From the video starting at 41:05:
We’re all clear on the problem.
What’s the solution?
Rory got a quote for us that we’re gonna use. This is a book called The Will To Change by bell hooks. She’s one of the leading feminists. That—it writes about patriarchy. And this is a quote right here by her. It says:
By learning the arts of compartmentalization, dissimulation, and disassociation, men are able to see themselves as acting with integrity in cases where they are not. Their learned state of psychological denial is severe…Since most men have been socialized to believe that compartmentalization is a positive practice, it feels right, it feels comfortable. To practice integrity, then, is difficult; it hurts. Peck makes the crucial point: “Integrity is painful. But without it there can be no wholeness.” To be whole men must practice integrity.
One thing I think missing from this instance is a discussion about solutions to toxic masculinity and how incredibly difficult it can be to live them. It’s easy to say men need to be more emotionally available, less violent, value themselves for who they are rather than what they do and how they perform. And while this video doesn’t really demonstrate men doing that, they discuss their lived experiences and explore that difficulty. One of the guys towards the end even asks, “I hear what you’re saying. But, when I go home, how do you honestly expect me to teach this to my young son?”…or something to that effect.
I thought the documentary was interesting for really emphasizing that being a better man isn’t easy and that it may be even harder to sustain it.
Being a better person was hard when I sucked as a person. Once you work on yourself enough to be a “good” person, being better each day becomes a natural pursuit (if you want it).
I think the real challenge is wanting to be a better person enough to really pursue it. I didn’t watch the vid, so no idea how relevant my rant might be. I don’t have time for videos. Give me text. /End rant.
I feel this.
That was one of my criticisms of the video: these men lived up to patriarchal masculine standards and were punished for it. Being in prison can make it really easy to see that an alternative is not only wanted, but desperately needed. It seems only natural to me that there’s a space in prison for discourse like this. I wonder if feminism would’ve have had the same force if it had been offered to these men when they were receiving more rewards from patriarchy, before it’d taken so much from them.