I've now attended the first two meetings of a group my brother invited me to. This is a men's group called Men's Fraternity (MF) and is meeting at my brother's church. MF is a program that attempts to help men get in touch with their authentic masculinity.

As a feminist, I'm not so sure I see what this masculinity is supposed to be. I'd rather be striving towards being a better, more well rounded person rather than focusing on my masculinity. I find myself thinking of Tim Allen's Tool Time as an example of the posturing that often is called masculine behavior. But MF generally seems to be geared towards actually helping men to become more well rounded, they just want to sell it as finding authentic masculinity.

Robert Lewis started MF and is featured in a series of videos, one of which is shown as the bulk of each meeting. After watching the video the men split into small groups to discuss some of what we've seen and how that fits with our own lives. However, I find that I don't agree with a good deal of what Lewis is saying, but in my efforts to follow and understand his presentation and then participate in the small group discussions I am not always able to identify and communicate my misgivings in the small group and there is little other opportunity to do so within the structure of the meetings. So I'll take the time to do it here.

In this second session Lewis presents what he calls the four faces of manhood. These are The King (leadership), The Warrior (initiative, protecting, etc.), The Lover (tenderness, self-sacrificing), and The Friend (loyalty, accountability, fun). He then presented the following chart showing how to envision these four faces and presenting the extremes of either too much or too little of each face in a man's makeup. Thus too much of The King leads to tyrannical behavior, while too little leads to abdication.

But look what he does with the extremes of The Lover. From Critical (on the "too much" end of his scale) to Cold (on the "too little" end). How does that make any sense? I agree that those are two ways that people's, I'm sorry, men's relationships with their lovers can go awry, but how is being hyper critical evidence of too much love? Can there be too much love?

I can see his extremes with The King and with The Warrior (too much: Destroyer, too little: wimp, OH NO!!!!). But how does The Friend follow the extremes? He presents a user as an example of someone who is too demanding of their friends, but I would see being a user as an extremely distorted version of friendship. Another distortion of friendship would be someone who is overly solicitous to the point of being around more than their friends would want. Where would that be on his scale of too little to too much? And as with The Lover I find myself wondering if there can be too much friendship. As friendship involves being given the support and the criticism you need, it also means giving the same. I can see giving too much criticism or support, or demanding unreasonable support, but once you get to that point it is no longer friendship. I would see the extremes of friendship as being more like a range of indifferent to best buddies. The other problems mentioned for friendly relationships are not caused by too much friendship as much as by a twisting of what a friendship should be.

He's trying to present these things in a simple, dichotomous way. However, I don't think that issues like love and friendship can be accurately portrayed in such a simplistic manner. Even his leadership and warrior/protector roles are too simplisticly presented as each of those can also exist in a wide range of variations along more than just a simple "too much/too little" continuum.

Furthermore, as a chart, what is this supposed to convey? Am I supposed to find my location on the chart? He's got four qualities on two axes and then a range of values on each axis. Is my location supposed to be a point? A shape? As a visual aid I just find this confusing.

I also find it frustrating that both presentations have presented feminism as being one of the major causes of the confusion which men feel in this modern world. However, I think the feminism he is complaining about is just a distortion of what feminism is really about, as I understand feminism. As such he is setting up and attacking an all too familiar straw woman and calling this insight. In fact, his attempts to lead men towards seeing that friends and family, including sharing feelings and admitting dependance on others, should be important in a man's life are generally in line with much of feminist thought about wanting everyone to be true to themselves without having to conform to bogus societal expectations. In fact, I've heard this striving of men for more compassion and understanding being described as them getting in touch with their feminine side, but I guess that wouldn't draw men, manly men, masculine men striving to become even more masculine to hear his series of talks.

I've been going to the meetings (at 6:00 am! on Friday mornings) as something of a favor for my brother and so that I can better understand him. But I don't know how much more of this I can take.