Of his beloved Andrea he said simply, “I couldn’t imagine life without Andrea. Andrea and I lived together for more than 30 years. She was my life partner. She was the love of my life. But I always knew that she did not belong to me. There was a love that belonged to us. But she—her life—did not belong to me. It’s why we never told anybody really that we married, because people get confused about that. They think, ‘Oh, she’s yours.’ And we just didn’t want that nonsense... Her real remains are her words. And they are alive. And we can read them and reread them and figure out what she would be saying. It is a way to imagine life without Andrea.”

This is a man who can fully love a woman.

There is a National Organization for Women t-shirt which proclaims: “A Man of Quality is Not Threatened by a Woman for Equality.” Well, John is that “man of quality.”

Sadly for many of us in the woman’s movement, finding men who aren’t threatened by women who claim their equality hasn’t been simple. One of my abiding heartaches for the past 35 years has been realizing how few men and boys will stand up to declare their own commitment to feminism, shoulder to shoulder with women and girls. After all, the definition of “feminism” is gender neutral: it’s simply a belief in securing equal rights and opportunities irrespective of gender. There are men and boys of conscience. Many of them are involved with a non-profit called, Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR). This organization sponsors a powerful anti-rape campaign, My Strength is Not for Hurting, which was designed and envisioned by John Stoltenberg.

Imagine my joy in the early 90s when I first became aware of this extraordinary man, who shares my gender politics. John is one of the major heroes of the so-called 2nd wave of feminism. A man of strong moral character and intellectual power, one has only to read some of what he says in the 2000 reprint of his book, The End of Manhood to appreciate his deft wielding of clear reasoning balanced by a total lack of pretense. He has no desire to impress, only to communicate and change minds about how necessary it is to commit to equal opportunity and respect for men and women:

”Academicians…have developed complex new theoretical discourses that promise if not answers, at least rarefied ways of casting the questions. You may not ever actually get the practical answers to whatever first drew you to the study of gender theory but by god you’ll be taught ways to ponder the perplexities!

“What I propose in The End of Manhood is a personal methodology for a radical new look at gender. It begins with the notion that gender is an ethical construction.”

He continues,

“Why does an apparently ‘honest’ man do something deceitful? Why does a generally ‘kind’ man do something that wounds? Why does a reputably ‘caring’ and ‘decent’ man commit an act so steeped in contempt that it is as if someone else had done it…

“Gender – to opt out of its demands in confidence, not disgrace – we do not need esoteric theory, some cerebral mumbo jumbo, but we do need to know how to re-read those narratives of everyday life.”

Re-reading the narratives of everyday life is the point of End of Manhood. There Stoltenberg combines case studies, autobiography, checklists and discussion points to speak directly to men about how the social construct of manhood operates in everyday relationships. He shows how these same dynamics drive the behavior of gangs, race-hate groups, and international imperialism. On using this approach to change minds and hearts, he comments, “This book is written in a form that is both modeled on and a send-up of a ‘self help’ book.” This is a man with a sense of humor and humility.

“Men of Strength” happens to be the name of the award that the organization MCSR bestows annually in D.C. This year the “Men of Strength” awards will be held, appropriately, at the end of this month, as April is Sexual Assault Awareness month.

Like many women of my generation, I started my formal relationship with the women’s movement as a teenager. Upon reading Sisterhood is Powerful, an anthology of essays by many thoughtful women compiled by Robin Morgan, my life changed forever. I experienced a mixture of both joy and indignation on reading the Sisterhood observations. They helped me discover that my limitations weren’t personal; they were political. I was not inferior because I was a girl; there was nothing wrong with me because I bridled at gender-dictated limitations. Rather, I had been herded into a “feminine track” based on my double X chromosome.

Revolutionary ideas. I had found my mission: to liberate myself and half of the world’s population.

Naively, I figured the men and boys important to my life would share my enthusiasm at discovering gender inequities; I thought they would want to get right to work curing them alongside me. Surely they would see that they too were damaged and limited by gender restrictions; surely they would be just as indignant about the social injustices that women and girls routinely experience as they were about Jim Crow laws and other forms of blatant prejudice.

As any introspective citizen will attest, critical to rooting out bigotry of any sort is exploring one’s own attitudes to see where bias has been unconscious, culturally induced, and unexamined. Plenty of the erstwhile liberal men in my life embraced the Civil Rights movement as the important step in social progress that it was and continues to be. They often copped to their own responsibilities in keeping racism in place.

But there was a very big disconnect for many of these men on the women’s liberation front. All of a sudden, the “personal is the political” was not a bumper sticker sentiment, but a real factor in relationships between males and females. Personally, I have been incredibly fortunate to have had a father who encouraged my feminism. My male partners have also been enormously supportive, if not always active. (My fiancé is active and empowering.) Alas, too many of our brothers, fathers, boyfriends, husbands, doctors, clergy, teachers and professors were not eager to throw off their own male privilege to give a boost to “sisterhood.” In fact, many of them participated in a sexist backlash to keep us “uppity” gals in our places -- a backlash that we’re currently witnessing firsthand as the media “boys” in the mainstream go after Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton with every epithet they can hurl at her.

Then along comes John Stoltenberg, a man so secure in his personhood that he’s not only had the courage to explore masculinity in depth but to tackle it as a linchpin of moral and cultural transformation.

Long an activist against sexual violence and a rare male philosopher about the intersection of gender and violence, John is the author of Refusing to Be a Man: Essays on Sex and Justice (rev. ed. UCL Press, 2000), The End of Manhood: Parables on Sex and Selfhood (rev. ed. UCL Press, 2000), and What Makes Pornography ‘Sexy’? (Milkweed Editions, 1994).

Peggy Garrity, a Los Angeles attorney specializing in sexual harassment cases, was the first to turn me onto Stoltenberg’s work. I remember reading Refusing to Be a Man with my mouth agape. It was a man talking about “inside” information; it was like being a fly on the locker room wall. This was radical feminism, at its most insightful. If you haven’t read his work, please do. It will expose areas of entrenched male supremacist behaviors and attitudes that you know are there but which most men will deny.

What is unique about John is that he is absolutely down to earth; Stoltenberg is the anti-Rush Limbaugh. A Paragon of Patriarchy, Limbaugh has incited male supremacist audiences for years by branding women’s civil rights activists as “femi-nazis,” by launching vicious ad hominem attacks on women who are in the public eye and especially on women who dare to be older than 30. Once you read Stoltenberg, you’ll see that Limbaugh’s topsy-turvy feminist-bashing is simply a tactic that keeps patriarchy in power. That Limbaugh continues to be one of the most influential men in America is stark evidence that sexism is still rampant in our society.

Stoltenberg is the visionary and creative force behind My Strength is Not for Hurting, a visually beautiful ad campaign that seeks to influence young men on high school and college campuses to stop rape, domestic/dating violence and homophobia. Men and boys are inundated with “traditional” masculine role models in popular culture. This campaign offers an alternative tradition: the strength to be gentle, to be kind and to partner with females rather than try to be their dominators.

As a physical self-defense advocate, one of the things I hear most often from women who have read my book, Beauty Bites Beast: Awakening the Warrior Within Women and Girls, is: “Men should stop raping. Why do I need to learn how to defend myself when it’s males who are assaulting us? They are the ones who to need to change.” Indeed.

While that’s a logical observation, the drive to commit the crime of battery or rape does not arise from logic. It resides in an obsession with domination, power and control. Stoltenberg and the other men at MCSR offer this mission statement on their web site: “Men Can Stop Rape mobilizes male youth to prevent men's violence against women. We build young men's capacity to challenge harmful aspects of traditional masculinity, to value alternative visions of male strength, and to embrace their vital role as allies with women and girls in fostering healthy relationships and gender equity.”

I’m moved and inspired by that statement. The heartache I’ve felt over the years about how few male colleagues there were is soothed when I know that Stoltenberg and MCSR are out in the world, on campuses and on young men’s agendas, working to stop sexual assault, domestic violence and take sexism on, heart-to-heart and shoulder-to-shoulder with the women and girls they love.

To find out more about getting a “My Strength is Not for Hurting” campaign in your local high schools, colleges and universities, visit the MCSR web site: www.mencanstoprape.org.

John Stoltenberg’s ideas are powerful.



About the Author
Ellen Snortland’s work as an author, self-defense advocate and instructor has been featured on Dateline NBC with her book, “Beauty Bites Beast.” A regular columnist for the Pasadena Weekly and frequent contributor to Ms. Magazine, she is a tireless advocate for women and girls and physical safety for all. Ms. Snortland believes that “Think Globally, Act Locally,” is vital for women and girls. She says, “There’s nothing more local than one’s own body.” Ellen received her Juris Doctorate from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

As a UNA delegate, co-chair of Fifty-Fifty Leadership and journalist, Ellen has attended United Nations world conferences and annual UN meetings. Her acclaimed one-woman show, “Now That She’s Gone” is a comic memoir about growing up as a Norwegian American in Colorado and South Dakota, which she is currently planning on having produced in a regular theater venue and as a touring show. She is also raising funds for and directing, “Beauty Bites Beast,” a documentary based on her self-defense advocacy. For more information, visit her organization’s website.