Recently, Responsible Men became an Awareness-Raising Partner with the Pixel Project. I highly encourage you to take a look around their website and support them in any way you can. One way Responsible Men is supporting the Pixel Project is by sharing information. So, have a look at the information below:
The Pixel Project, a global Web 2.0-driven awareness and fund raising campaign working to end Violence Against Women (VAW), is proud to launch The Pixel Project Wall of Support on 8 March 2010 in honour of International Women’s Day.
The Wall of Support is a gallery of video endorsements from people worldwide who support The Pixel Project’s mission to get men and women to work together to end VAW. Endorsements are uploaded to YouTube and displayed on the Wall of Support galleries in the Community Buzz section of The Pixel Project’s website.
By showing a human face and voice with every endorsement, The Pixel Project hopes that this global chorus of voices against VAW will ignite conversation and focus public attention on the urgency of ending gender-based violence afflicting one in three women worldwide.
Each endorsement will be counted as an “action” towards UNIFEM’s “Say NO – UNiTE” campaign’s bid to raise 1 million grassroots actions against VAW by November 2010.
I will be submitting a video soon and I strongly encourage you to do the same. This would be easy to ignore, but preventing violence against women is too important. Please take a moment to show your support. The Pixel Project has provided very clear instructions and even some assistance in writing the script. All you have to do is record and post to YouTube.
Today is International Women’s Day and I can’t think of a better way for everyone, especially men, to show our love and support for the women in our lives. Let your voice be heard and speak out against violence against women!
As I have stated many times before, I am a huge football fan. College or Pro – it doesn’t matter. I am a fan and have been for as long as I can remember. As a small child I recall begging my mom and dad to buy me a pair of Dallas Cowboys shoes out of the Sears and Roebuck catalog circa 1978. I lugged my school books around Pulaski Elementary in a Cowboys book bag that was bigger than I was. Football is something I have never grown out of and likely never will.
Sadly there is a lot about college and professional football I don’t like. You may have read some of my previous posts about that. It seems we can barely go a month without reading another headline about some player being arrested for beating his girlfriend or for raping a stripper. Stories of homophobia, violence, drugs, and murder at the hands of current and former players seem to be rolling on a continuous loop. They have become the dominant narrative for football and sports in general.
Yet from time to time a story emerges from the abyss that blind sides us like Demarcus Ware coming unblocked on a jailbreak blitz. They are stories that are shocking, not because they are horrific or disturbing, but because they go against everything we’ve been taught to believe about football players. During the week of the 2010 Superbowl, two of those stories managed to find the light of day.
The first was in the days prior to the game. I read an article at Jezebel.com about New Orleans Saints linebacker Scott Fujita. In the article I learned that Fujita had recently given an interview with the New York Times where he “diplomatically but firmly” opposed the Tim Tebow ad that eventually aired during the Superbowl. While I thought it strange that a football player would publicly state his stance on such a hot button issue, I didn’t think too much else about it. However, from that same article in Jezebel, I learned that Fujita also lent his name to the 2009 National Equality March and has been quite outspoken on many gay rights issues. Now that got my attention! Why was this story not dominating sports headlines in October of 2009? Fujita’s surprises don’t stop there. Check out the entire Jezebel article here.
The second story came moments after the Superbowl ended. Amidst the boom mic jungle and the on-field mass hysteria, television cameras caught something extremely rare and beautiful. Take a look… [watch it a second time with the sound muted ;-)]
With the world intently watching their every move, it was as if Brees and his son were the only two people in the stadium. During the most watched event in television history we witnessed an NFL champion football player turn into a world class dad. Brees could have just as easily handed his son off to his wife or a nanny and celebrated with his teammates. It would have been fine for is son to be in the stands or at home getting a wave or a wink from the Superbowl MVP. Nobody would have even questioned it. Instead, on the biggest of stages, we saw a caring father telling his son that he loves him. We saw a father holding, hugging, and kissing his son in exactly the ways we, as men and as fathers, have been socialized to not do because it isn’t considered “manly.” And as if that weren’t enough, we witness the moment where the enormity of it all hit Brees right in the heart. It was the moment he realized that he was sharing this incredible moment with the most special person in the world to him. And then, his brow buckled, his head turned and his eyes filled with tears of joy. That was truly a beautiful moment that I feel fortunate to have seen.
What am I taking away from all of this? Well, I realized that as an armchair media critic I often lose site of the good stuff in the media. It is sometimes a little harder to find, but it is there. I guess in some ways when I blog about the latest Axe Body Spray ad I am also recirculating that ad into the media landscape. I am not sure that is a bad thing, but it is a missed opportunity to recirculate stories like these. So, I am going to take a page out of the Scott Fujita/Drew Brees playbook and, well, throw out the playbook every now and again. I am going to look for media examples that highlight positive masculinity, uplift and empower women and model the world I want to see rather than the one I’ve got. In the meantime, I hope that other men will take some plays from their playbook as well. Or…we could all get together and draw up a few of our own in the dirt.
WOW…seriously??? I mean…seriously??? Dockers, what are you thinking? Take a look at this new ad campaign that Dockers is putting out there and tell me what you think:
So is it that Dockers is of the opinion that their pants will somehow make men more “manly”. I hate that this campaign is calling for a return to the days when a woman’s place was in the home cooking dinner and minding the kids and that men are the ones doing “real work.” And that somehow our world has gone off its tracks and landed in a feminized (and therefore chaotic and broken) world that could be fixed with a healthy dose of testosterone. If only we could go back to a time when men were in charge then the world would be one big Shangri-la (but not in a frilly, fluffy, emotional way – that wouldn’t be manly). I get that the ad is trying to be funny. However, funny sexism is still sexism. It is just more palatable and easier to dismiss as harmless.
I happen to have a different opinion of what is wrong with the world today. Try this on for size. I feel that society has lost its way, at least in part, not because of feminization but because far too many men can’t (or won’t) let go of the past. Far too many men have remained in a state of suspended animation – frozen in that mindset that men work so they don’t have to have a hand in child rearing and house cleaning. Well fellas, women work too (they always did – we just didn’t call it that). In most families today both parents have full time jobs outside the home. Gone are the days of the bread winner and care taker roles. Nowadays, both parents need to share the responsibility of raising the children and maintaining the house. Unfortunately, many men have been reluctant to engage and the results have been catastrophic. We know that something has to change, but many men are afraid of that change. We have a fear of the unknown. Unfortunately while we are “sitting idly by” cities do crumble and children do misbehave. In my opinion, you can add to that list that family relationships crumble. Children are forced to raise themselves (or let their television or X-Box do it). Divorce rates skyrocket and children’s grades plummet. How about things like childhood obesity? Dating violence? Self mutilation? Is it possible that they are also symptoms of this larger problem? I think so.
Please don’t mistake this for male bashing or that I am blaming all men for the world’s problems. I certainly am not. After all, I am a man and I know plenty of other men that are wonderful partners and fathers. I also know a large number of men that aren’t meeting their potential as partners and fathers because they feel like they cannot be masculine and be a loving and engaged partner and father at the same time. I can certainly understand that. The messages men receive from all around us is that men are supposed to be anything but engaged and loving. Most men, I feel, are at a crossroads. We feel like it isn’t safe to be authentic, yet we can see that problems in our families, in our schools and in our communities has reached critical mass.
It is time for men to engage, in meaningful ways, in our families and in our communities. It is not enough to bring home a paycheck and make sure the yard looks nice. Those things are important, but they will not ensure that the world our children and grandchildren will live in will be a place of equal opportunity for everyone where people’s differences are celebrated rather than shunned. I truly believe that the majority of men in this world want to be really great guys (and often are). What I think we need is a way to bring these men together so that we can meet one another (either in person or online) and see that we are not alone and that we can be considered masculine by our peers. That would be the permission we need to be more visible as engaged partners and fathers. That is why I started Responsible Men in the first place. Now all I need is guys who are willing to take that small step forward to say “I am one of the Responsible Men.” Are you willing to be that guy?
If the world were set up so that men could feel safe about being authentic I imagine it would be a very different place. I imagine in that world the advertisements might look something like this:
Maybe a good place to start is to recognize that regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation, religion or any other ways we classify people, we all put our pants on one leg at a time.
As a father myself, I appreciate a day that acknowledges me and and my role as a male parent. It is very nice to be appreciated. However, I believe there is more to Father’s Day than funny cards, neck ties, argyle socks and a round of golf. Those things are great, but there is something more important that is usually overlooked. Father’s Day should be a time where all men do a little soul searching about what it means to be a father. We should be asking ourselves what influence do we have on our children – particularly our sons. What impact do we make in our families and in our communities?
I say “all men” should do this because these days, the role of the traditional father isn’t what it used to be. So often children are being raised in homes where the “father” isn’t engaged, involved, or sometimes even present. Therefore, the role of the “father” gets passed on to any male role model willing to take it on. We must recognize that all men have a part in raising the children in their lives. Every interaction we have with a child is an opportunity to pass on a version of masculinity that is thoughtful, kind, generous, caring, loving and most importantly involved. It is also an opportunity to dispel the myth that men have to always be tough, strong, rugged, silent and uninvolved. If we do not do this, then traits such as compassion and empathy will continue to be thought of as feminine traits. This is damaging to men and boys because we all feel things like compassion but are forced to hide it out of fear. We are afraid that we will lose our social standing in the male community for expressing traits and qualities that have long been considered unmanly. We must recognize that these traits are not male or female, but human traits that all humans experience.
So my Father’s Day gift to all men is permission. I give you permission to be your authentic selves. I give you permission to explore your role as a father and to be all of the things you were meant to be to your child and to the other children in your life. I give you permission to reflect on what being a “father” is really all about and to change the things about yourself that need changing. Lastly, I give you permission to support other men in their efforts to be better male role models and to create gender equality.
Responsible Men 