It’s Question Time again. I’ve been reading through Susan Faludi’s Backlash and her more recent book on men, Stiffed, as well as some of the discussion surrounding Hanna Rosin’s The End of Men and Kay Hymowitz’ Manning Up. Faludi, writing in 1991, obviously saw the 80s as a time of antifeminist backlash.
My question is how you would characterize the years since she wrote her book. A continuation of that backlash? A time of feminist resurgence, from the Riot Grrls up to Rosin’s predicted End of Men? A mixed period of progress and regression?
I’m wondering both what your general assessment of the situation is, and also what specific evidence you have — either hard data or personal experience — that underlies your overall view. This could be anything from data on employment segregation or the prevalence of rape to your sense of how media representations of women and men have or haven’t changed, or even how people you know have changed the ways they talk about gender. What do you think are the significant data points to look at?
The question isn’t just what has changed for women but what has changed for men as well — with my underlying question being: what if anything in the real world has changed that might be making the angry men we talk about here so angry? I think we can agree that most of their own explanations are bullshit, but could there be a grain of truth to any of them? Or something that they don’t see that’s far more compelling?
In the interest of spurring discussion and providing some data to work with, here are a bunch of articles responding to (or at least vaguely related to the issues raised in) Rosin’s End of Men, including a link to her original Atlantic article. In addition, here are some posts by sociologist Philip Cohen challenging many of Rosin’s claims, as well as more general posts of his on gender inequality. (Feel free to completely ignore any or all of these; I just found them useful resources.)
I know at least 4 well-known and/or influential feminists at top of my head who have the exact opposite view.
Flavia Dzodan, Emma Goldman, Julia Serano, and bell hooks.
Nice try you dishonest shithead. You could have found theses feminists via a quick Google search.
That part of the rant is much funnier for people who’ve actually worked in media.
It’s almost as if you didn’t read what hellkell said at all and just want an opportunity to blindly accuse her of sexism. Weird.
Hellkell – “Joe: please stop taking your mommy issues out on us.”
Another insult and a reading comprehension fail.
So much with the two-fers today Hellkell.
I said feministS – plural.
I was brought up by the state school system, like everyone else.
Which is feminist to the core.
“Aw, Joe thinks all women are feminists.”
I don’t even.
Just pulling random BS out of your arse now, eh? lolz!
Seriously, dude, what’s with the line breaks of poetic intent?
I’m shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you.
“Everyone else” in this context is a. not in the UK, and b. not necessarily a product of the state school system even if they did grow up there.
(I did a total of about 6 months in the British state school system. Can’t say I remember it being particularly feminist.)
@Joe:
Yeah, remember what I said about people being fed up with you? You’re no stranger around here Joe, and I’m not about to be upset at people for being absolutely fed up with you.
If you demonstrated that you actually cared about the truth of your accusations, and were doing more than regurgitating talking points without addressing any arguments against, maybe I’d count this as something you were talking about. As it is, I’m not going to fault people for getting annoyed at your trolling.
See, Man not need proof. What Man says is Truth, because Man say it. Proof is Misandry.
Ha ha. Why am I picturing Jackie Gleason in the Honeymooners when I read Joe’s rants. “To the moon, Alice!”
@Aaliyah – you missed the part where I said we watch what feminists DO, rather than listening to what they SAY then.
@Kirby – hilarious link there! I clicked expecting to be proved wrong, I thought I’d find the exception to the rule, e.g.: a website either of actual Women miners, or women wanting to be miners….
Instead it’s just another political psuedo-“environmental” pressure group, which I guess is funded by the mining industry, who though that if they gave it a femvironment spin it’d play better to the politicians.Lolz!
I particularly liked the stock photo of a clean well groomed woman doing a very non-strenuous, not at all dangerous above ground task!
My point proven again!
Women with jobs in the mining industry – that…. aren’t mining!! lolz!
@ kirby
Nope, I was referring to an actual component of one proposed MRA-led post-apocalyptic utopia, as explained by David Meller.
Cassandra – “I did a total of about 6 months in the British state school system. Can’t say I remember it being particularly feminist.”
Bwahahahahahaahaaaa!!
6 whole months! XD
@Cassandra – nice to see you admit that you LIED and that weird “single-mother-brothel” BS was some random bloke and nothing to do with me!
Credit for admitting it at least.
See, this is why we all mock the shit out of you, Joe. You totally ignore the fact that your assertion that everyone is a product of the state school system you grew up in is nonsense, and instead take a detour into some baffling little attempt to gloat.
@Joe:
My bad. I actually had the wrong website. O_O I’ll come back to you when I’ve found it.
Nope, I never claimed that it was you that said that. Sorry that your school didn’t teach you better reading comprehension.
The guy who said it is part of your movement, BTW.
@grumpycatisagirl – you should listen to the BBC more.
Plenty feminist.
It’s true that some feminists give mere lip-service to class politics, and that’s definitely a problem. But those feminists I mentioned (and many more, by the way) aren’t like that. If you actually read about them you would understand why.
I know countless other feminists who care about people of all socioeconomic classes.
Oh noes! Millions of men gonna go their own way! How will civilization ever survive without hardworking, productive dudes like Joe making oh-so valuable societal contributions like, uh, spamming blog comments sections with mra talking points?
Yeah, we might be laughing now, but wait till all the mra’s and mgtows and mwhinyassholes finally do go Galt, like they’ve been threatening to do but not actually getting around to doing for all these many years. Who will spam all the blog comments sections with angry rarblegarble then? Imagine the chaos! How will we cope?!
Thank you for warning us all, Joe. I don’t know if civilization can survive the Great Douchecanoe Exodus, you’ve warned us about, but I’ll be sure to keep an eye on it.
There are a long list of things wrong with state schooling, being too “feminist” isn’t one of them.
Again? Do you have any idea how obnoxious that makes you sound?
If we’re going to fix the British school system can we maybe start with things like “make sure everyone leaves with at least X number of GCSEs” and “improve the school lunches so kids have adequate nutrition to get them through afternoon classes”?
Yes, he does. And he likes it.
Seeing how this thread needs disinfecting…
My afternoon was spent sitting on the porch with a very overweight, rather old, beagle. His owner was very pleased to find him, albeit confused how he managed to get out in the first place.
Reuniting beagley with his human, today is a win.
@Kirby – heh. Ok, credit for admitting that!
@Cassandra – Pffft, backpedal & deny all you like, it’s in black & white up-thread.
And I’m not “part of a movement” by the way.
Unlike feminists who are perfectly comfortable with having gendercidal radfems as part of your movement and hand-waving that they are “not typical”, I see way too many issues with way too many people who call themselves MRAs.
So, I don’t count myself as part of the “men’s rights movement”.