BELIEVE in Men
Location
Realize the untapped potential of gender equality by extending its benefits to boys and men, granting them unlimited possibilities for pursuing happiness and worth.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Year the initative began (yyyy)
1983
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Project URL (include http://)
Plot your innovation within the mosaic of solutions
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Young men’s missing voices and input leads to disconnection and failed policies
Which of the principles is the primary focus of your work?
Create credible choices and opportunities
If you believe some other barrier or principle should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic:
Detrimental effects of sexist limitations, expectations and biases imposed on and against males.
Name Your Project
BELIEVE in Men
Describe Your Idea
Realize the untapped potential of gender equality by extending its benefits to boys and men, granting them unlimited possibilities for pursuing happiness and worth.
Innovation
Describe your program or new idea in one sentence.
Realize the untapped potential of gender equality by extending its benefits to boys and men, granting them unlimited possibilities for pursuing happiness and worth.
What makes your initiative uniquely positioned to create change in your community?
The very word "sexism" reliably conjures injustices to girls and women, seldom to boys and men. We have seen how addressing sexism against females has been good for them and good for society. This initiative is unique in unabashedly focusing on sexism against males and advancing the vision that we can derive similar benefits for males and for society by doing for men and boys what we have done and are doing for girls and women to eliminate the pain, frustration and wastefulness of sexism.
Describe how you organize and carry out your work?
In 2005 I left my job as an IT analyst to enter a three-year, dual-degree masters program in business and social work. In May I will have earned my MBA/MSW (business/social work). Being in school and school-related field work has greatly increased my credibility and access to social policy decision makers and social programming providers. I talk with them at every opportunity about re-thinking our views of men and boys, especially those in the chronic underclass.
What is your plan to scale and expand your innovation into your community and beyond?
With my MBA/MSW I plan to open "BELIEVE in Men," a consultancy, think tank, speakers bureau and training provider for social policy decision makers and agencies who want to re-think their approach to men and boys. I will work with planners, policy makers and programmers, and provide CEU opportunities for social workers and other professionals interested in male gender-specific social issues. I expect to provide value and demonstrate success first in my hometown of Baltimore, Maryland USA, then assist efforts on behalf of men and boys in other US cities and eventually around the world.
What other resources, institutional, or policy needs would be necessary to help sustain and scale up your idea?
I will need literature, stationery, office supplies, postage, a sophisticated website, an office phone, a fax machine and an alumni subscription to the University of Maryland library's online research and retrieval service. I will need a major and credible organization like Ashoka to bless this work and encourage public and private agencies to avail themselves of it. Unorthodox ideas, as you know, are often resisted -- before they come to be embraced as obvious and self-evident.
Impact
Describe your impact in one sentence, commenting on both the individual and community levels.
Young men will see unlimited possibilities for pursuing their talents and interests, even if not economic, and will participate enthusiastically in community and family life.
What impact has your work achieved to date?
I am building a network of decision makers and program providers who understand the issues and appreciate the male-aware, gender issues perspective on social problems. I am generating administrative, political and economic support for embracing this initiative.
Number of individuals served
I have personally helped a dozen or so young men feel better about their situations by helping them see more clearly what it is that has them so confused and angry, and that they do not have a "personal problem." In 1991, as president of the Greater Baltimore Commission for Men, I served a thousand boys and a thousand men by providing them with stickers that said "Boys are Great!" and "Men are Great!" The stickers were displayed proudly, happily and gratefully.
Community impact
I have worked at the Waverly Family Center (WFC) in Baltimore on a plan to bring more young men and fathers into the program. It is hard to measure, but I believe the hundred "Fathers" flyers I posted throughout the neighborhood has generated significant interest and conversation. The effort at WFC now focuses on developing a series of weekly presentations on topics the fathers themselves have told us they would value.
Society at large
A drop in the bucket so far. But it's a big bucket and the dam upstream is getting ready to break.
What measure do you use to gauge your impact and why?
I use the reactions of potential colleagues and allies to help me gauge my impact. My work is primarily to build consensus and generate a critical mass of policy makers and service providers who feel supported enough to embrace an innovative, unorthodox initiative. As one of my favorite social work professors often says, "There are no Lone Rangers in community work."
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative currently being financed and how would you finance further expansion and/or replication?
I am financing my work personally. After I graduate with the MBA/MSW degrees, I will develop a think tank, consultancy, training organization and speakers bureau providing services for fees. Additional funds will be generated by the sale of "BELIEVE in men" novelty and fashion items. Other funds may accrue from licensing the name "bmorethat," an Internet domain name I own, to a line of fashions that helps young men say, "I stand up for myself and my people, but I'm no gangster. I know how to have fun, but I'm no knucklehead. I might be hanging here with my friends, but I'm not out for trouble. I know what I want to be and I want to be more that."
Provide information on your current finances and organization:
a) 200 USD. b) 0. c) personal funds (100%). d) 1 part-time.
Who are your potential partners and allies?
Social services agencies, police departments and other law enforcement agencies, men's organizations, women's organizations, youth groups, churches.
Who are your potential investors?
Businesspeople who recognize how urban problems damage the local business climate. Fashion designers who will license the "bmorethat" brand and create the signs and symbols anti-sexist young men want and need to establish and promote themselves as a new and distinct subculture.
The Story
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story.
In 1983, during separate post-game conversations with two female teammates on my co-ed softball team, I offered suggestions to them about what their boyfriends were doing and may have been thinking. My ideas were obvious to me as a man, but were complete surprises to the women. "I never thought of it like that," both said. That launched me on helping to articulate the male point of view. I began a weekly radio show called "In a Man's Shoes" at Towson University in Baltimore. At first, the show was mostly about male-female relationships but it did not take long for me to realize that the topic of men's issues had much broader and deeper societal significance. The big breakthrough came in 1985 when I interviewed Richard Rowe, an official of the Baltimore Urban League, who was staging a conference on "Black Men: An Endangered Species." We saw eye-to-eye on the genesis of many problems facing urban males and we decided to go to the state capital in Annapolis to lobby for a Maryland Commission for Men. We did not succeed in getting the body established (many legislators ridiculed our proposal as the "Wimp Bill" and others said privately that they liked it but could not support it because they were afraid "the women won't like it") but we were very successful in raising the issue. The Baltimore Sun, in fact, thanked us for bringing it to public attention. The need for attending to urban men and boys has only grown.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material.
As a boy in the 1950s and 1960s I often heard a left-handed compliment that parallels what girls heard about being "really good at math..." or "really good at sports... for a girl." I heard "You're really good with babies... for a boy." The message I took from that -- but staunchly rejected all my life -- was that nurturance, love and generativity were female domains and that I should devote myself to developing the technical, unemotional and economic "privileges" of my gender.
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