Tom Matlack doesn’t understand why we can’t talk about the good of men without continuing to step backwards.
“Why We Need to Stop Bemoaning the End of Men” writes Meghan Casserly in the most recent Forbes Magazine (which @NicJohnsonPEC was kind enough to tweet to me this morning).
Meghan starts out strong, nailing the whole End of Men argument and tearing apart Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men Into Boys by Kay Hymowitz. She quotes HuffPo contributor Marcia Reynolds who, she says, “put it best” when she said, “We are all evolving. It’s the labels and judgments we place on each other that are not evolving.”
Amen, girlfriend, with you 100%.
But after all this great prose from a woman in Forbes magazine of all places saying that the women sociologists-psychos like Hanah Rosen and Kay Hymowitz who are so determined to take down men rather than work with them as a force for good (Yeah, this whole thing is a bit too Star Wars for my taste with us guys as the “dark side” for sure), my BFFL Meghan goes completely under on me. Just after bemoaning labels she goes right back to the well.
It’s true. We want our men smart, but not cocky. Protective, but not patronizing. Driven, but not a dick. And we also want him to help us out when we’ve got an eight pm meeting and there are kids that need to get fed. In other words, we want a decent human being to pick up the slack where we can’t, provided we pick up the slack for him. Seems like a reasonable trade.
So why is asking for equality, the “end of men?” Why is asking our partners to be partners emasculating?
Because despite the case-by-case expectations of equality in gender roles, culturally we haven’t let go of the paternalistic authority of men over women. And stories about the “decline” of our men-folk aren’t making things better for any of us.
How a thinking person could champion a woman’s strides towards equality in the same breath that they criticize men for becoming less than as a result is beyond me. The double-standard—that a women can and must demand her seat at the table to be a real woman but that a man giving up his to clear dishes makes him less than a real man—is just so outdated.
Let alone the fact that women only hold 3.2% of the top CEO positions and, across the board still earn roughly 79 cents to the dollar. Oh, and we’re still the only ones who can bear children (thanks, science!). The pages of Forbes aren’t yet filled with feminine faces. ForbesWoman still exists. We may be winning some battles of the sexes, but we still haven’t won the war.
Really, Meghan? We had to go back to the old paternalistic authority argument? And just when I thought we were getting somewhere here.
I think labels do suck. I think most men in 2011 are descent human beings who are not emasculated by cuddling their kids and doing the dishes (and actually think its the best part of their day, read just a sampling of posts here on GMP). The whole idea behind what we are doing here is to be, as men, partners to our wives and husbands. Why the piling on?
And just when I couldn’t get any more depressed, my buddy and our wonderful columnist here on GMP tweets me this:
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photo: iamalegend / flickr
About Tom Matlack
What’s more ridiculous? The war on drugs or the war between sexes?
I don’t get it? Because Helen Reddy made a song in the early 70s and Gloria Steinhem wrote it, we have to be at odds with females?
Maybe Meghan should come by my house where I live with 4 women, a wife and 3 daughters, and listen to what they have to say. They don’t seem to think their husband and dad is an adversary. Ok, well, the teenager does, but that’s beside my point.
I work around women every day. We’re more worried about getting our jobs done well, than who’s getting ahead quicker or better.
You and me both brother. Between my teenage daughter, my current wife, my ex-wife, my mom, all my nieces who I am very close to, my sister, my mother in-law, I am a man surrounded by women. And pretty darn happy about it.
This sounds like me, except I have two daughters. not three In my world, there is no gender war. I love my girls and they love me, their boy cousins, uncles, grandfathers, friends, etc. This whole gender war concept is so foreign to me. My boss and her two bosses are women, and gender is irrelevant to what we get done.
As far as I have seen, wherever feminism rears it’s head, gender wars seem to break out. Without feminism, men and women seem to get along just fine.
Oops!
“This sounds like me, except I have two daughters not three. In my world, there is no gender war.”
Perhaps I should try proofreading occassionally.
Wow, this is one article I’d like to sit and actually talk to you about over coffee, rather than type. I have so many questions to as you, but the internet doesn’t seem like the forum for it.
My writing is clumsy today, please forgive me.
Part of the issue for me is that there are articles like “The End Of Men” and then there are real people who just like living their lives in their partnerships. But there are also lots of books and articles with those fears, and there are websites focused on those fears of men.
Where is the cultural anxiety coming from that the books are being written?
Just this morning on Hugo’s FB post on the topic, there is a comment stating that men may feel emasculated because they are no longer needed to “provide.” If you go with that cultural narrative that men are needed for monetary support and provision, then it is assumed the women does not earn, but plays her role in the house (I guess). If money is a source of power, then the women don’t have it and the men do. So I don’t see how that isn’t paternalistic. Or at least a power dynamic. I’m going with paternalistic as the men are earning, but pick another one if you like.
If a woman earns and has fiscal power and her partner does too, the commenter seemed to think that could indicate a loss of power for the man (he’s not needed as much) and he could feel emasculated.
I responded with this,”I’d say that men (and women) need to learn how to redefine what it means to “take care of” so that the shift of women being able to financially care for themselves isn’t as much of a hit. I understand what you mean though, I get what that emotional experience might be like. For instance, if a woman isn’t capable of, say, breastfeeding, she may feel (after having internalized the cultural messaging surrounding breastfeeding) that she is defeminized in some way. But isn’t she still caring for her child? She has to do the personal work of unpacking all those messages and determining which are actually worth keeping. If a man’s worth is wrapped up in paying for things (being a provider) then he’s always at risk of losing that status (to a richer man, to women working). But if hs ability to care and provide for the woman is less tangible and more in terms of connection, and the man and woman (or any gender combo here) is about “want” and not “need” perhaps we’ll see a much different paradigm in a few years.”
I agree that there are hundreds of thousands of men out there who are happy partners to their wives (or husbands!), fathers to their kids, and so forth. Nearly every man I know seems pretty chill about their lives. Yet we hear that men feel emasculated, without purpose and so forth. Is it related to women and their rise in society and the lack of “need” we have for men. I hate that phrase personally. I don’t ever want to “need” someone. I want to want them. Anyway, or is it coming from a pervasive sense that everything else in the world is topsy turvy, that the money is gone, that the golden age of an American Empire is fading (meta masculinity?), that technology makes roles irrelevant on a certain level, that the economic situation is provoking distrust and paranoia in all, all of us looking to blame someone other than ourselves (and frankly we individually feel disempowered).
Is it really just about gender? Where else are these polemic articles like “Manning Up” coming from?
Finally, I do hope that last line was sarcasm. It was an intense way of ending a piece, and I’m not entirely sure if it’s coming from the issues with gender or other things connected to the bigger picture, but I can say it affected me strongly.
Best,
Julie
Julie I guess my point is that this whole gender construct with men as oppressors because of the paternalistic system (and where “The End of Men” is some kind of successful sneak attack by women announced by female sociologists) is just getting us absolutely no where. The point of GMP, the point of what is actually going on in the world, has to do with men and women working together in all their diversity and uniqueness and in all shapes, sizes, colors, and orientations. This whole feminism vs. MRA; women are getting screwed vs. men are now getting screwed worse; men should be strong yet weak women should be beautiful yet strong yet weak….is just nonsense. Every man has a story. Every woman has a story. Let’s celebrate THAT. My frustration with the Forbes article is that is where I thought it was going only to lapse back into broad brush nonsense about men not doing their part in the gender “war.” There is no war. There are a bunch of people trying to figure out how to make it through a really confusing, complex, and challenging world. No finger pointing required.
I think this is, for me, a both and situation. There are indeed people making things better outside of a binary (win v lose) and there are many many people who have and share stories on an individual level. And there are (and have been more) institutional problems. Much has shifted over the last 50 years on that institutional and personal level. Much can be done both for men and for women, but that doesn’t mean that “all” problems are solved/fixed whathaveyou, any more than saying racism doesn’t exist anymore and let’s just drop all that nonsense and we’re all equal.
Many of us act and feel and behave equally when it comes to race. And there are still issues and places to improve institutionally.
Constructs exist, I think, to help us make sense out of a huge possibly incomprehensible system of dynamics. When the constructs or models get set in stone is where the construct itself becomes part of a larger narrative story about “how things are.”
I think this probably happens all the time.
Anyway, FWIW I think it’s a both-and. Much like you need radicals pushing hard forward and diplomats making slower connections, much like you need peacemakers alongside rabblerousers, activists and advocates, I think I appreciate knowing that individuals can live on a different playing field than the systems they play in/on. But we are all in this system. It’s the water we swim in and it exists. Not necessarily in a “war” but it can feel that way. It’s certainly easy to experience it that way as binaries are kind of our default.
Sure that is why we have Hugo AND me.
On race I am totally with you. Read anything I have written and you will see. I actually think the collective facts and figures there are much more stark than on gender. Men of color or systematically getting screwed when you look at education achievement, wealth, and prison. You really can’t interpret the data any other way.
What’s more ridiculous? The war on drugs or the war between sexes?
Due to the fact that drugs are an actualy problem and not a fabrication I’ll say the war of the sexes. Or are you talking about the wars themselves? I’ll go with the war on drugs because I’m betting that one certainly resulted in more lives lost and ruined and money wasted.
Really, Meghan? We had to go back to the old paternalistic authority argument? And just when I thought we were getting somewhere here.
Oh we were or at least making stride. Its just that some people can’t accept that and want the war to continue.
And of course you have people on all sides that twist the things affecting men to their own agenda (either to claim its the end of men or to say its just patriarchal whining).
Someone pass me the fucking revolver. I am going to stick it down my throat and pull the trigger.
Oh hell no. I refuse to let the foolishness of some backward minded folks to cause one of the good ones to take himself out.
Tom, thank you for the work you (and your team) are doing. I appreciate what it’s taking (and taking out of you) to wade through it all. I know that it’s going to make a difference in the way men and women relate (I’m holding that vision!).
That was more or less me in the title picture at 5am this morning
. Couldn’t get back to sleep (horror film was a bad idea) so I decided to argue about gender instead.
Thats a great article, well said. I think the “end of men” had some excellent points though. For me the article was about how women now have two gender roles and (some) men have none. Many men are still culturally entrenched in the idea that they’re supposed to be 1950s men, rather than 2010s men.
I suspect that this will fade when all those female graduates start rising through the ranks and realise that they really need a partner who’s willing to do the dishes and keep house, rather than someone in a fancy suit who makes six figures, and their male counterparts realise that real men change nappies (diapers for our colonial cousins).
“Because despite the case-by-case expectations of equality in gender roles, culturally we haven’t let go of the paternalistic authority of men over women. And stories about the “decline” of our men-folk aren’t making things better for any of us.”
I have two friends who are blissfully happy in their marriage and domestic arrangements. It’s a delight to visit at any time. They have few house rules.
One is their front door is always open – but they do reserve the right to require anyone who enters to leave upon request. No matter what happens in life, you will get unwelcome visitors and they do have to go!
The other rule which operates is all biases get checked at the door! That includes their own.
Domestic bliss – great friends – and no concerns with “paternalistic authority” invading the house.
It’s quite possible for single males and females sans children to do the same thing!
People stop taking me so seriously. I was joking about the gun. Just a vivid way of saying “this is getting REALLY old.” Sorry if it put people on edge this morning. Been enjoying my day ever since writing it. Not like I sit around with clenched fists over this kind of thing. Just get annoyed and move on…wanted to make a point and perhaps did it with a bit too much vigor. I’ve been accused of that more than once…
It was indeed vivid.
Tom – I thought the closing line was more than appropriate and evocative of the frustrations.
I thought it was great. And very funny.
Well, at least Kay Hymowitz did an excellent job in presenting the statistics showing a general decline in male achievement. Her celebratory tone was most unwelcome. 40% male university enrolment and dropping is something that needs to be addressed and at least people like Warren Farrell are showing some concern rather than pretending it doesn’t exist.
http://whitehouseboysmen.org/blog/
If you reject Hymowitz’s argument then why do you embrace Michael Kimmel’s Guyland?
I am not a fan of MIchael Kimmel.
I read the article as saying that the whole “End of Men” hypothesis comes from the cultural idea that men whould have paternalistic authority over women, so when that authority declines, some start bemoaning that men are finished.
You can’t deny that historically, women were considered children who required the father-like authority of a male throughout their lives to support and guide them. That idea has largely disappeared, but that fact seems to create cultural anxiety. At one extreme, you can see that anxiety with the type of MRA’s who want submissive mail-order brides who will respect male authority. You see it with hysterical “end of men” articles that cause women to be fearful that our success and achievement is fundamentally repulsive to men and will destroy our chances of family and children. You can see it in the reams of tired evo-pysch comments that always crop up when gender is discussed, arguing that women are “naturally” designed to be mothers so presumably we shouldn’t aspire to anything else or we are violating natural laws. These are all cultural tropes, whether they are true or not, it’s what a lot of people believe.
Woah, woah, woah. Wait… what?
Ok. I completely understand, and agree, that we need to move forward together and let go of labels, etc, or that many men don’t feel emasculated. And I’m cool if we could get over calling it “gender wars” because I’d much rather *not* pit people against one another or pretend we’re on different sides for some reason.
That said… as a woman, I don’t for a second believe the patriarchy is over. I still feel bias and prejudice due to my gender every day. I still see it holding my colleagues back. Not all men feel as you do, Tom. I wish it were otherwise, but it’s not. Yes, I think *always* going with “gender war” can be unhelpful, but I do feel like this is still a battle. There are still lines in the sand. There is still progress to be made. There are still men, AND WOMEN, who are blocking that progress. I do not, however, think those lines correspond to gender.
Did I just completely miss the point?
Nikki — if that’s what believe, then that’s what you believe. But I think it misses a crucial point. Your average male isn’t at fault for any of these issues, but still feels beaten down and faulted for it. My “male privilege” didn’t prevent me from losing all I ever owned in a nasty divorce (including the affections of my beautiful children). It didn’t prevent me from losing my job when the economy tanked. And it didn’t prevent me from being homeless and hungry for one agonizing stretch of several months. If some women have a problem making it to CEO, I feel for them, I really do. But I feel more for the guys who keep knocking above their “glass cellar” and can’t get out from under it. Men working dangerous jobs incredibly long hours, men being homeless and sleeping on the subways and park benches, men being made to kill and be killed in wars (at an age when we don’t even deem them mature enough to purchase their own alcohol!).
So as I see it, here’s what it boils down to: you think patriarchy is hurting women. Men think feminism (or at least some aspects of 3rd wave) is hurting them by ignoring the real problems faced by men today. To that, Tom appears to be making the only reasonable suggestion, which I’d sum up as: Let’s stop playing the game of who is a bigger victim and who is at fault, and let’s just focus on making things better for everyone. And to that, all you offer in response is: “I don’t mind if we stop ‘calling it “gender wars”‘, but how dare you deprive me of my special victim status!”
It is always so much easier to look at things from the individual basis than dig into the systemic. Even when we look at the institutional level (which yes is made up of individuals) it’s hard not to take things personally.
Let’s look at it this way. I’ve been a relatively healthy person my whole life. Most of my friends have never gotten cancer. Does that mean that on a systemic health level we don’t need to address issues of cancer prevention, research, and cures? After all, I don’t know anyone who’s gotten sick, and I don’t think it could possibly be that big a deal if I don’t know anyone with it.
Not a perfect apples to apples comparison, I realize. But it’s early and I don’t do my best work in the morning.
There are institutional instances of sexism, racism, classism. Individuals may work within those systems and not feel any of the “privilege” that they are told they have.
Personally we won’t get past this “war” until individuals (all of us even me!) can learn to think systemically and look, not for blame on individuals–unless of course the individual has actually done something–but for solutions to getting past this win/lose binary we have going on.
I’m quite intrigued by the concept of Gender Confluence, that Soroya Chemaly noted in Hugo’s piece on the matter. Her quote at 3:19 pm is brilliant.
http://goodmenproject.com/newsroom/its-not-the-end-of-men-and-we-still-have-work-to-do/comment-page-1/#comment-74652
Julie, I agree, the systemic issues need to be looked at. But that’s why I pointed out homelessness, dangerous jobs, and wars. (And let’s not forget suicide, which men commit four times as much as women.) Take, for example, Warren Farrell’s book, “The Myth of Male Power.” That goes directly to the systemic. Agree with him or disgaree with him, but I can’t even get my female friends to consider the possibility that he has something valuable to say. For instance, Farrell has some interesting data on the income disparity that points to factors other than sexism, including the fact that women sometimes approach the same jobs with different attitudes from men, and that, all things being equal, women actually earn more for the same work. But feminist views have become so entrenched that it is nearly impossible to even consider opposing views.
I look around with my very subjective perspective and see women, on balance, being happier, more confident, more educated, more fulfilled, more empowered, and men feeling beaten down and confused. Of course, this is a broad generalization. But judging from the people I know (and a lot of men speaking out online in forums such as GMP), a lot of men feel this way but have no idea what to do with these feelings. And then when we try to raise the issues, we get two responses: a) We raise the systemic issues, citing facts and statistics, and are told that the “personal is the political” (whatever the !@#$ that means), and that someone knows someone whose husband or BF or male boss is an asshole and therefore why do facts matter, and b) we raise the personal and we’re told that our personal circumstances don’t matter and we should stop whining because there are systemic issues.
The fact is, on a very broad level, men today are confused. They’re not sure whether giving up their seat on the subway for a woman (I live in NY) is chilvalrous or patronizing. They’re not sure, after all our talk of “equality,” why they should pay for a drink on a first date if they’ve already gone after the girl (who might very well be earning more than him), risked rejection (which, when it comes, is often brutal and demoralizing), not even sure they like the girl all that much but are willing to give it a try, and then the girl expects to be wined and dined before she even glances his way further. Men are not sure, when authors write about their gender’s demise (“end of men”), if they should applaud or feel concerned. They’re not sure if raising the issues make them misogynist whiners or brave iconoclasts. They’re not sure if they should speak out about their feelings, or if that makes them sissies and wusses and unattractive to their female partners. They’re not sure why the lovely ladies of “The Talk” find it hilarious that a man’s penis has been chopped off by a livid wife, but they kind of accept that maybe it is funny — it has to be funny — because, well, it’s a penis, and aren’t penises just hilarious, except when they’re gross and threatening.
So where to we even start the conversation? Well, GMP is a start, but let’s face it, on a national level, there’s a looong way to go.
Well said, Danny.