Retired social worker Jack Kammer writes to Doug Emhoff, the Second Gentleman, urging him to reshape masculinity by embracing caregiving and mental health. Kammer argues men are conditioned to ignore their emotional needs, and calls on Emhoff to use his platform to challenge patriarchal norms and advocate for family-law reforms.
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Hello, Mr. Emhoff. Congratulations in your new role as our first Second Gentleman. My name is Jack Kammer. I'm a retired social worker, and I care deeply about the social issues of men and boys. In your recent GQ article, you wrote, "Here's the truth: generations of women before me have used this platform to advocate for causes they believe in, and build trust in our institutions at home and abroad, often without much accolade or acknowledgment. It's on their shoulders I stand, and it's their legacy of progress I will try to build on as Second Gentleman. It'll be good to see how you set the template for the First and Second Gentlemen who follow in your footsteps. I know it's a bit presumptuous, but I'd like to help you establish that template in a way that'll be comfortable for you and for our future First and Second Gentlemen, and will also allow you to build on the legacy of the First and Second Ladies who advocated for causes they believed in. You're now an influential man, not in government, but also not completely outside of government. And so it might be good to start with consideration of where men in government have always traditionally been and how you can be different. We've been in hierarchies, in the patriarchy. The principal problem of patriarchy for men is that the last thing men are supposed to talk about is our own needs. And so we often end up in miserable and meaningless mockeries of happiness and success.
What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons.
Is that right?
Pretty sure about it. You're born alone and you die alone, and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts. But I never forget. I'm living like there's no tomorrow. Because there isn't one.
I don't think I realized it until this moment, but it must be hard being a man, too. Excuse me.
Often with the bitterness of the sour grapes excuse, we demean the traditional roles of women, dismissing them as lowly and unimportant. But more and more, men like you, men like me, millions of us all around the nation and the world are taking a new view. We see the value and importance and joy in roles traditionally assigned to women. More and more, we want to widen our roles and our options, just as women did and still do. We want to rebalance our traditional assignment to the hierarchy and work closer to the warmth of the big red heart. We know with certainty, almost by definition, that the first and second gentlemen of the future will, like you, appreciate the joy and value of deemphasizing their work in the hierarchy and playing a stronger supporting role for their partners. You now have the ability, if you'll embrace it, to do what men enmeshed in the patriarchy can never do. You can attend to the needs of men, just as first and second ladies have focused attention on the needs of women. It's clear that you're a devoted father, but not every devoted father is as lucky as you. Not every devoted father is able to gain joint custody as you did. Helping those other devoted fathers might be your mission. Advocating for those fathers and for shared parenting is in your wheelhouse. California's 1979 law that established the possibility for you to have shared parenting in your divorce was the first shared parenting law, but it was and remains quite weak. If she had wanted to, your ex-wife could have made it difficult and expensive, if not impossible, for you to keep your full parental role to Cole and Ella. True, if she had fought you, you might have been able to overcome her efforts in a grueling, draining, wasteful, hurtful legal battle. But it's also true that millions of men who love their kids as much as you love yours don't have your resources. For them, seeking shared parenting in the absence of a rebuttable presumption for joint custody is futile. The National Parents Organization gives California and 3 other states a D for their shared parenting laws. But those states are not the worst. 8 states get a D-. Your native state of New York is at the bottom of the list with an F, along with Rhode Island. Now let's see how the other states are doing. D+, C-, C, C+, B-, B, B+. Only two states get an A. A- for Arizona and an A for Kentucky. I don't specialize in shared parenting and I'm not directly associated with the National Parents Organization. But if advocating for shared parenting is of any interest to you, I'd suggest that you take a look at NPO. You might conclude that working with them would fulfill your intentions for your role as our second gentleman, to advance a progressive cause you deeply care about, a cause as progressive in its own way as your wife's campaign to become vice president and perhaps one day president of the United States. I wish you, the Vice President, and your whole beautiful extended family all the love and happiness our world has to offer to men as well as to women. I hope you'll think carefully about shared parenting. Thanks for watching this video.
