Gender in the CLTL Setting
By Robert Waxler (profile)

Throughout the history of Changing Lives Through Literature, we have discussed how men and women entering the program are often wrestling with issues and problems different from their counterparts in the program, and so there is value in forming groups with gender in mind. Most CLTL groups are same-sex for this reason, although mixed-sex groups also seem to work well. In fact, many single-sex CLTL groups actually have some mix (e.g., a male judge for a women's group, a female facilitator for a men's group).

Although I have facilitated discussions with female groups in the local jail, my CLTL groups on the University of Massachusetts campus have always been male. After the first two sessions on the campus though, we usually open the discussions to anyone who wishes to attend, and that often includes female visitors (girlfriends, court officers, professors, etc.). Like so much else in the CLTL program, the issue of single-sex groups remains controversial, ready for ongoing debate.

Knowing that I am starting with an all-male group of probationers helps me to choose texts and to anticipate lines of inquiry for discussion. I want to encourage conversation about male identity, confrontation with mainstream authority, violence and power, for example, because I believe many men are conflicted about such issues.

Conversation about these matters allows for self-reflection, recognition of alternatives, and opportunity for new possibilities. And conversation around our CLTL table helps create a safe place for such inquiry.

The first night we gather together, the men around that table are often unsure of themselves, although they would never admit it. Many of them have a record of violence. Many suffer from low self-esteem, poverty, family breakdown, alcohol and drug abuse; all typical causes of violent behavior.

They are also usually uncertain about how the reading of literature, not a particularly male activity as far as they're concerned, can possibly help them. Many have never been to a college campus before, but most are haunted by the shadow of previous schooling.

We always start with Greasy Lake by T. Coraghessan Boyle. It is a story that moves with a rhythm of male violence and so forces us, from the beginning of our conversations, to confront our own urge to violence, to try to give it a shape and understand it.

Aristotle knew that literature could make this kind of difference in our lives. A good story can give a form to violence, lead us to the recognition that we can choose to do otherwise.

As we read and talk about the story that first night, we know we are reading and talking about ourselves, and what has been, what could be. The men begin to bond, not because we have discovered a specific model of male behavior to follow, but because we realize together that reading and talking is a legitimate activity for men, and each of us has a different perspective on what we all agree is our common story.

In this context, our approach suggests an old-fashioned commitment to literature and identity, one that embraces the notion that human beings have depth, imagination, passion, and an interior self. Too often, men in our culture have refused such insight.

Defining manhood in terms of power and control, men create elaborate defense mechanisms, such as irrational series of macho performances, to protect themselves from the depth of their own hearts. Frustrated desire and impotent rage trump self-reflection; brute force leads to a false assumption of superiority. Men then victimize themselves and others, creating a vicious circle of violence that threatens to tear apart the human fabric of society.

The men in my group often seem on the edge of violence, frustrated by their apparent inability to gain the kind of power and control they believe men should have. They are usually bright and intelligent, caring and filled with good insights, but they suffer from having internalized the dominant stereotypes of manhood, socially constructed images that insist on roughness, aggression, and a stubborn will.

These men fear failure because they have been defined as failures too often. Filled with anxiety and rage, they need to protect themselves from their own vulnerability, their own human heart.

Literature can return them to that human heart.

To read stories that we can identify with tells us that we are not alone. To talk about those stories with respect and a critical eye builds trust and enhances self-reflection.

"I was just like Wolf Larsen," a probationer says about the power-obsessed captain in Jack London's Sea Wolf. "I had a father just like that," another student says about the violent and alcoholic old man in Russell Banks's Affliction. "Curly fears he'll be exposed for what he really is in all his impotence," someone else says about the boss's son in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. "I know that pain Sonny must feel sitting all alone in his jail cell," another reader says when talking about James Baldwin's Sonny's Blues.

And with each remark, the men silently nod with mutual understanding round the CLTL table.

There are moments of recognition and surprise around that long wooden table, moments of courage when the masks are taken off and we listen to each other, when we hear the human heart beat throughout the room. The stories we read and the conversations they inspire make those moments possible.

I think men often need their own space to have that happen. That's why I find single-sex groups important.