There were years in which, through my own unconscious actions, I co-created messed-up relationships with men, but I was not ready to own my part in it. It turned from pain to hatred. I worked for seven years with Greg Ehmka doing intention work and emotional clearing, which greatly helped me raise my levels of self-responsibility. I recognized that the higher my levels of self-responsibility climbed, the happier I was! Minimizing victim, maximizing happiness! I was able to see how my own plunge into chaos pulled people into my life to help me learn and be present with my own growth and how each relationship really was a gift. I was able to heal the hatred I had projected onto men, experience the pain that was present, and get to the real love I had for men. I had thought before that I loved men but realized I had put men on a broken pedestal. Damned if they did, damned if they didn’t, and how dare they be human and not perfect.
After my healing experience, I started to think about writing a book to “empower” men. It was to be a book on men’s bodies—and so the concept was born.
When I was in San Diego a couple of years back, I was researching some more and came across the NCFM-National Coalition For Men website. I called up and Harry answered, and I told him about my book. He graciously met up with me and was so very kind. He gave me reading material and the book Loving Men, Respecting Women by Tim Goldich (which I’m restarting to read now and it is amazing!!). I told him that my book was about empowering men. He questioned what exactly I meant by this, as the word “empowering” doesn’t mean what it sounds like it means. I can’t remember his exact wording, but I think the concept was that people use that word a lot to say they are “helping” men when they really aren’t. The meeting was great and helped me think more about what my goal was for the book.
I started a survey and a website to enlist male volunteers to anonymously share photos of their bodies and cocks, which meant a photo from the neck down. The survey was a ridiculous 100-plus questions long. Destin Gerek (The Erotic Rockstar) was generously in conversation with me at the time. He suggested that about 10 questions maximum or less was best and then recommended reading as well. He also mentioned how he would do the photo but preferred not to have his head lopped off. This made me think some more too. Why just make it about men’s bodies? It should be the full-expression face as well.
I took a few years away from the book, just at a total loss as to what its purpose was. I realized to “empower men” was just another way of telling men what to do, and I didn’t want to do that. I was upset because I kept hearing of men’s experiences and feeling so at a loss that if I could just get this damn book together, maybe I could help somewhat. But I couldn’t figure it out.
I had issues with feminism in my early twenties (I’m 31) and was about to walk away from it after an online discussion that was just pure man-hating when another feminist said, “No, we’re not all like that, don’t give up.” For over a decade I held on to that, hoping I would somehow change feminism by holding on to that mantra.
Still, with the book on my mind but feeling clueless as how to start, I joined some online groups and discussions. This included circles with other Life Coaches. Well, the world of life coaching and spirituality is soaked in the shaming of men. It’s all “goddess this” and “goddess that” and “women who want to be treated like a goddess.” (I’m very much aligned with goddess beliefs; HOWEVER, I am ALSO very much aligned with god beliefs.) These circles talk about the Divine Feminine but ignore the Divine Masculine. (I loved listening to the Honey Badger Brigade talk about this!) So, when I was in one of the groups listening to these women talking about men’s penises and making shaming remarks, I couldn’t take the stupidity anymore and realized I couldn’t wait until I wrote the book to stand up and say something.
So I created a Facebook page now called ‘Loving and Celebrating Men’. Now I just had to fill it … derp. I googled “loving men,” but all the links were how men could love women! I searched “supporting men,” and the results were all still about what men could do to support women. There was nothing geared towards what men needed. I kept digging. Not sure how, but I came across A Voice for Men. Now, mind you, I was still very much a feminist. I was wanting to step away from feminism but just wasn’t sure where to put my energy—equalism? humanism? When I found AVfM, I was still very much entitled. I called myself a feminist, and oh boy, shit hit the fan. I shared my Facebook link. At AVfM, I met some commenters who wanted to give me the benefit of the doubt but were skeptical and others who were just not having it at all. I was confronted with “How can you say you love men and call yourself a feminist?” There was much lashing out between us. I joined a men’s group but was shortly after kicked out—no surprise, again, still a feminist and had all the feminist armoring that came with it.
I took what these men said into account: Why was I still hanging on to feminism? Did I really think my own words would change the truth of what feminism actually was and what it had done to men and continues to do to men?
So I stopped calling myself a feminist and started calling myself a human rights activist. Meanwhile, this process was all terrifying as shit. I had finally denounced feminism and started to share some articles I had encountered online, and feminists were pretty pissed and lashed out. Meanwhile, I created a group online for men to share their voices uncensored. There, a feminist came in with sneaky hatred until she erupted, and I was told by a few feminists what a traitor I was and how I knew nothing of the goddess and how fucked up and delusional I was. The men in the group, so sweet, were concerned that I was too harsh with her. I assured them I wasn’t and that she was being devious and sneaky.
This was a really intense process. All that I understood to be real was very intensely placed in my face as total and utter horseshit. I was so shaken by all of this that I was sick to my stomach pretty much every day, and my insomnia kicked in because I was so shocked. In life coaching, we call this a “death process,” death of identity. And, holy shit, did my identity get kicked in the face! A terrifying experience, but that is growth and that’s how you wake up. More terrifying than identity death process are the horrors you support by staying asleep. I had no idea how asleep I really had been, and it scared the shit out of me. Here I was thinking I had taken such a stand for equality—what a deep lie that was; I was completely oblivious to how deep this attack on men went.
A commenter said I had rage-quited. I came back with “I’m not going anywhere! I came here to get information on how to help men and damn it I’m going anywhere without it” … again, more fem armoring. I kept asking for help and clarification on what patriarchy meant or didn’t mean; I was completely confused. However, that was just more of me saying, “Men, do the work for me” and not digging myself. As I was commenting on AVfM, the site became a sanctuary for me after every debate I had with a feminist; it became a well of sanity, as did NCFM, even though at first I was still very unconscious with my comments.
This process was roughly two very intense weeks. I had started to shift my view on society and misunderstandings about society quite a bit. A Honey Badger said that I, too, was a Honey Badger, but I was in no way going to support a movement that was called a Men’s Rights Movement. I had spent my life being duped by the so-called Women’s Rights Movement and had lost all trust in any gender-specific group. I would only call myself a Human Rights Activist. She shared how she, too, was a Human Rights Activist and that was exactly why she was a part of the Men’s Rights Movement. I wasn’t at the point where I could understand what she meant.
I started to research the Human’s Rights Movement but found they, too, were just an extension of feminism. Domestic violence was fixed solely under the “women” section. What the hell? So, I turned my attention back to the Men’s Rights Movement. I was listening intently to what the men and women were sharing, but I still wasn’t sure. And I really was still confused on the patriarchy not being real. What world am I in? Everything I thought was real was revealing itself to be … not real and, worse, intentional lies.
So I began to dig. I read many articles on AVfM and finally came across Karen Straughan. This is the video that gave me the final push to wake up: “Feminism and the Disposable Male.”
There was o turning back from that information, and with everything that I had been researching and reading and the small glimpses I had had throughout my life, this was it, this is what I was looking for. I started to watch more MRA videos and get involved with more debates with feminists who were just downright nasty. I’ll never forget the first time I was called a misogynist. It was as if my voice was choked in my throat. The person had completely shut out every statistic I presented, every logical discussion I had brought forth with “You’re a misogynist.” I said, “I’m a woman.” “Well, women can be misogynists too.” Holy crap. This is what men feel when their voices are silenced. I had just entered the world of “Your voice is shit.” I was sad that these women I had spent my life standing by, my so-called sisters, would not hear my voice or my call for them to wake up. But the sadness didn’t last very long; it was replaced with a deep rage. Oh yeah? I started poking them every chance I got. You don’t want to hear me? I’ll make you listen. And this is why I have so very much space for the anger of men. At the time, I had only just experienced this feeling of my voice being shut up—how did men deal with this shit their whole lives? Yes, very much me waking up to my privilege as a woman and my entitlement.
I started to see that I didn’t live in a world filled with “misogynists.” The world suddenly felt safer. I really did live in fear of rape all the damn time as a feminist. I feared travel, I feared every damn thing! I lived in a terrifying world that I had no idea I had subscribed to! I remember reading a comment on AVfM about a man proposing to get rid of the “women and children first” policy aboard ships and instead make it “children and pregnant women first, then everyone else, first-come first-serve” and that would then be equality, when women were not treated as children. I let that sink in … it scared the shit out of me! The fact that it scared me shocked me even more, holy entitlement! Whoa, I was being opened to the levels of my deep-seated feeling of superiority that I had thought I had rid myself of. I wouldn’t be put first? I would have to face the fact of my child living without me? Of course, yes, this is all very hypothetical, but it brought a very powerful awareness to me to the point of terrifying me that whole damn day. I felt sick to my stomach again. Holy shit, I would face the possibility of death? I was always against the draft and I don’t think it should exist, but then I started to think about how men must feel to HAVE to sign up for this. What it would feel like to leave my child behind; there are fathers who have no choice but to leave their children behind, men who are not fathers who barely lived their life but have to go face death to save their country. Or sign up with the promise of help for school. These men with no help from the government to pay for college because they are men have to look death in the face for the chance of an education if they live? WHAT? And how privileged is that, I experienced this horror for a day! Men GROW UP with this! I guarantee that if the draft were necessary for all genders, we would not have a draft. But men do; men are raised with that requirement.
From there on, I was very clear that I was a Honey Badger—an endearing term for female MRAs. I do all I can as an MRA to spread the word of the Men’s Rights Movement.
Our society treats men as if they are inherently dangerous criminals just for being born male; this is the misandry that many boys are raised with, and sadly many begin to believe they have no worth and their voices don’t matter. Men are told to shut up and be “polite” if they want to be heard. We’ve listened to the voice of women for so long, completely uncensored, and men must be heard equally uncensored for us to move forward.
The MRM is the voice that is missing in our society. To deny the voice of men as vital, to shame men, to treat men as disposable, to treat a boy as if he is less than is unjust.
A lot of my rage was self-anger for allowing myself to be so unconscious towards men for so long. Awful. But I’m awake now, red pill swallowed.
I’m currently researching and reading to write the book itself, since I finally know what it’s about. Men don’t need to change, they are just fine, amazing, and beautiful just the way they are. The world stopped loving men a long time ago and definitely stopped celebrating men; it’s not men who need to change, it’s how the world views and treats men that needs to evolve.
In order to really love men, you must stand up for their rights; otherwise, you’re just telling yourself a lie, like I did for so long. I, for one, will take the face-slapping truth over a sugar-coated mirage any damn day.
