If you’re an outspoken man, and disagree with the feminist consensus, Dominic Falcao writes, there’s maelstrom coming—but it’s OK to be bewildered.
I recently read an article by Hugo Schwyzer on why he resigned from the GMP. The article was depressing because it suggested to me that people of differing ideological stances cannot work in the same publication, especially not on gender topics. Since I read it, I’ve also been concerned to work out why so much internet discussion on feminism is dedicated to the elaboration of tactics used by each side to “derail” one other. Each new article posted is followed by a vicious comment war, trolls unintelligible from the naive but for Bright’s Law, and the tactics being used appearing to get filthier by the day.
And I am beginning to realize why. Someone I respect recently reminded me that “the biggest problem we have to address is the fact that feminism, as much as anything else, is a way of thinking about things, a way of critiquing and a way of analyzing things.”
I suddenly realized why it is so important to me to be right, and why I will do anything to stay on track. The case is best illustrated by an event which has given me cause to feel a level of empathy for Tom Matlack.
♦◊♦
I don’t even know how it happened. I just sort of became aware of sexism. As a mixed-race kid growing up in London I had been preoccupied by racism and other forms of discrimination for most of my life. University introduced me to people who noticed these things and stridently made others aware of them: the arbitrary lack of a women’s football team, the overwhelming lack of female performers at local gigs, the absence of female democratic representatives on our student union. This was something illogical, irrational, arbitrary: something I objected to and was eager to change. This was something, which once brought to my attention, hovered just in front of my eyes regardless of what I was looking at.
Of course, I started talking about it. Repeating the observations of my feminist friends, adding to them with my own insights as I discovered my own ability to uncover these rotten bouts of illogicality nestled insidiously into the framework of university life.
I, perhaps foolishly, started a feminist website. It seemed the obvious thing to do—there was no-one talking about this stuff in public. And then? The most surreal intellectual experience of my life. There was a group of people who believed very much the same things as I did, who hated that people could not see gender inequality even when it manifested in the most blatant manner, who loved talking about it and who campaigned for change.
But they were so incredibly hostile. I wandered around like a newborn horse, stumbling home to read reams of esoteric feminist academia to work out why anyone would be so angry that a man was trying to affect change on feminist issues. I felt I had to defend the idea that men could be feminists, I felt that I had to go on a crusade about the tone of arguments used in debates, I felt, and I expressed those feelings.
I have to be right because when I talk about these issues it is too important to be mistaken and risk being wrong about my own identity and manner of perceiving the world. These are debates in which we swap observations about each other. Where perceptions of other people really come out. It is not because I have a “genuine fear of being challenged and confronted”—in fact, I go out of my way to have my views challenged. (How else will I know I’m really right but if for the fact that nobody is able to persuade me otherwise?) No. It’s not this.
♦◊♦
I have come to the conclusion that it is because it really is a mindset that has roots deep within our identities. And for men, it’s so much harder than most women seem to appreciate. It is a two-step process of realizing that parts of your personality that you valued and which are useful to you are genuinely harmful to society: we are (blamelessly) toxic, and it is then rejecting those pieces of yourself and persuading others to do the same. It involves realizing that you are born into a dominant position, and giving it up. Men involved in feminism have to preach their own deconstruction.
So when Hugo says that “one of those childish things adult men put away is the need to deflect, belittle, or exaggerate women’s anger,” it does serious damage to the self-esteem of men who are brave enough to admit that they have had their feelings hurt. Tom is labelled childish for being confused and hurt by the strength of views against his position, about the personal tone of the attacks. He expressed thoughts from a place that most men don’t access in public—and was reminded with force why this is so.
I have two constructive conclusions. Firstly, I do not think that the idea of the “angry feminist” is a myth. I think it is a necessary truth. Secondly, the man who is “hurt” by feminist anger needs to be taken more seriously. If you want change, then you will have to accept emotional honesty from men, one part of which will inevitably be bewilderment at the whirlwind of gnashing words that decimates those who disagree with the feminist consensus. And there will always be disagreement; it’s what comes just before understanding amongst those with curious minds. I agree with Hugo on one point: I think that the “grown-up virtues of self-control, responsibility, and manifested empathy” are incredibly important, and it is the lack thereof which shows when the tone used is heavy-handed enough to be labelled “wrath.”
I have one final musing. Hugo’s argument assumes that all feminists criticised for getting angry are women. Without this assumption, lines like “It’s a key anti-feminist strategy … it forces women to become conscious caretakers of their male peers by subduing their own frustration and anger. It reminds young women that they should strive to avoid being one of those ‘angry feminists’ who (literally) scares men off and drives them away” simply don’t make sense. I don’t know if Hugo thinks that female feminists are the only ones who get angry, or whether he thinks that they are the only ones criticised for getting angry—but I assure you, neither of these things is remotely true.
—Photo alexbrn/Flickr
About Dominic Falcao
Well, his position is beginning to erode because some of them FINALLY visited his blog and read about some of his “accomplishments” like, hey, trying to murder someone.
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It is absurd that men cannot be feminists. Unfortunately some women get so absorbed into feminism that they think all men are a threat, and not the asset that men can be. I have always tried to include men into feminist discussions, and if given a fair chance, there are many men who are willing to join the cause.
Great article!
Well said
I agree – I wrote about it a while back; http://shrillblog.co.uk/2011/lived-experience-men-feminists/
I don’t think it’s the case that feminists necessarily view men as a threat, but that some strands have as a theoretical basis the idea that members of an oppressed group are best positioned, in terms of their unique experiences as members of that group, to lead their own struggles. In this rendering of the discussion, men cannot be feminists because they have no experience as women. Empathy is said to be an illegitimate argument for male creative participation – there are so many women with actual substantive experience, it is argued that it hardly makes sense for men to use so imperfect a faculty as empathy to contribute, and to contribute in a way that seems to frequently cause conflict. Obviously I strongly disagree for the reasons laid out in the article!
Thankyou for your comment x
“And for men, it’s so much harder than most women seem to appreciate. It is a two-step process of realizing that parts of your personality that you valued and which are useful to you are genuinely harmful to society”
Correct me I’m wrong, but are you suggesting that only men should be expected to desconstruct their own gender role in terms of how it harms others. Men acknowledging their privilege is vital, but if women aren’t willing to take the same brave step then its rather meaningless. If re-examining gender roles is harder for one gender than the other it suggests to me that they’re not being examined properly.
Both do need to re-examine, but I’m a feminist – I believe that women are oppressed in many ways – please don’t ask me to justify this here, but it follows from this that it is largely the role of the oppressors to de-construct; changes for women are of a different kind, I think of these as equally taxing, but not necessarily painful, they are more like reconstruction, a building up.
“I believe that women are oppressed in many ways – please don’t ask me to justify this here. . .”
Why not? It should be easy to do if it supported by data. How about explaining in what way educated western white women are oppressed? Do you believe that they are more oppressed than undocumented immigrant men or black men in general?
I know many educated white women who don’t believe they are oppressed, and don’t behave as if they are oppressed. Do you contend that they really are oppressed but just too stupid to realize it?
For example, my boss’ boss runs a $1.2B business but doesn’t believe that she is oppressed. So, even though she’s smart enough to run a $1.2B business, she’s too stupid to realize that she’s oppressed? Have you thought this through?
How could she be the one who is oppressed but not the male Mexican fruit picker and young black boy from a drug infested inner city project development are not oppressed? Is it because they enjoy “male privilege?”
I have seen no evidence that your argument has any basis in fact as a general statement.
So women just need to be built up properly while men need to be broken down and rebuilt properly?
My only problem with your line of thought here is that you seem to have all men neatly categorized as oppressors and all women neatly categorized as oppressed. I don’t think that’s going to cut it when it comes to getting rid of the dangerous ideas that men and women have. There is some reconstructing and deconstructing that needs to be done on both sides.
Would it be fair to say that male privilege – if it exists at all – is so small you need a microscope to find it? Because if someone asked me to name some privileges that eg. rich people have over the poor, I could do that in about one half a second or less.
DB, I have raised this issue a number of times and have consistently found that no one who claims that male privilege exists that is willing to quantify it with any real data, especially when asked to compare white women’s “privilege”, and eve more expecially in comparison to minority males.
I also dislike the idea of male privilege, it’s easily the hardest thing for men joining this discussion to grasp – that’s a lot what my article was about. But I don’t dislike it because it’s wrong, I dislike it because it is true.
In terms of what male privilege is, I found these sites helpful – http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/ and http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2008/02/09/faq-female-privilege/.
Obviously neither of these have “data”. A lot of feminism is based on personal experience. Data will have difficulty measuring the bias in a certain situation if it is not accompanied by deep statistical evidence describing a situation. This objection clearly works both ways (if I can’t prove it, I can’t disprove it).
Eric – someone being successful does not mean that they are in other ways oppressed, and people being oppressed does not mean that they are not in some ways privileged – check the concept of kyriarchy; there is a lot of stuff online about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyriarchy and it clarifies some things very well. Also, being oppressed without realising does not equate to stupidity, as a particularly simple example, many kids whilst bright, are not aware they are being bullied, many men/women, despite being bright do not realise that they are being sexually harassed, and on the other side, those bullying/oppressing/harassing are not fully aware of what they are doing. You have to be acquainted with the concept to know that it is relevant to you, and to realise that you quality of life may have something to do with it.
Again, I really am not going to justify my feminism here, a good many people have done so much better than I ever could myself. These people make up mainstream feminism. If you want to lay out a comprehensive case against the idea of male privilege (either of you) I would be happy to write a response – you could email an article to my site and I will publish it so long as it abides by rules (in general: article avoids logical fallacies, over-hyped rhetoric, is not too long, does not mis-use statistics. The site is http://www.shrillblog.co.uk, all contact and publishing info is there. Please be aware that our readership is mostly moderate, university students, and feminists make up a minority at the University of York and other participating unis.
Thankyou for taking the time to respond to my article
“ But I don’t dislike it because it’s wrong, I dislike it because it is true.”
How do you know it to be true without objective data? You believe it’s true because amptoons.com and finallyfeminism101.com say it is? Those are your sources?
If your argument has facts behind it, you could cite any number of .gov sites as data sources. Have you ever done any actual research based on data from .gov sites?
With views based on personal impressions of experiences, you have merely an opinion of a relatively small minority. Clearly nothing to establish anything credible.
“Data will have difficulty measuring the bias in a certain situation if it is not accompanied by deep statistical evidence describing a situation. This objection clearly works both ways (if I can’t prove it, I can’t disprove it).”
.gov data often describes critically important issues very clearly. For example, who is being educated and graduating and who is not? Who has higher unemployment? Who are the majority of victims of crime? All such data is publicly available and current.
“Eric – someone being successful does not mean that they are in other ways oppressed, and people being oppressed does not mean that they are not in some ways privileged.”
So, then, if everyone is oppressed in some way, why do you single women out as the only oppressed group? Further, what is your basis for insisting that intelligent people are oppressed if they claim they are not? How can you possibly know their lives better than they do? Are you more intelligent than they are?
“Also, being oppressed without realising does not equate to stupidity, as a particularly simple example, many kids whilst bright, are not aware they are being bullied,”
To state the obvious, we are talking about adult women, not children. How is it not insulting and disrespectful to claim that women are no more aware of their environment than children?
“Again, I really am not going to justify my feminism here, “
You don’t need to. I was just wondering if you had actually done any real research using .gov data upon which to base your feminism. Evidently not.
“If you want to lay out a comprehensive case against the idea of male privilege (either of you) I would be happy to write a response.”
First “male privilege” would need to be shown to exist based on something other than personal opinion. The male Mexican fruit picker and his son would need to be shown to be more privileged than my white female millionaire boss and her daughter.
I would encourage you to consider real data from a .gov source, not a feminist or MRA site (e.g. finallyfeminism101.com).
Do yourself a favour and compare data regarding white women and minority men, and see if you still believe in “male privilege.”
First some corrections (because your response was a systematic attempt to mis-interpret me – I did not (anywhere at all) suggest women were the only oppressed group.
I did not suggest that women were no more aware of their environment then children, and if I did, then I also suggested that most men were too. In the same sentence I made other direct comparisons. One could easily say that I made out that children were aware of their environment as adults. Neither interpretation gets to the idea that our relation to a certain concept may remain unknown to us without implying our stupidity.
Furthermore, I have not cited any data other than my personal experience. The two sites were explanations of the concepts I am talking about. You are extrapolating from a claim I have not made (namely the requirement that in order to have a belief/observation it must be supported by .gov data).
I would respond to your substantive points, but they seem to largely consist of the above mis-characterisations. I was proceeding in this discussion in the light of a belief in your rationality, please, prove to me statistical evidence of your rationality on a .gov site, otherwise I may begin to suspect that I am wasting my time here, and may have to scrap that belief.
“First some corrections (because your response was a systematic attempt to mis-interpret me – I did not (anywhere at all) suggest women were the only oppressed group.”
Where in your comments did you state that men were oppressed?
“I did not suggest that women were no more aware of their environment then children, and if I did, then I also suggested that most men were too.”
Where did you state that men were were no more aware of their environment than children?
Let’s review:
I said this: “my boss’ boss runs a $1.2B business but doesn’t believe that she is oppressed. So, even though she’s smart enough to run a $1.2B business, she’s too stupid to realize that she’s oppressed?”
In response to my statement about my female boss not believe that she is oppressed, you said this:
“Also, being oppressed without realising does not equate to stupidity, as a particularly simple example, many kids whilst bright, are not aware they are being bullied,”
You compared adult women such as my boss to children, who are unaware of their environment because they are immature. Comparing adult women to children is insulting. Sorry, it just is.
“Furthermore, I have not cited any data other than my personal experience. The two sites were explanations of the concepts I am talking about. You are extrapolating from a claim I have not made (namely the requirement that in order to have a belief/observation it must be supported by .gov data).”
Fair enough. That male privilege exists is your opinion but that idea has no basis in fact. That is a key point here.
“I was proceeding in this discussion in the light of a belief in your rationality,”
I was hoping that you had interest in factual information, not baseless personal opinions that contradict unbiased data sources (.gov).
“Please, prove to me statistical evidence of your rationality on a .gov site, otherwise I may begin to suspect that I am wasting my time here, and may have to scrap that belief.”
If you are going to respond with more personal opinions, feel free but your opinion is no more valid than anyone else’s.
I can offer you statistical evidence that white women are far, far more privileged than minority males in many tangible, measurable ways (reported by the US Federal government), and even more privileged than majority males in many tangible, measurable ways. However, I very seriously doubt if you want to even see such facts, as feminists are usually loathe to acknowledge data that flies in the fact of their “male privilege” fantasy.
*correction – someone being successful does not mean that they are NOT in other ways oppressed
I am going to reply to your links about male priv.
31. I can ask for legal protection from violence that happens mostly to men without being seen as a selfish special interest, since that kind of violence is called “crime” and is a general social concern. (Violence that happens mostly to women is usually called “domestic violence” or “acquaintance rape,” and is seen as a special interest issue.)
When in recent history have men asked for legal protection from violence that happens mostly to men, because with the exception of sexual violence, all other type of violence happen mostly (majority) to men. Plus how is it a priv to NOT get special interest help. If it wasn’t for special interest VAWA would not exist and a fair number of people believe that VAWA is wrong and against the concept of fair treatment. And BTW, it is women (mostly) who wanted DV and Acq Rape as definitions and they even want those definitions expanded beyond belief. Personally I as a man would love to have some special interest acting on my behalf to get me more protection under that law , and because there isn’t one doing it, that isn’t a priv but a detriment.
I just read that second link you provided. And all I can say is WOW, another feminist site that just changes the definition of a word to suit the writers POV and then goes on to justify that definition.
All hail Hugos’ replacement!
for men, it’s so much harder than most women seem to appreciate…. parts of your personality that you valued and which are useful to you are genuinely harmful to society
Speak for yourself. My personality isn’t harmful to society. You assume all men have something toxic inside that needs to go, just because (taking you at your word) you do.
This is a mistake. Most men aren’t like you, we don’t have anything wrong with us — at least, not anything that feminism could fix, or has any business trying to change.
The point is that we don’t get to choose, the toxicity stems from multiple centuries of oppression. Check what I think about Male Privilege now here – http://shrillblog.co.uk/2012/check-privilege/ my thoughts have moved on a little.
x