Read editor’s interview with me in Persephone’s Daughters

It was a delight to discuss my memoir, the #MeToo Movement, toxic masculinity, forgiveness, and more with Meggie Royer, editor of the feminist publication Persephone’s Daughters. Meggie asked me if I felt comfortable using the term “toxic masculinity” and I said yes. Since then, I’ve learned that it can alienate some men. To me, it is not a term that denounces males. Instead, it acknowledges how stereotypical patriarchal beliefs about power and dominance can limit and harm all of us, denying us the right to live in our full capacity as wholly accepted, empowered beings. Here’s an excerpt:

“We are still oriented to labeling abusers as evil monsters. Culturally, we don’t try to understand their behavior or where the roots of it come from. I don’t want to let abusers off the hook but by automatically jumping into an us-versus-them stance, we can miss the opportunity to seek understanding and to see the woundedness that needs healing in someone else. This goes back to a perspective of Oneness or inter-being, seeing people as interconnected, as defined by the late Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, rather than coming from a distancing stance of judgment and hatred.”

You can read the whole interview here.