Reimagining Philanthropy Beyond the Patriarchy with Efraín Gutierrez
In this dynamic episode of "It's Not Your Money," Capital Collaborative Funder In Residence, Jessamyn Shams-Lau, catches up with Efraín Gutierrez to discuss the patriarchy, how it has shaped philanthropy, and what a different way of doing and being might look like.
They dissect exactly what ‘the patriarchy’ means before dissecting the patriarchal roots of the field of philanthropy itself, sharing bite-sized examples that occur in our day-to-day actions including how wealthy donors hold power like “benevolent patriarchs” and nonprofits are expected to be grateful. This dynamic hinders true partnership.
Efraín proposes dismantling this system, advocating for self-determination for all. The ideal future of philanthropy? Collaboration, care, and shared learning, fostering a joyful and equitable community.
Interview Transcript
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Hi, everybody. I am Jessamyn Shams-Lau, your host today. Welcome to “It’s Not Your Money: Real Talk About Achieving Racial Equity in Philanthropy.” These slightly irreverent conversations feature leaders challenging the status quo in philanthropy today and those demonstrating how we can build more equitable and just funding landscapes, particularly for Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color founders. So, today we are broaching a very big and mighty topic that you may not realize but actually has a very direct connection to philanthropy. Our topic today is the patriarchy. I need one of those mics that gives you the boom and echo. Don't run!
Efraín Gutierrez
Stay.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Exactly! Don't turn us off. Stay. It's not going to be scary. We're both wearing cute things to make this very not scary. And Efraín turned up today in this amazing hoodie with Care Bears on it, which I'm just in love with. I felt like I had to elevate my game. Here I am, all dressed in black, being boring. So I brought the cat ears. So we're not going to take ourselves too seriously today.
Efraín Gutierrez
That's right. It's all about self expression and authenticity.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
There we go. So we're expressing ourselves through cute clothes whilst we have a conversation about the patriarchy. And as you can see, I have the pleasure of having this conversation with Efraín Gutierrez. And Efraín, over to you. Tell us a bit about yourself.
Efraín Gutierrez
Hello, folks. I hope you are having a wonderful day/night wherever you are. I'm a Efraín. I use they and he pronouns, also in Spanish. And there are many identities. As part of my work, I have my own consulting practice with different bodies of work from strategy and evaluation work that is more heart-centered and more tailored towards the specific needs and the specific soul and heart of organizations, moving away from more rigid or expected methodologies and ways of doing strategic planning and evaluation. I'm also a member of Freedom Dreams in Philanthropy, a community that is calling philanthropy to move from centering just the problems in the world and look to the world that we want to see, that we want to live in, and that we deserve. And I'm also doing this new body of work related to masculinity, healing men, and the patriarchy. But the identity that I want to share with you today that I think is particularly relevant is my identity as a poet. And I don't mean it just because I write poems, but because, as Audrey Lorde tells us - and I'm paraphrasing - poets, or the work of poetry and poems, is to name the nameless so it can be thought.
And I think when we are talking about particularly the patriarchy, which is a system that is so inherent and it's part of everything we do and everything sometimes we think we are, it is necessary to go to places or to ideas that are not common or might not have been thought for us. So, I also think that poetry is one of the only places that historically has allowed men to express feeling in the world. So even if men were very like, they had to be all of these things, very strong, ever perfect, then poetry or music, song has been a way for men to still be able to tap into that part of their humanity. So, I wrote a poem about this, and it's about poetry and about how it allows those who were raised or socialized as men to just practice feeling. And I'm going to read it to you right now, if you don't mind.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Amazing.
Efraín Gutierrez
So the title is Poetry Where The Macho Becomes Men:
Licensed to feel, to say without saying, to be worthy just for being, to create, to convey.
O precious poetry. Feelings, refuge, suspended machismo
Elicit conduit with the mother alternative to the labyrinth pass
O precious poetry, temporal return to the womb, shelter from daily distrust.
Listen, laugh, cry, feel, say, be.
Come on, man, gather around. Let's read some poetry here.
Here we can sacrifice the macho, giving birth to the human, at least until the last stanza.
And that's it.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
That was amazing!
Efraín Gutierrez
Thank you.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Gosh, I feel like that beautiful sermon of a poem, we could almost finish the conversation right there. It was so spectacular Efraín! Thank you. It was beautiful. I was taking notes because there was some really evocative, of course, poetry, really evocative lines in there, and I hope we'll revisit those in the conversation.
Efraín Gutierrez
Most definitely. I feel very vulnerable when I share my poetry, so thank you.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Well, I feel like that was a joy, and our listeners are getting a treat today. So, thank you so much for sharing that with us. It's a great way to introduce our topic.
So, before we really dive into the specific topic of patriarchy and masculinity, as you know, because you've been on our show before with Chera, one of the things that we remind people listening through our title and through our opening question, is that when we're incorrectly labeling money in foundations and donor advised funds as still belonging to the founders of those vehicles, then we act like the money and those vehicles still belong to them, or belong to them. It didn't ever, which perpetuates the concentration of power. So, all of that to say was influence. Who holds power. So, question for you again: What shift in language would you like to see us make Efraín? One that will help us diversify power?
Efraín Gutierrez
I was thinking deeply about this, and I think, both for philanthropy and just in general, to be able to have this conversation. I think the invitation I want to make is for us to be very specific about naming things clearly outside of specific contracts that we might preconceive constructs that everybody understands. Let me tell you what I mean by this. I think one of the most powerful tools of the patriarchy is the binary, because what it has done is that it has made us think that whenever we're defining something, everything else is outside, and that creates those issues with us even being able in philanthropy to talk about and to speak and discuss with nuance. So, is it trust-based philanthropy or is it strategic philanthropy? And there's something in the middle, right? So, I think that my invitation around language is to be very specific. For example, in evaluation, when we're thinking about the impact of an organization, there is this idea of the question sometimes we ask. This is a question that is very common in philanthropy: “What was the impact of our work in reality?” That question has in itself already, and we will discuss this further, but it has an intrinsic understanding of a little bit of the archetype of the benevolent patriarch.
That is saying, “I, who holds the money, who has given this money to these people, and I want to know how good I am.” Which there's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong with wanting to know what happened with your investments. But what is really helpful is to know what happened with the funding, not what was your impact. And then you have evaluators doing causal analysis to make sure that the impact can be back to the foundation. Why? Sometimes it matters. But in reality, what really matters is knowing what happened. If you're really, truly about thinking about how to best help communities, and then when you ask that question, then you de-center the foundation as the center or the origin of the impact, and you have a more open ability to understand. Well, instead of doing an evaluation about the portfolio, we're going to give the money to the nonprofits that are doing the work, because we want to know what happened. That's a way to know what happened, right? So it's not either/or. Again, I'm kind of mixing two ideas, but it's like trying to when we name things for what they are, then we avoid binaries particularly.
And I'll stop here when we talk about masculinity and femininity. Unfortunately, masculinity in the way that it's understood in Western patriarchy is this small thing, narrow thing, in a constellations of how humans can be. You know, to be a man is to be very few things in our society, and everything else is deemed feminine, thus inferior. And that is the saddest part about what happens in a society today, because we have half of the population, and I'm speaking about men not being able to access a plethora of feelings, a plethora of ways of expressing yourself, plethora of ways of being yourself. And when we're talking about these topics, then, and you say masculine and feminine, it's kind of like I invite you to get rid of the binary. And in any way, say, humans usually have both nurturing and hard, more like dominant tendencies. We believe since ancient times that humans need to be tough sometimes and soft sometimes, and that we all have to do that. And we somewhat allow it in certain ways, but only when the patriarchy allows it to be masculine. Otherwise, men are not allowed to access some of these things.
So I like to talk about these things as hard, and you can use different language or nurturing and soft, but that staying away from also saying men, patriarchy. I also like separating that and saying, I'm going into the conversation, so I'll backtrack there.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Okay.
Efraín Gutierrez
That's kind of the invitation to stay a little bit away from the binary and name things very clearly.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Well, what I love about what you're saying is it speaks so clearly to our tendencies in philanthropy, right? We love to know which box somebody or something goes in. Which box do I put that in? Which rubric do I put that through? Which framework do I put that through? And it starts with this binary thinking and labeling of “Are you a funder or are you a nonprofit? Are you the giver or the seeker?” And it sets up the power dynamic immediately just with that, which box do you go in? Are you the donor or the doer? Do you contribute money or do you contribute impact? And never the twain shall meet. Okay. If I know which box to put you in, I know where to put you in this hierarchical scale. And I know whether I give you my time or not, I know whether you want something from me or not. It's fascinating how just those labels determine so much, so much about the way that we do this work.
Efraín Gutierrez
Yeah.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
And I just love your challenge. What would it look like to approach partnership with more fluidity?
Efraín Gutierrez
Yeah. It would mean that we will have to listen to each other instead of just assuming things based on our positionality.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Right. And to me, what you just said there, it would mean we would have to listen to each other. That sounds like that would make our work so much more fascinating.
Efraín Gutierrez
Yeah. And more complicated. And that's what people don't want to hear.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
And more complicated. This is true.
Efraín Gutierrez
Complicated, more messy, but more beautiful, joyful, more centered towards where we actually want to go. So it's all at the same time.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Exactly. Well, I love that you have us jumping straight in at the deep end in this conversation. We're so here for it. I just want to pull us back a little bit from the binary. And last time we talked, you had shared that one of the things you were focused on was trying to untangle and heal from the patriarchy. And I think when a lot of people hear us having this conversation, the topic is the patriarchy. That's probably going to make different people feel a lot of quite extreme reactions. Maybe it's a loaded phrase.
Efraín Gutierrez
Yeah, it is.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
I wonder if it would be helpful for you to talk about what do you mean when you're talking about the patriarchy in this conversation? Let's start there and just make sure we're all on the same page.
Efraín Gutierrez
Yeah. I think this conversation is particularly terrifying for men, and it's because if we don't separate the system of patriarchy and we put it together with or we equate it to men, then it's hard sometimes for people to have the conversation. Now, I always have, as somebody that was raised and grew up as a man, I always start these conversations by saying, men need to recognize the fact that we collectively and individually have benefited from this system of patriarchal, capitalist, the system. I already said system. But what's often not recognized is that in the same way that it has benefited us collectively and somewhat individually, it also affects us in very particular ways. So it's not the same. My invitation is for men, those raised, and I need to say men, masculine folk, those raised or socialized as guys to join our fight because it's also affecting us, so it is self-serving. We shouldn’t just be joining because other people are oppressed. But I think the fact that we are not seeing that it also affects us doesn't allow us to heal enough to show up in the way that we need to show up to understand enough.
I want to say directly to those who identify as male or masculine, that are listening, that saw the name patriarchy and decided that they were going to join, I want to welcome you. I want to say good for you, and I hope you tell more friends, more male masculine friends to join the conversation. I think women have been having this conversation for a long time. Queer folk have been having this conversation, and it's time for us to also have it. And it shouldn't be that scary. It's a system. So I want to invite bell hooks in the room. There couldn't be a conversation about the patriarchy without the bell hooks. And her definition of patriarchy is really helpful to understand what I just said. So, she says that the “patriarchy is a political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain the dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence.” Anything deemed weak, which is almost everything.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Almost all of us.
Efraín Gutierrez
Yeah. Being human is being weak sometimes, and sometimes strong. I think that's the definition I like to use, and that goes directly into how philanthropy was created. And we will get there. But I think bell hooks, what is interesting is that if you just take patriarchy as the word, it's just, you know, the rule of the father. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about this Western system, right? So bell hooks used to say imperialist, white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy, because she wanted to make sure that this patriarchy that we're talking about was set in a specific global context. Context of class, a context of empire, and a context of race. And that helps us see it more as a system and not as “What do you mean?” So now, again, the binary is like “Now what, we're going to be ruled by women?” It's like I wish, but that's not what we mean. What we mean is an invitation for everybody to be free. It's an invitation for everybody to be able to reclaim their right to self determination. And we can unpack that, but I'll stop because you were just asking about the definition.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
No, that was fantastic. And I really love this concept that you're bringing up there around reclaiming and that it is something that we all need to do because we have all been socialized into systems that were shaped and designed by patriarchal governance, patriarchal deciders, patriarchal power, and this idea of being able to connect with our weakness, to own it, to feel it, to find value in it. Yeah, this is fascinating. And I think on a personal level, as individuals, as humans, whether in masculine or feminine shaped bodies, but also when we think about philanthropy as well, we have such an aversion to the idea of weakness in philanthropy. Another way of thinking about weakness, in the terminology of philanthropy, is risk. Oh, we are in the business of risk mitigation, risk minimization.
Efraín Gutierrez
Yeah.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
And so the more we get into this conversation, the more I'm just seeing these amazing, obvious threads of patriarchal norms deeply embedded into our system of philanthropy. So that's what's coming to my mind. But please tell us, when you think about the connection between patriarchy and philanthropy, what are the things that you see as the connections or the way philanthropy has been shaped by patriarchy?
Efraín Gutierrez
Well, let's go back to Carnegie, right, and The Gospel of Wealth. And here is where I want to invite us to be able to practice holding a historical figure in its context more than 100 years ago and say, “These folks did incredible work, and there are certain things that in the world that we live now, in the world that we deserve and that we're creating now, that's not going to cut it. But that's okay. That was 100 years ago.”
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Right.
Efraín Gutierrez
But even in the inception, if you read The Gospel of Wealth - this is even paraphrasing - but there is a part when he says, the businessman knows better than government and then the poor. So, it is novel for the businessman to take care of these monies instead of give it to the government or giving it directly to the poor, because we know better. It's like the whole idea of the benevolent patriarch. Yes, the benevolent patriarch is an archetype of a patriarch that doesn't use bell hooks definition. It's a patriarch that doesn't use violence as a means for domination, but still dominates. And the second part of it, which I think is very tied to philanthropy, is the idea that the benevolent patriarch knows about how good they are. And that kind of doesn't allow them to really have a level of self-critique, because together with the archetype of the benevolent patriarch, you usually have the “good girl” on the side. Women, I don't need to tell you about the “good girl,” but for the sake of this conversation, the idea of the “good girl,” or the archetype of the “good girl” with the benevolent patriarch is that the “good girl” is going to be rewarded by this patriarch. As long as they behave well, they “do good for daddy.” And that if you think about it, if you take it into how philanthropy works, nonprofits kind of have to be the “good girl.”
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Absolutely.
Efraín Gutierrez
As long as you feel like the way in which we have to treat program officers in a daily interaction, there is this royal almost like orchestrated way of having to ask for money. It's like you almost cannot ask for it, because it's almost like, take offense. No, I just want to catch up with you. There is all of these “good girl” type - I'm using the archetype, but It doesn't have to be a girl. But unfortunately, that's kind of how, historically, that's kind of how... Yeah, I don't need to apologize. I'm using something that I think it's helpful. But, yeah, I think that's kind of the connection. And I think the problem is that there are systems that were created by patriarchy, like capitalism, that also just assume that because you have the money, you have the control and the power, which, legally, it's true. And that's okay. I'm not saying no. But again, if we're truly around being in service and truly are about trying to help and to move things forward, then we should be able to go beyond these ways and really think about what works for us, for each situation, being very new and very nuanced, being very human.
But a lot of the performance culture that we have in philanthropy does not allow for our humanity, particularly in the funder nonprofit conversation. The power imbalance built by all of these systems make it hard for people to actually just be in a human relationship where people can say, “Do you want some water? Are you thirsty?”
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Right.
Efraín Gutierrez
We share so much. So that's one part. And then there is another whole part around how philanthropy was. It comes from a lot of ideas around banking, around business, and now lately, around Silicon Valley culture. So it comes with all of these ways of being and doing that are good when you're trying to compete and when you're trying to compare and destroy your competitors. But when you're thinking about love for humanity, when you're thinking about helping communities, when you're thinking about changing narratives, the work starts with us. Be the change you want to see in the world.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Yeah.
Efraín Gutierrez
I don't know. It's like the inward and the outside, right?
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
One, I think the more we think about this, the more and talk about it, and the more that you share your reflections, Efraín, the more I feel kind of sad for our industry. I don't know if that seems like a silly reaction or not, but I'm kind of like, wait, why are we…When you look at it and see these connections with what we know does not work on an individual human level, in a small unit level, on an organizational level, we know that there are better ways of doing things, and yet we have consistently reproduced these dynamics in trying to accomplish social change in our organization, in our funding organizations and our nonprofit organizations, in the way that they are in relationship to each other. And it just kind of, on the one hand, it makes me sad because I'm like, wow, we really are perpetuating everything that we know is wrong with the systems in the world. And my other reaction is, but that means that there's so many things we haven't tried, right? There's so much potential and possibility if we break out of some of these norms and unspoken rules that you've articulated and instead say, “What does it mean?”
How could we identify where the benevolent patriarch archetype is showing up, where the “good girl” archetype is showing up, and instead try on some new archetypes, try on some new outfits, like mix them up. It doesn't have to be all one archetype. Let's try a little bit of this, a little bit of this, a little bit of this, and figure out what really works for this incredibly complicated and nuanced and ever-changing work of social change instead of just putting on our black suit that we go to work in every day, if I'm to continue with my bad analogy of clothing. So, there's a lot of possibility to then recognize and name this and say, “Now I'm going to start looking out for where does my behavior show up as reinforcing patriarchal systems? And how can I challenge that?”
Efraín Gutierrez
Yeah.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
So then my question becomes for you: Can you help us name some of those everyday actions that we take in funding that are reinforcing the patriarchy and how you think we might be able to challenge those? How can one person acknowledge and name, okay, this is the thing that I'm doing that's reinforcing this dynamic. And here's an alternative that I could do instead, starting with small steps.
Efraín Gutierrez
Yeah, it makes me sad to share that feeling with you about like, oh my God, this is kind of sad. I like to live in the world of invitation. And the good news is that it's so easy, it's so close to us. Like, the revolutionary act that we're asking for is for people to be freaking human with each other. That's all we're asking for. For people to see each other in their humanity with compassion. Carol Gilligan, and this goes into responding to your question, second wave feminist Carol Gilligan talks about, I'm paraphrasing, but there is like, the ethics of justice, which is usually what the patriarchy and men are told to follow and the ethics of care. And when we're kids, Carol Gilligan says that men are taught to say, I don't care, and girls are taught to say, I don't know, although they do. Boys care and women know. But we are told this idea of, to follow these ideas and the reason why, let me bring it to why I'm saying this is because I think in philanthropy, we are still, in many ways, very on the side of this idea of justice.
And the problem with it is that justice, we're thinking about justice within the systems that we have, not around fairness. And that's when care comes in, because it might be just for you to, for example, treat your grantees the way that you do, in the way that we think about the relationship between grantees and funders. But if you get into the ethics of care, which is usually a more - and see how we're getting into binary - but it's usually more of a female, it's relegated into female contracts.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Right.
Efraín Gutierrez
Then you say, what do these people need? How do I need to treat these nonprofits? How do I need to treat this person in front of me, independently of who they are, in order for us to be of service? And that takes me into how it shows up in philanthropy. All of the perfectionism, the competition, comparison, and the power plays that we all know so well. I'm going to look at the camera. We're all so tired. Most of us are exhausted, particularly women, because now they're put into leadership positions with the impossible task of changing what nobody has been able to change for 100 years. But now they come with the right idea, and they're being asked to change things in two, three years or five. But I really believe that the only way in which these things are going to change is if we really start to change our behavior. And for that, it's a lot of work, the work of getting intrinsic value from yourself instead of from what people think about you. That's hard work. And that's what might take us into less competition and comparison. Because if you know who you are, then you are not that worried about what others think about you and trying to move up and scale up and be the boss and all of those. Then you can move with more ease in terms of what you want to do, who you want to be.
That's the work of liberation. When I think about some of my calling, that's my calling to tell people in an organization that are listening to this right now, I know you're tired. I know, your boss is just trying like, you're walking around their egos. Male, female, and gender non-conforming. We all sometimes subscribe to this stuff, but particularly men needs to be named because it's easier for us. It's expected from us. But guess what? We are already doing. The future, this conversation, our commitment to think about these things, is already a manifestation of the future. I see it every day. I see it when I work with my clients. I see it with my friends who also work in philanthropy, who are saying, enough. And in their little niche, in the way in which they treat themselves and their teams. We are starting to change. This was instigated. My opinion is this was instigated by Black women, Black feminism. But we're all getting on it, and it's going to be messy, and it's going to be beautiful, but it's time. We're tired. We're so tired of being in meetings that make no sense and not being able to say what we think. We just want to be us. We just want to say what we think and be valued for that. You don't have to do what I think. Just listen. Seems so simple, yet you get into institutional cultures and it's messy. It's a lot of work.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
It is. But I think what you're describing, it's so worth that work. It's so worth the discomfort of being in the mess.
Efraín Gutierrez
Yeah.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Because not only is that freeing for us as humans, who are not seen as full humans in the current way of working, but it also then allows us to come together in a different way. It allows us to say, this is what I bring to the table. And I can recognize that that's only one piece of the puzzle, a very small fraction of what it will take. And I know that that small fraction is an integral piece of a whole mosaic of other things that it is going to take. And we need to then do the work of learning how to do social change in community, instead of in silos, under job descriptions, and labels, and boxes, and competition, but to allow ourselves to show up in a new way, to truly work together. And I think that doing the work in a less lonely way, in a less competitive way, in a way that is really about creation amongst many of us, holding responsibility, holding the past, the way forward, the mistakes, the laughter, the successes together, it's not something that our current way of doing things allows for. But I think if we can get through to what you're describing, there's almost this picture of a more joyful community around the work for me.
Efraín Gutierrez
Yeah. I want a community that is like this. That's all from here.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Yes. Oh, my goodness.
Efraín Gutierrez
And it's all about looking into how domination is unquestioned. Domination and control have become so coded into how we manage and how we work that it's almost sometimes impossible to know which parts of this is us wanting to do something and which parts of it is just what we know we're supposed to, what we think we know we're supposed to do.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Yeah.
Efraín Gutierrez
So the work of undoing the patriarchy is daily work. It's practice. It's not a skill. You don't come here to this chat and get it. And it's a daily practice. It's a practice of continuing to think about the ways, and it's a self-discovery practice. It's a practice of saying, "How would I feel?” Like, what would make me feel good in how I show up. When you are considering the others as well, not just when you're considering yourself. But yeah, it really is the radical idea of people treating each other with care.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Right?
Efraín Gutierrez
How crazy is that?
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
When you say it like that? It's not so radical. And yet it is.
Efraín Gutierrez
That's what I'm saying. That's the irony of it, right? It's close. We can make it happen little by little. And I see it. I am working with a couple of clients that are going through it, and it's really messy and hard, and staff starts to ask questions that make sense, because we have come to a place where people's livelihoods depend on their job, and not only their livelihoods, but their personas. So, of course, people are terrified. We created this system where your boss, one person that is above you, can cut you off your health care and your livelihood, you can get another job, but that's scary, particularly if you have a family. So, yeah, it's like this work is hard work, and it requires a lot of patience. But I see particularly women right now are manifesting the future. I see queer people manifesting the future in different ways. I want to see men also joining and saying, “You know what? We're going to do this in this other way.”
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
It pains me to say this. We are running out of time.
Efraín Gutierrez
I had so much more to say! I think it's no.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Oh well, I guess my last kind of question for you, Efraín, is how do people continue this conversation? Because my guess is this is: for a lot of folks, the first or very early in their thought process or learning around thinking about the connection between patriarchy and philanthropy. And so they might be sitting there listening, thinking, “Wow, I haven’t thought about it this way. I need space, or I need to continue this conversation, or I need to figure out how to not let this thought end when this video ends.”
Efraín Gutierrez
Yeah.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
How do people act on these realizations and awareness?
Efraín Gutierrez
Yeah. And I would love to also leave you with a thought, please. Now, addressing your question, I am going about this body of work a little bit differently on purpose.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Okay.
Efraín Gutierrez
I started last year thinking that I was going to create something, a center, this, that. And very quickly my femtors were like, Efrain, you're doing the patriarchy again. You want to be the center. You want to do this thing. You want to walk through the process, become the work. Find your people. So last year was a little bit of my seminal year. And what I mean by that is that I was just being exposed to different ways of men's work. I was reading a lot around this topic, and I was just thinking and starting to find people that might be interested in this work. This year, I'm starting to talk to folks that want to build something - not building, we're not building anything - that want to see what might grow together, which can work in many ways. I think philanthropy only allows us one way, which is the individualistic. Like, the individual that has an idea that either puts a book out or speaks at conferences, and that is one way to do it, and it's a very powerful way to do it. I am challenging myself in this idea of feminism and doing things differently.
I'm walking the process and I'm trying to find my fellow travelers. So if you want to continue to have a conversation about this, if you're a funder that is interested in learning more about how to change. I don't call it coaching, but I do companionship for a few folks just to think through, a couple of male identifying folk to think through how it's showing up and how they treat others. If you just want to chat, just contact me on LinkedIn. And if you want to start a group, if you have a group, if you're interested in this, if this resonated with you, male, female, gender, nonconforming, everybody. I am open and willing to continue this journey. There might be something that is built at some point, maybe when this comes out or something and we share. But at this point, I'm continuing to keep this body of work this way.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Fantastic. So, yeah, if you are interested in continuing this conversation with Efraín, please reach out to them on LinkedIn. There's your invitation.
Efraín Gutierrez
You will get them the link.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Brilliant! And you said you had another thought that you wanted to share.
Efraín Gutierrez
I want to leave people with one thought because usually, and this is also inspired by bell hooks, part of the reason why it's been so difficult to include men in this conversation is because we don't have compassion for men. We usually think of men as the problem because in many ways we have been. But we should be able to hold different “both/and” truths about the fact that there is a need for, as bell hooks says, loving men. And I have a little bit of a reflection, a quick reflection. I know we need to finish up, but a few days ago I watched this comedian at Saturday Night Live say this joke that I'm going to paraphrase.
Shane Gillis, I think who's, believe me, I was listening with a lot of caution, but stay with me, he said, “My mom asked me, ‘When did we stop being best friends, Shane?’ And I think she was right. You remember when you used to be a little boy, he said to the audience, you all remember when you used to be a little boy, you loved your mom so much and you thought she was the coolest thing. Remember when you were a little gay boy? Every little boy is their mom's best gay friend. He said, there's zero difference. Tell me how was your day girl? We used to dance with our moms.” And he goes in a gross way to talk about it, but in general, it's like, when do we stop being good friends with our moms? When we start looking at girls or thinking about sex. And I was like, comedy has such a way of bringing very real understandings of the world to our minds. And I was just very sad to hear how Shane was not able to see in his comedy that it's when we are little boys that we're fully human.
That's what I'm trying to go back to with this. I'm trying to go back to that little Efraín that was cute and nice and wanted to help and was connected to his feelings. And bell hooks reminds us that the first act of violence the patriarchy demands of men is not violence against women. The patriarchy demands that we engage in psychic self-mutilation. And she uses that violent word on purpose. We have to kill our emotional parts, the emotional parts of ourselves. We're not successful or if we live in a household that allows us to continue to have those if we don't emotionally cripple ourselves.
As bell hooks also says, we can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals, power, to assault our self-esteem when we're kids. So I want to leave you with, for those of you who were raised or socialized as men with this idea, that those wounds are real, that you can feel them, and that it's okay for you to think about the parts of yourself that you have to lose to the patriarchy. And think about how you can. How can you? It's still part of you deep in there, isn’t there? So think about it. And I am sorry. It is traumatic for us. But on the other side, it can be beautiful to reconstitute ourselves, to be able to live in a way that feels more aligned to who we are. So I'll leave you with those thoughts. And if you haven't, and if you're interested, read, please, The Will to Change by bell hooks. It's going to change your life.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Thank you. What a wonderful, and you use this phrase at the beginning of our conversation, what a wonderful, heart-centered encouragement for anybody listening. I hope that folks are able to listen to this conversation with equal parts of their professional selves and their human selves, because this has been a really beautiful and intimate conversation that I feel very grateful for you sharing with me. Thank you for being here.
Efraín Gutierrez
Thank you. Thank you so much for the opportunity. This is life's work. So I'm very thankful for the opportunity to share with your audience.
Jessamyn Shams-Lau
Well, audience, that is everything that we have time for today. We encourage you, if you'd like to get in touch with Efraín and continue this conversation, you can find them on LinkedIn. If you are interested in learning about the programs that Camelback Ventures hosts, we host a space for white-identifying philanthropic leaders and funder leaders to come and go on a journey learning more about what it means to advance anti-racism racial justice within the organizations that they work in. Please come and find us on the Camelback website, the Capital Collaborative program. And that is really all we have for today. So, just thank you so much, Efraín. Thank you to everybody for joining us, and we'll see you again soon.
The Capital Collaborative by Camelback Ventures works with white funders and social impact investors who want to deepen their individual and organizational commitment to racial and gender equity in philanthropy — but may not know how. In Fall 2024, Capital Collaborative will launch a two-year cohort designed explicitly for board members, trustees, and wealth-holders who want to discover ways to cede their power and create space for new forms of governance to flourish. You can learn more about how to get involved by submitting an interest form or signing up for the newsletter.