Recently, Jim James, previously from the well known band ‘My Morning Jacket’ had some bold words to say about modern masculinity and the ManKind Project in an interview with Pitchfork Magazine. Read the full article here.
Pitchfork: What’s your take on the overarching presence of masculinity in culture and society?
JJ: I’ve always struggled with masculinity, because I believe that every living being is part male and part female. Spiritually, you’re both. That’s why I’ve always felt uncomfortable as a man on this earth — I’ve got male and female energy. This is a world that tells you that’s wrong — “you’re a f*cking pussy” — and a lot of people feel that way, which makes this world hard to walk through. There’s this book, [Neale Donald Walsh’s] Conversations With God, where this guy writes questions on a piece of paper, and God answers them. He talks about how, long, long ago, women were the rulers, and men gradually took over. A lot of people feel like we’re slowly beginning to roll back towards women taking over — but even when women ruled the earth, it was imbalanced, because the women looked down on the men. The men were just the sex dudes who moved heavy rocks out of the way. They weren’t treated equal. I’ve been thinking about this stuff a lot.
There’s this group called ManKind Project, they lead retreats to try and help men feel more OK with all the different sides of being a man. I went on one of those retreats because I was so intrigued. It was f*cking amazing. The experience was about taking accountability for yourself and your actions– just trying to be a better person. As long as we’ve been alive, the world has been hugely tilted in favor of masculinity and is totally fucking itself because of it. That’s nowhere close to being over, but hopefully, we’re turning the spirits back on their axis to make it even.
The ManKind Project is showing up in some powerful ways in the culture these days, to be a part of it, do what Jim James did – come to the New Warrior Training Adventure.