Following on from Noah’s link to Linda Holmes’ piece about how the new American network TV season is a flood of eye-searing misandry like How to be a Gentlemen, Man Up and Last Man Standing: Quiet Riot Girl gives her take on the situation, a masterful critique of one of the sources of all this nonsense, namely Hanna Rosin’s “End of Men” article she wrote in The Atlantic then gave a speech about at TED and now plans to make into a book.
A half-dozen pilots were made by the three major networks, and they will all be released in September. Some of their names are interchangeable–Man Up!, Last Man Standing, How to Be a Gentleman. They all feature men who are unemployed or underemployed, love to play video games, and are desperately in need of a makeover. “Life is a big jerk and punches you in the face over and over again,” complains Bert Lansing, a lughead personal trainer in ABC’s How to Be a Gentleman, played by Kevin Dillon from Entourage.’
The misandry is apparent here, when Rosin says the ‘loser’ men in the TV shows are realistic:
Imagine if the tables were turned and women were suffering economic problems, and were simultaneously being portrayed on TV as ‘losers’? Would there not be an outcry? Do you hear a sound about the portrayal of men now? I don’t.
Now QRG is a controversial and provocative figure, and no, I don’t agree with everything she has to say. BUT she is committed to smashing the gender binary and taking down narrow and essentialist notions of men and women, as she says further:
Of course, men are not nearing their end, or if they are, women will go down with them. The two sexes are still, despite the battle cries of people like Rosin, interdependent. But what The End of Men seems to convey, actually in a not dissimilar way to the concept of the ‘real man’ retrosexual, is that currently men are pussies, and they need to Man Up. As Simpson said of Rosin it is a ‘femme macho’ stance.
I still plan to add my own thoughts on television’s unprovoked gender war, but this gives a great explanation to the wider issues surrounding it.
Was that male feminist Julian Real? (and I hesitate to ask lest I summon him by invoking his name) because that sounds like something he’d say.
Mods, he didn’t mean any disrespect by fouling this place with that name.
Ah yes, Julian Real. The one who says I was racist and anti-lesbian, because I was against segregating myself out of women’s space voluntarily, lest I offend ‘real’ women by my very presence.
I stumbled across this article today: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2046284/Ashton-Kutcher-news-late-So-todays-soppy-men-act-like-toddlers-need-mollycoddled.html
A truly bad article even by the standards of the “man up” genre.
What I’ve noticed is that in the majority of these pieces, the author is very clearly immature herself, and I’ve come to see these critiques as a massive projection. Either because her own immaturity leads her to run in the social circles of immature men on whom she bases the article, or she merely projects the most simplistic of motivations and tropes onto the men she sees, because that’s all she’s capable of.
I think the “Don Draper” idolization, which I see a lot, really encapsulates the problem as a whole. Only someone who is thoroughly immature and shallow his or herself could possibly miss the social criticism and subtext of the show, and fail to realize that Don Draper is, as I once saw it put, “living a life fulfilled with other people’s fantasies, masking his discomfort with booze and women. If that’s our definition, Don Draper, the archetype of 1950s/60s males, was a petulant man-child.”
@Ferris
Isn’t it ironic in the article you linked, the author says that men are all babies, and are feminized, and “act like women”. Saying that “women are like babies” by deduction, no? Isn’t that insulting both men and women at once?
And apparently, caring about your image is a sign you’re not a man, but a baby. Real men bath in motor oil don’t you know.
At the heart of any article about “the end of men” is a moral panic induced by concern not for men , but things like “respectability” and economic stability. The sooner the people writing these articles think of men as human beings and not ATMs – the better off we’ll all be.
@Levi, loved the comment. It echoes what radical feminist Ellen Willis wrote back in the 70s, recommend her work to you. She also believed patriarchy would be undone by capitalism, which she regarded as a paradox feminists needed to deal with (and um, we haven’t).
@debaser71: “the whole patriarchy thing (if you look at family, which IMO is what it’s all about, women have generally played the lead role)”
Funniest thing I ever read. Just for the record: “Bitch, get me my beer!” is not the lead role.
@Ferris: Don Draper is also Gatsby, the quintessential American character who re-invents himself. What is so fascinating about him (particularly on a Buddhist level) is that the more rich and powerful he gets, like John Lennon, the unhappier he is and he just doesn’t understand why. Its a very 60s-oriented role, and Jon Hamm understands how to play it without overacting.
One of my personal pet peeves: anachronisms in TV and movies, men who act all “sensitive” in movies set in the 50s and early 60s (or before!) when men simply DID NOT ACT that way, especially in the working classes, without paying a very high price. Jon Hamm gets it, and does it right.
Knitting was mentioned earlier, so I’m a little late to the party. I’m a knitter and a woman, but I don’t like cupcakes. I used to play world of warcraft, my husband still does, and that’s fine with us both. I understand what he’s spending time on and can talk about it with him, and he gets to spend some time listening to my thoughts about knitting. I guess one of the things that makes knitting “more” acceptable is that, after all, it is productive. You make something and someone can use it, and that’s thrifty and useful and makes the knitter a contributor. That’s how I tend to think about it, at least. But it’s still a hobby and it costs me money and time to do.
I’m not sure if my comment does contribute very much, it’s probably too hastily put together and doesn’t address all the thoughts the OP started in me. That might be because most of all I just wanted to share with you a video of an icelandic man who knits. It’s funny and nice and made me smile, which is always a good way to start the weekend.
http://vimeo.com/16783518
From the description of the video:
“Halló, this is Iceland. It is true that my men are very manly, and sometimes have names that are hard for you to say. This is Þórgnýr Thoroddsen, whose name is very hard to say, but he makes up for it by being a very good (and manly) knitter. If you see him on one of my streets, and would like him to give you some advice on how to do knitting like an Icelandic man, just call out “Halló, Icelandic man with a difficult name who knits! Stop and show me how!” He will not mind at all.”
“At the heart of any article about “the end of men” is a moral panic induced by concern not for men , but things like “respectability” and economic stability. ”
This gets right to the heart of it, Darque, and I think you have identified who will or will not have this panic. Women like Ozy or AB or La Lubu or Cheranadine do not see men as their iron rice bowl so none of these changes frighten them. Some may puzzle them a little, they may welcome others and they may feel some compassion when they see men suffering along the way, although it’s all good however they react because they really don’t have an obligation to have much of an opinion either way at all and it’s cosmic lagniappe if they do. God bless them for it, it helps a lot, but it’s generosity and not duty on their part.
(Polite reminder: I don’t gender-identify as a woman (or a man), just a person.)
(Second polite reminder: I’m genderqueer, not a woman, although I am female-assigned and was female-socialized.)
I’ve skipped right to replying, so please forgive me if I am echoing the rest here, but…
“Underemployed?” Bah…way I see it, if you are contributing to society in any way, even a little, you’re alright.
Sure, I’ll ‘man up,’ become successful, and all that jazz, because that’s the right thing to do, not because some stuck up picky woman or some self important manly man dares to want it of me.
Conditional love isn’t love at all. I will not date a woman who would not have accepted me just as readily when I was weak, worthless, and unproductive.
I agree with your opinion, balconyscene.
You’re still a “provider”, just not the traditional one. If you contribute to society, that’s certainly being a provider right there. You’re going your own way.
Not every “Provider” works a nine-to-five, seven days a week job.