JOSEPH GELFER

Locked in a time to talk about The Masculinity Conspiracy at Burning Seed, taking place near Narrandera, NSW. 11am on Saturday 12 November in the friendly space of the Nargile Lounge.

A reasonable little write-up about The Masculinity Conspiracy in a local paper, The Brimbank Weekly. Now if I can just get it in The New York Times, I’ll be sorted.

Grappling with the new male order

Some men feel pressured to act in a certain way, writes Ben Millar

Society must be more imaginative about what it means to be a man, according to a Sunshine academic and writer.

Joseph Gelfer says assumptions made about masculinity are so narrow that most men are stifled into acting in a way that isn’t really who they are.

In his new book The Masculinity Conspiracy, available free online, he argues outdated ideas of masculinity prevent humanity from reaching its fullest potential. “It’s about giving people a way to explore ideas and share thoughts without being stuck in the same narrow models and archetypes such as man as a warrior.”

A masculinities researcher in the school of political and social inquiry at Monash University, Gelfer believes these narrow notions of masculinity tend to bear little resemblance to the range of men’s actual experiences. Much of his research has explored the link between masculinity, religion and spirituality.

He believes the patriarchal nature of religion has led to set ideas of being a man that have been adopted by wider society.

With much of the research in the field “perhaps read by 10 other people”, Gelfer said he released the free ebook to take the conversation into the mainstream.

“I’m from an academic background and this kind of work tends to get stored away in academic journals and dusty tomes that hardly anybody reads. A lot of people out there want to have these conversations; they’re looking for answers.”

Missed this 2012 article from last month on Boing Boing where 2012: Decoding the Countercultural Apocalypse gets a plug: The annotated apocalypse: Anthropologists tackle 2012.

Here’s the cover to my new anthology 2012: Decoding the Countercultural Apocalypse which will be out in a matter of weeks:

Just got the nod that my talk Entheogenic Spirituality and Gender in Australia is scheduled for 10.30am Sunday 4 December in the Main Conference Dome at this year’s Entheogenesis Australis.

Chapter 8 (Conclusion) of The Masculinity Conspiracy is now online.

This final chapter revisits some of the main ways that the conspiracy manifests, but more importantly examines how and why it happens, as well as revealing what ultimately lies behind the conspiracy.

If you don’t like reading online, print ($12.95) and Kindle ($4.99) editions of the book are also now available.

Happy reading!