The #MeToo movement has prompted countless gatherings of women. What about men? On a recent brisk morning, Fatherly, a Web site for dads, convened twenty-eight academics and professionals at a Tribeca café to discuss how to raise boys to be better men and how existent men might conduct themselves better. They made sure to invite some women.
“People sometimes confuse us with a men’s-rights organization,” Andrew Burmon, Fatherly’s editor-in-chief, said, sipping coffee. He had a thick beard and was wearing a blazer. “We say, ‘We’re having a breakfast to talk about men,’ and they’re, like, ‘Oh, you must hate women.’ We’re, like, ‘No, no, no!’ ”
At nine o’clock, the group took seats at long tables set with mismatched china. Michael Rothman, Fatherly’s chief executive officer, kicked things off: “Looking at the news today, there’s this kind of through line that men are in trouble.”
Paul Donahue, a clinical psychologist, jumped in. “Many fathers emphasize competition and achievement with their boys,” he said. “How much emphasis is put on compassion?”
“One thing we still manufacture in the United States is media,” Susan McPherson, a communications consultant, said. “Can we show men in a more compassionate way?
“ ‘PAW Patrol’ doesn’t really explore emotional development,” Simon Isaacs, Fatherly’s chief content officer, said.
Esther Perel, a Belgian couples counsellor and TED Talks star, saw a bigger problem: “the fragility of male identity.” She said, “When we make a girl play with a truck, we don’t think it’s going to make her less of a girl. But, when we think of a boy playing with a doll, we think it’s going to weaken his essence as a man.” The room murmured in agreement.
“There’s this photo book for girls, ‘Strong Is the New Pretty,’ but there’s no ‘Soft Is the New Handsome,’ ” Isaacs mused.
Rothman nodded toward Andy Katz-Mayfield, a founder of Harry’s, an online purveyor of shaving products. “Harry’s is trying,” he said, referring to an ad that the company ran listing masculine tropes (“grow a pair,” “man up”) with red lines through them.
“It got picked up by Infowars, and the backlash we got . . .” Katz-Mayfield said.
As platters of avocado toast were passed, there was talk of the need for more friendships between boys and girls, and the rigidity of American gender norms. Michael Skolnik, a founder of the Soze Agency, a content studio that’s also a worker-owned coöperative, said, “I don’t want to talk about the issue as if this is 2016. Because something has changed. For the first time in American history, whatever political side you lean on, you will not let your child watch a speech by the President.” He went on, “When we think about raising our boys, we have to look at: what messages are they being sent from our leadership?”
Andrea Bastiani Archibald, a developmental psychologist and an executive with the Girl Scouts, said, “I encourage my sons to watch the President, because that is how you rise up and get angry.” When the “Access Hollywood” tape came out, she said, her teen-age son told her, “I don’t know what locker rooms he’s hanging out in, Mom, but this is gross.”
This provoked a defense of toxic masculinity. Zach Iscol, a founder of the military-news Web site Task & Purpose, said, “When you’re kicking down a door to shoot somebody in the face, and that’s your job, toxic masculinity plays a role.”
Brian Heilman, from Promundo, a nonprofit that studies gender dynamics, offered some research data. “We have to grapple with the fact that men who hold most firmly to rigid ideas—that a man should do this and a woman should do that—those guys, in some of our data sets, have greater life satisfaction.” Heads around the room nodded morosely. Heilman added, “But we also see that those men are more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, and are more likely to be involved in traffic accidents.”
As waiters cleared, Skolnik suggested turning the harassment discussion inside out. “The courageous conversation that us men have to have is: who among us?” Some men shifted in their seats. “Instead of looking at how many victims there are on the women’s side, how many perpetrators on the men’s side do we know in our lives, in our homes, with our friendships, in our office spaces?”
Perel called out, “And what do we do once we know?”
Skolnik laughed and shook his head. “I’m going to call you and you’re going to tell me, because you’re an expert.” ♦