Screenshot: Gay mime story performed at the California Men's Gatherings in Malibu in 2005. Youtube.It was about 50 years ago that the Women’s Liberation Movement began to speak out and protest against not only gender inequality and patriarchal social norms, but also forms of abuse against women. The classic name for men who sexually harassed women was ‘chauvinist pigs’. Back then, this term was widely and enthusiastically deployed in many different (and entirely appropriate) situations of sexual harassment. Having been a psychotherapist with female clients who were experiencing or had experienced abusive behaviour by males, I joined other men in severely criticizing that behaviour. But I am saddened that women still, in the twenty first century, need to demonstrate in mass against sexual harassment and sexual assault and that the #MeToo movement still needs to exist 50 years on. I am incredulous at the suffering that is the result of these forms of violence and abuse.
Accompanying the Women’s Liberation Movement of 50 years ago was the Men’s Liberation Movement. Men’s Liberation was a thoughtful response, examining and defining the issues of men and masculinity. 50 years ago it was based on introspection regarding how a patriarchal society not only harmed and oppressed women, but also harmed and oppressed men. When men began to analyze the social norms and rules that the patriarchal society placed on them, they realized that this was the cause of many harmful conditions. Questions raised by men fell thick and fast: about growing up male; sex role pressures in the socialization of the male child, as well as the lower ability for self-disclosure than women that men have; about the lack of insight and empathy; about male problems with loving and susceptibility to demoralization. All of these aspects of manliness have negative consequences in health, relationships, self-esteem and longevity.
So 50 years ago, as a response to the insights of the Women’s Lib movement about social norms and their incapacitation of both male and female potentialities and capacities, men began standing up against that oppression both for themselves and their female counterparts. They began to show how the rejection of these gender norms and rules might lead to the creation of happiness, reciprocity and in general a less repressive and more open and expressive lives.
