„Männer brauchen eine bessere Männerbewegung“

Nancy Kaffer fordert eine neue Männerbewegung:

Oh, sure, men’s rights advocates are concerned about the climate in divorce courts, where custody and financial decisions are perceived to favor women. But their approach is conspiratorial—the laws, they say, are rigged and controlled by radical feminists—not an acknowledgement that courts haven’t changed as rapidly as society.

These are reactive, not proactive, stances, and they do little to offer substantive solutions.

So, if I can womansplain, here: Fix it. If the men’s rights movement is about more than misogyny, about more than longing glances back at a time when men were giants, it’s time to refocus. Have the tough conversations about what it means to be a man when women are no longer dependent on men for income and social acceptance. Mentor boys who aren’t doing well in school, or support networks for married or unmarried men who’d like to play a more vital role in parenting. Agitate for better role models in popular media, beyond the henpecked sitcom dad, the stoic police procedural detective or Don Draper.

All of this requires rigorous self-examination: When you can be anything you want to be, what do you want to be? It’s a terrifying question, one women have yet to definitively answer. But we’re talking about it. Men deserve to have the same conversation.

What nostalgia for those seemingly simpler times doesn’t admit is that it was always a question of scale, not of substance: Men were giants because everyone else was small. What does masculinity look like in a world where men and women alike can be titans? I hope they figure it out.

Nun können uns natürlich diese Forderungen relativ egal sein. Aber dennoch ist die Frage ja berechtigt und ein guter Start ins neue Jahr:

Wenn Männer alles sein können, was wollen sie dann sein?

Und:

Wie reagiert man auf eine Welt, in der Mann und Frau neue Wege zueinander und miteinander finden müssen, weil sich Rollen verändert haben?