No book has had more influence over the Men’s Rights movement than Warren Farrell’s The Myth of Male Power. Published in 1993, in the heyday of the early 90s antifeminist backlash, it set the agenda for the Men’s Rights movement as it’s developed over the last two decades. He’s the one who came up with the notions of “male disposability” and the “death professions.” He’s the one who got MRAs fixated on the issue of draft registration.
Indeed, so pervasive has his influence been that if you see an MRA making a dumb argument anywhere on the Internet, the chances are probably more than 50-50 that it originated in the pages of Farrell’s book. Despite its age, and its eccentricity, The Myth of Male Power is still the first book recommended to MRA newbies in the sidebar of the Men’s Rights subreddit, the most active MRA hangout online.
It’s a book that deserves a lot more attention than I have been giving it on this blog. Sure, I’ve written about Farrell’s strange and creepy notions about incest, as set forth in a notorious interview in Penthouse in the 1970s, and about his recent attempts to explain away these views. But I haven’t devoted any blog posts to his most influential work. I intend to rectify that now, with a series of posts on some of Farrell’s chief arguments and assertions.
I will start with several posts on Farrell’s views on rape, which has been the subject of much controversy of late. This part will deal with his general statements on rape and sexuality; another will explore in more detail his views on date rape (did he really describe it as “exciting?”); and still another will look at the vast assortment of things he has inappropriately compared to rape.
Pinning down what Farrell “really believes” about rape – and indeed, about almost anything– is difficult. Farrell’s arguments, such as they are, are slippery and evasive. Instead of setting forth a clear argument about rape, Farrell instead provides us with a series of jumbled metaphors and strange comparisons. Instead of trying to summarize them – many of them defy summary — let’s just go through them one by one.
Farrell supporters will likely suggest that these quotes are taken “out of context,” to which I can only say: Check his book to see for yourself. None of his troubling quotes are any less troubling, or for that matter any clearer, in context, and many don’t have much of a context. Farrell writes in a rambling, free-associational style, and many of the “arguments” he makes in the following quotes seem to come from out of the blue, and are never developed further (though some, as you will see, are referenced again in later quotes).
Page numbers given are from the 1993 hardcover edition of The Myth of Male Power.
All that out of the way, let’s jump right in:
Near the start of his book , Farrell sets the tone for what will come by suggesting that men suffer as much sexual trauma from women’s mixed signals as women do from rape:
Feminism has taught women to sue men for sexual harassment or date rape when men initiate with the wrong person or with the wrong timing; no one has taught men to sue women for sexual trauma for saying “yes,” then “no,” then “yes.” … Men [are] still expected to initiate, but now, if they [do] it badly, they could go to jail. (p. 16)
Here, he elaborates on the notion that rape is a matter of bad timing, of “tak[ing] risks too quickly.”
In the past, both sexes were anxious about sex and pregnancy. Now the pill minimizes her anxiety and condoms increase his. Now the pimple faced boy must still risk rejection while also overcoming his own fear of herpes and AIDS and reassuring her there is nothing to fear. He must still do the sexual risk-taking, but now he can be put in jail if he takes risks too quickly or be called a wimp if he doesn’t take them quickly enough . (p. 168)
Here, Farrell falls back on the old “rape is misunderstanding” canard, and somehow manages to compare sexual activity –- from kissing up to and including rape — to eating a bag of potato chips.
It is also possible for a woman to go back to a man’s room, tell him she doesn’t want to have intercourse, mean it, start kissing, have intercourse, and then wish she hadn’t in the morning. How? Kissing is like eating potato chips. Before we know it, we’ve gone further than we said we would. (p. 311)
Here, he seems to seriously suggest that juries could do a better job judging rape cases if they were sexually aroused.
The problem with every judgment of sexual behavior is that it is made by people who aren’t being stimulated as they are making the judgment. A jury that sees a woman in a sterile courtroom, asks her what she wanted, and then assumes that anything else she did was the responsibility of the man is insulting not only the woman but the power of sex. (p. 312)
And then he returns to the potato chip metaphor.
A man being sued after a woman has more sex than intended is like Lay’s being sued after someone has more potato chips than intended. In brief, date rape can be a crime, a misunderstanding, or buyer’s remorse. (p. 312)
Farrell repeatedly tries to absolve men of sexual wrongdoing by suggesting that they are literally intoxicated by female beauty.
Sexually, of course, the sexes aren’t equal. It is exactly a woman’s greater sexual power that often makes a man so fearful of being rejected by her that he buys himself drinks to reduce his fear. In essence, her sexual power often leads to him drinking; his sexual power rarely leads to her drinking. If anything is evidence of her power over him, it is his being expected to spend his money to buy her drinks without her reciprocating. …
It is men – far more than women – whose mental capacities are diminished when they are “under the influence” of a beautiful woman. (p. 320)
But Farrell thinks it’s “sexist” – against men – to put men in jail for “selling sex” to intoxicated women:
As long as society tells men to be the salespersons of sex, it is sexist for society to put only men in jail if they sell well. We don’t put other salespersons in jail for buying clients drinks and successfully transforming a “no” into a “maybe” into a “yes.” If the client makes a choice to drink too much and the “yes” turns out to be a bad decision, it is the client who gets fired, not the salesperson. (p. 321)
We’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of Warren Farrell’s equally daft and disturbing views on sex and rape. Stay tuned.
Fade: The thing I think people are about* is that there is a much more common narrative in the media that if you get drunk and someone rapes you, it was your fault for getting drunk, than there is the reverse (that all drunk sex is rape).
There is also a lot of narrative that women will be resistant to a dude’s romantic interest, until she has some wine. Then she relaxes, has sex and “the scales fall from her eyes”.
Which reinforces the, “she just didn’t know what she really wanted,” trope.
@pecunium I saw what you did there! Rocky Horror FTW!
PEMRA: @freemage, the feminist definition of rape isn’t decreed by one individual. However I often see the sentiment that any form of drunken copulation is rape,
So you admit to being a lying sack of shit. You admit there is no, “feminist definition” of rape, while decrying how, “femiinsts want to expand the definition”.
Which is it?
Don’t bother; the answer is in the rest of your previous posts.
Thanks Falconer and hellkell!
Well, pecunium, someone he suspects of being a feminist defined it sometime in some context, and someone else might have agreed or otherwise didn’t actively and specifically reject it, so that must mean that all feminists mean the same thing all the time in every context. Because as feminists we are all required to believe the same things and take our orders from the Global Matriarchy.
Didn’t you get that memo? I’m sure I have a copy here somewhere…
Tamen: Do you think that statement on rape prevalency methodology from Koss had any influence on how CDC classified male victims considering that Koss has and continues to serve as an advisor to CDC?
I’d say it doesn’t, not unless she is on the review panel for all grants for studies used by the CDC in aggregating data; and that definition is the only one she has ever accepted.
Moreover, since we know you’ve not actually read the study (and I’ve not read it), I don’t know that the quotation you used compltely explains the justifications for the operational definition.
If you have the authority to tell me to fuck off I trust you also have the authority to ban me as well.
False equivalence.
Here watch, I can’t ban you (though I could, were I to find you more offensive than tedious petition for you being banned), but I can do this.
Tamen, Fuck Off.
Wow, that was easy.
Let’s see if it works a second time:
Tamen, please be so kind as to fuck off.
Yep. I have the authority to tell you to fuck off, because it’s an expression of my personal desire to see the back of you, so fuck off.
@ Alex [quote]@Derick, I can’t refute anything so incredibly incoherent. And I still think you’re Pell. If you aren’t, you took lessons from him. [/quote]
You cannot refute it, which means you agree, correct?
No.
It means it’s gibberish. I can’t refute, “The gostak distimms the daucshious,” either. Doesn’t make it true. Doesn’t make it false. Makes it mere gibbering.
@Alex But you didn’t refute me, which must mean you agree that you are Pell.
Yes, I did refute it! I just cannot prove it without a Webcam conversation. If you don’t believe me, that’s fine
No, you didn’t refute it. You denied it. And even that “webcam” would refute it, since we have no personal knowledge of who Pell is, in fact, nor of what he looks like.
Ah… I see Derrick got the hook.
Tamen: That’s a shitty operational definition.
Can you show that it has been accepted as the working definition for rape studies afterwards? Is it a current usage in the field?
No? Than go to hell.
I meant that quote was ironic coming from Koss (not that it was ironic that you quoted it):
Because once havging used a shitty operational definition she can never again use a non-shitty one? Of course not, that might undermine your claim to it being, The One True Feminist Idea of Rape.
Also, I do not think Consent is the appropriate term here because, the victim could claim that “He/ she was too drunk” for consent or “He/ she was asleep”, and get away with it on grounds of Technicality, and accuse the Perpetrator successfully, even when the Perpetrator did not necessarily Force the Victim.
This is because you want to make it permissible, even legal, and defensible, to rape women by drugging them.
I haven’t go a copy of the Koss paper as it seem to only be available behind paywalls,
So you don’t actually know what the study says.
You have refuted yourself.
“So you admit to being a lying sack of shit. You admit there is no, “feminist definition” of rape, while decrying how, “femiinsts want to expand the definition”.”
Reading comprehension, Pecunium. I’m not going to respond to your version of what I said. Take a break, come back, and read through my post more carefully.
W. T. F.
I did not even see this until pecunium quoted it, and
W.T.F
Do you even know what consent means?!
Omg, I did not see pemra’s comment until there.
pemra, people can read for comprehension, it’s not our fault you can’t write for shit.
PEMRA: Reading comprehension, Pecunium. I’m not going to respond to your version of what I said. Take a break, come back, and read through my post more carefully.
Ooh… I am crushed, all that attention so you can say you are going to ignore me.
Here, I’ll help you out (since you seem to wish to eschew other options)
Even if the blockquote monster did chew on me.
If you set up a macro to make your computer input “reading comprehension” with the stroke of a couple of buttons, it’d probably save you a fair bit of time. Wouldn’t make you right.
“I’m not going to respond to what you said” means that you’re losing the argument. It’s like getting mad at someone and saying, “You know what you did!”
And nice way to call him hysterical without using the words, there, old bean. Only it’s not nice at all. What’s the word? Oh yeah, DISINGENUOUS, you jackass.
Hey, if celebrating with Care Bears is wrong, I don’t want to be right! I’m partial to Oscar the Grouch’s birthday song, myself.
Craven common-kissing canker-blossom!
Gorbellied ill-nurtured hedge-pig!
Venomed sheep-biting puttock!
Wow, that’s going right in the ol’ Bookmark folder. Man, my undergraduate work was a lot of Shakespeare, how’d I get a degree without finding a favorite zinger?
Pecunium — discite intelligere PEMRA! Aut noli. Non potest scribere.
…Ridiculum sunt in verbis Latinae
Whoops! Didn’t mean to let that slide by. Happy birthday, Briznecko!
Would blocks of quotes work for translation? I don’t think blockquote will translate into Latin literally (note, does not mean I literally don’t think it will translate…ridiculum sunt in verbis Latinae)
I barely know you, but happy birthday Briznecko! =]
Duh, happy birthday Briznecko!
Falconer — add at least one about fish-mongrels for the trolls who peddle in red herrings.
Argenti, do you happen to know any good sources for learning Latin? Because I’m jealous. Latin is one of the coolest languages ever.
Mongers you fekkin’ auto-correct! Mongers! Not monsters, nor mongrels, nor Montreal!!
Online? No. But your Latin should have the Oxford books, which are very similar to see spot run (Publius! 3 years of Wheellock and everything I remember is because of Publius and Secunda)