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GUEST: Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio, family therapist, organizational consultant, author, speaker and trainer, author of “Making Love, Playing Power: Men, Women, and the Rewards of Intimate Justice”

Today we begin a three part series on Uprising called “Personal is Political.” Departing from our more usual fare of hard news and analysis, we attempt to dissect three aspects of our day-to-day lives in hour-long programs that include your questions. This week we tackle the issue of love and relationships with a family therapist whose new book challenges the patriarchal paradigm with an eye toward what he calls “intimate justice.”

How many of us, even with progressive, anti-sexist, anti-patriarchal philosophies actually apply our politics to our personal relationships? Making Love, Playing Power: Men, Women, and the Rewards of Intimate Justice is not your usual self-help, how-to-listen-to-your-partner -and-achieve-romantic-bliss manual. It is a clear-minded critique of patriarchy that rejects male codes of behavior that objectify women, as well as mainstream therapists’ view that it is women’s responsibility to nurture relationships. The book also covers dynamics between partners in same-sex relationships. One reviewer calls it “A revolutionary book! … Like Alice Walker, bell hooks, Paulo Friere, and Ignacio Martin-Baro, [the author] dares to emphasize fairness as a necessary condition for love.”

Click here to find out more about the book: http://www.softskull.com/detailedbook.php?isbn=1-933368-68-3

Rough Transcript

Sonali Kolhatkar: Let’s talk about one of the first things you discuss in this book. And as I mentioned, this is a departure from our usual fare. You use the term “male entitlement” to describe the male behavior that underlies so many problems within relationships. Why do you use that term?

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: I use the term male entitlement because it captures with great specificity the pattern that underlies, as you say, so many of the difficulties that arise in relationships. And so, male entitlement captures things really across a continuum that begin with pretty benign things like when a man expects his partner to handle all the details of their social calendar. Kind of defaults all of that work to her. And up the continuum, we meet things like a man who is a father, but he really doesn’t like to do the changing of the diapers and he really doesn’t like to do housework and he really is not good at doing the laundry. He messes that kind of stuff up. And really, what it is is a refusal to gain competence with those kinds of necessary daily activities. It goes on to things like always prioritizing his own feelings and desires over those of other family members, and you see this in guys who do things like they’ve gotta watch their particular sports event on television, whether it’s NASCAR or a baseball game, or they have got to spend a certain amount of time playing golf. And it goes on all the way to the extreme of domestic violence, which is really about entitlement to the extent that the person feels they have the right to control their partner’s activities across the board. And I used the term male entitlement also because it captures this pattern in a way that affords a collective understanding. So I’m not saying it’s about selfishness, it’s about arrogance, because it’s bigger than that. It’s something that men and boys are taught to participate in. And I use the term also because it gives a little bit of distance. You can decide whether or not to participate in it once you have the consciousness to see the pattern.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Now, how do you assure male readers of your book and our male listeners who are listening today that you are not just engaging in male bashing? You are a guy, but still. You know, some of the things you say can make a guy feel very self-conscious.

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: I have to tell you that I wrote this book because, in working with couples, I felt like there wasn’t a tool, a book that I could give to couples that really addressed the changes that men can make, and that women should be really paying attention to, that would help heal relationships. And so, I have for a long time encouraged couples to read books like “Too Good for Her Own Good,” which was written by Claudia Bepko and Jo-Ann Krestan. And also “Wifework” by Susan Maushart, but I also would refer men and couples to books like “Men’s Work,” which was written by Paul Kivel, and “Refusing to be a Man,” which was written by John Stoltenberg, but those books don’t have the how-to in them, and so I wrote this book really as a gift and as a tool to help men not only learn but also to give them specific steps. So I outlined in nine of the chapters steps for men to take, steps for women to take, and steps for couples to take that will build more fairness into their relationships. It’s very much a way to help men look at our patterns of behavior without blaming, more to say: “Let’s develop our critical consciousness, let’s see where we can make some changes that are going to be better for everybody.” And as you said, I’m a man, and I talk about myself in many of the examples as well. This is not something that I am above or exempted from by any means.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Now, we often hear young boys and men being told, sometimes even by their own mothers, to just “act like a man.” What is the male code of behavior that is really the heart of your book? Let’s go through these one by one, beginning with the rule number 1, that you say, “Don’t act like a girl.” This is something that men and boys are taught from a very young age.

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: Taught from a very young age and you hear the old epithet “You throw like a girl.” A friend of mine recently told me that his son’s football coach shouted something out to one of the players “I should buy you heels,” and that kind of statement puts boys and men back in line. I have even heard it at the health club where I work out. I have heard guys talking about how, you know, “I saw you in aerobics class, you are really getting into that, you are looking like one of the girls,” and then they will laugh. When those kinds of things are said, they put men above women, they tell men and boys that we have to be very different from women, and it really translates into all the kinds of activities that we typically think of as being feminine. So really the nurturing, the care-giving, even just the voicing of feelings – those kinds of things.

Sonali Kolhatkar: And speaking of feelings, rule number 2 is “Keep your feelings to yourself.” We, in our society, tend to encourage boys and men to not express themselves and then are surprised when they are older and really, you know, have taken that lesson to heart.

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: Absolutely. In order to be able to talk the language of feelings, it takes practice. It takes looking at what you are experiencing and finding the specific words. And really, what I find is that men are taught that there is one feeling that is open to us, and that is anger. And it’s the feeling of taking power by being rageful. And we see that in all sorts of problems both in intimate relationships and in relationships across all kinds of human systems.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Now, this male code includes as its next rule that you describe in your book “Work is your first priority.” Work is something that a lot of men certainly use as an excuse to get out of all sorts of things, but then, you know, how do you respond to those men who say “Look, if I‘m the bread-winner in the family, if my salary is the main one that is keeping this family financially afloat, isn’t it my responsibility to worry about it?”

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: It sure is. And it’s both men’s and women’s responsibility to create a home economy that is as stable as it can be. But when men put work above all else, they cheat themselves and they cheat their families out of what is most important in human connections. And so the goal isn’t to say that work is unimportant. The goal is to find a place for work that makes sense in the balance of a person’s entire life. And that’s a very big challenge, because as you say, particularly as the economy changes in the direction that it is now, there is huge pressures for men to work longer hours, to demonstrate more productivity. Men and women. And it’s right in synch with this directive that men have, you know, that your first relationship, your first connection is to the workplace really.

Sonali Kolhatkar: And how do men use that? Give us some examples. How do men use the importance that they give to their work in their day-to-day lives that you have seen that is problematic?

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: Well, a lot of times, men will, and the problem is that women are socialized to the same code, to play a complimentary role, if you will. And so, for example, a man will not participate in the life of the family. Will stay at work extraordinary hours, won’t know anything about what his kids are doing, what their activities are, won’t feel like he has to participate, won’t feel like he has to know what’s going on in his partner’s life or his kid’s life. And instead will just feel like that’s all stuff that she has to handle, that she has to take responsibility for, because he has a responsibility to be at work all the time. And what happens is, people just really absent themselves from the life of the family.

Sonali Kolhatkar: The next several rules are “Be aggressive,” “Be dominant.” How are men socialized to do that? And is it just a problem of anger management?

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: Well, I think that the idea that we are going to solve problems through aggression gets us into all kinds of trouble. It can be, again, on the small intimate scale, where a man learns that he or his wife suddenly has a catastrophic diagnosis, and feels like we’ve got to go at this full steam, we’ve got to find out all the information we can, we’ve got to tackle this with all the resources that are available. I had a situation that I described where a man’s daughter was diagnosed with cancer, and his aggression, when she was actually needing to just grieve and get a handle on what was happening to her, really put him at a distance from her and from his wife. All the way to things like what happened after 9/11, where we have this aggressive response instead of a response that really assesses why would such a thing happen, where did this come from, what can we do to actually respond in a way that is constructive? You miss all the important details and the roots to real resolution often through aggression.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Ken, how are men taught to objectify women and how is that part of the male code, you know, this message that women are essentially there for sex?

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: Most boys have their first introduction to sex through pornography. It is very much the gateway that we learn about what we are to expect when we are with a living partner. And of course pornography doesn’t talk back, it’s available exactly when we want it to be, or her, or him, in fact, to be. Available for our use, never says no, and in the stories that one reads in pornography, even if a woman does say no, what it really means is “Keep trying, I will give in eventually.” So, we learn to objectify our partners, and to see them as servicing us sexually. And of course that creates enormous difficulties when you are confronted with a real-life person who wants to have an intimate emotional bond, rather than just a sexual bond.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Is it just pornography or what about just in general mainstream pop culture?

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: Yeah, exactly. We are taught that the way that a woman looks determines her value. The way that a man looks determines his value if we are gay, that it’s all about conquest, it’s all about gaining that trophy, and not enough about what does it mean to actually have a connection with the person who you get to know and who you express your sexuality with, but it’s in an envelope of caring, it’s in an envelope of sharing and understanding one another.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Finally, rule number 8 of the male code you describe in your book, along the lines of the first rule “Don’t act like a girl.” Rule number 8 is “Don’t be gay.” How common is that even today?

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: Very common. I have a 15-and-a-half-year-old son, who will talk about how at his school people will still say to one another “Oh, that’s so gay,” and we hear that even among workers in a corporate setting, you know. Calling each other gay as a way to put them down, put them back in their place. So, masculinity has typically been defined largely around its opposition to femininity, and certainly having nothing to do with being homosexual, with being gay.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Ken, is it only between heterosexual couples that you find this male code or do you also find it among same-sex couples, whether among a gay couple, where there are two men who are the partners, or among a lesbian couple?

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: In my experience in working with gay male couples, the male code is as operative often as it is in straight couples, because gay men are subject to the same socialization that all men are in our culture. And if you think of even some of the terminology, the terms top and bottom are really all about domination and about the paradigm of patriarchy, and really the male code is the how-to when it comes to putting powerist domination or patriarchy into play within the intimacy of a couple’s relationship. I think that in gay male couples, because we have already broken that fundamental last rule, there is openings for a broadening of our expression, so an expanded masculinity, if you will. And so, in many ways, I think gay men often lead the way in terms of breaking some of the rules, expanding some of the rules, exploring their full humanity apart from the constrictions of those rules of the code. With lesbian couples, who I have less experience with clinically, it seems to me that there is often more of an opening for real relating, because women are taught more about the value of relating to others, of listening carefully, of being nurturing. So they have in general more of the foundational tools for connecting, but there are certainly some lesbian couples who follow that paradigm of domination and the patriarchal mold exactly the way that straight couples and some gay couples do.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Let’s talk about race. How does race play a factor within an interracial couple, and do the same sorts of issues of domination and power that you see in society play out within a loving couple’s relationship?

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: Absolutely. And I would add that race is a factor no matter what the racial make-up of the couple, because even if the couple is within the same race, they are going to face patterns of privilege or patterns of oppression in the public world that affect what happens internally. And certainly, what I would say is that every identity characteristic has with it dimensions of power. So, gender, race, sexual orientation, age, our access to wealth, our professional background, the connections that we have through family, the connections that we might have through the extension of family to political power and resources, even our body type, what we look like. Are we considered good-looking, are we considered not-so-good-looking? Are we fit and trim, or are we overweight? All these things construct a matrix of power that is at play in any context. And so, when you have an interracial couple, if you have a couple where let’s say one of the partners is white and one of the partners is African American, that is certainly going play into what kinds of power these folks have and the ways that they make decisions, the ways that they solve problems, whose voice is heard more strongly, those kinds of things. So it’s always at play.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Ken, you talked about some books earlier that you have recommended to your clients, but I want to ask you to comment on some of the more mainstream books that we see that are very popular. I will just name a couple: “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex” that is a classic book about how to deal with relationships that has a very different paradigm from your book. And then there is “He’s Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys.” What do you make of these books and this sort of dominant paradigm to dealing with relationships?

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: Well, I can comment on the John Gray “Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus” book, because I have read that one. And, what I would say about that is it’s fairly typical of the accommodationist strategy. That’s one way to put it, I guess. His theme is that essentially, men and women are different and we should acknowledge those differences and adapt to them. It’s fundamentally: adapt. So if men don’t listen particularly well, if men don’t ask for help when they need it, then let’s just tolerate that, because that’s just sort of a fact of nature. And I find that to be offensive and I find that to be harmful, because it teaches women that really their role is to pick up the pieces, to do more of the relational work, to make allowances. And you see that in many of the texts that are popular among therapists as well. The texts that therapists read that teach them the way to intervene is essentially to act as though the man in the couple can’t be expected to change much. If he shows up at all, he should be praised for that and that we gotta expect that the woman is gonna do more of the talking and take more of the responsibility and use that.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Because somehow naturally the sexes are designed for that?

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: Yeah, almost as though it’s genetically bound and there is nothing you can do about it.

Sonali Kolhatkar: And your reject that. Why?

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: I reject that because it is just not good science, it’s not sound, there is nothing that really documents that in any substantive way, and I find that when you ask people to look at what’s fair, a lot of times there is relief on both sides. The idea that I can do this differently, I didn’t even know that I was doing some of those things. Sometimes that’s the man’s perspective. Most men want to do the right thing, we want to be fair. We just don’t have a lot of guidance when it comes to what that looks like. We go along with it.

Sonali Kolhatkar: And then there is also Dr. Laura Schlessinger that you discuss in your book. Many people tune into her and she is the author of “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands.” You know, this is not just among psychologist, but people see this all over the place. What do you think of Dr. Schlessinger?

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: I think that’s nightmarish, actually. I think that one of her themes essentially is that women are responsible for shaping their men and that if he is shaped in a way that is upsetting or difficult, well then you just have to work harder to help him to behave better. Essentially her idea seems to be that men will do what women tolerate, so women have to set limits and guidelines accordingly.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Let’s talk about the issue of abuse within relationships. That’s usually the impetus for a lot of couples, whether it’s full on physical abuse or even verbal abuse, or a couples feelings strained. That is usually the impetus for going to a family therapist or couples counseling. How is anger, particularly from men, treated in mainstream counseling? Is the prescription then to just seek anger management?

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: Yeah, there is a huge confusion in the field about the dynamics of violence within relationships. Family therapists and couple therapists were, and continue to be taught, that the family and the couple are a system and, essentially, if something is going on, it’s a shared responsibility. That if a woman is being battered, that in some way she is inviting and perpetuating the battering by her actions. There is a growing edge to the field which says that is not true at all and that’s not reasonable and it’s not safe that a man who chooses to either emotionally or physically or sexually abuse his partner, or threaten her, or control her with the money – he is responsible for making those choices. And in fact I believe that all couples, before they are seen as a couple, need to be screened for the existence of relationship abuse. And that essentially means that they need to be seen individually, confidentially, and asked questions about tactics of abuse that are very common within relationships. Abuse within relationships is never an anger problem, because if it were an anger problem, the abuser – and I’ll say the man, because in 90% to 95% of couple relationships in which there is violence, the violence goes from the man toward the women – the abuser does not explode toward other people. In other words, he doesn’t attack his boss at work, he doesn’t attack his father, he doesn’t attack people on the street. It is extraordinarily confined to the relationship that he has with his partner. He would never do this kind of behavior outside the couple relationship, and so it’s a tactic. And also when he “explodes” or “looses control,” he will most usually hurt his partner in places on her body that are covered by clothing. So it’s less likely the case that those bruises are going to be seen by others. And if he destroys property, he is far more likely to destroy property that is of value to her than to him. So, anger management misses the mark. The problem is entitlement. It isn’t anger management. And there was research done by researchers by the name of Gondolf and Russell as far back as 1986 that documented this, and basically said that if you try to teach a man anger management, you are actually teaching him to be “a better terrorist,” was their terminology, because what you are teaching him is how to do this in a way that he is less likely to get in trouble with the law for it. And also the problem with anger management is it actually reinforces the idea that he has got something to be angry about. And what he is usually angry about is that she won’t do what he wants her to. And that again is a problem of entitlement. So if you reinforce the idea that he has got something to be angry about, and the solution is for him to find ways to manage it, you leave in place the fundamental problem which is the male entitlement taken to the extreme.

Sonali Kolhatkar: What about the issue of substance abuse, alcoholism, drug use, etc? Can that not be a real problem within relationships and the reason for abuse?

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: Absolutely. It significantly facilitates the abuse. It makes it worse, if a person is actively using. And so it’s a big issue, but it never is the cause. It’s never the case that this person has to stop using in order to stop being abusive. And this is an issue that the 12 step communities are not very well informed on either. And in fact they oftentimes believe and promote the idea that the victim or the survivor is enabling the person to use, and therefore is somehow to blame for some of what is going on in the relationship. But we have worked with many people who are in recovery for a long time from their substance abuse, but they continue to batter. And the court systems are also generally ill-informed on this. They’ll accept as a remedy that a man will go into substance abuse treatment as the solution to his battering, and it’s only part of the problem. The real problem is the battering, and that has to be addressed separately.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Let me ask you this, particularly among our listenership here at KPFK and Pacifica. Most of our listenership is very conscious, progressive-minded. Is there a difference that you might notice between those men who identify as progressive and anti-patriarchal and mainstream male culture in how they treat women in their relationships and, of course, carrying that analogy within same-sex couples as well? Are progressive men “better” within their relationships because they “know better”?

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: I would like to say yes, but my experience tells me that, in general, that’s not the case. In general, within the boundary of intimate relationships, these old patterns tend to hold sway, that men tend to be more dominating, expect the traditional pattern to be in place, and I think it’s important also to look at some of the broader system. So you look at, for example, movements for civil rights. For the most part, those systems continue to carry with them elements of sexism, racism, and homophobia. So, for example the civil rights movement for people of color too frequently has men who are the primary spokespeople, and women who are doing the background work. The movement for rights for queer people too frequently has white people who are at the helm, and the needs of people of color are somehow lost in the mix. So I think that we have got a ways to go in integrating all of these oppressions or resistance to these oppressions within our intimate lives and also across movements for fairness.

Sonali Kolhatkar: Finally Ken, what are some of the steps that men can take to improve their behavior and how can women develop more confidence to demand better male behavior?

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: Well Sonali, I’m glad you asked that question. The first thing they can do is buy and read “Making Love, Playing Power”…

Sonali Kolhatkar: [laughing] Ok. Or they can get it from the library.

Ken Dolan-Del Vecchio: Or they can get it from the library. I’m sorry… and follow some of the steps that are outlined in those chapters, and I think for men it’s important to gather into collectives and to talk about these issues, because one of the things that we know is that men listen more carefully, unfortunately, men, because of these patterns, listen more carefully and more respectfully in general to other men than they do to women. So organizations like the National Organization for Men Against Sexism provide a forum for men to talk about oppression of women, oppression of people of color, oppression of queer people in a way where they can build shared consciousness and community. So I think connecting together, I think talking about these things, I think talking with friends about the changes you want to make and asking them to hold you accountable, and to tell them the changes that you are making within your important relationships. Because breaking the boundary of privacy and bringing other people in can be a great source of support; and support that is founded upon loving accountability. And I think for women, too. Much of what I do in working with women is to validate what they’re experiencing. To validate that too many men are willing to become controlling, become dominating, and that they don’t deserve that. And that no relationship is worth giving up self-determination, that relationships should always be a total gain. I mean there are times when it is difficult and one has to provide a lot of support to ones partner, but a relationship should not, on balance, be a burden. It should be something that nurtures one’s life; that creates more fullness rather than difficulty.

Special Thanks to Claudia Greyeyes for transcribing this interview