This is a special issue of a relatively new [1993] journal called Masculinities, which seems to me to be excellent. The whole issue is devoted to a consideration of Robert Bly and the mytho-poetic men's movement started by him.
The first article is by Ken Clatterbaugh, who wrote the excellent book Contemporary Perspectives on Masculinity: Men Women and Politics in Modern Society (Westview 1990). He argues that Bly and his followers are quite blind to the importance of patriarchy, and therefore support it as a consequence of their silent collusion.
Tim Beneke, drawing on the work of Foucault, suggests that the mytho-poetic men's movement idealises stereotyped notions of masculinity and femininity.
There follows an article by David Gutterman, who actually went to some of the Bly meetings. He notes how weak Bly is on the question of gay men, and accuses him of homophobia.
We then get an article by Mike Kimmel going right through the literature on the 'isolated hero', and showing how the Bly approach sits in very happily and consistently with this tradition, emphasising, as it does the need to escape from women.
Michael Putnam shows how Bly sits much closer to the Men's Rights movement, with it's conscious misogyny, than to the anti-sexist men's movement.
After that, Timothy Nonn contrasts Moses and Jesus with the wildman, and shows how important is the notion of caring.
Dwight Fee, takes up the question of therapy, and shows that in the hands of the mytho-poetic movement, with its interest in recovery programmes and the like, there is no interest in politics and no concern for the wider society.
All in all, if you're a fan of Robert Bly, don't buy it.
John Rowan
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