The More than Men Project is an effort initiated by the Women Thinking Free Foundation to develop a space where men, often white and/or straight and/or Of Priv, could spend a little time and energy telling their fellow Hetero-occidentaloid-Y-chromosomists something useful or interesting about diversity, and to encourage the promotion of said diversity.
When I was asked to contribute to this project (which was being cooked up last July) I had some concerns. I wasn’t sure if I needed a space to do this, since I have a widely read blog in which I am constantly telling my fellow Hetero-occidentaloid-Y-chromosomists how to behave, and they pretty much do whatever I tell them to do. Hetero-occidentaloid-Y-chromosomists are so compliant and all. Since then, I’ve gotten Yet Another Blog where I can do even more of this behavioral mentoring, so, I thought, why should I bother with another effort like this. Just let the other guys have a space.
But then I decided to take advantage of the offer to try something entirely different. The project is self-explanatory, but since you may need some encouragement to pay attention to it, here are the opening sentences in the first of three videos I made for More than Men:
The More Than Men Project is a campaign by the Women Thinking Free Foundation. This is for white men (usually straight , often privileged, etc.) to take an active role in diversity advocacy. This is my chance to tell my fellow white guys what I think about what they should be thinking.
But I get to do that all the time. So, I thought I’d ignore the instructions and try something a little different.
A short memo …. with attachments. It is the attachments that matter.
Dear Straight White Male with Privilege:
This is not hard.
You just need to pay attention to the voices in your head. You supply the head. Attached, please find the voices, in three parts, which I call Part I, Part II, and Part III.
Part I: Sheril Kirshenbaum, Desiree Schell, and Jafsica.
Part III: C. Anderson, Stephanie Zvan, Natalie Wagner, Serena
I would appreciate it if you’all would consider self censoring your comments, and trying to put encouraging or positive comments on the More than Men site posts, the YouTube videos, or below, and if you have criticisms or can’t stop yourself from being a dick, put those comments on the X Blog version of this post (which you will find here). Thank you in advance for that.
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Part III is not up as of this posting, but it will be up later in the day.
Can you explain the name?
“More Than Men” refers to our belief that we need more than ( able-bodied, straight, white) men to make up a community. And we need to help promote that diversity and not just expect under-represented groups to force their way in.
This is very cool. 🙂
I´m feeling like so stealing it. Will have printed it on a tee. With correct attribution, of course.
AND send photos of me wearing it.
Thanks for your effort.
Why do I keep thinking of angler fish? 😉
(Marine biologists will understand my little joke)
Nope, I don’t get the joke, Phat.
Angler fish are deep see predators which dangle a light from their nose to attract prey. You may have seen photos of their terrible teeth and jaws.
What is lesser known is that they are ALL female. The male is reduced to a parasite which bores itself into the skin of the female living off her blood stream and is controlled by her hormones. The male gets reduced to a scrotum – aka brainless balls – and survives as a parasite only for the purpose of procreation.
OK, it wasn’t a very funny joke and needed too much general knowledge (I’m not a marine biologist either, just overeducated 😉
Yes, I knew all that about angler fish. What’s the joke, though?