It’s been four decades since the women’s movement started raising the consciousness of women everywhere, allowing women to successfully balance their lives both professionally and personally. But for most men it’s been the same old drudgery, having never figured out that modern society is equally destructive to them. ##M:[more]##
“It really is tough being a man in this culture,” says Robert Roth, a West Windsor resident who has worked with men’s issues for over 15 years. “Statistically the average man’s lifespan is seven years less than that of a woman and I believe this is due in large part to the great stress placed on them.”
In this culture in which John Wayne’s “strong silent type” stereotype still reigns supreme, most men are enigmas to even their closest family members and friends. It is common for a modern American man to be going through absolute hell in both his personal and professional life — his wife leaving him for the mailman, his salary cut in half — and all he’ll talk about with his best friend is whether Mets’ pitcher Pedro Martinez really is 100 percent healthy or if that new imported beer from Iceland is all that is cracked up to be.
“When it comes to emotions,” says Roth, “the typical American male is a psychologically isolated individual. Men are just unable to ask for and receive any sort of emotional support from other men.”
It is for that reason that for the past year and a half Roth has facilitated what he calls “a men’s circle” one evening a month for about two hours at his home in Princeton Junction.
“It is a place where men can talk and they know they will be listened to and supported,” says Roth. The topics men typically speak about includes just about everything but sports: relationships, separations, divorces, problems at work, fear of changing jobs, money, fear of not having enough money, not having enough sex, having too much sex, drugs, alcohol, overeating, gambling, raising children, dealing with a teenager, dealing with aging and dying parents, grieving the loss of someone in their life.
“It is difficult for men to find relationships in which they can talk about sincere things,” says Roth. “This is a place for men to do that. That is usually one of the first responses we get from men who come into the circle. ‘I’ve been looking all over for a place to do this.’”
Roth, who works as an environmental engineer at Environmental Liability Management Inc. in Princeton, started his own journey in the mid-1990s about a year after his father died. “There was this little boy in me I found that was searching for a kind of father energy. I needed older men, some sort of father figure in my life. Then I heard about a training program through an organization called ‘the ManKind Project’ and I knew that it was something I wanted to do. I was supported with all the things I was going through. It was great for me.”
Founded in 1994, the ManKind Project serves as a nonprofit educational and training organization with over 30,”000 men participating throughout the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland. “They put on very intense men’s weekends,” says Roth. “I took part in one of these weekends back in 1994. Since I did that training and continue to work, that grants me the opportunity to continue to go on these weekends as a facilitator. I’ve been doing that for 15 years as well.”
Apart from heading the men’s circles, Roth also continues to facilitate training weekends with men in prisons. “Some of the men I work with are about to be paroled,” he says. “There are others who have spent 5, 10, 15, up to 40 years, and some who are lifers. But it is all about men supporting men with whatever they are going through.”
The monthly meetings Roth holds at his home follow a structure that is designed to provide enough time for each participant to work on himself and his relationships. “First off, the men in the group must commit to confidentiality,” says Roth. “That is to protect every man in the circle and build a container of trust that will allow men to open up. Any man can speak up and any man can feel unsafe at any time and voice that.”
Then each man is given a three minute block of time in which he speaks and everyone else listens. “Sometimes through the process of listening to others, a man will discover that someone else is talking about something that he really wants to talk about,” says Roth. “So after we have the three minute check-in, we stop and each man has two minutes to check-in with something. The idea is that now, after hearing everyone else speak about something, it is time to go a little deeper, sharing a bit more of what he may be hiding. Everyone else just listens. No questions. No cross talk.”
After the two minute check-in round, the group goes on to a one-minute round in which the participants either continue building on previous points or change gears and talk about something else. “This is because they profit by the experience of listening to other men speak,” says Roth. “They may start to share more of what they might have not wanted to share before. What happens is that the group starts auguring down into deeper stuff that they would not share before.”
Then the meeting switches gears to a totally different energy, what Roth calls more akin to the way of the warrior, in the good sense of the word. “It’s sort of a confrontation energy,” he says.
“We ask the question, is there any man in this circle who is out of integrity with any other man in this circle? This means that perhaps someone said that he would do something, like call someone last week, but he didn’t follow through. They can then have the opportunity to hold themselves accountable. We probe that a little bit, find out what that’s about.” This continues on into a four-step process that helps to clear the dust that may be projected out onto another member.
“Then the next round starts with each man saying, ‘If I were to work on something tonight, what would it be,” says Roth. “Then each man will state the issue in his life that he is dealing with. Then we go around the circle and we work.” This can include intense discussion, more uninterrupted time to talk, or even a process in which a man may sit in front of an empty chair and imagine that another person — his wife, a boss, a sibling — is sitting in that chair across from him. “He’ll imagine talking to them,” says Roth. “Then he will switch positions and imagine what the answer may be. We do various processes like that.”
The final piece of the meeting is what Roth calls the blessing round. “We go around the circle and each man blesses another man for something that he sees in him, it can be compassion, or power or whatever,” he says. “Then we close out the meeting with checkout.”
Born and raised in Illinois, Roth came to New Jersey as a teenager and has lived here for the past 35 years. He earned his BS, masters and PhD from Rutgers University, in engineering and environmental sciences and has worked as an environmental engineer for the past 25 years for a number of different companies.
His wife, Judy Steed, is the owner of Home Again Early School, which she runs from their home. Their adult children include his son, Jarrett; her daughter, Lizzie; and her son John.
They were married in a non-traditional ceremony which married the families, not just the couple, on August 7, 2004. (The News, September 10, 2004).
While men’s consciousness-raising was a hot media topic in the 1980s with such seminal books as Robert Bly’s “Iron John” or Herb Goldberg’s “The Hazards of Being Male,” it has since become something of a punching bag for mediocre comedians and TV shows that satirize such groups as male softies in the woods who spit, curse, and bang on drums.
“Yeah, there may be a certain amount of drum beating from time to time, to raise the energy, “ says Roth. “I’ve been in circles with 150 men sitting in a circle and drumming on drums and that can be pretty impressive for those who want to do that. Of course that doesn’t appeal to everyone. But what they have in common are that they are men who are looking to build community and support one another.”
For those interested in becoming a part of the men’s circle, or attending a meeting, call 609-933-4280. Roth says that there is no fee for the men’s circle that meets at his home, although there are costs for the ManKind Project. “There are intense weekends that are held all over the world,” says Roth. “These happen four times a year in the Philadelphia area, three times in the New Jersey area, and three times in the New York area and cost around $600.”
According to Roth, the men’s circles are based around the concept that what men need most is compassion and understanding, something that is often in short supply for the average man in the everyday world.
“There is an enormous responsibility placed on men to perform,” he says. “Financially, men are usually responsible for providing for the family, the mortgage, the insurance, the children. While men are roughly 50 percent of the general population, they make up over 95 percent of the prison population. The incidents of heart disease and high blood pressure are higher in men.”
