Are you a Girlie Man?

[Paul Samuel Harris]

Dear One and All,

In recent discussion with Sugar & Spice re: V-Day London 2009, may we propose that all emergent and prospective Girlie Men meet to discuss our individual and collective identities.

We propose a forum discussion group here in the first instance which I am willing to moderate and which might well incorporate a gathering of resources in order to deepen our enquiry, including articles, images, etc.

Hopefully this in turn might generate enough interest and enthusiasm that we then gather to workshop our ideas and conjure up a manifestation of Girlie Men during the week of V-Day performances in February 2009, (anything is possible!)

Please find below a copy of Eve Ensler's article, "Bring on the Girlie Men."

'Bring On the Girlie Men'

In the last four years we have witnessed a climate of escalating and distorted masculinity and machismo. A climate that has gotten so bad an elected official publicly accused another elected official of being a Girlie Man. The implication is that the man is bad because he is like a girl. This implies of course that girls are bad, weak, not to be trusted. But maybe it's the exact opposite. Maybe if we all had as much feminine inside us as masculine (not necessarily a gendered thing-I know many macho women for example) the world might be more balanced.

Since I like to reclaim words, I'd like to do the same for Girlie Man.. So I am going to propose that we all take it upon ourselves to strive to be Girlie Men. Here's what he/she might look like:

A Girlie Man has the capacity to know what someone else is feeling and works to develop this capacity, otherwise know as compassion. A Girlie Man knows that to be able to have ones feelings and know ones feelings is not the obstacle to power but the source of it. They are willing to ask questions-to not know everything. Rather than seeking revenge they seek solutions. They take time, not control. They come to know people rather than destroy them. They see themselves in everyone and everyone in them. They don't think sensitive is a dirty word. They know that intimacy is far more terrifying than violence. They know that crying isn't weakness. It's a relief and it can transform despair and humiliation and rage. They don't apologize for not wanting to fight or kill or bomb. They build community, consider the future, love to dance, like clothes, crave ice cream, like to be hugged, kissed. Bring on the Girlie Men. Elect a Girlie Man. Become a Girlie Man.

Eve Ensler

The first question(s) for the forum to get us started in wholesome and heated debate are the following:

To what extent does Eve Ensler's definition of Girlie Man reflect your own self-image/concept? How does this definition help or hinder you in your evolutionary process? What are our aspirations as 'men' in terms of both sexuality and gender and the roles we play? Where do we go from here? How do we do this? What do we need?

To free this up a little you might respond with an image, poem, essay, diatribe, song, photograph, rant, web-based link/ reference,thesis, sculpture, whatEVER!

Post your response and pass it on to friends and fellows.

Sincerely,

Paul H.

[Simon Harrison]

Yes! I am a girlie man...what a relief to come out and say it, and yet the shame still lingers. As a boy with gentle features and long hair, I was often mistaken for a girl...to confuse things I had a rather weak and ineffectual father and my lack of traditional "masculine" qualities was an uncomfortable link to my castrated dad.
I think it was my three years with a girlie (straight male) jungian analyst that helped to reconcile me to my girlie nature and with that I have also tapped into a reservoir of strength and esteem. I interestingly want to make more connections with other men...start a girlie man football team, explore what we have in common apart from cocks and balls. I have a psychotherapist friend (Angie Fee) doing her PhD on "intersex" - those born with indeterminate gender - and what they might have to tell us about this restrictive binary way we have of conceptualising gender. She published an article in Therapy Today February 2006 vol 17 No 1 called transgendered identities...very juicy reading.
Lets Play!
Sincerely
Simon Harrison

[Jeremy Donovan]

How marvellous this is. I am a Girlie-Man and VERY proud to be so. I've long been sickened by 'traditonal roles' myself. I mean, if you're male and you WANT to fell trees and if you're female and WANT to raise a family at home then good for you, but please don't criticise me if i do what i WANT to do and that puts me outside the 'norm'. I'm not hurting anyone. I'm a strident feminist also and have always believed in 'Equallism', that is 'Feminism' but without the take-over bid.

Many men and women are marvellous, and i tend to find in my experience that the most effective human beings are the ones that look at gender roles and adapt them to themselves, a marvellous idea in my opinion. I have always felt that misogyny has come from fear (no shit, Sherlock) and the only reason traditional female roles such as child rearing have been degraded was so that the misogynists can keep away from them, as they know only too well that they haven't got the guts, brain, soul or strength to do it themselves. (Without the strength of womanhood...or indeed girlie manhood...there would be no mankind...)

The free thinking girlie men (male and female and variations thereupon) have harnessed their strength and used it to continue the story of humankind, in the face of war and destruction on all sides, and i think this makes us rather fabulous myself.

Not that i'm anti-armed forces mind. I come from a forces family and in all fairness whilst they aren't perfect (but then who the hell is) they are a significantly lesser evil than many others and if the British Armed Forces disappeared tomorrow then we'd bloody well miss them. But defense is a different thing to aggravation is it not? Its a bit of a myth, i think, that if women ruled the world there'd be no war, as theres always someone who'll kick off, and women (and the girlie men for that matter) have always been apt at self protection...so lets look at the idea of protection? Solidarity maybe? Solidarity is SUCH a great gift to humanity in my book and it would be good to utilise it and enjoy it. I'm not saying we all need to like each other...i'm not that naive (but lord knows i have my moments...) but i think it possible and reasonable to create a supportive and intelligent atmosphere in which work can be done together to helps makes things a little more pleasant around us. A 'Wimmins' Institute' for the Girlie Man perhaps...talks on history, culture, exploration, adventure, football and hairstyling tips. What fun we could all have.

I don't look at 'women', i don't look at 'men'...i try to look at the INDIVIDUAL...and is that not the very essence of Girlie-Manhood? I hope all of this has made some sense, i shall probably write more tripe on here in the near future.

Hello all Girlie Men...i'm rooting for you! Hurrah!

[Paul Samuel Harris]

This is a beautiful article that weaves art and science together and has much to offer this debate/ celebration of 'girlie-men'. Permit me to offer you a few snippets from Jaak Panksepp: Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions, Ch.12 225-245: "The Varieties of Love and Lust." Published by Oxford University Press, 1998.

"The primordial plan for both female and male fetuses, in mammals but not in birds, is initially feminine......"

"Contrary to some creation myths, in mammals maleness arises from femaleness, rather than the other way around....the initially feminine brain is masculinized in utero by the timed secretion of testosterone and its conversion to the active organizational hormone, estrogen....the hormones that ultimately trigger the organization of the male brain (testosterone aromatized to estrogen) are distinct from those that trigger the organization of the male body (testosterone converted to dihydrotestosterone). Due to this branching of control factors for brain and body organization, it is quite possible for a male-type body to contain a female-type brain, and for a female-type body to contain a male type brain."

"Animal research has indicated that the male and female poles of brain sexuality reflect extremes of a gradient that allow for many intermediary types. Although male and female sexuality are distinct to a substantial extent, each sex does in fact possess circuits for both forms of behavior, but typically to different degrees. The fact that male and female brains have distinct but related psychosocial proclivities allows sexual urges to become quite complicated in the real world. The possible permutations allow for cross-sexual variants that society is still trying to reconcile with long- standing cultural expectations, which are sometimes based on ignorance and intolerance. This issue was poignantly highlighted when President Clinton attempted to open the doors of the military to homosexuals at the start of his presidency in 1993, but the forces of ignorance and discrimination prevailed."

"How many genders or sexes are there? One could argue that there can be an "infinite number" of permutations along the biochemically determined gradients of brain and body masculinization and feminization...The fact that individuals who look like men on the outside can come to feel like women on the inside, and individuals who look like women on the outside can come to feel like men on the inside, arises from a simple biological fact. The signals that trigger babies' brains and bodies to take the various possible gender and sex paths are separate."

That's all for now. I do hope that the information provided above has been interesting and helpful to this debate?

All ways,

Paul H.

[Cai Tomos]

I am A GIrly- MAN and i like Dancing!

I begun my venture by growing up as girly-boy in North Wales. I also Liked dancing. I joined the( YFA)Young Farmers Club, not that i was linked at all to farming,but i thought it would be a good cover, where i could learn to put aside my Girly-Boy Parts of myself. However I just became Sad. So i decided to Embrace my girly -Boyness and became the first boy to do textilles in my school. I sat behind my sewing machine making a beautifull waistcote with a silver heart on the back as the rest of the boys looked through the window in horror, gripping tightly to their woodwork tools. I stood up tall in my waistcoat and gave a twirl and then a finger in the direction of the window.
I was surrounded by men with Big hands and Muscles, men with loud voices and hair everywhere. So my view of masculinity was a hard one for me to arrive at, today i can hold my balls and scream as loud as the next man in a voice of truth, that i am a girly man, and happy to be.

[Emma Jane]

hey guys - here is a link to V-Men : http://newsite.vday.org/meet-vday/v-men

i just want to posit the question - would you prefer to be V-Men instead of Girlie Men?

i've had a few guys say they'd love to get involved but much as girlie men is a great concept - the name just doesn't sit right with all our interested male activists.

i think we can use the girlie man concept and name within the whole framework of V-Men...

Eve Ensler and VDAY.org is now using V-Men

Mark Matousek is running a special section of the website which is under some serious development, there's going to be much more focus on v-men come 2010 and a whole new V-Men section to the campaigns...

would love to hear your thoughts on this xx ej

[London Profeminist Men's group]

Hi Paul and everyone else reading this!

I thought I'd join just to let you know that we exist really! We don't necessarily consider ourselves to be girly men but do believe passionately in identifying and challenging our own gender stereotyped behaviours and, to varying extents, attempting to live lives that challenge those stereotypes. We have a blog which hasn't been updated for quite a while but check it out at http://londonprofeministmensgroup.blogspot.com/ and you can email us at [e-mail]. We meet every 2 weeks and would love you guys to come along.

There's also a new feminist discussion group open to all genders that's having its third meeting ever on Sunday 16th at 4pm at LARC, 62 Fieldgate street, E1 6LS, and you're also all welcome to come along to that. Get in contact at [e-mail] or just turn up.

It's great to see some other guys who are doing stuff around these issues - fantastic! If you're at the Reclaim the Night rally after the march then come and say hello as we'll have a stall there.

All the best

Jon

[Chris Green]

White Ribbon Campaing UK tries hard to involve men in starting on the way to the huge personal and cultural change that must take place and my experience is that if the V Day group of Men wants to develop a mass campaign then calling the group Girlie Men is going to be an obstacle to achieving this. Up in Hebden Bridge we had a group which developed a show called Cock n Bull stories personal stories of Fatherhood, Sexuality, Growing Up, Sex etc- which had 2 performances a couple of years ago and I absolutely agree that getting Men to talk about this stuff is hugely important as part of the ending the violence process. Would love to be involved if possible, and as a supporter if not (because of geographical constraints)
Emma Jane said:

hey guys - here is a link to V-Men : http://newsite.vday.org/meet-vday/v-men

i just want to posit the question - would you prefer to be V-Men instead of Girlie Men?

i've had a few guys say they'd love to get involved but much as girlie men is a great concept - the name just doesn't sit right with all our interested male activists.

i think we can use the girlie man concept and name within the whole framework of V-Men...

Eve Ensler and VDAY.org is now using V-Men

Mark Matousek is running a special section of the website which is under some serious development, there's going to be much more focus on v-men come 2010 and a whole new V-Men section to the campaigns...

would love to hear your thoughts on this xx ej

[Annie]

Dear all, please join us and comment/share on Facebook,

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=46021408864

Also please join us on the evening of Tuesday 13th Jan. See message below.

Best

Annie

Dear all,

Apologies for the delay in updating you about the shows for V-Day London 2009. We have been faced with some difficult choices as we saw an overwhelming amount of brilliant performers, and although we are still in the casting process, we have now cast all the parts for men that are available in A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer.

We mentioned at the auditions the possibility of an all-male accompanying piece for V-Day, also to be performed at the New Players during the week of 14th - 21st February.

This piece will include work from Derek Dujardin's The Mending Monologues, written in response to The Vagina Monologues, and can also include pieces from A Memory, A Monologue and submissions from http://newsite.vday.org/meet-vday/v-men, which is managed by Mark Matousek, author of 'Rescue,' which some of you read at the auditions.

This is also an opportunity to submit/devise/create original work for the piece, or to include other work which you find appropriate (with author's permission, of course). This could also include submissions of music or dance.

If you're interested in being part of this unique, collaborative and important piece, please let me know your availability on Tuesday evening, 13th January. We'd like to hold an initial meeting/workshop then.

Please have a look at the link above and read Matousek's introduction about how V-Men was formed. I have been in touch with him, and he is very excited, enthusiastic and supportive of this project, and is happy to be available as a remote guide/mentor from NYC.

You are all striking, talented and unique performers with a huge amount to offer this piece if you are interested. An all-male performance for V-Day has yet to be done in London or in the UK to my knowledge. I hope you'll join us.

I look forward to hearing from you.

All the best,

Annie and Paul