{"id":3255,"date":"2007-03-18T16:04:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-18T23:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/03\/18\/are-men-oppressed-as-men\/"},"modified":"2017-06-06T00:49:47","modified_gmt":"2017-06-06T07:49:47","slug":"are-men-oppressed-as-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3255","title":{"rendered":"Are men oppressed as men?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been reading Caroline New’s 2001 Sociology article about oppression (pdf link<\/a>). ((Caroline New (2001), “Oppressed and Oppressors? The Systematic Mistreatment of Men,” Sociology<\/em> Vol.35, No.3, pp.729\u2013748. )) New argues against the idea that “oppression” requires a clear-cut division between “oppressor class” and “oppressed class.”<\/p>\n

I do not believe we need to identify a clear-cut agent\/beneficiary to speak of oppression. Sometimes there is one, sometimes not. I propose the following structural definition, which subsumes zero-sum conceptions when they are applicable, and allows us to recognise the very different, yet related, oppressions of women and of men.<\/p>\n

A group X is oppressed if, in certain respects, its members are systematically mistreated in comparison to non-Xs in a given social context, and if this mistreatment is justified or excused in terms of some alleged or real characteristic of the group.<\/em><\/p>\n

The key phrase, “systematically mistreated<\/em>,” implies that as a result of institutionalised social practices, Xs\u2019 human needs are not met, they are made to suffer, or their flourishing is not permitted, relative to other groups and to available knowledge and resources.While human needs are culturally mediated, some basic conditions for human well-being can be specified independent of social context. We recognise these as needs because undesirable consequences arise from a failure to meet them, though the severity of the price paid may range from death to discomfort.Unmet needs may result in forms of development that preclude ‘flourishing’, the term used by ecological feminist Cuomo (1998) in her feminist ethics. For Cuomo, knowledge of a thing\u2019s nature can give rise to knowledge of what it is for it to flourish.<\/p>\n

‘In comparison to non-members<\/em>‘ means that Xs are disadvantaged in relation to non-Xs on some particular dimension or in a specific context \u2013 non-Xs may themselves be oppressed in other respects, which may sometimes result in similar (or more severe) disadvantages than those suffered by all or some Xs. ‘Justified \u2026 etc<\/em>.’ refers to the tendency to legitimise oppression by treating the oppressed group as different, less than human or actually malign, and therefore not morally requiring the treatment appropriate to one\u2019s own group.<\/p>\n

‘Oppression’ is a value-laden term which implies that, ceteris paribus<\/em>, an oppressive state of affairs should be brought to an end; this definition is clear enough to allow such states of affairs to be investigated and identified. It recognises that oppression is rooted in power relations,without reducing it to formal relations of power. Treating agents’ accounts as evidence rather than essence, it can encompass complicity and denial on the part of the oppressed. It can embrace, as relevant sorts of harm, the \u2018hidden injuries\u2019 of class, \u2018race\u2019 and so on which fall through the net of purely formal definitions. \u2018Systematic mistreatment\u2019 covers not only material inequalities but also the deprivation of \u2018recognition\u2019 and other forms of inclusion necessary for groups and communities to flourish (Young 1990). By not making identification of the agents and beneficiaries central to that of oppression, the proposed definition allows us to recognise the oppression of fat people, disabled people, children and other groups where the agents are not always the same and the question of benefits is unclear.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The proposed definition in no way denies that men are frequently \u2013 most frequently \u2013 the agents of the oppression of women. In a minimal sense this is inevitably true, since oppression is relational. If Xs are oppressed because on some dimension they are systematically disadvantaged in comparison to Ys, Ys can be seen as oppressing Xs as long as they merely accept the status quo or act in ways which
\ntend to maintain their relative advantage. In gender terms, such a stance would be part of what Connell calls ‘complicit masculinities,’ which accept gender privileges but keep themselves distanced from direct displays of power (1995:114). Men undoubtedly oppress women in more direct ways than this. The maintenance of the power differentials between the genders requires regular belittlement of women, continual discrimination against them, and a stream of misinformation about their capacities and liabilities. From various motives, men carry out the bulk of this work. They also oppress women by killing, beating, raping, harassing and sexually exploiting them, and by appropriating their unpaid work.Gendered power relations make such behaviour normal, in the sense of expected and intelligible, even though most of it is deplored and some of it is punishable. My contention is that men\u2019s agency in this regard is the result of their positioning within oppressive structures. It is not caused by, and does not express, the intrinsic nature of male humans, nor was the gender order erected by men in their own pre-existing interests. Gendered interests, including those of oppressors, are constructed within gender orders, and cannot pre-exist them. Men\u2019s agency is part of the explanation of women\u2019s oppression only in the context of a sex-gender system which also involves the oppression of men.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m curious to know what “Alas” readers think of New’s definition of oppression, and of its consequential inclusion of “men” as a class that can be oppressed. My (possibly self-serving) tendency is to agree with New.<\/p>\n

New’s analysis recognizes complicity in gender oppression, without having to argue that bullied boys, men rounded up for imprisonment or murder in war zones, and men killed at workplaces are not being oppressed as men, even though in all these cases their being male is essential for their selection for mistreatment<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Once criticism I anticipate is that the “oppression” of men cannot be oppression because their “oppressors” are male. This seems to me a dubious response, because it only makes sense if oppression is defined based on who the oppressor is, rather than on what the oppressive acts and barriers consist of. Imagine if a group of masked commandos took over the government and began rounding up and imprisoning cartoonists; would we say that whether or not this could be called “oppression of cartoonists” is contingent on unmasking the commandos, since if the commandos are themselves cartoonists no act by them can be oppressive of cartoonists?<\/p>\n

* * * PLEASE NOTE * * *<\/strong>
\nComments on this post are open only to feminist, pro-feminist, and feminist-friendly writers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Curtsy: Feminist Critics<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been reading Caroline New’s 2001 Sociology article about oppression (pdf link). ((Caroline New (2001), “Oppressed and Oppressors? The Systematic Mistreatment of Men,” Sociology Vol.35, No.3, pp.729\u2013748. )) New argues against the idea that “oppression” requires a clear-cut division between … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism-sexism-etc","category-sexism-hurts-men"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3255"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23091,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3255\/revisions\/23091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}