Sophia Rando

Prof. Strehle

English 1101

19 October 2018

Tony Porter’s “A Call to Men”: Why it is so powerful

Men are raised from a very young age to show no emotion. They are taught that tears

mean weakness and abuse means power. Tony Porter analyzes the upbringing of men in our

society and its effect of violence towards women, in his speech “A Call to Men”. He uses real

life examples and statistics to show the audience that violence against women and the hyper

masculinity that causes it is a product of the society that boys are being raised in.

Porter establishes at the beginning that he grew up in the Bronx, where, as per usual, men

were taught that they had to be strong, brave, in charge, without emotion, and superior to

women. They are taught that if they do make the mistake of being “weak”, and feeling

something, they must feel it in private and they cannot let it be seen. The speaker references a

moment, after the death of his brother, that he shared with his father. In this memory he tells that

in the moments after the funeral for his brother, his father did not shed a tear until all of the

women had left. Even in the wake of his son’s death, he still felt concerned with keeping up his

masculine image in front of the women in his life. This story showed the audience just how

ingrained these traits are in men. The speaker also references a parenting moment in his son’s

early life where, without realizing it, he shamed his son for crying. He told him to “be a man”, a

sentence, which he would later realize while analyzing his actions, to be extremely destructive.

Porter shows the audience that he too was a man raised by the circumstances of our society. He

too is a man that has shown anger and aggression in times where communication and emotion
could’ve been displayed. He shows that with time, education, and introspective thinking one can

come to realize all the ways that we impact our children and the different gender roles we place

on them.

The topic of a speech itself is already invoking of a lot of emotions for the crowd but

Porter plays them up in order to generate a sort of call to action and make people want to create

change. He discusses how young boys see themselves as trapped. He even recounts an

interaction he had with a child where he asked him what he would feel if he didn’t have to live in

this “man-box” of expectations. The child responded “free”. This story helps the reader visualize

today’s men as not only monsters with violent tendencies and no emotion, but as young boys

who became a product of their circumstance. This doesn’t in any way excuse the actions of

abusers, or those who strengthen the culture that encourages it, but it does help create an idea of

what we can do to change our future.

He then discusses how all of the general anger and the superior attitude towards women

can morph abuse. Boys are taught not to value woman and see them as inferior, as objects that

are only valuable for sex. Even if no one says these exact words, it demonstrated through actions.

He tells a story of a time that one of his “friends” raped a mentally ill girl and then offered the

chance to do the same to Porter and the rest of the boys. In his youth he was frightened to seem

emasculate, so he pretended that he did it so his ego would be unscathed. This act of putting

one’s fragile image above the life and wellbeing of another, man or woman, is just wrong, and he

recognizes it. He is filled with regret and this story shows just how easily young boys are

molded by outside influencers. He explains there is a big flaw when boys grow up so trapped

inside this box, that by adulthood the toxic traits pushed upon them have morphed into their adult

character. This is the norm of every day society that we live in Porter’s speech he tells the crowd:
“my daughter Jay, the world I envision for her – – how do I want men to be acting and behaving?

I need you on board…” This one sentence holds so much power because it makes the issue more

real for everyone in the audience. Everyone who is a woman or has a daughter, niece,

granddaughter, aunt, female friend, or any other relation to a woman, can feel this sentence in

their core. It makes this issue one that the audience can’t view from the outside. They have to

consider the fact that abuse can happen to anyone they know.

He uses charts and graphs to display the same information put in more of a factual way

that can summarize the concepts he is sharing. He includes a visual man-box to help the

audience picture all of the traits that society pushes on men to trap them inside of this box at a

young age, causing them to grow into the kind of men who would hurt a woman and simply are

not good people anymore. These visual aids help the listener see the sequence of events that

have led to the pain that so many women have suffered at the hands of men.

Tony Porter wants the world to be a freer place, where his daughter can live without fear

of her life and his son can live with the freedom to express himself. His call to action for the

crowd is a strong one that is logical and well executed. He uses first hand examples because he

has had the not so unique, yet accurate experience of growing up as a young man in a place that

teaches young men they need power.

Source:

Tony Porter. A call to men. TED Ideas Worth Spreading. Tony Porter. ted women 2010. TED

Conferences, LLC. Dec. 2010.

https://www.ted.com/talks/tony_porter_a_call_to_men?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium

=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare