“They are migrant men and boys coming from some of the poorest regions in Bangladesh. They are considered machines; if one dies another will replace him. They live up to twenty in small huts often lacking sanitation. They are contract workers and are in no way given the opportunity to organize themselves; trade unions are not allowed. There is no complete recording of accidents or death at the shipbreaking yards; dead and non-identified workers still get thrown out to sea, leaving a widow and children with no news and no income.”
Both men and women were objectified in different ways. Women were treated like children to be protected and controlled. Men were treated like blunt objects (like hammers) to be used until broken. 32,000 men died building the panama canal just so ships could save seven days going around the tip of South America…Look at how (male) workers were exploited building the trans-continental railroad. These workers were so unimportant their deaths weren’t even counted. Look to any big dam, highway/railway going through mountains, suspension bridge or skyscraper and you will see men’s blood being the grease of industrial engine.
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But it’s not always in faraway lands and it’s not in the historical past. As Ozy Fraz writes in “On Workplace Deaths”
Communication tower climbing, which only employs ten thousand people at any time, has resulted in 100 deaths over the last nine years, a death rate ten times higher than construction. Not a single tower climber fatality is listed under the major cell phone companies’ entries in OSHA’s database of workplace accident investigations.
This is not okay.
Men are disproportionately likely to die on the job. Some of it is that for a variety of reasons (men tend to have more physical strength than women, men are more likely to be hired as manual laborers, heavily-male environments are unwelcoming to women) manual labor is gendered very, very male, and manual labor is the sector most at risk for deaths on the job. Some of the reason is located in toxic ideas of masculinity. Men take risks. Men don’t care about their safety or health. Men will work dangerous jobs to take care of their family. Men aren’t “pussies.” And these corporations take advantage of these toxic ideas to cut costs and work faster and not have to take proper safety precautions.
History can’t be undone and men can’t be brought back from the dead. I’m a believer in progress, but there is nothing progressive about the pictures in Cameron’s article, the stories of progress told through the deaths of men, or the image of a single blue-collar man falling to his death so we can all get better cellphone reception..
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And then I read Tom Matlack’s article.
Tom’s post “Why What Do You Do?” is an Attack on Manhood. There is (thankful!) not a death in it. It asks a seemingly innocuous question, “What do you do?” and discusses the problems within. As Tom says,
This idea that manhood is defined not by who you are but what you do goes to the very core of the male dilemma, or at least this man. I have always felt there was this cosmic pecking order of masculinity and the question, “What do you do?” reduces it to its essential elements.
If men are defined by what they do, if that is a core of their very essence — and if progress is measured by what gets done, and men get killed when things get done — then where does this leave us as a society?
If men are defined first and foremost by what they do instead of who they are it’s going to be hard to continue to make progress in ways that will look like an equitable type of progress.
In fact, when Tom first founded The Good Men Project, him and I had a conversation about how Tom wanted to showcase the multi-dimensionality of men. Not to say that there is anything inherently wrong with men or masculinity or wanting to be seen as manly. But that men can be defined by by the complex pieces of the puzzle of who they are. Not by what they do. And most certainly not by what kills them.
Tom closes with a vision of what that could look at.
My suggestion is that we replace the obnoxious and demeaning question of “What do you do?” as somehow defining of maleness into “What do you love?” The pecking order would disappear. With inspiration, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And instead of repeating again and again the shadows of manhood we’d get down to the real thing, unique to each of us and without shame.
It’s common in some feminist circles to claim–as an indisputable truth–that we live in a ‘rape culture,’ where rape is, even if not encouraged, still permitted and accepted at some level as the normal state of affairs and even essential for the operation of society. The reality is that we live in a ‘manslaughter culture.’ Our society was founded on the disposability of men in both settlement/pioneering and war. It rose to industrial and economic power on the back of disposable laborers–overwhelmingly men who worked the fields and factories, and died in the most dangerous and lowest-paying positions. And it… Read more »
Great point
Men are disposible because we can’t get pregnant and are therefore deemed unworthy of protection, we are routinely reduced to utility systems, protection objects. Of course the blatant objectification of men is not controversial in the least for the aforementioned reason.
Keevo, The difference now is that when men sacrifice themselves they no longer even get the respect of women. Instead of being told thank you we are kicked to the curb, called misogynistic and patriarchs or male sexist pigs. Male sacrifice used to mean something when women showed gratitude. Now, when men are in a double-bind where they are expected to self sacrifice and are *disrespected* for doing so, many men are opting out of the rigged game. Many books and articles have been written about men bowing out of the rat race. There is a subtle shift that is… Read more »
Thanks for the nod in the article regarding my comment Lisa. There is a lot of work to be done. In a lot of ways I look at our society, and particularly the images of violence against men and boys (done by men and women) depicted as comedy to be very troubling. I feel like a lot of our society is built up around this home simpson narrative in which there is any pain too taboo to laugh at (if it happens to a man). All one has to do is see Sharon Osbourne laugh at the sexual mutilation of… Read more »
If men are defined by what they do, if that is a core of their very essence — and if progress is measured by what gets done, and men get killed when things get done — then where does this leave us as a society? At best those men might be lucky enough to be remembered in some way but most aren’t that lucky (could anyone name any of those 32,000 men that died building the Panama Canal?). At worst we have situations that are going on now. Where men and boys are literally treated like interchangeable parts in a… Read more »
Not only are men and boys raised to believe in our disposability, but we then also have it reinforced as adults whenever we try to break out of such a cycle. Epithets such as man-child or deadbeat are designed solely to shame men who do not measure up to society’s standard for what a “real man” is. It forces men to take up the yoke and sacrifice their lives to a society that despises them. As you said, we are raised to value ourselves vicariously through our contributions and accomplishments. A man who cannot provide is not a man. In… Read more »
Or even the baby-step of remembering any of the 11 men who died in the BP burst oil cap explosion? That’s a much shorter list of names for news agencies to publish and much more recent.
How many articles and newscasts have been published on the BP oil spill? How many of them mention the names of the 11 dead men (or even mention that all 11 dead are men, instead of burying their gender in titles like worker?)
Watch this video to see how men are made invisible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZAuqkqxk9A
I get your point and despite it being done in a clear and present way it goes unnoticed. Do you by chance recall a month or so ago when villages in (I think) Syria were being attacked? Not just attacked but wiped out? I recall the media coverage on one of the early attacks where the death toll was reported as, “Among the dead were about 40 women and children.”. It was to the point where the entire death toll wasn’t even being reported by some sources, just the number of women and children. And when the whole death toll… Read more »
Or look what was happening in Bosnia. Civilian men/boys from 13 up were being systematically executed.
This wasn’t reported in any western news agencies as far as I can tell.
In fact, most headlines regarding bosnia were about women seizing political control. The massacre of men was totally washed out.
http://www.gendercide.org/case_bosnia.html
Very true John D.
And here the link to the post I did on the coverage of the attack in Syria:
http://dannyscorneroftheuniverse.blogspot.com/2012/06/so-about-those-other-38-people.html
“But the article also pains me because it asks a bigger question, one that I first started thinking about on the comment boards of The Good Men Project: “Why are men disposable?” Because, well, someone has to be if that work is going to get done. This is how the ealry stages of industrialization look in every country. Remember when you read the Jungle in high school? What do you think the death toll was like building the transcontinental raliroad? Women were disposable in their own way until we got the childbirth deathrate down. It’s progress, although maybe not in… Read more »
That’s a nice thought Lisa, but I don’t see it happening in my lifetime. Like most of the men in my generation,and before, I was taught men exist for 2 purposes, Protect and Provide! As I wasn’t that successful in school, just graduating High School, I ended up in heavy construction, since ,for a ‘Blue Collar’ job, it paid better than most. You pay the price for that money. I pretty sure I’ve worked with about 6 men who’ve died on the job (it could be more) I’ve ‘cheated’ death myself TWICE! I mean , did you know Iron Workers… Read more »