In California: Roar, Lion, Roar

By John Skow

If women have got themselves together in the past couple of decades, if they have learned, as feminists, to demand respect, orgasms, equal pay, coed housework, vice-presidential nominations and the right to run the marathon in the Olympic Games, can men be far behind?

Shirley, you jest. Men are so far behind that most of them are not anywhere in sight. Invisible, that's what they are, even to themselves. They creep around feeling "helpless, really helpless," apologizing when outraged feminists catch them displaying what is called, with great scorn, "too much male energy." Such are the views, anyway, of Tony D'Aguanno, Michael Blyth and Chic Drolette, three psychological therapists from Berkeley, Calif., who have started what they call a "male empowerment group." Not a support group, if you please, although what goes on in,this subversive cell is much like what men heard leaking out from under the closed doors of support groups that women were forming a few years ago: which is to say, a lot of sympathetically listened-to grumbling about the other sex. But "support" is a yin word, and "empowerment" is a yang word, and yang, the elusive and rarely detected male principle, is what these three troublemakers are talking about.

Response to the new group suggests that they may be on to something. "I don't know what it's like on the East Coast," says D'Aguanno--people in Berkeley say this a lot, seeing themselves as leaders in a very long column of marching people, who have no way of knowing whether stragglers at the column's tail end have put on their hiking boots yet--"but out here for the past 20 years, 'male' has been equivalent to 'negative.' " The group filled to its assigned size of eleven negative males as soon as it was formed two months ago, and there is a waiting list for the new group that the three therapists will start as soon as they can find a roof for it (in Berkeley there are, literally, more groups trying to meet each night to support or empower each other in meditation, martial and marital arts, sword dancing and the like than there are places to put them).

Interviewers from the press pop in every day or so, and they hear Drolette, for instance--he is a big, bearded, powerful-looking man who likes hunting, fishing and John Wayne--tell them that clients come in "all slumped over, feeling awful. They're carrying the old male role around on their backs, the authoritarian provider, but it doesn't work any more. They've got female bosses now, and their wives and kids are rebelling." D'Aguanno, 37, a tall man, somewhat slighter than Drolette and no fan of Hollywood's Duke, says they have all noticed that the disarmament movement, to pick an example, is "about two-thirds women, which is fine"--he says this in the way people speak when they mean something is not fine--"and the rest a lot of very passive guys who can't use their positive energy."

Such talk leads to headlines like MEN TURNED INTO "WIMPS" BY FEMINISTS AND PEACE CAUSES. This is not what the three have in mind. Not at all, they say. Disarmament is absolutely essential. Forget wimps. What they mean, says D'Aguanno, is that the new "feminist man" sits on his own assertiveness and anger because he is afraid of being oppressive, "although, of course, it's okay for women to get in touch with their own anger." The colleagues tend to finish each other's thoughts, and Blyth, 36, a bearded, wiry, not quite demonic but certainly impish Englishman, boards this train of D'Aguanno's. Blyth is the only one of the three not academically trained in psychology. He has been an actor, adman and street flutist, and for twelve years has worked with disturbed patients at Psychiatrist R.D. Laing's Archway Community in London. "I think the passive phase that men went through in response to feminism was probably necessary," he says. "But there's a point where that self-flagellation and that guilt become counterproductive for the guy and the woman. Now women are saying things like 'Five years ago, I would have died to find a sensitive man'--yeah, one who could cry--but now they're calling these men 'emotional black holes.' There's nothing for them to push against."

Blyth goes on to say that macho strutting is not what they are after. "This macho thing seems to me like a shell, a suit of armor. It's supposed to denote power, and when the culture accepts it, the guy can get away with it. In a feminist culture that posturing cracks." Drolette breaks in to say that what they are hoping to achieve is not very revolutionary, just a balance between each man's masculine and feminine elements. "I've taken a very masculine role," he says, "and now I'm learning to be unassertive sometimes. The women I know are confused by this." D'Aguanno says proudly that he has become much more assertive since the group began, acquiring "lots of rough edges," and that his girlfriends are upset. He is unmarried, but the other two have wives, and, they admit with much laughter, nine sons and no daughters between them.

The spectacle of postfeminist man trying to define himself turns out to be gentle, touching and notably unbrutish. The empowerment group rents a conference room in a Unitarian parish house every Monday night, and the men who showed up there a week ago seemed--perhaps this was part of their predicament--a fairly unalarming bunch. They were carpenters, youth workers, writers, computer programmers and the like, ranging from about 25 years old to about 50. They greeted each other in a subdued way, without any locker-room hooting or arm punching. Empowerment began in a circle, with each man, for a few seconds, leading the exercise of his choice. Former jocks chose push ups or the old football squad gasper, running in place; veterans of yoga groups did yoga bends; dancers did dancers' stretches.

Then-- are you listening, women?--each man told, grumped, complained about his week. There was a three-minute limit here, although everybody except one depressed and silent youth spilled over for ten minutes or so of loving, perfectly acceptable self-fascination. Most of these people had no male confidants because men aren't supposed to spill their guts. "Why this is great," said one man during a break, "is that otherwise, if I want to talk, I have to pay a therapist $50 an hour, or find some nongirlfriend type of woman." A fair amount of the talk was about marriages and relationships, but not about sex--men don't talk about sex except to tell jokes. One timid fellow told what was obviously a continued story about trying to get rid of his female roommate. The new development was that when he came home and found her, as usual, radiating hostility waves, he decided to roar. He demonstrated, screwing up his mild face and roaring in a barely audible voice. Everyone cheered. He roared louder. More cheering.

Now Blyth, the group's Jungian, led what he called "a shamanistic journey." The men paired up and lay on the floor, touching each other (men don't touch) ankle to ankle, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder. Blyth dimmed the lights and began beating a tom-tom, and one man of each pair traveled in imagination to the underworld to find a "power animal" and bring it back for the other. Afterward, each searcher danced or gestured to interpret the animal he had found. A huge, very fat man danced a fine eagle for his partner. His interpretation was praised. Someone did a playful bear. This took a long time, but it was worth it. Power animals are useful--they can help you roar in real life--and each man got to take his animal home.

The session ended past midnight, with little sedition spoken that would have alarmed a feminist. The men seemed a micron or two warmer and more demonstrative as they said goodbye. There were almost as many burly embraces (men don't embrace) as handshakes. And the very fat man said, "The thing I want to say is, I thank every single one of you."

-- By John Skow This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.