Love notes sent across the great divide between the sexes makes me think of paper airplanes sent out with curiosity and a light hand. Often they zoom quickly off course come drifting down - but soon to fly again.
On to today’s “Love Note” excursion, a perspective on men and our common future.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
Some think that it's misogynist to suggest that men need to stand with the men but it's grounding for them to do so. Men recognize they’re like the other men. When we stand together we’re in a lighter, stronger, more loving and clear place to support each other and to love the women.
Young men are confused if they don't know they can stand with the men and that it’s good for them to do so. OLD men too. We’re allowed to be with other men as men. We have permission. The underlying assumption in the air might be that standing with the men means standing against women. It ain’t true.
No, rather it means that the complementarity and love between the sexes can show up more clearly when men stand together. Men’s appreciation for the women drifts about the group like a friendly ambience, like good cooking which it is. Also present are men’s interest in looking under car hoods, talking about fish, or sports. All the stereotypes have a grain of truth. They’re not bad.
But there’s more, much more.
A few weeks ago I couldn’t sleep and jumped out of bed an hour after laying down with what seemed like a stunning realization. Men have nothing in common to fight for! (I didn’t myself.) Men love a cause. Give a troop of men a crazy-impossible task to do and they’ll do it and they’ll love doing it. They’ll come out pumped, loving each other, richer, better dads - better able to make their partners happy just by being themselves.
Look at these guys below!
Take away men being together and they become dispirited, lacklustre. They think they need therapy. I humbly submit that men being together with an honorable cause IS therapy. I’m talking in stereotypes here to make points but imagine the Marlboro Man in a boutique therapy room with a box of tissues and a sincere therapist asking him how he’s feeling. He’s likely to feel like a kangaroo in an igloo, out of place.
Men, as a sex, do very well with something to fight for with other men. And here’s my real point though it took a while to get here: The most urgent and healthy-beautiful thing to fight for is their good place in the field with women. To fight for equality together with women. This will require truth-telling, respect and safety but I think it’s a fight we need.
I truly believe that in the face of terrific challenges before us all we need the full energies of the masculine and the feminine to address them together. With all praise to the many couples who’ve navigated the minefield and found their way, I thnk it’s true that at present the masculine and feminine arechtypally are not together. An undercurrent of resentment, guilt and more keep the necessary trust and respect, the all-in work for the future away. Even the way the issues between men and women are framed typically have a good guy and a bad.
The conflict between men and women is representative of the great divides in our world: right-left, Ukraine-Russia, my race-your race, north-south, rich-poor. The strength of the polarity is a defining characteristic of our time. The conflict between men and women underlies them all. It’s the conflict we all share, the one we’re born into and witness in the crib and before.
I want to be part of defining how we can move toward a healthy connection with each other. I’m hosting a group for men “standing together” on Wednesday the 21st and we’ll have others. (This one is about how men help each other with setting healthy boundaries in intimate partnerships.) I hope we can meet the women too in time in a safe and respectful, even sacred way.
I say sacred because the complementary unity of women and men is of divine origin and remains so, a matter of love really, even if we’ve forgotten.
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Men can sign up for a Standing With the Men event here. We’ll go with whoever’s there.
I’ll be back with another Love Note within the week. It’s not just about men but women too. I’m trying to catch the pulse here so your comments help a lot. Public comments tell signal to others they’re part of an interested community.
And the path to navigating life continues to unfold...
Well said Andrew! This work you’re doing excites me!