Trigger warning for brief mention of rape.
Google Docs, which I’m composing this post in, does not recognize the word “masculist.” Nor does Chrome; nor does OpenOffice. It’s a new word, though not, I think, a new concept, and I think there’s room for it to become as recognized, as accepted, and even as derided as feminism.
Ozymandias’s post that kicked off this blog includes a good introduction to the idea, and it’s in our FAQ, so it may seem presumptuous of me to define the term. But this being my introductory post, I want to define the term for me. That is, here is why I, a feminist, am also a masculist:
- I believe in gender irrelevance. There are precious few things in life that require a particular reproductive configuration, and fewer still that require a particular gender.
- I think victims of domestic violence and sexual assault deserve to be heard and believed. If that’s a feminist position, which it is, it’s even more a masculist position: individual women may not be believed nearly as much as they ought to be, but few people deny the very existance of rape and abuse tarketing women. The idea of men being victimized, especially by women, is barely even acknowledged.
- I don’t like sentences that begin “men are …” or “men do …” or the negatives of those sentences. Gender should be neither a conclusion nor an instruction, but mere information. A man is anyone who says he’s a man, and he is entitled to behave as he wants even if you don’t think it’s male behavior.
I’ve mentioned several times in this post that I’m both a masculist and a feminist. The two aren’t incompatible. Nothing I’ve mentioned is opposed to or by mainstream feminism. Freeing men from our gender roles doesn’t require confining women to theirs.
If anything, it requires the opposite. As long as there are things women must and can’t do, there will be things men can’t and must do. Liberating women will liberate men, and liberating men will liberate women.
Just as feminism and masculism are inextricably bound together, so too are misogyny and misandry (anther word Google Docs doesn’t recognize, which is equally troubling). Simply put, if one half the human race is so very dreadful, and the other half happily interacts with them, it says nothing good about the latter. And this works both ways: if men are violent hateful rapists, women who seek them out are clearly deeply flawed; if women are soul-sucking harpies, men who seek them out are volunteer victims at best.
Hugh: I’d need to take a look at Manhood in America for his reasoning, but basically Kimmel and lots of other academic feminists think that shitty stuff that happens to women have some secret sauce that makes it “oppression,” while shitty things that happen to men do not. In my experience that secret sauce is often the pre-drawn conclusion that the system is specifically designed to keep men over women (which is often what I get when I challenge that wonderful piece of lip service “patriarchy hurts men too). By that design any and all intentional gender based harms are… Read more »
I think the reason “misandry” isn’t recognised as a word is because hatred of men already has a word. “Misanthropy” means hatred of men. Semantically it excludes women because women weren’t considered human. It’s only recently, as women have been considered part of the human race, that misanthropy has started to represent all people and not just men.
Having said that, in our brave new world, where misanthropy has been diluted, I think we need a word like misandry to differentiate between various ass hat behaviour.
Actually, “misanthropy” means the hatred of people or mankind. The prefix “anthropo-” derives from the Greek anthropos meaning “man or human being” and was also used for women. According to MW, misanthropy can be taken as “a hatred or distrust of humankind ” (from 1625) whereas misandry refers specifically to a hatred of men (and is dated at 1909).
What DMB is true but what you are talking about has occurred with ‘andros’ itself, or actually with its equivalent in Germanic, German ‘karl’, English ‘churl’. Both etyma refer not to malkes but specifically to grown men. “Andros” is the root for “Andreos’ > Andrew. The ‘karl’ etymon is also the basis for a personal name, >Karl, Charles, Karol, but it also has a female variant >Carla, Carol, etc. Though come to think of it, that is probably less because adulthood was associated with males in those languages; that is clear for the lexicon of all those languages, and more… Read more »
Sarah Rean
Can you please provide a citation or legal definition that talks about men being considered human beings while women are not, a sources outside of feminist rhetric?
I’ve checked ALL of the black legal dictionaries and bouviers law dictionary (they are on line) and there is no such distinction.
“Mankind the race or species of human beings, in law females as well as males may be included under this term”
Blacks legal dictionary 1st edition.http://blacks.worldfreemansociety.org/1/M/m-0750.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverture
http://www.pbs.org/kued/nosafeplace/interv/kimmel.html
Michael Kimmel, well-known sociologist of gender in the pro-feminist men’s movement, and spokesman for the National Organization of Men Against Sexism (NOMAS):
Men MAY be oppressed, of course, but not as men. They are oppressed by race, class, sexuality, age, ethnicity, region, physical abilities etc.
http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2007/01/13/do-feminists-argue-that-men-are-oppressed/
http://www.vawnet.org/Assoc_Files_VAWnet/GenderSymmetry.pdf
Wow. Lots of misandry in this stuff.
Last time I checked, Kimmel denies that misandry really is a meaningful concept in the first place (in a hatchet job review of Nathanson and Young’s Spreading Misandry from Common Review Vol 1 No 3 that I can’t find anywhere now). And as you point out in the link to my blog, Kimmel also denies that men can be oppressed on the axis of gender. My other disagreement with Kimmel and many other pro-feminist men is over the concept of “homosociality.” Homosociality is clearly an important factor behind male behavior, but Kimmel fails to understand heterosexual and heterosocial pressures and… Read more »
I think your critique of Kimmel is one-dimensional. You disagree with him on some issues, but it’s a pretty sure bet that you’d agree with him about other issues. Here’s Kimmel writing about his son: …He also seems remarkably attuned to others’ feelings, compassionate and caring. When a child in his preschool is crying, Zachary will offer a hug, comfort, or ask what’s wrong. It is this “other” side of boys’ lives — the compassion, caring, and love that comes so naturally and is so obviously hard-wired — that we often watch being systematically excised from boys’ lives. The demands… Read more »
Hi Amp, good to see you. My previous comment was indeed focused on my disagreements with Kimmel, and my disagreements with him are easier to recall, because it’s been some time since I’ve read his writings. I didn’t mean to imply that his work lacks value in general. I think you are quite correct that I would agree with a lot of his ideas, and we would have similar views about policy initiatives. Kimmel is very aware of the ways boys and men are harmed by sexism, and he frequently includes that in his work. (Ditto for NOMAS, by the… Read more »
Not to jump into a conversation that I’m not a part of (although it’s been very interesting reading back and forth), but might some of the disagreement arise out of the definition of the word “oppression?” In other words, are some people (Kimmel, others) defining it in a way that others are not? It sounds as though in practice Kimmel is saying that men experience sexism and misandry and are in some ways oppressed, but is dancing around using those words. Is it possible he’s done this in order to gain credibility in academic feminism or some other circle?
DMB said: Not to jump into a conversation that I’m not a part of (although it’s been very interesting reading back and forth), but might some of the disagreement arise out of the definition of the word “oppression?” In other words, are some people (Kimmel, others) defining it in a way that others are not? I’d need to take a look at Manhood in America for his reasoning, but basically Kimmel and lots of other academic feminists think that shitty stuff that happens to women have some secret sauce that makes it “oppression,” while shitty things that happen to men… Read more »
As you might suspect, this distinction is a big deal to me, despite overlap in policy views that I might have with Kimmel. I expect that you would have trouble allying with the sorts of MRAs who think “misogyny” is merely “feminist victimology,” even if you have policy agreements with those MRAs. When MRAs say misogyny is “feminist victimology,” they’re saying that women’s complaints are illegitimate, which is connected to their opposition to virtually all policies, organizations and actions that are trying to address misogyny. And that’s why I can’t collaborate with them — the policies I favor, are the… Read more »
Amp, I’m going to try to narrow things down to the crux of our disagreement. Some feminists, influenced by anti-racist analysis, make a similar claim about sexist oppression — again, not because they’re idiots, nor because they hate men, but because they think based on observation that our society systematically puts men at the top of the sexual hierarchy, and they want a word that expresses that. I’m glad you don’t make this sort of argument. You don’t think it’s pure nonsense. I think it’s mostly nonsense. Of course, we have different premises. I don’t think there is a singular… Read more »
My own personal example of a person I think of as a “masculist” would be Michael Kimmel, a gender studies researcher and writer who focuses on mens’ issues in society. Although I don’t agree with everything he’s written–I don’t think I’ve ever agreed with anyone 100%, but I think that’s a good sign of recognizing that everyone has their own take on a issue and that I am a stubbornly independent thinker 🙂 –but he seems to look at issues with a broad lens, with the contributions of history, economics, politics, social shifts, and family life. I find his analysis… Read more »
I am a ridiculous fangirl of Michael Kimmel. The Gendered Society is probably the best modern introductory book to feminism I’ve ever read… it taught ME some shit. 🙂
Yeah, I like that he’s a gender egalitatarian/inclusionist who rejects extremes and wants us to take a broader look at the many forces acting on us and work together to make more room for everyone to breathe. He doesn’t separate everything into “men’s” and “women’s” issues but shows how they overlap with both critique and compassion, not just abstract analysis. I’ve learned a lot from reading his work as well and it’s made me rethink a lot of my assumptions and look at them from a wider perspective.
This sounds like a writer I need to investigate!
You might want to investifgate the copious criticism of Kimmel. He has been thoroughly criticized for misandry almost to the same extent as Hugo Schwyzer.
@Jim: Since I’ve now had several positive things said about him by people whose opinions I trust, would you like to elucidate me on specifically what you’re alleging?
No Reply box left. It’s been awhile and memory is vague, Let me look around and I’ll get back to you with specifics. These won’t be my assesment of him because I don’t have one, just what others have said. What I recall was a kind of white-knighting tendency to blame men for everything, even quite young men, in the same general way that Higo Schwyzer tends to. It felt very 70’s hip man to me, and I envision him being abuot my age or older, if that conveys anything. (And I have no idea of his actual age or… Read more »
One of my cartoons was reprinted in a Kimmel textbook. That really made my day. 🙂
I have a little objection here. Quite frankly this is something that puzzles me about this blog. As a disclaimer, after reading your faq I would say, I am pretty much with you and believe what your are trying to do is a good thing. What puzzles me is you linking to the finallyfeminism101 blog. You said: I’ve mentioned several times in this post that I’m both a masculist and a feminist. The two aren’t incompatible. Nothing I’ve mentioned is opposed to or by mainstream feminism. Freeing men from our gender roles doesn’t require confining women to theirs. Fair enough,… Read more »
It doesn’t really need clearing up, as it’s already been cleared up several times. It’s even in the FAQ. It’s very simple: Not everything we link to, is stuff we agree with. If you read Dr Mindbeam’s article on sexism you’ll notice he has already specifically criticised some of the writing on finallyfeminism101. I expect this will not be the last time we speak out against a piece of writing on a site we link to. Please note that your comment is also off-topic for this post. If you want to discuss the sidebar, we already have a post for… Read more »
Thanks for the answer, the posts you linked cleared the position of this blog up pretty well. I would like to disagree that my post was entirely off-topic though. Sure questioning ff101 on the sidebar was, but my other point still stands. You said “Nothing I’ve mentioned is opposed to or by mainstream feminism.”. The question is, would you consider ff101 (or the position they take regarding sexism, oppression, female privilege) mainstream feminism or not? The site surely gets linked a lot in the feminist blogosphere and at least academic feminism (as analyzed on feministcritics -> http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/2007/01/13/do-feminists-argue-that-men-are-oppressed/ ) seem to… Read more »
I would define mainstream feminists as people who also agree that men can experience sexism. A large amount of what you see on the Internet, in my experience, tends to fall outside the beliefs of your average “feminist on the street.” Regardless, Cheradenine is right. This is off topic to the discussion of Hershele’s post. If you want to discuss the sidebar links, please use the post linked above to do so. If you believe there is a significant problem — you find disproportionate amounts of egregiously bad content on f101 or another site we link to — please use… Read more »
I like what you are trying to do with the word “masculist,” but unfortunately I’ve often heard feminists use it to mean “male chauvinist” or “anti-feminist.” I’m not sure how common that usage is, but I’m not sure how many feminists acknowledge the existence of a gender egalitarian focused on men (except as perpetrators or oppressors). I believe in gender irrelevance. There are precious few things in life that require a particular reproductive configuration, and fewer still that require a particular gender. While I agree with your second sentence, I’m not sure it’s the same thing as gender irrevelant. Gender… Read more »
Time to reclaim it, then! I believe that Hershele was using it in this sense.
Yup. And I don’t think I have ever seen “masculist” used to mean “misogynist,” which is not to say it doesn’t happen.
Here are some examples of masculism used in a pejorative way, from the Wiktionary article (click on quotations): Sheila Ruth, quoted in Judith Evans (1986), Feminism and Political Theory [1], ISBN 0803997051, page 70: Fascism, fully revealed, is the extreme, exquisite expression of masculism, of patriarchy, and thus the natural enemy of feminism, its quintessential opposite. 2004, Thomas Schatz, Hollywood [3], ISBN 0415281350, page 73: The Rocky-Rambo syndrome puts on display the raw masculism which is at the bottom of conservative socialization and ideology. The Wiktionary definition is: “Advocacy of the rights of men, or promotion of those values etc.… Read more »
Very interesting. Thank you! In light of this, what do you think of our FAQ definition of the term? Would you suggest any additions/changes to this definition we have? (I think you have a fairly good idea of the stance this blog takes on its use of the terms “feminist” and “masculist” — that is, in their (forgive me) “true forms” non-competitive movements focusing on different sides of gender egalitarianism.)
I seem to recall reading “masculinist” as the not-an-MRA word, where “MRA” refers to a particular negative image. But, well, people use feminism pejoratively! So I figure I’ll just keep explaining that no, this is what I mean when I say that.
Wow, I am not surprised “masculist” doesn’t exist but I would have expected “misandrist/misandry” to! Though my spell-checker tells me they don’t exist too. 😛 I cannot begin to describe how any sentence involving “wo/men do/like/are” makes me grind my teeth (yes, I am exactly as pissed off by such sentences regarding men as women). It seems that many people cannot help themselves. I try and say something light that erodes the gender essentialism without always making it a thing, but sometimes it’s unbelievably frustrating. My opinion is on the fence about the construction of masculist to complement feminist. I’m… Read more »
My opinion is on the fence about the construction of masculist to complement feminist. I’m not opposed to it, but having no history as it does it feels a bit redundant and if we were going that way I’d be more inclined to find a less exclusionary-sounding word that encompasses both (as feminism does to me) rather than having two. How would it be redundant? If feminism is gender equality focused on women, then masculism is gender equality focused on men. It’s not redundant, it’s complementary (because arguably the former hasn’t done much of anything directly or solely for men).… Read more »
My opinion is on the fence about the construction of masculist to complement feminist. I’m not opposed to it, but having no history as it does it feels a bit redundant and if we were going that way I’d be more inclined to find a less exclusionary-sounding word that encompasses both (as feminism does to me) rather than having two. The thing is it doesn’t sound redundant to some (i’d bet a lot of) people. There’s no question that feminism has a primary focus on women. Fair enough. But what’s so redundant about a movement that primarily focuses on men.… Read more »
I wish this blog existed when I first started reading feminist blogs.
That is all.
@Darque: That means a lot to me/us. Thank you. I hope you continue reading and commenting.
Sure it does: “gender egalitarianism.” And you’re looking at it. (We’re not purely masculist here.)
Perhaps I say that because you folks who operate under that just don’t seem to be too numerous. Well at least when compared to those who are strictly one or the other (despite what they may say).
I don’t think so either, but on the other hand, I think it’s a fairly new idea. My hope is that more people realize that this is where they stand and will voice their support of such a notion. I’d like to believe that the average person on the street is interested in real equality for everyone. 🙂
We’re spreading the word as best we can 🙂 I think there are more of us than appear at first glance…there’s lots of sturm und drang from the extremes that make them seem more numerous just because they are louder, but I suspect there are lots of good folks in the middle struggling with issues that clearly affect us all.
The difference between feminism and masculism, to me, isn’t one of aim but of focus. So to a certain degree it is redundant, and I would like it to become more so, but the idea of a masculist movement is so feminists (of all genders) can tell people (of any gender) who complain about Patriarchy hurting men “well, there’s a movement for that.” That certainly doesn’t preclude the two groups working together and/or sharing members.
Yes. And it gets away from the label “MRA” which has come to mean something different than masculism.