What brings all of us to the areas of men and masculinities
is varied to be sure, but a common desire to support the positive development
of men’s emotional, social, and general well-being seems to be a unifying
concern most of us bring to the table. Having said that, I would like to take
this opportunity to express what brought me to this area of study and work,
both within and outside of student affairs. I hope this offers the chance for
others to recognize similarities or differences, but mostly to share some
thoughts on my experiences in an effort to further define what brings us all
here together as a community.
Identifying as a white male with plenty of privilege to
boot, I came into college with very little understanding of how the privilege I
had would impact those around me - or that I even had it. While I would
eventually shed the most of the privileges associated with being straight and
from a religion based in Christianity following my coming out experience in
college (actually while I was a Resident Advisor and one of the many reasons I
am in this field today), I still had a while to go before I learned that
understanding my identities and how they interacted with the world around me
would be a lifelong learning process.
I walked into grad school solidly in Cass’ (1979) “pride”
stage - very excited about being a gay man and taking ownership - highlights
and all - of my newly embraced identity (I should note the irony that this
stage is largely based on white males and it is another example of privilege
since I can so closely identify with such a model). However, that would all
come to screeching halt and somewhat immediate transition into a mix of the
acceptance and synthesis stages as I started hanging out with some of the new
folks I had met in my new hometown. Specifically, I was talking to some other
white, gay males who made racist and elitist comments that shocked me. My
pride-stage-rose-colored glasses, or naïveté, could not accommodate for gay
people who were capable of being oppressive or so callously ignorant. Weren’t
we all on the same team? Hadn’t I been told ‘this isn’t the oppression
Olympics’ and that we (all oppressed peoples based on race, religion, gender,
etc.) were working to end ignorance and oppression?
Obviously, while we would ideally be working toward the same
goal with the same level of concern, this is not the case. I was learning that
prejudice exists within all of us and that we are all at different levels of
awareness and owning our biases. I tried to challenge these individuals that
had made the racist and elitist comments about their assumptions and offered my
own process of understanding the privilege I had been given in this world by
being white, male, identifying as straight (at one time), middle-class,
Christian/Catholic, from a college-educated family, and so on. This seemed not
to make a difference to them, and I was frustrated.
I was fortunate to process this frustration with some great
mentors who pointed helped me to turn my frustration into the desire to do something
more with my fellow white, gay males. Additionally, I began to notice just how
much the white, male privilege had followed into LGBT culture. Just looking at
"Will & Grace" on television, they were white, affluent, college educated,
and held any other number of privileged identities. This was also true of what
had been a big part of my coming out experience, watching "Queer As Folk" (the US
version.) Beyond media, leaders of the large LGBT organizations throughout the
country were also often white men (such as the Human Rights Campaign). Now, I
should be clear that I do not believe that white, gay men were incapable of
leading an organization or appearing on television and being inclusive, but I
was alarmed at how little representation there was for people of color and
women in these areas. Indeed, I work towards being a white, gay man who is
inclusive in every respect of my life and believe that is a process.
Another turning point for me was coming across Bell Hooks’
book "The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity,
and Love." She opened my eyes to the ways in which all genders are
negatively impacted by the limitations involved with male privilege. I could
see this in my male students who seemed so preoccupied with the approval of
other males for their behavior, and I could identify the ways in which I was
limited in living my own life because of this approval process. After reading
and realizing so much about the challenges and opportunities of male privilege,
I was overwhelmed. This brings me back to the understanding that working on
this topic is a process, a process where all of our contributions of time and
thought will make a difference.
Ultimately, what I am referring to is my desire to better
understand my fellow white, gay men and our relationship to privilege and
oppression. A desire that is as strong as ever in the work I have done since
graduate school and intend to continue doing (perhaps in a doctoral program at
some point). This comes from a frustration with the status quo of simply
accepting that males are generally privileged beings - “boys will be boys” -
rather than working towards a recognition of inequalities and taking steps to
facilitate greater appreciation of everyone’s impact on the world around them.
Meeting with some fabulous folks like our National Chair,
Osvaldo Del Valle, at a conference in Rhode Island a year ago helped me to
realize that there is interest in not only better understanding the phenomena
that lead to the social construction of masculinity and its relationship to power
and oppression, but to inform better practices to encourage the
inclusively-minded development of men. This work currently exists in pockets
and with targeted populations, but the work has started which is encouraging!
Given the power and privilege that men have in our society, I am so excited for
the energy that seems to surround these discussions. Thank you for taking the
time to visit our blog and I would like to extend an invitation for you to
share with myself why you are involved, whether by commenting on this post or
sending me a note.
As noted before, I know there are many reasons that you may
be interested in reading about our work in the MMKC, and I hope that my own
experience of how I came to be involved in understanding the field of men and masculinities
will perhaps illustrate (as do the various topics represented in this blog) the
far-reaching impacts these topics have on our society - and the need to
increase the awareness of understanding men as gendered beings will be towards
a society with greater inclusivity.
Anthony Keen is a Residence Hall Coordinator at San Diego State University. He
also serves as the Region VI Representative for the Men & Masculinities
Knowledge Community. He can be reached at akeen@mail.sdsu.edu
