White Male Feminism
The difficult truth about the patriarchy
As we fiercely work to protect the rights of vulnerable and marginalized communities, it feels hard to imagine what’s on the other side. While we desperately and urgently fight for freedom and democracy, I’ve noticed that we aren't talking about white men.
If white men successfully keep us struggling for safety they will never have to confront the pain that lies under the rage and violence they are displacing onto everyone else. To find our way out of the darkness, it is essential that we name the unnamed. The key to breaking the historical cycles of dictatorship and partial liberation is going to require healing white men.
We have elected into power a fragile man. This moment is collectively pointing us towards the places we need to heal the most as a global community. Part of me resents having to acknowledge that white men need more of our attention, energy and support, but the truth is that men have never been fully integrated into the feminist movement. Men have been left to swim around in the toxic patriarchal swamp.
bell hooks reminds us that,
The first act of violence that the patriarchy demands of males is the act of psychic self mutilation of the emotional parts of themselves.1
The requirement that men severe themselves emotionally, only to express anger and rage, leaves men highly fractured. This internal splitting results in men feeling unworthy and highly sensitive to criticism. The patriarchy has told men that their value is based on performance, status and material wealth so they pursue pride, success and power to protect themselves from deep shame.
According to Terrence Real, patriarchal masculinity rests on two pillars: the rejection of vulnerability and the delusion of dominance2 resulting in an inability to express empathy and experience love. Without access to their desires, men become isolated and alienated.3
Eventually they discover the false promises of the patriarchy are not easily fulfilled and even if they’re able to climb to the top of the patriarchal hierarchy, it doesn’t resolve the emptiness they feel inside. With their emotional and authentic selves exiled, men remain trapped in a shame/pride cycle of protection—an endless vortex of trauma.
Enacting the weapons of the patriarchy, primarily violence and dominance, they attempt to move out of shame and back into a position of power and pride. Men lash out—in the ways we have deemed acceptable—with rage and destruction.
bell hooks writes,
Unable to speak about their own suffering, men aren't left with many options, they put into action what they are able to put into words. As their pain intensifies so does their need to do violence, to coercively dominate and abuse others.4
The progress we have made towards greater equality for women, people of color, immigrants and queer folks, has increasingly threatened men’s fragile privilege as they discover that their power hasn’t been earned through hard work alone. From that wounded place men are showing us, through their actions, how much pain they are carrying.
In my work as a therapist for the past decade, I’ve learned that in their hearts, men hold the question: Am I enough?
When I speak with the white men in my life who have enacted psychic self mutilation in the name of patriarchal masculinity, I can trace the fault lines of their fractured beliefs. The internal breaks where empathy and vulnerability have been traded for dominance and power, reinforced by American exceptionalism.
The old ways and norms are gone. We are witnessing the deep pain of white men (and white women) being acted out in the most catastrophic ways. The only path forward is through the darkness towards something more beautiful and more inclusive. We must heal our stories about men and boys. We must help them integrate the exiled parts of themselves so they can find empathy and compassion, so they can express love, humanity and vulnerability.
Without this deep healing, we will continue to replay the historical cycles of violence and partial liberation, as men act out the question in their hearts, Am I enough? and women, immigrants, queer folks, and people of color, in their hearts, fight for the answer to the question, Do I matter?
Interesting things:
Everything written by bell hooks
Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise by Arlie Russell Hochschild
This clip by Terrance Real on the patriarchal masculine and feminine
Terrance Real on The Crisis of Masculinity: Why Men Struggle To Show Emotion
Holly Whitaker’s post on The books I wish men read
hooks, bell. (2004). The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Atria Books. p.66
Real, T. (2023, March 15). Working with Difficult Men: Where’s the Leverage for Change? Terry Real Homepage. https://terryreal.com/articles/working-with-difficult-men/
hooks, bell. (2004). The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Atria Books
hooks, bell. (2004). The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Atria Books. p.139