Boys play with soldiers, girls play with dolls. This sentence describes a 19th century state of facts, but also a way of socializing children that goes back a long way, before toy soldiers and dolls. The fact that women are now serving in the military is worsening the situation, not improving it.
The deep split identifying males with violence and females with home-making is still there; the deep notion that what men do is better than what women do is there as well; and the consequence is under everybody’s eyes: immature men making war decisions as if it was all just a game, disregarding the unspeakable suffering that they inflict on others.
Last week I received several comments to my series on Walt Whitman and masculinity. One of such comments, sent by a man named Daniel, consisted of a beautiful quote by Etty Hillesum, which inspired me to write this week on such an important figure. I would like to share it with the whole readership of these DMs. Hillesum says:
Women’s historical task for the future [is] to show the man the road to his own soul through her soul. (…) And I also think that the most important pioneers of the future will be those men who have a large dose of femininity—and are yet real men—men like (…) Rilke —that’s such men, yes, that they are signposts to the soul. And not he-men, those Führers and heroes in uniform. Not the so-called “real men.”
She was influenced by Jung’s work on the feminine soul of men, which was very much a new thing at the time of her writing. Notice also that she was writing from a Nazi concentration/transit camp.
The quote continues, however, by saying that perhaps the kind of men I have in mind only exist in the imagination of women.
She was wrong on this point: there are today plenty of men who are true signposts to the soul. That is, they represent an option showing a different lifestyle from men who are still obeying the imperative of violence. But there are not numerically enough.
In my life as a queer man I received my share of aggressions from “real men” and even from patriarchally-identified women. Sometimes they are subtle, yet very visible to my trained queer eye, such as when I am accused of being “too sophisticated” or “too intellectual.”
The real aim of the accusation is the queerness, which is verified by the fact that plenty of people find my presentations very plain and understandable.
If we don’t pay attention to the subtle dynamics that we are living through every day, we run the risk of replaying them for ever, and never upgrade away from playing with soldiers and dolls, which means playing with war and destruction.
Etty Hillesum, Etty, The Letters and Diaries, 1941-1943, transl. Arnold J. Pomerans, p. 289
See Matthew Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
See also Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Also Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
Also Fox, Trump and the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Banner Image: “Major Kong Rides the Bomb.” Still from Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, from the U.S. Department of Defense. Public Domain.
Queries for Contemplation
How do I identify in my behaviors the “codes” (including the “gender codes”) that I play, even beyond my own conscious recognition?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
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9 thoughts on “Etty Hillesum on Real Men”
“ ‘Small Self’ Jesus “ [male/female/human/divine] Extract 04 29 2023 – BB
Jesus when born of Mary did not walk the earth so that we could contemplate His ‘largeness’ as God after His ascension. This would imply that Jesus walked the earth so that the message would be that Jesus as God is larger than the little selves being the brothers and sisters of which we are of Him.
Contemplate this – Jesus is saying, the Way is telling us, that divinity resides in His ‘small and humble self’. Jesus is telling us now that divinity resides, no different than Himself, in the small and stooped over widow we see walking by us on the street. In the mall we see people of every colour, sexual orientation, young and old, infirm and in-health, and that is Jesus, that is us. Was that not the message and still is the message, that all of us that walk the earth are not unlike, can act like, are like, the eternal living Jesus? ….. [continued below]
“ ‘Small Self’ Jesus “ [male/female/human/divine] Extract 04 29 2023 – BB
[continued]
If we truly want to see divinity in the heart, face and soul of another human being, then we should not separate ‘small self’ Jesus from our ‘small selves’ and make Him ‘distant’, larger than ‘Life’, out there, up there, never to be seen until some foreign time long after we are dead.
In being Himself in human form, the ‘small self’ form, Jesus is looking to raise us up in ways that are real but only appear to be a Mystery or not attainable to us. ‘Small self’ Jesus as our confidant and guide will ‘tear the veil’ and reveal the Mystery to us as we walk with Him, talk with Him, listen to Him, love with Him and be at peace with Him. ‘Small self’ Jesus is the paradox of who we believe Jesus to be. In our own visible ‘small self’ form, we are all worthy, rich and divine. If we are to ‘see’ and treat all others in the same fashion, how different will our lives be, how different and fulfilling would others’ lives be? That is the Good News and the only Good News we need to act upon. — BB.
“Il compito storico delle donne per il futuro…”. Fin dalla Genesi, dalla creazione dell’Adam (il terrestre) – ‘maschio e femmina LO creò’ – la donna (ishàh) è l’anima-interiorità dell’uomo (ish); è il Canto dell’uomo, la sua Coscienza-rivelazione.
È così, il compito storico (edenico-eterno) della donna “è quello di mostrare all’uomo la propria anima attraverso la sua anima” – dunque le donne sono chiamate a contattare dentro di sé il femminile dell’anima (genitivo soggettivo) per risvegliarlo nell’uomo… e viceversa, anche l’uomo lo può risvegliare nella donna!
Perché il ‘compito’ dell’Adam, dell’essere umano-terrestre, è fare frutto; ‘fare anima’ (direbbe James Hilman), perché il F
femminile dell’anima è l’ultima opera della Creazione (ancora in progress), l’opera più evoluta.
Fare frutto, ‘fare anima’ per essere ‘anthropos’ (Jean-Yves Leloup in Il Vangelo di Maria – Myriam di Magdala), essere umano completo, in cui il maschile e il femminile sono risvegliati e riconciliati!
According to this source suicide in men always outnumbers women all over the world. A direct effect of masculine toxicity?
I think it factors in for sure.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/suicide-rate-male-female-who-mdb?utm_source=OWID+Newsletter&utm_campaign=fdf812f263-biweekly-digest-2025-06-27&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-0c7f305164-536873285
The quote from Etty Hillesum was written on 17 March 1942, at her home in Amsterdam. As published in 2002 in the Complete and Unabridged Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum (translated by Arnold J. Pomerans, ISBN 0-8028-3959-2) the full second sentence reads: “And I also think that the most important pioneers of the future will be those men who have a large dose of femininity—and are yet real men—men like him and like Rilke—that such men, yes, that they—here my powers of expression desert me—that they are signposts to the soul.” [“Him” is Julius Spier, with whom Etty had a deep and transformative relationship].
Etty worked voluntarily in Camp Westerbork as of 30 July 1942. On 28 July, as she was preparing to leave her home in Amsterdam, she wrote, “Nothing can atone for the fact, of course, that one section of the Jewish population is helping to transport the majority out of the country. History will pass judgment in due course.” (p. 511).
The foreword of that spiritual bequest from Etty Hillesum to humankind closes with these words: “Etty confronts us all with what it means to be and remain human under the most extreme circumstances. That is a form of resistance no oppressor can withstand. Not then, and not now.”
There have been people in the past who explored the idea that Jesus himself was gay. The most recent one was by celebrated Canadian author Anthony Oliveira in his 2024 book DAYSPRING.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/713616/dayspring-by-anthony-oliveira/
To think that Jesus could have been gay is also a stereotype of gay men. Don Alberto Taxo, indigenous senior medicine man of Ecuador, said we have the option now of transitioning to a higher consciousness where the female spirit whether in women or men can come to the fore. Will we be able to do it? I hope that what we are seeing is the last gasp of toxic patriarchy. I saw my son on the video of the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus by the way.
Unbalanced and toxic patriarchy has been with us a long time in human history causing much personal and collective destruction and suffering up to our present times of social injustices, wars, and ecocide of our Beautiful Sacred Mother Earth/Her living creatures/Her essential graceful abundance to the existential point of endangering the existence of our human species. Our personal and collective human evolution seems to have always been impaired by this generational deep wounding of not balancing/integrating the Divine Feminine always Present within and among Us spiritually with our healthy masculine energies. Our personal and communal spiritual responsibilities of consciously healing this deep wound and integrating the Loving~Wise Divine Feminine on Our spiritual journeys is essential for the survival of Our human species and Sacred Mother Earth. May Our Divine Source~Co-Creator and the Angelic spiritual realms have mercy on Us and continue Loving, healing, and guiding Our eternal Souls with one another in Our Loving Diverse ONENESS… COMPASSIONATE COSMIC CHRIST CONSCIOUSNESS….
Thank you for this reflection, Gianluigi. Especially the video clip by Iman Hassan, and the issue of what being in the military does to the men who are inducted. I appreciated her understanding that to overcome the PTSD and alienation for her brother took 3 years, and was helped by close and supportive family relationships which could help him recover. Many of the people who join do not have that support. It was also startling to think of the recruitment for “warriors” starting younger and younger, in the 12-13 year old boys. It made me think of the squads of paramilitary groups in Africa, who also start indoctrinating and abducting and co-opting boys very young. There is a huge price to getting soldiers to do acts of war. It is another way to think about the importance of trying to teach diplomacy and nonviolence, rather than war to solve problems.