Inspired by the award-winning poet and actor’s acclaimed one-man play, a powerful coming-of-age memoir that reimagines masculinity for the twenty-first-century male. 

Award-winning poet, actor, and writer Carlos Andrés Gómez is a supremely gifted storyteller with a captivating voice whose power resonates equally on the live stage and on the page. In one of his most powerful spoken-word poems, Gómez recounts a confrontation he once had after accidentally bumping into another man at a nightclub. Just as they were about to fight, Gómez’s eyes inexplicably welled up with tears. Everyone at the scene jumped back, as if showing vulnerability was the craziest thing that Gómez could possibly have done.

Like many men in our society, Gómez grew up believing that he should be ready to fight at all times, treat women as objects, and close off his emotional self. It wasn’t until he discovered acting that he began to realize the true cost of squelching one’s emotions—and how aggression dominates everything that young males are taught.

Plummeting graduation and employment rates and dire teen suicide statistics show that young males in our society are at a crisis point. Gómez seeks to reverse these alarming trends by sharing lessons about life, love, and vulnerability. Man Up galvanizes men—but also mothers, girlfriends, wives, and sisters—to rethink the way all men interact with women, deal with violence, handle fear, and express emotion.

Gómez urges men of all ages to break society’s rules of male conformity and reconsider not just what it means to be a man, but what it means to be a good man.

“Man Up” is available now through AmazonBarnes & NobleBooks A MillionIndiebound, Penguin and iTunes!

This article is reblogged from Carlos Andrés Gómez.

How to Fight by Carlos Andrés Gómez.

How ideas of manhood and masculinity as well as the gender and gender roles affect all of us in our daily-life experience? Over the decades, even the language has shown the understanding of manhood and masculinity. It characterizes woman as the oppositional of men, while it is referring man as the strong, independent and active one. Producing violence and aggression through the words for dominating the gender roles deeply affect the social attitude of men and boys in terms of their relationship with others.

The idea of manhood and gender roles produce the violation in itself, which affect all of us in our daily-life experience. Many men grow up with this domination of the sense of acting like a man. Now, we need your voice to stop this domination and say ‘The Violence Stop Here’!

 

JUNE: An International Call to All Men to End Violence Against Women. Read more here.

 If you could do something to end violence against girls and women, wouldn’t you?

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