One of the most beautiful moments in my spiritual life and journey as a man came on a retreat with Red Letter Christians UK. As someone who is on a journey of unmasking my disability (I have Dyspraxia) earlier in the day I had disclosed this to a fellow bloke on the retreat. Then we went for the obligatory walk and I (despite being a big 6foot 3 male, was struggling. Matt came up to me and said "would you like to take my hand" which somewhat reluctantly and gratefully too I did and he walked with me the rest of the way. I didn't know him well but his offering of support and my ability to accept was an important milestone. Thanks Matt Wilson, for that and your inspiring take on Money and Theology too.
I am so glad to read this, dear Elizabeth, as I am looking for good entries into this very important topic. Caitlin Moran is great, I also love Ruth Whippman on this. As an opera singer, I have spent most of my life surrounded by men, falling in love with them (and their characters on stage) or the gorgeous musical masterpieces they have written. But, femicide and sexism is rampant in this genre and world as well and gets hard to keep replaying. I have wonder if there isn’t still some trauma to process from the 20th century (it’s our men who had to live through the most acute violence and horrors of two world wars) on the male part that hasn’t been properly addressed. Whippman reminds us we have created a world where women are “allowed to be more like men” but have not stood up for the ways men could become more whole by taking on feminine strengths. Here, I celebrate my husband, who supported my travelling career and though it was HARD being a manager and alone at home with a toddler (thank goodness for excellent daycare in Austria), HE WOULD NOT CHANGE A THING, as it enabled an incredible relationship that he absolutely cherishes with his now 15 year old daughter. I am sad for all the men (daughters and sons) who miss out on that! I also believe men and boys are being criminally CHEATED by being nudged to “choose” sports over arts again and again. Neuroscience makes it clear that we all need BOTH things ( and a lot of them) to be our most full and balanced selves. I am for a renewed commitment to Athletics AND Aesthetics (the Arts and Creativity) for all children throughout their education—and all of our lives!
I also nominate Ted Lasso, W.A. Mozart ( a secret feminist) and Iain McGilchrist as wonderful models of Antioxidant/Probiotic Men!
Such a timely conversation. My pastor actually preached on gender last week and asked us all to think about what we love about being the gender we are. He also shared some of his traits that could be seen as non-masculine, like crying a lot, wearing flowery shirts, and a love of art and creativity. It was such a balm to hear.
Wow, so timely. My brother’s recent death has shone a spotlight for me on the need for us to actively engage men in the conversation about feminism. I am toying with the term “partnership feminism,” as a way to highlight the importance of healthy masculinity in partnership with healthy femininity, in ourselves, our relationships, our families, workplaces, churches, and politics.
My husband is one example of healthy masculinity. He’s a nerdy, humble, loving, horny, capable guy. He’s more comfortable in the kitchen than the toolshed and respects women deeply. I love him so much.
Thank you, Elizabeth - I'm constantly on the look out for examples of whatever the opposite of "toxic masculinity" is! It strikes me that they often occur in sporting environments. I’m a big rugby lover, and at the end of the recent England – Wales game watched as the England team did a little ritual in a circle at the end of the match. Henry Pollock was a 20 year old debutant in the game and ended up scoring two tries. In the ritual, another player - Will Stuart - was receiving his 50th cap. The two players stepped into the middle of the team circle together to be celebrated by their team mates and Will kissed Henry on both cheeks. As the circle broke up and they went back to celebrating their win, I watched as another one of the England vice-captains (Ellis Genge) went up to this 20 year old and kissed him on the cheek. Beautiful ….
Thanks for this, Elizabeth. I totally agree about the difficulty of holding complexity. It's one of the fundamental roots of the world's problems, but it's also relevant to toxic masculinity. Machoism, misogyny, and patriarchal entitlement all seem to have a background belief in a single-perspective certainty. As a man, I strive to be comfortable with uncertainty and attain maturity by gaining multiple perspectives. It's not easy, but then when was growth easy? I define wisdom as the ability to hold multiple perspectives. It's an issue for all of us, but perhaps men particularly struggle with it. Why that is is worth a debate. I think the emergence of the LGBTQ and non-binary population reflects the emergence of a more complex (anti-binary) perspective in human consciousness. It seems to me that is why it is so challenging for the toxic masculine mindset that craves clear lines, conservative gender norms and limited roles for men and women.
The Netflix mini-series 'Adolescence' is so good because it holds multiple perspectives convincingly. It also shows how the perspectives (such as pervasive toxic masculinity memes in school-age social media) are hidden, with devastating results.
I'm looking forward to the book. Please consider Manchester (UK) for a book launch. There's a lovely independent bookshop called House of Books and Friends that may be worth contacting. Happy to help if needed.
Thank you, Elizabeth, for this bold and timely piece. I just wrote my own on this very subject yesterday - maybe now I’ll have the courage to post it. 🤗
I can't shift my basic suspicion of discussions premised on universal binaries, even if qualified, even if backed up by evidence (which is inevitably selective), even if aiming to heal social ills.
The undoubtedly brilliant TV series Adolescence is a case in point: saying more about contemporary moral panics than an outbreak of sensitive boys who are unexpectedly, secretly, being made irredeemably vicious.
My discomfort is partly to do with being gay, which is also supposed to put you into a category/community described by a binary (gay/not gay). But also because I suspect we lack a real notion of universal humanity (the universal rights option worked for a while but is now as inclined to stoke splits as support a sense of unity).
You don't need me to say that in the Christian tradition, the universal vision would be expressed in the notion of imago dei or the words of Saint Paul about in Christ there being no male or female etc. Premodern Christian societies would flesh that out via an older notion of justice, meant as each flourishing because playing their part: the image of the church as a body of many parts, say.
Nowadays we're wary of that for the obvious reason that each playing a part often means stuck in a part, and that offends modern ideals of individuality. Those ideals are typically good, I'd say, for all the risks of an individualism that isolates people or pits them against each other.
So how the loss of divine humanity can be remedied I'm not sure. But my money is on going with the individualism and the remaking of a mystical vision that takes each person's individuality seriously and asks what that individuality rests in. The answer, in short, is that we can only say "I am" because God is, first, "I am". I think this is the heart of Christianity - the anthropological revelation of the incarnation.
In practice this means modes of contemplation that recognise, first, the divinity within oneself, precipitating the same perception within the soul of others and the shared presence in all, which can be called God: the many as as many reflections of the one divine humanity.
(As an aside, I am pretty sure this needs to be realised via an awakened perception and not, say, via a set of moral injunctions that insists we treat or love everyone equally. That way lies guilt and demoralisation or arguments such as recently between JD Vance and Rory Stewart.)
The mystical way is sometimes expressed in secular circles with reference to the biopsychosocial-spiritual, though the spiritual element is typically the haziest - regarded as a sort of private inclination rather than shared ground. And that's the key problem.
Thanks again for provoking discussion of these things.
I am interested in this comment Mark. Could you say a bit more on where you find Elizabeth's post diverging from what you might word up in the same place yourself. I don't have a veiled argument here. I am always curious when I ring well with a both/and, such as the original post and your response when the latter is reaching for a counter word. I am not suspicious of anything here but what I must be missing.
I work in construction. Forty years. What if the individuals recognize themselves as immersed in a binary. In a sense this post is speaking in their poetics to open a place to keep the poetry but let loose of other things.
Maybe the problem is I don't struggle hold binary as a poetic that can accommodate spectrum in its chest. Could be some bullshit there as I suspect I couldn't possibly "get" what it feels like in the minority pigments and, again, what I am snuggling in that could be a weapon against a comrade unknown.
I am clutching to keep something in my poetics of this binary. I guess I suspect the two various accounts in Genesis, the one leaning universal, the other less so as saying it's both/and.
I admittedly haven't gotten to your recent post on androgynous image but theology like Sally Douglas' Jesus Sophia, a Messiah clearly of the order of El Shaddai, the breasted One, really draws me in. I say that to just say that I value both the so-called queering of G-d as upping all the binary magic in the texts, not either-oaring the boat.
A lot of blather to don a name tag and say, can you say a bit more?
Thanks for the interest Andrew! And yes, maybe the stumbling block for me is the binary issue: can that really hold a spectrum?
What we think of as two genders were once held as a spectrum, which is why CS Lewis, ever mindful of the medieval, can talk of seven genders in That Hideous Strength and Dante portrays men and women on a kind of ladder of being, different people occupying different rungs, with the figure closest to God being Mary.
The "androgynous mind" - as described by Coleridge and Virginia Woolf - is different from queering things. It's a perception that might be reached having transcended people's particularities not by eradicating or categorising them, but by being open to them. Woolf's example is Shakespeare through whose art wide swathes of humanity flow because his own self is effaced in the particularities of his many characters. He does not try to make a point or tell but show and perceive.
So if Elizabeth's tactical suggestion is to celebrate good men - and I'm thinking on my feet now - I might suggest celebrating individuals who channel the divine humanity - the mystics, sometimes recognised as saints, being one rich resource.
Thanks Mark. I see now I am misusing the word binary. Probably have forever. Or that my mind has been transposing it to my own key. Maybe what I mean is can you have a poetics of pairing, open and mutable as I think all Word is supposed to be (even the Kabbalists say that Torah is of course not The Torah), that can lean heavy on the dance between and preserve the spectrum. I was thinking about the seven gender bit after listening to you excellent post on Abolition and Strength with Jason and the other fellow. I want to say isn't black and white a pair that can be leaned on without causing the exile of color spectrum in a way fair to the prevalence of male female structures and the way true to how the introduction of a color in a black and white vision makes a type of magic that neither disappears the binary or smuggles in a hierarchy of the pair over between/not-of-this-pair-but-maybe-of-another. Yet I see the problems of the difference between light and absence vs pigment. If you are thinking on your feet, I am dangling off a whim.
I need to read more about that medieval vision.
As for the saints, what I like about Elizabeth's grab here is that it is a poetics of men that like Odysseus's hollow horse can get inside today and now among the type of gents I am with daily. But maybe that is just to say I haven't done the work on how the mystics could be horsed in.
Looks like I do with queer what I do with binary. I hear in it a both/and not dissolution. To be continued I hope....
Let me try this maybe simpler. Do you read the clue left as "in Christ there is a way that is neither male nor female" or in Christ all ways are neither male nor female"
Thanks again, Andrew. I do see how Elizabeth's suggestion is tractable, whereas mine probably is too esoteric. But I have this rub about individuals typifiying the male or the female, at heart because I feel my soul contracting before such propositions.
That is no doubt partly a personal thing. But whilst male/female works well at a biological level, and is often useful at a social level, I feel it is limiting at the psychological and spiritual.
I work as a psychotherapist: there are just too many ways in which men are men and women are women, so the description "male" or "female" doesn't take you very far.
That is even more so at the spiritual level because all participate in Christ as themselves, not as a man as a woman, to echo Paul's comment again. By being truly ourselves in our individuality and relationships, we incarnate the divine too. Then, as it were, you don't say - a model man, a model woman, but yikes: the presence of God!
Incidentally, I don't suppose Elizabeth would much disagree with any of that.
I feel extremely grateful that the majority of the guy friends I've known in a lifetime of being in various churchy spaces have been wonderful, kind, generous. One spent hours helping me move out of my third floor walkup on the hottest of summer days and wouldn't take any payment. One year all the guys involved with a campus ministry I worked for banded together to give all the women wholesome "coupons" for things like "one free 3D printed object from the campus labs", "one shoulder to cry on," "one free sweet treat". I'm sure I could share many more stories but I feel quite lucky to have known a lot of great men who who actually like women and are good to them.
My husband respects women and has the provider/protector instinct in spades. I think these qualities are amplified in him, more than the average man, due to the fact that his father died when he was seven and he and his younger sibling were raised by a single mother.
I'd say my Dad is that role model and for me I would say I'm comfortable with my masculinity, but ironically or unironically I'm more comfortable opening up to women about love/romance than I would be men. This was great Elizabeth, didn't know you're 6 foot tall, whenever someone is with you they have a bodyguard.
Over 30 years ago a neighbor shared a notion with me that makes so much sense: parallel to our understanding of heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual, she suggested that we are also heterosocial, homosocial, or bisocial.
Dear Elizabeth, I'm one of your non-binary, trans female readers and am grateful for you writing on this. When I first saw your announcement on this upcoming live talk I commented there as well, with no reaction from others. I still think there is a some sort of polarisation in that title (and possibly unintended appearing as some sort of click-bait). Calling it a gender divide without acknowledging that there are more genders than male and female negates everyone outside that spectrum. And without needing to share more we know and read first hand where this is going currently in the US or in Europe. Having watched enough round tables on "that gender divide', both in secular circles and way more in christian circles I developed a strong exhaustion on that singular view on gender. Nonetheless I care about this publication and you as as a role model of mine of some sorts, so I wonder about your own stance on this? With love, Tess
Thanks Tess, I massively appreciate you asking this so open heartedly. Yes, titles are so tricky! We went round and round on this (and on most episode titles tbh). Anything sufficiently nuanced is not grabby, anything grabby ends up smooshing the nuance. In this case, we were wanting to reflect what Caitlin has herself been writing on, and the title reflects that. I’m never sure that we’ve got it right….
Thanks Elizabeth, I understand this notion, wanting to reflect Caitlins ideas. Yet in this post of yours you could also have noted more clearly that the definitions of male and female are exclusive if we are not acknowledging definitions beyond a cis/heteronormative world. I assume that with not making this clear, the majority of all comments here are referring to cis male or female persona. Or maybe I'm wrong and it is inclusive to eg. transmasculine or female people. So pointing this out in your text above lies in your own power.
Beautiful article. I’m leaving film/TV to create a mens group for this exact reason. My best friends wife recently joined an all female business owner support group and more than half of the women in her group were contemplating divorce because their husbands refused to do any personal development work. It really shook me because I’m married to a life coach and I try to keep up with my wife but there is still a wide gap between our commitment to learning/growing. My hunch is that most men want to “do the work” but a lot of these personal development programs are not “meeting them where they’re at.” We need the same information delivered to us in a more experiential structure (games, challenges and competitions not just learning, relating and discussing). I just secured an investor last week to try and create an adult version of the Boy Scouts where we teach emotional intelligence and emotional self defense in a new way, and give away merit badges as a fun, gamified incentive. Happy to discuss my research so far. We will be launching this summer and our goal is codify a new story of masculinity (and to bridge the gap in our marriages/relationships). Thanks for posting!
Thank you so much for this beautifully and compassionately written piece! I’m delighted to see and take in the appreciative reflections on men and masculinity. Something I also ruminate on quite a bit.
I have three little morsels to share, which I may also elaborate on elsewhere, elsewhen. Interestingly, they were all moments in my late teens/20s, when I was living in my hometown of San Francisco.
1. I had a super big crush on a Cuban guy, with whom we would talk theology and classical music. He introduced me to the Rachmaninoff piano concertos and the Spanish composer Rodrigo. In those days I was obsessed with purity, and so he and I never kissed (it was a phase), but one night we were sitting close together after a Bible study or prayer meeting. He had his arm around me, I was leaning up against his chest, and I reflected out loud “I feel so protected.“ It was beautiful when he said “I feel protected protecting you.” What a fascinating matched pair of impressions in that moment.
2. I was attending a Pentecostal church for a brief chapter. (The minister was a classic “sweat and spit” preacher from Missouri, and I have a lot to say about that chapter in my spiritual evolution.) One night Brother Stewart (his last name) said something with great enthusiasm, envisioning the day that “real men” would flock to Christianity. I innocently and spontaneously erupted in “Amen!” Of course this got lots of laughs, but I was not making a joke. What I pictured was men of character, varying degrees of intelligence, skill, and moral up-rightness finding their way into spiritual community and a love of God.
3. I went on a picnic with my best friend from college, her hometown friends and her older brother. Jim was a quiet guy, but I said to my friend “He moves with confidence in his world.“ That spontaneous observation has stayed with me as a marker for a man comfortable in his own skin, who is trying neither to prove nor defend anything.
One thing I’ve noticed here in America is that young men are not being taught some of the “handyman” skills that have been passed down through the generations. So guys find themselves clueless when asked to fix the fence or switch out hardware in the kitchen or some such thing. Now, of course, I think it’s also great when girls are taught the same things, or when they can find their way under the hood of a car. (My oldest sister is far more handy than I, and she was taught many things by our dad.)
All to say, as a hetero, cis- woman, I love men: not all of them equally, not all of them as a category. But there can be something quite glorious in a man balanced in heart and mind, confidence and vulnerability, intelligence and curiosity. And it’s a super big plus if they can dance!
For a little humor: Craig Carothers is an Oregonian singer-songwriter from whom I've taken a couple songwriting classes. This song, She Needs Me, always cracks me up.
One of the most beautiful moments in my spiritual life and journey as a man came on a retreat with Red Letter Christians UK. As someone who is on a journey of unmasking my disability (I have Dyspraxia) earlier in the day I had disclosed this to a fellow bloke on the retreat. Then we went for the obligatory walk and I (despite being a big 6foot 3 male, was struggling. Matt came up to me and said "would you like to take my hand" which somewhat reluctantly and gratefully too I did and he walked with me the rest of the way. I didn't know him well but his offering of support and my ability to accept was an important milestone. Thanks Matt Wilson, for that and your inspiring take on Money and Theology too.
This is beautiful, thank you
I am so glad to read this, dear Elizabeth, as I am looking for good entries into this very important topic. Caitlin Moran is great, I also love Ruth Whippman on this. As an opera singer, I have spent most of my life surrounded by men, falling in love with them (and their characters on stage) or the gorgeous musical masterpieces they have written. But, femicide and sexism is rampant in this genre and world as well and gets hard to keep replaying. I have wonder if there isn’t still some trauma to process from the 20th century (it’s our men who had to live through the most acute violence and horrors of two world wars) on the male part that hasn’t been properly addressed. Whippman reminds us we have created a world where women are “allowed to be more like men” but have not stood up for the ways men could become more whole by taking on feminine strengths. Here, I celebrate my husband, who supported my travelling career and though it was HARD being a manager and alone at home with a toddler (thank goodness for excellent daycare in Austria), HE WOULD NOT CHANGE A THING, as it enabled an incredible relationship that he absolutely cherishes with his now 15 year old daughter. I am sad for all the men (daughters and sons) who miss out on that! I also believe men and boys are being criminally CHEATED by being nudged to “choose” sports over arts again and again. Neuroscience makes it clear that we all need BOTH things ( and a lot of them) to be our most full and balanced selves. I am for a renewed commitment to Athletics AND Aesthetics (the Arts and Creativity) for all children throughout their education—and all of our lives!
I also nominate Ted Lasso, W.A. Mozart ( a secret feminist) and Iain McGilchrist as wonderful models of Antioxidant/Probiotic Men!
Such a timely conversation. My pastor actually preached on gender last week and asked us all to think about what we love about being the gender we are. He also shared some of his traits that could be seen as non-masculine, like crying a lot, wearing flowery shirts, and a love of art and creativity. It was such a balm to hear.
Wow, so timely. My brother’s recent death has shone a spotlight for me on the need for us to actively engage men in the conversation about feminism. I am toying with the term “partnership feminism,” as a way to highlight the importance of healthy masculinity in partnership with healthy femininity, in ourselves, our relationships, our families, workplaces, churches, and politics.
My husband is one example of healthy masculinity. He’s a nerdy, humble, loving, horny, capable guy. He’s more comfortable in the kitchen than the toolshed and respects women deeply. I love him so much.
Thank you, Elizabeth - I'm constantly on the look out for examples of whatever the opposite of "toxic masculinity" is! It strikes me that they often occur in sporting environments. I’m a big rugby lover, and at the end of the recent England – Wales game watched as the England team did a little ritual in a circle at the end of the match. Henry Pollock was a 20 year old debutant in the game and ended up scoring two tries. In the ritual, another player - Will Stuart - was receiving his 50th cap. The two players stepped into the middle of the team circle together to be celebrated by their team mates and Will kissed Henry on both cheeks. As the circle broke up and they went back to celebrating their win, I watched as another one of the England vice-captains (Ellis Genge) went up to this 20 year old and kissed him on the cheek. Beautiful ….
Here's a pic of one of those kisses: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/will-stuart-of-england-kisses-henry-pollock-as-he-news-photo/2205267691
Beautiful
Thanks for this, Elizabeth. I totally agree about the difficulty of holding complexity. It's one of the fundamental roots of the world's problems, but it's also relevant to toxic masculinity. Machoism, misogyny, and patriarchal entitlement all seem to have a background belief in a single-perspective certainty. As a man, I strive to be comfortable with uncertainty and attain maturity by gaining multiple perspectives. It's not easy, but then when was growth easy? I define wisdom as the ability to hold multiple perspectives. It's an issue for all of us, but perhaps men particularly struggle with it. Why that is is worth a debate. I think the emergence of the LGBTQ and non-binary population reflects the emergence of a more complex (anti-binary) perspective in human consciousness. It seems to me that is why it is so challenging for the toxic masculine mindset that craves clear lines, conservative gender norms and limited roles for men and women.
The Netflix mini-series 'Adolescence' is so good because it holds multiple perspectives convincingly. It also shows how the perspectives (such as pervasive toxic masculinity memes in school-age social media) are hidden, with devastating results.
I'm looking forward to the book. Please consider Manchester (UK) for a book launch. There's a lovely independent bookshop called House of Books and Friends that may be worth contacting. Happy to help if needed.
Thank you, Elizabeth, for this bold and timely piece. I just wrote my own on this very subject yesterday - maybe now I’ll have the courage to post it. 🤗
Many thanks Elizabeth, as always. However...
I can't shift my basic suspicion of discussions premised on universal binaries, even if qualified, even if backed up by evidence (which is inevitably selective), even if aiming to heal social ills.
The undoubtedly brilliant TV series Adolescence is a case in point: saying more about contemporary moral panics than an outbreak of sensitive boys who are unexpectedly, secretly, being made irredeemably vicious.
My discomfort is partly to do with being gay, which is also supposed to put you into a category/community described by a binary (gay/not gay). But also because I suspect we lack a real notion of universal humanity (the universal rights option worked for a while but is now as inclined to stoke splits as support a sense of unity).
You don't need me to say that in the Christian tradition, the universal vision would be expressed in the notion of imago dei or the words of Saint Paul about in Christ there being no male or female etc. Premodern Christian societies would flesh that out via an older notion of justice, meant as each flourishing because playing their part: the image of the church as a body of many parts, say.
Nowadays we're wary of that for the obvious reason that each playing a part often means stuck in a part, and that offends modern ideals of individuality. Those ideals are typically good, I'd say, for all the risks of an individualism that isolates people or pits them against each other.
So how the loss of divine humanity can be remedied I'm not sure. But my money is on going with the individualism and the remaking of a mystical vision that takes each person's individuality seriously and asks what that individuality rests in. The answer, in short, is that we can only say "I am" because God is, first, "I am". I think this is the heart of Christianity - the anthropological revelation of the incarnation.
In practice this means modes of contemplation that recognise, first, the divinity within oneself, precipitating the same perception within the soul of others and the shared presence in all, which can be called God: the many as as many reflections of the one divine humanity.
(As an aside, I am pretty sure this needs to be realised via an awakened perception and not, say, via a set of moral injunctions that insists we treat or love everyone equally. That way lies guilt and demoralisation or arguments such as recently between JD Vance and Rory Stewart.)
The mystical way is sometimes expressed in secular circles with reference to the biopsychosocial-spiritual, though the spiritual element is typically the haziest - regarded as a sort of private inclination rather than shared ground. And that's the key problem.
Thanks again for provoking discussion of these things.
I am interested in this comment Mark. Could you say a bit more on where you find Elizabeth's post diverging from what you might word up in the same place yourself. I don't have a veiled argument here. I am always curious when I ring well with a both/and, such as the original post and your response when the latter is reaching for a counter word. I am not suspicious of anything here but what I must be missing.
I work in construction. Forty years. What if the individuals recognize themselves as immersed in a binary. In a sense this post is speaking in their poetics to open a place to keep the poetry but let loose of other things.
Maybe the problem is I don't struggle hold binary as a poetic that can accommodate spectrum in its chest. Could be some bullshit there as I suspect I couldn't possibly "get" what it feels like in the minority pigments and, again, what I am snuggling in that could be a weapon against a comrade unknown.
I am clutching to keep something in my poetics of this binary. I guess I suspect the two various accounts in Genesis, the one leaning universal, the other less so as saying it's both/and.
I admittedly haven't gotten to your recent post on androgynous image but theology like Sally Douglas' Jesus Sophia, a Messiah clearly of the order of El Shaddai, the breasted One, really draws me in. I say that to just say that I value both the so-called queering of G-d as upping all the binary magic in the texts, not either-oaring the boat.
A lot of blather to don a name tag and say, can you say a bit more?
Thanks for the interest Andrew! And yes, maybe the stumbling block for me is the binary issue: can that really hold a spectrum?
What we think of as two genders were once held as a spectrum, which is why CS Lewis, ever mindful of the medieval, can talk of seven genders in That Hideous Strength and Dante portrays men and women on a kind of ladder of being, different people occupying different rungs, with the figure closest to God being Mary.
The "androgynous mind" - as described by Coleridge and Virginia Woolf - is different from queering things. It's a perception that might be reached having transcended people's particularities not by eradicating or categorising them, but by being open to them. Woolf's example is Shakespeare through whose art wide swathes of humanity flow because his own self is effaced in the particularities of his many characters. He does not try to make a point or tell but show and perceive.
So if Elizabeth's tactical suggestion is to celebrate good men - and I'm thinking on my feet now - I might suggest celebrating individuals who channel the divine humanity - the mystics, sometimes recognised as saints, being one rich resource.
Thanks Mark. I see now I am misusing the word binary. Probably have forever. Or that my mind has been transposing it to my own key. Maybe what I mean is can you have a poetics of pairing, open and mutable as I think all Word is supposed to be (even the Kabbalists say that Torah is of course not The Torah), that can lean heavy on the dance between and preserve the spectrum. I was thinking about the seven gender bit after listening to you excellent post on Abolition and Strength with Jason and the other fellow. I want to say isn't black and white a pair that can be leaned on without causing the exile of color spectrum in a way fair to the prevalence of male female structures and the way true to how the introduction of a color in a black and white vision makes a type of magic that neither disappears the binary or smuggles in a hierarchy of the pair over between/not-of-this-pair-but-maybe-of-another. Yet I see the problems of the difference between light and absence vs pigment. If you are thinking on your feet, I am dangling off a whim.
I need to read more about that medieval vision.
As for the saints, what I like about Elizabeth's grab here is that it is a poetics of men that like Odysseus's hollow horse can get inside today and now among the type of gents I am with daily. But maybe that is just to say I haven't done the work on how the mystics could be horsed in.
Looks like I do with queer what I do with binary. I hear in it a both/and not dissolution. To be continued I hope....
Let me try this maybe simpler. Do you read the clue left as "in Christ there is a way that is neither male nor female" or in Christ all ways are neither male nor female"
Thanks again, Andrew. I do see how Elizabeth's suggestion is tractable, whereas mine probably is too esoteric. But I have this rub about individuals typifiying the male or the female, at heart because I feel my soul contracting before such propositions.
That is no doubt partly a personal thing. But whilst male/female works well at a biological level, and is often useful at a social level, I feel it is limiting at the psychological and spiritual.
I work as a psychotherapist: there are just too many ways in which men are men and women are women, so the description "male" or "female" doesn't take you very far.
That is even more so at the spiritual level because all participate in Christ as themselves, not as a man as a woman, to echo Paul's comment again. By being truly ourselves in our individuality and relationships, we incarnate the divine too. Then, as it were, you don't say - a model man, a model woman, but yikes: the presence of God!
Incidentally, I don't suppose Elizabeth would much disagree with any of that.
I would not, and you are both demonstrating beautifully why you are men I so respect
I feel extremely grateful that the majority of the guy friends I've known in a lifetime of being in various churchy spaces have been wonderful, kind, generous. One spent hours helping me move out of my third floor walkup on the hottest of summer days and wouldn't take any payment. One year all the guys involved with a campus ministry I worked for banded together to give all the women wholesome "coupons" for things like "one free 3D printed object from the campus labs", "one shoulder to cry on," "one free sweet treat". I'm sure I could share many more stories but I feel quite lucky to have known a lot of great men who who actually like women and are good to them.
My husband respects women and has the provider/protector instinct in spades. I think these qualities are amplified in him, more than the average man, due to the fact that his father died when he was seven and he and his younger sibling were raised by a single mother.
I'd say my Dad is that role model and for me I would say I'm comfortable with my masculinity, but ironically or unironically I'm more comfortable opening up to women about love/romance than I would be men. This was great Elizabeth, didn't know you're 6 foot tall, whenever someone is with you they have a bodyguard.
Over 30 years ago a neighbor shared a notion with me that makes so much sense: parallel to our understanding of heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual, she suggested that we are also heterosocial, homosocial, or bisocial.
One of the best examples, in relatively recent fiction, of positive masculinity... is an ape! Namely: Caesar from the Planet of the Apes reboot.
Dear Elizabeth, I'm one of your non-binary, trans female readers and am grateful for you writing on this. When I first saw your announcement on this upcoming live talk I commented there as well, with no reaction from others. I still think there is a some sort of polarisation in that title (and possibly unintended appearing as some sort of click-bait). Calling it a gender divide without acknowledging that there are more genders than male and female negates everyone outside that spectrum. And without needing to share more we know and read first hand where this is going currently in the US or in Europe. Having watched enough round tables on "that gender divide', both in secular circles and way more in christian circles I developed a strong exhaustion on that singular view on gender. Nonetheless I care about this publication and you as as a role model of mine of some sorts, so I wonder about your own stance on this? With love, Tess
Thanks Tess, I massively appreciate you asking this so open heartedly. Yes, titles are so tricky! We went round and round on this (and on most episode titles tbh). Anything sufficiently nuanced is not grabby, anything grabby ends up smooshing the nuance. In this case, we were wanting to reflect what Caitlin has herself been writing on, and the title reflects that. I’m never sure that we’ve got it right….
Thanks Elizabeth, I understand this notion, wanting to reflect Caitlins ideas. Yet in this post of yours you could also have noted more clearly that the definitions of male and female are exclusive if we are not acknowledging definitions beyond a cis/heteronormative world. I assume that with not making this clear, the majority of all comments here are referring to cis male or female persona. Or maybe I'm wrong and it is inclusive to eg. transmasculine or female people. So pointing this out in your text above lies in your own power.
I love this reflection 😍
Beautiful article. I’m leaving film/TV to create a mens group for this exact reason. My best friends wife recently joined an all female business owner support group and more than half of the women in her group were contemplating divorce because their husbands refused to do any personal development work. It really shook me because I’m married to a life coach and I try to keep up with my wife but there is still a wide gap between our commitment to learning/growing. My hunch is that most men want to “do the work” but a lot of these personal development programs are not “meeting them where they’re at.” We need the same information delivered to us in a more experiential structure (games, challenges and competitions not just learning, relating and discussing). I just secured an investor last week to try and create an adult version of the Boy Scouts where we teach emotional intelligence and emotional self defense in a new way, and give away merit badges as a fun, gamified incentive. Happy to discuss my research so far. We will be launching this summer and our goal is codify a new story of masculinity (and to bridge the gap in our marriages/relationships). Thanks for posting!
Thank you so much for this beautifully and compassionately written piece! I’m delighted to see and take in the appreciative reflections on men and masculinity. Something I also ruminate on quite a bit.
I have three little morsels to share, which I may also elaborate on elsewhere, elsewhen. Interestingly, they were all moments in my late teens/20s, when I was living in my hometown of San Francisco.
1. I had a super big crush on a Cuban guy, with whom we would talk theology and classical music. He introduced me to the Rachmaninoff piano concertos and the Spanish composer Rodrigo. In those days I was obsessed with purity, and so he and I never kissed (it was a phase), but one night we were sitting close together after a Bible study or prayer meeting. He had his arm around me, I was leaning up against his chest, and I reflected out loud “I feel so protected.“ It was beautiful when he said “I feel protected protecting you.” What a fascinating matched pair of impressions in that moment.
2. I was attending a Pentecostal church for a brief chapter. (The minister was a classic “sweat and spit” preacher from Missouri, and I have a lot to say about that chapter in my spiritual evolution.) One night Brother Stewart (his last name) said something with great enthusiasm, envisioning the day that “real men” would flock to Christianity. I innocently and spontaneously erupted in “Amen!” Of course this got lots of laughs, but I was not making a joke. What I pictured was men of character, varying degrees of intelligence, skill, and moral up-rightness finding their way into spiritual community and a love of God.
3. I went on a picnic with my best friend from college, her hometown friends and her older brother. Jim was a quiet guy, but I said to my friend “He moves with confidence in his world.“ That spontaneous observation has stayed with me as a marker for a man comfortable in his own skin, who is trying neither to prove nor defend anything.
One thing I’ve noticed here in America is that young men are not being taught some of the “handyman” skills that have been passed down through the generations. So guys find themselves clueless when asked to fix the fence or switch out hardware in the kitchen or some such thing. Now, of course, I think it’s also great when girls are taught the same things, or when they can find their way under the hood of a car. (My oldest sister is far more handy than I, and she was taught many things by our dad.)
All to say, as a hetero, cis- woman, I love men: not all of them equally, not all of them as a category. But there can be something quite glorious in a man balanced in heart and mind, confidence and vulnerability, intelligence and curiosity. And it’s a super big plus if they can dance!
For a little humor: Craig Carothers is an Oregonian singer-songwriter from whom I've taken a couple songwriting classes. This song, She Needs Me, always cracks me up.
https://youtu.be/duDaCjl6peE?si=1qfdm50glutF-zr2