One quote that I should have included in the post below from Terrence Real's interview is this one:
"I'd like to see the culture change. I'd like to see more people like you doing interviews like this. When you think of the support that a young woman has, in breaking out of roles, Ms. Magazine and all the consciousness-raising groups, and you contrast that to the almost total aloneness a young man has in trying to break out of these roles, I think it's time for us to help a young man like that by creating some kind of a counter-movement or counter-wave that he can feel at home in. That's partly why I'm here."
To a great extent, that's what I think many men are doing through weblogging. The brave ones. You guys ARE the counter-culture movement among men. Men like Mike Golby, Marek, George S., George P., Ray, Tom S., Tom M., Craig Jensen, AKMA, Euan, Frank Paynter, Gary Turner, and of course the father of male truth bloggers and post 40s depression, RageBoy.
If Real is right, and cultural edicts are largely responsible for disconnecting men--under the guise of a survival mechanism for their very gender--then this is why so many men are "coming out" and reconnecting as bloggers. I know that Mike and Tom and Gary and George Partington go to work each day and do their thing--their semi-connected, make-the-best-of-it role which is necessary for their survival, to provide for the well-being of their families. I also know that they unleash parts of themselves in a very real and necessary way within their weblogs that the folks at work--sometimes even at home--don't get to see.
Men ARE reconnecting through weblogging. Not in the same way that women are--more subtle, more slowly--but perhaps in an even more important way. Somehow Real's notion that cultural edicts have taken power away from women and connections away from men seems just right when it comes to what we're doing here in Blogaria. Women are gaining power and voice in a way that's never been before, and men are connecting in ways that are rare and special and human.
Food for thought. And you guys are braver than I knew.
