Mark Greene > Mark's Quotes

“The sooner being gay is completely normalized, the sooner homophobic prohibitions against touch will be taken off straight men. As much as gay men have faced the brunt of homophobic violence, straight men have been banished to a desert of physical isolation by these same homophobic fanatics who police lesbians and gays in our society. The result has been a generation of American men who do not hug each other, do not hold hands and cannot sit close together without the homophobic litmus test kicking in.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“We are very close to pathologizing emotional awareness in men. Because we continue to insist that thick skinned emotionally distant men are the baseline for masculinity.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Whenever I see an aggressive man, I see a man who is taking with force what he cannot devise a way to be freely offered.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“For two seconds I stared, like a shocked pedestrian watching a bank robbery spill out onto a noontime city street. Then I dropped my pack and took off running, making a beeline into the woods away from the campsites. I stayed away from camp until late in the afternoon, sitting on a log, fighting a combination of prickly fear and disgusted boredom.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“Those moments with my father carried me through some very dark times. He loved me. His warmth and his charm wasn't enough to quell the demons that wrecked his marriage, but he left me with a sense that I was special, and that I was loved. Even now, when I sit with my son, after a divorce and after moving him out of the house he was born into, I remember the lesson my father taught me. That the love of a father can heal wounds; heal the emptiness of loss. Even when that very love itself is what is lost.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“At which point, you either bail out or you start changing. And yes, you can bail out and hold on to the patterns of living you had created for yourself long ago. You can choose to defend them to the death. Men and women do it all the time. Sometimes they physically walk out the door. Sometimes they just check out emotionally, leaving behind an automaton of a parent who goes through the motions with some secret part of themselves locked away for twenty years. Those folks do not make the change that parenting demands. Those fierce souls go another lonelier way. And they never came to know their children.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“To imply that domestic abuse is only inflicted against women by men is at best, ill informed, and at worst, intentionally deceptive. To acknowledge domestic violence against men does not diminish the injustices suffered by women. In fact, it gives men and women common cause to go forward together.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“Poor American parents, we've got the definition of strength all wrong. We're so busy insuring independence in their little sons that we are giving birth to generation after generation of men who can't create community. Who lack empathy and the ability to engage and appreciate difference. Who withdraw into isolated emotional bunkers from which to stand their ground.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“Bullying is not some simple extension of male energy. It is not biologically inevitable. But when emotional toughness is our society's highest valued personal trait, bullying is inevitable, because bullying is, at its base, an expression of loss, isolation, grief and jealousy. It is the rage of boys who are wracked with confusion. "What is suddenly wrong with wanting to be held, comforted and kept safe? Yesterday you held me. Today you pushed me away.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“These are the voices of men who have bottled up so much pain that self-reflection is seemingly impossible. You might as well stare into the sun. And so they blame everyone else. Unable to see their own pain in others, because no one saw it in them. And unable to connect emotionally after a lifetime of conditioning to adopt tough alpha male stoicism over emotional connection.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“The capacity to be vulnerable in American culture is nothing short of super human.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“In American, shame is how we make people do what we want.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“we expect children in their early teens to somehow undo a lifetime of touch aversion and physical isolation through dating.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“The sooner being gay is completely normalized, the sooner homophobic prohibitions against touch will be taken off straight men. As much as gay men have faced the brunt of homophobic violence, straight men have been banished to a desert of physical isolation by these same homophobic fanatics who police lesbians and gays in our society.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“Do some women struggle with what Mundy calls the emotionally retrograde side; yearning for a more traditional man even as they seek an egalitarian marriage?”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“We can only imagine someone wanting us in spite of our secret needs and aspirations, never because of them. The culture of shame suppresses our capacity to value what is good, strong and loving in our”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“It is the self-suppression of men's desires and aspirations that contributes to epidemic levels of male anger and reactivity, depression, alcoholism, domestic violence, divorce and suicide.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“Men who chose (or are forced) to reside in the Man Box are the first to talk about freedom and personal liberty. The fact that they are living within the mind numbingly narrow perimeters of the Man Box is so deeply ironic that it boggles the mind.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“In the absence of emotional authenticity, American men become homogeneous in their expression of self.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“From where I sit, men are anything but singular in their nature. They are as vast and diverse a category of creatures as you could ask for. Much like women, in fact.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“But I will say this to men and women alike. You can't let other people tell your stories for you, or censor you, or shame you. If you get a hint of that from someone who purports to care about you, go somewhere and rethink that relationship. Immediately. And if it continues long term, leave for good. And don't bother looking back.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“You can't let other people tell your stories for you, or censor you, or shame you. If you get a hint of that from someone who purports to care about you, go somewhere and rethink that relationship. Immediately. And if it continues long term, leave for good. And don't bother looking back.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“In American culture, we believe that men can never be entirely trusted in the realm of the physical.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“When a child loses someone or some place dear to them, you had best be ready to replace it with something warm and real, or you will haunt your child with loss.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“Those moments with my father carried me through some very dark times. He loved me. His warmth and his charm wasn't enough to quell the demons that wrecked his marriage, but he left me with a sense that I was special, and that I was loved. Even now, when I sit with my son, after a divorce and after moving him out of the house he was born into, I remember the lesson my father taught me. That the love of a father can heal wounds; heal the emptiness of loss. Even when that very love itself is what is lost.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“To imply that domestic abuse is only inflicted against women by men is at best, ill informed, and at worst, intentionally deceptive. To acknowledge domestic violence against men does not diminish the injustices suffered by women. In fact, it gives men and women common cause to go forward together.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“The ability to be cared for and comforted is a crucial human capacity, without which we can not live fully connected emotionally intimate lives.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“These are the voices of men who have bottled up so much pain that self-reflection is seemingly impossible. You might as well stare into the sun. And so they blame everyone else. Unable to see their own pain in others, because no one saw it in them. And unable to connect emotionally after a lifetime of conditioning to adopt tough alpha male stoicism over emotional connection.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change

“In American, shame is how we make people do what we want.”
― Mark Greene, Remaking Manhood: The Modern Masculinity Movement: Stories From the Front Lines of Change