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.)
^hat/hate potato/potahto
Now that’s a memorable and accurate description!
Welcome, Julie! 🙂
Welp, I’m a lurker here. The reason I’m on now is because I saw Julie, or Spuki Kitty on FSTDT. I’m used to go on FSTDT as Auggziliary.
Julie is certainly not a troll, she’s just a bit bizarre sometimes… So don’t be mean or too suspicious. She’s actually is a feminist from what I saw from her posts on FSTDT and doesn’t like MRAs or anything.
Also, Joe, Julie never said she didn’t care about men in those crimes, so I don’t see how that contradicts anything in her statement.
Proving my predictions, and continuing to do the exact same thing.
Yet somehow expecting different results? “an end to the ‘backlash’ ”
Good luck with that.
@Hellkell – you especially are Exhibit A of what I’m talking about.
@Kirby – yeah, here’s the thing when you say “feminists don’t say X”
When I said feminists say X?
I’ve actually read feminists say X.
Repeatedly.
Plenty of them on manboobz.
Many of whom are now rushing to deny / backpedal and weasel out of what they’ve said.
If you’ll notice, Joe, my prediction has come true instead. Checkmate, Joe! (insert SRS-style smug face here)
Hellkell – “You are a giant fucking dishonest turd of the highest order. ”
Kirby – “Nah, what will follow is you calling disagreement a personal attack and shaming”
Are you new here Kirby?
Lolz!
@kirby – apparently you fail reading comprehension.
Joe: unlike you, I can read and understand words. You ARE a dishonest turd, I know this because I can read.
So, I’m curious about how, if Julie claims not to have been reading the comments, she knows who lensman was. I guess that’s just me being UNWELCOMING and lacking in WISDOM.
(Protip – if you don’t want to sound like an MRA, avoid the random caps of drama.)
Joe, otoh, who openly demands pages worth of drama? Meh. Can’t be bothered.
Also, Joe–we don’t hate men here. We just hate screaming reactionary douchebag liars like you.
Again with the bullshit. One quote from here, just one, with someone saying that they think it’s just super cool to visit violence on other people, no matter what their identity might be.
I’m so sure you can’t come up with one that I’m tempted to go you one further. I’ll bet you, with the loser banned from ever posting here again, that I can find three direct calls for violence against women from the MRM sites (particular, real, actual women, not hypothetical or statistical abstractions) for any post here containing even a vague hint that violence against anyone (even men!) and particularly sexual violence, is anything but utterly unacceptable and completely reprehensible.
And vague hand gestures “you especially are Exhibit A” don’t count. You need to state the specific quote and unpack how, precisely, this is evidence that the post in question demonstrates that the author is just tickled pink that men and boys, or anyone, for that matter, have suffered violence.
Quote with point by point deconstruction, Joey. Or go home and yell at the voices in your head on your own time.
<<>>
You ignored everything else she said, and just extracted the first part, which isn’t even that much of a personal attack, since you are being dishonest and dense.
I thin Joe’s just upset because it’s Mother’s Day, and we all know that to an MRA, bitches ain’t shit, even mom.
OH! Oh, noes! I totally owe Joey an apology! I say “X” all the time.
Oops! I just said it again!
X! X! X! X! X! X! X! X! X! X! X! X! X!
Nice try, First Whiny. Specific quotes, not vague allusions that you pull from your ass.
Hee hee, I find it hilarious that Joe thinks I’m new. ^_^
But, for the sake of amusement, Joe, mind being a little bit more explicit about what exactly I have misread? 😛
Saying that men succeed more often in their suicide attempts is not the same as saying that men need to be better at not killing themselves.
No one is saying that women are “all” of DV victims, even the ones who disagree with the idea of gender symmetry in DV incidence.
Saying that women are raped more often than men is a response to the claim that violence against women isn’t an important issue.
Saying that men commit the majority of all violence is a response to the claim that violence isn’t influenced by the patriarchy.
None of it is shaming, minimization, or victim-blaming.
If you’re alluding to the results in the 2011 CDC study of victimization, then this is proof that you don’t really understand the study. The 12-month figures are unreliable, and the lifetime figures show that women are raped more often than men.
Interestingly, I’ve noticed plenty of MRAs joke about prison rape, but I’ve come across countless feminists who are contemptuous of jokes that trivialize rape, including male-on-male prison rape. Just saying.
This isn’t the “feminist response” and you know it.
There are plenty of women who want to get those jobs but aren’t able to for a variety of reasons, one of which is that sexism is still a problem.
Also, that feminist response is generally more along the lines of “This a result of the patriarchy.”
If you’re going to remain a disingenuous asshole in your response and/or continue to attack straw men, please don’t go through the trouble of responding. It will save you time.
While we are waiting for The First Whinger to pull something more from his posterior, I offer you bunnies!
BUNNIES!!! Aw.
@CassandraSays
That bothered me, too, until I realized that in the same thread someone clearly described what lensman was like. So it makes sense for her to know what lensman was like even though she was given a short description only.
@The First Joe
Oops, I hit enter too soon.
@The First Joe
Yay for baseless accusations!
@Joe:
Examples, man! Obviously I don’t believe you, so you’re gonna have to do more than assert more if you want to convince me! Here’s a nice little list of your claims, for reference.
Re-looking at your list, I’m astounded at how often you just miss the point entirely. Seriously, if you went to a room full of feminists and charged them with enforcing gender roles, they’d laugh you out of the building.
So what’s going to happen with feminism in the future?
Well, a whole bunch of childless 40+ women are going to write lots more bitter articles about how conned they feel by the “you can have it all” feminist promise… and a lot of younger women will read those and go …. Hmmmmmm….
There will be greater pushes for stay-at-home-parents to get £££ compo post-divorce. (One woman on my FB, is a lawyer and she is pushing for exactly that, rated at what upper class people pay their Nannies. Lol!)
Which will see even more men avoiding marriage in their droves.
As the global economy continues to collapse under the weight of systemic bankster thefts, there will be less and less and less public funding for professional feminists, and so it will get harder for them to push their power grabbing agenda.
But:
At the same time wider misandry will reach a peak as the still feminist dominated media looks to blame somebodies for why everything has turned to crap, and being as everyone else belongs to a victim group and the actual culprits are too powerful to reach, it’ll be the ordinary bloke that’ll get the shitty end of that stick.
Men will respond to this by avoiding contact and interaction with the people who keep blaming them for everything and trying to tax them until the pips squeak. Men will self-organise the way they always have. There’ll be an increase in gang activity and the off-the-books economy.
Basically, lots MORE men will go “Fuck this shit.” and disengage from approved political / economic structures.
Basically you’re looking at a negative economic and cultural feedback loop.
How will it all wind up?
I don’t know, depends.
We’re going to live in Interesting Times though, that’s for sure.
I found a chorus line for us!
All together now, and a one, and a two…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLCOTpjBGcs&w=560&h=315]
@ hellkell
Earlier today I heard one of the local radio station playing the mother song from “The Wall”. Happy Mother’s Day! Their morning crew do seem a bit MRA-ish.