How I Came to Work at Men Can Stop Rape, Part 3

by Patrick McGann
Director of Strategy and Planning

In Part 2, I'm stuck in my own public / private dichotomy after writing “Women and the Dichotomy of Literacy: Public / Private Discourse” in graduate school. At the end of that paper, I recognize that by “establishing male standards as the norm, all other possible standards are devalued, or—as in the case with women's writing at various times in history—denied existence” and argue that a way out of this toxic split is pluralism. Public and private discourses would be treated as equal.

So, that’s what I aspired to do in 1989 after reading Carrol Smith-Rosenberg’s Disorderly Conduct. I was especially struck by the chapter, “The Female World of Love and Ritual.” Smith-Rosenberg, after studying the letters and diaries written in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by women and men in 35 families, concludes that during this time sensual and emotional intensity between middle class literate women was, rather than deviant, a cultural norm accepted by both men and women. Language generally considered normal for romantic heterosexual relationships was common in letters between women. Consider Molly and Helena, two women who became close friends over a period of years. Molly writes to Helena, thanking her for a gift: “Imagine yourself kissed a dozen times my darling. Perhaps it is well for you that we are far apart. You might find my thanks so expressed rather overpowering.”

I set out to use Molly as my role model.

By the late ‘eighties Abby had been complaining for a while that I never seemed to need her, that when we hugged, it didn’t feel like I was there with her. In other words, I was emotionally distant and resistant to intimacy.

I knew I couldn’t academically write my way out of this relationship issue with Abby, but I thought I might be able to make some headway through letters. Abby and I spent the summer of 1990 apart; she was teaching summer classes at Texas Tech University, while I stayed back in Illinois, teaching a summer course at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I wrote four letters while she was still in Chicago, sealed them in envelopes, dated when she was supposed to open each one, and gave them to her before she boarded her plane for Texas, knowing that it would take three or four days for the Post Office to deliver the first letter I wrote after she left. Using Molly as my inspiration, I wrote in the first letter:

“Dear Abby,
     “I suppose I’ll really be missing you now—especially at night. I always like it when you roll over against me. It’s a nice way to slip into the dream world, which isn’t always so warm and comforting. When I think about when we were first together and how I couldn’t sleep with you pressed against me, I’m amazed, because now it’s hard for me to sleep with you not close to me. I’m glad that’s something that’s changed, and I’m sure you are too.
       I don’t know when the poetry group is going to meet that you’re going to attend in San Antonio. That should be fun; you seem to get more of a kick now that you used to out of reading your poems to people. Have I ever told you how much I like your poetry? If you put out a book of your poems, I would be the first one standing in line waiting to purchase it.”

The more I continued writing letters while she was away, the harder it got. A week-and-a-half into the process, I commented in one letter how writing to her daily was starting to seem “sort of neurotic to me at times.”

Feminism, Abby, and Molly had helped me take some initial steps toward being a different kind of man, but I couldn’t sustain it. I needed additional support. That would come from other men and masculinity studies.

To be continued…

Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. As Director of Strategy and Planning, Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2008 and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD in 2010. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence. Share

How I Came to Work at Men Can Stop Rape, Part 2

by Patrick McGann
Director of Strategy and Planning

Part 2 takes up where Part 1 ended: “Getting friendly with feminism.” It might be more accurate, though, to write: “Getting academic with feminism.” Although initially resistant to the women’s movement, I began to realize that if Abby’s and my relationship was going to last, I might need to learn about more than bra-burnings, which apparently didn’t even occur.

Both Abby and I had finished our M.A. degrees at Texas Tech University and were ready to move onto the Ph.D. phase. We left Lubbock for Chicago, where people wouldn’t say “Howdy” to you as you passed them on the sidewalk but where the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) offered both of us financial aid to pursue our higher degrees – Abby in philosophy and me in composition and rhetoric.

I was on probation at UIC that first year, though. Because my M.A. was in literature studies with a specialization in creative writing, they wanted to know that I was capable of PH.D. work in composition and rhetoric. They told me to enter their M.A. program and then, assuming I had done well, reapply for the Ph.D. program at the end of the year.

That all happened without a hitch; I reapplied and was accepted into the Ph.D. program primarily, I believe, on the strength of my first year seminar paper I submitted as part of the application: “Women and the Dichotomy of Literacy: Public / Private Discourse.” The study highlighted "women’s literacy within the context of America from the Colonial period until the present, in order to illustrate how the uses of literacy can be political, stressing how men have traditionally shaped and controlled who shall be literate and what shall be viewed as literate, not only within the educational system but also outside the educational system. Feminists interpret men’s control of literacy as a result of a public / private dichotomy established by males."

Looking back, it seems I was more capable initially of integrating feminism into my life in an abstract, intellectual way than I was in an intimate, personal way. I had yet to explicitly realize that the politics of masculinity are very much related to feminism, and so the paper dances around that topic without every landing on it. As long as literacy issues weren’t overtly tied to masculinity, I could de-personalize the topic, keep it at a historical distance where it was less about me and more about the actions of other men.

The paper included a quote from Erica Jong about the difficulty of publishing Fear of Flying, the novel I refer to in Part 1 of this series and had so much trouble reading as a high school junior: “The first typesetter would not set type for Fear of Flying. The networks would not run ads for the paperback. I was constantly told that women could only write certain kinds of books, and there was a certain built-in self-censorship of women writers. We were supposed to be shy, schizoid, shrinking and strange. It’s easy to forget how much ground women writers have gained.” Her observations apply to women writers of many kinds; I know that Abby experienced similar struggles as a graduate student writing feminist papers.

While she was fighting for validation in the masculine world of philosophy, I was receiving affirmation left and right. “Women and the Dichotomy of Literacy” received high praise from the female professor who taught the Ethnographies of Literacy seminar. I submitted a proposal to present the paper at the College Composition and Communication Conference and it was accepted. The Education Resources Information Center requested that the paper be added to their database. All the accolades helped my academic life but not my personal life.

I was stuck in my own public / private dichotomy.

To be continued...

Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. As Director of Strategy and Planning, Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2008 and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD in 2010. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence. Share

Father's Day Tribute: Final Lessons

by Patrick McGann
Director of Strategy and Planning

[NOTE: In my last blog, I began explaining how I came to work at Men Can Stop Rape; I am taking a break from that to write about my father but will pick it up again next week.]

In the late 1950s at about the age of four, I shaved the area above my upper lip with my father’s razor.

If I had watched my father in the mornings more closely, I might have put on shaving cream first. But I hadn’t sorted out all the steps and so went everywhere with a bandage for a week or two. Two memories stand out: screaming when the bleeding started and trying to eat ice cream with the bandage above my lip.

I never learned the shaving lesson very well. To this day, I’ll only use an electric razor, and I’m not good about consistently using it. He taught me well in other, more important areas, though, related to men and masculinity. His most recent lessons are about how to be a man facing death and dying.

At 85, he’s developed Alzheimer’s, had a heart attack, and most recently bladder cancer. He went through chemo and radiation, which proved successful but only for a short while. The cancer returned and now, because radiation is no longer an option, he’s starting chemo again, which will slow down the cancer but won’t eliminate it. I don’t know how many more Father’s Days I’ll have with him.

Last week at the doctor’s office, he stood up and told them they couldn’t make him re-enlist. Even though I’m assuming he was referring to the military, I think the statement could be applied to the medical system. The last couple years he’s been put through the wringer when it comes to health care, spending more time being diagnosed and treated than a college student spends on Facebook.

The nurses always say how sweet he is. My sisters tell me how sweet he is. That’s not a word I typically would use to describe men. And that’s not how I would have described him in the past. Independent. Sure. Silent type. Uh huh. Stubborn. Yep. Caring. Absolutely. Sweet?

When I visited my parents in January, Dad and I put a lot of puzzles together – or I put puzzles together and he helped. It was sweet how appreciative he was when I went out and bought more after we had finished the ones my sister had gotten. It was sweet how I would start working on a puzzle by myself, and he would see me and join in. It was sweet how excited he got when he found pieces that fit together. It was sweet how complimentary of me he was when we completed one.

When I’m facing the end of my life, I want to be sweet, like my father.


Men Can Stop Rape is committed to playing a larger role in this country's discussion on fatherhood. This year, we will launch the Fatherhood Initiative: a series of workshops, conversations, and resources geared toward engaging men around the concept of positive and healthy versions of fatherhood. With your help, we can bring Men Can Stop Rape's message and positive lessons to the youngest of boys and their families, through fathers.

This Father's Day, please donate and support Men Can Stop Rape's Fatherhood Initiative.

We want to hear from you! Send us your stories about the importance and impact of having your father present in your life. Your story could be featured on Men Can Stop Rape's website.

Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. As Director of Strategy and Planning, Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2008 and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD in 2010. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence. Share

How I Came to Work at Men Can Stop Rape, Part 1

by Patrick McGann
Director of Strategy and Planning

At Men Can Stop Rape’s recent staff retreat, we were talking about how we came to be involved in mobilizing men to prevent violence against women. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and just how different my path might have been than that of a young man in our Men of Strength Club. Sharing these lived process stories might help to demystify and normalize why we do this work – both men and women.

It’s hard to know exactly where to start my story. I could relate, for instance, how as the oldest sibling I stepped outside 1950s and early ‘60s’ gender norms when helping to take care of my baby sisters – changing their diapers, for example, and feeding them banana and corn baby food (finishing whatever they wouldn’t eat).

But the 1980s might be a better place to begin – 1983 to be more exact, the year when, as a Texas Tech University graduate student, I became involved with Abby, another graduate student. A year later we would marry, and shortly thereafter, she would declare herself a feminist. Had I been better able to read the signs, I might have known she was headed in that direction before I stood in the Lubbock Rose Garden dressed in a new suit, listening to Bill Welter, another graduate student, play guitar and sing “When I’m Sixty-Four” as I waited to say my vows.

Okay, I can’t remember whether it was an actual declaration. Maybe she didn’t stand in our living room and announce while I was watching TV, “I am now a feminist.” I suppose it became clear by the books she read, the classes she took, the topics she brought up – and the arguments we had. My body of feminist knowledge was based on Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying, which I tried to read as a high school junior because I’d heard about the “zipless !@$%,” but I managed only about 40 pages before giving up; and Nancy Friday’s My Mother /My Self, which I read in my twenties because I thought it might illuminate the mysteries of females. These two books apparently rendered me knowledgeable enough to claim that feminism was limited by tunnel vision.

That didn’t sit well with Abby. In fact, maybe it was that perspective that led to a pull-over-to-the-side-of-the-road argument when we were driving to Plainview to visit my parents. We stood outside the car in the middle of nowhere yelling about gender, the flat plains surrounding us, the yellow stripes of the road disappearing over the horizon. I thought feminism was restrictive, that it only cared about half the population, and that the well being of people was at issue, not just women. Abby said I didn’t understand, that the implications of feminism were much broader than I thought, and that I wouldn’t understand until I learned more about it.

After more arguments and disagreements over the next year, it became clear to me that feminism wasn’t going anywhere. I was going to have to find a way to live with it – if I wanted Abby’s and my relationship to continue. And so starting about 1986, I began to get friendly with feminism.

To be continued…
Please, share your story.

Patrick McGann, Ph.D. has been involved with Men Can Stop Rape (MCSR) since the organization’s inception in 1997. As Director of Strategy and Planning, Patrick co-authored a sexual assault prevention strategy for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in 2008 and oversaw the development of the HURTS ONE. AFFECTS ALL. public education campaign for DoD in 2010. He regularly gives presentations across the country on engaging men in the prevention of gender-based violence. Share