Joanna Schroeder believes that stories matter, but without analysis, the conversation is stunted.
I put myself through UCLA in my 20s, working at a very hip boutique in Los Angeles. Robertson Boulevard, where the store was located, was lined with other hip, young boutiques. And inside every single one of those stores was a staff of beautiful salespeople.
We were good at our jobs, wooing trust-fund daughters and starlets with a well-honed mix of admiration and detachment. This was the time before the housing bubble burst and everyone was spending. Nobody who came into shop dropped less than a few hundred bucks, and $10,000 sales to a single customer weren’t all that rare. It was a great job for a starving student.
When I moved from the women’s store to our company’s men’s store, that special mix of admiration required a little tweaking. What was once, “You’re so cool, we’re best friends” with a female client went to “You’re so cool, I’m your girlfriend for the duration of the time you’re in this store” with the guys. I’m not saying we sold sex, I’m saying that sex helped sell clothes. No touching, just that special gleam in the eye that was subtle enough to only register within the man subconsciously.
Miniskirts didn’t hurt, either.
But we were smart girls. Of the women I worked closely with, three now own successful businesses, a few are head designers in successful clothing companies, one is a journalist who now writes for WSJ and The New York Times—print edition. We never played dumb, but we kept it light.
Men were always surprised to learn, however, that I was putting myself through UCLA while selling clothes in these stores. There was the inevitable question, What’s your major? How they responded to my answer always told me a lot.
“Women’s Studies,” I’d say.
Inevitably, the majority of men were really curious about this. This is Los Angeles…Hollywood/Beverly Hills to be precise. Someone studying what I was must’ve seemed rare, and most men really opened up to me.
They wanted to know how to raise their daughters to be strong, and whether I had recommendations for books. They wanted to know how women’s issues had changed since their mothers’ era. They wanted to know how to help their wives deal with the motherhood/work balance. They had stories about friends who’d been raped, girlfriends who’d been molested, their own changing relationships with their daughters.
Suddenly, I was their trusted advisor, and what I learned about men from that experience is that the majority care a lot about women. Sure, most people like a pretty thing to look at—be it a man or a woman—but the vast majority want to be good men. And they wanted to be good men in relation to women.
They may not have named themselves Feminists, but they were definitely concerned about women’s issues. And I think an integral part of being a good man in today’s society is trying to help women gain equality, in understanding how to treat women with respect, and in wanting to raise daughters who are independent, who have strong sexual identities and autonomy, and who have equal opportunities at jobs and freedoms.
Tom Matlack, in his piece Why Being a Good Man is Not a Feminist Issue, suggests that feminism isn’t an integral part of the discussion about what it means to be a good man. He suggests that pieces like, “On Women’s Rights: Yeah, Yeah. Blah, Blah. Whatever” by Yashar Ali don’t have anything to do with being a good man.
I disagree. Strongly. Yashar Ali is a man who travels the path of trying to be a good man. He wants to be good to women, he wants to help women achieve equality. That’s what his piece was about. It wasn’t a piece for women. It was written by a man, for men, to implore them to understand that women have still not achieved equality in many areas. Yashar explains why it is important for men to work alongside women toward equality.
When Yashar says this, he isn’t diminishing the need for the issues in the men’s movement to be addressed, he’s merely addressing why women’s issues should matter to men. If you don’t have cancer, should you care about cancer? Because as a society we will fail if we do not have empathy toward one another.
Men talking about why feminism matters isn’t solely about women. It’s about men, too.
Feminism has a job to do. The women’s movement needs to look at the issues men face in the same way that the discussions around masculinity need to also look at women’s issues. We need to open our eyes to the ways in which masculinity is becoming a confusing and challenged state. I’m not saying men don’t still hold power positions. I’m saying, that’s going to rapidly change in the next 20 years and we need to be prepared and willing to examine things critically.
Primary parenting dads need support, male victims of abuse and sexual assault need resources and acceptance. We need more mentors for young men, we need to strongly examine the intersectionality of racism and gender discrimination and see how Black men are being marginalized at staggering rates. We need to look at the prison rape crises for what it is: institutionalized violations of human rights, heavily weighted toward men.
I learned it when I was a 23 year-old in high heels and miniskirts, and The Good Men Project has reinforced it for me: Most men care about women’s issues. To say that men who care about, and write about, issues relating to women don’t belong in a discussion about what it means to be a good man leaves a huge gap in that conversation. Part of our identity as humans and our “goodness” as men or women lies in how we regard one another and help one another along.
If Tom wants to turn The Good Men Project into a magazine solely dedicated to men telling their stories, I believe that would be beautiful. But that won’t be a project. That’ll be an ever-evolving anthology.
Beautiful stories do move people, but they don’t further discussion unless they are followed by analysis. And analysis often leads to discussion about gender roles, and talk of gender roles often leads to conversations revolving around feminism or men’s rights. To put an end to that is to stunt the conversation, and stunt the growth of our project.
Let’s hear men’s stories. They matter. Men need a place to be who they are: a man who built his father’s pine casket, a primary parent who sometimes struggles with self-esteem, a man who was born a girl but was married as a man. A tough guy who learned while serving in the Army that he is deathly afraid of needles, a photojournalist mourning the loss of his friend and colleague…
But let’s not limit the boundaries of what it is to be a good man to exclude discussions of men’s relationship with feminism or gender equality. After all, analysis and theory can help us better understand exactly why these stories matter.
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Image of Words with Person on Blackboard courtesy of Shutterstock
About Joanna Schroeder
@kaleb
The proof is in the putting Sir, every solid stats whether it’s state, federal or solid reputed private entities show decimal numbers when it comes to the average male Sir !!!! That’s reality, that’s something any of us men & women can look it, no spin or ideology to it.
@Not Buying It
The proof is in the what? “Every solid stats whether it’s state…”? Show decimal numbers proving what regarding the average male?
You spent a comment explaining or proving nothing. I literally do nut understand what you are saying and I think it has a little to do with your grammar.
@kaleb
Sorry , Sir I am using a so called smart phone with a small screen & it has a prompt rewrite annoying function in it, anyway what I was trying to say is :
The proof is in the putting Sir, Every available solid stat whether its state or federal, shows decimal numbers when it comes to the average male Sir including stats from think tanks universities..etc , meaning these stats are not considered politically biased, that’s reality , that is something all of us men & women can not put a spin on it with any ideology you choose, I hope it is clearer grammar now Sir.
@ kaleb
I have No reason to doubt your honesty & open mindedness Sir all I am asking you & anybody who thinks that the all the men on this site & sites like it are bunch angry sexist men is to take a deeper look at what our grievances are when it comes to the Ideology of feminism, we are not all just angry men blinded by whatever you call loss of male privilege after all most of us have sister’s,mother’s, Aunts, niece’s, wife’s, girlfriends, ..etc, whom most of us wouldn’t like them to be treated any different then we would like to be treated by the whole system(courts, government, people,..etc.
@Not Buying It
And I really do thank you for acknowledging my open mindedness and honesty because that’s what I’m about. But I have a problem with you lumping me into this category of “you & anybody who thinks that all the men on this site & sites like it are a bunch of angry sexist men” while asking me to taker a deeper look, etc. I have a problem with that because while I never stated or implied that all me on this site are a bunch of angry sexist men, you’re painting me out to be such a person.
I’m not going to argue with stats because all I am understanding from your argument is that stats are numbers–facts–that you can’t necessarily spin. Well, I never disagreed with that.
I don’t think that all men on this site are a bunch of “angry sexist men”–again, I never said or implied that. I’m a man…why would I generalize all other? My belief is that there are so many institutions supported by so many people that force these ideas of hypermasculinity on us men and we’re all just trying to figure out how to deal. That’s all. I think it’s true, I see it in the men I encounter and I don’t run into too many people who disagree.
I don’t appreciate being set in opposition to the men on GMP. I am a man fighting for gender liberation and looking to understanding it. I do it thoroughly and I believe my duty is to understand how all these different aspects of my life–race, religion, sexuality, education, class–affect it. Again, I don’t think that is wrong. I believe that I have to pay attention to the language I use, I want to give as much respect to women as possible and not perpetuate sexism through language. I don’t think I’m wrong here. So why do so many people seem to disagree with me simply because I’ve ID’d a feminist? It’s not like that’s ALL of who I am nor am I imposing it on anyone–just sharing how it positively affected my development as a man.
Kaleb, I do not think being a feminist is all there is to you, however, most of your comments have been about feminism and as far as I have seen on this thread none of them have allowed for the possibility that feminism may have it wrong. You do not say that “rape culture” might exist, but assert that it does and that men have the “privilege” to pretend that it does not. That argument imposes your views on others. You are not saying, “Believe this or else”, but you are implying, “Feminism is right, you’re wrong”.
Feminism may be valuable to you, it may answer all your questions, and it may seem “right” to you, but that does not mean everyone else will agree. Feminism is not the only, let alone the best, way to examine masculinity and men’s issues. Every time I see these discussions, I keep thinking people are more concerned with defending their views than listening to what men have to say, and that touches on something I have noticed on GMP over the last year: feminism is the only ideology that is regularly brought in any discussion.
No other ideology pops up in any discussions about morality, faith, belief, desire, manhood, responsibility, etc., even though plenty of other ideologies have a lot to say about those things. I doubt that everyone who writes articles or comments here lacks ideological worldviews, so why is it that feminism keeps coming up when people seem willing to set aside their other views for the sake of discussion?
Well said, Jacob. Feminism operates on a set of unproven assumptions–axioms–like many philosophies and political perspectives do. But those remain assumptions, not proven facts.
And many of those assmptions–such as “patriarchy” and “rape culture”–are too often treated as indisputable truths that cannot and must not be questioned, which hinders meaningful discussion.
To me it’s not so much as whether the tenants are proven or not.
Like (I think) Jacob is saying there’s seems to be some desire to inject feminism into any conversation about manhood and masculinity (sometimes even into the forefront of the conversation), whether it’s welcome or not. As if without it the conversation (and by extension manhood/masculinity) is doomed to fail. This is a pretty serious contrast to the times that feminists have pushed men out of conversations. Kinda like saying, “Oh you didn’t want me in your space but now that I have mine you want to get in?”
Kaleb:
I don’t appreciate being set in opposition to the men on GMP. I am a man fighting for gender liberation and looking to understanding it. I do it thoroughly and I believe my duty is to understand how all these different aspects of my life–race, religion, sexuality, education, class–affect it. Again, I don’t think that is wrong.
Nah nothing wrong with trying to get a little understanding.
So why do so many people seem to disagree with me simply because I’ve ID’d a feminist?
Because folks here have been on the receiving end of such automatic judgement from feminists. Ideally this should not happen but we are not in an ideal world.
It’s not like that’s ALL of who I am nor am I imposing it on anyone–just sharing how it positively affected my development as a man.
Of course not you’re certainly more than that. But that is what attracts the attention.
@Kaleb ….. Sorry, I do see you as opposition to men. Maybe it’s because you see men and their issues through feminists eyes and not through the non-feminist male eyes. I’m more then likely at least a generation older then you and accordingly, I have no room in my life and mind for feminism. I’ve had it to here (pointing at my neck) with feminism.
I guess one of the things that bothers me is that no matter what the issue is, someone is being told by a feminist to look at things through the eyes of a feminist. I think it was Julie that responded to me once that she is listening and I know you and many other GMP feminists are listening. But appear to be processed through that feminist mindset and is translated to your personal feminist view and NOT the view of the man speaking.
It’s tiring to hear how the GMP feminist sees things whereas the real world is not the GMP feminist. The card carrying mainstream feminist doesn’t look at men’s issues in any of the same light that the GMP feminist sees things. And at the very least, the GMP feminist was and continues to feel drawn to and influenced by mainstream feminism. IMO the simple proof is the unwillingness to even give up the label if feminism in a time where there are alternative isms that better fit their beliefs.
“IMO the simple proof is the unwillingness to even give up the label if feminism in a time where there are alternative isms that better fit their beliefs”
When one conflates feminism and equality as synonymous, interchangeable, it becomes difficult to give up. That tendency to equate those words as the same, and the tendency to inject hostile motives onto men to explain what is not immediately understood are the two tendencies of feminism I find most damaging… because they are so subtle that even the best intentioned feminist embraces them, yet so influential as to create entire debates about what feminism is about, and how if you’re about equality, you are a feminist, no matter how offensive you find the accusation.
IMO the simple proof is the unwillingness to even give up the label if feminism in a time where there are alternative isms that better fit their beliefs.
Well I wouldn’t say the unwillingness itself is proof. I’m all for folks deciding that their belief fit best with the feminist label. As Mark says the problem is when it gets to the point where it becomes an insistence that if the feminist lens is not in the conversation then the conversation is inherently damaging. Thankfully most of the ones here are not making that insistence but damned if it’s that sentiment isn’t out there.
…and how if you’re about equality, you are a feminist, no matter how offensive you find the accusation.
Oh yeah this one pisses me off to no end. I recall a while back someone guerrilla tagged one my blog posts telling me that I’m a feminists whether I claim the label or not. Trying to make feminism/feminist synonymous with equality in order to elevate it to the point where being called a feminist is supposedly the greatest compliment someone can give you is not the way to get them to open up. Its based on the presumption that no one has ever acted in a bad way in the name of feminism or a presumption that those who have should just “get over it” (not actually confront and address it but just forget it ever happened).
@Jacobtk – that was a very productive response.
The reason I don’t leave room for feminism to be “wrong” (for lack of a better word) is because I so strongly believe it’s “right”, and for the sake of this article, I have to build tight arguments that answer “Why Feminism Belongs at the GMP”. I am TOTALLY open to alternative ideologies through which we can examine masculinity–but I have yet to see anyone provide that, and that may be because this article is specifically about feminism.
You asked a really good question: “I doubt that everyone who writes articles or comments here lacks ideological worldviews, so why is it that feminism keeps coming up when people seem willing to set aside their other views for the sake of discussion?” I can only answer that from my standpoint–that’s the ideology through which I personally examine gender. Honestly, I’ve been a part of GMP for a week so I really cannot attest to why feminism keeps popping up. For me, I’ve mostly been active in this article alone, which specifically brings the topic to the table.
I want to take a moment, Jacob, to say that I really appreciate your response to my comment. I think it was very insightful. And although think we can agree to disagree on some things, we can at least agree on a broader question more applicable to GMP: Where are all the other ideologies? I genuinly respect that you didn’t come at me with a “If you’re such a feminist, then explain (some random topic that has nothing to do with this article)”. Good Man.
@kaleb and @jacobtk
First I want to say that Jacobtk has been a valuable member of our community for quite some time, and Kaleb, as you mentioned, has just joined in, so I am really encouraged by both of your ability to reach some common ground.
Second — I agree! — Jacobtk’s comment above was really insightful. I want to jump in for a moment to address it.
1) There aren’t many ideologies that look at just men. There’s the MRA’s, but they tend to be anti-feminist. So when viewed through that lens, feminism keeps coming up.
2) As Kaleb notes, when manhood/masculinity is examined through the lens of gender, feminism pops up because it is a hot topic for feminists of all genders.
3) There are other ideologies through which we examine masculinity but you may not “see” them if the above are important to you. For example:
— We have many many posts which are pure storytelling. Men who are talking about a defining moment, a glimpse of their experience as a male, a moment when themselves as a man can be examined. Those are among my favorite posts. But those don’t get “examined” or argued over, or talked about the same way other posts do. They just are, and they tell a story, both personal and political.
— We look at manhood through the lens of other social issues — race and class come to mind. Those are often just as heated and provocative as gender.
— Our stories of dads, and our fight to get dads seen as equal, intuitively good parents in the eyes of both the media and the conversation.
— We have a new blog that has just come on board “In Good Faith” which will be examining manhood and goodness from a perspective of Christianity/Spirituality.
— We often look at manhood/masculinity from the standpoint sexuality and it’s entire range.
— As you know Jackob, we also have run a great many stories on sexual abuse, and how to be able to talk about trauma in an open, honest, safe way. This is not necessarily an ideology, but a way of looking at the world that many haven’t seen before.
— Our ethics and values section tries to look at ethical questions without any ideology.
— We also look at issues of men through a pure political lens (and believe me, we get heated arguments between liberals and conservatives), through a business perspective, arts and entertainment, fiction, education.
I would LOVE to know from you both if there are any ideologies or approaches you think are missing, and we will actively seek out writers from those corners.
And yes, it does, in fact, baffle me that we can post 20 stories a day on The Good Men Project, and yet if one or two of those are about feminism we seem to get a barrage of people saying “Why is so much of what you do about feminism?”, when, to me, it’s not at all, that’s just one of the things that gets people riled up. So we are actively looking at that dynamic and we want to be conscious of that going forward.
Thank you both very much for your comments.
Lisa:
— We have many many posts which are pure storytelling. Men who are talking about a defining moment, a glimpse of their experience as a male, a moment when themselves as a man can be examined. Those are among my favorite posts. But those don’t get “examined” or argued over, or talked about the same way other posts do. They just are, and they tell a story, both personal and political.
I personally like these posts too. Namely I like them because they are stories of men who are trying to speak up in a world that does not want to listen to them while at the same time we are told the world is all about us to start with (the whole “but every space is a men’s space” bit). If anything these stories prove that the voices of men are not as universal as others make them out to be. If it really was all about men across the board places like this wouldn’t exist. We’d be able to shout from the highest mountains with no worry of negative consquence.
— We look at manhood through the lens of other social issues — race and class come to mind. Those are often just as heated and provocative as gender.
Taking a much needed look I say. All to often when it comes to how male intersects with other things people are too quick to push the male to the side and make it all about the other things, as if they do not intersect. And this attitude exists even among people who go on about how different characters (and the experiences, norms, etc… that come with them) cross and how it’s all about intersectionality.
— Our stories of dads, and our fight to get dads seen as equal, intuitively good parents in the eyes of both the media and the conversation.
Yes, yes, yes.
— We often look at manhood/masculinity from the standpoint sexuality and it’s entire range.
Instead of just “how does it affect women” as if that is the full extent of male sexuality. Good.
— As you know Jackob, we also have run a great many stories on sexual abuse, and how to be able to talk about trauma in an open, honest, safe way. This is not necessarily an ideology, but a way of looking at the world that many haven’t seen before.
Yes.
— We also look at issues of men through a pure political lens (and believe me, we get heated arguments between liberals and conservatives), through a business perspective, arts and entertainment, fiction, education.
Indeed.
Wow, Lisa! What great feedback.
I want to take a moment, Jacob, to say that I really appreciate your response to my comment. I think it was very insightful. And although think we can agree to disagree on some things, we can at least agree on a broader question more applicable to GMP: Where are all the other ideologies?
I think the apparent lack of other ideologies is the result of the headstart that feminism has on other ideologies. It’s been around for a very long time and is thus very prevalent in many places. Not a judgement of good, bad, or otherwise, just widespread.
A lot of the other ideologies being brought to the table are still developing and as I said above some of those people that are bringing them to the table tried to work with feminism and it didn’t turn out so well. So they looked for better pastures.
Well old wounds don’t heal easily and now that such a better pasture has been found and they see people bringing feminism into it (yes I believe that you aren’t trying to force it on to people but simply bringing it in is enough to set off the alarms) they go off.
Exactly. Some of the most prominent advocates for men’s rights were (and still are) feminists, hated by the feminist movement. Warren Farrell And Christina Hoff Somers both still identify as feminists, even though they are labeled anti-feminists. Erin Pizzey started out a feminist, though she actually IS an anti-feminist and with good reason, IMHO).
Are you sure Christina Hoff Somers identifies as a feminist? The last time I asked her she was very iffy about it and basically said she avoided that sort of label because at the best it tended to not be productive. But that was over ten years ago. If she changed her mind I think that would be interesting.
I know it’s not much to go on, but Wiki’s Bio on her uses “equity feminist” as an occupation behind Author. I’m sure I’ve also seen an interview of her on youtube that included Author/Feminist to describe her, though I can’t find it. Might of been one of her comments on Politically incorrect (from 2007, so not that recent ether)
Well, according to this seminar, at the very least, she WAS a feminist (whether she still identifies or not, I don’t know for certain), so my point still stands.
“The reason I don’t leave room for feminism to be “wrong” (for lack of a better word) is because I so strongly believe it’s “right”, and for the sake of this article, ”
Kaleb, there you have it. You label it as a belief, and offer no logical or factual basis. That isi why it is both unconvincing to others and also why it is unable to explain reality. You might be equally convinced that the world every species of living creature in it came inot existence in six days, but you could hardly expect your views to be taken seriously in a discussion of biology or paleontology, or geology, or astrophysics, or basicaly anything else.
You have bought into a belief system, and it seems to give you comfort and meaning. That is personal; matter that doesn’t concern anyone else here. This is a site for understanding men’s issues, not feminism.
“The reason I don’t leave room for feminism to be “wrong” (for lack of a better word) is because I so strongly believe it’s “right”, ”
Kaleb, that is belif, its not knowledge. Yours its pure faith and that leads to bias and misconception and some times even pure fantasy, common between belivers (christians, flat earth society, creationism, aliens nazis, commies ect) would you not prefer to KNOW that feminism is the best tool outhere? if you want to know, the best way its to question the movement: theories, tenets and so on.
Belivers tend to exclude all the contradiction inside their aggregation, UFO belivers exclude scientific explanations and instead favor mistrust, conspiracy and pseudo science. Same thing for some religious people and political activist. Its like somebody dont want to have their dream spoiled and ruined by reality that they prefer to runaway from this world and hide in a fantasy universe. Where all evil is done by satan, jesus is our saviour and he will one day come down to earth again in company of the greys. Im not saying you are like this, just stating that belive close your mind and limit your ability to process the reality. Favoring always the explanation that is in line with your “faith”.
Bein Mulder (reference from the X-files, I want to belive) is not the best attitude; be like Scully instead. Skeptical. Thats is the best way to keep in touch of the reality
ciao
@Kaleb:
There is nothing wrong with having strong beliefs, however, those beliefs can become a problem in discussions about broad issues like masculinity because everyone does not share those beliefs. Think of it this way: let us say this was a site for discussing morality. Chances are many people joining in will be Christian, so there is a good chance that religion, particularly variants of Christianity, will come up in the discussion. However, if Christians kept injecting their Christian beliefs into every discussion, it would kill the discussion because everyone is not Christian.
Every ideology that looks at society examines masculinity. The way they do it differs from feminism in language and intent, but every ideology says something about male behavior. My question is why then should we use feminism as the lens to view men’s stories as opposed to, for example, Judeo-Christian lenses? Better yet, why view men’s stories through any lens? Why not simply let me tell their stories without playing politics or trying to analyze them through the narrowest lens possible?
You misunderstand my question. I was not asking where are the other ideologies; I want to know why people who surely hold other ideological views are willing to set all them aside except for feminism when comes to discussing men’s issues. People could just as easily talk about the Christian God putting men through trials as an explanation for why men and boys suffer abuse, but no one does that. In contrast, several people have written posts about how “rape culture” causes male abuse, despite that the theory holds all men, including abused men, collectively responsible for abuse and claims that they benefit from said abuse.
Well, I am not interested in having anyone prove their status. I rather people speak their mind and address what they say.
I’d be happy to give the communist point of view more often but when I did it was usually picked up by some capitalist and then I thought, well, this is going to get way off topic very fast isn’t it?
@ Kaleb
I’m not sure if feminism is even relevant anymore. Over the past two years I’ve grown with the people in my master’s class. If you asked people to label themselves at the beginning of the program, I’m sure feminist, liberal, or progressive would be selected by over 90% of the class. 1 or 2 guys would have identified as conservative. I’m certain none would be MRA.
As we went through our journey, I started to identify as MRA and brought up many issues affecting men most notably the gender gap in education. It was initially met with derision. If men didn’t want to go, it’s their problem. There was no bias in the system. Then it was considered a problem, but it wasn’t institutional (they refused to blame the men too). Then when I brought up discrimination in some programs like nursing, the beliefs shifted again. One instructor was stunned speechless when she asked if women were under represented in higher education as was told a unanimous no by the class. Two women took it upon themselves to research why men were failing and to find ways to address that.
Recently I was asked to post an article related to higher education. I selected the men’s center at SFU. I received a response from an individual who a year ago would not recognize discrimination against men in higher education. She not only supported the men’s center, but questioned the continued need for the women’s. Society is becoming more equalist. You see it in the successes of the father’s rights movement, the change in the attitude in academia, and most recently in Germany when they banned MGC in a part of the country.
Feminism sees the world through a lens that is no longer valid and feminists stand on the wrong side of history.
@Kaleb, you seem pretty cluey on feminism. Is there more of a shift towards kyriarchy vs patriarchy these days? Why do some feminists use patriarchy yet others use kyriarchy?
@Archy,
That’s actually a great question, you should totally do some research on that. I think I’ll stick to the topic at hand.
I am, hence why I asked
If any feminist wants to write an article on it I’ll gladly read. From what I see and even my own personal view, kyriarchy gets more acceptance from men here I think. I think the power of wealth is absolutely immense and it’s one of the most common arguments I see about patriarchy, the poor vs rich man debate.
What know of it still ignores certain factors. But it’s not all “blamey” like patriarchy theory is.
I can tell you from a little bit of reading at least some of the ones that use patriarchy want to make sure the problems are labeled as male. Like they think that the word kyriarchy somehow absolves men of responsibility or something like by way of not naming the problem something male.
Me personally I’d be fine with calling it “The System”.
If the price of correcting gender disparity was not blaming the disparity on a particular gender, I’ve often wondered if feminists would prefer the problems not be corrected.
Futrelle, I normally do not comment on petty attacks like the one above, but for the sake of clarity, anyone who reads my post would see that I quoted and linked back to the original comments on your site. Unless you are accusing me of editing the quotes, the simple fact is that some of your commenters accuse male survivors of lying about their abuse when those male survivors disagree with them or say something they do not like.
Well sure, men care about women. But that’s not a good thing; that’s a bad thing. It’s a bad thing that men only care about women, and hardly ever about other men. I’m not saying this is unique to men btw; women don’t care about men either. Everyone cares about women and nobody cares about men. That’s the problem.
I don’t know how anyone would go about defining “good” for themselves exactly, but it seems like to begin with you have an internal aspect of what is good, which doesn’t depend on anything outside you. A sort of alone on a desert island goodness. We’re not talking about that. Everything else is how you relate to people, and sure, women are people. But why would you single them out and say they need special attention? Attention that male people don’t deserve or need? Especially in a society where everyone already does that.
If anything you’d want the opposite wouldn’t you? To bring about a balance you’d need to give special attention to male people. Tell their stories to enable people to identify with them and so have compassion for them?
I think it would be better to just try to ignore the whole male-female thing if that were possible. But I also know that people find it hard to have compassion (or act as if they did) without the sense of familiarity.
In either event feminism has nothing to say because it’s all about women, all the time. It’s about women’s stories and about making women more immediate so that people will have more compassion for women than they already do, which is an awful lot. And too feminism is usually about denigrating men and casting them as the other, which is directly undermining “good”.
That’s definitely an interesting opinion you’ve got there (that everyone cares about women and no one cares about men). I’m going to have to disagree with you there and if you’ve gotten the message that I don’t care about men you’ve surely misunderstood everything I’ve stated and stand for. I believe I’ve made myself extremely clear.
We have stark differences in our ideological views. To each his or hers own.
Opinions are not all of equal value. My opinion is backed up with facts and I discovered it for myself in the face of opposition. Your opinion is dictated by popular ideology from a group that prevents any sort of criticism of its views.
Can you think of any example where as a society we care as much for men as women? for boys as we do for girls? I can easily give dozens of important illustrations of this. There’s also a fairly obvious socio-biological basis for it without getting to “just so”.
A funny for the Commie you David:
Comrade 1: “Tell me comrade, what is capitalism?”
Comrade 2: “The exploitation of man by man”
Comrade 1: “And what is Communism?”
Comrade 2: “The reverse.”
See…I care about men!
There is a great deal of evidence that the feminist movement cares only about girls and women, or at the very best cares far, far, far, more about girls and women than boys and men. Clear evidence of this is the difference in how it deals with perceived inequality. As just one example, the movement and its adherents have successfully made the “wage gap” a social and polical topic tens or hundreds of thousands of times, but the “education gap” somewhere around zero times.
Hence, the evidence is clear that the feminist movement is in no way motivated and has no intention of truly assisting and supporting boys and men as it does girls and women.
I beg to differ Eric – there is a great struggle to overcome toxic masculinity.
http://feministteacher.com/2011/03/29/teaching-boys-feminism/
More seriously though – the education gap is believed to date back to the early 90’s, and some of the better explanations point to the change of introducing literacy earlier on, and that young boys take longer to be structurally ready for its introduction, then fall behind, missing their optimal window for literacy development. This coupled with the societal meme that boys will somehow “catch up”, has resulted in the most significant portion of the education gap we see today.
In the end, it’s an operational timing issue, just like good sex.
But, of course. Masculinity is toxic.
The cause of the education gap doesn’t matter. Nobody cares. Politicians can’t care. You can’t win an election if you show concern for boys or men. You would be called a woman-hater and misogynist. Your political career would be sabotaged and quickly overwith. The movement has tremendous political power.
The incontrovertible evidence that the government doesn’t care about boys and men is that it has appropriated zero dollars and zero cents to achieve equality in education despite the government itself doing the reporting on the education gap.
Think of this contrast. It has spent hundreds of millions to help girls and women achieve equality in education, both in scholastics and in sports. This with the full political backingof the feminist movement.
Another contrast: the feminist movement has addressed the wage gap probably millions of times now, but has shown virtually no interest or concern for the education gap, and certainly doesn’t make it a platform or political issue as it does countless women’s issues.
Compare that to the fact that there is not a single feminist organization that campaigns for similar government-funded programs to ensure educational equality for boys and men. It is an issue that is largely ignored. And, when it is mentioned, their solution generally ends up being to criticize and attack the children themselves (e.g. toxic masculinity), claiming that THEY themselves are the problem.
These contrasts in what the feminist movement does demonstrates how it views and feels about females vs. males.
@ elissa
Sometimes there is institutional bias against men in education.
Other studies that examined gender discrimination in nursing school have found that men have faced gender bias in nursing school. The Association of Women, Obstetric, and National Nurses survey its’ male members and found that 42% of the respondents experienced gender bias from the faculty or nursing staff. It is important to note that these male nursing students reported that the bias did not come from the patients. Other studies examining the reasons men felt bias in nursing school found the lack of male models and mentors (Kaite, Kputa 2011, p. 60). There have also been cases of male student nurses being denied the opportunity to provide intimate care to female patients when female student nurses were allowed to provide intimate care for both male and female patients. In England, a male student nurse won a case based on the denial to provide intimate care to female patients (Batty 2006, para 1). Although he won his case, the experience caused him to abandon nursing (Batty 2006, para 3).
References
Batty, D. (2006 June 9. Student nurse win NHS discrimination case. The Guardian. Retrieved October 1, 2011 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/jun/09/health.genderissues
Jaschik, S. (2010 January 26). Gender gap stops growing. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved September 26, 2011 from http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/01/26/gender.
Kaite, C. P., Kouta, C. (2011 January) Gender discrimination and nursing: A literary review. Journal of Professional Nursing. Retrieved October 1, 2011 from http://www.professionalnursing.org/article/S8755-7223(10)00146-8/abstract
There was another survey taken by a nurses group which found that 90% or so of nurses heard anti-male comments in nursing school. If I could find the link I’ll provide it. I only found a draft version of the paper proposal.
Sometimes the gender gap can be explained simply through sexism.
I agree John – timing is just the fix. The systemic bias comes about from the constructionist meme and belief that learning is fungible across sexes. The wrongness and/or wishful thinking of this approach has been guided by academics reared on equality via sameness: make little boys more like little girls and the world will be a happier place.
@ Eric M
“There is a great deal of evidence that the feminist movement cares only about girls and women, or at the very best cares far, far, far, more about girls and women than boys and men.”
I actually don’t have a problem with this. My problem is that in addition to this, they claim that they care as much or at least a significantly similar amount about men and boys. That is one way that feminism hurts men and boys. It tricks people who genuinely care about men and boys into thinking that their efforts will go towards that end.
An example is MGC. I was on a feminist discussion board and the majority opinion was that MGC was bad, but a ban on MGC wasn’t supported. They supported attempts at affecting a change in societal attitudes. They pointed to the ban on FGC in Africa having little effect. They even conceded that a ban on MGC in the U.S. would stop routine MGC and never explained why boys shouldn’t be afforded the protection of the law as girls while we were changing societal attitudes. They never explained why FGC is banned in the U.S. and effectively ended isn’t a better predictor of the results of banning MGC than comparing it to FGC in Africa. Banning MGC would prevent insurance companies from covering it, which may in itself stop the practice.
Things like that make me wonder if they don’t want to maximize the number of boys tortured and mutilated before society wakes up and says enough. Since they actively oppose a ban in favor of changing societal attitudes (in theory), I’ve been on the lookout for instances of feminists actually doing this like slutwalk or walk a mile in her shoes. So far I’ve seen nothing.
I think this is such a huge misstep. We should be banning both and working together.
I’d like to see them both done away with as well.
But as long as we see people that think violating a child’s bodily autonomy is a bad thing in only some cases it will be a hard road. So as it stands:
Cutting girls is a universally bad thing no matter the reason and cutting boys is a bad thing but since it might help with stopping HIV transmittal in the future, it’s important for him to look like his father (and no it’s not always the father saying that), it’s important for him to look normal to the woman he will be sexually active with later, and religion takes precedence over bodily autonomy we have the current state in the States where cutting girls is a crime but cutting boys is covered by some medical insurance policies.
Sewing up the vagina would probably reduce HIV rates, but it still is barbaric as hell and isn’t acceptable. MGC’s HIV benefits are actually quite small apparently, I’d say the risk from surgery is worse than the benefit difference from reducing HIV for MGC. Why is any unnecessary removal of tissue from the body acceptable? The only times it is acceptable is for adults who can consent, or to prevent future complications such as phimosis for the few that have a higher chance. The majority shouldn’t be cut until they can decide for themselves with full consent. Over all the hoopla about consent and rape, you’d think people would extend that to any genital mutilation and allow the person to have body autonomy. The only time the parents should intervene is in the case there is a major need for surgery I think.
And I think an integral part of being a good man in today’s society is trying to help women gain equality(Joanna)
What I find intriguing about this comment is that for me, if I am to believe it, then I must assume that a woman on her own is not capable of equality without the help of a male. What it tells me is that men are in control and must “give” up some of that control for equality because obviously this is what a good man will do. What it makes me feel is that because of the obvious physical imbalance men will always control the world. What it fails to realize is that power or control is not about physicality or gender but about ingenuity and that in itself points to equality. But then again, maybe I just dont see it right.
“And I think an integral part of being a good man in today’s society is trying to help women gain equality(Joanna)”
I’d say trying to help EVERYONE gain equality should be an integral part of being a good man or woman, not just helping women. But in order to help women gain equality with men, should men lobby for women to be included in selective service? Forced into conscription whenever it happens? Reduce the advocacy of female rape to better match the (lack) of coverage men get? Or do these women just want the positives men get without the negative?
It wouldn’t be equality if you only increased the positives women get to match the male positives, without also either increasing the positives men get to match women’s or giving women the negatives men get to match men.
Naw, I meant more like…there are certain topics that I see brought up by MRAs regularly, and not positively.
Funny I see the same of feminists but oh well.
I do not doubt people have called you an MRA simply because they’ve said stuff you disagree with. I seriously do not doubt that.
Thank you for acknowledging this. I’ve grown rather tired of feminist after feminist just deciding that this does not happen. Usual reason, “I’ve never seen it happen so that means it doesn’t happen and you’re lying or misunderstood something.” I don’t know if those folks somehow got their hands on the All Seeing Eye of Agamoto(sp?) or what.
But even more than that there is a problem of how that type of behavior is deemed okay when they would scream the bloodiest of murder when done to others.
And the reason I often have a negative association with someone I think of as an MRA is because there are so few positive MRM spaces. Not just, I have had negative experiences in them…but rather that the spaces themselves are negative. (i.e. about anger and attacking feminists and/or about totally rewriting history and/or about general misogyny).
And while not on the same wavelegnth as what you’re talking about it’s more than just negative experiences with me as well. It’s about negative feminist spaces. Spaces where men in can be taken in worst faith and it goes unchallenged (if not actively defended). And these aren’t just bottom of the barrel radfem spaces, but larger more widely accepted spaces where this stuff happens.
That’s why you have folks (not just men) that have a negative association with people that they may perceive as feminist.
And treating the MRA label like some sort of white out that nullifies any and all acts of merit? Not a justified action, but one that happens in a lot of feminist spaces.