Until we make this distinction clear, men will continue to fear that any critique of patriarchy represents a threat.

War was in its earliest forms inclusive of women and men. Detailing its history in Blood Rites, Barbara Ehrenreich reminds us that “by assigning the triumphant predator status to males alone, humans have helped themselves to ‘forget’ that nightmarish prehistory in which they were, male and female, prey to larger, stronger animals…. Gender, in other

This serves to remind us that the will to use violence is really not linked to biology but to a set of expectations about the nature of power in a dominator culture.

Only when we courageously face male pain without turning away will we model for men the emotional awareness healing requires.

Sex, then, becomes for most men a way of self-solacing. It is not about connecting to someone else but rather about releasing their own pain. The addict is often an individual in acute pain.

Imagine a wage offered for this work of self-development.

Time and time again when I struggled to do the work of love with a male partner who was not changing, I was told to give up on him, to kick him to the curb. I was told I was wasting my time. All this negative feedback made me ponder whether healing places exist where wounded males can go where they will not be turned away, especially when positive

Patriarchal masculinity teaches men that their selfhood has meaning only in relation to the pursuit of external power; such masculinity is a subtext of the dominator model.

We need to highlight the role women play in perpetuating and sustaining patriarchal culture so that we will recognize patriarchy as a system women and men support equally, even if men receive more rewards from that system.