The Shriver Report – Masculinity
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Men We Love: Retired UFC fighter Kenny Florian
I’ve been a fan of Kenny Florian since January 2006. He was on Season 1 of The Ultimate Fighter reality show – a show that continues to this day and is widely considered the way that the sport of mixed martial arts truly emerged into the public sphere. Kenny’s normalcy is what struck me the most. Among all the “characters” of the show, Kenny appeared like a regular guy. He wasn’t a “fighter” as much as he was a martial artist. It was clear that his words and general demeanor were shaped not only by the lessons learned through physical training, but of deep thought and meditation. This was all speculation, of course.  → Read More
Men We Love
Men We Love: Ned Breslin of Water for People
Ned Breslin joined the team at Water For People in 2006 after working on water and sanitation issues for 16 years in Africa. In 2011, thanks to his taking the lead on making innovative initiatives both scalable and sustainable, he was awarded the 2011 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. Ned’s insights and experiences have been fundamentally enriched in partnership with his wife Lindsey, whose dedication to HIV/Aids, and women and children in difficult situations, has inspired him for over 2 decades. Ned is the proud father of two girls who were both born and raised in Africa and who, he told me, continue to guide him at least as much as he guides them. Ned took time out of his busy schedule to answer some questions for us here at The Good Men Project. Here goes:  → Read More
Men We Love
Men We Love: “Reasons My Kid is Crying” Author Greg Pembroke Talks Parenting, Humor and Masculinity
In 2013, Greg Pembroke’s “Reason’s My Son is Crying” Tumblr blog went viral, capturing “all the many many completely illogical reasons that children cry.  → Read More
Men We Love
Men We Love: Cultural Thinker and Authority on Empathy, Roman Krznaric
Roman Krznaric is the author of The Wonderbox: Curious Histories of How to Live, The First Beautiful Game: Stories of Obsession in Real Tennis and his recently-released How to Find Fulfilling Work (see my review here). He’s a founding faculty member of The School of Life in London and his life’s mission right now is to build the world’s first empathy museum. To the interview:  → Read More
A Woman's Nation Pushes Back from the Brink
Want to Help Women? Help Men.
In her thoughtful op-ed in the New York Times, family historian Stephanie Coontz answered the question ”How Can we Help Men?” with a ringing endorsement of gender equality: “By Helping Women,” she answered. I’d like to suggest the converse is equally true. How Can We Help Women? By Helping Men.  → Read More
How Ignoring the Man Code Improved One Man’s Life
Not only does traditional masculinity oppress women but it also severely restricts the agency of men (a topic, I’ve written about in the past in the context of straight man love and hip-hop), often in simple, taken-for-granted ways. Straight men go to extreme lengths to perform masculinity. They avoid a wide variety of activities that they arbitrarily deem feminine or “gay” without analyzing the detrimental effects of this type of gender policing. Often mundane, seemingly inconsequential activities are heavily policed, inhibiting men’s ability to live freely day-to-day. While it’s also important to show men the macro level benefits of feminism and disavowing traditional masculinity, I thought it would be fun to reveal the little ways that my life changed when I stopped trying to perform traditional, patriarchal masculinity. So here it is: the 5 MOST Mundane Ways Disavowing Masculinity Changed My Life.  → Read More
Where Do Men Learn to be Good Men in the Absence of Male Role Models?
In the last few decades there has been a great emergence of female leaders. From Oprah, to Ellen, to Marissa Mayer, to Mother Theresa and Gloria Steinem, there are a number of notable names to which we turn for feminine inspiration. Courageous women have risen to notoriety but where are their male counterparts?  → Read More
Men Are Changing: Let’s Understand Why
Cultures change over time, and so do the expectations and the behavior of the people in those cultures. Approximately 100 years ago, most American men worked for themselves or in small businesses, more people lived in rural areas than urban areas (and there were no suburbs), the median age of first marriage for men was 25, and mandatory public education through grade 6 was new. That was controversial; many people asked what would happen when boys spent their days sitting still in a setting dominated by female teachers instead of doing physical work in the company of men (sound familiar?).  → Read More
We Are What Feminists Look Like
For us being a man means, and has meant for a very long time, treating everyone with respect, being unafraid to show our love and appreciation of our family and friends, and never abusing the privilege that society affords us. So many men are afraid to hug each other. They are afraid to tell each other that they love them, even in the brotherly sense.  → Read More
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