The Men’s Resource Center of West Michigan is dedicated to helping men discover, develop, and celebrate their humanity. It seeks to free men of the rigid male training that erodes their lives and relationships. Its goal is to help men re-define and revision their masculinity to experience full humanity and to establish respectful lives.

The Center’s work is defined by the following values and beliefs:

Values

  • We value the humanity of men; therefore, we seek to develop, encourage, and celebrate a healthy and holistic masculinity.
  • We value men’s diverse capacities, abilities, ethnicity, race, and sexual orientation; therefore, we celebrate differences as well as similarities among men.
  • We value egalitarian and respectful relationships with women; therefore, we seek to avoid activities that subjugate or marginalize women.
  • We value men’s capacity for nurturing and care-taking; therefore, we encourage these behaviors in men’s relationships with women, children, other men, and the environment.
  • We value growth and change; therefore, we promote re-visioning masculinity.
  • We value education and community awareness; therefore, our activities include educational and community awareness projects such as writing, speaking, workshops, and consultation.
  • We value personal growth and change; therefore, we seek to provide and promote individual and group therapy, forums for exchange of ideas, and experiential workshops.
  • We value mental health and other services for men; therefore, we advocate for quality care in our community and elsewhere.

Beliefs

  • Males are born with the capacity for sensitivity, nurturing, compassion, and intimacy as well as attributes more typically associated with masculinity.
  • Traditional male socialization encourages males to deny their softer human characteristics, while encouraging harder traits such as toughness, dominance, aggression, and competitiveness.
  • We do not choose our sexual orientation. Sexuality exists on a continuum.
  • Males experience specific health, relationship, and personal problems that are a direct result of male socialization.
  • Males in intimate relationships are capable of having egalitarian, mutually respectful, emotionally intimate relationships void of control, abuse, and violence.
  • Males are capable of being more than economic providers and physical protectors in families: male partners and fathers need to be intimate, supportive and engaged with their families.
  • There are non-violent, non-abusive, and non-controlling means of solving problems and conflicts.
  • Individuals, relationships, families, institutions, and the community at large need to change with respect to gender roles.
  • Raising boys more humanely will mitigate the destructiveness of male socialization and contribute to a more respectful and egalitarian society.

No matter where you are in life, the Men’s Resource Center is here to help you become a more complete person. Contact us today to learn about our many specialized programs and groups designed to help men learn, heal, and grow.