Barony Housing Association was set up in Edinburgh in the early seventies to provide housing for people with special needs, and also to provide support for the mentally ill, and offenders. Despite the fact that tenants and residents may suffer from some disadvantage or stigma, it has not restricted the progressive and enlightened attitudes they may develop to their personal relationships.
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CONSCRIPTION Birth left him naked, No one read out his rights. Instead, his parents, rich in age,
Richard Sterne
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A Men's Group was set up in October 1983 in conjunction with another Edinburgh organisation. This was in response to feelings expressed by men in their separate day centres about masculinity, and the changing role of men. The group worked on an open basis of unrestricted access. It was organised in blocks of ten week sessions. As a conscious decision, part of the Association's staff provision was a female organiser. The purpose of having a woman in the group was twofold:
(1) She was a manifestation of the focus for the group. In a sense she was woman. Whatever men found it difficult to say to women or ask of women or understand about women, she was there, present, as a point of reference. At the same time she only ever presented her own reaction, and generally with an explicit rider that she didn't consider herself to be comprehensively representative.
(2) She served the purpose of acting as a restraint to some of the less enlightened group members, and conversely as a rallying point for the more enlightened. So the inclusion of a woman might from this point of view be considered a manipulative move. But it is perhaps not unrealistic to think that an appropriate woman in any men's group could be an asset.
The beginning of each ten week block was used as a brainstorming exercise to organise an agenda (Men & Sex, Mental Health, Rape, Assertiveness, Confidence & Security, Dealing with Authority). The topics for each meeting were defined by member suggestion, and as the groups developed, an initial ten minute presentation to the group was made by one willing member as a boost or starting point to the discussion. The end of each ten week block was used as a review: to examine the high points, the useful discussion, the surprises of that particular block.
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CONSCIOUSNESS RAISING GROUP We ring round the room To speak out
But it's more in crumpled notes
But we're still going out live The courage not to pull the plug.
Les Tate
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These topics, though freely chosen, did tend to be quite repetitive and predictable, and this may have been part of the reason why the group eventually folded. At some point a more structured programme might have been good, but that is speculative at this stage now.
The preference was for discussion on an experiential level, rather than theoretical, to encourage the kind of personal sharing that men traditionally deny themselves. This emphasis helped to defuse strong disagreements, because members were talking about their concrete experiences rather than about abstract points of view. If one man had experienced women, or prison, or life, to be hard, uncompromising and unpleasant, he was no less entitled to feel that way than the man who had experienced all three to be warm, friendly and enjoyable. This isn't to say that discussion didn't involve a degree of challenge or disagreement. Some contentious issues provoked stereotypical attitudes towards subjects such as pornography, unemployment, rape.
Frequently a focus for that disagreement hinged on the involvement of a woman in the Men's Group. Her presence evoked a range of responses in male group members from surprise, to aggression, and most often; inquisitiveness. The role was undoubtedly difficult for the woman herself. She responded to these reactions with uncertainty, indignation and strength: fortunately she had a clear sense of her own identity, standards and experience.
A clear decision was taken by the organisers that the group should not be therapeutic: we were not setting out to achieve more than the opportunity for men to be able to express their fears, doubts, and share their experiences with reference to their gender. Given the group composition and their common background of strong institutional experience, it seemed sensible to avoid setting up 'another group'. But the group workers did try to involve the quieter men in the group, without pressuring them too much, encouraging them to bring in their own experiences.
Over the period of the life of the Men's Group there was a total membership of about 40-50 men. The largest single meeting involved about 15 men, and the composition changed on a week-to-week basis, and block by block. But turnover was not very high, and the same faces came back week after week.
The last block finished in April 1985. By this point the number of members had dropped to a point where the group was no longer viable.
There's little sadness attached to this demise, for despite the fact that an active and thought provoking group no longer exists, this is balanced by the fact that its existence for that 18-month period helped a group of men to come to terms with their own sexuality and the mechanics of their own relationships in a better way.
Danny Easton
Barony Housing Association
Copyright © Achilles Heel Collective
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