesson, man, it really showed me
what it means and feels like to be a man!” The week before, its author had been anonymously voted as the school’s biggest bully. This was when we knew we were onto something special.
Fast forward 10 years and The Man Cave is now home to 50+ staff and facilitators across a range of genders and backgrounds, and we work with thousands of young men every week. What hasn’t changed is the positive feedback we receive from these young men, with a gentleman from regional Victoria who attended a program last year telling us, “I swear Man Cave helped me out heaps. I was in a ditch I thought I couldn’t get out of and The Man Cave guys have helped me so much. I’m now a healthy young man who has a sustainable job and a girlfriend. This has happened because
of you guys.” Our research has also shown that 88% of young men are motivated to positively grow and change after a workshop, 83% now understand how gender stereotypes can impact mental health, and 80% feel confident using the tools they learned in their personal lives.
This positive feedback reflects the growing momentum of the healthy masculinity movement in Australia. This has been exemplified by the recent announcement of a $3.5M Healthy Masculinities trial funded by the Australian Government. The trial aims to implement evidence-based programs that promote respectful relationships and gender equality, aligning with the goals of the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children.
One key strategy for engaging young men in this is recognising the importance of multiple touchpoints. We employ a holistic approach that incorporates school programs, community events, and online platforms to reach a diverse audience. This approach acknowledges that every individual has different needs and preferences when it comes to learning and personal growth.
The online space, in particular, is ripe for inclusive spaces to foster healthy masculinity. Over the past few years, we have made a concerted effort to invest in it. One of our core tenets is to ‘meet the boys where they’re at’, and one of the places they gather most frequently is online, particularly gaming and video streaming platforms like Twitch.
‘The Cave on Twitch’ has emerged as a new way for us to support teenage boys in strengthening emotional literacy and mental well-being in one of the fastest-growing sectors in the world. This digital after-school care program aims to empower teenage boys to build self-awareness and resilience, reduce mental health stigma, promote social connection and respectful relationships, and provide useful emotional regulation tools. Developed and hosted by our highly trained facilitators and gaming enthusiasts, the initiative provides a live after-school talk show and gaming experience.
By leveraging the power of social media and online platforms like Twitch instead of dismissing them, we have found that we can engage with young men in a relatable and accessible way on topics such as mental health, consent, and healthy relationships.
Positive, preventative programs like these are essential in addressing the root causes of societal issues. Rather than merely reacting to crises, these programs focus on equipping young men with the skills and knowledge to navigate challenges proactively and empower them to make positive choices and contribute to a more inclusive and equitable society. B
Hunter Johnson is the CEO and co-founder of The Man Cave, a preventative mental health charity empowering communities to raise generations of healthy young men.
linktr.ee/TheManCaveAus
VALUES & CULTURE
At The Man Cave (TMC) culture is not an idea – it is a practice. If we can’t see our culture in the work people do, the way they relate to others, the way they hold themselves – it doesn’t exist.
DO YOUR WORK
Take responsibility for your personal wellbeing, prepare effectively for meetings and other events and be prepared to do the work on yourself so you can become a better person
HUMANITY FIRST
Put the care for others first before moving on to business
CATCH IT BEFORE IT DRIFTS
We catch even the smallest issues before they become larger, including interpersonal conflicts
BE HERE NOW
Be present with the people around you
TAKE STOCK & CELEBRATE THE WINS
We make time to slow down, reflect and celebrate what we have achieved
GET IT DONE
Be resilient and focused under pressure so that you achieve the outcomes you set out to
TAKE THE SHOT
Back yourself and be proactive
BE A SPRINGBOARD
Support others to bounce back up when they take a shot and it misses
Rob’s Radical Act
Even in how he moves on after 25 years of publishing this magazine, Rob Okun is still role modelling.
by Geoff Davies illustrations by Jasper Lyon Wicke
It was a time before TikTok, a time before widespread social media, a time when social movements seldom made the evening news. But it was a time not that long ago, and — for the state of the men’s pro-feminist movement — a place not that far away.
Shira Tarrant was teaching in Baltimore, at a small liberal arts college. She taught in the women’s studies department, helping young undergrads explore gender, sexism, and feminism — deep conversations on ideas this generation was just the latest to inherit. One day, after listening to what they said, Dr. Tarrant wondered aloud to her students, asking a question many might still ask today.
“I wonder where all the men are,” she mused aloud, “where are the men who are doing this feminist work?”
“Oh,” one of her students said, “that’s my dad!”
That’s how Rob Okun first entered the orbit of this gender justice expert, made yet another connection in his long career, and became a gateway for her. “For me, personally, that opened up a lot of connections and new awareness of what was going on, on a national and really a global scale,” Tarrant say. “The work he’s been doing through Voice Male really provided a conduit for those connections, and for people coming together.”
The Radical Role Model
Even nowadays, something Tarrant has her students do is write letters to the editor of Voice Male magazine — letters that would all land on the desk of Rob Okun himself. The magazine — just as it has done for more than three decades — gives each student a new doorway into the men’s pro-feminist movement. Or, to use Okun’s own words — “the greatest social justice movement you’ve never heard of.”
By patiently answering this annual barrage of letters, what Rob did for all these students, says Tarrant, is to give them something they’d never had before. Namely, the opportunity to see themselves in what Voice Male represents, and to discover a movement that has room for them too. It’s hard to overstate the importance of that, she says.
“It’s really easy for my male students to feel like they’re not included in feminist activism,” says Tarrant.
Maybe it’s the long, misguided history that feminism is just “something women do.” Maybe it’s the growing fear of getting ‘cancelled’, or making an embarrassing misstep. She says it might not have occurred to them that they could be included in and invited to this movement, either. Whatever the reason for young men feeling they don’t have a place in pro-feminism, she says, Rob provided living proof that they belonged.
“Role modelling — it sounds so cliché, but it really matters,” says Tarrant. “Him being there provided another generation of students an opportunity to really feel engaged.”
Something critical is about to change for the next generation of Voice Male readers. The magazine will still be here. Rob, however, will not be the one making it. For the first time in its history, with the edition you are reading, an issue of Voice Male magazine has been published without Rob Okun at the helm.
He is moving on after 25 years of pouring his time, effort, leadership, skills, and force of will into this magazine. During that time, he gave shape to a movement, and gave voice to what’s been called “the greatest story never told.” True to form, with the way Rob is saying goodbye, he is being a radical role model, and doing something rare. He is passing the torch of his legacy for others to carry on.
Rob Okun has quietly and steadily been working to change the world for many years now. His education, as he tells it, was a mix of journalism and activism. As a university student in Washington, D.C. — at the peak of the Vietnam War and in the aftermath of MLK’s assassination — he was a principled, passionate young man. As much as he learned in the classroom, he says he learned more marching down the streets of D.C. He marched for civil rights, the environment, and against the war — but there was still one awareness he was missing.
The vision of radical reconciliation that Voice Male proposed was that you didn’t have to choose between helping men who suffer and holding men who cause harm to account.
You could do both.
Chronicling a Movement
Still not quite 20 years old, Rob started to notice how women taking part alongside him in the anti-war movement were getting shunted to the side. This growing discomfort led to a new awareness for him, setting the stage for his later activism in what would become his life’s work. Today, Rob Okun can look back on a career that saw him become a key contributor in building the pro-feminist men’s movement, and a cornerstone of it himself.
“Nobody wakes up and says ‘I want to do men’s work,’ or ‘I want to be an anti-sexist, profeminist activist,’” says Rob. More than 30 years ago, he became an early staff member of the Men’s Resource Center for Change (MRC), one of North America’s first men’s centres, and later became its executive director. He has been the editor and publisher of Voice Male magazine since 1998 when he convinced his colleagues at the MRC to let him take their local, black-and-white newsletter and turn it into a full-blown magazine — with a wider reach, broader focus, and a circulation of 10,000 copies.
“Voice Male has played this role of being a connector, even before the internet, which is crazy if you think about it,” says Jackson Katz, a longtime leader in the field and masculinities expert in his own right, “to go from being the local newsletter of a local organization to being fully online and available globally — it’s been quite a ride.” Voice Male, he says, became the chronicle of a movement, and its mouthpiece.
Starting in the 1970s, alongside the rise of secondwave feminism, small organizations across the United States and Canada began to emerge, consisting of men who acknowledged their role in promoting gender equality. From groups like The Oakland Men’s Project and Manalive in California to the MRC and Katz’s Real Men in the north-east, to RAVEN (Rape and Violence End Now) in St. Louis and the White Ribbon Campaign in Canada, early organizations like these provided a foundation for pro-feminist men’s work long before any sense of cohesion existed.
“Rather than just disparate individuals, in different cities, doing work that’s somewhat overlapping, but not more broadly connected,” says Katz, “when Voice Male emerged as a magazine, it helped to build this notion of us being a movement.”
ROB’S RADICAL ACT by GEOFF DAVIES
Covers by Lahri Bond
A Bird with Two Wings
Looking back, it’s easy to take those broader connections for granted. At the time, the schisms might have seemed more real than the synergies. The core tension was between holding men accountable for harm and recognizing their need for understanding and support. On one side, many of the first organizations in the movement were formed around ending violence against women and holding men accountable for harm. On the other side were organizations that focused more on the suffering men experience, and supported them in their healing and personal growth. Whereas you had batterers’ intervention programs on the one hand, you had the mythopoetic movement on the other, with its fabulistic approach.
The position that Voice Male took was radical, because it saw the divide as bridgeable. The vision of radical reconciliation that Voice Male proposed — a vision it inherited from its parent organization, the MRC — was that you didn’t have to choose between helping men who suffer and holding men who cause harm to account. You could do both.
“It was the two wings of this ‘bird’ of social change,” says Okun.
“We ’ re not demonizing men — we want to support men to be their best selves — but we also can’t turn away from the fact that men are perpetrating a lot of the violence and problems in the world.”
The Story Won’t Tell Itself
When it comes to Rob Okun’s legacy, the parable that comes to mind for Jackson Katz is David and Goliath. To see how unevenly the decks are stacked, says Katz, simply look at the vast sums of money that influencers like Jordan Peterson or Andrew Tate can command. “It’s unbelievable, the disparity,” says Katz, “here we have Rob trying to raise a few thousand dollars to put together a magazine, and then you have hundreds of millions of dollars aligned on the other side.”
Add to that the fact that Voice Male started out in a day when the “reach” of the magazine depended on how many people handed it out from the trunks of their cars. Compare that to today’s digital communications landscape, where word can spread like wildfire. (And that wildfire isn’t always harnessed with the best intentions.) In that context, what’s just as incredible, says Katz, is that Rob did it, and did it for 25 years.
“He wasn’t just the editor — he was the publisher, he was the fundraiser, he had his hands all over it,” says Katz, “he would literally be taking people out to lunch to get the money to put together the next issue — and he did it year after year.”
In 2014, he published a 400-page anthology of articles, essays and poems from the pages of Voice Male, with a very telling subtitle: The Untold Story of the Pro-Feminist Men’s Movement. “Because we got so little coverage in the mainstream media, and so little attention paid
to the fact that they were men doing this work, it was off the radar of the vast majority of people in the world,” says Katz, “and that’s almost true to this day.”
So it was — and so it remains — up to the movement to chronicle and share its own story.
This Ongoing History of Pro-feminist Men
Katz can’t believe how often he encounters someone who thinks the idea of profeminist men is somehow new, that it’s simply one of many responses to #MeToo. “People can’t believe that people were talking about this 10 years ago,” says Katz, “and I still have to tell them, ‘No, we were talking about this 30 years ago. People were doing this work 50 years ago.’”
DAVIES
Katz points to the MRC — or Men’s Resource Connection, as it was first known — as one group that was particularly ahead of its time. Steven Botkin remembers a much different landscape when he thinks back to the world in which he and others first founded the MRC in Amherst, Mass. “The movement has evolved from these small, isolated pockets of pioneers, to a global secretariat that oversees every single region of the world,” says Botkin, referring to the global MenEngage Alliance. This organizational infrastructure of the pro-feminist men’s movement just didn’t exist for people like Botkin and its early builders.
Simply talking about healthy masculinity in the first place and normalizing those conversations was a tremendous accomplishment back then. As the movement grew, those conversations became more nuanced, and those involved started to see their blindspots, too. Today, they range from intersections with race to climate change to the importance of youth leadership. How visible has the pro-feminist men’s movement been through its history? When asked this question, Shira Tarrant just has to laugh. Her answer? Not very.
“When it comes to men who are involved and care about these issues, there’s a historical erasure,” says Tarrant. “Each time I teach this, my students are surprised. They think it is something that’s being just slowly addressed today, in 2024, on TikTok.”
In fact, she says, men’s engagement in gender justice is a tradition that goes back centuries, let alone decades. She says the willingness to forget this
movement and allow it to be erased “undermines the strength of a very ongoing commitment over literally every generation.”
What is the state of the pro-feminist men’s movement today? “It’s still in crucial evolution as we speak,” says Tarrant. The pro-feminist men’s movement finds itself at a critical inflection point, and it’s a much bigger transition, she says, than the one taking place at Voice Male. “Masculinity is in between stories right now,” says Jake Stika, Executive Director of Next Gen Men, the non-profit organization that is now leading the publishing of Voice Male magazine. “There’s the old story, and we’re trying to paint a new story. And there are people who want to make that move to the new story — to create it, make it expansive, make it inclusive, make it their own — and there’s those that are really scared of that, and need the comfort of what the old story was, and they’re clinging to it by hook, crook and nail.”
The backdrop of this moment is one of rising extreme-right populist movements, the looming U.S. presidential campaign later this year, and the supercharged political polarization taking place around the world. In light of this, what does that mean for the movement’s evolution, and Voice Male’s mission to articulate it? “It does feel urgent. There’s a political fever pitch right now, for a lot of understandable reasons,” says Tarrant. Botkin agrees: “Because of the climate crisis, the challenges to democracy that are emerging, and I think the sense of fear that people are carrying,” he says, “I would say it feels particularly urgent right now.”
“Masculinity is in between stories right now. There’s the old story, and we’re trying to paint a new story.”
Not for the Faint of Heart
Doing feminist and pro-feminist work in the present day — well, it often comes with a cost. “Oh my god, it sucks. It feels dangerous. It feels really fraught. It feels so divisive,” says Tarrant.
“I’m thinking of this in relation to Rob’s work, and it’s not for the faint of heart.” People today across society, she says, are digging in their heels like never before. There’s a lack of compassion and a lack of curiosity. “Not that long ago, it felt like the risk of doing this work publicly was from the right [wing],” she says. “Now it feels like the attack is just as likely to come from the right or the left.”
Steven Botkin, who co-founded the MRC, where Voice Male was first born, says that part of the legacy of the magazine — and of Rob — is its history of not shying away. “Voice Male sticks its neck out, and Rob does too,” says Botkin.
“And when you stick your neck out, you become a more visible target.” The consequences of this can become increasingly scary, he says, in the world we’re living in today. “The piece about youth leadership feels really important to me — maybe more important to me now, because I’m thinking about legacy now more than I was when I was 29,” says Botkin. “Organizing young people right now is kind of central to what we need to do in the movement, more broadly.”
To Botkin, and to many in the field, at this moment in history the work they are doing has added importance. For Tarrant, Rob’s legacy with the magazine was his willingness to still wade into tricky conversations — and do so with curiosity and compassion for all sides. This too, she says, is part of his legacy, and part of his role modelling. “This is an important moment for us to be thoughtful about how we’re constructing our political conversations,” she says. “Rob provided a solid foundation for those conversations to continue.”
The Legacy He Leaves
“As opposed to the legendary ideas of ‘the Editor’ as this grizzled, kind of angry, gruff person, Rob is the opposite of that,” says Jackson Katz, who was part of a virtual celebration in honour of Okun’s years of work with Voice Male, and his passing of the torch. “When you hear people talk about Rob, in addition to really respecting him, you hear how he’s such a nice guy. . . . Rob creates goodwill all around him.”
“ There are people who want to make that move to the new story — to create it, make it expansive, make it inclusive, make it their own. ... And there’s those that are really scared of that, and need the comfort of what the old story was, and they’re clinging to it by hook, crook and nail.”
The online celebration included several dozen of Rob’s friends, family and colleagues from both past and present. As host of the event — the video of which is available online — Steven Botkin spoke to several dozens of people, including the Voice Male staff and advisory board, Rob’s family and friends, and representatives of the Men’s Resource Center, the global MenEngage Alliance, the women’s movement, and the field of men’s studies.
“We’re using this opportunity to collectively honour the passing of the torch of our movement to the next generation of activists and organizers,” said Botkin, “and we’re here to witness — and to give our blessings to — the transition of the publishing of Voice Male magazine, from Rob to Next Gen Men.”
As a gathering, it was a moment, Botkin explained, to honour both the legacy of those who helped build the movement and those who will continue to build upon what they have done. To mark the passing of that torch, those receiving it were present as well — the team from Next Gen Men, including Executive Director Jake Stika. “I’m a bit starstruck, being on this call,” Stika said, giving shout-outs to some of the movement’s leaders — in gender justice, men’s studies, the women’s movement, and more — who were there. “That’s really what Next Gen Men wants to do with Voice Male magazine moving forward — to honour the legacy of the work of all these people, and many more — and give the next generation a shortcut to access and build on it.”
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A Simple, Radical Act
Rob says a lightbulb went off when he first found Next Gen Men (NGM). “I mean, to me, their name said it all,” says Okun. Those who have been doing men’s pro-feminist work for 30 or 40 years aren’t the “next gen” of men, says Okun: they’re the previous one. To him, the fact that NGM has been active in the field for “only” a decade wasn’t a deficit — it was a good thing.
“To find an organization like them, with that vision and mission — of ‘present gen’ men working on behalf of the next gen — that was like hitting the jackpot.”
Building on the past, or looking to the future? In classic Rob Okun fashion, he doesn’t see that as opposing choices of one or the other — to him, they’re two wings of the same bird. “There’s more road still to pave ahead, but [NGM] would be the first to acknowledge that the path they’re walking has been laid out by others — by ‘previous gen men’, Voice Male included.” Reflecting on Rob’s legacy later on, Stika said for him it was also a personal one. “As a leader, Rob reminds me of who I want to be, and how I want to show up,” Stika says.
“He’s just so generous and patient and connective and uplifting. It’s good to see someone who was there in a similar role to the one I’m in, and who came out of that journey being still so generous and kind and patient.”
For Rob, the warm feelings are mutual. It took several years of looking for a new organization to take over the magazine, and several failed attempts to find a good fit. Having watched this struggle to find a Voice Male successor, Shira Tarrant marvelled at how hard it must have been for Rob to even consider passing the torch. There’s all those years of work and time invested, the risk that legacies can always be lost or twisted, and the fact that by now, the magazine has truly been his baby. “I think he is doing something very different,” says Tarrant. “When it comes to feminist activism or gender justice movements, there seems to be very little baton passing that goes on.” Instead, she says, there’s in-fighting, often along generational lines. “He is providing a really thoughtful, powerful model of what can be done.”
What Is Rob Okun’s Legacy?
“There’s so many NGOs and non-profit organizations that have a lifespan, that for whatever reason don’t sustain themselves over the long haul,” Okun says. In this light, the answer to him is simple. “The legacy is that it has been passed on — I held out the torch and they’re taking it,” he says. “The fact that Voice Male is now being cared for and stewarded by Next Gen Men — that’s my legacy.” B
GeoffDaviesisawriterbasedinVancouver,Canada. A former journalist, he loves to tell the stories of entrepreneurs, innovators, and people making an impact in their communities. To learn more about his feature writing and content marketing work, visit DSSIMKTG.com.
BOOK REVIEW
Like Father, Like Son: A Picture Book
by Emily Ptak
Like Father, Like Son: A Picture Book by Lesléa Newman, illustrated by AG Ford, is a compelling and beautiful children’s book that explores the nuanced relationships between fathers and sons. Through its vibrant illustrations and tender storytelling, the book is not just a celebration of paternal love but also serves as a subtle manifesto for the pro-feminist men’s movement. It emphasizes the transformative power of fathers engaging in traditionally women-led, domestic activities, portraying these actions not as exceptions but as normal and valuable elements of everyday life.
The book opens with a scene that sets the tone: a father cooking breakfast, with his son eagerly watching and learning. This activity, often stereotyped as a woman’s role, is depicted as a moment of bonding and skill-sharing between the two.
Léslea Newman is the author of dozens of books, including the much heralded Heather Has Two Mommies.
As the book continues, the activities the father and son engage in together diversify. They garden, they clean, and they even dance in the living room. These activities are depicted not as a special occasion but as ordinary parts of their lives. This normalcy is key to Newman’s feminist message. It quietly asserts that there is no “men’s work” or “women’s work” — there is just work that needs to be done and joys to be shared.
The demonstration of shared joy through ordinary activities brought up memories of my own childhood. I remembered the warm, safe grip of my father’s hands as he steadied me while I learned to ride a bicycle, directing me toward a soft patch of grass when a crash was inevitable. It also reminded me of the laughter we shared on cool autumn evenings as we made funny faces with toppings on homemade pizzas before snuggling up to enjoy a movie. These simple moments brought safety and comfort to me while teaching me valuable life skills and lessons.
The text is sparse, allowing the beautiful illustrations to speak louder than words, creating an almost poetic narrative rhythm. The minimalist dialogue and descriptions focus on action and reaction, which serve to subtly underscore the theme of active participation and learning in the father-son relationship.
Like Father, Like Son also addresses the emotional spectrum that fathers and sons navigate together. In a touching scene, the son scrapes his knee, and the father comforts him in stark contrast to the ‘man up’ messages meted to many boys. This moment is pivotal; it shows the father not only as a caregiver but also as an emotional anchor, teaching by example that showing vulnerability and offering comfort are strengths, not weaknesses.
The book is a powerful tool for challenging the negative stereotypes that often bind men to unattainable and harmful standards of stoicism and emotional detachment. By presenting a father who is both strong and gentle, Newman advocates for a masculinity that embraces emotional expression and care as inherent components of the human experience — reminding us that feelings and demonstrating care are neither maternal or paternal, but a shared experience we all yearn for.
I would encourage any parent of sons to read Like Father, Like Son: A Picture Book together. Through the loving relationship of a father and son doing “women’s work” activities, Newman and Ford illustrate a future where boys and men can experience less pain and cause less harm simply by being allowed to express all facets of their humanity — something we can definitely get behind! B
What comes to mind when you think of masculinity? Certain ways to act? Talk? Just simply be? We believe masculinity is a story which can and should be told in more than one way. Masculinity is not something which is done either ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ — it’s a unique and individual choice.
Written by
Training Men to Engage in Gender Equality
by Steven Botkin
For 40 years, Dr. Steven Botkin has developed training methods and programs to engage men in gender equality, promote cross-gender dialogue about masculinity, and organize community-based initiatives.
AstheCo-FounderoftheMen’sResourceCenterofWesternMassachusetts,oneoftheearliestmen’scenters inNorthAmerica(1982),Botkindrewonprinciplesofsocialjusticeeducationtochartacourse,notjustforthe fledgling organization but for other organizations with which he worked over his career including Men’s Resources International (2004), Men of Color Health Awareness (2010, mochaspringfield.org), and MERGE for Equality (2015; mergeforequality.org/1129-2).
Botkin’s training and consulting work—collaborating with co-trainer James Arana — has impacted individuals, programs, and organizations in more than 20 countries. In February, the global MenEngage Alliance (menengage.org) invited Dr. Botkin to present his work to MenEngage colleagues from around the world.
This article, with thanks to Rob Okun, is an edited version of that presentation.
No discussion of men engaging in gender equality efforts can begin without first acknowledging that our work grew out of the historic and ongoing legacies of feminist women from many cultures. They have given voice to the realities of gender and sexism and continue to fight for personal, institutional, and cultural change. It is important to acknowledge with gratitude how feminist women’s work and feedback have informed and guided us.
The world of gender consciousness continues to undergo radical transformation. Our training theory and practice were originally developed from a binary gender framework. As we come to understand better the realities of transgender experiences, our models, language, and training designs continue to evolve. It is an active, developing process.
Creating trainings that invite men to engage in gender equality work was, and continues to be, rooted in a collective experience. At the end of the last century and the beginning of this one, activists and researchers around the world were simultaneously developing programs to engage men. We fed each other in many ways. My specific designs emerged from fertile collaborations with colleagues in the Social Justice Education Program at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. The designs were practiced and refined with fellow gender activists at the Men’s Resource Center of Western Massachusetts. One of the earliest men’s centers in North America, it served as the hub and incubator for projects and programs that still take place today.
Condensing 40 years of theory and practice, which often featured training sessions lasting from three days to two weeks, into a magazine article is no small task. There are many ways to tell the story and many stories to tell. Consider these words an appetizer, a glimpse into our movement’s rich history.
Early History of “Male Gender Consciousness”
Like most good stories, the story of this training begins with a personal experience. It was 1979, and I was 25 years old. I joined a men’s support group to address my experience of childhood sexual abuse, my developing emotional awareness, and my growing interest in feminism. That same year, I also began graduate studies in Social Justice Education.
I discovered that there were also other men, individually and in small groups, who were exploring how to apply feminist principles and practices to the male experience of gender. Some of these men were academics, and some were based in their community, creating groups and organizations to support men and/or challenge men’s violence.
Learning about these activities inspired me to focus my graduate work on applying the principles and practices of social justice education to developing “male gender consciousness.” (That
phrase would later become the title of my dissertation.) At the same time, I began conversations with local men about how we could support men and challenge men’s violence in our own community. The combination of academic inquiry and practical implementation proved to be a perfect balance for developing an approach to engaging men grounded in educational theory and community-based practice.
In graduate school, I worked with faculty and fellow students to develop an educational methodology for increasing awareness of social identities and oppression, changing attitudes and behaviours rooted in oppression, and developing more liberated and empowered identities. We studied and practiced a methodology called popular education, which is based on the active engagement of participants in our own learning about how oppression has impacted our lives. By sharing personal experiences and reflecting on shared problems, we could work together on collective responses to these problems. (Popular education is differentiated from “banking” education, where
a teacher “deposits” information into the students, who are expected to memorize and parrot back this information.)
The
Men’s
Resource Center
At the same time as these graduate school activities, my conversations with local men led us to focus on helping men connect with each other. We understood that connection, or the lack of it, was central to the damages men experience and perpetrate. And women from the local women’s centers encouraged us to work with other men.
At first, we called ourselves the “Men’s Resource Connection.” We facilitated the formation of men’s support groups, conducted workshops and retreats, and organized social events where men could learn to feel safe and vulnerable with each other.
We also organized and participated in public events where men could collectively express our commitment to end violence, challenge homophobia and promote peace.
After several years, we realized our grassroots work would benefit from a more formal organizational structure. In 1988 we incorporated the Men’s Resource Center (MRC) of Western Massachusetts. Our mission was “To support men, challenge men’s violence, and develop men’s leadership in ending oppression in our lives, our families, and our communities.” Further, we declared that the MRC was a male-positive, pro-feminist, gay-affirmative, and anti-racist organization.
Within the MRC, we led support groups, a state-certified batterer intervention program, groups for men who identified as gay, bisexual or questioning, groups for men who were survivors of childhood abuse, and a group for young men of colour. We developed an approach called compassionate confrontation, combining supporting men and challenging men’s violence.
We partnered with the local women’s centers on events and awareness campaigns. Our modest organizational newsletter would eventually evolve into Voice Male magazine.
Based on the community experiences at the MRC, and the lessons from my graduate school experiences in social justice education, we gradually developed a set of foundational beliefs about men and gender and a model of male socialization that would guide the design and delivery of our pieces of training locally, regionally, nationally, and globally.
As the Men’s Resource Center programs continued to expand in scope and recognition, people from around the country and the world contacted us to learn about our approach. The idea that men and boys could be change agents and partners with women in creating gender-based violence prevention programs, promoting healthy families, and engaging in peacebuilding and community development had been spreading throughout the world.
Increasingly, women’s organizations and programs serving women and girls recognized the need to engage men and boys as allies. More and more men, often inspired by women’s activism, were learning about the privi-
leges and damages of masculinity. They were also exploring ways to take action to promote a new kind of “positive masculinity” that was healthy, compassionate and responsible.
In response to this need, the vision for Men’s Resources International (MRI) took shape—a global network of women and men working together for unity and peace in our families and communities. Incorporated in 2004, MRI’s mission was to mobilize networks of men, in alliance with women, to prevent violence and promote positive masculinity.
A multi-day consulting and training design was developed based on the lessons in popular education methodology and community development practiced at the Men’s Resource Center.
Based on my experiences — and those of others at the Men’s Resource Center of Western Massachusetts — we didn’t know if the strategies and skills that worked in communities in the U.S. would be effective in other cultural contexts.
“MRI’s popular education approach, the value we placed in indigenous wisdom and leadership, and our faith in the power of compassion and connection over the years generated enthusiastic responses in communities around the world,” James Arana, another MRI Co-Founder, recalled.
“By bringing men and women together to reflect on the consequences of dominant masculinity on our families and communities, we facilitated mutual understanding, built partnerships, and promoted individual and collective action.”
Beliefs About Men
• Boys are born naturally loving, caring and sensitive.
• Boys are trained to be masculine in a way that leads to domination and violence as well as disconnection and confusion.
• Boys have been traumatized by violence and abuse as victims and as witnesses. This may be in our families, on the street, through the media, racism, classism, homophobia, etc.
• Men are both privileged and damaged by masculinity and violence.
• Violence and domination are used by men to control feelings of fear and vulnerability and to protect privileges.
• Men are eager to reclaim their natural caring and hungry for re-connection with themselves, their loved ones and their communities.
• Men can become role models for positive masculinity and agents of change in their families and communities.
• As partners with people of all genders, men can play an important role in ending the cycles of violence, supporting gender equality, and creating healthy families and strong communities.
MRI quickly began to get requests for consultations from women and men all around the world who recognized the potential benefits of men as allies in the feminist movement and also recognized the challenges in doing this effectively and accountably.
By working with initiatives in all stages of development, Men’s Resources International helped individuals and organizations address gender inequality, family and community violence, peacebuilding, extreme poverty and sexual exploitation. MRI pieces of training of trainers, organizational and program development consultations, and leadership mentoring supported men and women from more than 40 countries to organize their own community initiatives, create national organizations, and become trainers and leaders in their own communities.
Formative MRI trainings were conducted for grassroots NGOs in Rwanda (Rwanda Men’s Resource Centre), Democratic Republic of Congo (Congo Men’s
F HEALING
Our mission was “To support men, challenge men’s violence, and develop men’s leadership in ending oppression in our lives, our families, and our communities.”
Network), Nigeria (Ebonyi Men’s Resource Centre), Zambia (Zambia Men’s Network), and the United States (Men of Color Health Awareness). Through partnerships with international NGOs like Concern Worldwide, CARE International, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the International Rescue Committee, the Women’s Peacemakers Program and the United Nations, other MRI trainings were conducted in the United States, Liberia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Cote d’Ivoire, Tanzania, Zambia, the Philippines, Nepal, Niger, Ireland, Albania and the Netherlands.
MRI developed a National Action Plan for UN Women in Albania, a toolkit for organizing “Masculinity Reflection Groups” for men and women with CARE International in Mali and Niger, a partnership model for women and men as partners in peace-building in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, and a Healthy Manhood curriculum for the YMCA in the United States.
Merging for the Future
In 2015, Men’s Resource Center and Men’s Resources International engaged in a shared visioning process that culminated in a new organization: MERGE for Equality. The message was clear: merging into a single cohesive organization was the best strategy to maximize the impact of the work.
MERGE’s core program focuses on training early childhood educators about strategies and skills for raising healthy boys. “When boys are equipped with the tools
to cultivate their emotional intelligence,” noted James Arana, MERGE Senior Consultant, “they thrive personally, socially and academically and grow to become caring, engaged and accountable men.”
In 2019, MERGE became a part of the North American MenEngage Network, the US-Canadian network and a regional member of the global MenEngage Alliance (NAMEN). What began at a small men’s center in western Massachusetts more than four decades ago has had many reincarnations and continues to have a global ripple
effect within the pro-feminist, antisexist men’s movement today. B Steven Botkin, Ed.D., continues to support the North American MenEngage Network as an ex officio board member and MERGE for Equality as a senior trainer. sdbotkin@gmail.com.
To see the Men’s Resource Center video, “The Journey to Healthy Manhood,” follow the QR code on the table of contents page.
Ben Castro, RCC, MCPAT, BMA. Counselling Art Therapist, Facilitator, Artist. Second-generation Filipino Canadian. IG @second.wnd www.ayoua.com www.watari.ca
I learned how to be a misogynist. I was taught to be unsafe to those we say we care about on romantic dinner dates.
Born soft and vulnerable, but rejected and took the blame, the men made clear to me as I grew up that I was not the man they like to make.
To feel the soft grass of the earth I stepped away from the estate, as we each called each other out for making a really big mistake.
So a world they did create and a society took shape that enabled all the perpetrators to steal, murder, and rape.
It’s the ashes that I witness from all the books that were burned; A picking and choosing process for any supremacist to learn.
A cycle of death to the ones we love the most, whether by taking away their truth or their ability to say no.
Never Going Back
Choosing to kill us from the top to feed the hungry ones below whose suffering is that they’re taught that their saviour said so.
But by painting a hero of a villain requires villainizing our heroes and all that we have left are a confused and dominated people that gets to have whatever the hell they want. To give themselves all the power and a hell is surely what we got.
Enthused, animated, and able Controlled, groomed, and legal. Angry, afraid (but regal) proclaiming that everyone else is evil.
It’s the men and boys who sing this chorus and the women and girls who echo it back, while the ones who refrain from the binary cycle are condemned for the supremacy that they lack.
Learning to hate people was a scam and I want my money back. The idea of hell is a spell and I’m never going back.
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Best of all, being a Next Gen Menber = supporting the next generation...like the young person who made this artwork.
We are building a future where boys and men experience less pain and cause less harm.
A future where boys and men are free to be themselves.