Road map to mindful masculinity useful

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/10/2019 (2187 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The time is overripe for a book about mindful masculinity, a less-known antonym of the more prevalent toxic type.

Quebec-born, New York-based cultural maven Liz Plank frames her fascinating new book on not just men, but also women and trans and non-binary folk: in short, everyone negatively affected by a style of male supremacy that has held sway since, well, forever.

The title says it all. Plank’s data-rich but conversational survey is a valentine to the potential of men and boys to mature and outgrow long-entrenched “masculine” patterns that are so demonstrably dangerous. At this point — through conflict, drought and climate catastrophe — the danger may literally be existential.

Among the most useful data are Plank’s occasional dips into biology and science. Feminism has long had a protean relationship with the power of nature on our wills, but Plank makes a compelling case for no one being able to cite testosterone or of men thinking with their “nether regions” as excuses for historically bad male behaviour.

Plank also upends many “common sense” ideas on dominance and hierarchy being fixed. Given such, it is no shock she is not a fan of Canadian academic muckraker Jordan Peterson, whose petulance over pronouns Plank compares to the attitude of her young niece when she’s not allowed to dip her hotdog in orange juice.

Most pressingly, Plank addresses the current violent uptick in “involuntary celibate” (incel) men and other misogynist behaviours leading to mass-shooting events. The main predictors for these behaviours revolve around high ideals, but also issues of entitlement and resentment. Domestic violence is also found in the background of many of this growing tribe of mostly white, mostly young males.

But there is hope. The book is judiciously divided not just along gender lines, but between problems and smart solutions, as well. And while the book is written for a North American audience, it contains a world. Red-flag cultures such as Russia are held up alongside the great work being done in Africa and elsewhere. Personal testimonies preface each chapter; the result is a compressive and useful handbook, an exit strategy to escape the byzantine maze of patriarchal roadblocks and landmines.

Lara Rae is an instructor in the women and gender studies department at the University of Winnipeg.