Where are the men?

I was recently “called-in” by a very dear friend who identifies as a queer woman. Her question was “where are the men?”

The Better Men Project is built to be an alternative to the perils of virtue signaling and “performative wokeness.” Many of us have become wise enough to turn away from the madness of cancel culture. We don’t believe in exile. We believe in the possibility of restoration and transformation.

But I’m not sure we have developed the instinct to come together around a man that has caused harm. When my friend asked “where are the men?” she was pointing to the way women and nonbinary people seem to naturally come together around a woman that has been hurt. Some of us men also step in to care for the hurt party.

But we don’t seem to have the same instinct to collectively, as a community of men, come together and ask ourselves “how do we help this brother come correct?” What I’m pointing to is very different from those so called “accountability circles” that feel more like kangaroo courts and public stonings.

Instead, we are talking about what it looks like to bring the man close. To hold him as he works through defensiveness, fear and shame. To allow him to speak to the ways in which has been hurt by the situation, or in his life. To help him feel and understand that he is still loved. And that together we can help find ways for him to authentically learn what there is for him to learn.

If the man has no willingness or capacity to take responsibility, to find a way to grow and to make amends, then that becomes another story.

But right now, I think many of us are at a place where we might individually step in to see a brother through. And too many of us are still at a place where we want to signal our own virtue by being part of a cancel mob. What we haven’t fully learned is what it takes to actually come together as men in community, to do it more instinctively, and to do it in such a way that actually helps the brother grow.

I’m experimenting with it. I’ll let you know what I learn. And you let me know if you are doing the same.

Saludos,

Gibrán

PS: I’m looking forward to being with you on Monday, November 7. We are going to get back to our study of “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover.” We are now looking at “The Magician.