An organization for men to deal with men’s problems? How bad could it be? Let’s take a look at their manifesto:
“Wolf Pack aims to tackle the challenges of social isolation amongst adult men by helping foster social connection and new friendships through vulnerable and supportive conversations around topics of depth.
Our Wolf Pack groups will be meeting on a monthly basis, and similar to our youth programs, we’ll be diving deep into topics around our pillars of self (acceptance, esteem, love, and awareness), health (mental, emotional, and physical), and others (inclusiveness, diversity, empathy, and relationships). Don’t worry if this sounds a bit different then your usual after-work gathering – Wolf Pack is going to be a fun, engaging, and unique event every time.”
Well, doesn’t seem like a bad start. Choosing ‘wolf pack’ though, given the sheer volume of specious MRA arguments based on a the contrived notion of ‘wolf-society’ should make one pause. Is our hesitation justified? Let’s view the next line from the w-pack manifesto:
“The goals of Wolf Pack are to:
Create brave spaces for conversations about masculinity and positive, healthy ways to ‘be a man’
Break down social isolation and foster lasting connections and meaningful support with our peers”
What precisely is a ‘brave space’? Perhaps it involves blue war-paint and shouting in bad Scottish accent, “Freedom!”? Who knows, but it seems like a ham-handed way to avoid saying ‘safe space’ because as we all know feminists and women use that term, and certainly one should not be associated with unmanly people like that.
Hope for the W-pak took a bit of dip when reading the first line. Masculinity is fucking toxic. It is based on creating worth for one set of human beings by degrading, debasing, and savaging another subset of species. Trying to tease out positive healthy ways out of the vile shit-soup that is masculinity would be quite the feat. Furthermore, how about healthy ways to be a ‘person’ rather than one side of the oppressive gender hierarchy.
I realize that casting a radical feminist analysis at the wolf-pack might not be entirely fair, but these folks are getting media attention for essentially stating that they are not overtly hostile to females and feminism in general. A very large cookie for each of these embiggended and bold men daring to not threaten the status-quo in society…
“Who can participate in Wolf Pack?
Wolf Pack is open to men and anyone who identifies with maleness/masculinity looking to meet like-minded men who are interested in redefining what it is to “be a man” and make friends along the way! […]”
Way to portray masculinity in a positive light! – Because we all know how awesome the masculine set of gender stereotypes happen to be.
The Wolfpack seems to be getting some media attention for the noble attribute of not being particularly horrible. Of course, in our patriarchal society, that is all it takes. It would be more interesting to see some media coverage of women’s organizations and the women that run them, but then again males being ‘not horrible’ is judged to be the newsworthy piece.
:(
IBTP.
[Source: The Wolf Pack/ NextGen Men]
bleatmop
Mystro
The Arbourist
Dead Wild Roses 
7 comments
August 31, 2016 at 12:47 pm
robert browning
Somebody trying to make a buck? Not worth checking out. Surprised if they don’t throw some jeebus shit at you too.
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August 31, 2016 at 1:11 pm
The Intransigent One
I was ready to give them an eye so jaundiced it needed a liver transplant, but they’ve got some really decent stuff in their blog. Not, like, a radical analysis, but look here, an article that concludes rape is caused by rapists and most rapists are men: http://nextgenmen.ca/the-science-of-rape-prevention/
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August 31, 2016 at 3:07 pm
syrbal-labrys
Possibly a brave space is simply one where men can speak of feelings aside from the “approved” ones like anger? I remember the dismissal of women’s groups very well. So I refuse to similarly dismiss all men’s groups, especially when there might be an openness to escaping stereotypes and exploring real issues of growth and self knowledge.
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August 31, 2016 at 5:48 pm
bleatmop
I would think not everyone takes a literal Rad-Fem analysis on what masculinity is. Some simply view it as being male and the nasty crap to be toxic masculinity. The group seems to be pretty good to me. I mean, from their testimonial page:
We are teaching and role-modelling with the young men in our programs that there are so many different ways to be a man and there are so many they can be good men. They can communicate openly about their feelings, they can speak out when they hear sexist comments, they can learn about how the media represents men and women differently and advocate for change!
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September 2, 2016 at 8:15 am
The Arbourist
@TIO
Read the article. Not bad. Perhaps the unfortunate choice of the group’s name, was just that. We will have to wait and see.
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September 2, 2016 at 8:21 am
The Arbourist
@Syrbal
It very well could be what you postulate. I wonder if rather than being obtuse about using the language that they have chosen, perhaps these dudes are struggling with the patriarchal burden that society has placed on them?
The term ‘safe space’ is associated with women and femininity and thus has many negative connotations and implications for those who use the term – ‘brave space’ might be addressing this notion.
It seems like they are doing a lot of reinventing the wheel though, as even a cursory glance at feminist literature would give them some of the tools and terminology that seems to be absent in their online presence.
A very sensible and even handed approach. If only the same courtesy was extended to you… :/
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September 2, 2016 at 8:27 am
The Arbourist
@bleatmop
Interesting. I guess the test would be on what is considered ‘healthy’ masculinity versus the toxic kind – if one considers that masculinity cannot exist without having a subservient class to appropriately subordinate.
I see so much negative sexist crap perpetuated by men – it has made me intensely cynical and skeptical of men as a class.
I hope that nextgenmen can stick to what they are saying on their webpage.
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