I’ve struggled with “body image” for the greater part of my life. I’m going to qualify all the statements I’ve made in this post so far. Before that- let me make one more. I think many people that struggle like I do try to “solve” that problem backwards, so I want to share how I went on that journey. The process is one that you can replicate for anything, not just that niggling sensation you get when you pass a mirror.
In part two of this series, I discussed what I perceived as the lack of empathy for men generally. One of the things that I think that is often misunderstood is how we acknowledge the “privileged” nature of being a man. I won’t attempt to broach that giant subject here, but I do want to distinguish between what I think a lot of people substitute for “empathy” and why many people may think that there is already too much empathy for men in the world.
I’ve been on a hot streak of podcasting recently. It’s been over a year since I changed the podcast format and committed to at least trying to put up an interview podcast every week. I think I’ve done that about 95% of the past year, and I’ve seen benefits well beyond what I’ve expected.
Today I want to focus on something different. As consistent readers will also have noted, I am on a bit of a “masculinity” or male identity jam right now. One of the things I’m arguing for passionately is more empathy for men, writ large, in the world. I want to talk about a barrier that I am running into and suggest that the barrier is in everyone’s best interest to remove.
I’m going to highlight some of the major points from my Tuesday podcast with University of Houston Swimming and Diving Head Coach Ryan Wochomurka.
Bear with me though, this post might take around 15 minutes to read. Here are three big points from the conversation:
Punitive measures will only get us so far in breaking the cycle. We must have mechanisms for giving coaches behaviors and actions to replace the harmful way they were coached in the past. It’s not just “the bad guys” who need this. Pretty much all of us are hanging on to some harmful coaching practice from our own athletic experience.
Eva was at the most recent Senate hearing where leaders from USA Weightlifting, U.S. Figure Skating, USA Swimming, and USA Bobsled and Skeleton. Those of us advocating for change have put a lot of hope in the hearings, but there is a growing divide between the rhetorical bluster of those attending and what actually happens.
This past week, the annual gathering of USA Swimming’s voting class took place in Jacksonville, Florida. A select few representatives made the decision for the rest of us on an even narrower list of USA Swimming decision makers.
