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.)
Joe’s getting tiring? He’s been that way for a year now. I wish the banhammer would drop on his lying head.
Having him being able to comment here is like being stuck at a family event with the one drunk uncle that nobody in the family likes but he always turns up anyway. And then won’t shut up.
Re date rape: I was in college when Date Rape entered the social consciousness. It’s not as widely accepted as it ought to be (i.e. everyone should believe it exists, and that it’s really rape), but it’s a long way from the “how can that be a thing?” that it was back then.
The complaint (people will call “bad sex” rape: see Katie Roiphe), is still the complaint people make. It’s the bastion of the, “I don’t want to have to listen to what women want,” crowd. It lets them be abusive, without having to admit they are being abusive.
Joe, if the DoucheCanoePocalypse of Angry Manbabies Going Their Own Way and Taking Their Toys With Them Too and Never Being Womens’ Friends Ever Ever Again So There is so inevitable, why the need to exert so much of your time and energy arguing with people in the comments sections of a blog dedicated to mocking misogyny?
Uncle Joe has a sad.
Anyone else notice that his routine is to get his ass handed to him, and quit, then come to a new thread and act as if none of that ever happened.
There will now follow pages of personal attacks and shaming attempts directed at me,
Why should we treat you as if you were honest? We know how you act. You lie. You ignore responses. You pretend to be responding to things which were never said.
Exemplia gratia:
Got any citations? Ought to be easy, what with it all being here on manboobz.
As to shame; if I thought you could feel shame, I’d attempt it. Instead, mockery is all you deserve.
“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.”
Which is why we haven’t been saying that women are. Nope. Totally hasn’t been happening for this entire page. Never happened.
Have I mentioned that my dad used to be a miner, and my uncle remained one until his retirement? Let me tell you, it’s so much fun having your uncle’s (and dad’s former) field be the go-to job for MRAs desperate to appropriate other men’s hard work and twist it to their own purposes.
@kirbywarp – ” I think he’s just convinced that feminists want women to be superior to men, ”
Maybe there’s a nasty little worm of self-awareness wriggling away in Joe’s brain, whispering to him that almost everyone’s superior to him.
Show some citations? C’mon Joe, don’t keep us waiting.
See, for Uncle Joe when the media doesn’t agree with him, it’s because they are counter-revolutionaries.
“Ah, can you feel the joy that comes from a happy life just pouring out of Joe? Let’s bask, everyone.”
Basking in the sun of Joe’s happiness*:
http://youtu.be/ci95IpvCFL0
*not really.
I was going to say that Joe’s basking is more like a basking shark, but those are too cute to be associated with him. About equal in intelligence, though.
Is there any non-human creature, however unpleasant to humans, that isn’t too cute to be associated with Joe and his ilk? They make Guinea worms look appealing.
Yes?
@Hellkell:
Well, to be fair, this is the first time I personally have had to deal with him. Yeesh… I’m so looking forward to when he comes back tomorrow on a new thread and says the exact same crap.
…The fuck is that? That’s a real thing?
Argenti … hmm, close call, but they’re prolly still cuter’n’smarter than this (sub)average Joe.
@Argenti: Kilroy was here?
I personally think the blobfish looks rather funny, and thus, kind of cute, how it looks vaguely like a cartoon human. Funny, unlike Joe.
And you proved my point, just as I said you would.
Ignored and denied men’s suffering.
Dragged everything back onto: but-but women’s problems / “arrrgh teh glass ceiling” / “teh patriarchy”
And threw a load of childish insults.
^*This* is part of why feminism is increasingly unpopular.
Back before the internet only feminists who wrote books or newspaper articles were visible.
Now with the internet, every feminist with a keyboard is making it clear just how much feminism is not some kind of “universal human rights movement” but is very narrowly focussed, at best and horribly misandrist at worst.
@Kirby – you don’t get to even apply to be a corporate CEO unless you’re already high up in the corporate heierarchy ergo, part of the 1%. The super-rich of whom corporate CEOs are part of, are much less than 1% of population.
Of course you can become CEO of your own company by starting one, but that’s expensive and risky, most start-ups fail. So naturally there are even fewer super-rich CEOs who made it by that route. Altho’ I think that one Spanks (the elastic “shaper” pants things) billionaire did start the company herself? I could be wrong.
So, ignoring Joe’s latest ragespit…the blob-thing is sort of cute, which is why it seems odd that it’s real. It looks like it should be in a Pixar movie.
@Kitteh – adding people who overuse the word “ilk” to my list of pretentious pseudo-intellectual red flags! 😛
It’s called a blobfish, for obvious reasons.
But yes, most fish are smarter than him (actually, probably all, as a generalization, but there are certainly some stupid specimens)
I think basking sharks are kind of dumb even by fish standards, hence the comparison. They don’t seem particularly angry, though, so not a great comparison.
They also don’t look anywhere near as weird while they’re in the water for some reason.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xi14j9_blobfish_animals#.UZBN_LXvvDF