Psychological Harm is Physical Harm 2: Why Survivors Lose Their Voice

Have you ever had that dream where something bad is happening to you, but when you try to ask for help, you can’t speak? You try to scream for help but you just can’t get the words out? This doesn’t only happen in dreams. It happens in real life as well. Survivors of gendered violence experience this […]

Nurturance is about more than ‘tasks’

Attunement is not a ‘task’ that can be carried out. You can provide physical care in a connected or a disconnected way. The cues that tell the limbic brain ‘I’m with you; we are connected,’ are tremendously subtle. Connection isn’t forced through willpower or memorization; rather, it occurs when you allow your true self to […]

Out of the Attic: dissociation and social justice

Out of the Attic: dissociation and social justice This is a workshop created to help increase the general level of public knowledge about the spectrum of dissociative experiences and their connection to systemic oppression. Dissociative experiences are very common. Increasing awareness about how they feel and look, their causes, and how people can help or […]

Cipher

Gwen works at the Institute, the source of all knowledge production in the world. The Institute’s rectilinear stone columns and thin white cutstone steps fill her imagination, and her work fills her days. Slowly her orderly, linear world begins to crack at the edges. In the oldest part of the Institute, a woman in white stands in […]

Why the World Said ‘Yes!’ to #NurturanceCulture: Five Responses

Why the World Said Yes to Nurturance Culture: Five Responses Last week, “The Opposite of Rape Culture is Nurturance Culture” blew up on the internet. The global response is astonishing: 360 000 people visited the page in a week. Clearly the idea that we can craft a masculine “Nurturance Culture” touched a chord. Comments and mail poured in from well nigh every single […]

Dating Tips for the Feminist Man

This post is in honour of male feminists and their dating rituals. You’re a straight cismale who identifies as a leftie. Maybe you’re a Marxist or a socialist; maybe you’re an anarchist. You respect women. You would never act like a player. You fall in love with strong, smart, feminist women. You believe that our […]

Own, Apologize, Repair: Coming Back to Integrity

There is a variation on ‘Not All Men.’ It is called ‘I Feel Bad When You Say That.’ My godson Kyle is six. He is fairly emotionally perceptive for his age, as his grownups have been working with him to create an emotionally responsible and self-aware boy who we hope will grow into an emotionally […]

On Gaslighting

I keep having the same conversation over and over. That thing where someone undermines your perception of reality, and says you’re crazy, or denies that something is happening that is in fact happening? When people we love and trust do that to us? It really messes with our minds. Over time, or when it is about important […]