How Society Can Hurt Men
If you ask a lot of feminists, womanists, and other social justice activists about why they don’t talk about men, you’ll get at best a ”it’s not my job to educate you; figure it out yourself,” and at worst some ridicule followed by a ban from whatever space you’re in. And so lots of people fall away from feminisms and either don’t look into this particular aspect of power dynamics more thoroughly or they try to join a movement that appears more accepting of them.
Cue men’s rights activism, masculism, and others, since men do have a lot of problems.
- Men get looked down upon for showing emotion in public — crying, for example, whether as a response to a moving piece of art or a tragic event, makes men look weak and ‘womanly.’
- Men can’t hug each other in public, no matter how platonic their relationship may be, because that’s sentimental and gay; after all, it’s barely acceptable for men to be intimate with their girlfriends in public, let alone other men.
- Men can’t take care of children; men are looked down upon if they ever choose to sacrifice their careers so they can raise children; men can’t get paternity leave to help their partners take care of newborns; men can’t give birth to children — all of that is too doting and motherly for rough-and-tumble men to do.
- Men are expected to sign up for the military to support their loved ones. The draft hasn’t actually been a thing in the US for years, but the government still, as a symbolic thing, has the selective service for anyone it thinks is male. But then, this is all excusable by the fact that only men are capable of defending everyone, right?
Masculinity, in its current incarnation, is an amalgamation of societal imperatives pieced together over the last few centuries, and so it’s almost impossible to address one part of the problem directly. The concept needs to be killed with fire and rebooted.
Still, these problems do not exist in a vacuum. It’s part of the reason that some feminisms — intersectional feminisms, mostly — have done away with amended and expanded the concept of patriarchy and embraced the idea of kyriarchy:
And so the word kyriarchy is an attempt to restructure the conversation. The greek word κύριος means ruler/master; kyriarchy means, quite literally, rulership by the master, or possibly beginning from the master. Master is left vague on purpose; there are so many of them that to have a comprehensive list, it’d take more than a few volumes.
And what I sometimes think that some MRAs miss about all these things that get men down is that they’re the side-effects that result from being on the master side of a master-underling relationship. After all, all of those stereotypes up above — as well as, I’ll wager, any you can think of that haven’t been included on the list — are “necessary” in order to maintain the subjugation of women.
Men are ‘required’ to be strong, ruthless, detached, warrior-like by society because women are ‘required’ not to be any of those qualities, and society is overly enamored with the false dichotomies. Mastery necessitates power, both in intrapersonal relationships and overall with regards to Maleness and Masculinity. Thus we get male-on-female domestic violence, rape culture, and such.
Lots of people, of all genders, are able to conform to these ideas of what masculinity and femininity “should” be, but there is, of course, no way to get uniform compliance.
Some men’s rights activists claim that ‘female privilege’ exists because it’s easier for (cis) women to be masculine than for (cis) men to be feminine, but that misses a key distinction. It is easier but barely tolerated for some female-spectrum people to be masculine because masculinity is valued more highly in society and there’s no danger to the overall, current institution of sexism in having a few women “act above their rank.” For anyone perceived to be male, though, acting femininely can’t be tolerated because fragmentation in the ruling class is the best way for a master-underling servant system to crumble. (This overall societal trend is also part of the reason that the average experiences of trans* women and trans* men differ so greatly.)
Intent
…and here, after first talking about the idea of kyriarchy and the male master/female underling relationship, I should speak a little about intent.
Men are, on the whole, given privileges by our sexist system, but they do come with the condition that they oppress women. Many womanists, feminists, and social justice activists, including yours truly, will argue this to the death: men contribute and benefit from the oppression of women, but the very vast majority of them do not actively enjoy doing so.
They have a system thrust upon them, and the fact that they didn’t ask for this system means nothing, since they benefit from it whether they want to or not. Because of this unavoidable reality, they must now deal with its existence. Many men become anti-sexism activists and earn themselves the title of “ally,” but so many others don’t. The allure of power and privilege — whether male, white, straight, cis, able-bodied, neurotypical, well-off, or some other privilege — is too great and they either end up taking the blue pill, shutting their eyes to the system, or worse!, they work to preserve the system. (trigger warning for sexism, rape apologia, child abuse, and more)
The Trappings of Being a Master
I did go over some of the disadvantages of being part of the privileged class in the kyriarchal system. There aren’t many, no, but they exist, and they are all a result of the oppressive system that is in place.
- Male-spectrum people aren’t allowed a full range of expression. For a (person perceived to be) male to act femininely is an act of treason against a sexist system. A united front has to be presented to the underling class, to anyone thought of as a woman, to anyone on the female-spectrum. Otherwise, there’s always the possibility that insurrections — for example, womanism — will occur.
- White people don’t have a racial identity. The only heritage they have is the appropriation of culture from the people of color they’ve subjugated. Yes, cultural heritages — the Irish, Scots, Spaniards, US-ians, and such — exist, but they don’t seem to be enough. White Supremacy as an institution is especially fucked up because Whiteness as a positive concept doesn’t really exist; it’s essentially the cultural personification of Gluttony and Greed.
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Straight, cis, and binary people consider themselves to be “normal” because queer identities have been erased, in part by the march of white supremacy. Native conceptions of trans* identities have been wiped out, contributing to the idea that trans* people are modern aberrations; so though trans* people have existed forever, trans* exclusionary radical feminists call us perverse side-effects of psychiatry and plastic surgery.
Perverse readings of Abrahamic religious texts have also made non-straight identities something to be kept secret; Alan Turing and Oscar Wilde were punished for deviating from the societal imperative that all men be straight. Josephine Baker’s bisexuality, though very much known to her biographers and fans, is still kept hush-hush in pop culture. Straight, cis, binary people have thus grown complacent and entitled.
- Christians in the Americas and Western Europe are on the constant look-out for people of different faiths. Christianity has ingratiated itself so strongly into power structures that it must also be vigilant of any perceived detachment. It’s a natural ally to white supremacy — muslims, after all, are those evil heathen darkies, in this intersection of hate — and queerphobia — non-straights should be killed, providing a great cover for infidelities, animal rights abuses, wars, and more.
Of course, Islam does hold the same privileged position in the Middle East and parts of Eastern Asia.
These trappings exist, but they’re not talked about often — at least not from the viewpoint that these truths, these effects of the kyriarchal system, hurt the dominant class. After all, the concepts of Male, White, Straight, Cis, Binary, and Religious — detached from any one person belonging to those classes, but an entity willings its own self-preservation — can’t asess any of their structural deficiencies, as that undermines their power. Us marginalized people don’t really look from the lens of oppressed people very often; we’re more worried with how their uses of power, conscious or not, affects us.
After all, no matter how deeply hurt the majority is by the institutions it has put into place, marginalized peoples are hurt more.
The Oppression Olympics
And statements like these prompt indignant comments from people such as:
I’m a poor, white, autistic, cis male of size. Am I more or less oppressed than a brown, rich, thin, depressed, trans* male?
I’m an immigrant, bisexual, selectively mute, genderqueer agender person. How do I compare to a native-born, demisexual, binary, polyamorous, straight black vegan?
The answer to both of those is that an exact comparison can’t really be made. It’s like asking whether sin x or cos x is bigger as a whole; whether violet or goldenrod is a better color; whether purple or green is a better color for titty skittles. There are intersections of oppressions in which the power dynamics are obvious: a white, able-bodied, neurotypical, cis, well-off man is going to have less structural obstacles than a brown, epileptic, depressed, poor, trans* woman.
The more variables you add in, though, the muddier the waters get in the middle. The kyriarchy isn’t a universal benchmark that allows you to compare whose oppressed dick is longer in an “objective” way. It can give some very rough estimates, but it is not a sorting algorithm and should never really be treated as such. It’s a constant reminder that a black Latina, a brown Latina and a white Latina will have different experiences; that a brown trans* woman, because of the differences between the masculinities of white people and people of color, will have different experiences than a white trans* woman.
Without explicit, dedicated intervention, feminisms, womanisms, and other anti-oppression movements tend towards helping out the more privileged members of their constituencies. As an example, groups that market themselves as queer activist groups are often just white, cis, gay activist groups.
And that might even be okay, if it weren’t for the fact that this lack of examination is the default action for so many people.
Women and Sexism. People of Color and Racism.
This is a highly contested point between social justice activists and people starting to delve into the field. I know that quite a few people might disagree with me on this next point, but I think it still needs to be said.
Women can be sexist. People of color can be racist. Trans* people can advocate for cis-supremacy. Aneurotypical or physically disabled people can be ableist.
Remember, though, what it means to view things through a kyriarchal lens. Layers and layers of oppression are bundled up on top of each other. The master-underling dynamic is a toxic one for both classes involved, which has already been discussed. The current system does harm men in many ways, but any harm unique to men comes either from being the underling in another kyriarchal vector of oppression — white supremacy prompting a hyper-masculinity in some men of color — or blowback from their existing status as master.
When I say that women can be sexist, that people of color can be racist, and so on, I never disregard the kyriarchal system in place. Phillys Schlafly, Beverly LaHaye, Sarah Palin, Catherine “the Bug” Brennan, they all benefit from the kyriarchal system by selling out people of other marginalized classes. Whether they work against access to abortion, marriage equality, economic stimulus, or the recognition of trans* people as a marginalized group, they sell out people below them in order to get more power from the people above them. They buy into a misogynistic, queerphobic, classist, or cissexist system so as to consolidate their own power.
Though that isn’t the only way in which people can contribute to their own oppression. All hierarchies of power maintain themselves in part by convincing the people at the bottom that they deserve to be on the bottom. This is almost always done in a subtle way, of course. No-one wants to talk about how people of color can internalize white supremacy and use it as a weapon against themselves. “I’m racist against my own race” is a statement that not many people (by design) are able to deconstruct. To paraphrase bell hooks slightly, no-one wants to have a serious, overarching talk about abusive mothers and how they can contribute both to gender policing and an overall culture of violence and coercion without their knowing it.
So What Now?
Social justice movements have gotten a bad rap for being inaccessible, for being boisterous, for being rhetorically violent. That’s because people who call themselves allies and actual allies are very different and the occasional failings of the former group greatly stress activists. Friendly fire hurts more than the typical kyriarchal wear and tear; use of privilege as a weapon against marginalized people by people you used to trust quickly makes you jaded.
Part of the reason that activist nerves get so worn down and that the communities seem “hostile” to outsiders is that womanist, feminist, and other activist spaces are the only places in which marginalized people aren’t underlings. The aim isn’t to reverse the positions in the kyriarchy in those groups. But in order to achieve parity between privileged and marginalized groups, some explicit equalizing has to be done. This sort of preferential treatment might seem unfair, but it’s important to understand that the goal of social justice is to help those oppressed on any particular axis, rather than to make anyone else’s experiences more “comfortable.” This seeming unfairness is a reaction to the kyriarchy, not a manifestation of it.
It’s something to remember when trying to participate in social justice spaces.
The movements are fragmented, but there’s still a wealth of information out there. You won’t always agree with the people out there, but there will always be at least slight nuggets of truth in what they say, unless the people involved are hateful and kyriarchal themselves. Education is important, though, and there are a few 101 spaces — like this very post — where it’s not only safe but encouraged to ask non-hateful questions that come in good faith. I want to provide that sort of accessible space in the comments here. Please fire away.
[EDIT: 8 Aug. Fixed some messed up formatting. Sorry 'bout that.]
What does “binary” mean in this context? Is it the opposite of genderqueer or something like that?
Kinda, yeah. To be in the binary is to identify as solely, purely “man” or “woman.” Some trans* peeps identify within the binary, but genderqueer, polygender, agender peeps don’t.
Please do away with the “most feminists and womanists won’t explain why they don’t talk about men”. For one, many do talk about men. Also, many explain this until they get blue in the face. But it takes only one man complaining to get this myth started. It does not matter how much work they’ve put in already. Just one complainer and it’s all invisible once again.
I don’t want to make any prescriptive statements about what most womanists, femanists, or social justice advocates do.
At the same time, I’ve heard this complaint come out a lot. I’ve seen this dynamic play out a lot and have participated in it myself.
I know that a lot of us talk about men and other privileged classes a lot — that is, in fact, what I’m trying to do here. I frame the post this way because I want to make it inviting to exactly the sort of men that come up with that complaint.
I think there’s a flaw in the central premise. That being, that any disadvantages our society inflicts upon men are side-effects of the oppression of women. The thing is, even in the Native American societies alluded to in the piece, where transgendered identity was considered sacred, a woman could unilaterally divorce her husband by simply moving his stuff outside their home, and there was no question as to the morality of abortion, men were expected to do the fighting and the dying.
Compulsory military service for men isn’t a product of or a tool crafted to perpetuate oppression of women. It emerged, rather, from the same set of circumstances that oppression of women did. A confluence of biological accidents produced a sex more physically inclined towards the use of brute force, and the harsh realities of nature– and the competition for scarce resources– made it so that any tribes not organized in this way would not have survived. As those imperatives diminished with the rise of civilization, those left at the top of the pecking order believed that they deserved to be there, and so the zombie social structure was maintained and reinforced.
This isn’t to say that the overwhelming majority–or even the entirety– of other disadvantages that men experience in our society don’t fit the model laid out in this piece (or of course I could be wrong altogether), but I’m extremely uncomfortable with the axiomization of these sorts of observations, because flawed axioms (and we can never be sure that any given axiom isn’t flawed) often become crutches for bad arguments, and occasionally become the reason why some bad arguments are allowed to stand. And here in particular, declaring that inequality that hurts men is necessarily a byproduct of inequality that hurts women seems rhetorically proximate (though I would not in a million years think or suggest that such is your intent in writing this or something that you actually believe) to saying that our society should only act affirmatively to counter inequality which hurts women.
And now I’m in the awkward position of expending a paragraph to say that I loved reading this essay and find its insights to be constructive and useful in spite of what I saw as a tiny flaw that I spent three paragraphs talking about. Sigh. Seriously though, thank you for writing this. You’ve fleshed out the facts of the matter in a way that makes me feel hopeful for the possibility of a more constructive discourse.
The part that struck me as most over-general is this: “And what I sometimes think that some MRAs miss about all these things that get men down is that they’re the side-effects that result from being on the master side of a master-underling relationship.”
The idea that the MRAs all come from the power elite is probably exactly the opposite of true (though I know no one in this group and can’t speak about their demographic). It seems to me that anyone lamenting the downsides of culture towards men is more likely to be on the underling side of the equation, or why would they be complaining?
It is a fact that there are three times as many single male homeless than single female homeless in the U.S. (higher proportion elsewhere), and it is a fact that males are 92% of the people killed on the job in the U.S., and it is a fact that nine out of ten prison inmates are male, and that when convicted of the same serious crime, a man will receive a higher prison sentence (on average) than a woman (and indeed, women on Death Row are almost unheard-of outside of Broadway musicals). For some reason, none of this lines up in my mind with a claim that some man complaining about the way he is treated by society is actually in a position of power. The powerful are few, and it is far more likely (in light of this evidence) that he is as underprivileged as he claims.
None of this, of course, addresses the central point of the essay, as it does not deny (or affirm) that there is a power elite, and that its existence hinges on oppression, nor does it even outright invalidate the truth of the quoted excerpt. Indeed, that bit about masculinity being more valued by society is almost certainly true. However, it does bring doubt to the idea that men in general stand to gain an advantage (on average) from this system, and hints that perhaps (some) men have just as much or more reason to seek change.
I don’t think your thoughts are accurate at all.
It’s assuming that all the issues that men face come from power.
The problems you cited at the beginning of the article include 2 issues that are not even really something that mens rights activists care about in most contexts. I can show emotion in public, I can hug my broskis in public. The other two are major issues but the way you phrased them, you make it sound like that’s what we get in exchange for all of our power.
As for the fourth problem in your bullet list, I am a military member, an infantryman in the US Army, and I am of the opinion that men are the war-fighters because men on average are better suited for this task then women are.
The third problem you cited, you made seem as though it was really more of a “Why can’t I take the kids to soccer practice?” instead of what it really is, “Why are the courts forcing me to pay more money than I have for children I am not sure are mine and am not allowed to raise to a mother who spends it on things for herself?”
The real issue with family law isn’t “Why aren’t men seen as caretakers?”
That’s not really a big deal, societal impressions are societal impressions and rate very low on the importance-meter. When family *courts* are askew, that’s where real issues arise. I have known far too many good fathers who are forced away from their children, and to say that this is a consequence of their increased power in society is absurd. If they had so much power in society, then they would have the basic rights to see their own children, maybe even get a paternity test if there is doubt, you know, simple stuff.
You’re coming at these issues from a “Men subjugate women” mindset. This is absurd, there is no “war on women”, we don’t go to sleep at night thinking “How am I going to keep women in their place tomorrow?” There is none of that. Men *LIKE* women. Believe it or not, it’s true. Men want women to like them. Sure, there were societal roles that were built into our evolution, and sometimes it’s a good idea to break the mold, and women should be allowed to do that, but honestly, there is no anti-female conspiracy.
Men LIKE women. Most men like it if women notice them, it’s not simply sexual in nature, it’s just that a compliment from a woman makes a man feel better about himself, it makes him want to work harder because they see they’re being appreciated. We don’t have any plans on how to keep women down. Men who don’t like women and are distrustful of them generally have a reason other than “their nature” for doing so, they may have good reasons, bad experiences, or some mixture of the two, but men don’t think girls are icky.
Despite the fact that you’re attempting to understand men, I don’t think you’re there yet. I don’t think you’re a bad person, I just don’t think that you understand exactly what the big problem is. I would recommend the YouTube Channel of “GirlWritesWhat”, she is very eloquent in how she phrases mens issues, and she cuts right to the nitty gritty of where these things come from.
Feel free to e-mail me if you have questions, because as I said, I disagree with you vehemently, but I don’t think you’re a bad person, necessarily.
You can show emotion in public and you can hug your broskis in public, but you won’t always be as respected by the people around you in the end.
And what does “better suited for this task” mean? It’s a phrase so vague as to be useless.
These incidents — and I won’t argue that you can come up with a lot of them — aren’t representative of everyone fighting with custody problems, with divorces. For every crooked black-guard of a woman you find, you’ll find a crooked black-guard of a man, and you’ll find a crooked black-guard of a gender non-conforming person.
If I must give my own anecdotal evidence… He-Who-Sired-Me divorced She-Who-Bore-Me after a car accident paralyzed her from the waist down and she couldn’t fulfill her ‘duties’ as his social representative. He lied to the court about how much money he had — and he had a substantial amount; his own (quite big) house, his own business — so as to pay a smaller alimony. In the end, the amount of money he had to pay wouldn’t even cover a week’s grocery bill.
The courts aren’t a magical entity separate from societal norms. Part of the reason that fathers are so often locked out from their children is that society says repeatedly that men aren’t capable caretakers, that only women can take care of children. Men are characterized as lazy, as willing to do whatever it takes to avoid responsibility/contact with children because they’re too busy being virile or earning money and that’s a harmful stereotype. I agree that paternity tests should be provided whenever and I want to change that part of the system.
And as to your comments about how men like women… that’s sort of why I made this part explicit:
I don’t think that men as a whole actively hate women. I don’t think that all men are part of a dastardly conspiracy to keep women down. There is a war on reproductive rights going on in the US — Mississippi has almost lost its only abortion clinic; there has been a huge invented outrage over the idea of providing contraception in healthcare plans; people in Virginia, Texas have to submit to transvaginal ultrasounds in order to get abortions — and that shows that the (male, Christian) dominated government cares more about restricting women and other vagina-having peoples than helping them. This is just one of many structural disadvantages that female-spectrum people have.
The idea of kyriarchy or patriarchy can be thought of as analogues to physics. Inertia, to be specific. All of these thoughts somehow entered our collective consciousness — men are better at war, women are better at taking care of children, women should be subservient to their husbands, only a man/woman binary is possible — and it’s been hard to get rid of those ideas, or sometimes to identify those ideas in our own thinking!, because they’ve been there so long and just seem ‘natural.’
Hello, I’m happy I found your blog. I’ve bookmarked this posting to review and link later. I read with special interest what you wrote about “allies” and related subjects.
I’ll be upfront: I’m as privileged as one can be. White cis male straight middle class American. Add in that I’m intelligent and educated, and I have a lodestone of privilege I’m realizing I’m responsible for. Ever since I woke up to my privilege, a few years ago, I’ve been grasping around intuitionally but also via educating myself (though haltingly and with a good dose of frustration and confusion).
You addressed some issues in this, post, I’m happy to say, that have been germinating in me for some time.
Frankly, the questions I have are simple, and, I’m sure, not at all uncommon: what am I supposed to do? You mentioned that the rhetoric of social justice activists can be harsh. You are certainly right. As someone who reads that stuff voraciously, but happens to have no claim to any marginalized status of my own (literally not even one single thing), it is sometimes, I have to say, intimidating at best, alienating and irritating at worst.
I should even mention that I only have the courage to say that here because your last line seemed to encourage it in good faith. Usually I never engage in that kind of discourse, for fear of being bullied into silence. And it is this silence that disturbs me. I want to participate in social justice. The reasoning for that is twofold: first of all, it is the simple intuition that evil can only persist if the good do nothing. So no matter who I was, doing nothing would be, by inaction, perpetuating what I know and feel is wrong. The second reason is specific to my identity at the top of the social hierarchy – it is supremely unfair, what I have enjoyed, in light of the ills that have befallen past generations of the oppressed and indeed those of today. Call it white guilt if you must – I have never felt that there was anything unnatural or wrong with white guilt, not at least in essence.
I am student of politics, and consider myself a political realist. That means, to me, that what counts is your objective. The means to the end only matter to the extent that they effect the ends; that’s the short version. I call it Machiavellianism, and apply it everywhere in my life. In the context of societal oppression, racism, sexism, and so on, this means that my view is that whatever must be done to be rid of it, must be done. Methodology be damned, basically.
So here is the point of all that (thank you for bearing with me – I have a pent up desire to express these ideas and only now have the chance): when members of an oppressed group seem to alienate outsiders to their cause, they are, at least in my humble opinion, hurting their eventual objective in the long run.
I understand the reaction to paternalism, in the context of sexism, that holds that, for instance, women should not and do not need men to help them to achieve their liberation. The implication is that to accept the help of those who are perceived to members of the oppressor class is in a sense bowing to the oppression. In short, the victory can only be true if it is won alone.
That may be ideal, but it is not possible. At least I don’t think it is. Oppressed people by definition lack power. Change comes only with power. Power can be achieved in a number of ways, but whatever the method, at some point the powerful must be coerced or persuaded to cede some or all of their power.
The two options that proceed from this realization are these: firstly, coercion through physical force or at least the implicit threat of it. This is how, for instance, the West took power in Africa, or how the communists took power in Russia. It’s fairly straightforward – no need to explain it I think.
The other option is convince or persuade the powerful to give up power. In all the variations I can think of, this is done through moral appeal. Slavery was ended that way, India and South Africa were liberated that way. The bigger picture is clear – this kind of persuasion has the power to change the moral zeitgeist of the entire ruling class, over time. Egalitarianism, against all odds, is now internalized in the hearts of many, even the most powerful. Many simply pay lip service, or think they serve it when they do not, others genuinely pursue it. But the mere fact that the idea has gained traction speaks to the power of persuasion and moral appeal. I said it has been advancing against all odds, but, perhaps that was untrue. Perhaps it *must* advance, because it is morally intuitive. That might be an overreach on my part though. It’s not the primary point.
The primary point is that I think most people, even the most radical social justice activists, eschew violent change. The only option then is essentially change spurred by rhetoric. The change that comes from powerful ideas, charisma, and, yes, money and advocacy, other tactics such as those. What I mean is that I think it’s at least almost unanimous that the best road is the second one, not the first.
With that in mind, it becomes more important to gain the sympathy and support of the powerful, yes, the oppressors, than to be right. I feel that social justice activists, on the whole, are broadly *right*, even if they’re being extremely hostile. But although that may provide a measure of catharsis, it is a betrayal the professed goals of the movement. I wish with all my heart that the tactics would change – that the various movements advocating justly for elevation of the oppressed would be more inclusive, even at the expense of being right sometimes.
What I have just said, I know almost for a fact, would not go over well *at all* with most of the activist community. I even fear to say it here. I am fairly sure you disagree, but I trust you enough not to be overly angry or hostile with me, such was the kind phrasing of your invitation to express myself in good faith.
The issue is that I do not feel that I am wrong about this. I feel even more vindicated because I can feel my own emotional reaction to a lot of what I read and hear – I want to reject it, because it often appears to attack me. I really only return because of my rational mind (I can’t just forget my privilege), and yes, because of my guilt. But since I feel the emotions underneath, I know there must be many who are indeed driven away. The best example, perhaps it’s just selection bias, is in feminism/sexism circles. It’s difficult for me, almost to the point of serious distress, to immerse myself in feminist discourse. There is a sense in which I am partially driven away – I can only read for certain lengths at a time, and I certainly almost *never* participate, for fear of being attacked. There is an emotion of indignance underneath – is not the principle of egalitarianism that the source of an idea is secondary to the content of the idea? And yet I know that I will be questioned and sidelined because of my identity.
This is not to reject the argument that those who are oppressed understand best what it is to be oppressed. But I think it is equally wrong to say that those who are privileged can have nothing to say. I am, after all, something of an expert in being privileged.
The line of attack I have experienced in the past is that I am looking for praise, desperately, for my moral rectitude, or something of the sort, and will get pouty when I do not receive it. Indeed you mentioned this phenomenon. The claim is that I am only doing all of what I am trying to do to assuage my guilt – the implication being that this is an insincere, illegitimate reason to act, a question of motive. I submit that it is beyond that and is also a rational commitment to a certain philosophy. Beyond that however I question that idea that it is inappropriate to be motivated by emotion. I daresay anyone who passionately advocates something is driven by emotion. What, then, is illegitimate about guilt? Is it not a real, and sometimes appropriate, emotion?
This has become extremely long but I have not edited out much because all these are things I have been wanting to articulate for some time. The conclusion is that, although there are almost certainly “allies” who are in it for the wrong reasons, in bad faith, and who actually serve to undermine the movements, what of those who genuinely wish to do right by the human race? I feel that the oppressed should not be oppressed. I feel that my privilege is unjustified. But a person cannot erase his or her identity.
The negotiation between my identity as a white cis male with some measure of wealth and the status of that identity as an oppressive position is doubtless a lifelong pursuit. But in the meantime, since I feel it is wrong for me to refrain from participation in social justice, I ask how I a may appropriately express my ideas without being belittled? I know that there are some in the movement who would rather I just go away. I can understand the emotions behind that. I can understand, indeed why you would be jaded. Thankfully that humanity we have in common. But sometimes I wonder what those same people would have me do – would they rather I do head to head battle with them in an attempt to preserve my privilege? I doubt it, but it is unclear what else I am supposed to do.
At times I have gone online and pretended to be a woman so as to express myself in feminist forums, but I feel now that this is not an ideal way forward. What then would you suggest? And what are your responses to my ideas? I see this is a welcome opportunity to bounce them off someone who would probably disagree, but would be willing to talk about it maturely and intelligently.
Thank you again for you post, and your consideration of people in my position. I know I am not oppressed. So these comments may strike you as whining or complaining, groping about for imagined persecution so as to gain some legitimacy in your eyes. Over the years I have learned that there is no way to dissuade you from seeing it this way other than to address the issue head on – I am not attempting to indulge in the experience of oppression here; I am not so dense. Instead I merely want to begin to demarcate a framework in which it is appropriate for me to pursue my conscience’s lead.
All the best,
David
On that note, have you seen this?
http://www.alternet.org/story/156194/what_about_the_men_why_our_gender_system_sucks_for_men%2C_too?page=entire&paging=off
I just ran across it and read it after seeing this. It seems to talk about a lot of what you say, and what I was saying. Just thought I’d send it your way.
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I notice you didn’t say shit about the workplace-related death gap… that is all.
That’s probably because it’s so obvious (and covered in the article). This too is a function/side effect of male privilege. Women are socialized to take underprivileged/low-wage jobs that often including taking care of others. Men are socialized to take relatively more privileged/higher-wage (though not all of these jobs are both) jobs. Many of these “jobs for men” involve higher levels of risk (armed forces, race car drivers, foot ball players, mechanical and factory workers). Risk taking is a masculine, privileged characteristic. Here is a real life example: My grandfather owns a glass business. All of the secretaries/office workers are women and all of the workers (in the shop and in the field) are men because those are the unspoken rules (until I asked, at which point I was told I would never be hired as a worker). The secretaries are paid much less, treated like maids or mother and/or subjected to sexual harassment. The workers are respected, paid well, have a “good old boys” system and are much more likely to get injured on the job. The privileged position here is obvious, even if it does have drawbacks (that are necessary to uphold it). The key to mens’ liberation (which they need badly) is to give up their privilege and work for equality. Denial is not helping.
Wow… you are just… the impressiveness of victim blaming here. How many of the men at your Grandfather’s shop have hire-fire prerogatives for one? I imagine it’s just the one. I’ve also had restaurant managers say they won’t hire male servers (server being one of the highest-paying entry-level jobs that doesn’t require post-secondary education)
And there are an awful lot more coal miners than race car drivers. And loggers. And fishers, night workers… is the guy pulling the 11-7 shift at the Circle K in a privileged position? The mail carrier who had, until the gender gap in that job disappeared, septuple the national average for skin cancer fatalities? Howabout the homeless population, with it’s 9-1 male-female ratio? There’s a workplace death gap that occurs along racial lines as well. Black people are more likely to die on the job. But of course, in the duckspeaker’s mind, something can be both a sign of privilege and a sign of oppression depending on the group that’s the target.
Men are less likely to see their rapists and batterers convicted, by order of magnitude, and their rapists and batterers do less time for crimes of similar severity… but no, that’s totes privilege, and not the enforced erasure of suffering so as to other and dehumanize.
It strikes me not just how much of this kind of disingenuous using of harm done to those who are presumed men as proof of male privilege isn’t just misandristic, it’s, as cis feminists who still haven’t quite owned the second wave are wont to be, misogynistically-cissexist. No better time to beat a woman than when you’re hiding behind the legal fiction that she’s a man. And given the median age of transition, and the slim proportion of those who are avowed as trans that actually do transition, you can pretty easily continue to oppress the vast majority of trans women… not like you were gonna do otherwise… but as long as women like me are slotted, and attacked, and told to give up privilege which they clearly do not have when you take the time to evaluate trans narratives (trans women are read from a very early age, though that reading, just like most abuse of GSMs, is implicit and not recognized, otherwise it gives the victim the ability to articulate her oppression and thus defend herself), it serves to turn the existing dysphoria outward, leaving women backed into a corner, too busy defending the mask to recognize it as such.
Femmephobia is not misogyny, no matter how much middle-class cis women want to make it ALL about them. Femmephobia is femmephobia, and it intersects with cissexism, and if you can’t see the immediate implications for gender-power-relations of that, I don’t know what to say.
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