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.)
Also, I feel like anyone who’s actually lurked should already know that Hellkell has absolutely no patience for the well-meaning but clueless, and in fact has been far more patient than usual in this thread.
Thank you Aliyah & Fade.
I’m sorry that I didn’t thank you.
I’m really screwing up everywhere, am I?
Maybe I should look at this & laugh at myself.
I’m sorry if I can’t communicate well.
Thank you, Katz. That patience is about to fly away, what with the never reading the comments, but thought we’d be welcoming shit.
Also, Julie, giving people the benefit of doubt is nice. I do that myself very often. I wouldn’t say it’s always wise, though, as very often (though not always) our suspicions are confirmed.
Thank you Aaliyah. I’ll definitely check out Feminism 101. Thank you, so much. I want to give you a hug. But here’s a cyber one…*HUG*…Thank you! I will check that page out, right now!
Especially since we’ve had a troll in the past who often took that exact line. And, not that it’s relevant, who socked under a female first name that started with J. The “high school clique” line is also not a winner.
As did I.
Let’s see–wants to be coddled, won’t look up stuff on their own, slight fixation on Aaliyah. Yeah, lensman sounds about right.
@Julie
There’s no need to put yourself down for that. I’ve screwed up in feminist communities before as well. It happens, and so long as you’re willing to learn from your mistakes, you aren’t going to have many problems here.
Katz: which troll was that? They’re all starting to turn into a big ball of arglebargle in my head.
@katz:
Sorry for not including you, probably should have at least said “and others”. I was only looking at the first couple comments after Julie’s first.
@Aaliyah:
One of my first “blog” experiences was at Pharyngula. I forget exactly what I said, but I got pretty thoroughly chewed out by one of the regulars. Kinda drove me away from commenting there, but eventually I learned better.
Pay me 20 bucks, oh noble warrior, and you will have learned the final lesson from our Manboobian Instructors. Namely that, seriously, you shouldn’t give free dough to Fibi when it asks for it, because it’s liable to go use it on oil and nuts and cake.
But that’s not what ye ask, be it? Nay. Ye want to know how to take the Test.
Oh, I hear the whispers back there.
Aye then.
I’ll tell yell ye true ’nuff, the Test:
You, young Brave, must venture forth on a quest most perilous towards foes most pernicious in their insidious machinations. You must leave behind the gaze of our noble Cats in their watchful slumber and travel to places not even the vaunted Futrelle dare thread.
The portal lies yonder, and beyond those red tinged markers lie the vast wilds of the Internet. Terra Insanus. And out into that deep, dark, dread realm your must go, alone with neither cats nor kittens nor thread of YARN for sustance! No scented candle to lit your way! No chairs, hard, upon which to rest ye weary bum and when into that dread, far realm you have wandered, well then, young Brave…
To claim your name be a Certified Feminist(tm), then, then you must slay a comment upon a blog post most vile.
I see you scuff.
You think my trial easy? The simple doings of any young white knight early out of training? The aspirations of not a mighty debator or but degenerate mangina? Hah. Oh, the folly of youth.
You will gaze upon such horrors as to mark your soul forever, you will see the face of those which we scorn and ridicule and must armor yourself with contempt against the vile corruption of chaos incarnate. See no sluts, hear no hypergamy, do no evolutionary psychology, must be thy mantra in this time. For they will whisper their sweet lies and tempt you with the Red Pill. They have a idol of a lie, sanctified absurdities and congregate around altars raised to madmen preaching puddy-slaying and domestic abuse. And you will cry. Your tears, at first, will sustain you. Spur you on.
After that comes the hate. And the, perhaps, will soothe the wounds inflicted upon your soul, make the weary burden of the knowledge you now bear easier to sustain. But neither tears nor hate will be enough. Those are merely the symptoms of despair made manifest come against the walls of ignorance and the make-do stories of discredited science, worn like a mantle by eager savages proclaiming themselves the Alpha.
No. Your task is a different kind.
Slay a comment. Bring it back here, through that wasteland and the preponderous of links you have followed to get this far, and when you arrive, beaten, bitter, battered at this our hallowed doorway of Cats, Kittens and Cake recipes (… mhm, delicious), you must do what you think you no longer can. You must reach inside you, young Brave, and prove yourself true.
You must laugh. You must mock. You must find humor in madness and succor in insanity and make of your enemies most dire proclamations nothing more than a punchline. For what power does true stupidity hold other than the prize of being infinite, imminently and utterly laughable?
DO THIS ONE TASK, and you can claim yourself truely, one of us.
And then you must verily pay this speaker 20 bucks, usd, over paypall, details will surely follow in the vanguard of you hey! Hey! Fine. Fine. Jeesh.
… Bla bla bla, one of us, one of us.
Someone who started off on a very bad note. For about six months solid. And then did a 180 and wanted to be our best friend.
And once found a bra in the laundry.
Oooooooh, that one.
Well, that turned weird in a hurry! O_o
Good Fibinachi, I must protest.
Those wild lands are far too dangerous for one so inexperienced. Even Sir Pecunium would quickly find himself overwhelmed by its foul inhabitants. Laugh? Mock? Ha! Merely stepping past the borders into that land will inundate her in laughter twenty times as loud, mocking thirty times as viscious. Cries of slurs shall ring forth in droves! Hark the war-cries on the horizon, already they smell blood!
Send the newcomer to safer lands, I plead! Send her to fetch the armors of knowledge and data, equip her with swords forged with the threads of Feminism 101. Do this, or live in the knowlege that you have sent a woman to certain doom.
Angry, ranty, slurry doom.
If portents of certain doom be not enough to sway you, then heed my tale.
In the far reaches of the internet, there lies a wasteland of ice and cold. No warmth nor friendliness exists for outsiders, its denezins having shed their for and become as crystal. So lonely and barren is this land that foreigners must become as snow, lest they be outcast.
A fierce chill blows across the wastes, carrying their wails across the emptiness. For in order to reach the icy hearts of the peoples of that land (to no avail, I may add), the newcomers cry out “I’m not like those other ones” and “I think men’s rights is a more important issue,” sinking deeper into the drifts until they are consumed, enveloped by the snow that promised acceptance but never had any to give.
Thus merged with their surroundings, their bodies dissolve into snow flakes. If destruction does not sway you, good Fibinachi, then perhaps assimilation will.
trying to read the end of men on painkillers =
w
h
a
t
w
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my brain is half melted
As someone who has worked with nurses, teachers, social workers, psychologists, social work aides, counselors in detox units — dudes are not discriminated against from entering these fields. I have never seen or heard about this. Men seem extremely welcomed when they are good at those jobs. They just can’t be creepy or sexist, because they’re working with women.
…And there’s the author’s problem.
Oh, and Julie, sorry that I assumed you’re a troll at first. I’d say why, but pretty much everyone has given my reasons for here.
Plus, my younger brother has used that. And he thinks that feminists argue over non-issues, and that MRAs have good points, and that the MRM is about anything other than hating women. But he’s still in high school, I’ll give him time.
I have read Feminism 101 and it really made me think. I have a lot to learn & to self-examine. Thank you for helping me. I realized that I had the wrong expectations about everything & I admit I was acting “entitled”. You don’t have to accept me, right away or trust me. I’m going to think about this thread & what transpired. Thank you for pointing out my foolishness. I will read & reread Melissa McEwan’s article. Thank you, guys. I deeply appreciate it.
No problem, Julie! ^_^
Oh, and thanks for the e-hug. =P
*ugh* “lensman”? Hell no!
Boy, I really have coincidentally echoed all of his B.S.
Oh, well! I’m happy I can be here. I’m sorry for being a dork. Thank you, guys.
I have a lot of self-reflection to do! : )
@Aalyah, You’re welcome! Is there a way to answer folk’s individual posts or do quotes & such? I can’t get the functions of the webboard thingy.
Blockquotes:
[blockquote]Text here[/bockquote]
Replace [ with <
Shows up like this:
Please don’t fail me for the first time, blockquote monster.
Thankies, Cthulhu’s Intern!
Believe me, I think if an MRA got a colonic, there would be nothing left! =D