MenAreGood

Indigenous Rituals and What They Tell Us About Men

Excerpt - Swallowed by a Snake Chapter Nine

August 26, 2024

Cross-Cultural Grief

This is chapter nine of Swallowed by a Snake: The Gift of the Masculine Side of Healing. In the late 1980’s I was confused about men’s ways of healing and bumped into the anthropological research on cross cultural grief. It was this research that clearly showed the tendency of indigenous people to give men activities following a loss. The more I studied the more I saw that men relied on action as a mode of healing. It was easy to admire the grief rituals these folks offered to both men and women. See what you think.

Chapter Nine - Cross Cultural Grief

Indigenous people around the world have highly developed rituals and mechanisms in place in their cultures to aid the resolution of grief. These rituals are an important part of life for these people. Their cultures are fertile ground for grief to be nourished. In many ways we are the primitives, because we have very few mechanisms in our culture that function in a similar way. By studying the way indigenous people grieve we can begin to get some idea about the state of grief in our own culture and our inadequate rituals. Using the analogy of a business or a sports team that is not doing well compared to the competition, we can examine a successful party and learn from their achievement. We will probably not adopt a specific grief ritual from another culture, but we will be able to see how these cultures have incorporated grief into their daily lives and how they have developed different rituals for men and women.

These cultures have implemented action-oriented rituals that allow both men and women tasks that connect them with their grief. In our own culture we have no such thing. We are left to our own devices to heal our grief, many times without the support of a caring community. Given this void of ritual, men and women are put into a precarious state. Often, women are able to overcome this void by using their skills of relating and their natural tendency towards verbally sharing their grief with others, but men, usually with strengths of a different nature, are at more of a disadvantage. Without culturally-endorsed rituals men are left with nothing to do following a death. It has been my clinical observation that men in our culture grieve through task, that is, they find activities that allow them to access and heal their grief. Through studying the cross-cultural literature we can begin to get a glimpse of the possible root of a man’s tendency in our own culture to connect his grief with action.

The least we can expect is to stimulate our own thinking about different ways to express grief. Our own weakness in dealing with grief can be strengthened by observing the strength of the tribal culture’s ritual that is so effective in helping their communities come to terms with their loss. With that said, let’s look at what can be learned from grief around the world.

Community

One of the first things we notice is the difference between the social structure of indigenous people and our own way of life. Tribal cultures live in communities of intimately interconnected people who are closely affected in some way by the death of any member. They live in close proximity, rely on each other for the necessities of life, and usually have a common history and world view. There is a bond between them that is amplified by the feeling of “us” and “we” that develops when a group of people share such interdependence. The people of these cultures have ritual structures in place that are designed to support those in grief. There is usually a strong expectation and a sense of responsibility that the community will lend its support to those in pain. There is a sense that each death is a loss of the community, not a loss that is isolated.

We can contrast this with our own situation, where there is a certain invisibility in our interdependence. We live together in neighborhoods but not necessarily communities. Many times the neighbors who live three doors down the street have little attachment to or connection with our family. We shop in different places and work in different settings. When a member of a tribe dies, it is a person who was connected in many ways to the community. When a member of a neighborhood in North America dies, too often it is merely someone who lived down the street.

The interdependence of the tribal cultures can be better compared in some ways to the family unit in the United States. Families are interdependent in a similar kind of way, with each member having prescribed roles and duties and interacting on a daily basis. In many ways our families have become our communities. But without the embrace of a larger community we are left with fewer places to receive support for our grief. Our primary means of support frequently is limited to the members of our family. A table with many legs is not affected by one leg being sawed off, but a table with three or four legs is crippled by a similar loss. This is one of the reasons for the emergence of grief counseling in our culture.

World View

Another difference we notice is that the world view of the indigenous people in some way brings meaning to grief. Many times grief is seen as food for the soul of the dead person. The Minianka tribe in Africa see the tears of grief as being nourishment to the newborn soul of the person being grieved. Without the tears the soul could not move beyond the land of the living. In this way the mourners see their grief as a benefit to the person who has died. The variations of this theme are many, but they all incorporate the idea that grief is a necessary process and without it there is some sort of trouble. It is easy to see the contrast to our own culture where people tend to feel that their grief has no purpose or meaning, or worse yet, that it is a selfish act.

Marking the Griever

There are many common themes in the grief rituals among indigenous people. One of these is the tendency to mark the griever. All sorts of mechanisms are used, but one that is found in many cultures is hair. For many tribal people hair is a symbol of life. It marks the passage of time and is therefore connected with life and death. Many times the grievers either cut off their hair or allow their hair and (in the case of the men) beard to grow in response to a death. This is done as a symbolic act and as a part of a ritual process prescribed by the community, but it also functions as a way to mark the mourners. All the people of the community are aware that a certain haircut means a person is grieving. There are many variations on this theme, including special cuts where only a part of the hair is cut or all hair is sheared. The hair can be cut with all sorts of instruments, such as sharpened seashells, or it may be burned off. Sometimes the cut hair is saved as a memorial, to become part of a necklace or be used in a ritual. The important message of the special hair cut is that this is a person in pain, a person who is grieving, and the treatment he receives is altered due to his status as a griever.

Other ways of marking the griever include covering oneself with ashes or oil or certain colors of paint. In one African tribe there is a complex system of designating the colors of grief paint to alert the community to the type of loss that has been suffered. For instance, a man whose father died would wear a certain color of paint in a certain place on the body. If it had been his mother who died, the paint would have been a different color and painted in a different design. This simple system not only alerts the community to the fact that this man is grieving, it also clearly marks the type of loss that has occurred.

Bark

Bark is used in some cultures both as a way to mark the griever and as a symbol of grief. The Karanga people of Africa wear bark to mark themselves as grieving. Women wear a bark necklace, and men wear a woven bark chain around the head. The bark serves also as a symbol of loss, indicating that an individual has been stripped away from the community as bark has been stripped from the tree.

The story of Jaque, also related in a previous chapter, is another example of bark used as a symbol of loss. When his brother died suddenly, Jaque was torn by sadness and anger. Following ancient custom, he went into the forest, selected a tree and, after uttering a prayer, stripped away a piece of the bark. Now the tree, like Jaque, had lost something whose loss caused deep pain. Many times over the following months he returned to visit the tree. As the seasons passed, the wound in the tree healed. So did the wound in Jaque’s heart. With the tree as a visible reflection of his loss, Jaque was reminded that he, too, was healing. Jaque is a Native American, a Cree.

In this example, the bark of the tree was used as a symbol of the pain that the man was experiencing. As the bark is a covering of the tree, it is almost as if the man had his own covering sliced away in a similar manner. A part of him was taken—not his core, which still exists—but something that was a part of him all the same. The tree stood as a symbol for his loss; it was wounded in a similar way. Each time he visited that site the tree could remind him of his own wound and, as he watched the tree heal, of his own healing.

These are some of the ways native people have used to mark the griever. Marking gives the griever a public role to play and, in essence, permission to publicly and privately grieve. We can contrast this with the invisibility of grief in our culture. One of the last markings to be discarded in our culture was the black arm band. We now have no overt way to differentiate the people in our community who are grieving from those who are not. The men and women who are grieving can feel this invisibility and the accompanying lack of permission to grieve. Indigenous cultures prescribe specific behaviors and roles for the bereaved, the grief “norm” as it were. This can be contrasted with our own situation where there is confusion over where and when to express grief, or how much grief and of what duration is normal. This lack of “norm” leaves everyone guessing. The people I have worked with have all had the same question, “Is what I’m going through normal?” We are left untethered with a great deal of pain but no box to put it in.

When Does Grief End?

In some tribal communities, it is the responsibility of the community to clearly state when the time of official grief has ended. An example might be that a grieving man was marked by being forbidden to eat a certain type of food. When the community members feel it is the right time, they will offer the particular food to the grieving man as a symbol that he is now ready to re-enter the community as a non- grieving person. There are examples other than food—a certain way of dressing or different behavior—but the essence is the same: the community clearly marks the boundaries of grief for the griever. This contrasts with our own culture where there is great confusion about when and how much grief is appropriate. We live in a near vacuum of social indicators about the time needed to grieve. The most prevalent guideline we have is that many people don’t think you should be grieving at all.

Separating Men and Women in Grief

Another form of marking the griever is the separation of men and women in the grief rituals. By separating the grievers these cultures are honoring the differences in grieving between men and women and setting up different containers for healing. An example is the Bara people of southern Madagascar who designate two huts when a death occurs. One hut is the Tranadahy, which means “male house;” the other is the Trano Be Ranomaso, which means the “house of many tears.” During the period of time after the death these huts are used for congregating and receiving condolences. The men’s hut is the center of activity regarding the death. The men plan and initiate the rituals, receive condolences from the male guests, and take responsibility for the body. The women’s hut is more the center of emotional expression, with the women keening, wailing, and crying as they receive condolences from the female guests. These people literally have different places for men and women to be following a death. In this way, men and women are among their own sex and are in a position to be healed by their same-sex community members. It also honors the difference in grieving styles between men and women by allowing the opportunity for each to be near those who grieve as they do.

Tribal people have found a box in which to put grief. That box is ritual. The ritual that is used is both a container for the effects of grief and a norm that shows people the way to grieve. It can be any number of activities. For women the ritual many times is related to sharing their pain with each other, crying or keening. Men, on the other hand, usually have a ritual that includes some sort of action—singing sacred songs, drumming, dancing, tree wounding, etc. When Rosenblatt examined grief in 87 different cultures, he did not find a single culture in which men expressed tears more than women. In nine of the cultures studied the men didn’t cry at all, and in most of the cases studied the men cried less than the women.24 This points to a significant difference among men and women: men don’t use tears as much as women when dealing with their grief. This finding is not limited to western cultures, as many of the cultures Rosenblatt studied were tribal people who still maintained their grief rituals from their cultural heritage. From this we can see that even in cultures where there is an adequate container for grief the men tend to use tears less often than women. This finding seems to verify the research, regarding a man’s decreased levels of prolactin and the increased difficulty for men to access their tears.

What we find when we examine the cross-cultural literature is that men many times have active rituals that help them move into their grief. There is a tribe in Africa where the men literally face the women who are crying and keening in order to get into the mood of grief. They use this activity of watching the women to bring forth their own sense of loss. Even these tribal men with the luxury of intricate and beautiful grief rituals acknowledge that it is not an easy task for them to move into their feeling state. By their actions of facing the women they do something that puts them closer to their own grief.

Drumming

Another active ritual used around the world is that of drumming. The men of the Yoruba in Africa use drumming as an active means to deal with their grief.25 They have a variety of rhythms for different parts of the funeral service; a rhythm for washing the body, a rhythm for lowering the body into the grave, etc. After the death of a chief the men start playing a specific monotonous grief rhythm over and over. This rhythm is played continuously for three days. The men of the tribe are responsible for keeping the rhythm going and do not allow it to stop. They drum day and night, sleeping in shifts and then drumming for long periods. It is through this ritual, and many others, that the men have something to do after the death, and this activity helps them engage feelings of grief. The rhythm signals to the tribe that a state of mourning exists and is a constant reminder of the loss to the community.

Externalization of Pain

Another aspect of active ritual is the externalization of pain. This is accomplished in a great variety of ways, from lacerating the body, scratching oneself until the blood flows, knocking out a tooth, or even cutting off a finger. Anthropologists tell us the reasons for these mutilations are related to a number of factors encompassed in their world view, including rendering the ghost of the deceased harmless, convincing the soul of the dead of the sincerity of the grief, establishing a corporal union between the living and the dead, strengthening the departed, as an offering, or purification. A few anthropologists have seen the core of these actions: they are outward acts that express inner states. By wounding the body in some way, the inner pain has an outer parallel. This is similar to Jaque who wounded a tree as a symbol; it is just that these people are wounding themselves. As their wounds heal, they will have an outer symbol for the healing of their inner wounds. They will also have physical scars to remind them for some time of the loss that occurred. One Australian tribe has a name for grief that literally translated means “bad guts.” That is probably the best description of grief I have ever heard. The mutilations cut away at the “bad guts” and let them flow. There is a ritual among the Aborigines where the blood that is dripping from the mutilated griever is allowed to drip onto the corpse, apparently in an effort to merge the living and the dead and to strengthen the dead person. I am certainly not suggesting that we adopt these rituals as a means to facilitate our own grief. However, they are honest and effective means that these people have found to externalize their pain and “bad guts.”

Let’s turn now to looking in more detail at the way a particular tribal culture deals with grief. We can examine closely the grief rituals and the mechanisms that the men use in dealing with their grief.

The Yolngu

Our first example is an Aborigine people of Australia, the Yolngu.26 The men of this tribe begin to work with their grief before a death occurs. As a person becomes seriously ill, the men respond by singing sacred songs. Groups of men gather around the bedside of the ailing person and sing the sacred songs of the tribe. This is not a “let’s sing a song and go” routine. The men will sing continuously as the person lies ill. The purpose of the songs is to comfort the dying person, to keep him alert, to insure that the person will die in the right “Manikay” (sacred song cycle), to alert the ancestors that this person is coming to them, and to insure that his soul will be oriented towards its “home” after death. As the men do this, the women of the tribe are responsible for the care of the sick person and feeding the men who are singing. If there is consensus that the person is dying, the women will also cry or keen along with the songs. This crying or keening by the women is called “ngathi.” Both the crying and keening and the songs by the men are accompanied by traditional Aborigine instruments, the clapsticks and the didgeridoo. Sometimes the ailing person recovers, and if this happens the singers disperse and life goes on. If death occurs, quiet covers the camp, uncharacteristic of the usual hustle and bustle.

At the ritual announcement of the death, which is made by a man, the women of the tribe keen and wail and throw themselves to the ground. At times they will strike themselves with sharp objects. It is expected that the men of the community will restrain the women from seriously injuring themselves. The men step forward and pull the weapons from the women’s hands and throw them out of reach. The women usually respond to this by ceasing their attempts at self-injury. This action of protecting the women is seen as a sign of protection for the grievers, and a show of community support for those who are most affected by the death. It is an action that men can take that is both protecting their loved ones and an indication of their own grief.

The men of the tribe will also keen at times, particularly if the dead person was a close relative, but the more common emotional expression of the men is venting anger by dancing. It is said that the men will dance in an “energetic and violent” manner that signifies hostility. According to Rosenblatt, this expression of hostility directed outward is a common masculine activity following a death. Many times a man’s anger will open the door into his other feelings of grief.27

Tribal Ritual in the 20th Century

The Yolngu people are in many ways between two worlds. Although they have maintained many of their rituals, they also live in the midst of twentieth century technology. If a member of their tribe has died in the nearby hospital, the body is retrieved in ritual fashion. The community goes to the hospital and obtains the body, then forms a “slow, emotional, and ritualized” procession back to their camp. The body, moved with accompanying dancing and singing, is taken to a shelter where it will lie until burial. It is said that even the cars take part in the ritual, slowing, stopping, starting, and reversing as they mimic the movements of the dancers.

The coffin of the dead person is painted with sacred symbols by the initiated men of the Yolngu. These symbols are secret and are not allowed to be viewed by women and children. The purpose of the sacred symbols is to mediate between the soul of the dead person and the ancestors who will help this newly born soul along his way. Prior to the use of coffins, the Yolngu men would paint the body of the deceased with red ochre and then paint on the sacred symbols.

Singing the Grief

Throughout the days of the ceremonies grief is openly expressed, many times through song. These songs communicate many things: a wish for the return of the dead person, memories of the events in the life of the one who died, and the hope of a safe passageway for the soul to the ancestors. The men often will be singing day and night, and will sleep in shifts as the songs continue. The singing of songs by the men is an important part of the funeral service. They are accompanied by the dancing of the women who enact the stories that the songs are depicting.

The grief that is felt and expressed at the funeral ceremonies can continue for some time. It is said that late at night after the day is done and the tasks of the community are completed, you can sometimes hear the keening of a solitary mourner. The sound is heard throughout the quiet of the community and is accepted as a reminder of the pain and grief that the mourner still feels.

The men are responsible for the ritual activities of their community, and in many ways become like stage managers or directors, making the ritual preparations, rehearsing the songs, and making sure the process runs smoothly. The Yolngu men are active in working with their grief, with very specific activities assigned to them. These activities of singing, dancing, and directing the rituals give the men a framework in which their feelings can emerge and be honored and acknowledged. The women are also busy in keening, crying, dancing, caring for the children, and feeding the men. The men and women of this tribe have very specific roles to play, and both support each other through the difficult period of grief.

The Dagura People

We now turn to another example of indigenous grief rituals, that of the Dagura people of Africa.28 When a death occurs the women of the village begin to grieve. Their grief is somewhat muted, however, until the men have ritually announced the death. This announcement cannot occur until the men have created a “sacred space” for the grief of the village to emerge, and no man is allowed to show signs of grief until after this ritual space has been created. This is done by invoking the aid of the spirits through a private ritual performed only by the men. The invoking of the spirits is partly designed to elicit enough grief from the mourners to allow the dead person to move into the world of the ancestors. The Dagura believe that the soul’s journey into the next world is dependent in some ways upon the grief expressed by the mourners. Without adequate grief, the soul is thought to be stuck on this plane of existence and unable to leave the world. They have thus connected their grief with a purpose, that being the birth of the soul of the newly dead. The creation of ritual space, a safe container for the expression of grief, is seen as essential to the birthing of the spirit of the person who died. A part of this creation of sacred space involves throwing ashes around the house of the deceased and the ritual preparation of an actual physical space for the grief ritual. The announcement states that there has been a death, the ritual space is ready, and it is now time to grieve.

The Dagura Grief Ritual

The grief ritual itself is complex and beautiful. The grieving space is divided into different sections. The body of the dead person is dressed ceremonially and seated on a stool in the section called the “shrine.” Two women elders are seated next to the body and are charged with the duty to collect the grief that is being expressed and to “load it on” to the dead person to help him or her in the journey toward the ancestors. The shrine is colorfully decorated and contains some of the important possessions of the dead person. There is a boundary around the shrine which symbolically marks the separation between the living and the dead, and outside of the two women tending to the body, no one is allowed to enter the shrine, for to do so would mean entering the realm of the dead.

Between the shrine and the mourners is an empty space that represents chaos. Within this space people are allowed to express any form of grief they want, as long as it is related to their feelings about the death. Crying, dancing, or any expression of emotion is accepted and expected to take place within this space. There are people who are designated as “containers.” These people are often relatives who have come from afar. Their job is to insure the safety of the space for the grievers, making sure that no harm comes to those who are actively grieving. The Dagura believe in releasing grief with all its intensity, but they have also developed a system in which the intensity does not exceed the capacity of the mourners. It is like a system of checks and balances. The containers follow the grievers as they mourn and if they stray out of the ritual space, will gently tap them on the shoulder to remind them to come back into the contained space.

On one side of the shrine are the men of the village and on the other side are the women. Each group consists of mourners and containers. The mourners are further divided by the “kotuosob,” a small piece of rope tied around the wrist of the griever. The rope designates a person who was particularly close to the deceased, perhaps a family member. This marking alerts all the participants that someone who is wearing the “kotuosob” is what they call a “center of the heat” person, that is, a person who is more likely to be in danger of “grieving himself to death.” The Dagura see grief as food for the psyche, necessary to maintain a healthy psychological balance. But they also see its danger—too much grief and a person will “lose their center” and, they believe, can grieve to death. Thus the Dagura designate specific containers to follow closely behind the tagged person and do exactly as they do, including dancing, jumping to the beat of the drum, or pounding the ground. Sometimes when a tagged griever is experiencing a great deal of grief, a group of containers and mourners will form a line behind him or her with each person in the line doing the same action as the primary griever. It is understood that this transmits the feeling of the primary griever into all of those down the line. This type of process is viewed as a form of silent and physical support to the person who is grieving. It is important to point out that among the Dagura the healing of grief is gender specific. That is, no woman will approach a man in trying to help him with his grief, and no man would do the same for a woman. They believe that it takes a man to help release and heal the grief of another man, and a woman to reflect the grief of a woman.

Music

Music plays an integral part of the ritual. The ceremony is accompanied by xylophones and drums and two singers. The xylophones are divided into male and female. The male xylophone follows the mood of the singers and the female xylophone accompanies the male xylophone with a redundant set of notes. The singers are charged with the responsibility of singing (chanting) the life of the dead person. They sing the joy and sorrow of the family history and the events which led up to the death. This spontaneous singing is done in order to emphasize and direct the grief of the community.

Everyone in the community is expected to take part in this ritual. It is held as a solemn responsibility. Anyone who happens to be near the village during the ritual is expected to participate. It is as if death stops life for a while, all other activities coming to a halt. In the words of one singer, “We are trapped in a world in which we are not in control because of the mighty power of death.”

In the Yolngu and Dagura cultures, and in others around the world, grief is vented at the funeral in a very intensive fashion. The rituals of both last about three full days. During that time grief is given all the attention of the community, and it flows and flows. It should also be noted that in both cultures the support for a person’s grief does not stop after the funeral. Most indigenous people have post- funeral rituals that provide further opportunity to express grief. Rituals are practiced throughout the year, often marking important dates such as the one-year anniversary of the death. The community expects the grief to continue for some time, and in both the Yolngu and Dagura cultures grief can be released after the funeral and at the next funeral, if need be. This can be compared with our own culture where there is usually very little expression of grief during the funeral services, and few, if any, culturally-endorsed occasions for expressing grief thereafter.

Both the Yolngu and Dagura examples begin to give us an idea of how our culture lacks sufficient contained space to process the emotions that follow a death. Both have woven grief into the fabric of their lives and into their world view. Both cultures have linked a person’s grief with the purpose of aiding the soul in its journey. These cultures are very explicit in providing markers of who are the grievers and actions and roles to be played. We have very little of this. Both give men specific things to do following a death, activities that help them in connecting to their grief. Among the Yolngu, men have the responsibility of singing, and with the Dagura, men are responsible for the ritual and the healing of other men.

Imagine just for a moment that the people of the Dagura and the Yolngu suddenly lost their active grief rituals. What would happen to their men and women? What would the men of the Yolngu do without their songs? In some ways this is a parallel of what is happening in our culture. We have much to learn from indigenous people about the resolution of grief. We can use this knowledge to find creative mechanisms that are right for us.

24. Rosenblatt, P.C., R.P. Walsh, and D.A. Jackson. Grief and Mourning in Cross-Cultural Perspective. 1976, H.R.A.F. Press.
25. Diallo, Yaya, and Mitchell Hall. The Healing Drum: African WisdomTeachings. Rochester, Vermont. 1989, Destiny Books.
26. Reed, Janice “A Time to Live a Time to Grieve: Patterns and Processes of Mourning Among the Yolngu of Australia.” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, 3, 1979.
27. Rosenblatt.
28. Some, Malidoma. Ritual: Power, Healing and Community. Portland. 1993, Swan Raven and Company.

If you are interested in this book you can find it here.

Join the MenAreGood Community

To read more articles like this, sign up and join my community today

What else you may like…

Videos

Posts

Articles

tgolden@tgolden

September 03, 2026

False Allegations - What the Numbers Don't Tell Us

We are getting a head start on International Falsely Accused day on Sept 9th!

How many false allegations of sexual abuse are there? We are often told they are extremely rare—perhaps only one to three percent. But those numbers depend on an extraordinarily narrow definition of what qualifies as a false allegation. They usually count only allegations proven to have been deliberately fabricated. Mistaken identity, contaminated memories, misunderstandings, suggestive interviewing, unsupported accusations and even recanted allegations may not be included.

In this conversation, Janice Fiamengo and I speak with Dr. Felicity Goodyear Smith, a physician, forensic medical examiner and professor at the University of Auckland who has studied wrongful allegations for more than three decades. Felicity explains the many different ways an innocent person can be accused, separating deliberate fabrications from allegations that are sincerely believed but untrue.

We also examine how “believe the victim” has ...

01:09:20

tgolden@tgolden

July 15, 2026

The Women's Health Narrative Meets the DATA

What if one of the most common claims in health policy simply isn’t true?

We’ve all heard the refrain: women are underfunded, under-researched, and left behind by the medical establishment. It’s repeated so often that most people never stop to ask for the evidence.

In this roundtable, Jack Kammer, Ed Bartlett, Ed Stephens, Jim Nuzzo, and I compare that narrative with the available data. We examine research funding, clinical trial participation, life expectancy, and the unintended consequences of policies that consistently prioritize one sex while neglecting the other.

This isn’t an argument against women’s health. It’s an argument for evidence, fairness, and a healthier future for everyone.

Link to the Feminist pdf that calls for 20 Billion dollars for women’s health!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1IKEEZMGXtRNxU4n5K_M1d6k2w-ZP_wVT/view

Jim Nuzzo

The Nuzzo Newsletter on Substack http//jameslnuzzo.Substack.com
X: https://x.com/JamesLNuzzo

Jack Kammer

Jacks Substack Men’s ...

00:35:24

tgolden@tgolden

July 11, 2026

Mantoon: A Visit to the Doc

A visit to the Doc.

00:00:14

tgolden@tgolden

August 10, 2026

Feminism Cannot Be Reformed: It Must Be Destroyed Root and Branch

Janice Fiamengo’s new book is out, and this excerpt from the Foreword gives you a pretty good idea of what to expect. Janice goes straight to the heart of feminism and gives ample reasons for its demolition.

This is an important book. I hope you’ll get a copy for yourself—and maybe send one to someone who is even a little bit open to seeing the reality of feminism rather than the equality mask presented by feminists and so much of the media.

https://fiamengofile.substack.com/p/feminism-cannot-be-reformed

FIAMENGOFILE.SUBSTACK.COM

Feminism Cannot be Reformed

It must be destroyed, root and branch

JuanGoodman@JuanGoodman

July 21, 2026

Well worth watch it’s good seeing men calling out women’s bull shit when the same women are not use to fair honest responses!

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1JtTnYLC7K/?mibextid=wwXIfr

tgolden@tgolden

July 02, 2026

From Shooter to Heroine: The Glorification of Feminist Violence

I recently joined Hannah Spier, Janice Fiamengo, and Jim Nuzzo for a fascinating discussion about one of our culture’s most striking double standards: why violence by women is so often explained, excused, or even celebrated, while violence by men is treated very differently. We examine Valerie Solanas, the attempted murder of Andy Warhol, the SCUM Manifesto, and the film I Shot Andy Warhol, asking what the celebration and romanticizing of Solanas reveals about gynocentrism, empathy, and cultural bias. I think you’ll find it both thought-provoking and eye-opening.

tgolden@tgolden

September 17, 2026

When One Incel Becomes Ten

How one real threat became evidence of a widespread violent ideology among French youth

One of the great dangers of modern journalism is that a false narrative can acquire the appearance of fact simply by attaching itself to an authoritative source. That is what appears to have happened in a recent Le Monde article about “masculinism.”

The article makes a series of extraordinary claims about boys and men. Its very title announces that masculinism is an “increasingly widespread, violent and popular ideology among French youth.” Throughout the article, male grievance, separated fathers, antifeminism, the manosphere, incels, misogyny and terrorism are placed close enough together that they begin to look like parts of the same phenomenon.

And the claims carry considerable authority because they are presented as flowing from a 260-page French Senate report drawing, in part, on information from the DGSI—France’s domestic security service. That sounds impressive. But then you read what the underlying material actually says. And the story begins to fall apart.

The security evidence is dramatically narrower than the Le Monde narrative built around it. Instead of evidence that a widespread movement of French boys and young men is becoming violent, we find one exceptionally serious case involving a young man identified with incel and Black Pill ideology who was allegedly preparing an attack, along with approximately nine other young people being monitored because authorities considered them susceptible to violent radicalization in connection with the incel milieu.

Those are not the same thing. One boy was allegedly preparing an attack. The others were considered susceptible to radicalization.

Yet watch what happens as this information moves through the story:

One alleged incel attack plot → roughly ten monitored youths → incels → the manosphere → masculinism → a widespread violent ideology among French youth.

At every step the population gets larger. But the word violent travels with it.

That is what makes this more than sloppy wording. When journalism takes evidence about one exceptional case and allows its most frightening characteristics to spread across larger and larger groups, it can create a public narrative that the underlying evidence never established.

And when the people being described are boys and men, the resulting narrative can become deeply misandrist: ordinary male distress starts looking suspicious; male grievance becomes a possible gateway to extremism; fathers’ advocacy can be placed alongside misogyny; and boys searching for help, identity or belonging can appear as the outer edge of a terrorist problem.

So I decided to look more closely at the young men being used to support this narrative. That is when I discovered something remarkable.

One incel had become ten.

Not literally, of course. The other young people did not suddenly adopt his beliefs or actions. Rather, the characteristics of this one serious case began to migrate outward onto other young people for whom the evidence was very different.

The DGSI, France’s domestic security service, reported approximately ten young people under scrutiny because they were considered susceptible to violent radicalization in connection with the incel milieu. That is not the same thing as saying that ten violent incels had been discovered.

One young man was identified with incel/Black Pill ideology and allegedly preparing an attack. The others were being watched because authorities believed they might be susceptible to radicalization. That distinction is crucial.

Susceptibility is not radicalization. Surveillance is not violence. And being considered vulnerable to recruitment into an ideology is certainly not the same thing as personally identifying with that ideology.

At each step the population expands while the frightening characteristic derived from the smallest and most extreme group remains attached. That is the sleight of hand at the heart of this story.

The part of the story we weren’t told

There is another detail that makes the Saint-Étienne case considerably more complicated than the framing suggests. According to the account attributed to the DGSI, the young man’s hostility was directed toward a particular girl whom he believed had falsely accused his friends of rape.

That does not make the alleged plot less serious. Nor does it demonstrate that incel ideology played no role. Both things could have been operating simultaneously. But surely it matters when we are trying to understand motive.

There is a significant difference between a young man wanting to attack women simply because they are women and a young man who embraces incel ideas but is also enraged at a particular person because he believes she seriously harmed his friends. The Le Monde article made no mention of his concerns for his friends.

Perhaps incel ideology intensified that grievance. Perhaps the grievance drove his attraction to the ideology. Perhaps both were important. We don’t know. And that is precisely the point.

The available evidence does not allow us simply to choose among those possibilities. But remove the specific grievance and what remains is a much cleaner story:

Incel hates women and plans attack against girl.

Put the omitted grievance back in and the story becomes more complicated:

A troubled young man immersed in incel/Black Pill material allegedly planned violence against a particular girl whom he believed had falsely accused his friends of rape.

The second description is less convenient. It is also more complete.

One boy carries the weight of the story

This matters because the Saint-Étienne suspect is doing an enormous amount of work in the larger narrative. He is the strongest evidence of the progression the article wants the reader to see:

male grievance → incel ideology → radicalization → violence

But then his characteristics begin to bleed outward onto the other young people.

The Senate report itself is more cautious. It distinguishes cognitive radicalization from behavioral radicalization and acknowledges that the scientific literature does not establish a causal relationship between exposure to masculinist material and violent action. Ideological adherence, it says, does not mechanically lead to violence.

That qualification changes everything. A boy can watch objectionable material without accepting it. He can accept radical ideas without becoming violent. He can be lonely or angry without being radicalized. He can be susceptible to radicalization without actually becoming radicalized. And he can be monitored by a security service without ever having planned an attack.

Those aren’t minor semantic distinctions. They are different evidentiary categories.

How a threat grows on paper

Once you preserve those distinctions, the architecture of the story becomes much easier to see. There are really three very different populations.

The first is a serious case: a young man identified with incel/Black Pill ideology who was allegedly preparing an attack.

The second is a tiny security population: approximately ten young people considered susceptible to violent radicalization in connection with incel milieus.

The third is an enormous and heterogeneous population of boys and men who may watch male-oriented influencers, participate in parts of the manosphere, criticize feminism, favor traditional sex roles, belong to fathers’ groups, struggle with dating, or simply search online for help with loneliness, fitness, money, relationships, or becoming a better man.

Evidence about the first population does not automatically describe the second. And evidence about the second certainly does not describe the third.

But place all three populations close enough together and the reader begins to experience them as points along a single continuum. That is where framing becomes so powerful.

You don’t actually have to say that the lonely fifteen-year-old watching fitness videos is on his way to becoming a terrorist. You merely put him into a narrative that begins with algorithms and male grievance, passes through misogyny and incels, and ends with terrorism.

The reader supplies the arrow.

One attack becomes two

This is also why another discrepancy in the Le Monde article matters so much. The article says that two violent masculinist actions were foiled in 2024 and 2025. But the underlying Senate report identifies one imminent incel terrorist attack foiled by the DGSI—the Saint-Étienne case.

The report discusses other young people who were arrested, referred, investigated, or monitored. But those categories are not interchangeable.

A referral is not an attack. Surveillance is not an attack. Concern about possible radicalization is not an attack. Preparation for an attack is something else entirely.

Unless a second equivalent case can be identified, turning one foiled attack into two “violent actions” isn’t merely a numerical discrepancy. It reinforces the larger narrative by making an extraordinarily small phenomenon appear to be reproducing itself.

And the report itself warns against drawing broad conclusions from these cases. The number is simply too small.

Yet the headline offered to readers was:

“Masculinism, an increasingly widespread, violent and popular ideology among French youth.”

Think about the distance between that headline and the underlying security evidence. One alleged imminent attack. Approximately ten young people being watched because they were considered susceptible to violent radicalization associated with the incel milieu. Only one clearly identified here as an incel/Black Pill adherent preparing an attack.

That is a very different story.

The boys disappear again

There is one final part of this that troubles me. The Senate material describes many of these young people as profoundly vulnerable. Their histories include bullying, social isolation, trauma, sexual victimization, disability, psychiatric difficulties, and dysfunctional families.

Those details should matter. They don’t excuse threats or violence. A young man preparing to hurt someone needs to be stopped regardless of what happened to him.

But imagine encountering a group of troubled girls with those histories. Would our first question be: How dangerous are these girls to men? Or would we ask: What happened to them?

With these boys, their vulnerability seems to become interesting primarily because it may make them susceptible to radicalization. Their suffering becomes a security indicator.

The boy disappears and the potential perpetrator takes his place.

That may be one of the most revealing aspects of the entire story.

The same information could have prompted another set of questions. Why are these boys isolated? Why were some of them bullied? What happened to the sexually victimized ones? Where are their fathers? Where are the male mentors? Why are boys searching online for communities that seem to offer them belonging, identity and meaning? And what could we do to reach them before some negative influencers do?

Those questions don’t require ignoring genuine threats. Quite the opposite. Understanding troubled boys more accurately might be one of the best ways of preventing the tiny number who actually become dangerous from getting there.

A real threat needs no exaggeration

There really was a serious case in Saint-Étienne. French authorities appear to have identified a credible threat and intervened before anyone was hurt.

Good.

That is exactly what security services are supposed to do. And that story needs no exaggeration.

What it does not justify is allowing the characteristics of that one young man to migrate outward—to approximately nine other monitored youths, then to incels generally, then to the manosphere, then to “masculinism,” and ultimately to a broad population of boys and men whose beliefs and behavior bear little resemblance to his.

There is a lesson here that reaches far beyond this particular article. Whenever we hear that some enormous group is becoming “radicalized,” “extremist” or “violent,” we should ask a few simple questions:

How many people actually committed violence? How many actually planned violence? How many were merely being monitored? How many personally identified with the ideology being discussed? And at what point did evidence about a tiny extreme subgroup begin to describe everybody else?

Those questions are especially important when we are talking about boys.

A real threat should lead us to greater precision, not less. One alleged terrorist plot is serious enough.

We shouldn’t need to turn one incel into ten—and ten into a generation.

Men Are Good.

Read full Article

tgolden@tgolden

September 14, 2026

Feminist Buzzwords as Attack Drones

These words do more than describe. They arrive with the verdict already loaded.

During a recent video, I described feminist buzzwords as being something like attack drones. The more I think about it, the more I like the comparison.

An attack drone does not arrive to look around and figure out what happened. It has already been programmed. It knows what the target looks like. It knows who the enemy is before it ever gets there.

A lot of feminist buzzwords work the same way. They don’t just describe something that happened. They arrive with a theory already attached to them. Who has the power? Who is the victim? Who should be believed? Who needs to change? Usually the answer is already built in.

The man has power. His power is suspect. The woman lacks power. She is harmed by what he has done. So the word is doing quite a bit more than simply describing behavior. The verdict is built into the word. Every feminist buzzword arrives preloaded with ideology—and armed with disdain for men and masculinity.

Take mansplaining. Certainly a few men may explain things in an arrogant or condescending way. Women do too. We already had perfectly good words for that sort of behavior: patronizing, condescending, arrogant, rude. But mansplaining adds something. Now the man’s sex is part of the offense.

The word suggests that he is acting this way because he considers himself superior and makes the assumption that being male makes him more knowledgeable or more important. But do we know that? Did she misunderstand what he was trying to say? Does he talk this way to everyone? Was he simply trying to help? Before we have looked at any of that, the drone has already found its target. The behavior has been gendered. The motive has been supplied. The verdict is in. The buzzword arrived preloaded with ideology—and armed with disdain for men and masculinity.

Now take toxic masculinity. Some men behave badly. A small minority may be violent or reckless. But once those behaviors are placed under the heading of toxic masculinity, something else happens. Masculinity itself gets blamed and dragged into the mud.

The term suggests that these behaviors are an integrated part of masculinity and that men need to learn a different relationship to their own nature. Such a global generalization ignores all the demands placed on men. Provide. Protect. Compete. Take risks. Endure pain. Stay useful under pressure. Those parts of masculinity are usually welcomed when other people benefit from them.

A man works sixty hours a week to support his family? Good. He walks into danger to protect someone? Good. He pushes through pain because other people depend on him? Good. But when some men buckle under those same demands, the whole of masculinity can suddenly become toxic. Why? That is what the term does: it not only describes harmful behavior but directs us to blame masculinity itself—while diverting attention from the pressures, circumstances, and unmet needs that may have helped produce the behavior.

Male privilege carries a similar load. It trains us to notice the man’s advantages and ignore his disadvantages. We see the male CEO. We don’t see the male roofer, the foot soldier, the prisoner, the homeless man, the suicide victim, or the father who has lost his children.

A man’s success can be explained partly by privilege. His suffering is much more likely to be explained by his choices. Notice the difference? His suffering is his fault, while his success is due to his privilege. When judging men as a group, the term directs our attention upward, toward the men with the most wealth, status, and power. When judging women, it directs our attention downward, toward those facing the greatest hardship. Struggling men and successful women quietly disappear from the picture. And this can happen even when the particular woman standing in front of us has more education, more money, more institutional support, and more social credibility than the particular man. The theory can still tell us he has the power and she does not. At that point, the theory has become more important than the people standing right in front of us. The buzzword male privilege arrived preloaded with ideology—and armed with disdain for men and masculinity.

Fragile masculinity is a clever drone. Why? Because disagreement itself can become proof. Suppose a man objects to being mocked or stereotyped. His objection can be taken as evidence that his masculinity is fragile. What if he stays silent? Then there is no challenge. What if he speaks up? Now he has proved the accusation. Heads she wins. Tails he loses. The term doesn’t invite a response. It shuts it down.

Then we have the manosphere. Taken literally, this could simply mean internet spaces where men talk about men’s lives. That could include fathers’ groups, divorce forums, men’s health advocates, suicide-prevention groups, dating discussions, and critics of feminism. Pretty broad group, right? But that is rarely how the word is presented. Instead it is usually surrounded by other words: Misogyny. Radicalization. Extremism. Violence. Suddenly a father trying to understand a custody battle and a violent man threatening women can be placed in the same ominous container. Once the label has been attached, even ordinary concern for men can begin to look suspicious. The underlying message is that men don’t deserve compassion.

But there is something odd here. Where is the equivalent word for the huge network of universities, feminist organizations, advocacy groups, foundations, government agencies, media outlets, legal organizations, and research centers that create and circulate feminist ideas? That network is far larger and far more influential. Yet it mostly goes unnamed. And because it goes unnamed, it stays largely invisible. I call it the femosphere. Once you name it, you start to see it.

Feminist ideas do not simply appear out of nowhere. They are researched. Funded. Taught. Repeated. Promoted. Written into policy. And sometimes written into law.

Other terms do the same thing even more clearly. Take coercive control. There is certainly such a thing as a terrible pattern of domination and control inside a relationship. But what happens when the idea is interpreted almost entirely through a feminist power model? Then we can end up with the familiar story. Powerful man. Powerless woman. His controlling behavior becomes part of a larger system of male domination. Her controlling behavior may be minimized, ignored, or explained as self-protection. Same behavior? Different moral story.

Something similar happens with vicarious violence. The term has been used for situations in which a man harms children or other people in order to hurt a woman. That is terrible behavior and certainly deserves attention. But in countries such as Spain, the concept has even been incorporated into the legal framework as a form of male violence against women—building the sex of the perpetrator and victim into the official meaning. The law only goes one way. There is nothing in the law about a mother victimizing her children to hurt the man. Nothing. This even though we know that mothers murder their children as much or more than fathers. The vicarious violence law arrives preloaded with ideology—and armed with disdain for men and masculinity.

Then there is gender-based violence. Violence against a woman is often described as gender-based even when we do not actually know that her sex was the reason she was attacked. But violence against a man is far less likely to receive the same label. This is interesting because men are the majority of homicide victims and men are often expected to absorb danger precisely because they are men. But somehow that doesn’t fit quite as easily. Once again, men get agency and women get victimhood. Men do things. Things happen to women.

From description to control

This is why I think these words eventually become a form of social control. Not that every person using them is consciously trying to control men. Most aren’t. Most are unaware of what motivates them and simply repeat the arguments they have been taught—arguments that reinforce the narrative they have already swallowed. People tend to repeat the language they hear from professors, journalists, therapists, advocates, friends, and social media. The assumptions just travel along inside the word. Quietly. But the effect is still there.

These words help define what a man is allowed to say. How he is allowed to behave. How much authority he should have. How he is permitted to understand his own experience. And what happens if he objects? He may be told he is fragile. Toxic. Privileged. Misogynistic. Part of the manosphere. Do you see the problem? Every defense can become an opportunity to launch the next drone.

The drones can turn: male confidence into dominance; male disagreement into misogyny; male boundaries into control; male suffering into fragility; male spaces into radicalization; male success into privilege; and female aggression into a response to male power. Notice anything? The direction rarely changes. Men need correction. Women need protection. Men should give up power. Women should be given more. Men’s motives are questioned. Women’s experiences are affirmed.

The great paradox

And here is the strange part. This language keeps telling us that women are powerless while giving enormous power to women and to the institutions claiming to act on their behalf. The person labeled the victim receives moral authority. She is more likely to be believed. Protected. Excused. The person labeled powerful receives moral suspicion. He is expected to listen. Confess. Step back. Change. So powerlessness itself can become a kind of power.

Once victimhood carries enough moral authority, it can end arguments, destroy reputations, influence law, redirect public money, and place an entire sex under suspicion. And because all of this is being done in the name of helping the powerless, it becomes very difficult to question. ”How dare you question giving help to the underdog!” That may be one of the most important things these buzzwords do. They hide power while using it.

Look inside the payload

Now, words are never completely neutral. And sometimes a new word really does help us see something we had missed. Nothing wrong with that. But shouldn’t we get a little suspicious when dozens of new terms all seem to tell us the same moral story? Men have power. Women do not. Men abuse. Women are harmed. Men need limits. Women need authority.

At some point, we have to ask whether we are describing reality or simply applying the same theory over and over again. When the conclusion comes before the evidence, we are no longer dealing with simple description. We are dealing with buzzwords arriving preloaded with ideology—and armed with disdain for men and masculinity.

So the next time one of these words appears, maybe stop for a minute. Ask if the word is being used as a weapon. Ask if it carries an underlying disdain for men. Ask if they have any compassion for men and boys. That one will stop them in their tracks and you will see them fumble for words that show how much compassion they have for men and boys. You have just neutralized an attack drone.

Well done.

Men are good.

Read full Article

tgolden@tgolden

September 07, 2026

all is as it is

This post is a story by Moiret Allegiere about about awakening to manhood.

The boy, sweating, stood silent halfway up the hill. Above, in the blue skies, the sun shone brightly. Warm. Late spring. A slight breeze – quite welcome, thought the boy – broke the stillness of the air.

The boy looked out upon the seemingly endless fields below. Ancient fields, a small portion of which were his and his was also the grass which he had just cut by the sweat of his brow and his scythe and nothing more.

The boy wiped the sweat from his eyes with the palm of his left hand. His right hand, the dominant one, hung limply to the side of his body, swaying. His muscles ached. He thought it more than he felt it. Years of toil had learned him to expect as much. The grass cut then was not his grass, yet the work and the toil and the sweat and the blood belonged to him and him alone. And the very same work and toil and sweat and blood had taught him that his right arm, when not in use, must be loose and limp and tender. As if not to spoil the meat or blood or strength within, but tenderize it, preserve it and conserve it.

Because harder times had been before and harder times would come once more. All things must be conserved and saved so as not to face that snarling beast again, having spoilt or spent knife and rifle both.

“The great divide”, thought the boy. 70/30, with the harder times bearing the brunt of the thing thus split. A beast of burden led with a thin string of silver across a rickety bridge. The boy knew this. The father of the boy taught him this. The boy was five and was watching his father cut the grass and dry it and turn it into food for the sheep. The man always saved some.

Rather would he see his sheep 30 percent starved than for them not to eat at all. So he said. He never strayed. His sheep were always well fed, and his children and his wife as well. The man never strayed. A few of his children had strayed already, yet they strayed only from his path onto their own path as had he when once he grew from boy to man. All was as it should be.

The boy stood there still, and he looked at his fields and then towards the lush green of the plants growing there which he himself placed there for food, and then towards his house which he had built upon the plot of land his father gave to him. A house in which a woman and a baby also lived and breathed and ate and slept.

The boy sighed.

He looked at his watch. The time was where it should be. He stood and he looked some more. He looked at his father’s house.

Still well-kept and maintained and nurtured and loved from seed to harvest.

Beside him now, and quite suddenly, his father stood. Quiet, perhaps, as is his wont, yet lively still, far from dead, merely crippled by arthritis and now incapable of tending to all that which he once tended to.

The boy gave the man a nod, and he smiled. The father stood and he looked. Then he smiled. And they looked both upon the son’s work and the son’s world, neither saying a word because no words were needed. Some time passed. Still was the air and the time was where it should be still. The man gestured with his arm.

“Sit down, son,” he said.

The boy sat down. His father stood there, smiling.

“How’s the baby?” He asked. He had always been a kind man, yet never before as kind as just now.

The boy thought.

“Growing, crying and shitting.”

The older of the two grinned and then he laughed, heartily, and his mood changed abruptly, as if suddenly remembering something long forgotten. He paused and turned to the boy. He looked at his son’s face. Still young and handsome and maintained and nurtured and loved from seed to harvest. And in his son’s face he saw at once his own face as once it was in younger years.

“All is as it should be then?”

“Yes,” the boy said.

“Yes,” said the man.

The older of the two went quiet for a bit, fumbling in his backpack which he always carried with him. The fumbling went on for a little longer than it should, thought both boy and man. The man found what he was looking for. The man was always prepared and the man never strayed, not now and not ever.

He pulled out a beer, and then he pulled out another. Piss-warm now, perhaps, yet it was still beer and still the time was right where it should be.

The son sighed and he smiled as his father opened a beer and handed it to him, saying nothing. There they were. The boy sitting and the man standing. They stood and sat and they looked at what was theirs and theirs alone, and they drank from their beers. Then looked and drank some more. Some time passed just as time does and they stood and sat as if all that was there or anywhere was them and them alone. The older of the two then put his hand upon the shoulder of the younger, and, smiling warmly, he nodded as if to say goodbye even when his lips and his mouth and his mind and his reason said “See you later, son”. He turned and walked away, going home.

The boy sat and he looked some more upon all that was there that was his and his alone. And he sighed and he smiled and he laughed and then he made to leave.

The man got to his feet and the man turned and walked away, going back home following behind the older man, too far behind to catch up yet close enough to never stray.

Read full Article

Available on mobile and TV devices