This comment is from Lori Day to Archy, from the post The God of Gender Wars is Laughing
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Archy, thanks, and btw, that article I wrote on why boys are failing got me more hate email than anything I’ve ever written. But only when I posted it here on GMP. When I first ran it on Huffington, it got a very different reception. After running it on GMP (because I noticed a lot of commenters saying this topic of boys’ education needed to be addressed, and I had recently addressed it on HuffPo) it drew fire–much of it in my personal email inbox–for being anti-girl. It was not anti-girl. It was PRO-BOY. The reverse happens just as much.
People want you to be in a box. Either you are supposed to write advocacy pieces about girls and women on feminist sites…or, to write advocacy pieces about boys and men on men’s sites. If you’re on a gender-neutral site like Huffington, you do get angry gender-based comments, but mostly you get comments that address the *content* of what you are saying more than the content of your character for being whatever gender you are and writing in support of one gender or the other. There seems to be little understanding of why someone like me might write powerfully in defense of boys one day, and in defense of girls the next. The reason is actually simple: because I am a CHILD advocate, and NEITHER gender has it better than the other overall. I am super worried about kids today–all of them. Not a difficult concept.
If you are a solutions-oriented writer, that means you are going to take both sides…in turn or simultaneously, or take no sides at all sometimes, remaining centrist. I actually feel there is something deeply dishonest about always and only writing in support of one gender at the expense of the other. I frankly believe there is male privilege AND female privilege. I feel it is a lie and extremely unproductive to deny either of those things, and I won’t. As a woman who does care about the welfare of my OWN gender, women and girls, their rights, and the ways in which they suffer now and historically…is there a place here on GMP where someone like me can empathetically address the experience of men while NOT simultaneously throwing women under the bus? How about WHILE also acknowledging the problems faced by women, when relevant to the topic? Or is there no place on GMP for “whataboutthewomenz??”
I get the problem with there being too much of that! But do people really feel that women do not suffer, or that their suffering has ZERO place on GMP? I see many MRA commenters here who have no tolerance–absolutely none–for the notion of compassion towards BOTH sexes. How is that any more acceptable than when feminists will not acknowledge the ways men suffer? Look, it goes both ways, and if that is not patently clear to both men and women, then whoever is unclear about it needs to open their eyes, and more importantly, their hearts.
Thanks for your kind comment and your obvious desire to find some middle ground, Archy. That’s where it’s at.
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This was Archy’s original comment to Lori
…I quite enjoyed your article on the “why boys are failing” article. I hope you do write more, my best advice is to ignore the haters because someone is always going to disagree in life but what you have to say is equally important.
The more diversity in articles showing feminism, masculism, etc I think the anger will die down. From what I’ve read I’d say you’re far from the Hugo and Amanda version of feminism that is like dancing with flares on a tightrope over a massive open silo of fuel (dramatic scene, kapow!) and I’m always interested in seeing the diversity in ideas the feminists have, from Neely to even Hugo, where I can read an article and be everything from annoyed as hell at the generalizations, to others where I want to high 5 them for actually seeing male suffering, or female AND male suffering without trying to ignore either.
So I do hope you will write again, maybe set it up as more moderated and tell people to discuss without anger? I personally try my best to ignore the anger and understand WHY they’re angry, it’s a “hidden” message but usually it’s an important one and from the looks of it both sides feel very very ignored, belittled, antagonized by the OTHER side. The more masculists and feminists that can write articles of both genders, can actually work together I think the less anger will overpower the comments when both sides feel they are thought about.
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photo: kavehfa / flickr
Thanks for your balanced worldview, it’s really refreshing. Now i believe you’re a humanist and not a feminist. But. ” But do people really feel that women do not suffer, or that their suffering has ZERO place on GMP? I see many MRA commenters here who have no tolerance–absolutely none–for the notion of compassion towards BOTH sexes. How is that any more acceptable than when feminists will not acknowledge the ways men suffer?” In a misandrist society it’s men’s suffering and sacrifices are what not important and/or belittled every day. Their voice is what’s not heard, so under these circumstances,… Read more »
Aww shucks, we made comment of the day, thank-you :D. I prefer to remain in the middle after growing up hearing of how bad it was for women in society with feminism in Australia, but then also hearing so much of my families domestic abuse and realizing that both the men and women recieved terrible abuse. The abusers (which were male from what I know) had been abused by their dad, and I’m sure their dad was abused by his dad and so on yet it was a side of the story I NEVER once heard about here, only female… Read more »
Wow. Now THIS is a fabulous comment!!
Thank-you. 😀 I hope others can learn from my experiences and open their minds too, it’d stop much of the gender war.
“But when has any war ever benefited anybody but the arms dealers and the warlords?”
War didn’t benefit Hitler, or Tojo, or the Kaiser, or the North Koreans. It benefits people who don’t want to be run by some attacking tyrant. See, for example, France and the UK, and Belgium and Holland, and Denmark and Norway and…… ca 1939-1945. Then there were all those countries to the east.
I’m tired of the Gender Wars too. I’m tired of men vs women. I’m tired of these two genders dominating the conversation to the exclusion of all other genders. I’m tired of being erased, ignored, abused, neglected.
What would you prefer the conversation to be about? (I am asking that quite seriously). Are there other topics that could be discussed and debated with such passion?
Collaboration. Togetherness. The awareness that nobody’s rights are secure until all of ours are. I’m not saying that calling out society’s bullshit isn’t important, or that there aren’t issues that disproportionately affect one gender over another. And I am glad to read about so many people’s personal experiences on this blog. But when has any war ever benefited anybody but the arms dealers and the warlords? Calling out bullshit and sharing stories and working toward tomorrow is only hindered by battles and “us vs them”.
“But when has any war ever benefited anybody but the arms dealers and the warlords?” Amazing quote. I do, however, think some people like fighting. Maybe it’s an adrenaline rush. Maybe it provides a channel for anger that might otherwise come out in even less appropriate ways. Maybe it is therapy for people who have a lot to be angry about. And so on. However, in the end, nothing gets solved. In real wars, that may also be the case…or, sometimes, the victorious group has righted some grave injustice. In the context of comment threads, I think that wars provide… Read more »
Two different things.
You can be all for arguing gender political theory (like me) and at the same time very much against the Sex War politics of setting men vs women.
It is hard to have a war when it’s WE Vs WE! P^)
I would agree but add: feminists ARE the arms dealers of the Sex War. Too often MRAs made the mistake of joining the war instead of question the war itself. Feminism benefits from Sex War and at this stage probably requires it for its very existence. MRAs lose when they play on the feminist playing field. Instead they need to question the validity of Sex War and say, “Why do feminists love setting men and women against each other? We won’t do that.” I am sorry to say that if the MRAs don’t do this then they will become part… Read more »
So warfare is out and passive resistance in?
Thanks Lisa (and Archy). I was surprised to see this comment pulled out. I am not really sure how I feel about GMP and so forth just yet. I have been taking some time to reflect…and got sucked back in quickly today. That probably speaks to my deep love for this site and my colleagues there, and my pain over my own ambivalence. What I do know is that I have no interest in debating gender theory. I don’t mean to be rude, but if anyone asks me to get into that, for my own sanity, the answer, at least… Read more »
Well you need to learn to avoid the trigger words.
You get sucked into debating gender theory when you mention in passing phrases like “male privilege”. When you say that phrase you are making a political statement which is very controversial and in fact offensive to many here. Saying “male privilege exists” is every bit as political as saying it does not.
If you really don’t want to get into these fights simply change your vocabulary. Avoid the trigger words and the feminist jargon and say what you really mean. This may require some practise and patience on your part.
Lori, I don’t know if you had me in mind here or not, but I’ll mention in passing that I am fine with being critcised or singled out. It gives me a chance to sort out misconceptions, see what other people think of my ideas and of course it might suggest I need to change my position on something. I frankly believe there is male privilege AND female privilege. I feel it is a lie and extremely unproductive to deny either of those things … is there no place on GMP for “whataboutthewomenz??”” …. do people really feel that women… Read more »
Oops. paragraphs 2,3,4 are a quote of Lori — HTML fail!
I just fixed the html.
“Onwards”!
This article doesn’t have one of the two tags to indicate a safe place for arguing over ideology. This seemed to be a mistake given that the original article the comment comes from did have such a tag….?
We haven’t started the system of tagging posts where it is safe to argue. So I’m unsure as to what tag you are referring to on the original post? What I’ve been doing this weekend is trying to look at every post with that system in mind, and envisioning how it might work and what the potential pitfalls might be. Then we have to create the actual tags, with guidelines, and communicate the new system to the authors first and then to the commenters/community. I anticipate this will take a week or two to get running smoothly. We have also… Read more »
Well she does call out half the board’s participants as lacking compassion for women (and men) so I don’t feel it is a reconciliatory article. It’s a direct condemnation of the anti-feminist “side” and made under a misconception I think (at least for me – I can’t speak for MRAs but I’m pretty sure they don’t see themselves as having no compassion for women).
At any rate the parent piece was tagged as “Men and Feminism” so that’s what I was referring to.
Ah, got it on the tag. Interestingly enough, people have complained that the article didn’t really belong in “Men and Feminism” at all, so that is going to be the challenge. She said “many MRA’s”. Not “half of the people here lack compassion for women.” She is asking you to try to understand why she sees things that way. You are trying to change what you see as her misperception. That’s often the reason the conflict starts IMO. Many of the MRA’s that originally appeared to not have compassion for women actually have proven themselves to. It’s just that they… Read more »
A lot of guys from the MRA side do go a bit anti-woman sometimes it seems to me. This is because of feminism in my view. Feminism has long labored to make people think woman = feminist. That’s never been true and never will be, but it is a marketing strategy. The aim of the “sex war” framing is to divide men against women and to a certain extent this has happened. The MRA really don’t challenge feminism enough in my view. They fail to challenge the theory a lot. They need to challenge the Sex War more. They need… Read more »