Newage

Amy Alkon (along with others) has mocked this video that puts forth the "Manifesto For Conscious Men." She calls the guys involved man-pussies.



Even if it is a heartfelt plea, this is the sort of new-age nonsense that's too generic to be of any use in solving actual problems.  And the reasoning in general is very questionable.  To pick a random example:

I honor your deep connection to the earth. As men, our relationship to our planet and its resources has often been motivated by competition, acquisition and domination. We mistakenly believed that expansion would protect us from encroachment, and in the process we violated the sanctity of the Earth and disturbed its natural rhythms. I commit to listening to the intuitive sense you have of how to heal our planet...

First, do women have a closer connection to earth?  Maybe there is a separate "feminine" and "masculine" energy, as they claim, but this also sounds like a sexist stereotype--certainly one that can be used to limit women (and men).

Second, it was men, not women, who were motivated to acquire and dominate our resources?  So it's men, not women, whom we have to thank for the superior food, clothing, shelter and almost everything else that makes up the modern world?  Don't women get some credit?

Third, our belief in expansion was bad?  This isn't even a masculine/feminine thing.  Expansion isn't offensive to nature (as if anything could be), but a natural process itself. That humans (pardon me, men) were able to figure out how to do it better than most other plants and animals is a sign of our success, not failure.

Fourth, women's intuition is going to help us heal the planet?  I'm willing to listen to anyone, but if we've got serious problems, I'd rather use the "masculine" approach and do some actual research.

But really, the most offensive part of the whole thing isn't that it's new age mush.  It's that this is put out as an apology but it's actually moral grandstanding.  It's one thing to apologize for your own actions, mistakenly or not, but quite another to attack men, past and present, for not being as awesome as you, apparently, are.