This I Believe

I believe that we must heal men in order to heal the world. Furthermore, I believe our culture is living under a totally incorrect belief system that prevents that from happening.

Twenty years ago I helped design and create a women’s program for a psychiatric hospital. I am a feminist and wanted to heal women into empowerment. After listening to many, many of the women’s stories, it became clear to me that their issues could not be solved in a vacuum: I needed to call in their husbands for couples work.

I was shocked to find out the men were clueless. I really expected them to have strong adult selves, but what I found, instead, were a lot of emotional little boys. I don’t mean that in an insulting way – only as a statement of fact. This was very curious to me. What was also curious was how angry the wives were – furious, enraged – at their partners. I found myself feeling sorry for the men! This was quite a turnabout after having been raised through the women’s movement of the 70’s, when women were taught how unfair the white male system was to women.

I started to study men. I started to see men individually in my private practice and to listen to their stories. A common theme began to emerge: as little boys, they were actively taught to shut down emotionally. After all, big boys don’t cry, right? The result of this? Their emotional development got stunted somewhere between the ages of 2 and 10. These little boys, of course, grew up into emotionally stunted men who, at best, did poorly in intimate relationships. No wonder women were angry.

In the meantime, the women’s movement worked. Women have claimed their power and no longer are financially at the mercy of men. Women, including myself, can support themselves and their children, too, if need be. In fact, 47% of all the wealth in America is now owned by women. This is a good thing, but not enough.

We now have to empower men. In fact, I believe we must empower men, and that the world will not – cannot – heal unless we do. For when we teach our little boys to shut down emotionally, we also stunt their ability to develop empathy.

Now empathy is a good thing. It allows me to feel what you are feeling. I can’t hurt you because it hurts me to hurt you. But, if it doesn’t hurt me to hurt you, the world just got a little more dangerous.

In fact, I believe what we do to our little boys is nothing short of child abuse. I call it under the radar child abuse, and this I believe: we must stop doing it. Teaching our little boys to shut down emotionally is not good for them – or the world. It leads to divorce, infidelity, pornography, domestic violence, and violence in general. We must change the message we send our boys. We must support them in their full development, as we do with our little girls, if we intend to heal the world.

copyright 2008 Patti Henry