Don McPherson

Don McPherson landed in the national spotlight as the heroic quarterback who led Syracuse University to an undefeated season in 1987. He followed this with stints with the Philadelphia Eagles and the Houston Oilers in the NFL, before concluding his football career in the Canadian Football League. Upon retiring from football in 1994 at age twenty-nine, McPherson has dedicated his life to helping reduce men's violence against women. As McPherson probed his past to understand what it means to be...See more

Don McPherson landed in the national spotlight as the heroic quarterback who led Syracuse University to an undefeated season in 1987. He followed this with stints with the Philadelphia Eagles and the Houston Oilers in the NFL, before concluding his football career in the Canadian Football League. Upon retiring from football in 1994 at age twenty-nine, McPherson has dedicated his life to helping reduce men's violence against women. As McPherson probed his past to understand what it means to be a man, he unearthed the language of shame, bravado, and stoic posturing, quintessentially captured by the insult "You throw like a girl," which succinctly illustrates the foundation of men's violence against women: the belief that girls and women are somehow "less than." This led to a deeper, inescapable truth that we do not raise boys to be men; we instead raise them not to be women--or gay men. Here, McPherson examines the strict set of behaviors and beliefs that he calls the mandate, performance, promise, and lie of masculinity, and arrives at the following question: if male privilege comes at the expense of women, is it truly privilege (and does it belong to men?), or is it more accurately defined as oppression? The violence committed by athletes like NFL stars Ray Rice and Kareem Hunt might fit a familiar narrative of "violent black men" and entitled athletes. Similarly, the sexual abuse and misconduct by powerful and wealthy men from Hollywood to Congress is so commonplace that their cover-ups and hush money are held in greater disdain than their original crimes against women. Yet in each case, we fail to examine masculinity; we simply look away. Using examples from his own life, including his storied football career, McPherson passionately argues that we should no longer consider this a "women's issue" but a "men's issue." In You Throw Like a Girl , McPherson analyzes how we can engage men in a sustained dialogue, with a new set of terms that are aspirational and more accurately representative of the emotional wholeness of men. If we do this honestly and courageously, McPherson says, we will find the depths of our humanity: vulnerability, fear, insecurity, and love. See less