I had a class on Men's Ministry today, and ya'll - I have some thoughts.
1. I'm tired of classes that rely on tired gender stereotypes for an easy laugh or simplistic analogy, instead of robust and nuanced analysis of gender differences.
1. I'm tired of classes that rely on tired gender stereotypes for an easy laugh or simplistic analogy, instead of robust and nuanced analysis of gender differences.
Such as:
-Men don't care about frilly lady things like centerpieces. Maybe flower arrangements aren't your thing (they aren't mine), but the appreciation of beauty is something we should value, recognize, and cultivate in all people, not just women.
-Men don't care about frilly lady things like centerpieces. Maybe flower arrangements aren't your thing (they aren't mine), but the appreciation of beauty is something we should value, recognize, and cultivate in all people, not just women.
- Men are incompetent when it comes to cooking, emotions, or relationships. LOL look at these videos of men who can't change diapers or LOL insert joke about men forgetting the napkins for their breakfast meeting
2. The role of the church is not to baptize toxic masculinity, but to redeem true masculinity. We need to do better than catering or coddling harmful attitudes about emotions and relationships. Instead, we should call everyone to truer, better, healthier understandings of both.
In class today, it was sort of taken as a given that men are largely incapable of valuing relationships or talking about emotions. Instead of challenging that cultural attitude, it was treated as either good or inevitable, something we would just need to assume.
3. Many churches are going to find their numbers declining when they focus their ministries on these tired stereotypes. Here is an exhaustive list of the topics that we were told today men would be interested in: sports, woodworking, cars, and guns.
There are real issues surrounding gender that the church needs to speak into. But when our understanding of gender is limited by the same confines as 50's television shows, we communicate that along with biblical ideas about gender must come all our favorite cultural ones.
4. We spent a LOT of time hearing that men aren't interested in "that theology stuff," church, or spiritual matters. But we're also in an institution (and part of a church tradition) that largely believes men should lead the church.
Somehow we've ended up treating men as immature children AND the only competent leaders. At the same time. That's the power of patriarchy - we excuse bad behavior by placing the burden of "controlling" men on women, but we also limit power to these supposedly uncontrollable men.
And THAT is something that is so pervasively characterizing our discussions about sexual assault of women. Men's behavior is waved off as harmlessly juvenile, but no consideration is given to the way that power dynamics influence the situation.
Church, we cannot continue to contribute to the sexualization, degradation, and marginalization of women by treating men as both helplessly juvenile and exclusively capable of leading and exercising authority.
We can’t coddle toxic masculinity, trot out tired jokes about kitchens & bumbling dads (heard those today too), and tell classes of seminary students that we should host events that have “thick steaks and car shows” but are “light on preaching." (Yes, this was said.)
We can’t feed the problem and then expect to turn around and speak confidently into it.
