Amanda, considering if MRAs ((Men’s Rights Activists.)) have any legitimate complaints, makes a few points I agree with. (Amanda was bouncing off this post at Shakesville, which — incredibly — has gotten over 1,000 comments.) Typically, I’m going to ignore points of agreement and instead concentrate on nit-picking. Amanda writes:
What about the draft? Only men get drafted.
It’s indicative of the intellectual emptiness of MRA thought that in order to show discrimination against men, they have to reach for a practice that hasn’t been activated in the U.S. since women weren’t allowed into the Ivy Leagues or to sit on juries in Texas. […]
But the draft issue is misguided for two reasons: One is that the need for and the practice of the draft are both results of the patriarchy’s tendency to war-monger and ill-informed notions about women’s weakness. The other reason is that the draft argument implies, quite wrongly, that men bear the most cost of war. In reality, the vast majority of war casualties are unarmed civilians, and they come in all ages and genders.
Certainly the US draft is an issue of only symbolic relevance today; but it’s nonetheless objectionable on its own sexist merits, without implying anything who bears most of the costs of war. (And if we don’t limit our view to the United States, military conscription is alive and well today).
Amanda is right that “the vast majority of war casualties are unarmed civilians.” But the Shakesville post she cites, which says “In the 20th century, 90 percent of all war deaths were unarmed women, children, and men,” is mistaken to suggest that’s been the case for the whole 20th century. The likely original source of that statistic is Patricia Hynes’ work. ((H. Pratricia Hynes, “On the Battlefield of Women’s Bodies; An Overview of the Harm of War to Women,” Women’s Studies International Forum 27 (2004) 431-445. Pdf link.)) Hynes writes:
Civilian deaths as a percent of all deaths, direct and indirect, from war rose from between 60 and 67 percent in World War II to 90 percent in the 1990s (Renner, 1999; Garfield & Neugut, 2000), a trend that makes the enterprise of war increasingly unjust, when those who wage it are a diminishing fraction of those who suffer its consequences.
The few recent studies that have examined the death toll of war on females and males have concluded that equal numbers of civilian women and girls die of war-related injuries as civilian men and boys (Reza et. al, 2001; Murray et al., 2002). In 1990, one of the only years for which female civilian deaths were computed, an estimated 211,000 women and girls were killed in war (Reza et al., 2001). Many more, from 2-13 times more, are likely to have been injured (Murray et al., 2002). This data does not include the increased suicide and premature death that would directly result from the sexual torture, despair and destitution of women in conflict-ridden and armed societies.
I know that MRAs would have counter-arguments purporting to show that men are the overwhelming victims of war (and, indeed, of everything). That’s not an argument I want to be drawn into; I don’t know which sex is victimized “more” by war, and I don’t care. It’s pretty obvious that women, men and children are all victimized in great numbers by war.
[UPDATE: As I predicted, Daran at Feminist Critics has put up a post, arguing that Hynes’ research is unreliable. Assuming Daran’s factual claims are accurate I think Daran’s pretty persuasive on that point. My main point — which is that huge numbers of adults and children of both sexes are casualties of war — is not opposed by Daran, if I’m reading him correctly.]
But we don’t have to agree that “men bear the most cost of war” to notice that, just as there are particular war crimes that happen overwhelmingly to women (most obviously, rape), there are particular war crimes that happen overwhelmingly to men. In Gender and Genocide, Adam Jones compiles a great deal of evidence showing that groups of unarmed men — sometimes men and women both, but most often only men — are commonly rounded up and slaughtered during wartime, perhaps to prevent them from later resisting.
Kosovo, 1999. “Shortly before dawn on April 27, according to locals, a large contingent of Yugoslav army troops garrisoned in Junik started moving eastward through the valley, dragging men from their houses and pushing them into trucks. ‘Go to Albania!’ they screamed at the women before driving on to the next town with their prisoners. By the time they got to Meja they had collected as many as 300 men. The regular army took up positions around the town while the militia and paramilitaries went through the houses grabbing the last few villagers and shoving them out into the road. The men were surrounded by fields most of them had worked in their whole lives, and they could look up and see mountains they’d admired since they were children. Around noon the first group was led to the compost heap, gunned down, and burned under piles of cornhusks. A few minutes later a group of about 70 were forced to lie down in three neat rows and were machine-gunned in the back. The rest — about 35 men — were taken to a farmhouse along the Gjakove road, pushed into one of the rooms, and then shot through the windows at point-blank range. The militiamen who did this then stepped inside, finished them off with shots to the head, and burned the house down. They walked away singing.”
To be sure, ((The phrase “to be sure” is copyright and trademark Hack Editorial Writers Of America. Used by permission.)) in the overwhelming majority of cases the people doing the slaughtering — and the ruling class which made the decision to commit such atrocities against men — are themselves male. I don’t believe that makes it illegitimate for men’s rights activists to be concerned with atrocities against men, however. ((You could argue that the idea of “oppression” requires there to be an oppressed class and an oppressor class, and that men — as the oppressor class — cannot be oppressed as men. I don’t agree with that; but even if I did agree, it would still be the case that men can suffer systematic harm without being the oppressed class, and it makes no sense to object to people objecting to such systematic harms.))
Back to Amanda’s post:
Well, that was a downer. What about how sitcoms make men like overgrown babies and buffoons?
[…] In order to make the argument work that male buffoonery on TV is based on an anti-male sentiment, then you have to assume that women in these shows and commercials are generally portrayed well. MRAs generally try to do this, saying women are held up as paragons of competence, and there’s something to this. But the larger story is that the standard buffoon husband/competent wife pair on TV comes with a thick dose of misogyny—the competent women are generally portrayed as humorless, fun-killing, finger-wagging prudish bores.
I agree, and I’d add — to quote a post of mine — that there’s a technical term for the “standard buffoon” in a TV comedy; this part is called “the Lead.”
As in the leading role, the central role, the funny role, the better role. What actor in the world, given the choice, would rather play Zeppo than Harpo? The smart, levelheaded, competent wife is the secondary part, which is why the shows aren’t named “Everybody Loves Debra” or “According to Cheryl” (or, for that matter, “I Love Ricky”).
Which sex gets to play the leads is a measure of which actors Hollywood is willing to give the juiciest roles and the highest salaries. The sexism in these sitcoms hurts both men and women, and that’s worth objecting to — but it’s not a sign of male disadvantage.
Again, back to Amanda’s post:
What about how men tend to die on the job more than women? Isn’t that unfair?
More hand-waving, especially from MRAs, who tend to be the first to decry efforts to fix the pay gap between men and women. Men die on the job more because men are more likely to have the blue collar jobs that put workers in danger—and therefore take home the larger paycheck than women of that socioeconomic class, who tend to have pink collar jobs that pay much less.
Surprisingly, MRAs tend to understate the scope of the workplace death problem in the USA, because they usually miss the larger problem; they focus on men killed in workplace accidents but overlook deaths caused by workplace-related disease, which are probably about 84% male. There are about 6,000 accidental workplace deaths in the US each year, and about 100,000 deaths due to workplace-caused diseases.
Amanda is wrong, however, to think that this discrepancy is strongly related to the pay gap. In general, the workers in the least safe jobs have very little recourse or power; is it any surprise that they also get lousy pay?
To once again quote myself, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics investigated job traits that are associated with wage premiums, they found that “Job attributes relating to … physically demanding or dangerous jobs… do not seem to affect wages.” Here’s a bar graph. As you can see, what pays most is specialized knowledge. The very tiniest bar, all the way over on the right, that’s actually slightly negative? That’s the “death and exposure” effect on wages.
So no, higher male deaths in the workplace aren’t connected to higher male wages. And the higher rate of workplace-related deaths is a legitimate concern for men’s rights activists.
* * *
Here’s where I agree with Amanda: I think the MRAs are, if anything, counterproductive. Most MRAs are focused first and foremost on attacking feminism, and helping men comes in second place (at best). But feminists aren’t the ones setting the draft laws, or starting wars, or casting TV shows, or running work sites.
Take the example of workplace-related deaths. The best public policy for reducing those deaths is to crack down on workers’ exposure to dangerous substances, to beef up OSHA, and to make it easier for workers to unionize. These steps, however, would be opposed by the large majority of MRAs, who are reflexively right-wing.
I long for a better men’s rights movement — one that substantively talks about the significant, systematic harm to men that occurs without seeking to blame feminism or to pretend that sexism against women doesn’t matter. One that could seriously address not only conscription, war, sexist media, and workplace deaths, but also bullying of weak boys, discrimination against gay men and transmen, forced labor, emotional alienation, the insanely high incarceration rate for black men, the uneven work/family divide that harms mothers and fathers, the problems of abused and raped men, and a host of other “men’s issues.”
But the men’s rights movement we have is, frankly, too often not just useless on these issues, but actually regressive. And feminism, by and large, can’t give these issues much attention; it has its hands full just trying to deal with monumental injustice against women.
You might get some good out of a new word, something to describe someone who is 100% with you on the whole equality thing but a little fuzzy on bell hooks.
Gosh, I’m a little fuzzy on bell hooks and I’m still a feminist. Is that not allowed?
I’m with DBB, here. Amp, I think you underestimate the level of reasonable disagreement that is possible with feminist theory.
You act like DBB disagrees with feminist theory because he has failed to familiarize himself with the “basics of feminism.” Yet some of us have familiarized ourselves with the basics of feminism, and (a) we still don’t buy it, or (b) we can’t tell what the basics are, because the arguments feminists provide for them are either incoherent, question-begging, or lacking.
You seek to correct DBB’s interpretations of the terms “patriarchy” and “feminism.” This seems to miss his point. I think DBB is talking about the discourses of how feminists use terms like “patriarchy.” While I’m interested in what feminists say their terms mean, I am more interested in what feminists do with those terms. As I’m sure you are aware, what political movements say and what they do are often two different things; feminism is no exception. Of course, you probably don’t believe that there are large discrepancy between feminists say and what feminists do, yet some people do have reasons to believe that there is a discrepancy.
Amp said:
I don’t believe this, and I don’t think DBB does, either. Yet haven’t feminist linguists and philosophers of language long argued that the gendering of language is important? Why would terms like “feminism” and “patriarchy” be exceptions?
Jake Squid said:
But who is “the oppressed class?” Yes, I know, it’s women, duh. That’s obvious… to you. Terminology like “oppressed class” is loaded with a ton of hidden assumptions, which feminists keep trying to sneak in. Use of jargon such as “oppressed class” to justify feminism is simply question-begging and self-referential.
What if men are also an “oppressed class?” If so, by focusing on women, you would rectify inequalities that disadvantage women while leaving in place inequalities that disadvantage men. Yet such a world—in which women’s oppression has been rectified by men’s has not—would not be very “equal,” now, would it?
I guess I am concerned with the oppressed class: people, who are oppressed by an antiquated gender system that feminists mistakenly label “patriarchy.”
No, I act like he hasn’t familiarized himself with the basics of feminism because his arguments sound like he hasn’t familiarized himself with the basics of feminism.
No duh. So what?
You seem to think that because I think a particular non-feminist isn’t familiar with the basics of feminism, it is therefore reasonable for you to conclude that I’m arguing that everyone who doesn’t buy feminism must not be familiar with the basics of feminism. But that’s not a reasonable inference for you to make.
I think DBB’s posts here on “Alas” betray his incomprehension of the basics of feminism. I also think that it is possible for people — such as you — to be familiar with feminism 101, and yet not be feminists. These two beliefs of mine are not at all contrary to each other.
1) I refuse the implication that I’m somehow required to keep my views consistent with everything any other feminist has ever said. I am one feminist; I’ll attempt, within reason, to keep my views consistent with themselves.
2) I do think gendering of language that should be neutral — such as “chairman” or “mailman” — does matter. I disagree that “feminism” or “patriarchy” needs to be neutral. They aren’t gender-neutral terms, and they shouldn’t be, because what they’re describing isn’t gender-neutral.
3) The disagreement between DBB and myself isn’t over whether or not these terms are gender neutral. I don’t have to believe that the term “patriarchy” is gender-neutral to believe that it doesn’t mean “blame everything on men” or “there has never been a female senator,” or to think that someone who makes such a claim is ignorant about how feminists like me use the term.
Nope. But why does feminism has to be in charge of doing everything? It’s a big world, with a lot of wrongs to be rectified. No one movement can do everything, or should be expected to do everything.
That said, I do think feminism helps men; it’s just that helping men isn’t its primary focus. It helps men directly, in some cases, and it helps men as part of improving society generally, by questioning and attacking harmful gender roles. It’s true that not as many strides have been made for men’s gender roles as for women’s in the past 50 years, but very large strides have in fact been made for men, and much of that is because of feminism. Look at how rapidly the population of stay at home dads has grown; look at the increasing acceptance of male secretaries, elementary school teachers, etc; it’s unlikely these changes (incomplete as they are) would have come about without feminism.
And yes, in the hypothetical world you describe, I think “feminism” per se would lose any point in existing. But we’re not in that world.
This becomes so very tiresome.
Hugh and DBB: It is not hard to understand that the position of men within feminism is a problematic one, nor do I think that most feminists would disagree–at least the ones I know have never disagreed–that feminist discourse is not always going to work as that through which men can speak about our own experience of gender roles. To the degree that feminism is about female subjectivity, about privileging female subjectivity, men, our lives and our experiences will remain, largely, objects of feminist analysis. (If this makes you uncomfortable, imagine what it has been like for women to have been objects of patriarchal analysis for all these centuries; and if you think that the patriarchal objectification of women is no longer a substantial part of our culture, if you think we have come far enough that we don’t need a way of seeing things that puts women’s subjectivity at the center, then I think you need only look at the reasoning offered in the Supreme Court’s recent decision regarding so-called partial-birth abortions. Whatever one thinks about the procedure itself, the reasoning–or at least the part of the reasoning that justifies outlawing the procedure in order to protect women–is patronizing beyond belief.)
The fact that men are objects within feminism, of course, does not mean that feminist discourse cannot be a useful lens through which men can understand ourselves and how our lives are constructed by and within the system of gender roles that all the various feminisms that there are have set themselves against; it does not mean that men cannot use feminist discourse as a foundation or a building block–choose your metaphor–for constructing an anti-gender role discourse that puts men’s subjectivity at the center, a discourse, in other words, that will parallel feminism, that will speak men’s experience without feeling the need to cancel feminism out….because, in my experience anyway, it is that need, the need to cancel feminism out, the need to say that feminism is obsolete, that it has done its work and now we need to get on with the project of “true equality” (whatever that means; and it means an awful lot of things to an awful lot of people), it is that need on the part of men who make the kinds of arguments that you do that is the problem.
To argue that men and women are equally oppressed by a system of gender roles, that men and women share equally in the creation of that system, that men and women benefit equally from the inequities of that system, is, frankly, intellectually dishonest. Not because gender roles cannot be oppressive of men (just look at the way, say, one aspect of racism in the US and elsewhere is the pervasive and consistent feminization/emasculation of men who are not white), not because gender roles do not hurt men as individuals, not because women are not responsible for the ways in which they participate in and reinforce gender roles, not because there are not ways in which women can turn the gender role system to their individual–and, at times, perhaps collective–benefit. No, it is intellectually dishonest because the argument that men and women are equally oppressed by gender roles requires a wilfull blindness to the differences between men’s and women’s subjective experience of gender roles, because it suggests that because men’s experience is different from women’s, women’s experience, and the discourse feminism has built up around that experience, is invalid. It is, in other words, an either/or argument in disguise, and that makes it dishonest.
Amp said:
Very well, I’ll take your word for it. Actually, after re-reading DBB’s posts I kind of see why you had that response. He said:
I have big problems with feminist use of the term “patriarchy,” but I don’t think feminists use it to mean “exclusively male rule.” Feminist theories of patriarchy can allow the existence of some female rulers, as long as these women exemplify appropriately masculine values.
Goodness, Amp, I’m not requiring anything of you. I pointed out these feminist views on language because I thought you would be more likely to find them credible.
The argument here is not that terms like “feminism” and “patriarchy” should be gender neutral. The argument is that their gendered nature is meaningful. How exactly it is meaningful is up for debate. For me, the gendered nature of the term “feminism” is not a major problem with it, but it does connote some things about feminism that are true, like how it is focused on women’s needs and interests. For the record, I am often frustrated by anti-feminists who criticize feminism by nitpicking about the name; I am much more interested in an empirical discussion of what feminists say and do, than an analytical discussion of the movement’s name.
Amp said:
Actually, I don’t believe that feminism has to be in charge of doing everything. As I’ve argued in the past, it’s ok for feminism to be woman-centered… but if so, then it can’t pretend that it is about “equality.” Feminism is about equalities that can be gained by rectifying the oppression of women (and sometimes about equalities that occur when feminist advocacy has the side-effect of helping men). Since feminism is not directly about rectifying the equalities that effect half the species, it is not about “equality” in general.
Note that here I’m not arguing that feminists should necessarily do more for men, or stop being focused on women; I am arguing that they should represent what they do more accurately. Saying that feminism is about “equality” is misleading. And it leads many people to hold feminism to the standard of directly attacking inequalities that hurt men, a standard that feminists don’t want to be held to. Perhaps if feminism represented what it does more accurately, people would have less complaints about it.
R.J.Newman
Perhaps, but who’s actually saying that? On this thread, I mean.
Thanks for the extensive response, RJN.
In observing the privileging of women’s perspectives by feminism, it doesn’t particularly comfort me to know that men’s subjectivity has been privileged throughout history. In fact, it only depresses me that we still haven’t gotten past the point of privileging one gender’s subjectivity over the other’s. Are we just going to keep flipping back and forth?
You are correct that feminist analysis, even in its current flawed and biased forms, can be a source of interesting insights for men (even though it can be damaging to men in other ways).
It is possible for men to create an anti-gender role discourse that is inspired by feminism. However, the more such as discourse puts men’s subjectivity at the center, the more it must diverge from feminism. Why? Because feminism is a system based on women’s experiences. Women’s and men’s experience of the world overlap in many ways, and differ in other ways. Feminism is built by failing to take into account men’s perspectives (or only taking into account the perspectives of men who agree with it). Consequently, any men’s anti-gender role project would eventually uncover areas in which men’s experience conflicts with feminism. Even if it started from the foundation of feminism, it would eventually have to rebuild those foundations, or it would have to constrain or marginalize men’s experiences to fit on top of those foundations.
Remember, this experiment has already been tried many times. Look at Warren Farrell.
I agree that there are those who think that feminism is obsolete and has done its work; I don’t. Feminism is still doing work that needs to be done (in addition to creating problems that don’t need to be created).
I agree this argument is implausible (though not necessarily intellectually dishonest); I wonder who is arguing this? All I’ve suggested is that men are oppressed also, not just women. This argument does not require that men are “equally oppressed.” Actually, my intuition is that either (a) women are oppressed more, or (b) the oppression of men and women is not comparable in any quantitative manner.
You are correct that gender roles hurt men as individuals, yet I hope you are not implying that they only hurt men as individuals. As you yourself point out, the feminization/emasculation of non-white men is “pervasive and consistent,” along with many other systematic harms to men.
Doing this would simply re-privilege men’s experiences over women’s, which is not my goal. What is necessary instead is a dialog that attempts to reconcile men’s and women’s experiences when they differ, or at least explain why they differ. Since feminism privileges women’s experience so highly, it is an impediment to such as dialog.
I wish I had more time, but let me respond to this, which Hugh wrote:
This misconstrues entirely–and, I would argue, wilfully–the nature of the feminist project. It is not a failure to take men’s perspectives into acc0unt that feminism is built on; rather, one, central building block of feminism is a critical engagement with, and taking apart of, what men’s perspective(s) about women have been and continue to be. It is this notion that feminism fails to take men’s perpsective into account that is the impediment to dialogue.
RJN said:
You are right that feminism isn’t built on marginalizing men’s perspectives, in the sense that feminists didn’t get together one day and decide to build a movement that ignores men’s experience. How about I put it a bit differently: The way feminism is built on women’s experiences tends to exclude, ignore, or marginalize men’s perspectives, in areas where men’s perspectives systematically differ from women’s. If women tend to feel X about a certain subject, and men tend to feel Y, feminism will usually go with X. Whether this stance is problematic is another question, but is this a fair assessment of typical feminist discourse?
Hugh wrote:
I am going to repeat myself: One, central building block of feminism is a critical engagement with, and taking apart of, what men’s perspective(s) about women have been and continue to be. In other words, feminism does not exclude, ignore or marginalize men’s perspective(s), even in many cases where those perspectives systematically differ from women’s. That paying attention to these perspectives from within women’s subjective experience can often result in the marginalization and even objectification of men’s subjective experience of living within the cultural system that gave rise to those perspectives is, it seems to me, a no brainer. Again, I will say that the impediment to dialogue is not that feminism takes women’s subjectivity as its center, but rather the assumption that putting women’s subjectivity at the center is in itself inherently flawed. I don’t mean that the vision that results from this move is, by definition, without flaw; of course it can be flawed. But the suspicion of female subjectivity that seems to me to be at the heart of your critique also does not seem to me so different from the ways in which women’s intellectual and creative endeavors have been seen as suspect for centuries.
I would also point out that there is a difference between the center and the frame. Feminisms’ frame, or at least one of feminisms’ frames, is that we live in a systemically male dominant culture and that this male dominance is pervasive, even when individual men and/or groups of men do not always benefit equally from the privilege of that dominance and even when individual women and/or groups of women do not always suffer equally from the disenfranchisement of women’s second-class status. If, to use your formulation, women are more oppressed than men, who oppresses women? Who benefits from their oppression? Who oppresses men? Who benefits from our oppression? I would you would agree that the answer to this question is not “the system of gender roles” or “society” because neither of those can exist separately from the people who embody them, even while they are both obviously beyond the control of any one individual or group of individuals. For me, if you look at both men’s and women’s experience of what I imagine you would call gender oppression (I would not call it that for men), it is, overall, heterosexual men’s greater privilege or at least the system of values that defines, enforces and perpetuates heterosexual men’s greater privilege, and that we all embody, that is strengthened. And that is not because I am looking at things from women’s perspective or because I am privileging women’s feelings about X over my own feelings as man. It is because of what I have experienced as a man and it is because of the way I understand that experience through the lens of my own perspective. Is my perspective informed by feminism? Yes. Has coming to terms with feminism changed my perspective in order to account for women’s experience and perspective? Yes. But when I say what I say about feminism, I am not saying it as a proxy woman, nor am I denying or marginalizing or objectifying my own experience, which is what would be the case if your formulation:
were accurate.
More Robert Jensen:
We need to get rid of the whole idea of masculinity. It’s time to abandon the claim that there are certain psychological or social traits that inherently come with being biologically male. That dominant conception of masculinity in U.S. culture is easily summarized: Men are assumed to be naturally competitive and aggressive, and being a real man is therefore marked by the struggle for control, conquest and domination. That’s not to suggest, of course, that every man adopts that view of masculinity. But it is endorsed in key institutions and activities — most notably in business, the military and athletics — and is reinforced through the mass media. Of course, if we are going to jettison masculinity, we have to scrap femininity along with it. I don’t think the planet can long survive if the current conception of masculinity endures. We face political and ecological challenges that can’t be met with this old model of what it means to be a man. At the more intimate level, the stakes are just as high. For those of us who are biologically male, we have a simple choice: We men can settle for being men, or we can strive to be human beings.
dbb and Hugh, I agree that w/r/t gender relations, the table is not full if it is filled with feminists and pro-feminists only. A distinct men’s voice that takes makes men’s experiences its central focus will be needed. I do not think that this movement would reach anywhere near the size or scale of feminism, because it is not needed to be. To a lesser extent, race relations are incomplete without a distinct white voice.
Pro-men, in this case, is not a synonym for anti-woman, which is why the men’s rights movement as it exists today will not nearly suffice. It’s not just feminists – ask the average man on the street if he thinks female-on-male domestic violence is as serious as the converse, and he’ll probably ask if he’s on Leno.
“Men are assumed to be naturally competitive and aggressive, and being a real man is therefore marked by the struggle for control, conquest and domination.”
I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with this. Competition and aggression are natural and can be used for good or ill; it’s just a question of where it is applied. The fight to save the planet will require competitive and aggressive men. (And competitive women, and cooperative men, et cetera, et cetera.)
But if we were to assume Jensen’s premises were correct, what do you suppose can be done about it? As a group, let’s say men are better served by moving away from the masculine paradigm. But that doesn’t apply to the individual level, where men are helped, if not by wholly embracing it, then at least by keeping it close at hand. Seems like a bit of prisoner’s dilemma. Would this require some sort of group level coordination? (Unless you’re one to say that individual level versus group level thought is itself dependent on masculine paradigms, in which this whole thing loops and twists back into itself like an Escher sketch observed while high.)
“Men are assumed to be naturally competitive and aggressive, and being a real man is therefore marked by the struggle for control, conquest and domination.”
Women are as competitive and aggressive as men but in different ways. The problem in this quote is that “real men” are marked by the struggle for control, conquest and domination. This traditional view of masculinity leads to most of men’s problems, our problems and the planet’s problems as this article, “The High Cost of Manliness” suggests. Jensen recommends the eradication of masculinity and femininity which are merely social constructions. But the social constructions of traditional masculinity and femininity are endorsed as he says by key institutions like business, the military, sports and the mass media.
donna darko
I have to agree that it’s an issue of gender roles. It’s sad that the debate has been trapped in “sides”. Feminism is intrinsically female-0riented, and MRA is intrinsically male (and many of the MRA groups are pro-patriarchy).
dbb and Hugh, I agree that w/r/t gender relations, the table is not full if it is filled with feminists and pro-feminists only. A distinct men’s voice that takes makes men’s experiences its central focus will be needed.
Not sure I’m following the notion that “a distinct men’s voice” is the opposite of “feminist” or “pro-feminist”.
Pingback: Feminist Critics
No, silenced, the opposite of feminism is the patriarchy which reinforces gender roles. Deconstructing gender roles is in the interest of both feminists and MRAs. The only people doing that are feminists.
w/r/t gender relations, the table is not full if it is filled with feminists and pro-feminists only. A distinct men’s voice that takes makes men’s experiences its central focus will be needed. I do not think that this movement would reach anywhere near the size or scale of feminism, because it is not needed to be. To a lesser extent, race relations are incomplete without a distinct white voice.
What, drumming in the woods and bitching about women? The distinct white voices in race relations are called anti-racist allies so the closest thing to distinct male voices would be feminist allies. Bitching in the woods about POC is called the KKK.
“Deconstructing gender roles is in the interest of both feminists and MRAs. The only people doing that are feminists.”
How about this gender role, which I think is also one of the legitimate complaints that men have, and that some MRAs have pointed out: men’s supposed incompetence in dealing with babies – even their own infants?
It seems to me the one gender stereotype that no one questions is that the mother/infant bond is instinctual and universally present, and that the father/infant bond is, well – surprising when it occurs.
I wrote about my experience of this here. Both men and woman reinforce this stereotype. I won’t characterize why women reinforce it, but men do because a) if they really are lazy and distant, they have an handy excuse, and b) they consider care of babies “woman’s work” and “not manly.”
As a supposed universal gender truth it serves no one. I’m sure there are some woman that really don’t react well to the burden of those first few months, and they feel some shame as a result. And because there is no expectation that fathers should provide hands-on baby care every bit as well and often as mothers, fathers miss out on some early bonding that helps build a good foundation for the father-child relationship.
Sweating, not all feminists are the same. And not all women are feminists. There really are feminists talking about fatherhood, and saying that men can and should handle babies just fine.
“I’m sure there are some woman that really don’t react well to the burden of those first few months, and they feel some shame as a result.”
Surely such women aren’t pathologized to the extent that there’s an entire medical disorder reacting to them as abnormal. Surely not.
“Women are as competitive and aggressive as men but in different ways. The problem in this quote is that “real men” are marked by the struggle for control, conquest and domination.”
All right, but according to that quote, men are meant to be competitive and aggressive *therefore* they must struggle for conquest, domination, yada yada yada. The latter is implied by the former, so I’m wondering if your definitions of competition and aggression are straining the common sense meanings of the term. Conquest and control, at least at the smaller level, are very important, because bad guys need to be conquered and controlled. On broad average, I’d say men are better suited for this than women.
Of course, the same principle applied on larger, institutional scales can only bring oppression, tyranny, and every so often a mass genocide. This is mainly because large institutions (such as a colonizing empire) pick on smaller institutions or individuals (such as a colony), and I was taught that part of *good* masculinity was to not fight those who, through no fault of their own, are in a position of great weakness relative to you. But I suppose the chivalrous aspects of masculinity are inherently of the sort, like religious commandments, that are applied only when convenient. So if the whole damn system is problematic, I could see it all scrapped and not lose any sleep over it.
“What, drumming in the woods and bitching about women? The distinct white voices in race relations are called anti-racist allies so the closest thing to distinct male voices would be feminist allies. Bitching in the woods about POC is called the KKK.”
Part of what makes a voice distinct if it is allowed to speak and argue independently. A distinct men’s voice must be able to speak against feminism where men’s interests are concerned. Whether or not it should is, of course, a matter of whatever issue’s at hand.
Also, colour me purple but I don’t understand where all this paganistic imagery is coming from. Why can’t it be “bitching in office buildings, lecture halls, and online forums about POC”? Then you could replace the KKK for the Republican Party, and lose only a small portion of the invective.
“Not sure I’m following the notion that “a distinct men’s voice” is the opposite of “feminist” or “pro-feminist”.”
The two aren’t mutually exclusive. Pro-feminists could provide the distinct voice for men, so as they’re distinct.
Wrong, Sylphhead.
Men are assumed to be naturally competitive and aggressive, and being a real man is therefore marked by the struggle for control, conquest and domination.
I can tell you’ve never read anything about feminism, gender studies or masculinity. “Real men” control, conquer and dominate. You haven’t read about men’s rights movements and Robert Bly either.
Please take your tone down a few notches.
I knew that – I was bringing it up solely to see if there was any agreement that man have some legitimate complaints about gender roles
Sweating, did you read the thread?
Mandolin: Yes, I read this post, Amanda’s and Jeff Fecke’s original Shakesville post.
Regarding this post and the comments on it, most of the comments seem to weigh possible complaints by men on the basis of whether men or women are hurt more by the particular issue. I’m not bringing it up to engage in a discussion like that, but rather to respond to this call:
I’m not looking to start a movement here, but I do think that gender roles around the care of infants hurt men – fathers in particular. I’m not blaming women or feminism, because attitudes around infant care have a very long, deeply entrenched history, and are still reinforced today by both sexes.
It seems rarely addressed as such by either feminists or MRA’s. To generalize a bit, I think feminists tend to focus on it as an issue that limits work and career options for mothers – for example the advocacy of day care options, sometimes with the assumption that if dad is even around he’s useless, and that quality day care centers will be staffed by other women. MRAs tend to take a rather late interest, after the family dissolves and it becomes a custody issue, or when men are seen as potential predators.
Those are sweeping generalizations I know, but I don’t see anyone really questioning this fundamental, and very entrenched, gender role as such. Fathers tend to get shunted aside very early, and as you pointed out some mothers get pathologized if they don’t meet the high expectations for natural, supposedly instinctual, mothering.
So I look at this as a legitimate complaint that men have that may be complimentary to feminism, not at all in conflict with to it.
And Acheman – regarding feminists that say men can and should handle babies just fine. I’d welcome some links, so I can lend my support.
Sweating,
This post is NOT a response to Fecke. This post predates Fecke’s.
If you want to poke around on just this particular blog, you will find quite a few pro-feminist men — including Ampersand, who owns this blog — who are very vocal about their support of men’s rights. Amp also believes (and I disagree with him) that men are oppressed as men.
You can find, at minimum, just on this blog, and with no particular effort (partially because I’m doing the searches for you):
A post about how men are shafted because they can’t be affectionate to children in public. Actually, at least two.
A post about how men are shafted because they are more likely to die in dangerous jobs.
A post about how one can argue that men are oppressed as men. And, a second.
Here’s a couple random posts I turned up by clicking the tag “Patriarchy hurts men too”: What kinds of help do abused men need?, Why Can’t the US Stop Circumcising Boys?” (a topic Ive also written about several times on my personal blog), a couple of posts about prison rape, and a fledgling discussion about male victims of sexual violence which unfortunately didn’t pan out (but I’m sitll hoping will someday; there are men I know who need to be able to participate — perhaps silently, because they aren’t ready for more — in that discussion).
You might have fun poking aroun the Patriarchy hurts men too tag.
Speaking personally, I find very small children pleasant but baffling. My mother, by contrast, is ridiculously maternal. My father had primary custody of my two elder half-brothers from the time they were 3 and 5, a custody he managed alone until he married my mother, and he was fine with that.
Both my brothers have been stay-at-home dads. My partner used to work at a day care, so he will probably be doing primary child care when we have children — or at least teaching me about how to do it. His mother was very traditionally maternal, and his father completely assholic and uninterested in kids.
On the other hand, my mother’s mother abandoned her when my mother was 3, and then didn’t see her again until my mother was 17. She’s flaky and disaffected as any stereotype of male disinvolvement. At 24, a year yonger than I am now, my mother’s father had to rescue my mother from an orphanage, win sole custody, and raise her with his new wife. He may have been a sexual abuser (of his other daughters but not my mother, and we don’t know facts), and he was certainly abusive in other ways, but he felt a strong attachment to and responsibility for his daughter. His wife has sometimes spoken of how upset my grandfather was when he knew my mother was in an orphanage, and how he was disconsolate until he could get her out. This is one of the few good things I know about the man.
In my own life, I find little evidence to suggest that good or bad parenting must be tied to gender — except in as much as most women are trained to be maternal, and many men not trained to be paternal, although these trainings may or may not express in a direct fashion.
Mandolin:
Grateful for the explanation and the links, and it seems like we’re in agreement on this issue.
I’m sorry, Fog — I thought this was the “equalist” thread. You’re right; this post was a response to Fecke. :-D
donna, are you still so blithely unaware that everyone else is having to talk down to you like an adolescent? I’m obviously wasting my time with you.
fog, I think that that’s an important issue but not a political one, because the obstacles to it aren’t political. The most obvious opponents of increasing men’s role in child care can’t say so without severely upsetting the way they have presented their positions on other issues.
The largest present day obstacle is that men simply aren’t taught to deal with infants, and that they’re just going to have to build up the experience. Obviously, the younger this begins, the better. Getting present day men to take paternity leave off work may be difficult, but some simpler first steps could include getting young boys, not just girls, into babysitting. Where I grew up, heartless corporations put the paper boy out of business, and boys of a certain age still do want to make money. Some of us objected to babysitting but few of us very strongly; we liked money more.
Also, I’m wondering if it would be possible to make at least a week’s parental leave mandatory.
sylphhead
Yes, it is not primarily a political issue, although generous parental leave is a worthy goal that will help. I’m envious of my European colleagues in this regard.
Men do have lots of catching up to do. Boys do need encouragement and guidance in this area, and I was fortunate because I had the opportunity for this as a boy. There are some attitudes to work with – boys love to prove themselves by accomplishing things that are hard, and dealing with babies can be challenging.
What makes the issue particularly intractable is that it has to be addressed carefully, since the care and safety of the infant must be paramount. Maybe the best approach is to be alert to opportunities for this – along the lines you suggested – and to encourage signs of progress as they occur.
Sylphhead, you and sexist trolls are the only ones talking down to me. You also dodged the correct assertion you’ve never read any feminist literature with an insult. You’re the waste of time here.
I have reached the point where I have no idea what’s going on in this thread or the equalist thread… Seriously, I’m really confused. There are like 5 people who I generally consider reasonable all very upset over something I consider to be a non-issue (which is to say, I consider the discussion of which celebrities are metrosexual to be effectively a non-issue. Insults are an issue).
I’m starting from the assumption that everyone remaining in the discussion is a reasonale individual. When I start with that assumption, I quickly cease being able to either follow the arguments or figure out what people are arguing for.
Can we hold off on this discussion until I (or Myca or Amp, if they’re inclined), can make a more comprehensive post laying out the parameters for a discussion of maculine/feminine gender presentation and how the camera functions as an eye and the tangling of celebrity with exectations of a coherent gender presentation from individuals who are effectively marketing packages, etc etc? Is that a reasonable request?
Mandolin, sounds fine to me. When you do, will you think about how the publicist / manager of the celebrity has a role in their presentation?
Basically I think that’s part of it but I’m too lazy to try and figure it out for myself. lol,
donna, I’ve read more than my fair share of books on gender relations, from curriculum staples such as Friedan and Wolf to newer pop culture works from the likes of Emily White and Leora Tanenbaum, read in my spare time. (Note that I specifically used the term “gender relations” because I’m uninterested in engaging in childish post hoc games of “she’s not reaaaallly a feminist writer”.) I’ve also read Sommers and Farrell and their ilk for the “men’s side”, and that’s part of a reason that I support a new, smarter men’s movement. I long for the day when the “men’s interest” section of the bookstore is something other than half Family Research Council, half Maxim.
Yeah, I was dodging your correct assertion that I never read any works on gender issues. Or, I didn’t want to get dragged in further with someone whose overall mode of argument and propensity to quote celebrity “HAWT or NOT” lists betrays the mind of either a 16-year old or a gossip columnist. Believe what you want. It’s been quite a while since I cared what 16-year old girls think, and I always skip glancing at the shelves at the supermarket counter anyway.
Sorry, Mandolin, I didn’t read that last paragraph of yours until just now. Gaaahhh. But that would be a welcome discussion.
Sure, Mandolin, but I don’t think it’s presentation or the camera as much as
1. The endomorph, ectomorph and mesomorph body types (men assume women like the mesomorph bodybuilder body type)
See picture of mesomorph body type
and my point being there are a surprising number of non-mesomorphs on these lists.
2. Masculine and feminine facial features which correlate with
3. Dominant and non-dominant personalities.
This is purely physical and biological/hormonal like trends of beauty for women are purely physical. Right now, the trend for women is thin and muscular with T and A. Ten years ago, it was curvy and muscular like Cindy Crawford. In the 70s, it was jiggly with T. In the 60s, it was thin like Twiggy. Etc.
“2. Masculine and feminine facial features which correlate with
3. Dominant and non-dominant personalities.”
What’s your evidence for this?
The study I posted on the equalist thread based on evolutionary biology, fertility and genetics:
OK, so according to the guardian they asked 100 women. This is not really conclusive or cross-cultural data, and if it were, it would only be data recording assumptions about masculine faces, not any actual correlation between masculine faces and behavior.
Or are you just arguing that there’s a perception that men who look masculine are more dominant? I’ll agree with you there: such a perception exists.
Not only is it women’s perception but I’m sure there have been similar scientific studies on evolution, fertility, genetics, etc.
If that’s true, then I certainly hope they were conducted better than this study.
But they generally aren’t.
So, it is your contention that you can tell people’s personalities by looking at their facial features?
Mandolin, it’s well known that masculine features are correlated with higher testosterone levels. It’s also well known that higher testosterone levels correlate with dominant personality traits similar to women’s perceptions:
New York Times:
As I argued on defenestrated’s thread, this does not mean men with high testosterone levels cannot have feminist attitudes. The article above says psychology, socialization and class is also key determinants of dominant and aggressive traits.
Look, there’s another study, this one from 2002 and the College of William and Mary, which makes the same conclusions as the 2007 British study and asserts everything I’ve said. Women are not attracted to male facial features affected by high testosterone levels and high testosterone features reveal dominance.
PubMed/National Institute of Health:
As someone whose favorite feminist is probably Ruth Bader Ginsburg — who, while chief litigator of the ACLU’s women’s rights project, came before the Supreme Court several times in order to get various benefits for men — I find the idea that feminism is only about helping women to be very funny. And in response to the point made about the draft in the above post, note that the ACLU WRP was on the side of those who sought to make the draft sex-equal in Rostker v. Goldberg, even though they were anti-draft.