Back in America

If you're tired of arguing with strangers on the internet, try talking with one of them in real life.

Welcome to Back in America, the podcast.

This is Back in America. So thank you everybody for listening. Thank you again for your support and your reviews. I'm with Dennis Devin, whom I met at a workshop on masculinity here in Philadelphia. Dennis, do you want to introduce yourself briefly? Sure. My name is Dennis Devin. I'm 46 years old. I live here in Fishtown, Philadelphia. I grew up in Long Island, New York and lived out about eight years in California and have been living here in Philadelphia for 11 years. I'm a journalist by background, although I no longer work as a journalist. I have two sons, ages eight and six, and a lovely wife. What is it like to be Dennis today? To be Dennis today is to be extremely engaged and involved in the neighborhood in a lot of different ways.

To be a very active parent and partner for my wife, but a parent in the lives of my sons. It's to struggle with thinking globally, acting locally in the light of what I see as global environmental and global political crises. And then how to reconcile my evolving understanding of that with how that parlayes into the kinds of parenting and modeling I want to do for my sons. That brings me to this workshop where we met. What were you doing there? I found out about Toby Frazier, one of the co-organizers, and his work which used to be called Men Can, and Men Can Prevent Domestic Violence, or Stop Domestic Violence, I think, about two years ago. I was really interested, and also it's right in the neighborhood. Earlier in my life I was involved in some men's anti-sexist work and men's anti-rape work. The work has never been, those issues have never been far from my thoughts and beliefs, but they have been far from my active day-to-day life.

So when I found Toby and his work, I was interested, and I thought it would fit neatly into something else I'm involved in, which is for the last six years I've organized a monthly meetup for dads in the neighborhood. A large group, like 350 guys on my mailing list, but we get about 40 to 50 guys out on the first Monday night of the month at a different bar in the neighborhood, defined largely. And about once or twice a year I do invite people who are involved in local good stuff. I invited Toby to talk about his work, about masculinity, about enlisting men in the effort to combat domestic violence. I hit it off with him. He told me about some of the work that he's doing about exploring toxic masculinity and ways to be an upstander, an intervener. And I said, you know, that's a good next step for my involvement and I want to learn more. So when we met, that was the first one of those kinds of things I'd been to there, and I've since been to one more. And I hope to be more involved in that work over at Lutheran Settlement House and in the neighborhood.

So that's, I mean, in my opinion, this is pretty untraditional for a man to think about those topics. Yeah. Right. And there are a lot of questions there. Before we dive into it, let me backtrack a little bit. You talk about your involvement at college around the rape issues. Why was it something of interest to you? One of my first girlfriends in college opened up to me about being the victim and survivor of childhood sexual abuse and some of the ways that that traumatized her. And it was the first time I'd ever heard anything like that. How old were you? 18. So I was blown away and had also developed, you know, some good friendships, intense friendships. I guess I was 19, sorry. So at college and including some women.

And I talked to some women friends, like, about it and discovered how rampant it was. It was like every woman I ended up talking to or confiding in or working it through with also had the same experience. It was shocking to me. It forever blew open the myth of what American domestic life is like. And yeah, that dynamic has remained unchanged. If you present as someone who is open to understanding the pandemic effects of toxic masculinity and childhood sexual abuse in this country, you will hear more stories. People are holding on to trauma and stories and we'll share with you if you are a trusted listener. And my God, that's what did it. Toxic masculinity, how were you impacted yourself as you grew up by the model of what a man should be?

So I'm the youngest of 10 children. My father was a great guy, passed away when I was 16. And I have four older brothers and I were pretty rough and tumble house. Well, I mean, by many standards, not an abusive one, although there was physical violence. But between parents and me, you know, a lot of discipline, but also a lot, you know, between my brothers and older sisters and me. So it was a rough and tumble kind of house. I didn't resent it or anything like that. I got in fights as a kid, sometimes like forced into fighting by social pressure, you know, like, oh, I could say something about you and like you got to stand up for yourself. Played football on the football team. Strangely enough, to this day, one of the best things that ever happened to me was I was the victim of a violent crime. I got beat up by a large gang, about 50 kids picked out in a semi random situation where they were after one of my friends who I didn't know they had this whole backstory with.

They couldn't get him and they just isolate and found me and went and beat the crap out of me. Right. When and where was that? I was outside of the Taco Bell in my hometown when I was 16. And it was terrible. One of the really interesting things about it was it, I had friends who hid instead of coming to my aid. They struggle with it far more than I did. What do you mean that struggle with it? Sure. They struggle with their masculinity. They struggle with what they felt they should have done versus what they did. These were friends of mine who always imagined tough talk. Hey, I'd be at your side, but faced with overwhelming numbers. If they had come out, they would have also gotten their asses kicked. So I didn't blame them for that, but they couldn't get over it.

So what happened was my friends decided to avenge me and do exactly to some of the kids they identified in the crowd that beat me up what had happened to me. I wanted no part of that. I said, if you drop me in front of these guys one on one, I would love to fight them and kick their ass and get my revenge. But you guys going and picking on them one on one is not for me. That's for you. That schism between me and them, the victim slash survivor of what happened, and these guys who felt their manhood challenge by failing to rise to the hero or their savior moment. And what I wanted and what they wanted really helped start a process of questioning what I understood as a male perspective about manhood. But the other key part, there were two assistant principals at my school. Yeah. One was a terrible, terrible man. Hopefully like a disciplinarian. And he happened to be away when I got into a fight and got sent to the principal's office. The other guy was this incredible guy, Peter Salido, who was listening and talking and basically acted as my free therapist throughout my high school years.

Talking with him for hours, sometimes after school in his office, just like talking through things started me on a path towards understanding that like, wow, I wasn't trained to talk or listen growing up. And that is really what started with empathy and started with me with like really things that fundamentally shook up my understanding of what being a man is. That's super interesting, right? Because yes, we define what a man should be as being strong, hiding his emotion, you know, taking care of other being independent. You were raised like that, like most of us, right? That event just helped you to realize that. But did you put words on it at the time? Did you really understand what was happening with that? No, only in retrospect. Actually, I realized it by the time I had to write a college essay. Oh, okay. First time I did introspective writing. So maybe four years later, right?

Three, but two, maybe about two years later. By that time, and Mr. Salido, the assistant principal helped guide me towards this kind of understanding. So that guy already understood that traditional model of what a man is. Yeah, and he was modeling it so well, as empathetic, as listening, as talking, as just really kind. He was awesome. He is, but what a difference maker he was for me. So that's one of the men you look up to today as a model. I haven't been in touch with him in decades. That's interesting. That's interesting. So, okay, you understood all that. And now let's forward to 2019, or maybe before, because you started organizing those groups five years ago, right? Those men's groups.

Yeah. Okay, it's a group of guys, you know, bonding together, having beer together. That doesn't look very progressive in style. You're absolutely right. So it grew out of when I was on paternity leave before I shifted to full-time taking care of or part-time taking care of my boys. I was on paternity leave and took my sons to this play group where there's like moms and there was nannies, but there was also a couple of dads. Not nearly as many, but a couple of guys. And I just naturally gravitated towards talking to them. And at one time, just maybe apocryphal, but this is how I remember it. We were holding onto like water bottles or sippy cups or juice bottles or whatever it was. And I'm like, these should be beer, right? And so we made some plans to meet up for drinks, just like five of us. And it kind of grew out of that.

Now, yeah, you're right. There's nothing largely progressive about that. But as I've come to be involved in other community building organizing, I've started to realize what a gem this dad's night is. And I'm not the only one. This has actually been shared with me by a lot of dads. I created a space for dads to get together. Some with like, you know, older kids, some with brand new newborns to go out. You're right. And it's unthreatening. It's not like going out for a cause. Hey, I'm going out to have a beer with the guys. But because of that unthreatening nature, because it's not challenging anything, guys will come out and and they'll get into these really important conversations about parenthood, about supporting each other. We don't ever call it that. But that's what's happening. Right. And it reaches guys who would never come out to a toxic masculinity workshop. But they're achieving some of the same result. They're coming out. They're talking about their role as caregiver, as parent, their struggles, you know, their marital issues, whatever, in a relatively safe space.

Right. I call it my soft organizing, right, my sneaky organizing, because it gets guys that don't come to the other kinds of things that I advertise and are involved in. But they come out and and a lot of good has come out of that. Not just like, you know, there's networking that happens and all that. But there's just like social bonding in in really important ways for dads, especially a lot of, you know, very involved parents and many primary caregivers. That would not happen the same way if women were part of the group. Definitely not. Definitely not. It's interesting. Now, I a couple of years ago, I became acquaintances with a transgender parent in the neighborhood. And I really hoped that he would come. Right. I tried to extend an invitation because I've come to realize, yeah, I don't want to be exclusionary. Right. And so for me, I've moved to like if you if you define yourself in any way that involves the word dad, yeah, you should come. I'm not checking anybody's genitals. Right. Like and so there are a couple of transgender parents who if I have my way and I succeed and make it something that interests them, they'll they'll be joining us.

My hope. But not yet. I haven't had that. So in this country, and I think throughout the world, and that has been going on forever, people have been talking about the men crisis, masculinity crisis, and, you know, supporting that are the number of suicides among men, you know, school dropout, all the things. And that is often put in perspective with the feminist movement. And, you know, when you start to talk about the woman or the men's crisis, people will be tempted to blame the woman for that. What's your take on it? I think it's the cultural transmission we received that so poorly prepared most men my age and, you know, even a decade or two younger for the evolving world that has has come to be, you know, the values and the ridiculous stereotypes we saw on culture and TV and movies and the literature we saw on TV. And the literature we read presented us with one idea about what being a man meant. And that isn't what being a man is and should be and is evolving towards right. And so blaming women for the men's crisis. And I'm sure in your group, you have a lot of men that come and that vent against their wife and who are in a middle of a, you know. Yep. And that's totally normal, natural and correct in the scope of, you know, everything. It's the extrapolation of like, it's not my wife, it's women, you know, it's not, you know, that's the problem, right? That's where the, I think the sexism really takes hold.

It's a, you know, this is not a reflection on my own wife. But if you're railing about like, you know, my wife really has trouble parallel parking and can't drive. That's a legitimate firsthand observation someone can make right. It's when you say and that means women can't drive as well, you know, that's BS right. So yeah. Do you think the current government is having an impact on that masculinity crisis? It's making it so much worse. Everything about November 2016 was a step backwards for our country and the world. And in that one way, I mean, not only in that way, in the rural urban schism, in the, in the, you know, obviously the partisan divide, in the anti-elite, anti-education. And also the racism, you know, like in all those ways, but on the gender front, November 2016 was a catastrophe for our world and country because no matter how many women line up behind Trump and Trumpism, and there are, you can't deny that, right? Especially a lot of white women were instrumental in voting into Trumpism. You can't separate his appeal from the many explicitly sexist rape culture aspects to his personality, his personal personality, the cult of personality built around him. And, and the message that sends to everyone, including people who hate Trump, there is no parent I know who thinks about politics and, and parenthood and has sons and or daughters that is not struggling with this idea of the worst possible role model. Right.

So, I think that's what we're doing now, is not getting the most possible attention and redefining the boundaries of what's permissible and what's successful in our culture. It's horrifying. Right. Interesting. How do you think she looks at you in this, you know, grand scheme of organizing men's group and being at home and taking care of your kids? How do you think she looks at you? Yeah, so I'm going to, I'm going to speak for everything I know she said, right? Right. And can't go past that. She's very supportive of my decision to stay home with the kids. In fact, she was encouraging of it. She thinks that it definitely played a positive role in my boys development, in my own development, in my being an equal partner in raising the children and maintaining the house and our community organizing life.

And she's extremely supportive of the Dad's Night stuff. I mean, has helped keep me going when I've been like, I don't want to keep doing this. She's encouraging it. She, yeah, I think generally very, very supportive. She also is a feminist and I mean, we, we met at college, partially like through our organizing work when she was a freshman in college, and I was a senior and we were both involved in campus organizing, including anti sexist work. Interesting. So, before we started the interview, you were telling me about your involvement in climate action and, you know, sensibilizing people around climate change. Do you think that what you do with mass community as an linked to to climate change or to climate fight.

Let me tell you what I'm going at. You know, I was interviewing someone who was saying that toxic masculinity had a role in the way people behave as they destroy the planet. By driving, you know, you know, four by four, you know, huge truck and just burning fuel and sure. I do believe that the fossil fuel industries have successfully capitalized on toxic masculinity as a marketing strategy is very successful one strength. As exhibited in the largest pickup truck you can drive right the, what do they call those the pickups that are retrofitted to burn coal right that's like one of the ultimate one of the ultimate expressions of that yeah monster pickups that you can retrofit to burn coal as the ultimate F you to all you like liberal, like, you know, feminist, this is a very successful marketing strategy. Fox News for the right for fossil fuel industries to play upon the fears of men, white men who have patriarchal power and legacy slipping away from them as the demographics change as justice starts to rebalance the scales as more and more historically oppressed peoples rise up and claim their fairer share. Of things that is a direct threat. There is a limited pie. Men do have to relinquish power and control. They've become accustomed to right the patriarchy worked for a lot of white men for a long time.

And so, absolutely. That is a very successful marketing strategy that has, in my opinion, doomed us all. What do you do today to prepare your kids and maybe people around you to the new world that's, you know, coming upon us, you know our world is changing. Some people think it is collapsing. We have a duty as parents to prepare. Do you do anything along those lines? Okay. I'm, you can't see this in audio. I am, I am sort of my, my body felt a wave of like, just discuss fear shame, all the negative emotions come swirling into me from that question, because the answer is not enough. Now I think I'm pretty in very large company in that answer, right? But the definite answer is not enough. I'd like to believe this is a transition stage to where I figure out the right stance, but I struggle with this. And this is no exaggeration every single day. And you're not alone.

So, I model a lot of behaviors and teach my kids a lot about traditional ways we thought it was good to be an environmental, environmentalist, right? Good for the planet. We compost, we recycle, we pick up trash, we can participate in community cleanups. We, but that's not nearly enough. We also educate our children all the time about sea level rise. That was the, that's the one closest to my background and education and heart. I used to involve my kids in this actually. There's a group called Climate Dads, which I'm a little bit involved in. And they, there was a stickering campaign, which I, me and my boys both participated in, where I would put stickers that said this place will be water. And we would put that where the flood map show will be inundated, including here in Fishtown. So I would hit a lot of spots that are like popular and like, you know, by the park and by, you know, the casino and all these places that people would see them. My boys would help me put them up there. Like, and I'd be explaining them like this place will be water.

These brand new, not yet finished developments, huge houses going up on the riverfront. They'll be underwater, right? So like, helping them understand that. Now, I am really struggling with this question because I am 100% convinced that the traditional ways that we thought it was okay to be a good environmentalist are no longer valid. They're no longer enough, not nearly enough. Oh yeah, we gave up our car a year ago. That was a big, yeah, we were car free in this house. That was a big issue with that. It is. Yeah. So we went fully transit, cargo bike, their bicycles. We walk a lot. We try to, I mean, we really take it seriously. Right now that it's starting to get cold in this because I turned the heater off and we keep a cold house generally. So the kids get used to that and we keep a hot house because we don't try not to run the air conditioning too much.

So there's ways it affects our life. We're vegetarian, pescatarian for the most part. Like it infiltrates kind of everything, right? But the thing is, I sometimes struggle with the idea that I should either be teaching them about doomsday prep, a prepper. I'm not that, but I've really thought about it. And sometimes in my most despondent moments, which I have, I sometimes fear that the nihilistic, selfish, grab everything you can, hedonistic kind of perspective that is dominated on the right side of the political sphere and has fueled a whole lot of 1% capitalist money grabbing, live for today, forget about the future, screw everybody else. They might have been right all along because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. They've been able to live for today and they've screwed the rest of us. We're getting to the end of this interview. Now, if we think back about the beginning of this interview with masculinity, what would you tell men about masculinity and about coming to terms with the traditional images of what a man is?

We were all sold alive that holding in our feelings and not sharing them and not talking about them equated with manhood. And it may look good on screen. It may look good for John Wayne and Clint Eastwood and the archetypes we grew up with. But you wouldn't want to live with those guys. Maybe you'd want them in this final shootout, but that's not our lives, right? We're negotiating partnerships in our households, in our child raising. We're negotiating like, you know, community living and cooperation. And that depends on being aware of your own feelings, your own thoughts and sharing them. And so after some uncomfortable transition and growth, it's all upside. It's all upside. Are there any books you would recommend?

I tried thinking about this. I really haven't relied much on books. And because this is back in America, what is an American to you? Right now, an American is primarily an entitled recipient of the greatest good fortune of timing of geopolitical expansion and colonialism and technological innovation at exactly the right time to reap all these rewards that have sustained America's dominance for the last 150 years. We sit atop the global power structure, and yet we are a child playing with a gun. And it is a responsibility we have because of our outside share of the world economy and global political influence to understand how we got here and also how much we have to share to get out of here. And obviously we need to change the effing president as soon as possible. Denis, thank you so much. That was a fascinating discussion. Thank you.

Sure. My pleasure. Thank you.