Behavior: And Now, Men’s Liberation

Most emotionally secure men have sympathy with the rational aims of the Women’s Liberation movement and show either amused tolerance or mild disdain for its more hysterical demands. But among some males, there is a different response. Shaken by the feminist activities and attitudes of their wives or girl friends, they have been drawn into a new social phenomenon: the men’s liberation movement.

Across the country, hundreds of men have joined groups that hold monthly or weekly “consciousness-raising” rap sessions, discussions in which they air their anxieties and strive for better understanding of women—and themselves. The movement is spreading, especially on college campuses and in radical communities; there are 30 groups in the San Francisco area alone.

No More Broads. At men’s-lib meetings, great emphasis is placed on recognizing “male chauvinism.” Members compare women to oppressed minorities and castigate themselves as oppressors. They profess to believe, in the words of a University of Wisconsin professor, that “just as the first step for a white man in handling racial prejudice is to confess his own racism, so we are trying to deal with our own chauvinism.” How? The general strategy advocated at most men’s-lib sessions is to stop calling women “broads” or “chicks” and to take on more responsibility for birth control, child care and housework.

Psychologist Louis Cutrona, a member of a Boston group, has carried the principles of men’s lib into the business world. At his consulting firm, he refuses to ask his secretary to bring him coffee in the morning or to cash his checks at the bank. “I don’t think that’s what a woman has contracted for if she is a secretary,” he explains.

Others have gone even further—perhaps too far. Members of a Portland, Ore., group, for example, have used such phrases as “God in heaven, She loves us all.” David Bathrick, professor of German at the University of Wisconsin, who began doing housework after his wife joined Women’s Lib, is enthusiastic about his new outlet. “I really get a kick out of cleaning the bathroom,” he says.

Some men who attend liberation meetings seem motivated more by fear of newly militant women than by conscience. “Man it’s heavy,” mourns one male liberationist. “Like you gotta build a whole new way of seeing her and yourself. You have to fight so you don’t slip back the way you used to be, because if you do, man, if you say just one word, then wow, bam, it’s over. That’s living terror, man.” Other male liberationists display anxiety by complaining about the inhuman roles assigned to males by society. In Brother, a new Berkeley male-liberation newspaper, a man identified only as Paul writes: “We don’t cry. We are machines. And we have been made that way by society because machines are better for production.” Another, named Michael, pursues the theme: “We were haunted/taunted men, bombarded by images of what we were not: studs, athletes, intellectuals, leaders, fighters.” To counter its readers’ concern about the stereotyped male image, Brother emblazons the front page of its first issue with 14 photographs of a nude man chosen for his average physique and penis size.

No More Panic. For some men’s libbers, a limited solution to their anxiety seems to lie in a partial retreat from women. Males, says a manifesto in Brother, must stop “salivating at the sight of women” and further develop their relationships with other men. Bob, a professor of philosophy at Portland State College, notes that in his group, the men have become close friends and now “touch each other more.” Michael, more to the point, admits that at his meeting, “choking and gagging on the very word, we named the secret, shameful desire/ fear: brother-love, homosexuality.”

But relatively few men in the movement are worried about or interested in homosexuality. Most of them believe that men’s lib has strengthened their relationship with women, making them more sensitive to feminine feelings and easing the panic they experienced when their once-passive wives became active feminists.