Why Men Are So Quiet

The Women's Liberation Movement burst into our living-rooms some forty years ago with a strident, demanding, angry, divisive and separatist energy. And that's as it should be for it was about women reclaiming their masculine (yang) energy. While it is recognised that the public persona of the Movement was probably the tip of the iceberg, with most women just asserting themselves in a quiet (and often unsupported) way, it came across as a Women's Movement with masculine energy.

Ask people today about the Men's Movement and most don't know it exists. Of those who do, few have any idea of what it's really about. That, too, is as it should be for it's about men reclaiming their feminine (yin) sides and it is more about the inside things - feelings, acceptance of themselves and being able to communicate better on an emotional level. The Women's Movement was more about the outside things - recognition and acceptance from others.

The Women's Movement was just that - a desire to move physically from one place of work or being to another. The men's one is really a Non-Movement - it's about standing still (perhaps, for a change) and learning to love and accept the wholeness, the fullness, within.

Because it's about inside things, it asks nothing of anyone else. New Zealand has a Ministry of Women's Affairs, a Ministry of Maori Affairs, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a Ministry of Youth Affairs. So where does a thirty plus, paler, New Zealand male go to for his Affairs? It is this group, unrecognised by authorities, that generally makes up the Men's Non-Movement, although it is starting to be joined by many not born in this country. There will never be a Ministry of Men's Affairs if the Men's Non-Movement has its way, for the recognition and acceptance that comes from within is all that is needed, as the women in the submerged part of their "iceberg" probably found.

Because of that, the changes seen on the outside of men are very subtle, while the women burned their bras, dressed in men's clothing (stark black and white suits, sometimes with a tie) and acted more assertively. It is interesting to note that while a woman in men's clothes is now accepted, a man is ousted from the Police Force (male organisation) for wearing women's clothes. However, the men say nothing about this for the power they feel within comes about from acceptance and a certainty about the "quiet way", rather than a demanding of some wrong to be righted.

As Steve Biddulph says in his book Manhood, "Men are hurting. They are also hurting others". And he later says, "Women's enemies were largely in the world around them. Men's enemies are often inside - in the walls we put up around our own hearts. The inner changes will have to come before we can heal the world. Coming out from behind these walls (slowly, carefully) will mean that men can change and grow - to our own benefit and to the benefit of women and children".

The answers, we see, can only come from within and when that never-ending process is underway, the "answers" will come for the rest of society. Steve lists some Australian facts:
* Men, on average, live for six years less than women,
* Men routinely fail at close relationships. (Just two indicators: 40% of marriages break down, and divorces are initiated by the woman in four out of five cases.)
* Over 90% of convicted acts of violence will be carried out by men, and 70% of the victims will be men.
* In school, around 90% of children with behaviour problems are boys and over 80% of children with learning problems are boys.
* One in seven boys will experience sexual assault by an adult or an older child before the age of eighteen.
* Men comprise over 90% of inmates of gaols. Men are also 74% of the unemployed.
* The leading cause of death amongst men between twelve and sixty is self-inflicted death.

In the 1993 ABS statistics, suicide accounted for one in every 38 male deaths overall. New Zealand has the world's highest rate of male teenage suicide.

Because of the low-key and unstructured nature of this Non-Movement, the numbers involved are unknown. However, as an indicator, Chris Angus, who has run the Tauranga, NZ, Living Without Violence programme for the last ten years, says he is approached by about 250 men per year, of which 70% actually do the programme. He runs six programmes per week, fifty one weeks a year, and similar programmes are run in most New Zealand towns and cities.

Rex McCann (one of New Zealand's leading facilitators of men's workshops) has run 45 of his Essentially Men courses around the country, since 1990. Along with several other courses, he has touched and enriched the lives of between three and four thousand men. The Essentially Men course is a weekend workshop to take men through the gateway of knowing and loving themselves in a very powerful and gentle way. This is followed by smaller groups then meeting (usually) two weekly to support and encourage the positive changes.

When I attended the Essentially Men workshop I was surprised at the incredibly strong feelings of abandonment, abuse and even hatred expressed, by some, towards their parents, especially fathers. I was glad I was not the pillows and mattresses that took the force of those expressed emotions but, at the end of it, all those men wanted to do was to hug their fathers or mothers and to say they loved them. This, to me, is the essence of this Non-Movement - the negativity felt inside is faced squarely and dealt with, with no-one else being blamed or hurt. Out of this comes the aspiration to communicate more positively and effectively with others. Self-responsibility is paramount.

The answer, we know, can come from no-one but ourselves. To quote Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations with God, "if we don't go within, we go without". And so the way of the Men's Non-Movement is the quiet way, the gentle way, the way of self-responsibility - the way of real strength.