"Young Men" today have a difficult time accepting responsibility. While in college or that age range, "youg men" are still learning what it is to be a man. Some of them still searching indefinitely for who they are, and how they're supposed to behave to be "one of the guys" The problem with this happening at this stage in life is that many of their core values are concrete, and extremely hard to change. "Young men" in todays society are not always open to new ideas, or opening up a new thought process, because they're "men" and what they think is "right" & "how it should be" and not to mention they have been conditioned their whole lives to believe this way. After giving a training to a group of college athletes, it was brought to a new level for me that "young men" can't accept responsibility for something they believe is not an issue for them. This is something I've known for a while, but it just really sunk in yesterday. Everytime I even mentioned that a man should be responsible for a behavior or action, the rebuttals immediately diverted the focus back to women. It was like victim-blaming, with a honeymoon stage. If she doesn't want to be raped she shouldn't wear that "short skirt" to get attention, but rape is wrong. I asked them, so is it her fault if she gets sexually assaulted and she's wearing a short skirt? The very first reply was - "If she's going to dress like trash, she's going to get treated like trash" It took everything I had to professionaly repsond to that statement! Many arguments were normal, but I guess, sadly expected from a group of "young men" A lot of the arguements were repetitive, majority of them ignorance, but every sinlge one shifted the responsibility back to women. We focus on bystanders in our presentation, and a lot of the bystander aspects play in to our audience as we're presenting. So I have to think, are these ignorant comments being vomited everywhere during the training just guys looking for other males acceptance- thinking that's what everyone else thinks, or is it actually their true beliefs. I understand they're under a lot of peer pressure and that's what we're trying to change. It's not easy being a male, in a room full of 50 other males and speaking out in opposition of what everyone else's traditional mind set is. So when I'm speaking i'm not actually even getting true feedback, because these guys are so engulfed by social norms, and not wanting to go against traditional beliefs that they will not speak out. Proof is, guys approaching me after it has ended and speaking to me- but had not said one word during it at all. So why do I put "young men" in quotes? What defines a "young man" or a man for that matter? Is it Maturity, Repsonsiblity, Accountability, Respect? In society we start refering to boys, as "young men" when they turn a certain age. Age doesn't define what a "young man" is! I believe in our society we still have a lot of boys that are in college or in that age range, but get labled as "young men" and therefore have falsified beliefs of what a man is supposed to be. (Along with MANY other factors-media,music,family,church's,etc) So this is why I quote "young men", because I believe many of the males society considers to be "young men" are boys that don't have the proper knowledge of what it really means to be a loving, caring, cognitive, respectable, responsible, & accountable man!... Something to ponder ...
Jeremy
11-4-09
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