The Role of Men in Promoting Gender Equality
Kambiz Rafraf and Mahyar Mofidi
Men: Why do women buy into the ‘John Wayne’ stereotype
of how a man should act? Women: Why do men feel like they have
to control things and always be the heroes? Is what we have here a failure
to communicate? Maybe not.
Laughter, recognition and a spirit of listening imbued this lively
workshop, led by two men who have been involved in a number of efforts
to advance the equality of women and men.
Women: Express your feelings more regularly—you’ll
be less explosive and aggressive. Men: Give us more time to identify
and process our emotions—we’re not used to it. The centerpiece
of the workshop was an exercise in which three groups of men and three
groups of women identified issues that seem often to get in the way
of understanding between women and men—then spoke them out loud.
(A few of those concerns are quoted here.)
That exercise followed a basic grounding in the Bahá’í writings
on the equality of the sexes, plus their ramifications for changes in
men’s behavior, so that men put less pressure on themselves and
foster an atmosphere in which traditionally feminine qualities can influence
society more greatly.
Women: Don’t try to do everything for us; encourage us
to do it ourselves.
Men: Please give us time to undo thousands of years of bad thinking.
—James Humphrey, reporter
