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.)
mildlymagnificent: Hugs.
Nope. Radical feminism receives plenty of criticism from other feminists. The fact that you don’t know this is telling.
Wrong again. The trans*-misogyny from transphobic radfems is a product of cissexism and a severely flawed perspective of gender essentialism, not prejudice against men.
You fail at criticizing even the feminists we criticize. That’s amusing.
Not just mildly, I think. Completely magnificent. Congratulations on the return of your husband, and many, many more years together.
hellkell, you beat me to it! That’s just what I was thinking. When they say “you’ll die alone with your cats” it’s because they’re envious.
I wonder if angry dude can even name some transphobic radfems. I can. I’ve argued with some of them directly.
We should throw a little internet party for Mr Magnificent’s getting out of the hospital.
Oooh, yes! With cake, and Scented Fucking Candles!
Forgive my snappiness, but i am super tired of men whining about how women supposedly whine about being promised to have it all. You guys actually do get it all in terms of gender relations and now you’re whining your asses of that someone might mention motherhood and employment are not contradictory
Who cares?
Joe doesn’t believe in citations. The only way to prove things is by doing as he instructs.
…
Ah, yes, the state school system.
Where in sex ed, they told us that sleeping with people took down your value. So feminist.
And where in history, there was barely any mention of women for the first semester. Incredibly feminist.
I could list more examples, but I actually want to see you respond to these first
You are full of shit, Joe.
To be fair, whenever he types that up, I start almost cracking up for real. It’s like… he’s so far from getting it that when he tries to laugh at us, I’m just like…. XD
not that i’m saying your reaction is wrong, for the record. I definitely see how it
could beis obnoxiousAww, that brought a smile to my face
And since I don’t wnat to have a super long comment, i’m gonna post this, though I’m not all the way caught up on the thread yet
RE: mildlymagnificent
I’m glad your husband’s okay, and coming home.
In other awesome partner news, I’ve been with my husband almost six years now. I would not be surviving this hellish time without his support, love, and periodic refusals to put up with my shit. Especially since suffering can cause narcissism in me–I forget that I cause pain in others by stewing.
So yeah, hurrah for supportive partners and the power of trust!
Never mind that “the state school system” that Joe’s blathering about is in ONE country and ONE time. It’s not the state school system I went through. FWIW, we didn’t get any anti-sex crap at school, but what we were taught was more biological than social. Pretty good for the 70s, though.
Women were certainly absent from our history lessons, but so were individual men, mostly – it was very broad-brush stuff indeed and wouldn’t have got anyone interested if they weren’t already. The only individuals I can remember at all from high school history were Bismarck and Napoleon III, and my essay about him was mostly “WTF are you people doing asking a bunch of seventeen year old know-nothings to pass judgement on him?”
Amazingly enough, I passed.
/high school history sucked
RE: CassandraSays
*snrk* I have an EASY time thinking of some! But then again, I know my trans history… poor Sylvia Rivera.
Rogan – is it appropriate to say happy coming anniversary?
You guys have been married about the same time Mr K and I have. 🙂
Thanks everyone.
btw, learn CPR if your job doesn’t already require it. Far too many people think it’s a bit like mouth to mouth. It’s not. It’s basically a form of extreme, but controlled, violence. When you do it right, you’re more. likely. than. not. to break a rib or two, that’s how forceful you need to be. Whether you do or don’t know what to do, the emergency phone people are pretty good at coaching you through it. Even if you don’t really learn it, remember that really irritating song – Stayin’ Alive – that’s the speed and rhythm you have to maintain. The most difficult thing is actually using enough force – in exactly the right place. But call emergency first. You’ll notice that a resus team will change over every couple of minutes or so, it’s really hard to do correctly for much longer than that. Though adrenaline is a wonderful hormone when you need it most.
(What you’re actually trying to do is to drive blood circulation by external pressure rather than just getting the person to breathe. Breathing is just a sign that everything’s working – CPR is about getting/keeping blood circulation going even though nothing’s working – that’s why it’s preferred to mouth to mouth. You don’t have to think very hard about adding up the total length of all the major arteries and veins to realise how much seriously hard work the heart muscles do.)
@mildlymagnificent, Hugs (if they’re wanted) and applause.
Also, Joe is on Facebook? Weird. Doesn’t he know the C1A can monitor him there?
Finally, more proof that women don’t care about the issues that men face at all. See also, the Mothers of the Disappeared in Argentina, etc. etc.
Do you even know about all the different kinds of feminism out there? You brand it as a corrupt, classist political movement while completely ignoring the kinds of feminism that are decidedly anti-capitalist, pro-worker, etc. I myself am an anarcha-feminist who opposes the kyriarchy, capitalism, and the state. And there are countless others who espouse the same kind of feminism.
But there are plenty of feminists who aren’t anarchists like me yet still do advocacy work for people at the lower socioeconomic classes of society. I already mentioned some of them. At the very least they call for the end of discrimination against women in traditionally male fields and the end of gender essentialism that steers women away from these jobs.
You’re yet another person who regards feminism as a monolithic social movement. Same old shit we’ve seen before.
RE: Kittehserf
Thank you! I’m really hoping we can actually do something for this upcoming anniversary… the last one, I was… kinda in the mental health care system. <.< WORST ANNIVERSARY EVER.
And that was just when we got together. Our wedding was about a year and a half later, but it was really just a big party. Our relationship had already gelled by that point.
That’s what always gets me with seeing CPR on telly – they’re not doing it anything like forcefully enough to be convincing. (Understandable given the actors prolly don’t want broken ribs.) Hell, it’s why they teach it on dummies, not on people. I learned it years ago and yes, it’s bloody hard.
Why? You obviously spent exactly zero time analyzing feminism, yet you think you’re clarified to say what’s right and wrong with it.
Only a misogynistic cis man could come up with the idea that transphobia is actually misandry.
And where do you get this idea from, Joe? You’re just as boring as that Jacob-troll, except less faux-polite. You think that continuously saying ideas without proof is going to make people believe you.
Ugh, I hate that. People (read: MRAs and other misogynists) whine about how women get all the “easy” jobs, ignoring how they kept us out of the “hard” jobs and then when we could get in their, they sexually harrass us!
There is no way to win, but no, this is an example of misandry somehow.
Got any reason for believing this? And no, assfax is not a reason
And it was still incredibly wrong.
Duh.
I don’t know about the things you’ve said personally. All I know is you’re a) poor, and b) think that poor women have it sooooo much easier than poor men becuz misandry. The first issue is not the reason why I disagree with you. It is the second.
We don’t talk about your personal situation, we talk about your shitty words and ideas, which you put in every comment you make
There is nothing to say here except the more you use those “bwahahahas” and “XD”s the more I crack up because they are so riduculous when you use them. I’m 99 percent sure that’s not your intended reaction, though
posting again before I’m caught up due to not wanting to have super long comment. So think of this as like, a comment from the past or something. the very recent past.
Urgh, that would be the worst!
Sounds like your wedding and ours were similar – we didn’t have a ceremony at all, we don’t really do that sort of stuff in Spirit. It was an excuse to frock up (I pinched the design of an Edwardian gown in the V&A for my wedding dress) and eat and dance and say “Look everyone, we’re married, isn’t that cool?”
And I spilt a sticky pastry on my skirt. Some things don’t change.
@Argenti
Those blob fishes made me crack up
Saying someone proved your point does not make your point automatically proven. Trufax
This is reminding me of 1984* where they control the language to control the ideas. I get the impression Joe doesn’t like anyone being able to identify his vitrol
@Mildlymagnificent
Holy shit, that sounds like a bad situation. Jedi hugs for you and your husband, if you want them.
*not that I have read it XD
Okay, I’m on board with the blobfish being actually kinda cute, but that anglerfish. Yeesh!
I think that y’all have hit the nail on the head. It has nothing to do with miners or the military per se. It’s all about the misery. Feminism is horrible, it’s a racket, because it allows women to envision themselves looking up, working up to better things, instead of being stuck in misery like he is. Men don’t necessarily want to be miserable, but sometimes they are, and feminism doesn’t seem to address that directly (it does address it by trying to make less overall misery, but feminism isn’t catering to men and so, by MRA logic, it *must* be wrong because of that).
Feminism has worked to reduce misery in the world by offering a wider range of possibilities to a wider range of people, quite a number of whom are not hetero, white, cis men. This is it’s crime, in the eyes of MRAs and their fellow travelers, like our First Whinger. Some people (other than them, of course) have been empowered to pursue happiness and evade misery. This cannot be permitted, because the other can not escape misery unless and until there are no longer any men anywhere who are miserable (so never, of course).
And so I come back to my central contention, that for MRAs the answer not to work to make anything better but to accept the world as given and seek to increase the misery, to punish the other. Hell, they come over here not to try to engage or have a conversation, but just to make as big a nuisance of themselves as they can as a way to increase our misery.
Luckily, their attempts are so pathetic, they are only able to effect a mild uptick in annoyance.
RE: Kittehserf
Yeah, we did rent chapel space and have a good and proper wedding with friends coming in from out of town. It was glorious and great and we baked our own wedding cake. Best wedding ever.
Wedding cake!
nom nom nom
We had family and friends (same thing, over there) at our place. It’s handy having one’s own ballroom for this sort of thing. Sir looked lovely, he wore an Indian wedding coat in deep bottle green. Did you and Mac dress up?
@Kittehserf, What a beautiful dress. And @you & LBT, kudos for making your own perfect celebrations.
RE: Kittehserf
Suits. (By which I mean, I rented a suit jacket and shoes from a tux place and wore a white Oxford shirt and my black slacks under it.) Nobody could remember how to tie a tie, so it got left behind.
RE: cloudiah
Yeah. Multiples are often discouraged from celebrating system landmarks or rites of passage, so I see it as a form of defiance to have doofy shit like weddings. I even got a sappy little photo memory book with all these photos and remnants of it!
One of my insult-added-to-injury moments the past year was that I lost my wedding ring. And of course, I’m too broke to be able to replace it… it’s maddening.
Thanks, cloudiah!
Rogan, that sucks so much about your ring. 🙁