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.)
Whoops, didn’t catch that you’re new around here Crip Dyke, or I’d have offered the complimentary welcome package!
In terms of specific issues like the public conversation about rape I think a big part of what we’re seeing is that some men are really uncomfortable with the progress that feminism has already made. The way we talk about rape is still far from perfect, but if you compare it to what it was 30 or 50 years ago? We’ve made a lot of progress. I think that a lot of men who feel angry about and threatened by that change are aware that it’s no longer socially acceptable to express that in most social spaces, which a. makes them even angrier and more frustrated and b. leads to them acting out about it on the internet, where anonymity allows them to feel safe in doing so.
Most definitely. I’ve noticed that when I argue with the worst transphobes, they use a host of different insults for me (“she-male,” “tr*nny,” “etc.). It seems they’re trying their hardest to ensure that their privilege is left intact, so they use all sorts of insults in an effort to so.
I agree, and I think part of this is due to a backlash against “political correctness,” which many right-wingers have taken as an opportunity to discredit leftist politics (which includes all of those social justice movements like feminism, anti-racism, LGBT rights, etc.).
Being “politically incorrect”, as many of you probably notice, is still considered to be “cool.”
I’ve heard about political correctness being an in-joke among left-wingers before the right took it up as an insult. Hell, my dad says the first time he heard about the concept was his professor wearing a button saying “politically correct and proud.”
And then there are the folks who think “political correctness” is an actual ideology, much in the way that morons are a nationality.
I think that there has been movements both forward and back. Forward, in that young women growing up today have SOME role models in the sciences, academia, clergy, business, and government, whereas women growing up in the 70s had almost none of that. And there is a real sense that young women and girls need role models and nurture to achieve their dreams.
And Crip Dyke is a world of right. There is much more of a sense today (at least in the circles I run in) that gender is a range of options along a range of axes, which hopefully forces people from all over the gender spectrum to really look at what works for them and what doesn’t. I’ve seen that work really well, and also produce some really awful backlash.
The’s been a lot of backslide though, in that gender presentation standards for women have gotten much more rigorous. The average model is taller and weighs less. She is wearing more and more makeup. And that leaks into the increased prevalence of eating disorders. There is also an ever increasing backlash against female bodied people’s reproductive rights, which scares me deeply.
I feel like the conversation has shifted to “You can go and achieve at your career as long as it in no way affects the dominant message that you are the sexin’ and raisin’ babies gender. If your career aspirations and your Natural Role conflict, that’s on you to figure out.” But with people in the progressive/radical margins (although increasingly moving mainstream) wanting to opt into a 3-dimensional gender spectrum, rather than the binary. I feel like the poles of how bad it can be and how good it can be are slowly moving farther and father apart.
… I THINK that all made sense?
I see the world increasingly to be one where flexibility and fluidity are essential survival traits. People (men) who are always looking backward to a “simpler time” of “traditional values” and clear cut gender roles are going to be left in the dust.
So true. Part of Faludi’s thesis in Stiffed (it comes up a lot in Backlash as well) is that many men, especially working-class men, have legitimate reasons to feel betrayed by society. But rather than fighting the corporate and political interests responsible for their problems, they turn on scapegoats–women, minorities, immigrants–who have it worse than they do.
I get the impression that a lot of MRA types feel overwhelmed by society in general and are angry about being left behind. And frankly, they’re right. Modern society has less and less need for antisocial bullies. (Unless they have computer programming skills.)
I work primarily with international students, and it seems to me that a lot of what we’re fretting about here applies to the new generation of Asian kids as well. That is to say, most of the boys seem less motivated to perform academically, while the girls are going full-tilt.
I also teach international students, and I’ve noticed the same thing. A lot of my female students are intensely driven. In China and Korea, especially, women are getting more freedom at the same time that the economy is opening up and providing new opportunities. Many of them seem eager to take advantage of the zeitgeist.
@Cassandra- I think you have a point. For some really nasty right-wingers, we may be in the “then they fight you” part of the Ghandi quote. I just wonder, given that we have been fighting these battles in America for over a hundred years at this point, and given the long view of how women’s power and autonomy shifts in society over time, how long it’s going to take before we win, and if the win will ever be permanent.
The backlash itself isn’t new but the men’s rights movement as it currently exists is largely thanks to the internet. Most of their communications is through blogs, forums, etc and most of their “activism” is spamming blog comments sections. Like someone mentioned above, the echo chamber effect makes it easier for them to surround themselves with other people who constantly reinforce their views.
A lot of the anger I think is also being amplified by the economic crises and people looking for a scapegoat to blame. At the same time the mrm has gotten more attention, there’s been a surge in memberships in white supremacists groups in the US, extreme right wing groups in Europe, anti-immigrant sentiment in various places around the world. People see a rapidly changing world and many of them react by lashing out at the groups they see as responsible for disrupting what they see as the natural order of things.
So it’s not just that there’s a backlash against feminism, there’s a backlash by some against progressive change in general, being amplified by legitimately disruptive changes in the economy and uncertainty and fear of the future.
I think that the MRM focuses on trolling blog and newspaper comments is a pretty good indication of the fact that they’re on the losing side of history and they know it. Basically this flurry of anonymously expressed rage about the fact that the world is changing is an extinction burst, imo. I just hope they don’t go offline and commit too much terrorism before the whole thing burns itself out.
I haven’t done any of the assigned reading, but I have an opinion. 😀 (I know it was only suggested, not assigned.) I agree with those who’ve said it probably has more to do with general economic instability & injustice, and then looking for a scapegoat that seems possible to win against. Global capitalism is, after all, a pretty big target. On the other hand, lots of men think they can & should dominate women, so we should be an easy target. Living in California, I see this with people attacking immigrants all the time, even though the evidence shows that they (a) take jobs others don’t want (even in this economy) and (b) often create whole new markets, such as the huge growth in the market for manicures/pedicures that opened up when Vietnamese immigrants started offering those as a standalone, affordable service. (I say this as someone who has never had a mani/pedi in my life.)
I disagree with the idea that porn is behind it. Not that porn is not problematic in its own ways, but misogyny so far pre-dates widely available porn that I suspect that misogyny drives the form that porn takes rather than the other way around.
Okay, back to my last day of vacation, which is a bleah rainy day in CT. Argenti, didn’t you promise me good weather? 🙂
Even the escalating nastiness in porn I think is less a reflection of increased misogyny and more about the fact that people get bored with watching the same thing and seek out more and more extreme stuff. People who write about porn addiction have talked about this a lot, and watching the really extreme stuff seems to have less to do with a person’s underlying attitudes towards women and more to do with getting habituated to the milder stuff to the point where it isn’t really working for them any more and thus feeling a need to escalate. So it works like any other addiction, where people need stronger and stronger fixes over time, and again, the people who study this consistently say that it’s a small group of hardcore users that drive the whole market, since they’re the ones willing to pay for it.
@Aaliyah,
If you’re still reading, have you read “Whipping Girl” by Julia Serano? She’s a trans activist and feminist. It’s a few years old, but still very relevant IMHO and made me see the intersection between transphobia and misogyny in a very powerful way.
Hmm. I guess I agree broadly with Shaenon’s asessment of 90s feminist resurgence/00s backlash, but at the same time I think there’s generally been a lot of quiet progress that may be partly generational — people growing up having absorbed a lot of more (quasi) feminist assumptions about the world (the non-controversial nature of women working, the accceptance of the notion of sexual harassment, etc etc).
The flipside is that plenty of guys lash out in grotesquely misogynistic ways online, but I think in terms of behavior and basic ways of thinking a lot has changed. I think if any of us were beamed back into the 80s we’d be taken aback by some of the casual but pervasive sexism back then. For example, Warren Farrell wasn’t the only one who thought date rape was a joke back then; now I think despite what you see on, say, Reddit and amongst MRAs I think most people understand that date rape is rea; rape.
Obviously there’s plenty of extremely troubling stuff going on now, but I think there’s been some progress. And I think that may be part of what the MRAs are reacting to. They’re losing the war for hearts and minds, and this is why they lash out.
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned that I think has prompted backlash…paternity testing.
When I first started reading MRA blogs, one of my first thoughts was “wow, these guys seem really angry that women can now prove that they fathered children”. For all that MRAs gripe about the pill changing the sexual dynamics, paternity testing was the first time in history a woman could provide irrefutable evidence that a man was the father of her child an that courts would hold him responsible for that child no matter what he said. I think a lot of them are still really mad that they can’t just deny it and move on.
It wasn’t available at all until 1988, and the price has just dropped since then. I know plenty of MRAs only talk about paternity testing in the context of women lying, but the flipside of that “30% of those who challenge paternity aren’t the father” is that 70% ARE.
Additionally, the welfare reforms of 1996 ordered courts to pursue fathers for child support before giving welfare benefits to children increased this pressure on father’s who previously would have been on their merry way.
I honestly think that this really drives some of the anger…especially the “women have all the power in sex” stuff. It gave new things to be angry about, just as the backlash might have died down.
Yes, this.
@La Strega
Indeed I have! I cherish that book. Not only is it relevant and insightful as you say it is, but it also helped me understand myself better and so eventually come out to myself.
It’s all of the stuff people are bringing up, honestly. There’s been a slow but steady erosion of male privilege, and a small but significant number of men are spitting mad about it, mostly because they know it’s too late to stop it.
Like I said before – we’re still fighting lots of specific battles but on a macro level they lost the war at least 20 years ago.
Porn seems to me to be both a mirror and a driver of societal attitudes.
I’ve noticed how porn has changed mainstream aesthetics, for example. Popular fashion plates like the Kardashians are an example of how the “porn queen” look has come to be accepted as the beauty standard. The young men who frequent the PUA sites certainly hold the porn starlet look up as the feminine ideal. The line between the “trashy underworld” and the “glamorous elite” world has disappeared.
I wouldn’t say the line has disappeared at all. The porn aesthetic is more acceptable and has leaked into the mainstream, but people still draw very clear lines between “beautiful” – fashion models, movie stars – and “sexy” – porn star aesthetic. There are definite connotations to the more porny look as far as class and perception of sexual availability and the judgement attached to that are concerned.
@CassandraSays:
“Like I said before – we’re still fighting lots of specific battles but on a macro level they lost the war at least 20 years ago.”
Exactly.
And all but a few of the most deluded know it. But some of them are like those poor Japanese soldiers they found decades after WWII, still hiding in caves on Pacific atolls and paying homage to the Emperor.
That’s what makes them potentially very dangerous though – people who feel like they have nothing to lose always are, which is why we need to keep an eye on them.
For a quick overview that puts women’s economic progress in perspective, and challenges some of the wilder “end of men” claims, this piece by Stephanie Coontz is great. Some of what’s in it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/30/opinion/sunday/the-myth-of-male-decline.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
Porn is also… a really huge topic, which makes me reluctant to just say “porn is a reason for X” any more than I’d say “TV is a reason for X”.
Like, how are we defining porn? Anything created by a large porn studio? What about “indie” porn like Crashpad? Does fanfic count?
I’m not sure if this fits neatly under the category of backlash, but there’s also a lot of preying on men’s sexual insecurities that’s an extremely recurrent theme within the manosphere as well, and that contributes to a lot of the anger. The whole alpha/beta thing and the idea that there’s only a certain type of guy who all women are universally attracted to* because science, and if you’re not one of those guys, you won’t get any sex, or women will cuckold you and make you raise the alpha males kid (the alpha baby??).
*Depending on the strain of manosphere dude telling the story, this idea is either immediately followed by “And I’ll show you how to instantly become that type of guy, for just the low low price of $497.97!” Or “And that’s why women are all shallow, cheating whores who can’t be trusted!”