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.)
Don’t you love it when a troll comes along and demonstrates all the garbage that characterises the MRM?
Sideliner – that’s particularly interesting about men resenting paternity tests because it means they can’t walk away, in light of the screaming dummy-spit breadmold/Catwoman and TheFartJoe (all prompted by Ms Geta Lode’s comments) posted here the other day, where it was all about “I need to prove I’ve been cuckolded because women breed with other men ALL THE TIME.”
In other words, reality the opposite of misogynists’ rantings? Who’da thunk?
Speaking as a 70s feminist, I think that the collapse of job markets is a big driver. You had to have something seriously wrong with you or your circumstances to be unable to get a job at that time. There’s also the fact that the 70s generation of young men and women and their parents were, if not radicalised themselves, familiar with the attitudes of all the rest of us alienated by the Vietnam War and energised by its end.
But mainly I think it’s economics. If all the internet anti-feminist warriors had grown up with valid expectations of reasonably good jobs, and then got them and kept them, a successful, contented life would leave them a lot more tolerant and accepting of women doing the same thing. It’s much, much easier when granting rights to others doesn’t really have any effect on your own income or your chances in life. (I might add, there was, occasionally, an openly expressed opinion among some old-style trade union leaders here that equal pay for women was a good thing for men. Why? It’s obvious. Women are clearly less capable than men so having to pay them the same wages would put employers off. Having women in a workplace doing the same work for less pay was not much different to “scab” (non-union) labour from a “real” worker’s point of view. Yay. More jobs for men. It wasn’t common, but it wasn’t as rare as hens’ teeth either.)
Sorry, I haven’t read all the comments, but basically, I agree with Fibinachi: Nothing is really different. Over the course of my life, I have gone from thinking everyone is equal now to having to learn about and except the way gender works in our society. Depressing, but true.
All the discussion of gender I hear in real life, which is very limited, is at my university. In this context, there are a few ‘feminists’ (in quotes, since I don’t know if they actually identify as feminists), and a disturbingly large and growing number of young men who seem to have a huge chip on their shoulder about all women. In the town I live in, however, assumptions about gender (like they would even know that word…) are pretty traditional. Men are supposed to be strong and in charge, and women are silly, irrational and hysterical, but hey, we love ’em anyway.
Will things change in the future? Honestly, I don’t know, but I don’t see them changing anytime soon. I try to be fair in my real life dealings with men, but sometimes I wonder ‘what’s the point’? What disturbs me most is that the people who are the most hateful towards women and gender equality are young, liberal guys. How the hell did this happen?
Needless to say, reading this blog frustrates me a lot. Partly because I still can’t believe the hate coming out of these MRA guys, and partly because there is nobody in real life I can talk to about this stuff.
Note: I am slightly drunk posting this, so apologies if it doesn’t make sense…
I have been slowly working my way through the links provided (thanks! Really good reading!), and I don’t have a lot to add other than personal stories. I know for me personally I always felt I had to excel in school, and really most other aspects of my life, because I somehow absorbed this notion that for me to even “measure up” or be listened to (or allowed to even have a voice)I had to be exceptional, I had to prove myself worthy. I think a lot of girls absorb something like this that boys don’t. For me it was also exacerbated by the fact that I knew at a young age that I was not pretty, and likely never would be, and I absorbed that women “should” be pretty and again I had to somehow earn my place in the world even more. I had to show everyone that I just deserved a place, any place in the world. And that’s a pretty toxic message for anyone to absorb. I knew girls I went to school with (elementary, high school and university) who had sickening high expectations for themselves as well. I remember that sadness that followed when we did poorly at something. It was always a huge, resounding “I am a failure”. So, the next time, we would stay up and study and hour or two more at night, we would take better notes, we would practice a skill more. I don’t ever remember the boys setting such rigorous expectations for themselves and then just feel cut up when they don’t meet them. I think that can somewhat explain why women are doing well. Some of us have such astronomical expectations for ourselves and even if we don’t meet them we typically end up with a set of pretty marketable skills. It’s kind of a sad situation to feel that you don’t don’t deserve anything good unless you’re perfect, but I think a lot of women are up against that. I think most guys don’t have the same pressure and some even assume they are just “deserve” what they want from life and are angry when their amazing career and supermodel wife just don’t show up on their doorstep.
Out of curiosity has anyone else here ever felt something similar? Feeling that you had to be exceptional at everything?
I have heard that part of the problem with finding abortion providers is that there are not that many qualified doctors to perform the procedure anymore. That it was dropped as a requirement for graduation in medical schools across the U.S.
Bad_dog: Yes. Maybe not exceptional, but I have definitely felt pressure to be at least twice as good as men at work in order to be taken seriously. Making sure I’m overly prepared in the past has given me some breathing room now because of my rep.
I think it also gets better as you age, you’re not as concerned with perfection in a lot of life areas, and you learn to cut yourself some slack.
That at least is one thing that hasn’t changed a great deal. The “radical” movements of the 60s and 70s were very much, often virulently, in the make-us-a-sammich tradition. The only radical personal stuff was in “free” love. Better known as women’s inability to say no (because Pill!).
I think it’s important to recognise that no MRA chances upon, say, AVfM and is outraged at the numerous examples of “Misandry” and then becomes angry. They are angry anyway, MRM blogs identify an enemy and some rhetoric, and suddenly the voiceless have a pseudo voice.
The MRM is so incoherent and disparate that it can’t recruit even a tony fraction of the misogynists in society. They are a movement of bloggers, nothing more.
@ Bad_dog Yes, I think I’ve experienced what you’re talking about. I think part of it has to do with how all the traditional female role models we were taught about (Amelia Earhart, Emily Dickinson, etc) had their struggle against sexism emphasized. It’s important to talk about how sexism made it more difficult for them to succeed, of course, but on the other hand I think a lot of girls growing up hear that and go, “Crap. If I want to be successful, I have to be a super perfect genius or something.”
I’m kind of typing through a migraine right now, so I hope I make sense.
Augochlorella: I understood you just fine 🙂 and agree. We’re only taught about a few women in history and they were all pretty exceptional… Mostly because the many others who made incremental differences had their contributions kind of erased.
Not magnificent: Were you actually making a point?
I think the point mildlymagnificent (IIRC they’ve posted before and not trolling) was trying to make is that the radical left men were often worse in some ways towards women–see Stokely Carmichael’s lovely quote about the position of women in the SNCC, for example. While the sexual revolution might have been a great idea, a lot of men took the prevalence of the pill as a reason to think and act is if women shouldn’t say no.
I read The End Of Men. Seemed like more pop psych but none the less I do feel that to a degree many of the men I knew growing up are in a way getting in their own way. What do I mean by that? Online and off you will see people blaming new immigrants, women, children, or basically anyone for their shortcomings rather than taking the time to correct the situation they are in before taking on new responsibility. It’s been an issue or cart and horse I’ve seen ’round these parts.
Men almost need psychologically to feel like super hero’s in this culture and I don’t know if it’s multimedia or simply great energy and drive, but expectations are set so impossibly high that they can never measure up to an imaginary stick. The problem is not losing but being a poor loser. Rather than growing from a past inadequacy (of which we all have), the men of today just say “go big or go home!” and drop out when they aren’t instantly successful at everything they try.
Confidence and persistence against the tide of mediocre achievements yields success in an environment like this one.
The other factor is of course, being able to refrain from laying blame. If a person is looking for the harshest punishments for every ill, then the person is less likely to keep their problems at a distance, rather internalizing or projecting them on individuals, which will not aid in solving them.
I don’t think men have changed, just the playing field and the conditions. It is angering that men have to stay in school for longer to make enough money to have a family. It is angering that there is no maternity leave in the USA so it’s emasculating that both parents have to struggle so hard when they have little ones. Men are also angry that they have fewer opportunities outside schooling for work. Where there once were jobs in forestry and construction, now there are less, or they pay less than minimum wage and employ under the table.
Why not be angry this generation? Just do something to help fix the situation. It’s too easy to blame women for oppression, because women are the ones who can’t easily defend themselves from the accusations or attacks. Women are also more accessible and agreeable than dealing with the big banks, corrupt officials, or actual people who are oppressing the masses (some are women but not likely feminists in particular), because they have power and women don’t.
Sh*t rolls down hill I’m afraid and we’re lower on the totem pole.
I can confirm that mildlymagnificent is NOT a troll. Zie doesn’t post often, but is definitely a regular.
I’m afraid I haven’t anything to add to the thread questions. I haven’t read any feminist works, nor taken that much notice over the years. Having to excel was never a thing in my family of underachievers. 😉 Just getting and keeping a job was the thing – I entered the workforce in the mid-80s and when you have neither tertiary education nor any ambitions or marked interests workwise, that’s going to shape your work history. Since I was never looking for promotion I never had to deal with the issues surrounding it for women in the workplace, and, thank Ceiling Cat, I’ve never worked in a really corporate environment. Nor have sexism or misogyny been issues in my private life in the sense of an intimate partner’s attitudes, for obvious reasons. Most of my contact with it has been through the news or feminist sites, and that’s only in the last few years.
Just anecdotal, but I think manosphere types are generating their own backlash. A lot of mostly male irl and online spaces I’m in have become a lot more pro-feminist after encountering redpill bullshit. Just directing people to the AVfM or Spearhead articles listed on Manboobz is usually enough to convince people that MRAs are hateful idiots and that sexism isn’t over. That they swarm internet comment sections just makes people more aware of how horrible they are.
Thanks serf… I wasn’t sure… Def though it sounded vaguely troll ish. My apologies.
And thanks hellkell… Again sorry
@thekidwiththereplaceablehead – that’s good news!
It is really hard to say how much changed at all in terms of backlash. The internet is a great way to disseminate and document it.
I find the backlash and MRM participation to be a thing that peaks in young men in the 16-22 set. Not that misogyny magically reappears and disappears, but that the sustained hatred it takes for these things just starts to dry up as life gets more complicated. The guys who thought these things make families, get jobs, and deal with women on professional and personal levels. They also gain control over their lives in this time.
I guess, as long as gender wars are still a thing, people in that age range will care about it. So I guess I mean, I agree with those saying blame flows downhill.
I think I need an editor for my online comments.
@thekidwiththereplaceablehead
I have seen this backlash against the MRM as well. I just wish that so much of it wasn’t misogynistic (e.g. non-MRAs who accuse MRAs of being “pussies”).
I really think that’s a thing. The celebrity culture. And/or easy money culture.
A few years ago there was one of those what-was-on-tv-way-back-when shows/series and the presenter used the examples of talking to kids. There was one of a kid, maybe 7 or 8 years old, in the 50s being asked what he would be when he grew up. The answer: a postman. So he’d graduated from the traindriver or firefighter of a pre-schooler – to a realistic job. He knew someone who did it , it was within his reach and he knew he could do it. I thought of the students that we tutored at the time. Boys of this age and older frequently told us that they expected to be signed to play soccer for AC Milan or Barcelona or Man United, or that they’d be rock musicians, or some other celebrity activity. We did have a couple of students of international competition standard in various activities, but they really knew what would be involved for such an outcome and they never really thought it would happen for them. Even though they were really the first in line for any international sports competition.
It’s not just boys. A few middle school age girls have similarly unrealistic expectations – no study, no work, untold riches, though they’re more likely to think that fooling around with make-up and hairstyles _instead of_ schoolwork will lead them effortlessly to a glamour job in hairdressing. They tend not to think of international fame and fortune as their due, though they wouldn’t turn it down if it ‘just happened’.
Unrealistic expectations lead to exaggerated disappointments.
note to self: do not post on the internet while (even slightly) drunk. Aargh, I posted my RL location – In suppose there is no way to undo that?
Actually, I think I was too negative in my comment. Whoever said that the area between the best and the worst is expanding, yeah I agree with that. Also, I see now that I wasn’t actually agreeing with/ posting about the same thing as Fibinachi, but instead going on about something different (social roles observed in real life as opposed to attitudes on the internet), so sorry about that.
:]
Alcohol! The great conversationalist. “Yes, I agree COMPLETELY! Now let me just talk about this other thing”
Good and interesting points by everyone here. (Well, except the troll).
I’m going to focus on a minor one that I’ve been wondering about: Why do we have things like PUAs? And headlines lamenting that singles = men beeing superfluous?
I can understand why women would have been generally cast as either of interest to men or a waste of space when the majority of them were disempowered and reliant on finding a provider to have a reasonably decent life.
And wanting to be succesful with the gender of your preference is surely nothing new either, but to see it as the sole indicator of your worth and the overriding goal of your life as these guys seem to? Why, when there are no practical reasons compelling you to do so?
I mean, they apparantly look upon a man whose achievement in life looks to be nothing more than having sex in various places with a lot of people he didn’t like, as some sort og guru. How sad is that?
I can see why another group of people – in this case women – holding all the power to validate you as a human being would create hostility (however unreasonable), especially if you’re being denied it, I’m just not sure why this way of thinking is there in the first place.
Is it a matter of percieved loss of privilege? (I say percieved as there was of course never a time when the average man could just get whatever woman he wanted – you’d have to be the khan or something).
Is it the media/celebrity culture?
A whole host of other problems being projected onto this particulas issue? A mixture of these things? Something else entirely?
@Bad_dog, oh hells yes, although I think that one was my parents, I was invisible unless I was doing really well. Well, even then. And yeah, I kinda expected I had to be REALLY GOOD AT EVERYTHING (eleventy) and was surprised when none of it came to very much…
@mildly_magnificent and everyone else on this topic
Yeah, celebrity culture could be having an impact, I have no proper stats worth a damn, just a report read out on local radio once saying they’d interviewed an (unspecified number) of secondary school kids, age (I forget) and the most popular career choice was ‘to be a celebrity’. One of the more popular methods of achieving this career was ‘by having sex with a celebrity’. Which… does seem to be a Thing Wot Happens, sometimes?
Also, statistically worthlessly, The Karate Kid theory http://www.cracked.com/article_18544_how-the-karate-kid-ruined-modern-world.html