men

So as a build-up to the Fem2.0 conference on February 2 in Washington DC, Fem2.0 is hosting another Twittercast this Sunday at 10pm–and it’s one I’m hoping to join (if I’m back in town!).  Everyone is invited to participate. The topic this time: Why Should Men Be Feminists?

But wait…what the bleep’s a Twittercast, you say?

Twitter, again, for those not yet in the know, is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. When you join Twitter, people sign up to follow your tweets, and you sign up to follow other people’s tweets. The tweets are instantaneous – people can tweet and respond to other people’s tweets in real time. With millions of overlapping Twitter feeds, Twitter is an incredibly powerful social networking tool. I love it and I hate it at the same time.

If you want to participate on Sunday and have a Twitter account, you can send the Fem2.0-ers your Twitter name, which they will gather into a list an distribute, so everyone will know who to follow for the Fem2.0 Twittercast.

If you do NOT have a Twitter account and are curious, you can sign up for one here: http://twitter.com/home

And if you hate Twitter and “tweets” and all the rest, feel free, of course, to bypass this post.

Hells yeah!  It’s high time we include worthy men in the visual iconography of feminism.  The question of whether Pres-Elect Obama is such a man remains, fully, to be seen.  But I’m banking that he is.  And if he’s not, then I’m banking on Michelle and Hillary–and all the rest of us–to keep him in line.  More than any president in our past, this man has got serious feminist potential.

But apparently, the cover of the special inaugural issue of Ms. magazine is generating a whole lot of buzz. In a HuffPo piece yesterday, publisher Eleanor Smeal stands by the magazine’s choice, noting:

“It’s not every day Ms. puts a man on its cover. In choosing the cover for this special Inaugural issue, Ms. wanted to capture both the national and feminist mood of high expectations and hope as the 44th President of the United States takes the oath of office.”

She adds,

“But we are not giving President-Elect Obama a blank check. For our hopes to be achieved, we must speak out and organize, organize, organize to enable our new president’s team to achieve our common goals. Ultimately, we must hold our leaders’ feet to the fire or, to put it more positively, uplift them when they are caught in the crosscurrents of competing interests.”

Personally, I think the cover is FAB.  I haven’t yet read the commentary by those who find it–what, offensive, I guess?  Have you?  Is this a generational thing?  A Hillary thing?  And regardless, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

The other day I stumbled across Rafael Casal on YouTube and was blown away. The first thing I did was to send out an email to a bunch of my friends that said: If you knew about this guy and didn’t tell me about him, y’all are in some deep shit.

A slam champion poet, recording artist, and educator, Rafael Casal is turning up the political heat. His message is steaming hot. And now that I’ve found Casal, I want to tell as many people as possible about this amazing hip-hop influenced poet who cuts straight to the heart of so many issues.

Take the Bill of Rights. You know, those 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution that were ratified as a package deal in 1791? Remember those 10 gems that are supposed to protect us from an overzealous federal government? Freedom of speech, the right to peacefully gather, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment or unreasonable search and seizure. Yeah, that Bill of Rights.

Well, “I’m billing them for my rights,” Casal says.

more...

I’m thrilled to join Girl With Pen with this inaugural entry of The Man Files. Deborah Siegel and I have big plans for this column. Watch us grow! In the meantime, join our monthly discussions about masculinity, sex, culture, work, parenting, and progressive change. Our goal is to engage scholars, bloggers, and readers in a popular online forum about what it means these days to “be a man.”

Why The Man Files? Because gender isn’t just about women. And because it’s time that the amazing female feminists and the awesome feminist guys get out of our (virtual blog) boxes and start talking with each other. There are so many people doing so much hard work to end sexism, racism, and other forms of hate. Yet so often we stay oddly isolated.

Personally, I’m not one to shy away from difficult, challenging, or even unlikely convos across communities. The Man Files provides a forum for these conversations. The more we talk, the closer we come to preventing male violence against women, improving pay inequity, building strategic feminist alliances, and generally expanding our everyday choices in selecting where we work, who we love, how we act, and why we do — the sorts of choices that are so often constrained by rigid gender expectations.

To start out The Man Files I want to introduce a couple recent works about men and masculinity. A few of my favorite things, if you will, that include hot new projects hitting the scene.

Monthly Round-Up
Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men by Michael Kimmel (HarperCollins 2008). Kimmel cuts new ground again with his most recent book, Guyland. Going beyond pop-psych pablum or narrow-minded moralizing, Guyland takes us inside the world of young men between 16 and 26 so that readers can understand how these critical years contribute to the formation of masculinity. Think boys and their toys, beer, babes, and (foot)ball.

The Black Male Handbook: A Blueprint for Life edited by Kevin Powell (Atria Books 2008). Kevin Powell makes a strong case in The Black Male Handbook for supporting men in the black community. This collection of highly personal essays offers “fresh solutions for old problems.” Authors like Hill Harper, Byron Hurt, Jeff Johnson, and Ryan Mack provide concrete plans for improving economic empowerment, creating physical health, and developing spiritual and political awareness. These issues have political roots and such personal consequences. Written primarily for black men, we can all benefit from reading this book. Check out the suggestions for new music, books, and other sources of entertainment.

Barack & Curtis: Manhood, Power & Respect directed by Byron Hurt. As part of the recently launched Black Masculinity Project, Byron Hurt does it again with his recent short about Barack Obama and rapper 50 Cent. (See Hurt’s acclaimed film Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes.) Why these two guys? As Hurt explains, Barack Obama is shattering so many myths about black masculinity and 50 Cent (named Forbes Magazine‘s top-earning rapper), epitomizes gangsta hip-hop masculinity. “Both are successful Black men,” Hurt says. “Both are rock stars. Both are admired and feared.” Juxtaposing the two men in a short documentary film promotes — in Hurt’s words — historic level conversations. See it on YouTube.

So that’s it for this time. Humor and (respectful) controversy are always welcome at The Man Files. Send your ideas to Shira_Tarrant at yahoo dot com and tell me what you’d like to see. The lines are open, we’re taking requests, and I’ll see you here next month.

—Shira Tarrant

Yep, you got that right. Barack and 50 Cent in the same sentence. Or rather, post title.

Last night I went to KGB bar with Shira Tarrant to hear her read from Men Speak Out, along with one of her contributors, filmmaker Byron Hurt, and learned about Byron’s latest–a short doc examining the contrasting styles of manhood exhibited by Barack Obama and Rapper/Mogul Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent. It’s part of The Masculinity Project, a web-based endeavor launching in January 2009 devoted to redefining what it means to be a man. Here’s the 10-minute short, which has been released only at Byron’s website and is being spread virally:

Read more about it here. Word.

I am ridiculously thrilled to share the news that Shira Tarrant is joining the GWP team as our latest editor! Shira and I are teaming up on an evolving web project, called The Man Files, and we are “seeding” it here on GWP.

The Man Files–for now, a monthly column here–will bring together some of the most provocative thinking about feminism and masculinity on the web. Our shared aim as hostesses/editors is to continue the conversation Shira launched with Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power and to foster the kind of the intergenerational conversation around the aftershocks of feminism I put out there with Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild. The Man Files column tackles a range of subjects, from sex to work to fashion to fatherhood. Our goal is to engage scholars, bloggers, and readers in a popular online forum about what it means these days to “be a man.” We got plans. Stay tuned!

If you have ideas for a guest column for The Man Files, please email me at deborah at girlwpen dot com.

And in the meantime, for anyone here in NYC, you can catch Shira reading TONIGHT at KGB Bar, along with Men Speak Out contributor Byron Hurt. The topic: Masculinity, Sex, and Hip Hop. Doesn’t get much better than that!

By the way, I’m sitting here with Shira and when I typed the title of this post Shira says to me, “Wow – that’s loaded.” Hehe.

Just a quick hit today on a book I’m about to get my hands on, titled The Decline of Men: How the American Male Is Tuning Out, Giving Up, and Flipping Off His Future, by Guy Garcia. Coming on the heels of Michael Kimmel’s most excellent Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men, I’m eager to see how it, um, measures up.

From the Publishers Weekly review:

Garcia (The New Mainstream) explores disturbing trends of men leading increasingly socially isolated lives and dropping out of high school and college in record numbers, naming them victims of an invisible epidemic. According to the author, modern men have failed to forge a new and productive role in the 21st century. Garcia charts the rise of feminism and the changing societal roles of both men and women, illustrating how and why men have become so confused about what defines masculinity; having lost their traditional role as provider and protector, men flirt with hollow substitute identities—drawing on Jackass culture (men pretending to be boys), gangster culture (boys pretending to be men) and metrosexual obsessions with grooming and body image—that have reductively redefined manhood and led men away from compassion, responsibility and family. Garcia wisely avoids degrading feminism or pitting men against women; instead, he offers an astute and well-researched meditation on how men might reclaim their identity and place in modern America and why such a transformation is important to future generations of both men and women. (Oct.)

Paging Clark Kent?

Is there any way in which Palin’s dude appeal might ultimately be a good thing for future female candidates? An article in today’s NYTimes points to Palin’s appeal among “the dudes” and notes two contradictory impulses:

Yes, some men come to ogle the candidate, too. “She’s beautiful,” said a man wearing a John Deere T-shirt in Weirs Beach. “I came here to look at her,” he said, and his admiration for Ms. Palin’s appearance became more and more animated. Sheepish over his ogling, he declined to give his real name (“Just call me ‘John Deere’ ”).

But some male fans do seem to feel a deeper connection to Ms. Palin. To a surprising degree, they mention the unusual nature of her candidacy, the chance to make history, break the glass ceiling. (Read the rest here.)

Just as I’m starting to wonder, yet again, whether there might be a small leap forward for womankind embedded in Palin’s run, Michelle Goldberg sets me straight. Goldberg reminds us that by trying to “flirt her way to victory” (aka the Vice-Presidential debate), her farcical performance lowers the standards for both female candidates and US political discourse. Goldberg concludes,

In her only vice-presidential debate, she was shallow, mendacious and phoney. What kind of maverick, after all, keeps harping on what a maverick she is? That her performance was considered anything but a farce doesn’t show how high Palin has risen, but how low we all have sunk.

I wholeheartedly agree. But I still want to be convinced. Is there any way, do you think, that Palin’s run will make things better for future female candidates? Any way…at all?

(Thanks to Jackie for the heads up.)

And for this week’s XY FILES (also a little late!), I wanted to share some analysis from my guy Marco, who continues to blog up a storm over at Open Salon. In his post this week over there, “Postcards from Camelot,” Marco offers a comparative analysis of political family portraiture from the days pre-Betty Friedan with today’s, juxtaposing a portrait of the Obama family that appeared on the Obama campaign’s website, and a portrait of the Kennedy family at Hyannisport circa 1962. Writes Marco,

While Barack is dressed identically to JFK, down to the wristwatch (signifier of male diligence during downtime), it is ironically Michelle who seems the more work-ready in the 2008 image. She is much more formal here than Jackie, as befitting a contemporary professional mom, yet it is also possible that the zetgeist is not yet ready for a black First Lady in leisure attire. Certainly this is true in corporate America, where non-white professionals can still feel the need to one-up their white colleagues in formality just to achieve equal parity.

At a time when Sarah Palin’s suitability for office is questioned even by liberals in the context of motherhood, it is significant that it is Barack whom the daughters embrace. Here we have a signifier not only of progressive gender politics but of the increasing importance of family values in the political sphere. The Obamas are in that sense a tighter unit here than the Kennedys; in the Kennedy image Jack looks true to the pre-Betty Friedan era, a man in proximity to his family yet not unduly “enmeshed”, which implicitly allowed him the freedom to work and “play” outside the domestic realm. Not so Obama, who must project utter wholesomeness in a post-Lewinsky landscape.