Men's Issues

“If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.”

                                                                                                                                                   --Mohandas Gandhi

Being a man in today's world brings with it challenges that require each man to define for himself what it means to be a man and how to live out this way of being that remains true to who he feels himself to be at the very heart of his being. The challenge often comes down to defining for oneself what it feels like for each man to be a man on the inside as opposed to the dictates society may impinge upon each man of what the cultural norm requires in terms of passing the test of manhood. The litmus test for one's manhood, therefore, needs to be an internal frame of reference sourced in each individual man and not some abstract external socio-cultural frame of reference. In this way, masculinity can be mediated by the particular man in question, whether this man be heterosexual, homosexual, transgender, or some other category of the individual's own making. But since gender is such an organizing principle for each of us (in addition to class and race), and the socio-cultural implications are part of the very air we breathe, each person who identifies as a man will have to come to terms for himself how to live out his own particular version of masculinity in the world. While on some level this may seem self-evident, this also has profound implications for expressing one's particular masculinity in terms of aggression, tenderness, nurturance, as well as all the various ways in which any man expresses himself.

What is also required in our contemporary experience of being a man, is the freedom for enough flexibility in our definitions to encompass the different meanings of what it means to be a man we each may inhabit at different times and in different places and spaces. These meanings may vary depending upon one's race, ethnicity, class, age, sexuality, what region of the country he was born as well as what region he currently lives and has lived over the course of time. As Michael Kimmel notes in his book, Manhood in America, it would be more appropriate for us to speak of masculinities in plural form rather than singular as what defines masculinity for each of us is as unique as our characters and personalities. Kimmel also acknowledges, however, that there is nonetheless a singular masculinity that is held out as a standard, however abstract and unattainable, that is a culturally implicated norm with which each man must contend. There may often be a certain stigma for each man who fails to live up to a seemingly cultural norm affirmed by whiteness, athleticism, Protestant identification, vigor, higher socio-economic class, etc. Failure to have been born into one of the aforementioned categories, can make a man so fated feel as if he is somehow less than a man. The adverse consequences this cultural norm has for working class men, gay men, transgender men, men of color, immigrant men, and any man who fails to pass the implicit cultural test of manhood defined by upper-class, Protestant, white heterosexual males, has dire consequences for all men, for women and children, as well as, paradoxically, for upper-class, Protestant, white heterosexual males.

Having a sensitivity to the societal pressures each man faces serves as the backdrop to any given man's presentation in the consultation room. While my work entertains this environmental surround and may be important in developing an empathic connection, the focus of the work is centered on addressing the particular set of issues each man brings with him into therapy.