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.)
‘hellkell’, I’m sorry for using the word “crazy”. I’m sorry I’m making so many faux pas! *sigh* I come here to join & I get scrutiny instead of “Welcome”. I don’t want to make any more faux pas! I just want to be a member! Is there anything I can do not to be an object of suspicion?! I am a woman named Julie Salvatore! I’m known as SpukiKitty at FSTDTs. I’m NOT AN MRA!
WHY ARE YOU TREATING ME LIKE A TROLL?! YOU SOUND LIKE A SCHOOL CLIQUE! GIVE ME A CHANCE! WHAT HAVE I DONE WRONG?! INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY, DAMMIT! WHAT CAN I DO TO PROVE MYSELF?!
Whoa.
CALM DOWN, for a start. Go over old threads. Lurk more, talk less.
Or have a giant fucking tantrum. The choice is yours.
Aaliyah: Right?
Anyone want popcorn?
Julie: what other name did you post under?
Since you’ve been lurking, I probably don’t need to explain why everyone is immediately going “troll,” but I will anyway.
There are lots of reasons why the “it shouldn’t be called feminism” argument is unwelcome in general, but here specifically, we constantly get trolls showing up who think (honestly or disingenuously) that feminists secretly don’t care about equality and actually want women to rule the world and put men in cages and stuff. So they love to show up and pretend to be feminists and then ask questions that they think are sneaky to reveal our hidden agenda, like so:
THEM: Since we care about both men and women, shouldn’t we call our movement “equalism” or something, instead of “feminism?”
US: Um, no, because men don’t actually suffer from systematic disadvantages and women do.
THEM: Ha! I knew it! You don’t care about equality at all! You only care about women!
I’ll have some popcorn.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone escalate so quickly before…
I’ve joined other other boards and people were welcoming of me. I’m crying right now. Because not one person is giving me a chance. Do you do this to all new posters? I understand you are suspicious. But please, please, please, accept me. I’m not a troll. I’m not an MRA. I’m one of you! However, I am new here & a noob. I’m inept.
Just tell me, is this just a hazing-initiation-funtime thing you’re doing? Do you do this to all new members?
@Julie:
Sorry.
No, really. Sorry.
The reason “We” “treat you like a troll” is that there’s a very thin line between benign ignorance and malign obfuscation.
You are welcome to come here! And welcome to post. The only one who can really moderate that would be David, the owner of the blog – and being unaware of things isn’t a crime.
But, to count against you, sorry, I have lurked for a long, long time, and very often people start out as “This is all very important to me, I don’t know a lot, I’d love to get to know all of you” and end up at “You are all monstrous deluded madwomen sreeching for alpha attention or manginas! LOSERS!”
If you’re not a troll, then, well – sorry.
There’s no sure fire way to know, though, for a while.
I have never seen that big a shitfit from a non-troll.
Julie: basically what FIbinachi said. If you’ve been lurking, you’ll know exactly why you’ve gotten the welcome you have.
So instead we hate. Hate. Hate the world with a burning, fiery passion that occassionally liberally splatters all over newcomers like some kind of gobbling, noxious hate magma. And it burns and it’ll corrode your sanity and happiness and we are sorry, but what can we poor creatures of ravenous fury do other than to merely be?
… Wait, no, no that would be the antagonists I’m statting for my D&D games. Sorry. Sometimes I get those confused.
—
Jedi hugs, apologies if you are not a troll, and sorry if I hit a nerve with the mild exclusion and “Prove thyself”. It can be rough.
Unrelated, happy mothers day everyone. I have cake. And I hit enter too early a second ago.
You can’t really accept a community to “just accept” you when you start right off with a line they’ve heard and argued against a million times already… It’s nothing against you personally, Julie.
If you really want to be part of the community, then listen to what people are actually saying. It sucks to make a bad first impression, but first impressions aren’t everything. If you come across as actually willing to do the work and research things you are shaky on, then you’ll be completely welcome here.
*the first “accept” should be “expect”
@Aaliyah:
By the way, I love how your avatar matches up so well with your comment. 🙂
@katz. That was none of my intention. I should’ve regularly read the comments section. I’m sorry, I had the wrong ideas. I understand what you are saying. I’m sorry for my outburst. I’ve never been treated this way on a board. Other boards have the WISDOM of giving a new poster the benefit of a doubt. I’m so sorry for the faux pas. I had no idea that the “Feminism/Gender Equality name” was a sexist thing spewed from sexist people. What CAN I do to win your trust.
You see, I had a lot of wrong impressions about things. I’ve read some feminist-friendly sites that talked about stuff like how “Feminism” as a word have been smeared by bigots & the whole “naming convention” things. I confess, I’m noob with this Feminist stuff. I never went to Women’s Studies classes & I’m a total novice.
I’m sorry for the tantrum. I took it personally. I felt like I was in school. I was bullied a lot. I took it personally. Again, I realize that, yes I do sound suspicious. I’m sorry if I inadvertently made an MRA-type argument. You don’t know how much I hate those misogynist bastards. Violence against women & girls, especially sex crimes, is a huge berserk button for me.
I just want to be a friend & a member. I’m sorry.
I rarely read the comments, just the articles and I’m sorry for the bad first impression. I’m also feel like goof for basically following the same post habits as trolls. I guess I’m a massive faux pas incarnate.
Julie: It’s OK. Check out the anti-boob roll on the sidebar, Google Feminism 101, look things up.
It’ll take time. We didn’t start out as a community, that evolved.
@Julie:
Alright, if you want to be a friend, you need to stop this right now. No snarky comments about we’re idiots or “unwise” for not accepting you immediately. No demands for the single act you could perform that would make everyone trust you. It doesn’t work like that.
Also, in case you didn’t notice, Aaliyah and Fade did give you the benefit of the doubt, and actually addressed what you said rather than dismissing you. If others were suspicious, then by now you know why.
LOL! Yes, katz, I GET IT! I’m sorry. No hard feelings, right?
Julie, I highly recommend this feminism 101 page. I suggest you don’t comment there until you’re familiar with feminism 101 things, but the 101 entries there are super helpful.
Really, Julie? You never read the comments and thought you cold wade right in?
^could