This is a comment by Archy on the post “The Retributive Nature of ‘Girl Power’“.
“The Guardian article also goes on to address men in the women’s movement.The author and I agree that men belong in the women’s movement, but I go another step further: Women belong in the men’s movement.”
Omg, someone gets it! I could kiss you!
Too often I feel people see boys as privileged without realizing they’re also at high risk. Bullying is at high levels, violence is NORMAL in schools, and as they age the fights get more risky. Once they’re men, especially in young adulthood, they’re at the top risk of violence.
Men have struggles, boys have struggles, women, girls, everyone has struggles but too often I’ve seen an attitude of “men have all the power” so people focus on women first, and when women are hunky dory O.K, they will focus on the men. The Grrrlll power movement was good but the retribution of it, the acceptance of women hitting men, hell anytime I hear a legitimate concern about men with equality I hear the automatic “Women have been oppressed for thousands of years”. Do we have to wait thousands of years before we give a shit about men?
Then we get the good ol white ribbon campaigns, political office for women and equality, “violence against women” or if you really want to appeal to the heartstrings “violence against women AND CHILDREN” (Nice way to garner more support and “other”ize men). Gee, I wonder why more men aren’t in the women’s movement? I recently saw articles asking this question, and I sense this expectation that men are supposed to help women and their issues, even pledge to never harm a WOMAN and stand up against those who do (Note, not harm a human, not harm a man or woman). Yet what do I hear when men ask for women to help the men’s movement? “Women have done blah blah for x amount of years, campaigned, rallied, yadda yadda, men need to do it themselves”
From the article – “As Alan Greig has so eloquently put it, it’s not about bringing men in by talking to them nicely and making sure they’re not put off: it’s about naming male privilege, and getting men engaged in holding other men to account.
Around the world, we’re seeing work that’s inspired by an agenda for change that doesn’t leave boys and men out of the equation – mobilising men to stop violence against women, and challenging and changing men’s attitudes to intimate relationships and fatherhood. By tackling deadly ideals of masculinity and opening up alternative ways of being a man, these initiatives are transforming boys’ and men’s intimate and interpersonal relationships and creating the basis for greater equality.”
It’s men’s fault! Men have to step up and work at it, men have to call out other men. Do women not have any responsibility there? I call bullshit, it’s everbody’s responsibility, not just 1 gender.
Why aren’t there more men advocating for women’s issues? 1, Men are blamed and pushed with the responsibility to change too often, 2, Men are told to sit down, shut up privileged male and can’t voice an opinion at times, 3, When we hear the word equality yet this major focus on violence against women with very little spoken on men’s victimization ESPECIALLY when the majority of violence is against men, we start to question whether equality means for all, or for women only.
I don’t mind helping women out, but if they aren’t willing to help men out why the hell would I bother? Are my tears not worthy? is my wound not bleeding? It really can sound selfish, and seem like entitlement when there is an expectation for men to help out women. When’s the last time you saw a massive campaign to end violence against men? I can’t think of any here in Australia, the closest would be an anti-binge drinking ad yet last year men here were asked to pledge to never abuse a woman and stand up to violence against women. In a country where victims of violence for a 12 month period in 2005 were 443,800 women and 808,300 men. (1)
From what I see of violence discussions in feminism, gender equality areas, etc it tends to be violence against women. Violence against women is terrible, I hate it, but it’s not the only violence in existence! In 2004 Violence killed ~3.8million women and ~17.9million men, War and civil conflict killed ~1M women and ~6.3M men, self-inflicted injuries ~7.8M women, ~11.68M men (2). Men were 3-6x more likely to die from violence, yet where are these violence against men campaigns? Where is our white ribbon for men, where are the campaigns calling on women to speak out against other women who abuse, rape, harm their partners/men. The stats are out there, it’s proof there is significant levels of violence against both genders, even domestic violence and rape between the genders, yet we only really talk about the women.
HOW the hell do we expect to stop violence as a whole when we ignore an entire gender (women as perps, men as victims for instance). Can someone logically tell me the reason we should only have campaigns to end violence against women, and why there is no male equivalent of the white ribbon campaign? Why are we so obsessed with helping women that our men suffer in silence? Is it the last acts of chivalry and male self-sacrifice? I cannot logically understand why we have stats showing stupid amounts of violence against both genders, yet we talk about one gender the most and it’s the gender with the lesser number of victims (although still extremely significant!!!). I’ve heard people justify rape campaigns as male perp, female victim simply because male victims were the minority so male victim, female perp posters etc didn’t exist. If we used that logic then violence against women would never get airtime because the sheer size of male violence, but how the hell would that help?
Thank-you hugely Joanna, I am extremely impressed and hope a lot of people read this. We need the support of everyone to tackle the major equality issues, violence, etc, and we need to support everyone in that quest. Pain is pain, no matter the gender, we all feel it, we all suffer, men are not immune to the effects of violence!
(1: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by+Subject/4125.0~Jul+2011~Main+Features~Victims+of+violence,+harassment+and+stalking~5110)
(2: www.who.int/entity/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/DALY6 2004.xls )
Photo credit: Flickr / alexisnyal
Ha-ha, “the editors” is the author? Really?. Lost any desire to consider piece.
ht tp://www.oneinthree.com.au/news/2012/3/30/what-about-the-men-white-ribbon-men-and-violence-a-response-1.html
A link on how we don’t need to separate the domestic violence industry so much, where both genders can be represented without the competition.
Question: Why are we so obsessed with helping women that our men suffer in silence?????
Answer: The obsession that you see about helping women is just a facade. The real obsession is getting power, position and grants from the government. The so-called laws for protecting women (like VAWA) has created more problem for women than helping them and have given government agencies to interfere in the private lives of the citizen. The whole system is designed to help the parasites in the family court system to suck the blood of common man under one pretext or another.
“When’s the last time you saw a massive campaign to end violence against men?”
Well, we had the white feather campaign, that was ultimately about violence against men. Oh, and the Vietnam draft, that was a campaign of sorts. And of course, the campaigns to shame men into being human shields to protect women, such as “only men can stop rape/violence against women” that insist a man should interject to protect a woman. Oh wait, those aren’t about ENDING violence against men, those are about PERPETUATING it.
The Wet One: “Now that we’re losing our “king of the hill” status with women taking over and all, maybe it’s about time we get some of the “victim pie” that we’ve been missing out on these last few decades.” When have I, as a man, ever been king of the hill in anything? Tell me, where is my throne, my kingdom, my servants? Because I certainly didn’t get anything of the sort except a mental butt kicking from people in my youth. And no, you are so far off the mark with the “Victim Pie’ thing, I’m surprised you… Read more »
Your right bro, I know exactly what your saying. My comments are on the basis of heterosexual relationships Ladies, here is what it boils down to: when a man abuses you (either verbally, or physically,) or does something in intimacy that you do not wish, society as a whole supports you and bashes the male partner. Men will feel bad for you, and so will other women. When a Man is having problems with abuse, they do not get the support they need. Society responds with traditional masculine expectations: “Man up”, “Stop being such a pussy” etc. Would we reply… Read more »
Wait a second, isn’t this what the site https://noseriouslywhatabouttehmenz.wordpress.com/ is all about? After all, no one gives a crap about men. Now that we’re losing our “king of the hill” status with women taking over and all, maybe it’s about time we get some of the “victim pie” that we’ve been missing out on these last few decades. As long as we’re falling off the top of the heap, we might as well get some of the desserts available at the bottom. Social change is never easy is it? And the fact remains that we will only look at “groups”… Read more »
Wait a second, isn’t this what the site https://noseriouslywhatabouttehmenz.wordpress.com/ is all about? After all, no one gives a crap about men. Now that we’re losing our “king of the hill” status with women taking over and all, maybe it’s about time we get some of the “victim pie” that we’ve been missing out on these last few decades. As long as we’re falling off the top of the heap, we might as well get some of the desserts available at the bottom. Not it at all. Its not about men losing out “king of the hill” status its about men… Read more »
Most of us were never anywhere near ‘the top of the heap’ to begin with. Most of us aren’t white Saxon protestants, born with silver-spoons in our mouths, sent to the finest boarding schools, and inducted into Skull and Bones at age of 20. And that’s the problem with so-called ‘economic/social justice’ groups have. They only want to help their own small, narrow groups, and none of them care about poor white people. None of them care about the scattered remnants of the middle class. None of them about ‘justice’ at all – they care about getting the best deal… Read more »
You know what? There are many campaigns to help men and end violence (for all). They just aren’t labelled as such. Anti-gang programs (see the review of Greg Boyle’s book on this website), for instance; at-risk youth programs (I could name a few); prison rehabilitation programs; job training programs; etc. They may help women, too, but they target men a lot! I just don’t understand this rhetoric! I don’t know if you’re religious, but many churches have retreats and groups for men. Let’s not forget the original missions of the Boy Scouts and the YMCA. Maybe you’re opposed to these… Read more »
Ookay…first just a little nit-pickiness on terms – your quote here “leaves out women’s history as well as other minorities” implies that women are a minority…we’re not. We’re around half of the world’s population…thus not a minority. It’s a minor quibble, and something I’m sure I’ve done too…but yeah. A better term for what you’re describing would probably be “marginalized group,” I think. Anyway…the thing about a lot of the non-gender specific anti-violence campaigns is that they are still treating men as the aggressors. The larger narrative surrounding anti-violence campaigns that either focus on men or are gender neutral is… Read more »
HeatherN: If you honestly think that women are not still “marginalized,” you are seriously taking a myopic view of the world. One only has to look to the Middle East. This is not only about America or western Europe. “Minority” often means “underrepresented,” by the way. A family member has worked at an orphanage for decades, and the children there have been pulled from their homes because of abuse, neglect, or violence. Don’t for a minute think that I see only the men in the house as the reason for domestic problems. I suspect many of these children come from… Read more »
Oi now, I’m the one that said using the term “marginalized group” would make more sense. So where in me saying “marginalized group” makes more sense than “minority” did you get that I was saying women aren’t marginalized in different parts of the world? Under-represented works as a term too…or a political minority…but just saying “minority” suggests that there is an element of being a small number of the population. And you are very much missing the point of the gang violence example…the point is the narrative that such programs use. It’s not about whether gang members actually are victims… Read more »
Oh, I’m sorry – have we not as a nation been discussing the Jerry Sandusky scandal for months and the church sex abuse scandal for years? Have we ignored the statutory rape engaged in by female teachers with male students (which, I think, makes the headlines more than male teachers with female students)? Have we been silencing the male victims in these cases or ignoring them? No. In my opinion, these cases are dominating the discussion of child abuse, and don’t tell me the victims now have nowhere to go for support. That’s what I’m bombarded with more often when… Read more »
Well first I didn’t say that male victims have no where to go for support. The Church scandal and the teacher/student sexual relationship issues also bring up an interesting distinction between boys and men. In both of those cases the males involved are very much seen as children…which is a different dynamic than violence against adult men. But at the same time you’ve got news about violence against children…you also have programs that are about “stopping violence against women and children,” as if the two could be lumped together separate from men. How many anti-violence campaigns depict a grown man… Read more »
Rep. Jackie Speier brought started a campaign for military men and women who are raped. “Speier stated, ‘We owe our brave women and men in the military a justice process that protects them, not punishes them when they become victims of sexual violence by other service members.’ ” ” ‘Men and women who have been sexually assaulted in the military have come to realize that “military justice” is an oxymoron,’ Speier said at a crowded news conference. …More than a dozen men and women who say they were sexually assaulted in the military joined Speier and Parrish at the news… Read more »
I’ll try again…I didn’t say that there were no program’s for male victims. The point is that the military anti-sexual violence campaign you mentioned is not the norm. I’ll again go back to what I was saying about heterosexual imagery…it’s not that lgbt people are completely invisible anymore, it’s that when I’m out an about the norm is hetero, and it’s noteworthy when I see non-hetero imagery precisely because it’s rare. This is similar…not exactly the same, but similar. The vast majority of anti-violence campaigns are men=aggressors and women=victims oriented. Ye athlete is the odd gender neutral ad campaign, or… Read more »
Michelle writes: “And I also gave the example of military hazing where the latest discussed incidents are two [grown] men committing suicide.” Don’t you think that if those men committed suicide that the support WASN’T there????? This just goes to show that the military soaks up the mainstream idea that violence against men doesn’t matter. The simple fact is that women have many more outreach programs. A good start would be to knock down the unconstitutional pecker-checking of VAWA and make it gender neutral. The rules in grant application in VAWA specifically state that shelters which house male victims do… Read more »
“Don’t you think that if those men committed suicide that the support WASN’T there?????”
Exactly the point. Military hazing (some gruesome) has been present for many, many years, and very few leaders have challenged it. But when a congresswoman advocates for protections against military hazing, the world fails to notice. It’s sad that I would be surprised to see a male congressman take up the issue and that “empathy” has been made a dirty word by our conservative politicians.
Michelle: A small note, these female teacher, male student cases that you have brought up, what were the outcomes for MOST of those women. No jail time (or next to none), articles that are written and don’t use words like pedophile they use words like “in a relationship”, Didn’t Mary Kaye Letourneau have her wedding paid for by ABC when she wed her victim after he came of age. Did several of these women get 0 jail time because the child was considered by the judge to the ‘agressor’.
Oh, I’m sorry – have we not as a nation been discussing the Jerry Sandusky scandal for months and the church sex abuse scandal for years? How much of that conversation has been “Look at how men use their power to get away with terrible crimes” versus “Look at how male victims have very little support to turn to when terrible crimes are committed against them”? Have we ignored the statutory rape engaged in by female teachers with male students (which, I think, makes the headlines more than male teachers with female students)? Well considering that a lot of the… Read more »
Danny writes:
Oh, I’m sorry – have we not as a nation been discussing the Jerry Sandusky scandal for months and the church sex abuse scandal for years?
How much of that conversation has been “Look at how men use their power to get away with terrible crimes” versus “Look at how male victims have very little support to turn to when terrible crimes are committed against them”?
Exactly Danny. Most of the articles have been about demonizing the coaches, not about empathizing with the victim.
“This quote right here brings up a very interesting aspect to this whole discussion. When you are the normalized group in any situation, you often don’t perceive the bias that culture has toward you. So as a woman, you see an anti-domestic violence campaign and because you don’t feel particularly ostracised by it, you don’t even take note of it.”
Sounds a lot like the phrase I see flung at me so often… “it’s difficult to see your own privilege”.
Thanks heather for speaking up.
Yeah it’s along a similar vein. It sort of stems from the idea that when you are encultured in a certain way it can be difficult, if not impossible, to see where objective rationality ends and cultural norms begin. This is true for everyone. 🙂
“Anti-gang programs (see the review of Greg Boyle’s book on this website), for instance; at-risk youth programs (I could name a few); prison rehabilitation programs; job training programs; etc. They may help women, too, but they target men a lot!” All of these are about ending _men’s_ violence, not addressing violence against men. Boy scouts, athletic associations and all other men’s and boy’s groups are absolutely and utterly irrelevant to this issue. “Do I have to talk about how suicide victims, at least at my grad school, were statistically male, and it follows that mental health services are focused on… Read more »
“All of these are about ending _men’s_ violence, not addressing violence against men.” These programs. If they are ending men’s violence, does that mean that men (who may have been the recipients of that violence) aren’t benefitting?
I get the point that it isn’t marketed as “Men, don’t go hurting men.” But if the violence is reduced across the boards, that is helping men, yes? Not snark, actually trying to figure out what you mean.
“I get the point that it isn’t marketed as “Men, don’t go hurting men.””
More like ‘men don’t go hurting others’ since a lot of the focus is on violence to people who are not in gangs.
” But if the violence is reduced across the boards, that is helping men, yes?”
Yes, but it’s a periphery effect. The main intent is addressing men’s violence, not violence against men.
Whereas the ‘violence against women’ campaigns are directly addressing violence against women. (And usually have nothing to do with addressing women’s violence.)
Typhoon writes:
“Yes, but it’s a periphery effect. The main intent is addressing men’s violence, not violence against men.”
It reinforces the idea of man as villain and man as NOT victim in one fell swoop.
Its the implication that if only men would stop committing violence everything would be better.
Look at a lot of your DV campaigns. You will certainly see a lot that specifically say that “men shouldn’t attack women” and you’ll plenty that say, “all violence is wrong” but how many do you see that actually say “women shouldn’t commit violence”? Not just “If we use only images of men attacking women but say ‘violence is wrong, no matter what’ it will all be okay”.
It’s all so very Herland…which you’d think we’d have gotten past that by now. I mean, come on, that was written in 1915, for crying out loud.
With the nitpicking, from stats I’ve seen men are actually the minority if anything by a smidgen:P, slightly more females than males by a few tenths of a percent I believe. Marginalized is a better word, I’ve never quite understood why people call women a minority, to me a minority would be a much lower amount such as black vs white population in Australia. As others have replied, it’s the fact that the narrative still has a male aggressor that bothers me, and still lacks showing female aggressors especially with male victims. Anti-gang campaigns are good yes, but they are… Read more »
Yes, it really does feel like most organizations dedicated to ‘ending violence against women’ feel that violence against women is in its own special category of horrible that excludes violence against men. (Reasons vary. ‘Patriarchal oppression’, ‘systemic gendered violence’, ‘women are more vulnerable’ or the good ol’ standby ‘just BECAUSE! BOOBIES!’) This means that these organizations demonstrate quite clearly that they believe violence against men is more acceptable then violence against women. Thus if all the violence directed against women today was directed against men tomorrow, that would be an improvement, according to their own stated value system. And yet… Read more »
It saddens me that groups/people would suppress evidence and try to paint one gender victim, one gender aggressor. Why do we need to have such polarized views of the genders? If we applied the same to medicine we’d be talking hugely about the flu hurting women whilst ignoring the men sneezing n coughing at the sidelines.
Thanks for speaking up for men and women.