Letter | On Robert Bly and origins of the ‘men’s movement’

Stephen Kessler wrote Nov. 27 that Robert Bly started “the” men’s movement. As an anti-sexist men’s activist in the early ’80s, I challenged Bly when I read the Yoga Journal articles that presaged Iron John. Like me, he noticed a tendency for young males to become dispirited. He blamed mothers and feminists. I believed men were realizing that traditional templates for masculinity didn’t fit them. They were hungry for role models, allies, fresh ideas.

Male malaise (my term for it) was a hard, lonely rebuilding period for the self. Men were pursuing an innate desire to be better, fuller people. Reaching for Bly’s “golden ball” too soon would be a form of spiritual bypass. We spoke for a couple hours. He called me an “apologist for my mother,” but did agree to make some changes. Bly’s work was never the dominant strain, much less the origin, of the multifaceted “men’s movement.”

— Craig McLaughlin, Santa Cruz

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