Men and power. They have been associated with each other for millenia. Whether reflected in brute force and physical strength or through the holding of positions of authority and status in the world, we as men have been seen as the embodiments of power. Historically this has been given substance by the willingness of us as men to use physical force and violence to get what we want, and by the fact that in the public sphere positions of power have been held almost exclusively by men. Patriarchy is an apt description of such a system, serving as it does to disempower women. In many respects, when we look at the most senior positions in business, politics and religion today, although no longer exclusively male domains the vast majority of such positions are still held by men. In addition, the crime figures for both public and private (such as domestic violence) offences show that the overwhelming majority of offenders are male, suggesting that the coercive use of power by men is still very much prominent.
However, alongside these identifications with and expressions of male power, there appears to be a widespread phenomenon of us as men experiencing ourselves as relatively powerless. This seems to reflect both an unconsciousness of the privileges that such social identification with power bestows upon us as well as genuine feelings of powerlessness. External manifestations of power often do not appear to be accompanied by internal experiences of feeling powerful, and the experience of being powerless seems more intense and overwhelming than any experience of power.
There are several factors that contribute to this phenomenon. The fact that there are many inequalities between different groups of men, such as those based upon race, class, sexuality and age. It is simplistic and unhelpful to say that all men are powerful because of the social identification of men as a group with power. Only a minority of men reap the full benefits of institutional power in terms of status and wealth. So although most men gain some privilege and benefit from patriarchal power at the expense of women, it is often neither obvious nor overt and sits alongside an awareness of their lack of power relative to others, particularly those few whose power is public and extensive.
Then there are the changes taking place in the world on many different levels. In particular, the demand by women for equality and the struggle of feminism to achieve this has resulted in an erosion not only of male privilege but also of male identity. Coupled with the changing nature of the workplace where physical strength and rigid and stable working practices have increasingly been replaced by technology and fluidity with a reduction in full time employment, the old manifestations of male power are slowly shrinking and male identity, for so long rooted in what amounted to patriarchal privilege, is starting to unravel causing both confusion and anguish. No longer knowing who you are or even who you can be is not merely uncomfortable. It can be a harrowing and desperate experience, one which many men seem to be going through.
This struggle to come to terms not only with significant change but with identity and purpose links in with a further factor, the difficulty many of us as men have with accessing our inner worlds, the worlds of feelings and emotions, contemplation and reflection. Knowing who we are from within rather than through an external role and social status. This lack of contact with an interior sense of ourselves seems directly connected with the expectations of what has been termed hegemonic masculinity, that is the dominant form of masculinity in our culture. This lays great emphasis on us as men being powerful, rational and always in control whilst discouraging vulnerability, feelings and intimacy. To the extent that we as individual men have identified ourselves with these masculine values we will struggle to accept and adapt to a world that is not merely changing but is demanding that we change with it. And the more we struggle against it, not only are we likely to feel increasingly powerless but we are also going to feel threatened by such feelings, which in turn reinforces and intensifies them. Their threatening nature and our inability to process and reflect upon them internally often causes such feelings of powerlessness to seem overwhelming and far greater than any concomittant expressions of power.
This connects to one last factor to be mentioned here. The different expressions of power and the increasing need for more flexible and varied responses to the world and others. The ability to communicate, which includes the capacity to listen and empathise as well as to express coherently and effectively, is a more useful and demanded skill today than that of physical strength. Power increasingly resides in our ability to communicate with and respond flexibly to those around us, to work co-operatively rather than competitively, skills that we as men have often not developed beyond a rudimentary level. Our unwillingness to accept our inadequacies and ignorance and engage in a learning process to develop these skills leaves us even more powerless, albeit of our own making. For all these factors are reinforced and maintained by ourselves as men.
However, it is possible to change and there are many men working alongside women to create such change, at both the individual and social level. In this edition of Achilles Heel we have attempted to describe and reflect upon both the issues described above and the changes that are being made. We believe that such change will benefit men as well as women, for it is not male power itself that is the problem but its abuse and exclusivity. As our frontispiece states, 'We aim to challenge traditional forms of masculinity and male power and support the creation of alternative social structures and personal ways of being'. We hope this issue contributes to that purpose.
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