OCTOBER - 2019

BLOG OCTOBER 2019

What is a man today?

I am reflecting about the theme of this month’s publication. There are many possibilities emerging as I am thinking about the world today. One theme is the “toxic masculinity”. Last week, I attended a very interesting meeting (Sept 23) at the GOMA art gallery. There were about 200 people attending and the host was Paul Barcley of ABC radio national.

 The speakers were: Tarang Chawla, writer, activist and founder of Not One More Nikki campaign. (Nikki was his sister murdered by her partner). Michael Flood, Associate professor at the Queensland University, and director of the Centre of Research on Men And Masculinity; Joe Williams, mental health advocate, professional boxer Rugby League player, his ancestry is from the Cowra people who struggled many years with mental health (bipolar syndrome)and wrote his biography entitled “Defying the Enemy Within; Catharine Lumby, professor of media at Macquarie University she is also an author and a Journalist.

This group of amazing presenters explored, before a large audience, about the current slur(my interpretation) on Masculinity and the impact of this label on young men.

This full discussion can be viewed on: gagoma.qld.gov.au/youtube

Search GOMA TALKS: TOXIC MASCULINITY

This interesting and open discussion, along with the Ben Quilty art exhibition, has inspired me to continue my own research about who is a Man today and how the media is thrashing masculinity.

However, I came back from this discussion asking the question that many are asking: WHAT IS THE SOLUTION”?

Is this a Social Change issue? Or is this an education of young men as they pass through school?

Or is this a paradigm shift opening the masculine definition that has been in Australia for a couple of hundreds of years”?

In my research, I discovered the following comments from experts in this matter:

1.       Jordan Peterson, psychology professor in Canada: “boys are falling behind due to the elimination of concepts that form young men in their experience growing into men.

Active boys are often labelled as ADD and some are medicated to calm them down. It is easy to confuse and use masculine energy to explain the ‘old patriarchy’ That men only want power and possession.

2.       Justin Balmain, a young actor who is busy promoting a redefinition of masculinity. He asks the question: "Let's make men less toxic" – who will do this? “stop men acting like rough-tough ‘macho’ impersonators " – Who will do this?

       

It is my impression that most solutions to redefine masculinity fall into two main areas: One is Social Change that focuses on the constructing social meaning of men in the new era and the other is men inner work by with making available counselling for men, group work, men well being meetings and gatherings of men.

After my own experience working with men groups for over 10 years, I have been promoting the following list about how to enable a shift in masculine perception and to develop positive and healthy masculinity:

1.       Stop calling and labelling men as ‘toxic”. This labelling is unhealthy and promotes a negative perspective of men.( see definition below)

2.       Pay attention to the young man as he is showing a need for adventure. Some say the SOUL speaks to him.

3.       After the need to adventure, the search begins. Men are searching how to grow and develop as healthy models to self and others. I often hear men speak about their wounds that come from the father (usually absent father).

4.       Men that are wounded, usually search for answers as to how feel compatible and strong with other men. They may search for a Mentor (teacher). Older friend or Uncle. Young men search in heroes, superheroes in the movies and so on.

5.       Self-Discovery as a way to the man’s soul. SOULCRAFT is one way to discover a man’s inner purpose.

6.       Working in men’s groups or gatherings we often share openly about our depressions, losses, questioning our self-worth, drugs, alcohol and so on.

7.       Developing positive personal resources as to: who am I? what I can be? And what I can do as a man?  The old cliché: “Boys will be boys” is to be rejected as a false attribute to men.

8.       Finally, leaders, mentors and mature men must encourage men to attend training about leading men groups.

I am planning a men- after- 50 group in my practice for 2020. It will be a meeting of mature men who are ready to work on their personal growth and learn skills to become a Mentor to younger men in search of being authentic and healthy men. Here is a suggested list of topics – issues we will address:

-          Physical and mental health

-          Personal shifts in self and lifestyle

-          Masculine identity and purpose in today’s world

-          Fear, loneliness and our mortality

-          Developing relationship skills with women

All meetings will be once a month (dates to be set) and the working approach will be based on my own professional experiences in Gestalt Therapy, group work, Existential philosophy and positive psychology.

NOTE: There is already a group of men over 50 meeting in Bangalow NSW. Please contact Nava @ 0400338946 or Michael @ 0421480076

RESOURCES

Unmasking masculinity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBdnjqEoiXA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmkFdAMFGXo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SK0XQN6_do

 A BIT OF HISTORY

I always like to follow up what the media is writing as most of it is based on poor facts and sensationalism. Therefore, I am including some of my research about the sources of the word Toxic and Toxic Masculinity:

TOXIC - A DEFINITION

adjective

of, pertaining to, affected with, or caused by a toxin or poison:

a toxic condition.

acting as or having the effect of a poison; poisonous:

a toxic drug.

causing unpleasant feelings; harmful or malicious:

a toxic man, criticism of men.

pertaining to or noting debt that will probably not be repaid:

toxic mortgages.

pertaining to or noting a financial instrument or other asset that has no value or an unknown value because there is no market for it:

toxic mortgage-backed securities.

TOXIC MASCULINITY

The concept of toxic masculinity is used in psychology and media discussions of masculinity to refer to certain cultural norms that are associated with harm to society and to men themselves. Traditional stereotypes of men as socially dominant, along with related traits such as misogyny and homophobia, can be considered "toxic" due in part to their promotion of violence, including sexual assault and domestic violence. The socialization of boys often normalizes violence, such as in the saying "boys will be boys" about bullying and aggression.

Self-reliance and emotional repression are correlated with increased psychological problems in men such as depression, increased stress, and substance abuse. Toxic masculine traits are characteristic of the unspoken code of behaviour among men in prisons, where they exist in part as a response to the harsh conditions of prison life.

Other traditionally masculine traits such as devotion to work, pride in excelling at sports, and providing for one's family, are not considered to be "toxic". The concept was originally used by authors associated with the mythopoetic men's movement such as Shepherd Bliss to contrast stereotypical notions of masculinity with a "real" or "deep" masculinity that they say men have lost touch within modern society. We need to separate ‘toxic masculinity “ from Healthy masculinity.

MYTHOPOETIC MEN'S MOVEMENT

Poet Robert Bly in the middle 

The mythopoetic men's movement was a body of self-help activities and therapeutic workshops and retreats for men undertaken by various organizations and authors in the United States from the early 1980s through the 1990s. The term mythopoetic was coined by professor Shepherd Bliss in preference to the term "New Age men's movement". Mythopoets adopted a general style of psychological self-help inspired by the work of Robert Bly, Michael Meade, Robert A. Johnson, Joseph Campbell, and other Jungian authors. The group activities used in the movement were largely influenced by ideas derived from Jungian psychology, e.g., Jungian archetypes, from which the use of myths and fairy tales taken from various cultures served as ways to interpret challenges facing men in society.

Groups formed during the mythopoetic men's movement typically avoided political and social advocacy in favour of therapeutic workshops and wilderness retreats, often performing Native American rituals such as drumming, chanting, and sweat lodges. These rituals were organized to facilitate the personal growth of participants (most often middle-class, middle-aged males) with an intended purpose of connecting spiritually with a lost deep masculine identity or inner self. The most well-known text of the movement was Iron John: A Book About Men by the poet Robert Bly, who argued that "male energy" had been diluted through modern social institutions such as the feminist movement, industrialization, and separation of fathers from family life through working outside the home. Bly urged men to recover a pre-industrial conception of masculinity through spiritual camaraderie with other men in male-only gatherings. The purpose of these activities was to foster greater understanding of the forces influencing the roles of men in modern society and how these changes affect behaviour, self-awareness, and identity.

Sometimes mistakenly referred to simply as the men's movement, which is much broader, the mythopoetic movement is best known for the rituals that take place during their gatherings. While most in the public eye during the early 1990s, the movement carries on more quietly in The Mankind Project and independent psychological-spiritual practitioners.

I am very proud to be part of the Mythopoetic movement in Australia and I have renamed this experience as SOULCRAFT.

SEPTEMBER - 2019

                                                WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT --- MEN!

The evolution of masculinity

Most articles about ‘free speech’ stemming from the “politically correct” club, identity politics and even the #Me Too movement, promote all sorts of agendas to create a social obedience. Anyone who expresses him/herself openly in the media, are immediately attacked for their work. Artists, writers, political commentators etc, are persecuted for their ideas.

However, the group that is increasingly pushed against the wall and must “watch their back” are men. In my recent REFLECTIONS, I noted that there seems to be a strong rebuttal to this trend to ‘badmouth” men coming (and from a woman writer) is the title of the book by Bettina Arndt: # MENTOO. It is an open and well researched book about how the 'politically correct' mob, are destroying masculinity calling it “toxic” including all sorts of negative labelling attempting to emasculate men..

Another female author: Lionel Shriver states that “identity politics could lead to ‘bad art’ and I would add that it also would destroy relationships between men and women. Particularly damaging the young adults of today. It appears that this ‘witch hunt’ against men is spreading all over the icons of free speech – the universities. They are totally out of reality and lacking any facts. “It is a rat’s nest of hysterical super sensitivity” states the novelist Lionel Shriver. It is time to push back against this phenomenon of politically correct and identity politics hysteria and write with open proven facts about the absurdity of the claims against men. All people need to express their frustration to this mediocre fad that is contributing to a climate of social constraint in all aspects of creativity and identity. One example of this absurdity is the requirement to use the pronouns: ZE and ZIR or CRISGENDER in schools as a gender-neutral references to he and she. 

We hope that those who rise to this absurdity must work at all levels of society to stop this trend to eliminate what Nature has developed over millions of years. That is: male and female creatures on this earth including humans.

To begin this Reflection for this month, I am including here my comments on Masculinity to the Australia Association of Counselling. Their newsletter offered some ideas about counselling men using a variety of skills to help men. However, few men are attending counselling for fear of being labelled mentally incompetent. My own experience working with men over the past ten years, I became convinced that the various counselling (or therapy) ‘models of practice’ do not help. Most theories are not designed to help men but are of a generic nature. Men like and get a lot from being in a group gathering and sharing their personal stories with other men listening. They benefit from initiation rituals and men events that give them a strong identity and support to a path of wholeness.

ACA Newsletter on "MEN AND EMOTIONS”

Having read your article about “Men and Emotions: From Repression to Expression”, I congratulate the Association for the support you have initiated to the issue of emotions and men and questioning the raising gender zealotry in recent times that is contributing to the main cause of the crises in men, particularly the young men.

“Today, any celebration of masculinity is limited to praising men who do more housework, get more involved with the children, and men who are able to cry, empathise with women issues and openly express their ‘soft feelings’.” As stated by Janet Albrechtsen in the Australian newspaper. Another article by Peter Gonis states that: “Years ago they used a knife to castrate young boys, today it is castration with anti-male language”. A third article that is published in the RACQ magazine by Jessica Wilson, states that “stereotypes of masculinity are harming Australian men”.

So, perhaps we are noticing a new social awareness that is becoming more open about the crisis of identity that men (particularly young men) that are undergoing in our modern age. It seems an error to demonise men as psychologically sick or experiencing some mental health issues, but it is the current so called “political correctness” that is relentlessly attacking masculinity.

A study at the University of Queensland, has revealed that young men who tend to conform to the traditional definition or stereotype of manhood, are set up in so called “Man Box” as being bad and  therefore are twice as likely to consider suicide and several times are more likely to become violent towards others.

Naturally, these men develop poor mental health and do not seek counselling but resort to binge drinking and traffic accidents. This study concludes that the traditional definitions of masculinity are generational - meaning that they are passed from grandfather to father and then to son. Thus, the result is that there is a big pressure on men from the anti-male activists, on one side and the old ideas about who is a male from the older family members and old beliefs on the other side. Psychological counselling, therefore, will not work.

The suggestion I am offering, based on ten years working with men groups, is to develop emotional skills with young men led by elder Mentors, and leaders that can bridge the gap (or a black hole) to enable men to express their masculinity and their deeper emotional needs. Having experienced hundreds of men groups, I am convinced that it is useless and even harmful to reduce masculinity to an illness needing counselling that is not working and adds to the collective psycho-cultural crisis.

It is about time that the Associations like the AIPC ( Counselling), Ganz(Gestalt), AASW (social work) and so on, begin to support healthy masculinity and stop those who attack men as “toxic males” because this attitude of castrating men psychologically and socially  will not work but only aggravate the impact on all  our society.

Of course, we will have people of all genders that will be offended by healthy premises about men, but their offences cannot erase the way Nature selects all species and gives us gifts without much care about who may be offended. Yet men today are expected to reject their masculinity to avoid offending those who are always offended.Here are some consequences:

SOME NATIONAL STATISTICS ABOUT THE MEN CRISIS

1.            One in five men experience depression in a twelve-month period.

2.            Three quarters of people who die by suicide are men.

3.            Six Australian men between 15-44 take their own lives each day.

4.            One in five men will experience an anxiety condition due to stress.

5.            Men are less likely to seek help for mental health than women.

Indian god vishnu and consort

AUGUST 2019 BLOG

AUGUST 2019 BLOG

FATHERHOOD AS A SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

“Today are being psychologically and culturally neutered (castrated) in the early stages of their cognitive and affective development through subliminal conditioning aimed at the gradual rejection of their masculinity to ensure their development along the lines of fluid identities. Introducing our children to this fluidity is a crime against their humanity in that it is deliberately engineering their personalities, sense of gender, even sex. A sinister agenda driven by politically correct and rabid misandry”

 Quote from an article by Dimitry Gonis: They are out to shear away masculinity.

So, we may want to reflect about the above quote and consider, as fathers, (and mothers) what a father can do bring some common sense and enable the young boy in understanding his masculine development. After all, the father is the primary model of the “ideal man” being present every day in the family. The father’s role is to help boys find their way to a purposeful adult life and become a man of character for his own children.

Many of the inherent stereotypical traits that our culture associates with masculinity like achievement, competition, adventure and risk taking are not inherently bad nor harmful cultural constructs that should be engineered out. They are innate characteristics that must be shaped, moulded and channelled into virtues. It is here that the father has an outside strong influence on his children. research shows that without the father at home, boys are at risk of not attending college or university studies.

As a father, ask yourself this question: What can I do to show my son the path of life? The way to adulthood? One key learning that a father must explore first is the spiritual context of fatherhood. I call it Soul Craft.

To enable fathers and men in general to reflect on the spiritual work they can embark on and deepen their purpose in this area, I offer here my own essay about my exploration on this topic. Your comments and your stories are most welcome.

FATHERHOOD AS A SPIRITUAL PATH – the way to a man’s soul.

Yaro Starak, Gestalt Therapist

I will start by telling you briefly, my story. I was born a month after the Nazi started the WWII with the invasion of Poland. Soon after, Ukraine was invaded by both enemies: the Nazis and the Communists. The land where I was born became the start of a struggle between two forces convinced that one of them is right. Eventually both contributed to a major destruction of most of Europe. My father, who was a photographer, was arrested by the Communists and deported to Siberia and after then he was never seen again.

Having lost my father at a very early age, I relied on my mother during my growing years to adulthood as a guide and support. Fortunately, I had two uncles (my mother’s brothers) who were very present as my male figures and roles models during those formative years. They enabled me to learn about the male role in a mainly female household.

It is evident that a child does not have to have a biological father and even some children who have a biological father have had sadly negative experiences when growing up. However, research indicates that when a father or male carer, is present as a positive support, that presence may reduce psychological problems and behavioural issues. An increased amount of real time involvement of the adult male may help increase the child’s social, educational and relational ability that will ensure the potential to have a solid and positive life as an adult man.

A brief history of Fatherhood

The link between sexual acts and procreation can be empirically identified, but it is by no means of immediate evidence. The conception of life cannot be observed, whereas its birth is obviously visible. The extended time lag between the former and the latter certainly does not help to identify their link, but on the contrary it makes even more difficult to assume any kind of relationship between these two events. Some may even go as far to argue that human beings have occasionally ignored that males impregnate females. During this early human evolution period procreation was sometimes even considered to be an autonomous 'ability' of women. Men were essential to ensure the survival and defence of the social group, but only women could enhance and guarantee the human survival through their ability to create new individuals. This gave women a role of primary and indisputable importance within their social groups.

This situation probably persisted during the whole Palaeolithic age. Some scholars believe the well-known Venus figurines of that age to be clear witnesses of it. During the transition to the Neolithic age, agriculture and cattle breeding became the core activities of a growing number of human communities. Breeding in particular is likely to have led women – who used to spend more time than men taking care of the cattle – to observations and considerations which gradually allowed them to discover the procreative effect of the sexual act between a male and a female.

Ancient Rome

Roman law and tradition (mos maiorum) established the power of the Pater familias (Father of the clan) within the community of his own extended familia. He held legal privilege over the property of the familia, and varying levels of authority over his dependents: these included his wife and children, certain other relatives through blood or adoption, clients, freedmen and slaves. The same maiorum mos moderated his authority and determined his responsibilities to his own familia and to the broader community. He had a duty to ‘father’ and raise healthy children as future citizens of Rome, to maintain the moral propriety and well-being of his household, to honour his clan and ancestral gods and to dutifully participate—and if possible, serve—in Rome's political, religious and social life. In effect, the pater familias was expected to be a good citizen. In theory at least, he held powers of life and death over every member of his extended familia through ancient right but in practice, the extreme form of this right was seldom exercised. It was eventually limited by law. Therefore we know that traditionally, fathers continue to act in a protective, supportive and responsible way towards their children.

Even though the father was considered as the provider, the mother, on the other hand, is still viewed as the predominant carer of children due to her capacity to give birth. Feminists  have challenged this  premise of ‘gender arrangements’  of work and care and the male ‘breadwinner role’ and therefore we have seen more policies targeting men as fathers and demanding a more sharing relationships in the modern family.

The Father challenge

Sam Keen(1) and  other writers have observed fatherhood and made similar statements as Sam Keen in his book FIRE IN THE BELLY. Sam Keen stated: “We men tend to view ourselves as independent actors. As warriors, controllers, providers, protectors, and occasionally as lovers. We peg our self-worth on our tax brackets or how much we've published or how many women we've been with. We constantly look to the outside world for our valuation. Within the "men's movement" there is a tendency to talk about how I was treated by my father, about the lacks I had in my life, about my own confusion and pain and grief, about initiation (without any idea of what we want to initiate our children into). These are legitimate experiences that afflict our lives, but there comes a time when we men have to look beyond our own suffering and recognize that we are also causing suffering”. He states further that:

 "There is no way for men...to recover wholeheartedness, to become passionate and truly free, without rediscovering the central importance of the family." To rediscover the family, we, as men, must rediscover ourselves as fathers and parents, and place this role of the many roles we play at the centre of our lives. It is within the context of the family that we live our lives, and it is here that we receive our deepest wounds and most profound joys”. (Fire in the Belly)

For many years I have given away the responsibility to raise my son to his mother. I was raised by my mother, so I believed that mother can do a better job. However, having travelled, worked as an academic and a Gestalt therapist, I discovered that my son was longing for my contact and so we made sure we played sports and games for many years. Yet, I did not feel a real involvement with him. This changed a lot after the birth of my younger son.

As fathers, we give our children many gifts along with many wounds. Paradoxically, the wounds and the gifts are two sides of the same coin. When we give time and attention, we heal the wound of abandonment. When we acknowledge a child's accomplishments, we give the gift of confidence. When we support the free expression of feelings, we give the gift of self-esteem. In essence, if we show with our dedication and time, our love, attention, nurturing, it will demonstrate that we truly value our children and then they will come to value themselves and us.

We have to be willing to be available to our children as often as we can, and to be with them as often as practicable. There is no substitute for time with children. They know it and so do we. As fathers, we can no longer afford to use such excuses as "college expenses," "personal growth," "bigger houses," " more cars, gadgets, or other toys" to justify our abandonment of our children. For at a deep and profound level all men are the fathers of all children whether they are biological or not. We have to go beyond the personal to the communal, and work to heal all of the damage our forefathers still perpetrate through us. Such damage is evident in the many violent acts that men perpetrate even today.

When I conducted many men workshops, over the past ten years, I discovered that I am not really teaching about how to be a man, but learning how to be a man! When men asked me “what to do to become a better father to my children”, I had only one answer: “become aware that YOU need to change”. Change must come from within and not from the cultural, religious and social introjects. One important option to develop yourself as a father, that has been largely overlooked for centuries, is the importance of fatherhood as a spiritual practice.

My two sons

Fathering as a spiritual practice.

It is my conviction that fathering, for men, is clearly a spiritual path. For many men, their first step into their hearts, entering the heart of love, is through their love of a woman. Men take solace from women. Because of the deep seated nature of the competitive male spirit, many men don't trust one another. But they often trust and can let go of their protective shells in the presence of women. This is also possible with one's child. Some men turn their backs on their children. Some let the women in their lives be the ones that become enthralled with their children. We can raise our kids by default, or consciously. There will never be more pain, more transformative pain than with your child or children, nor more opportunities to grow big in heart and spirit. By rising our children, we (parents) revisit childhood again, the magic, the pain, the joy.  We are gifted with the opportunity to experience one of the most powerful of the ancient healing processes. Hanging out with his kids, an involved father will hear, not Ommmm, but the sound of his own silly laugh, a close reminder of the giggles of his own childhood.

 Having had the wonderful and magic opportunity to be a full time father to my second son, I was able to actually experience the great spirituality that he offered me from the moment of his birth. Through being a full time dad, I was re-parenting myself! I experienced a love process. Wherever my son goes, he goes in his world, whatever he does (when we're together), I am there. I might take him there. But he takes me in. We go to places-physical places, emotional places that I never accessed with my absent dad. I protect him. I play with him. I guide him. And in return, he inspires and challenges me. Together we learn, play and grow our love. Swimming, rock climbing, bicycling, watching movies, reading books and comics, rough-playing , making the bed and learning our limits. Through his experience of wonder I get to feel that soul wonder all over again. Through providing healthy limits for him and calling him when he breaks those limits, I get to rediscover those boundaries for myself. Through teaching him the importance of honesty, integrity, patience and perseverance, I get to model and am reminded, at a fundamental level, of the strength I have to live those qualities daily.

Over many years, I have had the good fortune to learn and travel the world. I spent time at alternative and spiritual communities around the world. Attended meetings at Ashrams and read some of the important books on meditation and joined seminars about soul work. I also trained in gestalt therapy and became a founder of two institutes in Australia.  I've cleaned out my closet of negativity and am continuing to clean up my act. I've healed a lot of wounds with my father and made peace with my mother. My heart has been split open and then healed by love and crushed by grief. I've danced and loved my way into countless forms of bliss. I've experienced the wisdom of the breath, been moved by deep silence, witnessed the inherent beauty of simplicity, and I have been moved by honest and kind words.

All great teachers remind us that Love is the answer. Love is the answer for me too. The question it answers: "What is truly important?" and the answer is: our children as our wise guides. I have gained this insight by spending my time with my son. Focusing my time and energy into raising my son is now my spiritual path. This is not only a rediscovery but a revolution of who I am.

Many people think that their next great spiritual lesson is going to come from a new teacher or "spiritual pursuit." They travel to India to find the guide. However, if you are a parent who is paying attention and prioritizing your children over other self realizing, self-fulfilling pursuits , then you probably are experiencing many awe-filled, quiet and simple moments of pleasure. The gift of parenting is often in those rare moments in-between all the busy stuff. If you are a father spending your time on your child, giving your full presence, whether you're interested at that moment or not, whether you have that time or not, you are a revolutionary!

 

What is the path for men?

We know that most men were not trained to prioritize their active involvement in their family. How could they? In school, life skills’ training for boys is dismal where it involves caring for themselves or others. Boys are trained in the don'ts: "Don't be a cry-baby", "Don't let others know you're hurt," "Don't let others see that you are weak," "Don't be a wimp," "Don't be effeminate," "Don't be sensitive to other's pain." Boy's training means: minds overrule hearts. Productivity is more important than sensitivity. Boys are rewarded for paying attention to facts and numbers, not themselves, not others. For men to unlearn and retrain themselves, going against what they've been taught about who men are and what men do, is not easy. What men often need is the equivalent of sensitivity training in gestalt groups. Many men need to revisit what they were told is unimportant and learn to trust their intuition. Many men need to become aware that when they were told men were not supposed to feel, need to practice feeling. Those men would then be good to themselves and those they love by learning about gentleness, kindness and being real. Those men would do well extending compassion and gentleness towards themselves and others. But it is hard to combat this training at a cellular level. In reclaiming the essence of our nature, the nature that is in men as well as women, boys as well as girls, we learn the necessity of caring for one's self and others. This is not as simple as it seems. If a man was not taught to honour these qualities, he will need patience and incredible commitment to learn these lessons. Once we take the time and make the effort to connect with the heart's sense of love, creating and prioritizing family over almost anything else makes perfect sense.  Men, who are waking up to this, doing the work and making this commitment, are lavishing a gift onto themselves, their partners, but most importantly their children and the community.

Conclusion

Living and breathing and thinking about our children are what many of us must do as our spiritual work. This is the first order of love.  Though men have been trained to respond differently, many fathers, like me, are heeding the wisdom of their heart. Then love is present not only in us but our children and in their child or children.

Fathering is a loving spiritual practice!

“All suffering gives rise to a great compassion

A great compassion creates a generous heart

From a generous heart is born an honourable person

An honourable person builds a united family

A united family generates a gentle community

A gentle community creates a peaceful nation

A peaceful nation makes a happy world

In which we all live in solidarity, peace and happiness”

BUDDHA

  

1.        Sam Keen FIRE IN THE BELLY 1992

BLOG POST JULY 2019

PATERNITY VS PATRIARCHY – The myth of male power in the 21^st century.

  a family gathering

PATERNITY VS PATRIARCHY – The myth of male power in the 21^st century.

Question: why do so many people (mostly women) hate Jordan Paterson, the Canadian psychology professor?

Answer: He is the modern warrior that is challenging the “neo-liberal and politically correct” minions.

He states:

“You know you can say, ‘Well isn’t it unfortunate that chaos is represented by the feminine’ — well, it might be unfortunate, but it doesn’t matter because that is how it’s represented. It’s been represented like that forever. And there are reasons for it. You can’t change it. It’s not possible. This is underneath everything. If you change those basic categories, people wouldn’t be human anymore. They’d be something else. They’d be transhuman or something. We wouldn’t be able to talk to these new creatures.”

That is a provoking statement that sure is firing the energy of most PC devotees. However, they do not reflect on the fact that his book:  12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (2018) it sold over a million copies so far. Regarding academia he states:

“Peterson considers that the universities should be held as among the most responsible for the wave of political correctness which appeared in North America and Europe.According to Peterson, he watched the rise of political correctness on campuses since the early 1990's, and considers that the humanities have become corrupt, less reliant on science, and instead of "intelligent conversation, we are having an ideological conversation". From his own experience as a university professor, he states that the students who are coming to his classes are uneducated and unaware about the mass exterminations and crimes by Stalinism and Maoism, which were not given the same attention as fascism and Nazism. He also says that "instead of being ennobled or inculcated into the proper culture, the last vestiges of structure are stripped from [the students] by post-modernism and neo-Marxism, which defines everything in terms of relativism and power" (Interview)

Examining the vast literature on sexuality, gender and feminism, we can encounter a jungle of issues & theories that not only try to explain gender differences but also give some ideas about the origins of today’s so called ‘political correct’ debates and accusations of men as the source of much suffering. This persecution of male roles is developing and empty field in understanding masculinity that more and more young men and boys are experiencing a loss of self and the meaning of who I am.

Recently a publication indicates that testosterone counts are dropping. It argues that recent sociocultural transformations are probably making men less virile. And that is not all. Jordan’s exposed something that’s been festering for a long time,” says Justin Trottier, 35, the co-founder of the men’s rights organizations Canadian Association for Equality and Canadian Centre for Men and Families. “Jordan’s forced people to pay attention.”

Attention is needed from all who want to develop a clear understanding about gender equality. The new technology and social networks can convince anybody. No time is left for face to face discussion and only the “post truth” prevails today. Napoleonic premise to win a war was “divide and conquer”.

Thus, reflection is the tool of thinking. I am proposing a reflection about the origins of paternity and patriarchy:

A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. An adoptive father is a male who has become the child's parent through the legal process of adoption. A biological father is the male genetic contributor to the creation of the infant, through sexual intercourse or sperm donation. A biological father may have legal obligations to a child not raised by him, such as an obligation of monetary support. A putative father is a man whose biological relationship to a child is alleged but has not been established. A stepfather is a male who is the husband of a child's mother and they may form a family unit, but who generally does not have the legal rights and responsibilities of a parent in relation to the child.

The adjective "paternal" refers to a father and comparatively to "maternal" for a mother. The verb "to father" means to procreate or to sire a child from which also derives the noun "fathering". Biological fathers determine the sex of their child through a sperm cell which either contains an X chromosome (female), or Y chromosome (male). Related terms of endearment are dad (dada, daddy), papa, pappa, papasita, (pa, pap) and pop. A male role model that children can look up to is sometimes referred to as a father-figure. (Definition in Wikipedia)

Importance of father or father-figure

Involved fathers offer developmentally specific provisions to their children and are impacted themselves by doing so. Active father figures may play a role in reducing behaviour and psychological problems in young adults. An increased amount of father–child involvement may help increase a child's social stability, educational achievement, and their potential to have a solid marriage as an adult. Their children may also be more curious about the world around them and develop greater problem-solving skills. Children who were raised with fathers perceive themselves to be more cognitively and physically competent than their peers without a father. Mothers raising children together with a father reported less severe disputes with their child.

The father-figure is not always a child's biological father and some children will have a biological father as well as a step- or nurturing father. When a child is conceived through sperm donation, the donor will be the "biological father" of the child.

Fatherhood as legitimate identity can be dependent on domestic factors and behaviours. For example, a study of the relationship between fathers, their sons, and home computers found that the construction of fatherhood and masculinity required that fathers display computer expertise.

PATRIARCHY

Patriarchy is a social system in which men hold primary power and predominate in roles of political leadership, moral authority, social privilege and control of property. Some patriarchal societies are also patrilineal, meaning that property and title are inherited by the male lineage.

Patriarchy is associated with a set of ideas, a patriarchal ideology that acts to explain and justify this dominance and attributes it to inherent natural differences between men and women. Sociologists tend to see patriarchy as a social product and not as an outcome of innate differences between the sexes and they focus attention on the way that gender roles in a society affect power differentials between men and women.

Historically, patriarchy has manifested itself in the social, legal, political, religious, and economic organization of a range of different cultures. Even if not explicitly defined to be by their own constitutions and laws, most contemporary societies are, in practice, patriarchal.

Anthropological, archaeological and evolutionary psychological evidence suggests that most prehistoric societies were relatively egalitarian, and that patriarchal social structures did not develop until many years after the end of the Pleistocene era, following social and technological developments such as agriculture and domestication. According to Robert M. Strozier, historical research has not yet found a specific "initiating event". Gerda Lerner asserts that there was no single event, and documents that patriarchy as a social system arose in different parts of the world at different times. Some scholars point to about six thousand years ago (4000 BCE), when the concept of fatherhood took root, as the beginning of the spread of patriarchy. (Wikipedia)

Domination by men of women is found in the Ancient Near East as far back as 3100 BCE, as are restrictions on a woman's reproductive capacity and exclusion from "the process of representing or the construction of history". According to some researchers, with the appearance of the Hebrews, there is also "the exclusion of woman from the God-humanity covenant".

The archaeologist Marija Gimbutas argues that waves of kurgan-building invaders from the Ukrainian steppes into the early agricultural cultures of Old Europe in the Aegean, the Balkans and southern Italy instituted male hierarchies that led to the rise of patriarchy in Western society. Steven Taylor argues that the rise of patriarchal domination was associated with the appearance of socially stratified hierarchical polities, institutionalised violence and the separated individuated ego associated with a period of climatic stress.

In China's Qing dynasty, laws governing morality, sexuality, and gender-relations continued to be based on Confucian teachings. Men and women were both subject to strict laws regarding sexual behaviour, however men were punished infrequently in comparison to women. Additionally, women's punishment often carried strong social stigma, "rendering [women] unmarriageable", a stigma which did not follow men.  Similarly, in the People's Republic of China, laws governing morality which were written as egalitarian were selectively enforced favouring men, permissively allowing female infanticide, while infanticide of any form was, by the letter of the law, prohibited. It is still so in India.

An early theory in evolutionary psychology offered an explanation for the origin of patriarchy which starts with the view that females almost always invest more energy into producing offspring than males, and therefore in most species females are a limiting factor over which males will compete. This is sometimes referred to as Bateman's principle. It suggests females place the most important preference on males who control more resources that can help her and her offspring, which in turn causes an evolutionary pressure on males to be competitive with each other in order to gain resources and power.

In the modern era, the concept of Patriarchy is asserted to manifest itself in institutionalized control, rather than simply being about an individual's sexism.

PATER FAMILIAS

Another interesting reflection is the origin of the word: “Father”

The pater familias, also written as paterfamilias  was the head of a Roman family. The pater familias was the oldest living male in a household, and exercised autocratic authority over his extended family. The term is Latin for "father of the family" or the "owner of the family estate". The form is archaic in Latin, preserving the old genitive ending in -ās (see Latin declension), whereas in classical Latin the normal genitive ending was -ae. The pater familias always had to be a Roman citizen.(Wikipedia).

THE MYTH OF MALE POWER

In 1993, Warren Farrell wrote The Myth of Male Power, in which he argued that the widespread perception of men having inordinate social and economic power is false, and that men are systematically disadvantaged in many ways.

The Myth of Male Power was ardently challenged by some academic feminists, whose critique is that men earn more money, and that money is power. Farrell concurs that men earn more money, and that money is one form of power. However, Farrell also adds that "men often feel obligated to earn money someone else spends while they die sooner—and feeling obligated is not power.” This perspective was to be more fully developed in Farrell's Why Men Earn More.

In the men's rights movement, The Myth of Male Power is sometimes referred to as "The Bible" and the "red pill", but critics of the book accused it of promoting misogyny.

 In Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap—and What Women Can Do About It, he documents 25 differences in men and women's work-life choices which, he argues, account for most or all of the pay gap more accurately than did claims of widespread discrimination against women. Common to each of men's choices was earning more money, while each of women's choices prioritized having a more-balanced life. These 25 differences allowed Farrell to offer women 25 ways to higher pay—and accompany each with their possible trade-offs.  The trade-offs include working more hours and for more years; taking technical or more hazardous jobs; relocating overseas or traveling overnight. This led to considerable praise for Why Men Earn More as a career book for women.

CONCLUSION

Well, this is not all that is debated today, but reflection on this blog post invites you to deliberate on your own and decide what is reality. Please make comments as you wish.

References and reading

·         Bly, Robert (1990). Iron John: A Book About Men. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. ISBN 978-0-201-51720-0.

·         Clatterbaugh, Kenneth C. (1997). Contemporary perspectives on masculinity: men, women, and politics in modern society (2nd ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. ISBN 978-0-8133-2701-3.

·         Connell, R.W., (1995), Masculinities, Cornwall; Allen & Unwin.

·         Kimmel, Michael (2012). Manhood in America: A Cultural History (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-978155-3.

·         Hooks, Bell., (2005), The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity and Love, New York; Washington Square Press.

·         Messner, Michael (1997). Politics of Masculinities: Men in Movements. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-8039-5576-9.

·         Schwalbe, Michael (1996). Unlocking the iron cage: the men's movement, gender politics, and American culture. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-509229-5.

NOTE: Bateman's principle, in evolutionary biology, is that in most species, variability in reproductive success (or reproductive variance) is greater in males than in females. It was first proposed by Angus John Bateman (1919–1996), an English geneticist. Bateman suggested that, since males can produce millions of sperm cells with little effort, while females invest much higher levels of energy in order to nurture a relatively small number of eggs, the female plays a significantly larger role in their offspring's reproductive success. Bateman’s paradigm thus views females as the limiting factor of parental investment, over which males will compete in order to copulate successfully.

Although Bateman's principle served as a cornerstone for the study of sexual selection for many decades, it has recently been subject to criticism. Attempts to reproduce Bateman's experiments in 2012 and 2013 were unable to support his conclusions. Some scientists have criticized Bateman's experimental and statistical methods, or pointed out conflicting evidence, while others have defended the veracity of the principle and cited evidence in support of it.

CHECK IN WHILE THERE IS STILL TIME - BOG JUNE, 2019

JUNE 2019 REFLECTIONS 

“The material reality that surrounds you is beginning to crack apart, and with it all your illusions. The global capitalist system that is currently devouring your planetary resources will soon self-destruct, leaving many bereft”.

Daniel Pinchbeck

CHECK IN WHILE THERE IS STILL TIME

In many esoteric philosophies and also in Gestalt therapy, we are focused on the teaching and practice of what is generally called THE HERE AND NOW.

Science is also ‘catching up’ with this concept. Science has confirmed the old wisdom that TIME is always here and now, always present so we can live it in process or actuality. So, while there is still this reality called TIME, we need to focus on how to “check in” into this crucial ingredient for the human survival to be able to develop a new structure for living on his earth.

While we are avidly searching inspiration in art, music, travel and so on, there is a will to be present but not HOW to be this way.  Therefore, we can no longer aspire to a future from the dualistic point of view. Most, if not all our human development, stems from the notion of “divide and conquer” and this pattern continues today.

By developing our strong SOUL SENSE, we become more embedded in a fuller, grander and more profound understanding that time and being is the way because it is always here and present . It is like air; we need it to live with clean air yet we are not aware how much time we use in wasting our source of survival.

No one can ‘waste time’ if he or she is AWARE. Here we go beyond optimism or pessimism, good or bad. All those dualities are dead concepts, based on outmoded and old ways of thinking. Through the SOUL CRAFT we are able to contemplate and reflect on the nature of duality through a intuitive lens that makes time count so we can still BE- HERE AND NOW.

Use your life time, while still here, to redirect your concept of duality and join a small group of practitioners like my old mentor Dr. Arnold Mindell. He is the developer of PROCESS PSYCHOLOGY, later re-named as PROCESS WORK to give us a very clear concept and practice method to become aware of our dual thinking and brought together psychology with soul work (my definition). I am therefore including here Dr. Mindell’s explanation of DEEP DEMOCRACY, a structure and process to develop a different consciousness for the survival of humanity and the Earth.

DEEP DEMOCRACY EXPLAINED

Deep Democracy is the philosophical basis of the Worldwork Paradigm, a psycho-social-political theory and methodology. The term Deep Democracy was developed by Arny Mindell in 1988 and first appeared in Leader as Martial Artist (Mindell, 1992). Mindell, a physicist and Jungian Analyst, has researched and written extensively about how awareness interlinks with reality and how we perceive it on different levels, creating different frameworks of reality. An example for this is how we perceive time: the measurable reality of the seconds ticking in a clock, the dreamlike "subjective" perception of time as it passes during an encounter with a lover - or during a conflict with an opponent - and the sentient essence of timelessness at the moment of sunrise that transcends "known" time (if only for a moment) and replaces it with the concept of a hopeful future. Mindell calls his paradigm Process work. He formulates these principles and demonstrates how they can be used to facilitate individual, relationship, and group transformation.

 Mindell started to formulate these principles as a philosophical construct that he called Deep Democracy. Unlike "classical" democracy, which focuses on majority rule, Deep Democracy suggests that all voices, states of awareness, and frameworks of reality are important. Deep Democracy also suggests that the information carried within these voices and frameworks are all needed to understand the complete process of the system with awareness.

This type of awareness can be focused on groups, organizations, one's own inner experiences, people in conflict, etc. Allowing oneself to take seriously seemingly unimportant events and feelings can often bring unexpected solutions to both group and inner conflicts.

Although the term and the concepts of Deep Democracy are now being used by various groups in different ways, Mindell formulates their common denominator: Deep Democracy is the experience of a process of flow in which all actors on the stage are needed to create the play that is being watched.

Deep Democracy is a natural process that occurs in all community building processes, but often goes unnoticed or un-used. Just as conventional democracy strives to include all individuals involved in the political process, Deep Democracy goes a step further in the effort towards fostering a deeper level of dialogue and inclusivity that makes space for all people (with the individual right to vote) as well as all various and competing views, tensions, feelings, and styles of communication - in a way that supports awareness of relative rank, power, and privilege, and the potential of these forces to marginalize other views, individuals, and groups.

Deep Democracy is our sense that the world is here to help us to become our entire selves, and that we are here to help the world to become whole (Mindell, 1992).

Evolution of Deep Democracy

The most fundamental forum is your own heart. Both as a facilitator and as a human being, you must learn to hear yourself there. (I would name this SOUL CRAFT).

Deep democracy has many aspects, many of which relate to philosophical concepts derived from quantum physics. Deep Democracy at its deepest manifestation refers to an openness towards the views of other people and groups. It also embraces emotions and personal experiences that are most often excluded from conflict and rational public discourse (Mindell, 1992). As R. Buckminster Fuller said: we need to support the intuitive wisdom and comprehensive informed-ness of every individual to ensure our continued fitness for survival as a species.

One of the primary concerns of Deep Democracy is the use, maintenance, and awareness of metaskills. The concept of openness to diversity and dialogue between various views doesn’t mean that the facilitator goes along with what the group wants—that is only one metaskill (although it often reflects a lack of awareness). Facilitators must also practice, embody, and express other metaskills such as toughness, anger, intractability, love, detachment, concern for the wellbeing of  others, and a genuine desire to achieve consensus. Some of the metaskills in the above-mentioned list are organic responses. However, when a facilitator uses her internal organic (intuitive) responses to better inform her intervention, she is using a metaskill. Therefore, the human development (the internal psychological and spiritual growth) of the facilitator is so important. 

Deep Democracy involves not only openness to other individuals, groups, and diverse views, but also an openness to experiences including feelings, dreams, body symptoms, altered states of consciousness, and synchronicities as well as an awareness of signals, roles, and the structural dynamics of the interactions between parties involved. I call this process SOUL CRAFT.

For more information:

http://www.aamindell.net/process-work