At the start of the decade, when I was undergoing my first experiences in the co-ordination of men's groups, I was subject to a significant accusation from some women. "You lot are discriminators!", they reproached those of us in the group when we informed them that only males would be admitted to the groups and workshops. I have rarely heard the word discrimination better used than on that occasion, although this was not the sense in which they meant it. It is difficult to be accused of discrimination and not to take offence, but that is how it was on this occasion. We proposed the groups as spaces in which we men could discriminate ourselves, i.e. we could see ourselves as figures beyond the stereotypes, models and precepts that our culture has set aside for masculinity.

Where are today's men?

Discriminating ourselves from women, from our ancestors, our contemporaries and heirs, opened up the possibility of finding out who we really were, of discovering the originality of masculinity and the singularity of each male. As we move into the finishing straight of this present century, millennium, this challenge for men cannot continue to go unmet without causing us pain, disorientation, confusion, dislocation and suffering. The French historian and philosopher Elisabeth Badinter (author of XY-The Masculine Identity) acknowledges that "the acquisition of the masculine identity is arduous and painful, much more so than for girls acquiring their own". In a documentary concerning the groups co-ordinated by the poet and Jungian investigator Robert Bly (one of the initiators of this movement), at one point we see a young man stop and ask: "Where are today's men?"

The most straightforward answer could be this: they are submerged beneath roles, demands and precepts that immobilise them, that block them emotionally, paralysing their most genuine and authentic impulses and adjourning the potentiation of their possibilities.

At this point I would like to include a brief reminder of the great change that has taken place since the 50's (and particularly since the 60's), in which women have been the protagonists in terms of their own situation, their own adjournments and their own denied femininity. For generations the stereotype trap has, in equal measure, held men and women captive, facing us off in a "war of the sexes" in which we have all (even today) ended up as losers.

The three decades of transformation of femininity have been laudable and essential in the changing of the scheme of human relationships in our society. Yet this cannot be enough if it is not accompanied by a change in masculinity. The psycotherapist James Hillman (a travelling companion of Bly's) asserts that since the Industrial Revolution men have been cut off -by culture, by environment, by educational precepts, by his own obsessions- from their deep masculinity. The attempt to recover this masculinity has become, claims Hillman, "the first postmodern social process".

Men's groups, to the rescue of deep masculinity

Men's groups bear testimony to this process. Not all of these groups are the same, although they share a common goal: to break the circle of the stereotype and to explore other areas of masculinity. Some attempt to unearth "savage" or natural man, by returning to primitive and jungle settings in which ancestral means of communication are recovered and recounted (corporal and percussive). Others put the accent on reflection about our actual condition and on intellectual inquiry. There are groups that work on the proposition of awakening the sleeping or unacknowledged "feminine" side of men. Others propose therapeutic groups in which there is a confrontation of the pathologies generated by the exercise of masculinity, as designed by our culture.

My own personal experience has gradually led me towards another option. I started out by proposing a tour of the more general questions of masculinity: our attitudes towards our work, success, children, women, other men, fathers, our bodies, sexuality, community. The question of our beliefs, our precepts, our rituals (or the loss of them).

Finding the answers to many of these questions has merely opened the door, in a gestalt sense, to further questions. That first stage delineated general aspects of masculinity. Subsequent stages were to concentrate on more specific issues. I worked with groups looking into specific questions: men in the second half of their lives, "pregnant" men (about to debut as fathers), recently divorced men, groups dealing with masculine sexuality, groups of men with adolescent children, football lovers, etc.

It is interesting to see, in the panorama of these proposals and experiences how masculinity, in an overall sense, is not necessarily the sum of its parts. A man is not the accumulation of a father, plus a son, plus a husband, plus a professional, plus a worker, plus a salesman, plus a fan, plus a producer, plus a leader, plus a friend, plus a competitor, plus a lover, plus a thinker, plus any other role. He is much more than that, he is a unique and unrepeatable being who cannot be summed up by a prejudice, a preconception or a stereotype. In the diversity proposed by a group of equals it is possible, in my experience, to discover the original character of each one, emerging from the backdrop of experiences that we share, throughout our lives, as men.

A new way of looking at polarities

Tackling specific aspects of masculine experiences is, going back to where we started, an exercise in discrimination. An enlightening discrimination. Through looking in depth we can make out the profile of a deep, authentic, and often hidden, masculinity.

This masculinity is not, as is often claimed, consummated by accepting our "femininity". Through this verification, in my experience, consists the fundamental richness of men's groups. Exploration Groups of the Masculine Soul -as I chose to call them- are not spaces in which men awaken their "feminine" side. After several years of in depth work on masculinity's hidden face I am absolutely convinced that this hidden face is not that of a woman.

Traditionally we accept the following polarities:

If changing or broadening the traditional masculine stereotype merely consisted of men assuming those characteristics that have not been culturally assigned to them, then deep down nothing at all would change. We would continue to be tied to the idea that there are certain characteristics that are "naturally" feminine and others that are "naturally" masculine.

The deeper I got into working with men the more I became aware that, on the basis of this idea, this led to the perception of the profile of an "effeminate" man (i.e. one who counteracts his stereotype through the adoption of certain attitudes attributed to the female stereotype, and nothing more). In reality, this man either does not register any in depth transformation in his life or he merely becomes, what is known as, a light man. In neither one nor the other case is it possible to expect a true and profound encounter with woman. [...]

According to my vision, all of the characteristics of the above list are human characteristics. The division into stereotypes corresponds to a cultural action. This allocation could, however, be replaced by a single list in which all of these attributes, together, could be considered as simply human.

In accepting this we are free to propose a new concept of polarities. From this perspective we shall define human attributes, but with masculine or feminine modes of registering, experimenting, experiencing, living and expressing those attributes. The group work that I co-ordinate places no emphasis on any essential lack on the part of masculinity, but merely an adjournment. For example, we do not say that men lack sensibility or capacity for internalisation, but that we have learnt the masculine way of expressing and communicating it. Each sex knows the opposite model of expressing the attributes that they are denied, or that they have adjourned. The work that remains to be done is to register and integrate our own way of renovating those attributes.

This means that the polarity is not defined, for example, by providing-caring, but by the masculine way of providing-the feminine way of providing and the masculine way of caring-the feminine way of caring. Today, in the men's groups, my proposal is to work on masculine modes of expressing our denied attributes (i.e. those attributes designated as belonging to the other sex) and on authentic modes, not governed by precepts and beliefs, of expressing those attributes that are allowed and demanded. This will open the doors to deep masculinity [...].

The profound challenge of acceptance

Deep masculinity alludes to the ancestral pillars of masculinity. Group exploration takes place within this territory, My intention here is not to invent anything, merely to bring, from the background into the light, those male characteristics, relegated as they are through the absence of models and the presence and demands sustained from somewhere, other than true masculine needs and possibilities, which end up impoverishing the lives of contemporary men. Integrating the present possibilities and the adjourned potential of males is the proposal for the exploration of the masculine soul.

Once this process has been completed another new one presents itself. When men and women once more find each other, having discovered the authentic masculine and feminine expressions of all human attributes, we will then find ourselves confronted by the profound challenge of acceptance. Each one of us will discover that there are different ways of expressing what we believed and considered to be our own, and we will have to accept those differences and the consequent mysteries that they propose. Men will encounter expressions of force, courage or action that are new to us and women will come up against ways, unknown by them, of showing tenderness, passivity or nutrition. A new horizon of bonding is awaiting us.

Sergio Sinay (Argentina)

* This text has previously been published in issue 4 of Enfoque Gestáltico (april 1997).

Return to Top