New Men's Anthology Due Out in November

Feminism is a dirty word. It conjures images of whiny, bitchy women with sanctimonious complaints about men. And the men who call themselves "feminist"? If they aren't simply whipped, then it’s a cheap ploy at getting laid. Or so the story goes.

But that's an old version of the story. Fortunately, it looks like we're in the midst of change.

Recently, I was teaching in the women's studies program at a small, East Coast liberal arts college outside of Baltimore. At first there were only one or two young men among the women enrolled in my classes. Soon there were more. They trickled in from the soccer team, the basketball team, the swim team, and the arts. They majored in physics, political science, mathematics, and dance. Who were these guys, I wondered. And how could I find more of them?

Some answers came from conversations that I had with these same young men after class, sitting on the campus lawn. They wanted to know if there were other guys out there who were also trying to make sense of their experiences in today's culture, finding some past assumptions about both men and women no longer serve them. They wanted to know that they weren't alone in rethinking gender, and that it was possible to make a change. They wanted to know that they--and these other men--weren’t wimps.

My response was to compile an anthology of essays by men who are speaking out about feminist issues. The result is Men Speak Out, a fresh look at gender, sex, and power--and feminism—-a collection of essays about men making their way in a world that is struggling to rethink manhood and masculinity. This is a collection about men--written by men--who are willing to stare down these issues head on. Their voices are contemporary and vital.

When I set out to collect a series of essays that are direct and expressive in their interrogation of masculinity and power, I posted my request to a number of relevant websites and listservs. I wanted to compile as diverse a selection as possible. Queries came from activist men, university men, men who used to be women, men from the South, men from the North, and men from places in between. I heard from queer men, straight men, and bi men; from young men, older men, Black, Latino, Jewish, and white men. E-mails of interest and support poured in from New Zealand, South Africa, England, Australia, Poland, Uruguay, Vietnam, Lapland--you get the picture. Many sent notes just to say thanks in advance for a book they've been waiting for. This response--awesome and humbling--was good news. There are many good men out there actively working to end male pattern domination and the abuse and misuse of power over others. There are so many creating new answers to old problems.

Encouraged by the response, I hatched a plan while preparing for a cross-country move back to California. Armed with over 2,000 photocopied announcements explaining the book and inviting men to send in their written thoughts, I planned to leave fliers behind at every college town and coffee house, truck stop and Bob Evans restaurant, coast to coast. This ambitious idea petered out somewhere around Indiana, where the road ahead looked longer and longer and the days and nights joined together as I drove with my family across the country. I did get the chance, though, to leave fliers at many places: at a corner bar in Athens, Ohio; a Starbucks in Cleveland; the Presbyterian Manor Senior Retirement Home in Salina, Kansas; at a down-on-its-luck casino outside of Reno, Nevada. I papered the National Women's Studies Association Conference in Oakland before heading south to Los Angeles, and stuck my head into the kitchen at a Mexican restaurant along the way to share some fliers. To my utter surprise and delight, the cook there said he’d already seen the call for submissions online. The word was out and the response was tremendous.

Some men in this book recount their personal challenges with living up to the demands of "traditional" masculinity. Others are quintessential guys' guys who love sports and beer. But one thing brings these men together on these pages if not in their day-to-day lives: Each of them struggles, in his own ways, with the personal and political limits that conventional masculinity imposes. Their unflinchingly honest prose tackles the politics of domination and strategies for change. They deal not only with the difficulties of being a man, but also with the challenges of being a man who is grappling with sexism.

What becomes immediately clear is an encouraging theme: that we have tremendous potential for personal and political change. Hank Shaw, a writer from Rochester, New York, a self-described "guy off the street who bangs out words for a living," got his feet on the street when he took action against two local pornographers whose willingness to denigrate women seemingly knew no bounds. Tal Peretz, a recent college graduate from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, describes the radical transformation of his friend Cliff from racist skinhead to feminist ally. For other men, complacency was never an option. Chong-suk Han calls out the gay community for its racism and white privilege while simultaneously attempting to stake a claim as oppressed sexual minorities. Nathan Einschlag takes on his college coach and basketball team for their upside-down expectations that place hooking up above personal ethics. Greg Bortnichak wonders out loud how he can remain true to his nonsexist ideals without falling into the trap of paternalistic protection when a much older man wants to hit on his girlfriend. Jacob Anderson-Minshall questions the expectations of straight men who assume he's one of them, and lesbian women who assume he's not. For all these men, asking soul-searching questions is a moral imperative, even if doing so leads to danger, rage, distress, or initial alienation from their peers.

We learn from Tomek Kitlinski and Pawel Leszkowicz that being out and gay in Poland is a risk far greater than we in the United States might imagine, with members of the far-right youth militia hurling stones and threatening their lives. Essays by Byron Hurt, Haji Shearer, Ewuare Osayande, and Amit Taneja teach us that there are multiple ways of understanding the intersections of race, nation, identity, and change. On fatherhood, we begin to imagine a world in which men are actively engaged parents, and to consider why some versions of fathers' rights groups do not work in the best interest of women, children, or men. Michael Kimmel and Voice Male editor Rob Okun remind us where we came from so we can better see where we’re going.

These essays, and the others in this collection, bring personal insight and critical awareness to our ideas about masculinity and feminism. Each is written through the unique lens of individual experience. There may be points of discomfort, and there are certainly questions raised but left unanswered, or only partially answered. There will be women who distrust men writing about feminism, and doubtless there will be men who are suspicious about a woman editing the voices of men. But as I see it, this discomfort can be productive. It is part of a process of discovering the personal and political meanings of progressive manhood and feminist men. This process of discovery is certainly not a destination but it is a solid beginning.

Shira Tarrant, Ph.D. is a political scientist who teaches in the Women's Studies Department at California State University, Long Beach. Her first book, When Sex Became Gender, was published by Routledge in 2006. The essay above is excerpted from her forthcoming anthology Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex and Power (Routledge, November 2007).