by Donald B. Jeffries, MPA, MSW

Executive Director, Mariposa Men’s Wellness Institute

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In my previous article, The Next 20 Years, I challenged my fellow participants at the New Mexico Men’s Wellness Conference [NMMWC] to formulate a renewed men’s movement which would incorporate the lessons learned in the larger society’s struggles. In the following article, given that we are involved in the initial planning for the 2005 Conference, I want to suggest [functional] steps that we can take together to improve our conference and men’s movement. In my next installment (Spring issue), I will address how to implement these steps and suggest why [personal/emotional/cultural] we behave as we do as males. 

In my first article, I noted it was no longer enough for us to work on ‘inner-child’ and ‘male bonding’ issues, important as they are, but that we need to grow as a movement by stretching our envelopes with the inclusion of lessons learned in the antiracism, feminist, gay liberation, and civil rights revolutions. I feel it is time that we revisit our rationale for the annual conference, and implement some changes that will allow us to grow as men and truly attain a more mature level of ‘men’s emotional wellness’.

(1) Increase the coverage of the men’s movement in New Mexico: Presently, our primary impact is on Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Las Cruces, with some affect on Taos, via the Northern NM Men’s Center. Contrary to the Santa Fe-Albuquerque-Las Cruces-centric view of the world, much of New Mexico does not know about the men’s movement and many people are out there who want to know more.

New Mexico is a poor state economically, but I’m fairly sure some resources exist, including local foundations, that could fund an individual to go around the state giving educational workshops on men’s wellness, making a special point to talk to areas of the state not usually affected by our movement. I am quite willing to assist with this process of planning, organizing, and grant writing, given my professional skills as a consultant to nonprofit organizations. I did this, in part, when I had a contract with the State of New Mexico in 1997-98, as the Shaken Baby Syndrome Training Coordinator. I realized how that contract was a perfect vehicle for spreading the message about men’s wellness and I became one the ‘de facto’ spokespersons for the men’s movement statewide. In the process, I discovered a serious thirst for information about men’s wellness all around New Mexico and men in small towns throughout the state who wanted to form men’s groups in their areas.

Back in the mid-1990’s, when I was President of Men’s Network Press, we were talking about seeking funding for a ‘mobile exhibit’ on men’s wellness, healthy fatherhood, and the apprenticeship of younger males into healthy adult manhood. It’s time to move beyond the discussion phase into actively seeking that funding and creating such an exhibit. I have become aware, in recent weeks, of such efforts over the last couple of years by the Young Father’s Project and men’s programs in other cities; most commendable and important, but I would emphasize that more needs to be done. It’s time to begin promoting men’s groups throughout all of New Mexico, to include Gallup, Farmington, Roswell, Carlsbad, Ruidoso, Alamogordo, Tucumcari, Clayton, and other areas that have previously been unaffected by our important message. We can begin with the urban centers and then move on, once we’re stronger, to the rural areas.

(2) Actively encourage the participation of gay men and men of color: Simply saying that we want men from diverse backgrounds is not enough. To truly ensure that non-hetero, nonwhite males attend the Conference, we must engage in aggressive outreach to the community, to organizations such as Common Bond, the Southwest Organizing Project, NAACP, and to Native American tribal and pueblo agencies throughout the state.

Additionally, we need to increase both the number of scholarships available to gay men and men of color, as well as establish a ‘numerical goal’ for increased participation. I’m not talking about a ‘quota’, but rather a directed intent to increase the number of men in these groups who are in attendance at our conference.

(3) Promote a set of ‘guidelines’ for the Conference: The NMMWC is one of the few conferences of its variety that I have ever attended that does not have a printed ‘suggested [behavioral] guidelines for participants’. Frankly, I see that as a deficit. It’s not that we have to ‘police’ the behavior of participants, but I do believe that we need to make clear to all the participants that this Conference should be a “safe, sacred space” for ALL the men who are in attendance. Such guidelines would include emphasis upon care in ‘use of language’, due consideration to the cultural sensitivities and personal issues of other participants, and would take note of how certain kinds of ‘humor’ is mean-spirited and undermining of the ‘sacred space’ that we are trying to create at our gathering.

(4) Implement a “Racial/Sexual/Use of Language Sensitivity Workshop” at the conference: This could be a new program at the conference which we could present yearly so that both veterans of the conference and new attendees could be ‘sensitized’ to issues of other people’s experience. It would allow men to ‘vent’ their frustration about their growing pains, as well as teach them how to effectively converse with other groups of men in ways that could increase the ‘humanness’ of everyone.

(5) Appoint official ‘independent observers’ at the conference: These independent observers would be persons who had been trained to:

                     - Assist participants with engagement in conflict                                                                      

resolution

- Serve as ‘emotional referees’; to make sure comments of participants don’t adversely affect other participants (and to take verbal note of this if it occurs)

- Act as ‘follow-up trainers’ to issues raised in the sensitivity workshop

- Assist with ongoing evaluation of the ‘processes’ of the conference

- And to act as ‘sounding boards’ for concerns that arise during the conference. 

We could either designate several individuals to handle all these issues, or designate different individuals to handle each task separately, rotating the people engaged in this each year (so that more people are trained in these techniques). It would be critical to make sure everyone at the conference knew whom these persons were; hence it would be important for them to have an ‘official capacity’. I stress that I’m not talking about “enforcement of political correctness”, which frankly I believe has gotten so out-of-hand as to be ridiculous. But I am talking about exercising due consideration for the sensitivities of participants, so that the conference is a safe place for ALL the participants, not just men who have attended in the past.

(6) Self-monitor ‘language’ and ‘jokes’: I noted in my original article that certain kinds of language used at this conference created an ‘unsafe space’ for gay men and men of color. From the first years I attended the conference, and when I returned last year after a 10-year absence, there continues to be a distinct ‘tolerance’ of homophobic, misogynistic, racist, and ethnic ‘jokes’ being told at the conference, especially during the ‘Talent Night’. Gay men and men of color simply will not attend our conference (or will not return if they do attend) if we continue to allow such vitriolic and incendiary language to be used at the conference. Plus, ‘blowing off emotional steam’ in this manner violates any reasonable sense that our conference is a place where “mature growth in men’s emotional wellness” can or will take place. Hence, in addition to the designation of independent observers, I believe that it is equally important that individual men who are participants at our conferences ‘self-monitor’ their own language and engage in some serious self-examination before telling what they believe is a ‘funny joke’, when in fact that ‘joke’ is hurtful and constitutes an assault upon the cultural and sexual sensitivities of other men attending the conference.

These ideas will initiate the process of maturation of our men’s movement in a direction that supports and takes recognition of the social realities in the larger community. We cannot, as a movement, continue to allow ourselves to be marginalized due to our own “group think” or personally accepted limitations. In order for our men’s movement to grow, we must be willing to incorporate strategies which allow us to affect, positively, the destinies of many different kinds of men. ‘Down the road’ it would be important for us to focus on economic class and ‘status’ distinctions, physical disability, and child and sexual abuse issues, but making the above-suggested changes will move us forward.

We have a powerful and important message - it’s time now to ‘package’ it in such a way that not only are others positively influenced by it, but in a way that we, ourselves, are deeply affected by it.

Mariposa Men’s Wellness Institute was founded in 2001

to help men become emotionally healthy.