“The Good Men Project” Controversy

Just over the course of a few days this week, we witnessed a back-and-forth between Tom Matlack of “The Good Men Project” and, well, everybody who’s not named Tom Matlack. This post is a long one, but the length is necessary to describe the totality of the exchange. If you have a few moments, take time to read the source material. This is an illustrative moment in a lot of ways.

For the sake of brevity, I’ll let folks read through the details and form their own opinions, but here’s a rough synopsis (with links where appropriate to provide original texts, etc.):

• Mr. Matlack, who founded “The Good Men Project” as a place to discuss masculinity and gender, writes an article entitled “Being a Dude is a Good Thing.” He argues that men shouldn’t be ashamed of being men. My personal opinion is that it’s a needlessly reductive argument with a strawman or two (“Women want men to be women!”), weakened most obviously by the fact that there is no natural definition of what “being a man” means.
• Lisa Hickey, CEO of Good Men Media Inc. and publisher of “The Good Men Project,” writes an article the same day, “”When Women Fear Men,” talking about the kind of positive things we should be pushing women to do, rather than focusing on fearing or blaming men. And while I agree with Ms. Hickey that yes, treating all men as violent criminals hurts men as well as women, I think the solution lies in educating men on, well, not raping people. In a country and a world where sexual assault and domestic violence are at epidemic levels, I’m okay with sacrificing a little pre-judgment for a lot of safety for the mothers, sisters, and daughters out there.
• Dr. Hugo Schwyzer, an editor and contributor to “The Good Men Project,” also writes an article the same day, “In Rape Culture, All Men Are Guilty Until Proven Innocent” which, among other things, makes the safety argument more eloquently than I do above. An example quote from Dr. Schwyzer which I agree with strongly: “men need to channel their frustration at being ‘pre-judged’ into a commitment to end what it is that causes women’s suspicion in the first place.”
• In response to Dr. Schwyzer’s article, Ms. Hickey penned “Rapists, I Have Known,” where she argues that fear not only hurts both men and women, but that not being afraid is liberating. I think that her narrative is compelling and I think that her philosophy works for her, but I’m loathe to prescribe being fearless to all women considering the number of attackers out there.
• And then Twitter happens. Beginning with a tweet from Mr. Matlack where he asks “Why can’t women accept men for who they really are? Is a good man more like a woman or more truly masculine?”, the conversation grows to involve numerous other voices, and sadly reveals a larger need for us all to treat each other better.
• Finally, in response to all the kerfluffle, Dr. Schwyzer resigns from The Good Men Project entirely. Dr. Schwyzer: “This is the Good Man Project, and as I’ve said a time or nine, I think the opposite of ‘man’ is not ‘woman’, but ‘boy.’” I agree, says John Brougher.

Some quick takeaways (sadly, nothing new), with my bias heavily thrown in here:

• The very word “feminist” and the movement are still heavily stereotyped: Mr. Matlack, who’s written about equality issues before and talked about the need to fight sexual violence, was all-too-quick to throw up his hands and refer to feminists as a monolithic, angry group. Talking about “the wrath of the feminists?” I mean, good lord, guy.
• Men “gaslight” like crazy: One tweet from Mr. Matlack (referenced just above) read “I really thought the MRA [men’s rights advocates] guys were crazy until I engaged the wrath of the feminists. Insane.” It’s hard to be a good ally when you refer to feminists as insane and/or (ugh) compare them to men’s rights advocates.
• Twitter 101 - no matter how tempted you are, don’t get emotional on Twitter: At various times, Mr. Matlack especially (I assume because he felt cornered) resorted to the kind of rhetoric and words that you employ when you’re angry. Obviously, when you’re trying to have a respectful discourse about an important issue, as an author and an editor, you have to try to not take things personally. It’s hard, no doubt, but it’s also pretty basic.

I don’t think we need to indict Mr. Matlack or anything like that, but this is one of a million reminders that these problems still exist throughout our community. We can all become more inclusive feminists. We can all respond better when critiqued. We men can turn a more critical eye to how we analyze and interpret arguments from women.

We can do better.