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.)
Argenti:
“Dafuq?! Let’s start with the obvious, why would someone who’d joined a volunteer military intentionally skip out on it? And you seriously think women get pregnant to avoid a role they signed up for? Like, intentional pregnancy, not having sex in a country with no abortion // no access.”
Duh.
Join army & get paid for job, get medical benefits etc.
Get pregnant & get maternity benefits, don’t get shot or blown up.
How hard is it to see the motivation there? Really?
Yes! Plus, they rant and scream about how all the regulars do is have a hatefest for men – it’s like they don’t (can’t?) see all the posts where the threads are more about personal stuff, fun stuff, books, TV, films, music, cooking, more cooking, animals, families, friends, silly things that happened, bad things that happened, advice … I mean, ffs, how can they not see all that? Are they that firmly blinkered or just projecting their own bile (eww) that forcefully? Jeez, even DKM of unhallowed memory seemed to get some pleasure (creepy though it was) from his dolls. Even Owly claimed to enjoy being with his niece and nephew, though given the rest of his rantings that may not be a good thing. The rest of ’em, especially Joe here, just seem to stew in hate all the time.
The funny part is, even in Steampunk circles I’ve only seen morality mentioned in terms of how we don’t need that part back. Victorian fans don’t want Victorian morals! (Well, surely some do, but their are assholes in every group)
When people assume that others are that calculating and ethics-free, ie would join the army with no intention of ever fighting, I always wonder if they’re describing themselves, and if they’re honestly unaware that most people aren’t that unethical.
@Argenti:
I don’t even know what Joe’s on about anymore. I think he’s just convinced that feminists want women to be superior to men, and grasps at every conceivable straw to demonstrate it… Including fabricating out of whole-cloth what feminists advocate.
I can’t get over that he thinks feminists want to uphold gender roles. I mean seriously, what the fuck?!?
Ok, time to try the beetlejuice thing.
Pecunium Pecunium Pecunium! We have an idiot blathering about the military! Clean up on aisle 5!!
Citation needed Joe. Badly. Just because you can find some twisted form of logic in which your little made up fantasy might make sense does not mean it happens with any frequency (if at all)
Joe, apart from the fact you’re insulting women soldiers, you’re talking as if pregnancy is something that happens just like a snap of the fingers – it’s not guaranteed to happen, or if it does, the timing isn’t guaranteed either. As a way of getting out of active duty (which is what feminists have been fighting to achieve for years) it’s a really dumb plan.
@Joe:
See, this is why you need to cite sources other than JOESASS. Just because you can tell a “just-so” story, doesn’t mean it actually happens. It’s a lesson that evo-psych folks could do with learning…
kirbywarp — the only possible explaination is that Joe is from a parallel dimension where “feminist” means something completely different. “This is your world Mickey? Even the zeppelins?” (Paraphrased)
@Argenti:
I won’t say his name three times again, because that’ll banish him… But seriously, we really need Pecunium here.
Oops… well, I won’t say Pecunium’s name two more times.
Crap! Ok, ok. I won’t say Pec…. I won’t say his name again. Help us Pecunium, you’re our only hope!
…
God dammit…
Of course Joe thinks everyone is as fundamentally dishonest as he is. If he had any awareness (including the self kind), his head would explode.
Kirby — he’s been emailed, but my best attempts at summoning are failing! Fibinachi you around? You can banish demons so maybe you can summon Sir Pecunium?
Seriously, what if you joint the military, plan to get pregnant just prior to deployment, and then discover that you’re not fertile? Or that the guy you’re sleeping with isn’t? What if you miscarry? This is the shittiest get out of work free for sure plan ever.
I want a sandwich but we’re out of white bread. Clearly this is a conspiracy to make me suffer.
(It’s entirely my own fault as the keeper of the shopping list)
I was going to do late dinner and a movie tonight but now I can’t because I need to be awake and not hungover tomorrow. Clearly this is a misogynist conspiracy, rather than just bad timing.
@Kirby – Here’s the thing. I don’t give a flying fuck why Ms A who is already in the top 1% of wealth earners on the planet cannot move up to be part of the 0.01% of wealthiest corporate scum.
Why should the majority of people care about the “problems” of these already wealthy and priveleged women?
Nice try with the links there.
First off you’re criticising Oz mines for having “driving” as women’s work. As far as I can tell that’s in reference to open cast gold mining in Oz, where pretty much everyone is driving some kinda big machine, above ground (albeit in a giant pit).
The woman in construction specifically said she did NOT feel discriminated in that article.
As for the two discriminated-against women sewer workers? Ok, that’s a count of two, vs. how many hundreds of thousands of sewer jobs? I’m not buying this whole “women are locked out of low caste work”.
Women managed to break down all kinds of chauvinist barriers to become doctors and lawyers, within a couple of generations. Women are now the majority of med students in the UK*. No problem for them to acheive that in well paid, high-social value careers… and yet, oh there are these insurmountable “barriers” to low caste work? Yeah right.
(*Hence the brain-drain from the 3rd world. Women retire or go part-time at a higher % much earlier than men, often when they decide to become mothers. The holes in the health service are then filled by recruiting doctors from poorer countries. Thus, poor countries health systems effectively subsidise middle class 1st world feminist ambitions to “have it all”.)
@Argenti – my point was. Yes, it was Victorian paternalism that got women out of the mines.
So, IF feminism did what it said on the tin, i.e. “equality” then feminists should be focussed on getting women back into the mines.
After all, there are always far more miners than there are CEOs.
If these dirty, difficult, dangerous jobs are so fuckin’ desirable – why aren’t feminists trying to get back in en masse? Why aren’t there newspaper articles about it every five minutes? like there are about the glass ceiling?
Simple: It’s a Red Herring. Feminists don’t want those jobs, they don’t want to work down a mine (unless technology has made it safe and clean). It’s just another thing to complain about, so as to be able to beg more power and privelege.
I don’t even know if you can qualify for military benefits if you’ve never been on active duty… Apparently, you can request a discharge if you become pregnant, but each veteran’s benefit for those discharged have their own requirements for how much service is required to qualify.
This is a result of light googling, I don’t actually know much about the matter. But even a cursory search reveals that Joe’s imaginary soldier’s plan is probably doomed at the outset…
@Cassandra – of course I don’t talk about my life on here!
ANYthing I’ve ever said about me personally has been used to attack me, by manboobzers.
So I don’t say anything about my personal life, other than in the most general terms.
Duh.
Ah, can you feel the joy that comes from a happy life just pouring out of Joe? Let’s bask, everyone.
I was out for a while. What the hell is Joe talking about now?
“When people assume that others are that calculating and ethics-free, ie would join the army with no intention of ever fighting, I always wonder if they’re describing themselves, and if they’re honestly unaware that most people aren’t that unethical”
Ahahahhahahahahahaaa!!
Apparently you live under a rock and are completely oblivious to the rip-off merchants of every stripe in every walk of life, from:
benefits fraudsters (including lottery winners), to MPs claiming for a duck house in their moat on expenses to that fella who just went to jail for selling fake detectors to the armed forces of several nations recently.
But ooooh, women soldiers are the exception to the rule, right? / sarcasm
XD
Biggest lawl ever! But Joe, what happens when those readers see that you’re just making a colossal ass of yourself, and that you make about as much sense as a bag of farts?
Ah, so you do think everyone is as amoral as you are. No wonder you’re always in such a bad mood.
Joe: Your worldview is sad. You are sad. Go away.
@Joe:
You’re getting tiring.
My complaint about the miners was the sense that they were trying to advertise “appropriate” jobs for women in mining, my gripe in particular was the cleaning of facilities. It wasn’t really giving the sense that the whole field was open, but that the industry was sectioning off areas that would be approprate for women. It’d be nice to know if that feeling was wrong.
For the sewer workers, of course it was just two. It was a single case. I wasn’t providing statistics with that article, I was showing a case study of the kinds of discrimination women in “dirty” jobs.
I never said that the construction workers faced discrimination, in fact it was nice to know that they didn’t face harassment. I was commenting on the frame of the article as “women proving themselves in a mans world,” which plays into the mindset that individual women must be prove the competance of all women, that they must be representatives of their gender rather than themselves.
You’re getting confused. The fact that most men aren’t CEOs is just a fact of math. The 99% thing I mentioned wasn’t about wealthy women moving up… Your statement doesn’t even make sense in context because you were talking about the 1% moving on to the .01%, while my example was th 99% not being the 1%.
Anyway, it’s just math. Most men aren’t CEOs. Most women aren’t CEOs. Amongst CEOs, however, there aren’t a representitive number of women, indicating there is a barrier for women that doesn’t exist for men.
Like I said, it’s pretty simple.