Malechallengemedia's Blog

The following article addresses the Tiger Woods situation in an oblique manner.

I think Tiger’s  actions were terrible BUT – I believe he is a product of a sick society and we should all shoulder some responsibility. It takes a whole global village to allow one famous rich boy to go off the rails.

There is not a man alive that has not hurt other people in some way. I have and the best thing I’ve ever done for my ‘true self esteem’ is to go back and try to make amends for to those I’ve hurt. My soul feels very good about that effort whenever I’ve done it. My soul knows that to tell lies and have a secret life only spreads hurt and pain.

Tiger Woods has a soul and right now it is hurting and the best thing we can all do is to encourage him to do the right thing by all he has wronged. That may even mean giving up golf – at least for some time – because he will bring the ‘circu’ along whenever he plays and that is not what golf is supposed to be about.

But in his defense,  in Tiger’s case, as with many young male athletes, wealth and fame need special management skills- where were the elders?

But for now I’m going to diverge from Tiger and bring in a big picture view for males. This brings me to the  reason why I help boys and young men navigate the confusing pathway to manhood.  It concerns not only the boys themselves but the actual survival of humanity.

The current global crises that threaten us all have occurred on men’s watch—while we men were at the helm. We are not only heading towards a mass extinction but are already deep into it according to many experts. The following article seeks not to blame but to understand and propose a better outcome.

There is a gender implication to our predicament which must be understood as we seek solutions. Male led humanity is sailing in a leaky ship towards a huge waterfall. We are in the middle of a massive crisis but many people are in a trance so everywhere its business as usual while the trance inducing media continues to promote its sensationalist nonsense.

The richest countries instead of leading by example also have thousands of gangs operating on their streets while they reap the financial rewards as major arms exporters as well as peddling porn and violence movies to our young all the while hopelessly ensnared in bo-toxed narcissism and self indulgence has replaced good solid parenting or good solid citizenship. To keep sales moving upward violence is increasingly glorified in films and media. The crisis threatens our future but it can also be the motivator for massive social change. That is our choice—to heed the wake up call and call out to men everywhere.

The unattended crisis will get bigger until it gets everybody’s attention. Environmental, financial and social systems are in various stages of collapse. It takes guts and some consciousness to acknowledge the hard facts. As men we need to own that we created this problem without taking on the blame which only cripples and paralyses. We’ve been short sighted because our male programmed lens was limited. Seeing the world through a dominator lens we not only poisoned the soil and the water, we sprayed poison on the food we eat and for a finale in stupidity—we even poisoned the air we breathe.

We believed the men in charge at every level who told us that it would be ok because they too needed to believe the lies they peddled—in a hierarchal system they were punished if they dissented. I heard these men state that poisonous sprays are ok in the proportions we are using—she’ll be ok—a little bit won’t hurt. They end up as clients in my partner’s cancer healing practice (Grace Gawler)

It’s not our fault but to move forward we must escape from the small box we have been conditioned to live in. As men we were programmed to see the world through a narrow lens—Darwin, the church and many others saw to that. Women who suspected otherwise were simply made wrong and were ‘silenced’ through fear or violence. Darwinism proposed a survival of the fittest—a dog-eat-dog world but today the new biologists speak of the survival of the co-operative. As men we now have a huge role in fixing the problem and to do that we need to wake up and then wake up more—a mass wake-up might save a mass extinction.

The current predicament was predictable. For over 40 years our canaries in the coalmine, the leading thinkers and scholars on social and environmental issues, have warned of the impending situation. Most of us weren’t awake enough to listen—we trusted the men in charge—they saw to that. While there is no joy in being righteous this must be a warning. Perhaps we should be looking to some of these canary people for solutions.

These are the consequences derived from what some call a dominator system of social organisation! The solution lies in adopting a partnership worldview. Everyone and every thing is connected or partnered to everyone and everything—it just doesn’t work for everyone and everything to be trying to dominate everyone and everything.

The dominator systems arose under male leadership and although it achieved many great things a dominator paradigm will now destroy us. Before the cries of ‘male-bashing’ arise let me say that this is not about one gender being superior. It is currently true that men perpetrate 90% of the violence in the world—but that figure is shrinking as violence by females rises.

Sadly, on the heels of one of the greatest social movements ever, the women’s equity movement, the ‘dark’ side of females has surfaced. Witness the vile crime of glassing by young women of women in Australia, witness the numbers of young girls joining gangs and perpetrating horrendous violence—witness the plethora of violent women in movies. All humans of all genders have a ‘dark’ side and this is evident as we awaken. Carl Jung has warned us for decades. Just as males need to reclaim their humanity so too do females—in this way we build a healthy masculinity and femininity—gender programs which are appropriate for the time we live in.

But I’m a man and I’m happy that a new male consciousness is beginning to take hold as more men adopt the partnership paradigm.

That is the big picture reason for why I strive to help young boys become good men.

Solutions:

Einstein said we can’t fix a problem with the same level of consciousness that created it.

Raising consciousness in males is therefore a sensible solution!

Since it unlikely that all the males in leadership positions will attend a consciousness raising workshop we have to educate them.

But first we have to work on ourselves!

The Male Challenge is my contribution to that effort.