I recently attended a goodbye party for one of my colleagues at the Wellness Center at my university. The party was well-attended, about 30 people were present. I counted 3 men among those that were present, and that included myself. Apparently, my male colleagues are not drawn to the activities and the people in the Wellness Center. This lack of male participation seems to be a pattern. I am trained as a Freedom Coach, and among the 21 Freedom Coaches I am the only male. I wrote an article Just be Kind for Science Magazine. When I gave a lecture with the same title at a Californian university, a female colleague came to me and expressed surprise that a male would bring a message on kindness.
There is a pattern here, men seem to shun away from being seen in the care role. This then begs the question where are the men when it comes to showing care? In this question I deliberately use the words “showing care” rather than “caring” because I don’t want to suggest that men don’t care—they may or may not—but they seem to be less inclined to be seen in a caring role. I say this with trepidation, because there are numerous males who are extremely caring and who don’t hesitate to show that care—think of the many fathers who actively love their children, men who set up charities or who volunteer, or my friend who flew to New York City at the height of the pandemic on a near-empty plane to bring his mother to the safety of his home. And there are, of course, also plenty of women too that don’t seem to care for others. Stereotypes can provide clarity, but this may happen at the expense of not doing justice to everybody.
I like to compare the structure of our personality to that of an onion; there is layer after layer that can be peeled off as one moves toward the interior. It is as if men have outer layers that are harder to penetrate than women. It is safe to live behind the protection of a hard outer layer; this prevents our deeper self from being exposed. Sam Keen, in his book Fire in the belly, on being a man writes the following:
“Men, in our culture, have carried a special burden of unconsciousness, of ignorance of the self. The unexamined life has been worth quite a lot in economic terms. It has enabled us to increase the gross national product yearly … Especially for men, ours is an outer-directed culture that rewards us for being strangers to ourselves, unacquainted with feeling, intuition, and the subtleties of sensation and dreams.”
Interestingly, Sam Keen relates the shutting off from the deeper parts of our personality to an economic system that values output and profit over care and self-expression. This is in line with the viewpoint of Fritjof Capra who contrasts the self-assertive and the integrative paradigms.
A problem with stereotypical behavior is that this may set the norm for what is expected behavior. When men are depicted as being tough and businesslike—for example in movies or political campaigns—then boys and men may see this as a message that they are to be tough and businesslike too. Expectations tend to shape collective behavior which helps establish a status quo.
Following up on the last part of the quote from Sam Keen I invite you to pose the following questions to yourself. Do you mostly focus on outward appearances—such as societal success—that may alienate you from your deeper self, or do you focus more on your deeper priorities, your “inner compass”? Are you in touch with your feelings, or do you compartmentalize them? (By the way, shutting down your feelings won’t work in the long run, they will manifest one way or the other, even if it takes a lifetime.) Do you listen to your intuition, to the still small voice within that guides and councils? Do you pay attention to your body and the symbolic messages that it may send you? These are important questions for all of us, but they are particularly relevant to men. Shed some outer layers, my fellow males, and show the world what really matters! And contact me if you want help exploring this territory.