檳榔嶼

- We are bombarded by successful "war" movie (Deep Impact, Armageddon, Gladiator, Pearl Harbor) that glamorize killing.
  - The wars we see in today's movies are technological carnivals full of bright lights and intriguing ammo (ammunition).
- These movies - Independence Days, Men in Black, Air Force One (there are so many it's impossible to name them all) - though presented as entertainment, are also obviously prowar imperialist propaganda. They combine nostalgia and backlash.
  - Nostalgia for the hyperglorification of patriarchal masculinity converges with a covert critique suggesting that men who do not want to fight in wars are not "real" men.
  - These screen images are meant to wipe out the unglamorous history of boys and men dying young.
- Women were tired of being treated like sex objects by the individual men they were relating to, whether as friends or lovers. From the movement's inception, visionary feminist women wholeheartedly believed that it would change the lives of men for the better. And it did.
- By the mid-eighties, antifeminist backlash had pretty much silenced the voice of feminist masculinity, and there was no longer a public call for men to challenge and change patriarchy. Indeed, the tyranny of the hypermasculine reigned supreme expressed in popular culture by the increased dominance of misogynist rap.
- There was a "new man" in the making. ... however confusing, to challenging and changing patriarchy. This man had eagerly taken women's-studies courses and had never embraced sexist thinking.
  - Their presence has been and is the real-life manifestation of the truth that feminist is for everyone.
- Now that some males have changed, all women have to confront the reality that sexist, masculinist behavior once believed to be innate not only is learned but can be unlearned.
  - These exceptional men offer to women they encounter in either friendships or romantic relationships the possibility of experiencing mutual love.
- When it comes to choosing a partner, I am most attracted to men who are wholeheartedly committed to feminist thinking and practice.
  - When a man changes to please a woman rather than from his own inner conviction, the changes are likely to be superficial.
- Enlightened feminist heterosexual women in midlife, who have known both types of relationships - those in which we have to convince men of our rights and those in which men come to us embracing the truth of equality - know that once you have experienced the latter, there is little incentive to intimately engage unreconstructed men.
- Patriarchal masculinity prevents men from gaining the skills of be holistic, to have emotional well-being. They effectively challenge the notion that boys need to rebel against their mothers to achieve healthy separation, linking male violence and rage to our cultural failure to teach males emotional self-expression.
  - They are not ashamed to express their desire to love and be love as boldly as any women would.
- New men see no need to dominate others in personal interaction. They can converse without making themselves the center of attention or their concerns the focal point.
- Most patriarchal men find it difficult to talk openly with women. And they usually dominate all conversations, even those with other men. They fail to listen to and are incapable of engaging in dialogue. In conversations they usually give speeches or tell stories.
- This is a trait that makes the new man an alluring and exciting partner. Being in his presence is like being in the presence of a woman friend.
- ... my initial confusion and fear when I had a male lover who truly honored my body. Free to give full expression to sexual feelings, including the right to say no during any sexual interaction and at any stage, I was not sure how to behave. I was so accustomed to men who placed the satisfaction of their sexual desire over my and any woman's well-being. Unlike all other sexual encounters I had with men, there was never a moment when I had to pretend to feel something I did not feel. All my with hostility if the woman expresses displeasure or discomfort. When I shared with women friends the nature of our interaction, they kept saying "Are your sure he isn't gay?" I learned an important lesson then. We demand that men change, and when they do, we are often not ready to affirm and embrace the liberation we claimed to desire.
- New men can testify that the world is not yet ready for all they have to offer, because it is their behavior, more than any feminist theory, that challenges conventional accepted beliefs about the nature of masculinity.
- John Stoltenber, <<The End of Manhood>> : "Learning to live as a man of conscience means deciding that your loyalty to the people whom you love is always more important than whatever lingering loyalty you may sometimes feel to other men's judgment on your manhood."
- Embracing equality means that we all have to let go of our attachment to the idea of "gender difference".
- Often men who are antisexist go into hiding to remove themselves from the pressure to conform to sexist norms that are all around them.
- They are the "good man" women are looking to encounter. With them, no woman has to fear domination or the threat of sexual violence. They have no manhood that must be proven by aggression against womanhood.
- Silverstein and Rashbaum : "The good man, like the good woman, will be empathic and strong, autonomous and connected, responsible to self, to family and friends, and to society, and capable of understanding how those responsibilities are, ultimately, inseparable."
- As more males became involved, feminist cultural revolution threatened to bring an end to patriarchy.
  - No degree of antifeminist propaganda can change the reality that feminism has already created a world where there are new men who can offer women the mutual love we long for.
- When women who want to be with male partners search for love, we must first accept that we will never find it in the arms of patriarchy.
- I have encountered many men who want to be loving and who are willing to do the work. They find it difficult because there are just not enough support structures in place to affirm loving feminist masculinity. The path to male self-love is as arduous as the path to female self-love. We all usually have to begin this journey by going back to childhood to do the work of reparenting, to love ourselves rightly.
   - These men are working to recover the joy that they experienced when they felt they could open their hearts and just let the feelings come in.
- We are eager to read the books by men who are not from Mars but who are right here on this Earth giving and receiving love. They can offer us healing wisdom. When they let their hearts speak, the dialogue of love can commence and true heterosexual communion can emerge.