Not an Elevator Speech

From Menletter August 2004

By Tim Baehr

"Elevator speech" - a short speech, usually lasting from fifteen seconds to a couple of minutes (long enough for an elevator ride), in which you tell the essential points about a topic. The topic is usually about yourself, a product you're selling, or a cause you are espousing. Elevator speeches are typically used in sales, business networking, and the like.

Sing for your supper?

My wife and I were out to dinner with an old friend of my wife, and her companion. It was a soft midsummer evening, the food was superb, and we were eating outside on a tiny patio at the back of the restaurant. It was a perfect setting for relaxation and lively conversation.

One of the areas our wide-ranging conversation wandered into was the benefits I had gotten out of attending men's gatherings and retreats, and doing other kinds of men-oriented work, including this newsletter. My wife's friend listened intently, asking questions. Then she dropped the big one:

"How exactly would you define 'men's work'?"

There was a long, long pause. I feel like I've been doing some kind of men's work for over a dozen years and very actively for the last six years. I'm also aware that the term "men's work" can encompass many different kinds of activity, not all of which I take part in. But I was having trouble even coming up with a suitable elevator speech describing my own work.

How would you do with such an elevator speech, on men's work or on any other topic you're deeply involved in? Have you thought about it enough to have a ready answer, or would you be stammering and hemming and hawing as I was?

We chatted for a while as I answered questions and talked about the kind of men's work I do and some other kinds of men's work I'm familiar with. But it occurred to me that the question deserved a more thoroughly thought-out answer - maybe too long for an elevator ride, but at least one based on more than off-the-cuff dinner table conversation.

Here's what I've come up with, based on personal experience and observation. I've identified four categories of men's work: Inner work, Ritual work, Outer or outreach work, and Social advocacy. Some men may do all their men's work in just one or two categories. But I think it's more typical for the areas to overlap and intertwine.

Inner work

Many men do much of their work as interior explorations into inner spaces - their souls if they believe in a soul, or just their essential being. They may undertake a meditation practice, keep a journal, write poetry, or engage in some other kind of solitary spiritual or artistic work. They may be part of a group or have a teacher, but the bulk of the work is done alone.

Although the work can be generally spiritual or "inner," there's often an element of exploration specifically into what it means to be a man: What is my essential nature as a man? How do I relate to the world as a man? What is masculinity? Do I have a "feminine" side?

Ritual work

Inner work often leads to life changes, some of them dramatic. Ritual work is also about change, but within a community of men.

When the mythopoetic movement got underway a quarter century ago (or so), one emphasis was on ritual. Ritual work continues today, often in the form of men's gatherings or retreats. Men gather for a weekend or a week and share such activities as drumming, story-telling, sweat lodges, breathwork, and so on. Individual changes, often accompanied by strong emotions, take place, but usually in the context of a sacred ritual space.

Ritual space is a psychic container carefully built, often by experienced leaders, as both a physical location and a community of sharing. This space is necessary for men to feel that their emotions are being shared in a safe community beyond the reach of ridicule and shame.

Other forms of men-focused ritual work, both mythopoetic and otherwise, include men's groups, drumming circles, church-based groups, poetry groups, and so on. One very important gateway into ritual work is Alcoholics Anonymous and other twelve-step programs. Many men seem to have come into mythopoetic ritual work along this avenue.

Outer or outreach work

Some men are committed to reaching out to other men, to encourage them to engage in the inner or ritual work that has benefited them and their friends. This kind of work is quite varied and includes prison visiting, leading retreats, writing newsletters and maintaining Web sites, authoring books, hosting radio shows, and so on. The work may be strictly non-commercial (such as this newsletter, the superb men's Web site at www.themenscenter.com, or the Web sites maintained by volunteers for various men's groups and men's gatherings). The work may be supported by advertising, such as Glenn Sacks's radio show and many other men's Web sites. Many books on men's issues are authored by psychologists working with men (Allan Chinen, Aaron Kipnis, Michael Gurian), leaders of the men's movement (Robert Bly, Michael Meade), or men's advocates (Warren Farrell, Jack Kammer).

See the Resources links for Web sites about men's gatherings, psychologists, and men's movement leaders.

Social advocacy

Advocates of men's issues work in particular areas in which men's lives are challenged simply because they are men. These areas include divorce, custody and visitation rights, false accusations of abuse, prison rape, domestic violence against men and boys, men's health, educational discrimination against boys, circumcision, depiction of men in the media, and so on.

Interactions

As I mentioned earlier, these areas often overlap and intertwine. A man may begin attending ritual men's groups or retreats and be motivated to work on his inner life. A man may reach a personal crisis, begin to work on his inner life, and then join a men's group. A man may undergo a nasty divorce and join an advocacy group. If I haven't described your situation, it's because there are more possible combinations than I have time or space for.

A downside of all this variety may be the frustration or guilt that we can't be involved in all of the areas of men's work. This may be especially true of a man who has the time, energy, or inclination only for inner work; he may feel he's letting other men down. But even the inner work creates outer benefits. A man who lives more consciously and compassionately will benefit everyone around him.

Past essays on this site touch on some of the themes here: Men's Work and How To Start a Men's Group.

Finally, this

At the risk of this sounding like I'm putting forth a condescending "last but not least" acknowledgment, I want to recognize that much of what we call men's work is the dangerous, dirty, work performed mostly by men: firefighting, police patrol work, soldiering, construction, fishing, farming, lumberjacking, mining, roofing, and the like.

This is all work in what Warren Farrell has called the Glass Cellar (http://www.warrenfarrell.com/labor_day_art.htm). If we men in safer jobs have the luxury of doing inner work, ritual work, outreach, and advocacy, it is at least in part because other men are working down in the cellar keeping us safe and our society's infrastructure going. We forget this at our peril.