Noah Berlatsky insists that hatred of femininity is used to oppress men, too
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Earlier this month, Chris Martin a 14-year-old eighth-grader, wore black eyeliner, eyeshadow, and lipstick to his last day of school, along with an anarchy T-shirt. He was told that his face was in violation of the school’s dress code — even though the school does not ban girls from wearing makeup. According to Chris’ mother, Katelynn Martin, the principal, Claud Effiom, “expressed his own belief that boys wearing makeup is ridiculous, unnecessary, and distracting.”
A few weeks ago I talked about the ways in which men can experience sexism because of traditional stereotypes and gender roles. That seems to be in part what is happening here. As the ACLU says, “Applying a different rule to Chris because he is male constitutes sex discrimination in violation of the United States Constitution.”
I’d argue, though, that the discrimination against Martin shows not only how men can be victims of sexism, but how men can be victims of misogyny.
At first, this may seem contradictory. Misogyny is, after all, the hatred of women, not men. How can hating women result in sexism directed against men?
The answer is that misogyny doesn’t just mean hatred of women. It means hatred of everything having to do with women. Or, as Julia Serano puts it in her 2009 book Whipping Girl, misogyny is, the “tendency to dismiss and deride femaleness and femininity.”
Since women are typically associated with femaleness and femininity, it is they who tend to bear the brunt of misogyny. But men who express femininity can also be targets. This appears to be what happened to Martin. The principal dismissed and derided his make-up because it was “ridiculous, unnecessary, and distracting” — standard misogynist tropes used typically to dismiss and deride women.
But those misogynist tropes are also, and almost as frequently, used to dismiss and deride men. Misogyny — the hatred, ridicule, and fear of femininity — can structure male experience as much as female experience. In some ways, in fact, as Martin demonstrates, misogyny can be even more restrictive for men than for women. Women in our culture can wear jeans or dresses, pants or skirts, makeup or no makeup, generally without comment or ridicule. Men’s options, in this regard, are more limited. Similarly, Serano point out, female-to-male transsexuals are embraced by the women’s movement, while male-to-female transsexuals are stigmatized and often deliberately excluded. For instance, Serano says that at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival, “some performers who identify as transgender and answer to male pronouns are invited to take the festival stage each year, someone like myself—who identifies 100 percent as female—isn’t even allowed to stand in the audience.” Thus, Serano argues, women who take on attributes of masculinity are lauded; men who take on attributes of femininity are seen as frivolous, artificial, and disgusting. And this is not, or not only, because they violate gender roles, but is specifically because femininity is seen as frivolous, artificial and disgusting. It is not just homophobia or transphobia which makes men who wear makeup a target—it is misogyny.
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One of the standard devices of misogyny is to argue that femininity is trivial. In part as a result, misogyny against men can seem trivial. Who cares, after all, if men can’t wear make-up or dresses? Aren’t there other more important problems?
In fact, though, misogyny against men is deadly serious. One of the brutalizing characteristics of discrimination is its pettiness; the way it legalistically limits what you wear, which water fountain you drink at; what festival you go to. It’s systematic smallness is how it makes you small.
Which isn’t to say that misogyny against men is always small. On the contrary, it also has its moments of horrific, genocidal brutality. This is made painfully clear in Will Storr’s heartbreaking 2011 discussion of the widespread rape of men in wartime —and of the way that that rape is systematically ignored by just about everyone.
And why is it covered up? Here is Storr’s description of the plight of a man raped in Uganda.
Today, despite his hospital treatment, Jean Paul still bleeds when he walks. Like many victims, the wounds are such that he’s supposed to restrict his diet to soft foods such as bananas, which are expensive, and Jean Paul can only afford maize and millet. His brother keeps asking what’s wrong with him. “I don’t want to tell him,” says Jean Paul. “I fear he will say: ‘Now, my brother is not a man.'”
It is for this reason that both perpetrator and victim enter a conspiracy of silence and why male survivors often find, once their story is discovered, that they lose the support and comfort of those around them.
The reason men are unwilling to come forward, and the reason that others treat them with contempt, is that being raped makes them feminine — and femininity is despised. Rape victims become victims, not only of rape, but of misogyny.
“In the patriarchal societies found in many developing countries, gender roles are strictly defined,” Storr says. But his essay makes it clear that it’s not just developing countries where gender roles can be strictly defined. The humanitarian community too ignores the rape of men; Storr even discusses one incident where a donor refused to provide funds unless they were targeted specifically to women. According to Maite Vermuelen, “only 3% of [NGOs] mention men in their literature, and a quarter explicitly denies that sexual violence against men is a serious problem.”
Women who are raped are also stigmatized—not least because they are seen as hyper-feminized, sexual, trivial, and weak. The contempt rape victims experience is a contempt born of misogyny, and that contempt visited on men as well as women. Sometimes, indeed, it is visited even more virulently upon men, because femininity in them is seen as especially shameful or repulsive.
And there is always going to be some femininity in any man. If you don’t wear make up, you may walk like a girl, or talk like a girl, or like something that girls like, or like girls too much, or not like girls enough. As long as misogyny permeates our culture, femininity will be a threat to hold over men. Which means that as long as there is misogyny, men, as well as women, are not free.
A version of this article originally appeared at Splice Today
Photo: flickr/David Goehring
“To me, it seems like what you’re saying is not that you want the focus on men, but that you resent the idea that men and women have similar problems, and that the oppression and difficulties they face are similar rather than opposed. You want it to be…” Hi Noah, I’m not sure who’s post(s), or what part(s) you’re referring to directly there, so it’s difficult to address your concerns. Instead of saying “you want it to be” or “you resent the idea that women and men have the same problems” – instead of (possibly) putting your words, or other… Read more »
It seems a little odd to complain about focusing too much on women when this entire article is about men. To me, it seems like what you’re saying is not that you want the focus on men, but that you resent the idea that men and women have similar problems, and that the oppression and difficulties they face are similar rather than opposed. You want it to be a zero sum discussion; talking about men or women. The point of the article is that that approach is blinkered, and will ultimately hurt not only women, but men as well. Masculinity… Read more »
so… let me get this straight: Woman gets ridiculed for doing masculine things: misogyny. Man gets ridiculed for doing feminine things: Also, somehow, Misogyny…?
Men who are raped face stigma and hatred because they are seen as feminized or placed in the position of women. Or is it because their own sexuality is not fully respected? Guys are typed as being constantly wanting sex therefore there is no possible way that they could say no to a sexual encounter. Unless you are saying that respecting a guy’s wish to have sex or not have sex is to feminize that guy? (But we are constantly told that a woman’s right to control her own sexuality is not respected in today’s culture.) Respecting someone’s sexuality is… Read more »
“The reason men are unwilling to come forward, and the reason that others treat them with contempt, is that being raped makes them feminine — and femininity is despised. Rape victims become victims, not only of rape, but of misogyny.” I would disagree here that the shame & contempt you speak of are rooted in hatred of the feminine, and hence misogyny. Some might confuse or equate vulnerability with ‘femininity’ and that is unfortunate, but nonetheless, they are not interchangeable here. More specifically, I might argue that the shame and contempt are rooted in vulnerability: The perception of an individual’s vulnerability- the… Read more »
“I’d argue, though, that the discrimination against Martin shows not only how men can be victims of sexism, but how men can be victims of misogyny.” In the case you’ve described there, yes, it is sexism: Martin is experiencing retaliation for disregarding an (arbitrary) social norm/custom that’s based on artificial & superficial gender roles (as presently defined by his current social context – contemporary North America). But misogyny? I would think not. Misogyny is the hatred of women. The hatred & retaliation against Martin is not because he’s a woman, or even simply because he’s taking on a superficial characteristic… Read more »
I agree with some of the article, disagree with a few elements, and think it’s value is in thinking about the issue. Still, while it doesn’t imply that harm to men is the primary reason to reject misogyny, I fear that some might interpret it that way. If I might rant on a related issue a moment, I will say that few things irk me as much as when I hear someone say that a man is a bitch, pussy, acting like a girl, or needs to act like a man. These are misogynistic phrases at their very core, and… Read more »
Femmephobia is a myth. In reality is a tabu where the male is not worthy to emulate the women. Its Haram a sin if a men start to get the benefits reserved for females. Thats whats all about. Its patriarchy at its purest. Not some imaginary and irrational fear or contempt of the feminine.
It doesn’t matter how many times you say it, it doesn’t make it true: Misogyny is not the cause of men’s struggles. Society does not devalue the masculine over the feminine. There is no insidious systematic hatred of all things feminine that has permeated since the beginning of time. Patriarchy does not ‘hurt men too.’ You’re imagining it. There are thousands of years worth of literature lauding, hell worshiping, the feminine. Feminine virtue was equated with purity; it was sacred and exalted. Feminine virtue was seen as so valuable that men the great remaining works of literature depict, no obligate,… Read more »
“What’s not okay is for a man to be feminine, and it’s not because ‘oh he’s doing feminine things, and feminine things are bad, dirty and silly,’ it’s because he’s not acting the way society expects men to behave; it’s because we haven’t made any concerted effort in the last 50 years to expand the ‘man box.’ …I want men and women to have the freedom to express themselves the way they see fit, to believe in the things they see fit, and to live their lives with the set of moral rules they feel are appropriate as long as… Read more »
“Society does not devalue the masculine over the feminine. There is no insidious systematic hatred of all things feminine that has permeated since the beginning of time.” I think it’s important to understand the rhetorical roles that concepts like misogyny have in ideologies. If I subscribe to an ideology that advocates, demands, or desires ubiquitous, & systemic change, then people will be more amenable to endorsing change on that broader scale only if I convince them the grievances I’ve identified cannot be redressed on a smaller scale, or with conditional criteria. The more ubiquitous and systemic a problem is perceived by… Read more »
“Society does not devalue the masculine over the feminine.”
True, they are differently valued.
Did I misread you, are you putting forth that the reason that men who are raped are ignored by NGOs is because of a hatred of women. Seriously. You couldn’t be more wrong if your tried. Men who are raped are ignored because of a zero sum game which says if 1 dollar is given to men who are raped this is one dollar that women don’t get.