Episode 79. Anthony Gallucci: Re-establishing Masculinity

Anthony Gallucci
Reestablishing Masculinity Roles

[MUSIC]

Hello. And welcome to Mindful U at Naropa. A podcast presented by Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado.

I’m your host, David Devine. And itÕs a pleasure to welcome you. Joining the best of Eastern and Western educational traditions – Naropa is the birth place of the modern mindfulness movement.

[MUSIC]

DAVID:
Hello. Today I’d like to welcome my guest Anthony Gallucci to the podcast. Anthony is a student in the Masters of Religious Studies program. And he is also the sustainability co-chair. And on top of that he is also a single father of four. So welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

Anthony Gallucci:
Thank you — doing well. Glad to be here.

DAVID:
Yeah. So, tell me about yourself. How did you find your way to Naropa and how did you find your way into the program that you’re in?

Anthony Gallucci:
Well, finding my way to Boulder occurred about six years ago. I came out with the children that were here at the time — came from a beautiful place called Ithaca, New York. And came here to experience the West coast and to see what that — what that was like. Naropa a few years into living in Boulder it’s hard to not hear about or experience Naropa in some way through the students or alumni that are still present in Boulder. And through one of the students I was able to be introduced to a high end and metaphysical conversation of sorts and he showed me the way towards Naropa. And I’m glad he did.

DAVID:
Yeah. Yes. I mean honestly you are actually the first student I’ve ever interviewed. So it’s kind of like a unique experience to hear about the student journey a little bit, but also I feel like that happens a lot where you meet someone who is and or is going to Naropa and then you have a conversation and you’re like who is this person? What are they doing? That’s how I found my way there. So, you kind of found your way the same exact way too.

Anthony Gallucci:
Most definitely. The funny thing is I don’t actually recall his name, but the impact was great. And being at Naropa has helped to bridge a gap that I felt when I first moved to Boulder — of lacking community. The student demographic is not the main demographic that the residents prioritize necessarily. So, it has been refreshing to have deep conversations, but also been refreshing to engage with a youthful aspect in myself and in others through integrating with the ecology of Naropa.

DAVID:
So, at the moment you are in the Religious Studies program. Can you just tell me what drew you to that — why you choose that program and what is it you’re studying?

Anthony Gallucci:
Well, I’m studying contemplative religious approaches — wisdom traditions is what we’re beginning to term them. And we do at Naropa take a comparative approach and a contemplative approach. So, my interest in studying wisdom traditions at Naropa specifically has to do with wanting to really engage physically and metaphysically into the material. And to begin to actualize principles rather than simply studying them. And finally, to be able to utilize wisdom traditions and the knowledge that comes from them to support social change in the contemporary. Religion has been in our — in the United States has been a powerful agent of organizing in the black community and in many communities. I am a person of color — black Sicilian American.

So that part of my identity does add an extra motivation for me to interact with religion in an effort to support social engagement in the black community as well as in the community at large. Studying at Naropa has offered me the opportunity as a light skinned black American to be able to interact with a more diverse offering of wisdom traditions than is typically offered in the black community. And I will — I don’t just plan to — I will be bringing pieces of this wisdom back to the black community and other communities at large. Specifically, meditation and focus on presence are important components.

DAVID:
It’s beautiful to hear too because you — wanting to understand the concepts of the religious studies and the wisdom traditions and to see the fruits that are in there and then you also want to apply them to the things that you feel passion about to the communities at your end to the social movements that you like to involve yourself in. And I really like hearing that. And on top of that — so you are also the sustainability co-chair. So, can you just tell us like what that actually means and what you do in that role?

Anthony Gallucci:
Yes. In that role I’m actually doing what I just spoke on to a certain extent. There’s two main focuses of that position from my perspective. One is to continue the movements that Carl Anthony and Paloma have been talking about.

DAVID:
Who are recent guests on the podcast! Hey!

Anthony Gallucci:
And an inspiration to us at Naropa and the Sustainability — Office of Sustainability.

DAVID:
Shout out to Michael Bauer.

Anthony Gallucci:
Most definitely. Yep. And Kya. And she’s the co-chair as well.

DAVID:
Awesome. Shout out to all you all.

Anthony Gallucci:
Yeah. So, it’s two tiered. One is to continue the movement of marrying the necessity for social equity and ecological equity. So, we — so that’s a part of what I’m doing there. And then in a plethora of ways. So not just approaching race, but also addressing inequity and class and how that interfaces with the ecology movements and discrepancies in how we treat folks based on their gender identities and sexual identities. So, these — there are interfaces with the ecological movements that ought to be acknowledged and engaged with as we — as we evolve our relationship with the planet — our ecology.

So that’s one pretty hefty focus. The other focus is getting back to the wisdom traditions, which is — a goal here is to utilize mostly text based wisdom of past religions and wisdom traditions to support our virtuous engagement in the sustainability movement — in the contemporary.

There’s the blog at Naropa — the Pilot Light blog has recently published an article to that effect in regards to the founding lineage of Buddhism from Tibet and how we can actualize certain principles that are built in to sacred texts of that lineage to begin to have a better relationship with our planet.

It’s — the time is now.

DAVID:
Awesome. Yeah, it seems like —

Anthony Gallucci:
Or yesterday.

DAVID:
Seriously. Seems like you’re involved in like so many different things. You’re a full time student, you’re in though wisdom traditions, you’re co-chair of sustainability, you are a single father of four. And on top of that we get to go into our topic, which is — so you also run a group at Naropa. I’m curious can you just tell us what that group is and how it was established?

Anthony Gallucci:
Ok, the group — the name is actually Re-establishing Masculinity and —

DAVID:
Ok.

Anthony Gallucci:
It is a living group. So, the name may evolve as we do. It began by me meeting with an ally on campus. Ramon Parish.

DAVID:
He is one of our teachers. Yes.

Anthony Gallucci:
Yes. And then a few other staff members and another fellow student in the undergrad program — Lincoln Tegert and we met to begin to address toxic masculinity with the goal of reestablishing characteristics of masculinity to be virtuous and non-toxic. This group was inspired by the reaction of cisgender female and transgender female on campus who had shared their concerns with myself and other cisgender males about the aspects of misogyny that are present at Naropa and are perceived as being present from the foundation of Naropa. People on campus were not feeling heard and acknowledged and instead of perpetuating a tokenistic and maybe even patronistic approach to engaging in the discussion around misogyny in front of people that aren’t behaving as misogynist and in front of people that are dealing with the brunt of the aggression from misogyny, which is mainly cis and transgender females we decided to take the onus upon people who identify as masculine and take the discussion to those spaces so as not to re-inflict pain hierarchy and misogyny and perpetuate it by relying on the victims of misogyny to amend it or to continually be forced to prove that it exist to us as members of the — of the patriarch. And male identified.

DAVID:
Okay. One thing I’ve noticed about Naropa is there’s been a lot of like movements and shifts and organizations that have arised and a lot of the student body, a lot of the faculty, a lot of the staff — they’re always willing and accepting to listen. They’re always very involved in honoring the students and the voices and that’s one thing in that I do appreciate about Naropa that I’ve seen a lot happened and there’s a lot of students out there that have a lot of concerns and they’re super passionate. And I love seeing the passion of them moving forward in the things that they’re seeing where they want their work to be established. And so, I just appreciate you for like kind of just showing up and doing that work you know because sometimes it’s not easy to get a group together and be like hey, we — we need to shift some things around here. You know, it’s not the easiest thing to do. So, I’m actually curious like how do you see the landscape of gender roles playing out because within the last couple years it has shifted a lot. You know there’s been a lot of conversation especially on educational campuses — especially on places where there is a lot of cis, transgender people — people who label themselves not male or female. They have like different labels that they’re looking for and people who are not you know willing and or even knowing how to even address this issue. So, it’s like how do you see gender roles playing out nowadays and how do you see generals playing out in the near future? Maybe a little bit beyond the future. Like how do you see that?

Anthony Gallucci:
Well, I see movement towards acknowledging a spectrum based identity format for lack of a better term. And then that progress will then lead to shattering that paradigm because even in that — in the spectrum there’s a polarity. Okay, but in the near future I see opportunity for possibilities of how to identify to begin to exist into our future.

So, to me, I’m cautious about this because there are — within the binary of a matriarch or patriarchal structures we’ve gone back and forth throughout people history here. The (?) or the Egyptian — there’s archaeological evidence now that there was a matriarchal system where the traditional character traits that are associated with masculinity were actually held by cisgender females and vice versa.

So, I do see us eventually getting towards an egalitarian sort of system, which no longer depends on a gender hierarchy to exist. That being said there’s gender hierarchy which altogether is the problem is what I’m hearing. And then there’s gender identity, which isn’t actually a problem. It’s when it’s forced into a limited paradigm or spectrum it can be an issue or when it’s forced into a hierarchy. So — but I see us eventually eliminating the hierarchy within these systems of identity and becoming more for lack of a better term — more merit based in our assessment of people’s qualities. The re-establishing masculinity group believes that at Naropa to be foresighted and to support these movements we need to begin to get out of the way sort of speak and actually become allies to the anti-misogynistic movements that are occurring in our world. And to do that we ought to be — we being people whom identify as masculine ought to be not disempowered to engage in that work. We ought to be empowered in our opinion to engage in that work. And the offering that’s available of how masculinity is defined and actualized too often is non virtuous and not empowering. So, to begin, we are here re-establishing that conflict and working to take the toxicity out of masculinity because like hierarchy is the issue with gender — gender is not the issue — toxicity is in our estimation the concern with masculinity not masculinity itself per say.

DAVID:
Yeah, I kind of dig that too because you are establishing the idea of the hierarchy. And then you’re also establishing the roles in which people play and you’re kind of understanding how they show up differently, but then you’re also understanding how they play into each other and how what is on the hierarchy gets to decide what the ideals are for the populists that are below it. And sometimes it’s not serving to the people that are below that who are looking for different identifications you know. So, they like are put into a box of what identifications are and then from there they are subjected to that when they’re like hey, like that’s not what we’re looking for. So, I really like that. It’s kind of showing others that like there is other voices out there. There is other people out there that want to be identified differently and they’re just looking to ask for that.

And also, when you talk about toxic masculinity you’re also talking about how — I love your approach because your group is called reestablishing masculinity. You’re not dismantling, you’re not saying it doesn’t exist or you’re not saying oh itÕs gross and we need to get rid of it cause it’s like you kind of can’t. That’s how we’re born and that’s how we act. But there is a sense of toxicity to it that we need to address and the fact that we’re looking at what’s happening and willing to re-establish how you suggest. I really like that. So, I guess with that said can you define what toxic masculinity is compared to masculinity in general?

Anthony Gallucci:
Yes.

DAVID:
Just so people know.

Anthony Gallucci:
And real quick — real quick I want to say one more thing that we’re — because I can do that by probably going over these characteristics — groups like this ought to be able to be activated to hold cisgender males and masculinity accountable for toxic masculinity that’s beyond the scope of being considered for restorative justice.

So, things like sexual misconduct and assault — these are beyond the scope of restorative justice from our perspective as masculine. And I just wanted to add that — that we don’t hope to be a defense mechanism for the feminine, but we hope to more be an agent of accountability for the masculine — if that’s a fair way to say it.

DAVID:
Yeah, I hear that. I hear that — other than like waving your finger at someone you’re just like let’s step up.

Anthony Gallucci:
Yeah. And yes — and the way we can hold people and ourselves accountable is through example setting and is through how we actualize virtuous masculinity and also the way that we hold people accountable in the United States, which is through money, you know interacting with people’s money or other sort of punitive ways or disassociation from toxic masculinity and just showing — showing, not saying but showing that we are committed to disengaging from toxic masculinity.

So, what does that mean? What is toxic masculinity? To us — and again I’m gonna mostly talk from what I’ve heard from this group — it’s a lot of stuff I’ve thought of, but it does coincide with what a lot of other folks identify as masculine did say in the group.

So — so toxic versus non-toxic masculinity — in one of our sessions the group at Naropa — Reestablishing Masculinity, we did come up with characteristics that we associated with masculinity. I’m going to read the list and as I read it, I’d like people to think duality of these — of these characteristics — these traits that at one time they can be very non-virtuous or toxic.

And at one time they can be very virtuous or admirable. In masculinity is this duality. And this is what I’m hearing from other people that identify as masculine is part of our experience that we are unpacking together. So —

Discipline to be powerful and humble is a characteristic of masculinity.

Protection to defend oneself and to defend others.

Confidence to be genuine versus forced.

Resilient to be independent.

Leadership is a masculine characteristic.

Disciplined of a leader.

A duty being responsible — daily and long term responsibilities.

Assertiveness — helping others and setting boundaries.

Balance.

And as you’re hearing these, you’re probably thinking these aren’t only owned by — they don’t only belong to the masculine, which is true.

Again, balance — be able to balance life emotions — the balance — the duality of masculinity and what that means and to show up in the virtual space.

Sexual energy — to be a lover to be healthy and sexually driven.

To be a nurturer and consensual to be driven by consent.

Pride — to be proud and able to make mistakes. Future minded — future cited.

Strength — to be stoic, to be supportive of self and to others.

Endurance to overcome adversary. And to not create adversary for others to overcome — endurance.

What we did — what we’re beginning to do is be friendly. Have friendships. We as masculine are honorable, we’re consistent and we’re dedicated. And these are things that hopefully inspire a tingle in us. And in the actualization of these characteristics in positive ways we believe that we will begin to get out of the way and allow our imbalance in this patriarch to heal.

DAVID:
Yeah, I do hear what you’re saying because there is this accountability that men need to have for men. You know like the brothers need to show up for each other and to hold each other accountable and to let each other know what’s wrong. So it’s like if you’re in a circle of a bunch of people talking about some things and you’re not like feeling that conversation other than just walk away or just put your head down like say something, you know, have accountability for your friends and for just some random people. It’s ok to like say what’s up? You got to be virtuous and we have to shift the narrative.

We have to shift the idea of what’s happening with people because you know like sometimes like what people say they don’t even necessarily believe it, but they perpetuate the toxicity of it because they just think it’s like something cool to say or they just think it’s something that other people want to hear and sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s like not who they actually want to be, but they’re just saying it because they just want to be accepted or whatever and they just think it’s a normal thing. And that’s the thing is we need to shift — is it’s not normal. That’s not cool. You need like be virtuous. You need to like talk about the things of quality — not the things that are going to get in the way of people who are trying really hard to live their lives the way that they feel called to. We need to like rise everyone up and so I love this idea of reestablishing like what masculinity is.

So, I’m actually curious like where do you think the concept of toxic masculinity came from? Do you know where it — like maybe not where it came from, but you know because this is a — this is sort of a new topic that we’ve established and we’ve labeled and it’s probably been around for a really long time and there’s probably been hierarchical structures that have allowed this to continue — like how new do you think this subject is and where do you think we can go from here?

Anthony Gallucci:
Well to that point, I wanted to add one more thing about the inclusivity of the group and so forth. But I believe we are following — we are piggybacking or following off in the footsteps of the matriarch of the Black Panther Party — of Septima Clark in southern you know voters rights activist and we’re — we’re following in the footsteps of Betty Friedan and Harvey Milk and people that have pushed the boundaries in regards to gender identity and — and what it means to be free.

So those are the people in the United States that we are following in the footsteps of. Most recently as a cisgender — as cisgender males we have not been encouraged to — or forced to visit the ways that misogyny impacts our lives and the lives of the feminine. So — and more recently we’ve had a pushback in the United States that’s referred to as the Me Too movement and the Black Woman Lives Matter movements and the Latin X Woman Lives Matter, Indigenous Woman’s Lives matter and so on. And these movements are reminding people who identify as masculine of the importance of addressing toxicity in it.

In my opinion, we know as you know — I am — I should’ve said this earlier, but I am cisgender male who mostly identifies as masculine. The roles that I exist in are stereotypically feminine.

DAVID:
And that’s because the single father role is what you’re speaking to?

Anthony Gallucci:
Yes. And then the —

DAVID:
Like a caretaker role?

Anthony Gallucci:
Yeah. So, the traits have been put into that basket so to speak of feminine traits. In my opinion, we know as cisgender males that we have access to certain entitlements that we did not earn in the United States.

We know that we are quote, unquote able or privileged even though I’d argue it’s not a privilege to hurt others or to gain things that you haven’t earned. So as a father — a privilege to my children is something they’ve earned. If they get ice cream — Ben and Jerry’s on the Pearl Street Mall on Saturday it’s because they’ve earned it with quality academic and social engagement.

So, I did not as cisgender male do anything special or extra to earn more money per hour than cisgender females and transgender females. I did not do anything to deserve access to so-called privilege to be able to hurt others and have it be advocated for or condoned and perpetuated.

So I recently — the Me — where the Me Too movement in the Black Women’s Lives Matter movement connects with what I believe we know is that it’s enabled or empowered in my opinion cisgender males who identify as masculine to — to have this opportunity to do what we’re doing here and re-establish masculinity.

I’m grateful for these cisgender initiated movements — cisgender female initiated movements for their empowerment. I do not believe that the cisgender male would be able to do the work we are beginning to do without those movements. Then that leads me to one more thing, I do not want to say that we are dependent on those movements to begin to re-establish masculinity. We have taken the baton and we will get out of the way. “We will” is the hashtag that I recommend because we hear you — if you’re listening, we hear you. And please know that everybody is welcome to participate in this process at Naropa that is engaged in the Naropa community. That being said, as I said earlier the onus is not going to ever be placed on people that are the victims of masculinity to re-establish it. I just wanted to make that abundantly clear. This is not an exercise in the oppressed educating the oppressor.

DAVID:
Yeah and I like how you say those other movements are not making this movement happen, but they are informing and they are a reflection and they are — they assist — it actually just allows us to know like hey, maybe there is something to be looked at over here. So — so people who actually don’t get it they can have a moment to reflect that. Like ok, well a lot of these groups of women are saying something and they should be heard and they should be listened. And this group is a reflection of it being heard and saying like all right we hear you — there’s something to be worked out right here. So, with the understanding that toxic masculinity occurs and it’s here like with our current situation how do we redefine and re-establish legit masculinity — like actual masculinity, holding the woman and holding the male together and redefining it so we eradicate the toxic-ness of it?

Anthony Gallucci:
Social change transformation is often talked about in a duality right of top down or bottom up transformation or movement. So, I guess I’ll stay within that paradigm for a moment. From the top down, we have it appears quite dismal with Supreme Court justice Kavanaugh and the plethora of examples of toxic masculinity being rewarded quote unquote. I am however aware that that’s not the dominant — it’s the dominant narrative, but it may not be the dominant circumstance.

We have people like Governor Jared Polis who is doing work around this and is beginning to from a top down approach influence infrastructure in a way that might empower cisgender males to have a less toxic relationship with the planet and with money and maybe as a result with each other.

So moving away from a more rigid conservative political system, which is perceived by some as a more square masculine based system to a more inclusive system — not more gentle, but more inclusive system is work that will support people who identify as masculine and embodying the characteristics with virtue rather than with toxicity.

Full disclosure though, I do not have faith in a patriarchal system to work from the top down to alleviate the discrepancies in our creed that have us actualizing misogyny.

I want to give credit to people like Governor Polis and I want us to urge them to continue to do that work and people that have been elevated justifiably, which is pretty rare, but or unjustifiably to positions of power — cisgender males in those positions — please continue to hold them accountable and push them, but don’t I — my recommendation is not to over saturate yourself with relying on the people in power to implement these changes. So that social from top down. Social engagement from bottom up, I would say is gonna be seen in — seen through activities like this — this group, in my opinion. So, this group is different than some of the other groups that occur in Boulder, which one it’s occurring in a patriarchal system. It’s recurring within an academy which is — Naropa is unique, but it’s still within the structure of academies. But it’s — what we’re doing here is a collective re-establishing. And to me this is the bottom up approach where we are meeting on an interpersonal — in an interpersonal fashion. We are bringing in examples of what it is to be virtuous and masculine. We are formulating ways and then creating opportunities to actualize this — virtuous masculinity and not only that we are actualizing it within the group itself when we meet.

So that’s how we are beginning to do this from the bottom up approach. We’re at Naropa — we do believe that a healthy spiritual prexy is — can be supportive to abolishing toxic masculinity. And in our group at Naropa we do set aside a period of time for contemplative synthesis of this conversation and these actions. So yes, we ought to be with our families in our individual spaces. We ought to be re-establishing masculinity with how we interact with our daughters, with our sons, with our aunts, with our uncles, with our parents. And what we’re doing at Naropa is the collective aspect of that.

To actually answer your question, we need to not just say that we hear that this is toxic from cisgender males, from cisgender females — this is not just say that we know this is real — in my opinion, because we know that we are implementing a system that’s hurting all of us. Because we know — when I’m talking about misogyny — because we know that we are — have access to things we didn’t earn — we know that we are being lazy. That’s what’s going on. From my — in my opinion. And in the work at home — in our bathrooms when we look in our mirror, we really need to be — even if it’s just when we’re alone — stepping it up and stop being so lazy. I know people talk about oh when you — we don’t know how to exactly do this or we need to have a plan or a strategy or we need to have actions offered to people. I believe that if all of us actually stop — if cisgender males who identify as masculine stop accepting our entitlement as virtuous. then we will begin to dis-associate from it and dismantle it — dismantle the toxic aspects of it.

We just — while that work is being done, we also believe it could be helpful to see the light at the end of this journey. And how it will ultimately benefit us all.

DAVID:
Doesn’t seem like an easy issue to articulate?

So, when we are bearing witness to some toxic masculinity in our lives — whether it be a reflection upon ourselves, which is probably like the harder version to see or a reflection of it seeing with other men that we are engaging with or just like some friends. What are some things we can do to shift that environment in the moment? Like so when you’re noticing it happening and you’re just like oh wait there’s this thing that we’re talking about. Here’s — here’s a toxic moment of masculinity like what could I do to shift the moment or the environment in which we’re in?

Anthony Gallucci:
Public setting.

DAVID:
Yeah, so say like you’re in a circle with a bunch of friends and like someone says something that’s pretty not ok with you and with the general public, in general, like how do you go about that? Do you address it? Do you take this person aside? Do you publicly say something like what’s a good way to approach that?

Anthony Gallucci:
Well a good way to approach that is to address it. And in the dressing, it we ought to be sensitive to the specific person we’re addressing. So that being said, being sensitive should never supersede the urgency of sharing a passionate moment of accountability.

So, in a moment, you’re in a classroom — something misogynistic is said by anybody. As someone — as a cisgender male who identifies as masculine, I believe you are empowered to verbally acknowledge it and say hey, is there another way that we could share that message or your intention? Or you know is there another way you can articulate that? Another question is — was your intention to come off as misogynistic?

So, accountability and education I believe is part of this process. And when we’re structuring classrooms — one little thing that we do in our group that might be helpful is we do what’s called the oops and ouch. Now it sounds silly, but so if you say something in the group that once it comes out you think oh shoot that’s going to be highly offensive to anybody. Then you have a moment to say oops, you know to be held — be given a moment of space to re-establish your thought so that we don’t hold up our progress.

DAVID:
Yeah, you’re not — you’re not like this is what I actually was trying to say. Let me rephrase that.

Anthony Gallucci:
And then we don’t get caught in a side conversation — no it’s an important one, but an aside about the offensive comment and we can get to the nature of what we’re addressing.

DAVID:
And it’s a good tool because sometimes as you are trying to articulate something you get a little caught up and you’re like that’s not what I meant to say.

Anthony Gallucci:
If you do say something and you don’t and you’re not in a space to notice that it’s offensive — other people in the group are able to say ouch. And they’re given a moment to — if they’d like — if they want to consent to explaining it — they can. And if they — they don’t have to. They can just say ouch. And it is suggested that you re-articulate it or — and if you’re not willing to reticulated then you are given space to think of another way to interact or something like this.

DAVID:
If someone says ouch to something and the person who said it was actually — be like, well I don’t think that’s ouch. Do you ever have a moment where the ouch — they get to like explain that out because sometimes you know like our minds are set — and who knows like maybe you do say something that you really do believe in and someone says — someone gets oversensitive to it and they say ouch. And the person is like well I think you’re being oversensitive and do you have a moment of dialogue where you’re able to explain the ouch versus the — this is how I feel.

Anthony Gallucci:
Yes. And I’d like to give a little shout out to Naropa in this case because Naropa does offer what we won’t just call safe spaces, but I’d call brave spaces which I’ve heard from a few people on campus. So, it’s not my term. And in that, yes, the follow up would be part of a brave space. Now there’s a limit — you know physical safety is a priority in our group. And what’s also important is a collective purpose and intention.

So those conversations can get thrashed out and those disputes can get thrashed out in a space where you have trust and trustworthiness. And that’s why you know friendship and camaraderie — this is a major part of what we’re doing at the beginning processes of this group. And anybody who is doing these things I recommend that because to build that relationship is fundamental. And in that in itself is an act of re-establishing masculinity in our opinion.

DAVID:
Such a sticky little topic — we’re just getting into. And I really appreciate you creating the group and allowing space for men. And I’m sure you allow women and anyone who identifies with anything else to come in that group and just explain themselves or just explain the environment in which they are in and able to give information of like what we’re looking for or what we’re not looking for. And it’s just — it feels very interesting nowadays to just have all this be in the forefront to — this actually be a topic and this is something we need to figure out. And I love that you are labeling it, re-establishing — because we’re not trying to get rid of masculinity — we’re trying to redefine what is allowed and what isn’t allowed. How do we work with when what isn’t workable, you know, because we’re definitely redefining a lot of different things in our lives? And this is just one of those things and it’s kind of like the root cause of a lot of other things. So, if we can figure this out then we would eliminate a lot of the stuff that we’re also trying to figure out at the same time. It’s just — be a good person, understand that people want to be people — like they want to live their lives to the fullest that they feel called to. And so, do you, you know, we just want to do our thing.

And so, like I just really appreciate you just coming in and speaking with me about this topic and is there any like last words you want to say before we go?

Anthony Gallucci:
We are future minded in the sense that we do see a time in the not so distant future where we have an egalitarian gender structure and where people are free to identify as masculine or feminine or as part of a spectrum and that identification in itself will not mean that they are signing up or identifying as an oppressor or an oppressed person, but it will be wholly a gender based identity.

DAVID:
Well, thank you so much for sharing with us today. It was such a pleasure to explore — not always the funnest conversation, but to —

Anthony Gallucci:
There’s a lot more to do.

DAVID:
To really — to really get in there and to see what’s happening and to see the work that people are doing because there’s something to be worked out. So, I just appreciate you speaking with me today. So, thank you so much.

Anthony Gallucci:
Thank you.

DAVID:
I would like to thank my guest for being on the podcast today. Anthony Gallucci. He is a Master’s of Religious Studies student and also the co-chair of the Sustainability Program. And he is also a father for doing the good work. So, thanks again.

Anthony Gallucci:
Thank you. My pleasure.

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On behalf of the Naropa community thank you for listening to Mindful U. The official podcast of Naropa University. Check us out at www.naropa.edu or follow us on social media for more updates.

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