Unbecoming Men
A Men's Consciousness-Raising Group Writes on Oppression and Themselves

Publisher:  Times Change Press, New York, USA
Year Published:  1971
Pages:  63pp   Resource Type:  Book
Cx Number:  CX7699

Members of a men's group attempt to trace their experiences back to their roots, discovering how they learned to be male and sexist.

Abstract: 
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Table of Contents

Women Together and Me Alone
Judy Gets Engaged
Learning My Sex Roles
Being a "Father"
Personal Politics
My Parents
Out in Right Field
Growing Up Popular
Masturbating
Being Me and Being Them
Letter to Frank
Unbecoming Men


Excerpts:

During the year before we started living together I battled Anne constantly - she wanted responsiveness, commitment and love while I wanted to keep my precious (and promiscuous) independence. I wasn't about to "tie myself down," to commit myself to her - monogamous relationships were "bourgeois" and "counter-revolutionary."

I've also, recurringly and particularly of late, grown complacent. I guess I expect the feelings to sort of just come to me, instead of expecting myself to actively struggle to get there. I haven't been pushing myself to show my anger or unhappiness or say what I feel in front of other people. (Men must remain cool. It's easier and safer to rap about ideas than show feelings.)

Christ, was I scared of what she wanted: a relationship! I knew that's what she wanted, not just sex. My fear of sex was my excuse for running away, and I knew it. She was really a pretty nice person; what she really wanted was for us to be together and talk, and get to know each other....

Feelings were never good to me; all my memories of them are unhappy.... If I hadn't been controlled by feelings, I'd have done what I always wanted to do, what I feared doing. I could have been me!

Throughout my life I've explored other people, to see if they had the same secret inside them and to see how they'd treat the secret part of me. Some few saw that secret, special part of me and treated it gently, and I like them for being so good. They have a secret part, too; and when we're alone together and enjoying each other, it's because our secret parts are being touched and handled carefully. Loving is like this, and being unmale.

When Ollie or Celia spill something (again!) I cringe and get rigid and up-tight. I hate them, the dumb, clumsy kids. And all these very heavy, disapproval vibes radiate out from me. As a step in the right direction, I've learned not to say anything hostile or come out with a condemning moralism. But I still stew, silently, and the kids feel it. I'm just like my father and all the other old, rigid, authoritarian bastards that fucked me up.

Most men have yet to come to what I call Personal Politics. Personal Politics, as I define it, consists of understanding and dealing with oppression on a personal level. Not only how society is oppressed, but how I am oppressed. Not only how society oppresses people, but how I oppress people. Not only how society oppresses itself, but how I oppress myself. This calls for stepping down from abstract levels of thought to the actualities of our everyday lives.

That's the mother I really knew - sweet and loving ... but not much else. Ironically, Father, who played a large role in crippling her in this way, also then came to lose respect for her and had contempt for her uselessness and pettyness.

When I was just playing around with the neighbourhood kids, things were good. I felt good. No self-consciousness; just being involved and having fun. But let adults enter the scene, or put me into a group of kids I wasn't so familiar with, then my confidence would melt, and self-conscious shyness or obnoxiousness would take over.

Now I can see that Anne wasn't attacking me. She was attacking the wall - the rigid, cold, impenetrable protection that I had put up around me. She was trying to tear that wall down.

A couple of us had been in groups which had been formed to show how progressive we were, or because we were brow-beaten by feminists, or to assuage our male guilt. These groups didn't hold together long or contribute much to our growth.

Setting up unrealistic goals and dropping out when they aren't me is characteristic of Movement groups.

Subject Headings

• Male/Female Relationships
• Men