Beyond The Gender AgendA

A year after I launched the Exploring Inner Elegance website, I was surprised to discover that the subject of living with inner elegance resonated with men most unexpectedly. My previous observations and experience and the statistics show that people engaged in self-help, matters of mind, body, and spirit, as well as health and wellness, were predominately women. The feedback I am receiving now appears to run counter to this trend.

I found this most intriguing. I decided to research what it is about living a life with inner elegance that appears to strike a chord with today’s men. I went straight to the source. I began by talking to men. Men of all ages, men from different walks of life and socio-economic groups, straight men, gay men, and men from different religious, spiritual, and cultural backgrounds.  

I am hearing from men that they often feel misrepresented, left out of the dialogue, and have no authentic voice in the discussion. As one of my male friends told me, “In the eyes of the media, I am seen as either a rich, powerful Mercedes-driving man who uses a Gillette razor twice a day and has a Victoria Secret model as a girlfriend or a nervous, nerdy guy who makes a fool of himself, in front of an impossibly hot girl in the office, who could be a Victoria Secret model.”

Neither category applies to the men I know. It raises all sorts of interesting questions about the role of masculinity and the relationships between men and women in the twenty-first century.

I was reminded of an incident when I first came to America in 1993 that has stuck in my mind ever since. I remember coming into Manhattan by yellow cab from the airport. Everything seemed so familiar, like a set from a beloved Hollywood film. But it quickly became apparent that this sense of familiarity was somehow false.  

A few days later, I was having lunch with some American friends. While we were swapping stories and sharing insights, one of the girls started telling us about a guy she worked with. She’d bumped into him the night before as she was leaving the office. They’d started chatting, she said, and then she explained that as she went to leave, he hit on her.

I was startled and horrified, “What do you mean he hit you?” I asked.

They all started to laugh, and she said, “No, no, he didn’t hit me; he asked me out for a drink.”

Coming from London, I had never heard this expression before. It made me wonder, how did the behavior of a man, who had probably plucked up all his courage to ask a woman out, have his action described as “hitting”? It made no sense at all. I wondered if it had anything to do with whether she liked the guy. Perhaps it was “hitting” when she thought he was a creep and being asked out if he was a dish.

“So, what did you say?” I asked when the merriment at my misunderstanding had subsided.

“We’re meeting tonight. I’ve fancied him for ages, and I can’t wait…” She answered.

I started listening closely to the words chosen by women when they talked to men and when they talked about men. I often felt as if two distinctly different dialogues were happening simultaneously: The demand to be treated equally and the desire to be treated as a woman. American women had been courageous pioneers in the fight for equal rights, making extraordinary inroads into the world of men. At that time, the vibe in New York felt very different than it had in London. They’d had to be tough and often even tougher than the men they were competing with. This intricate dance of gender equality is, of course, still present, and today, women make up nearly half of the workforce in the U.S., yet despite this, there remains a significant gap in income parity.

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