Lacking a vision for true gender equity and equality, some men impede solutions for improving the lives of boys and men
Among the 150+ blog posts we’ve published to date, our most-viewed article is about seven lessons from Eddie Murphy in Daddy Day Care. One of the lessons from that movie is that men sometimes get in the way of equality for men.
In Daddy Day Care, a male character named Bruce makes fun of the main characters, Charlie and Phil, when he learns they’re running a daycare business. Bruce laughs at them and calls them “losers”. A different male character disdainfully tells Charlie and Phil, “No, men can’t do anything women can do.” Men being daycare teachers is “unnatural” and “a little bit icky”, he says, with his impressionable young son by his side.
These men don’t want to allow their fellow man to escape the confines of society’s gendered expectations for men and to have the same flexibility in role options that is available to women.
Challenge: getting men to advocate for males
In the three years we’ve been carrying out advocacy focused on Washington’s male population, we have received tremendous support from many men. Yet, we have also confronted the reality that it is challenging to get men to advocate for males, even when the data are clear that boys and men face gender-specific challenges. Moreover, some men actively thwart efforts to help boys and men who aren’t flourishing.
No hearing for commission on boys and men bill
The best available evidence shows that some real issues are disproportionately harming Washington’s male population.
A bill with bipartisan support would establish a state commission tasked with improving the wellness of boys and men in five key areas. Leading up to and during the 2024 Washington State legislative session, supporters of this bill outreached to Representative Bill Ramos (D-Issaquah) and Senator Sam Hunt (D-Olympia). These two men chaired the committees that the legislation was referred to — the House Committee on State Government & Tribal Relations and the Senate Committee on State Government & Elections. As committee chairs, they alone possessed the authority to schedule a hearing for the commission on boys and men bill or, alternately, to keep it on the shelf for a third straight year. Both of them opted to keep it on the shelf for another year.
Rep. Ramos and Sen. Hunt received appeals from fellow lawmakers, constituents, and people all over the state requesting that they schedule a public hearing for the bill. A public hearing would have allowed lawmakers to hear testimony from experts and members of the public. Rep. Ramos and Sen. Hunt declined to enable that opportunity.
Note: An updated version of the one-pager for the commission on boys and men legislation is at WABoysandMen.org, which is the website of the grassroots campaign supporting the bill. A direct link to the one-pager is here.
Shortly after it was clear that the commission on boys and men bill would not receive a hearing during the 2024 legislative session, Sen. Hunt participated in a town hall event accompanied by two other lawmakers. One of the attendees asked about the commission on boys and men bill. Sen. Hunt chose to stay silent. A different legislator responded instead.
Neither Sen. Hunt nor Rep. Ramos have said anything publicly about why they did not hold a hearing for the commission on boys and men bill. However, a different male legislator did say something publicly about it the prior year, as we explain next.
Reluctance to target help toward males
It was February 2023 and time was running out for legislators to hold a hearing on the Washington commission on boys and men bill. (2023 was the second year the bill was in front of the legislature.)
During a media session hosted by Democratic leadership, KING-5 News reporter Drew Mikkelsen asked, “Why is a commission on boys and men a bad idea? Why don’t we want that?”
The complete response from Representative Joe Fitzgibbon (D-West Seattle) is shown here. The portion of his answer that a media outlet picked up on was about males being “the segment of our society that’s been historically most advantaged.” (Herein lies a challenge; the history of advantages that have benefited some men make it difficult for many people to see ways in which being male can be disadvantageous today, and what we might do about it.)
It’s important that we point out we have reasons to believe Rep. Fitzgibbon may no longer feel the same way about the commission on boys and men bill that he did over a year ago. We think he now has a better understanding of the case for this proposed commission and the actual motives of those of us who are advocating for it.
Men willing to lead in male advocacy
Before concluding this piece with three more examples of men in our state hampering progress for males as a group, we’ll turn to three men who, very commendably, have stepped forward as leaders willing to speak up for boys and men.
- Senator John Lovick (D-Mill Creek) is one of two prime sponsors of the Washington commission on boys and men bill. (The other is Representative Mary Dye). Sen. Lovick and his staff have taken several meetings with advocates for the bill, and they are serious about this cause. Additional male legislators who sponsored the commission on boys and men bill in 2024 included Sen. Matt Boehnke, Sen. Bob Hasegawa, Sen. Jesse Salomon, Rep. Chris Stearns, and Rep. Joel McEntire.
- Former Ellensburg City Councilmember Adam Winn sponsored the City of Ellensburg’s International Men’s Day Proclamation in November 2022. This was the first-ever occasion of a government entity in Washington recognizing International Men’s Day.
- Bellevue City Councilmember Jared Nieuwenhuis sponsored the City of Bellevue’s International Men’s Day Proclamation in November 2023, the second occasion of a government entity in Washington recognizing International Men’s Day.
In our view, these men deserve admiration and appreciation as rare politicians willing to publicly signal their desire that our aspirations for gender equity and gender equality expand to include boys and men’s challenges.
‘A misunderstanding about commissions’
Many men don’t see the male half of the population as a group in need of — or deserving of — targeted efforts to recognize their struggles and address them. Such men may see certain subsets of males as disadvantaged, but they don’t recognize gender-linked challenges that transcend race, class, and other characteristics.
Consider the response below that we received from a high-level male leader in Washington who is aware of the various state government commissions, after we reached out to him about the grassroots campaign for a commission on boys and men:
“Thank you for the invitation to chat. However, there seems to be a misunderstanding on how Commissions are established and what issues they address. The objective of establishing Commissions within the Governor’s Office is to address systemic issues that have prevented specific, minoritized communities identified as protected classes in Washington from being part of the policymaking process that directly impacts their lives. Some communities, such as veterans or disabled people, do not have a commission but are represented through either state agencies, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, or the Governor’s Committee on Disability. The challenges that men and boys of color face (such as higher rates of incarceration for Black men, or lack of access to safe housing for boys of color) are addressed through the ethnic commissions, and the challenges of trans and transmasculine boys and men are addressed through the LGBTQ Commission.”
Data indicate that boys and men broadly are struggling in certain ways. When we try to address those challenges only within specific subpopulations, we miss the cross-cutting issues and possible solutions. [See: Boys and Men’s Issues Cross Racial and Ethnic Lines]
Perpetuating gender bias about DV
Public messaging about domestic violence that is unbiased and forward-looking needs to expose people not only to the reality than men and boys are capable of violating women and girls but also that men and boys are capable of being victimized by women and girls.
David Martin is the supervisor of the domestic violence unit at the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. He frequently testifies to state lawmakers when they’re considering policies around domestic violence. He might currently be the most influential person in our state in terms of shaping our lawmaker’s perceptions about DV.
Mr. Martin identifies himself as someone who helps victims of “gender-based violence,” a flawed term that is indicative of his gender bias. Also indicative of his gender bias is his dubious assertion to the legislators on the House Committee on Community Safety, Justice, and Reentry that “those who commit domestic violence are overwhelmingly men” (January 11, 2024). That assertion and our well-founded reasons for disagreeing with it in our video “End the Gender Bias | Time for Domestic Violence Experts to Change”.
Our video also points out evidence of gender bias by another man, Ward Urion. Mr. Urion is a prevention specialist with the Washington State Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
David Martin and Ward Urion’s careers have exposed them to a particular subset of domestic violence that has cultivated in them an unfortunate neglect of the frequency and severity of female-on-male violence. Undoubtedly these men are well-intentioned with their advocacy. Their public messaging about domestic violence and relationship abuse, though, is hindering progress for boys, male youth, and men.
Conclusion
It can be frustrating and disappointing when men stand in the way of progress for boys and men. We understand and empathize with the various reasons this occurs. Perhaps we’ll delve into those reasons in a future article.