Tuesday, August 23, 2011

"Man Child" - A Quote from Audre Lorde


My clinical supervisor suggested I read  this essay today (we had a good chat about gender issues and feminism) - and this quote literally slapped me upside the head.

The subject came up when she told me about one of her first male clients in the U.S. (she is from Italy), a man who described himself as a feminist and said he hated being a man. She responded with, "Well, that's a problem." Not what he expected to hear in a society that often rewards men for being self-hating.

Anyway, for a good portion of my life, this article described me. I was that man child afraid of my own emotions, afraid to feel.
"Men who are afraid to feel must keep women around to do their feeling for them while dismissing us for the same supposedly “inferior” capacity to feel deeply. But in this way also, men deny themselves their own essential humanity, becoming trapped in dependency and fear."
~ Audre Lorde, "Man Child," Sister Outsider, p. 74

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