Men’s Advocate in a Woman’s World

Kermit the frog could lament that it’s not easy being green and not be considered a traitor to all amphibians. But let a man say that it’s not easy being male--earning a living, being responsible for a family--and he’s broken the unwritten code that says real men don’t whine.

Women, buoyed by a wave of feminism that swelled in the late 1960s and crested over the next 30 years, have done their share of constructive complaining: about inequities in educational and professional opportunities, about pornography that objectifies women, about marriages in which men make all the consequential decisions and women are treated like children.

They listened to one another’s gripes in consciousness-raising meetings, then went home demanding more authority. Universities offered women’s studies courses, responding to the charge that women had been ignored too long. The government and businesses heard their grievances, and instituted a number of changes, many of which were legislated.

Yet while women insisted that the choice of whether to bear children was their right, and they struggled to shatter glass ceilings, men were still supposed to be latter-day John Waynes, silent and stoic.

Warren Farrell, a Southern California author, lecturer and self-described social change agent, is neither. Although he speaks softly and identifies himself as a feminist, he considers the women’s movement a failure, to the extent that it increased options and emphasized fulfillment for women and didn’t do the same for men. Along with Susan Faludi, Herb Goldberg and Robert Bly, he is one of the most cogent voices in an emerging men’s movement, one that wouldn’t be necessary, he believes, if the feminist revolution had been the gender transition movement it always should have been.

Women’s Movement Forced Men to Adjust

The difference between a women’s movement and a gender transition movement isn’t just a semantic one for Farrell. Women were a gender in transition in the last 30 years, and as they abandoned their traditional roles, adjustments in men’s lives had to be made as well. But too often, Farrell thinks, no one cared how men were coping with changes at home and at work. They were just expected to get used to living in a world that was different from the one they’d grown up in. Of course, there always have been alternatives to suffering in silence. The Kevin Spacey character in “American Beauty” meekly endured until his meltdown.

The most visible manifestations of a men’s movement have been mass gatherings such as the Promise Keepers rallies and the Million Man March, both of which focused on men’s commitment to be more responsible and involved with their families. And fathers, especially divorced fathers, have united to demand more access to their children, as well as greater legal rights in divorce.

While Farrell is aware of the political and emotional forces uniting these groups of men, his focus is more personal. His latest book, “Women Can’t Hear What Men Don’t Say” (Tarcher/Putnam, 1999), is a communication guide that teaches both men and women how to give and receive criticism in a productive way.

“Historically, when women complained, they’d get rescued by the man on the white horse. When men do it, they get rejected,” he says. “What disturbs me the most is that people don’t listen to each other. Men aren’t being heard.”

If they could have the floor, one of the things they might say is that for a long time, their gender has had a lousy deal.

“Men have defined ‘power’ as feeling obligated to earn money someone else spends, while they die sooner,” Farrell says. “Men are appreciated as good providers, but it’s exactly that appreciation that keeps them enslaved. Men have learned to get their family’s love by being away from their families.”

In order for men and women to have the best partnerships, Farrell believes society needs to value roles that aren’t based on gender. It should be acceptable, for example, for a woman with the education, drive and desire to be a chief executive while her husband cares for the children. And that stay-at-home man shouldn’t be looked down upon because he’s not a breadwinner.

The Ultimate Goal Is Greater Communication

Men are slaves, with reservoirs of emotional support ready to be tapped? Who knew? When he conducts workshops for high schools, universities, corporations and religious groups, Farrell’s goal is to have each gender understand and experience more about what the other goes through. He quickly makes his audiences see how the women’s movement made the world safe for male bashing. Switching genders in a number of situations illustrates how public criticism of women has become unacceptable, while casting men as the enemy isn’t questioned.

For example, in the popular novel and film “The Bridges of Madison County,” the main female character has a brief affair with a dashing stranger while her husband is out of town with their teenage children.

“The doomed romance is presented as something we should feel sad about,” Farrell says. “The social message being sent is that when a woman is tempted to have an affair, she’s entitled because she’s been deprived of fulfillment. If a man did what she did, he’d be a liar and a cheat. There’s a double standard. For her, it’s a romance. For him, it’s infidelity. When women objectify men in romance novels as success objects, we call it romance. When men objectify women, we call it pornography.”

Farrell tells the story of an author published by a major New York publishing house. The writer’s first book was called “No Good Men.” When he tried to follow it with “No Good Women,” his publisher rejected the title.

“It’s such a clear illustration of the imbalance that’s accepted,” he says. “It’s fine to call a book ‘No Good Men,’ but no one would ever think of doing one called ‘No Good Blacks’ or ‘No Good Jews.’ ”

Since the women’s movement, he says, male bashing has been increasingly institutionalized, while sensitivities to women have grown.

The fact that Farrell has become a crusader is probably the result of both temperament and timing. He is 56, so he came of age in the ‘60s, when American campuses were centers of social change. He earned a doctorate in political science at New York University and planned to become a college president. Disenchanted with academic politics, he turned to writing. His first book, “The Liberated Man,” was published in 1974. Farrell was the only man to be elected three times to the board of directors of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women, and that status made him in demand as a speaker.

“The fear that many women who were feminists had then was that they’d be seen as man haters,” he says. “To me, a woman who is interested in a career is a far more interesting woman than a woman who’s looking to be taken care of. I found women who were speaking up and saying what they thought to be more honest and trustworthy. I liked it when women took the initiative and asked me out, or wanted to take half the responsibilities in paying. When I spoke to groups of women and let them know that I understood what they were talking about, they’d tell me it made them feel there was hope.”

The questions women asked Farrell most frequently were why don’t men listen, why are they so preoccupied with sex and success, why are they afraid of commitment and, in brief, why are they such jerks? In 1986, Farrell wrote “Why Men Are the Way They Are” to address those queries in a way that wouldn’t polarize the sexes further. He continued to feel that men were misunderstood and that those misunderstandings were being officially condoned. Books such as “No Good Men” didn’t offend anyone because of the underlying belief that men had the power anyway, so they could be mocked in a way that underdogs couldn’t. By 1990, his next book, “The Myth of Male Power,” looked at the ways in which neither sex had power but both were victimized by their roles and obligations.

Peacemaker in the Battle of the Sexes

An 11-year marriage ended in divorce 22 years ago, and he recently separated from the woman he’d lived with for five years. He and his partner had religious differences and stepparenting conflicts, yet without the communication skills he teaches, Farrell believes the relationship wouldn’t have succeeded as well as it did.

“When there are different life goals,” he says, “even the best intentions can be defeated.”

Farrell lives and writes in Encinitas but travels frequently, either promoting his books or leading workshops.

One eye-opening workshop exercise requires participants to switch roles. Farrell tells the men that to understand women, they must realize every woman is in a beauty contest every day. So the men are put in a beauty competition, judged by the women. Every man is rejected, except the winner.

Then it’s the women’s turn to feel the way men do when financial success is the only standard by which they’re evaluated. The women are seated in rows, according to their income. The men are told to think of themselves as child raisers looking for a breadwinner.

“Suddenly, they’re only looking at the first and second rows as being eligible,” Farrell says. “The women in the back rows are freaking out, and the women in the front rows are saying they want prenuptial agreements. Men leave the workshops saying, ‘I’m so glad I’m not a woman.’ And women leave saying, ‘I’m so glad I’m not a man.’ ”

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Mimi Avins can be reached at mimi.avins@latimes.com.