Good Man, Bad Man & The space between

The past years, there has been so many public revelations of the violence and harm against women and children that it’s impossible to ignore anymore...

The most recent of course the CNN expose, but all accumulating from things like the Epstein Files, The Australian survey showing approximately 1/3 men have sexual attraction to minors, Gisèle Pelicot’s trial and the 70k men found in that rape chat groups and other American studies showing a majority of men have sexually assaulted a woman at least once as well as the Manosphere documentary. All on the backs of ‘Metoo’ and many years of women and men speaking up about the prevailance of sexual abuse, misogyny and rape culture.

It’s a lot. And while many of us women know this is the commonality because we are the ones who experience sexual harassment, abuse and violence since we are young girls (and hear from all out friends), it’s never been so clearly out in the open and documented.

And there is, of course, a lot of defensiveness from men as these revelations come to light of the commonality of abuse against women, and how they do not wish to be lumped in with ‘those men’.

People want to believe they are a good guy, not one of the bad guys, as if it’s a neat division between good and bad.

But reality has far more grey, and really we are all behaving on a spectrum day by day. If we want to heal from this collective wound, we need far more men aiming for the far side of the ‘good’ spectrum, well beyond what many ‘good guys’ are currently doing.

While most men may not drug and rape their wives and charge for it on the internet, or participate in child trafficking, the reality is a majority of men still participate in coercive behaviors, sexism ranging from outright harmful to seemingly benevolent, and problematic attitudes towards women which keeps this system running.

And of course, women are also on a spectrum of behaviors from downright evil and abusive to loving and caring, and that is a conversation we can have another day, and should have — but right now, the issues with men’s bahviour is rightfully at the forefront because it’s killing and traumatizing women en mass.

A lot of men might think they would never actually rape a woman, but don’t realise they contribute to the same harmful culture and behaviours in other ways —from consuming unethical porn (and yes there is ‘ethical porn’ out there, it’s also not black and white) to making sexist jokes, and especially common is engaging in sexual coercion to pressure women to have sex with them (so common that a recent study says 95% of men engage in some kind of coercive behavior sexually).

If we want to collectively heal and transform this distortion so that men and women can have the nourishing and empowering relationships we know are possible, we need better than men settling for ‘I don’t hurt women’ and instead more men moving further along the spectrum to truly being a ‘good man’ in a way that heals and regenerates. Men embodying a way that truly ‘protects’ by making the world a safer, better place not just in the moment but for future generations.

I created this spectrum inspired by some other graphs that talk about moral/ethical spectrums and other spectrums of harm, but stretched it further than I’ve seen before to bring in what is actually healing and regenerative for the world, not just sustainable by not causing more harm, and bringing in some levels that people may not really think of usually in this discussion. This is pretty directed at hetero dynamics but can still be applicable to queers for attitudes towards cis women.

So let’s journey from what we can all agree is on the evil/bad man side of the spectrum to a masculinity that heals, transform and moves the world along

Generally illegal for good reason — these behaviors cause trauma and pain that can last generations. The far end of the three categories here is the rarer, really deeply painful expression of the dominator paradigm and psychological distortion that creates immense pain and suffering. The middle category is sadly way too common, with some stats saying around 1/3 of men have perpetrated and played in that category. Level 3 is actually sadly common, especially amongst immature young men and boys but even into adulthood, with one study saying 95% of men have engaged in coercive sexual behaviors.

1. Pure evil — Trafficking, serial rape, femicide, child sex abuse, systematic sexual abuse in cults and religions... Not much more to say here, I hope we can all agree these are absolutely reprehensible, evil things to do and recognize the lasting harm caused.

2. Violent and Exploitative — Domestic Violence, rape, coercive control, hatred of women, manosphere style promoting of hatred of women and violence towards women. This includes consuming violent or nonconsensual pornography. Drink spiking. Physical and psychological violence to children... All things that cause serious trauma and pain, all highly destructive and mostly illegal.

3. Coercive and Predatory — Coercion, sexual pressure, non-consent violations/touch/boundary crossing, intimidation and aggression towards females and children. “You owe me”, unsolicited explicit content, groping, stealthing, power abuse. This includes pressuring women into sex, manipulating them, lying to get laid, guilt trips, pushing boundaries, using intimidation tactics and generally making women feel unsafe.

Here the behaviours might not count as crimes but they contribute to the harm against women and the potential for women to feel safe and respected. This is the most common level for a majority of men at the moment and is a product of patriarchy and thousands of years of sexist beliefs and conditioning.

4. Sexism — Rape jokes, objectification, sexual harassment. normalising violence through humour, slut shaming, degradation. Many manosphere/incels who haven’t committed a crime yet are in this level, they may encourage or even ideolose those who commit the destructive crimes. These sexist behaviours normalise the violence of the destructive level and enable more extreme harm, and often lead to crimes being committed.

5. Casual sexism —microaggressions, dismissiveness, interrupting, talking over, undermining women’s expertise/mansplaining... This is the most common level for modern men who haven’t done any of the work to recognise their sexism and patriarchal programming, and they make women feel uncomfortable and invalidated, harming self esteem and opportunities for women and often putting women into freeze/fawn responses.

At this level you may consider yourself one of ‘the good guys’ because you’re not actively harming women or traumatizing them outright, but you still keep the old program running and aren’t making it better.

6. Benevolent sexism — “I protect women”, tradwife fetishization, casual paternalism and a sense of superiority to women, chivalry as control and to maintain power, fragile when women don’t comply. They might think their beliefs of women as ‘beautiful flowers who need protecting’ is a nice thing, but if women don’t conform to the limited script of femininity they loose respect. They don’t want women *too* empowered. Conditional support and infantalising beliefs about women. Often attracted to particularly ‘young women’ because they seem less threatening and are more able to hold power over them.

7. Silent bystander — “not my problem”. sees harmful behaviour yet says nothing, protects male friendships over women’s safety, looks the other way with sexist jokes and remarks. Dismisses statistics and lived experience of women speaking about misogyny, undermines the severity. Wants people to ‘get over it’ and avoid discomfort of really looking into the patterns or doing the inner work to weed out these issues.

Here we start really moving towards change, men are actively doing the inner work and wanting to help women and making a better world. When men enter this category they are no longer making it worse for women in this world, and are starting to step into real positive change that will also help them heal and have more thriving relationships.

✦ This is a necessary floor — but not enough for true collective change Here we are ‘sustainable’ and able to create minor healing over time but not enough

8. Performative allyship — “I’m one of the good ones”...surface support but often fragile when challenged, no real structural change — but they’re at least trying a bit. The immature steps of learning about feminism but not really integrating it deeply. Often having an agenda to be liked by women and wanting something from their actions, still needing validation and brownie points for doing the work and likely still fragile emotionally.

9. Conditional Reverence — The polarity bros, the Tantric ‘fuckboys’ and men learning to worship and revere women, though still a limited spectrum and idea of femininity that is conditional. Still believes in hierarchies and gender essentialism that limits womens authentic expression and limits their own capacity to feel and live based on masculine ideologies. This is the full blossoming of benevolent sexism where it seems all good and loving on the surface, but is still not weeding out deep patriarchal problematic ideologies fully, so they are still caged even if it’s a golden cage with incense and devotional rituals. This is a kind of ‘gender ideology’ (though people like to claim it’s only queers who have identity issues). This is often most exposed by attitudes towards queers, butch/masculine women and women who show anger or ‘unfeminine’ qualities.

10. Unlearning —Has started to do genuine shadow work and healing work, engaging in therapeutic processes, reading books or learning from feminists, challenging deeply held beliefs about men and women, healing mother/father wounds that replay in relationships, learning about consent and boundaries and being mindful of how they engage with women. If all men could reach this state, we’d have a much better world. This should be the baseline of ‘good man’ and a sustainable level to not continue old patterns.

At this level there is a fundamental shift in consciousness, a way of viewing our responsibility to not just ourselves and our lovers but future generations and our communities, a deep respect for human life regardless of our preferences and a devotional attitude that helps us do the hard inner work to change and grow for the sake of love and healing. Here it's no longer just about us, what we get from others, what we like or dislike. It involves deeper awakening work beyond our identities, liberation from harmful conditioning and a true breaking free from patterns that wound and harm.

11. Emotional sovereignty —He has committed to the process and gone deep. We’re talking shadow integration, healing his own wounds, unlearning actively, learning to embrace his ‘feminine’ side (aka emotional intelligence, nurturing, care). Gathering communication skills and erotic skills so he can give women true pleasure and satisfaction in relationships and be a good lover. He is willing to call out/in other men and he is amplifying women’s voices, learning from women, supporting them and no longer emotionally dumps, emotionally manipulates or lets his trauma run the show.

12. Co-creating — Actively supports women’s autonomy and erotic sovereignty · Models new masculinity for other men, genuinely worships and loves ‘the feminine’ and women no matter how they choose to express. Speaks publicly and openly about womens issues and feminism. Is willing to engage in debates and challenge other men who hold sexist beliefs. Knows this is a lifelong journey.

13. Regenerative masculinity — Helps other men to heal and grow, will mentor and support other men to become empowered . Learns from women, supports their evolution and thriving, uplifts their voices. Co-creates new social structures and helps channel wealth and power towards female leadership and new possibilities for political and social change. Their presence helps make the world a better place not just for women in their life but for future generations. They’re actively challenging gender norms, patriarchy, capitalism and other manifestations of the dominator paradigm. They use their privilege and power for the good of humanity.

This is a first attempt at naming this scale, so I am curious for feedback and input on these categories and anything I may have missed. I am inspired by a lot of wonderful men in my life and in my industry who are in this healing/regenerative state that are really showing up, doing the work and making the world a better place for women.

I have been fortunate that I have had wonderful male partners who genuinely love and respect women, who have helped me in my work and helped me to become self-actualised in all my intense, wild, fierce, feral womanly wisdom so I share this from a deep embodied knowing of what male/female relationships CAN be. Not just from theory. From knowing these men, from holding containers for this kind of healing and being part of the change.

So men reading this, hopefully you can see where you are on this scale and how you might engage further to move into the regenerative category to be supporting women in the world to heal this wound. I know many of you deeply crave empowering, mutually respectful, healing relationships where we lift each other up and transform these wounds into love and liberation. Relationships that heal the trauma virus of patriarchy and make the world a better place. We need you empowered, emotionally attuned and willing to step up beside us, not to get anything from us but for the sake of love and healing on this planet.

I’ll end with some places you can go to do this work if you’re feeling inspired!

Firstly my husband Tristen does heart-led masculinity work and coaching, and helps men on this journey. Connect with him here for 1:1 support.

Ian MacKenzie Mythic Masculine podcast and courses. Check out this great podcast to get started!

Books:

Riane Eisler - The Chalice and The Blade and/or The Power of Partnership

Bell Hooks- The Will to Change

Robert Bly- Iron John

Terry Real - Us

Feel free to drop more below!!!

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