{"id":3721,"date":"2007-10-16T06:28:31","date_gmt":"2007-10-16T13:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/10\/16\/mens-legitimate-complaints\/"},"modified":"2007-10-16T06:28:31","modified_gmt":"2007-10-16T13:48:19","slug":"mens-legitimate-complaints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3721","title":{"rendered":"Men's Legitimate Complaints"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amanda<\/a>, 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<\/a>, 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:<\/p>\n

What about the draft? Only men get drafted.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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\u2019t been activated in the U.S. since women weren\u2019t allowed into the Ivy Leagues or to sit on juries in Texas. […]<\/p>\n

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\u2019s tendency to war-monger and ill-informed notions about women\u2019s 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<\/a>, and they come in all ages and genders.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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<\/a> is alive and well today).<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Bodies; An Overview of the Harm of War to Women,” Women\u2019s Studies International Forum<\/em> 27 (2004) 431-445. Pdf link<\/a>.)) Hynes writes:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

[UPDATE<\/strong>: As I predicted, Daran at Feminist Critics<\/a> 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.]<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.))<\/p>\n

Back to Amanda’s post:<\/p>\n

Well, that was a downer. What about how sitcoms make men like overgrown babies and buffoons?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[…] 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\u2019s 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\u2014the competent women are generally portrayed as humorless, fun-killing, finger-wagging prudish bores.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I agree, and I’d add — to quote a post of mine<\/a> — that there’s a technical term for the “standard buffoon” in a TV comedy; this part is called “the Lead.”<\/p>\n

As in the leading role, the central role, the funny role, the better <\/em>role. What actor in the world, given the choice, would rather play Zeppo than Harpo? The smart, levelheaded, competent wife is the secondary<\/em> part, which is why the shows aren\u2019t named \u201cEverybody Loves Debra\u201d or \u201cAccording to Cheryl\u201d (or, for that matter, \u201cI Love Ricky\u201d).<\/p>\n

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\u2019s worth objecting to \u2014 but it\u2019s not a sign of male dis<\/em>advantage.<\/p>\n

Again, back to Amanda’s post:<\/p>\n

What about how men tend to die on the job more than women? Isn\u2019t that unfair?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2014and therefore take home the larger paycheck than women of that socioeconomic class, who tend to have pink collar jobs that pay much less.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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<\/a>. There are about 6,000 accidental workplace deaths in the US each year, and about 100,000 deaths due to workplace-caused diseases.<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

To once again quote myself<\/a>, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics investigated job traits that are associated with wage premiums<\/a>, they found that \u201cJob attributes relating to \u2026 physically demanding or dangerous jobs\u2026 do not seem to affect wages.\u201d Here\u2019s 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\u2019s actually slightly negative<\/em>? That\u2019s the \u201cdeath and exposure\u201d effect on wages.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

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

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 … 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":[107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sexism-hurts-men"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3721","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=3721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}