Trigger warning for brief mentions of rape.
Ozy and I were talking over what we’ve learned from hashing gender issues out on this blog, how writing about things has clarified our thinking, what answers we’ve been able to glean, what we’ve learned from discussing these matters with others, and we noticed a very specific and predictable pattern. Any theory or ideology that is based on a big and usually bullshit generalization about women invariably carries with it an unspoken corollary: a big and usually bullshit generalization about men. And vice versa.
Try this out on some of your favorite misogynist and misandrist tropes, it’s fun. Men are all slobs… women should be keeping house. Women need to cover up their bodies or they deserve to be raped… men are animals who commit immediate rape at the sight of cleavage. Women are all gold-diggers… men are only valuable for their success and money. Women are only valuable for their looks… men are all shallow. I can keep this up all night, ladies. (…men like dumb sex jokes.)
Based on this, we are proposing a rule of thumb that we’re calling Ozy’s Law: It is impossible to form a stereotype about either of the two primary genders without simultaneously forming a concurrent and complementary stereotype about the other.
Or, more simply: Misandry mirrors misogyny.
This isn’t to say that in any given case, the misandry and misogyny are necessarily equivalent. Sometimes they are, other times one or the other definitely predominates. But they’re always paired. Often they’re just an unspoken assumption, something people are taking for granted as axiomatic. The problem is that it’s possible to question one half of an unspoken assumption without even really examining the other half.
Thus, you get women who (rightly) complain about the wage gap without seeing how men are made into “success objects”. You get men who complain about the stupid-manchild-husband trope in media, without seeing that it always comes with the humorless-killjoy-wife trope. You get people unable to see past their own sense of grievance to look at how the system that’s hurting them is hurting other people.
Feminism has been having this problem for a while, and is only starting to engage with it. More and more feminists are realizing that men’s issues have gone undiscussed for a long time, and are too intricately bound up in women’s issues to be ignored any longer. This is evidenced by, for example, the existence of this blog and the many incoming links to it from prominent feminist spaces. I think that’s a good trend and one to encourage, especially given how, if we’re taking Ozy’s Law as true, most feminism has been effectively blind in one eye. A lot of ugly stuff and a lot of pain has gone unnoticed by a movement dedicated to unpacking and examining the stuff that used to go unnoticed. That’s not good, but at least it’s starting to change.
I see the humorless killjoy wife, I just do not view it as negative. I thought most people thought Marge and Debra and similar were hot.
Hi,
This post is spot-on what we were trying to say in our Hebrew feminist blog.
Can I please translate this into Hebrew and publish on our blog, with due credit and trackback, of course?
Tal
@Tal: Sure, feel free. And thanks for asking. 🙂
After I read this I let out a huge sigh of relief. All I can think is Finally someone else “gets it”. I think I’m really going to like it here.
illannoying: “Instead of a gaggle of misandrists, you have generally good people with a huge self-imposed blind spot, and who have allowed the extremists to wrest control of the movement.” Something like that, yes. I remember from my youth how very sensible people just to the left of the political middle avoided criticizing the communist dictatorship in the Soviet Union to any large degree, and those just to the right of the middle avoided criticizing the “right-wing” dictators in Latin America. I got a sense of a primitive “don’t give them an inch, or they’ll run you over” defensive reaction.… Read more »
In short: This. All of it. Good. On feminism: I can’t help but feel that the feminist community is a perfect test case for the social change they claim they want to effect. You have a lot of well-meaning people who are too wrapped up in Being A Feminist to realize that they’re an active contributor to culture, even if that means going against an idea or person that has been stamped FEMINIST. Not at all unlike fandoms where pecking order is based on who has best memorized canon. Although I don’t know if that’s better or worse. Instead of… Read more »
Eh I got the character names mixed up (but that line is used twice in the movie, once by Cher and once by Tai, both to Travis). I guess Im just weird like that.
Murphy’s character is the one named Tai. Breckin Meyer’s character is named Travis. And like I said, the time I remember it is when he has cleaned up and is no longer on the Grassy Knoll
In any case, I think it’s not a good phrase because to the majority of the population, the term refers to the JFK assassination.
Cher said it earlier in the movie to Tai but what i’m talking about is later on when Murphy’s character became popular she turns around and says it to Tai, despite showing interest in him earlier in the movie. And in that context I certainly take it as a “know your place” comment.
@Danny:
it’s been a long time since I saw Clueless, but I believe the line “aren’t you supposed to be on the grassy knoll?” (which I could have sworn was said by Cher, not Tai – who BTW was Murphy’s, not Meyer’s character) was said because he had cleaned up and given up smoking weed.
In any case, I’m pretty sure that it wasn’t the intention of the screenwriter to make some comment about “staying in your place.”
I’m pretty sure Hugh Ristik’s got the right of it. Most feminists see this kind of discussion and go “Huh, that makes sense, hadn’t really thought about that.” This kind of gender analysis is within their bailiwick, but not really their specialty. Ozy and I are feminists, lord knows, but we’re doing a slightly different kind of work than most. Feminism (particularly second-wave feminism) has too often had a problem with inclusivity, and we’d rather be bell hooks than Betty Friedan. (And certainly rather either than an asshole like Gail fucking Dines.)
@Danny: You might well be right. I found this feminist blog by way of a link on the Men’s Rights subreddit, not by any reference on any other feminist blog.
And as I already mentioned, most of those either ignore male issues, or just mention them in passing immediately following with “but women have always had it worse, so let’s move on”.
So yes, either those issues are treated as a “grassy knoll” as you said, or they are ignored for the “greater good” (?) that this blog is feminist after all.
mokey: Actually, now that I remember it, the “Grassy knoll” in Clueless was just the name for the place where the stoners hung out. So I’m not sure it really fits your purpose. The guy that Tai (Murphy’s character liked) was one of the stoners. Because Murphy’s character was fine with Tai (played by Becken Mayer)….as long as he stayed in his designated area. Noah says the place gets lots of incoming links and praise from feminists. But it doesn’t seem to be that way (at least to myself who frankly only feels safe reading a few feminist blogs these… Read more »
@YmcY: I’m not doubting that it SHOULD, I’m doubting that it currently IS.
Oh sure, it’s nice to have feminist masculists (or rather: gender egalitarians), even better if they are female because they will get more credibility within the feminist movement, but they are still a small minority.
Don’t worry everyone. Historical inevitability, because Hegel says so! 🙂 Or to put it in more scientific terms: There is only one actual reality (hopefully). So theories about reality held by reasonable people (as opposed to the determinedly self-deluded) have to converge on the truth, eventually. Masculism to me pretty obviously seems part of the truth. Feminism can’t work properly until it taps in to the other parts of what is wrong with the gender picture: for men, trans, queer, etc etc. So, eventually, it will. That’s why a feminist started this blog, that’s why feminists read this blog, and… Read more »
@Danny: An argumentative ghetto of sorts? They might well be treating it as such.
Another possibility is that other feminist blogs apply the same 80/20 rule that is applied here, and masculism just happens to be within that 20%.
Actually, now that I remember it, the “Grassy knoll” in Clueless was just the name for the place where the stoners hung out. So I’m not sure it really fits your purpose. The guy that Tai (Murphy’s character liked) was one of the stoners.
Well, the “grassy knoll” historically refers to the place from which the alleged second assassin shot JFK. I’m not sure what the scene from Clueless was getting at.
I must have paid way too much attention to the movie Clueless.
In the movie Clueless (about 1995, Brittney Murphy’s first major role if I recall) there was one point, after Brittney’s outcast character had become the IT girl on campus, asks a guy (that she expressed interest in before becoming popular), “Shouldn’t you be on the grassy knoll over there?”
As in a place that has its value…as long as what goes on over there stays over there.
@Danny: I’m not familiar with that expression. What do you mean by that?
Hugh:
Potential explanation: A lot of feminists actually do have views closer to NSWATM (or they are open to those views)… they just don’t actually voice these views very much. I hope that NSWATM will continue showing other feminist blogs that it’s possible to consider men’s issues and misandry without being dismissive, and without having to hand in one’s feminist card.
That or they’re treating it like a grassy knoll.
@Noah and Fibonnacci, Maybe there is no contradiction. Like Fibonacci says, this blog considers a lot of issues that general feminist discourse is blind to. On the other hand, based on what Noah says, it appears that the blog gets positive reviews from feminists. Potential explanation: A lot of feminists actually do have views closer to NSWATM (or they are open to those views)… they just don’t actually voice these views very much. I hope that NSWATM will continue showing other feminist blogs that it’s possible to consider men’s issues and misandry without being dismissive, and without having to hand… Read more »
@Noah Brand: “Feminist blogs continue to provide a majority of our incoming links, and they are overwhelmingly positive, supporting and agreeing with what they see here”
But a majority of your incoming links is still a minority of feminist blogs worldwide. And a very small one.
Well, what can I say.
Yours is the first feminist blog, out of hundreds I’ve seen, to even *consider* this issue. Indeed, most feminism has effectively been blind in one eye.
The existence of this blog is evidence that a few feminists have started to realise it. But the utter lack of others that are willing to say it without following up with “this happens but women always have it worse” (and that is for the ones that even mention it), I think, is evidence that the feminist movement is not waking up any time soon. That’s sad.
@Fibonacci: I can only tell you what I tell everyone who thinks most feminists wouldn’t agree with what we’re doing here: Feminist blogs continue to provide a majority of our incoming links, and they are overwhelmingly positive, supporting and agreeing with what they see here. So while I understand that your hypothesis is honestly come by, the data we’ve got simply doesn’t support it. Which is, I think we can agree, good news. Always nice to learn you’ve been giving a movement too little credit, rather than too much. 🙂
Yes, Yes, and Yes!
This is something I’ve said for years and I”m almost annoyed someone else got the law named after them first 🙂
I’m glad someone’s talking about it, though, because this is something feminism *has* to start addressing, for purely practical reasons: because misogyny and misandry are linked this way, it’s just not possible to end the oppression of women without aggressively attacking the oppression of men, too.