I don't need a men's movement

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

There was a recent post in this community on the topic of the "men's movement". Among the many responses to the post were many on a similar theme: that the so-called goals of almost any so-called "men's movement" that have been raised, are not issues that require an additional movement other than feminism, a movement aimed, as it were, at forces OUTSIDE of the population of men in our society.

I have to agree. In my experience, many claims, even those made in earnest, about sytemic problems faced by men, are claims about problems that would mostly cease to be major factors harming men if feminism were successful. It is one thing to observe that many men suffer due to negative social trends and would lead better, more fulfilled lives with broad social change. It is quite another thing to conclude that a separate social movement aimed at factors EXTERNAL to men and, often, in opposition to feminism is what will solve them.

I'd like to look at some of the various issues I've heard related to problems faced by men and boys -- some raised by "men's rights" activists and others by research into socialization -- and look at them personally and whether or not a "men's rights" movement would do anything effectively about them. This will be heavy on anecdote and personal experience, and behind spoiler tags to avoid boring anyone to death.

Issue #1:


There's growing research that shows that being brought up as a boy is not as well understood as we thought and that while research from the 1970s through the 1990s helped us undserstand girls' socialization better, boys have been overlooked. What we have been learning in recent years is that there are, indeed, damaging socialization trends that impact boys as a whole and we need a systemic approach to more healthy growth and development.

None of that, however, is something that is exactly OUTSIDE of feminism. In fact, feminism's anlysis and criticism of society are entirely germain to improving the lives of boys. I would go so far as to say that any men's rights advocates who look at the problems faced by boys as they grow up and see a large number of issues that stem from anything other than patriarchy are being myopic. Those who look and see issues stemming from an alleged "female power structure" are being dishonest.

A personal example: I grew up short, nerdy and listening to classical music. I was bullied which probably surprises nobody. One particular bully was especially persistent throughout 7th Grade, even bragging to his buddies that he had given me a bruise a day every day for a month. I was certainly not alone being on the receiving end of bullying, and fellow victims were typically boys who also fell outside of normal role types or behavior that was deemed acceptable for boys. Another classmate who, in retrospect, was very likely autistic was bullied until he committed suicide. The bullies, themselves products of homes often with brutal messaging about how boys SHOULD behave, were enforcers of our social roles: since I did not like to play sports and did not participate in other social likes of my classmates, I was an easy target. And I was luckier than most, having a very supportive family structure and at least my own social niche within the school, small as it was. Regardless, it took a damaging and lasting toll.

And the right solution for that problem lies within feminism's analysis. The gender roles enforced by bullying were not ones where females were dominent in any way -- they were ones where any indication of being LIKE a girl were violently attacked in a boy while simultaneously expecting girls to be meek.



Issue #2:


I'm not proud of this at all, but there was a long period of my life when I flirted with what has been called "nice guy" syndrome. Combine some very low self esteem from the bullying with some deeply flawed thinking and my "fantasy" of how relationships could go is summed up in this XKCD:


Alt Text: Friends with detriments

Of coures, "nice guy" syndrome also comes with some terribly anti-woman traps as well -- over time, becoming convinced that women "always go for jerks" means you end up thinking you are a the "good person" while simultaneously risking bigoted conclusions about 50% of the population. It took some serious and unpleasant looks at myself to climb out of that.

One of the worst things that "nice guy" ends up doing as a mode of thought is it plays right into the foolish trope that women hold all the power in relationships and dating. It is part of that thinking that women can be vapid and dependent even as objects of desire, but they also get to pick who they sleep with...so that's the real power in relationships. Meanwhile, men have to all things, secure, confident, financially powerful and professional -- and they still lose.

In a very few words: fuck. that. shit.

Let's suppose that the "nice guy" conclusion is even vaguely correct and that "jerks" get a lot more "success" in dating. But that's not indicative of something wrong with women as the brokers of power in relationships -- that's something wrong with society-wide socialization that valorizes demeaning behavior.

But much more important than that, another deeply sexist flaw with "nice guy" thinking is that anyone is OWED a chance at a relationship. Seeing loyal friednship with deeply ulterior motives as a path towards relationships assumes that one has a gained a privelege to someone else's very personal decision making, so the "nice guy", ends up thinking he is owed something nobody is actually owed.

So again, there's no need for a men's movement to address men's lack of power in relationships. What is needed is for men to seriously reconsider some the widely held ideas about how relationships work.



Issue #3:



Former director of policy planning at the State Department, Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter, caused a stir recently with an article in the Atlantic Magazine called Why Women Still Can't Have It All describing her efforts to combined being an involved parent with her appointment to one of the highest level positions within the State Department and her beliefs about why women in her cohort of highly educated and successful professionals have been taught to expect to do what she now sees as impossible -- reach the highest echelons in government service or business and educational leadership while simultaneously maintaining a healthy and involved family life.

Dr. Slaughter's article has spawned a fair amount of criticism and much of it is well-earned. She is, by her own admission, talking to only about an elite group among the elite where she regained her involvement in parenting by stepping down to...a tenured full professor at Princeton University, not exactly a part time job itself. Her essay does not consider the situation of women who choose to be and to remain childless, and there is serious question about whether or not feminism ever did promise that women could "have it all".

Regardless, quite a lot of what Dr. Slaughter wrote seems familiar to me, although from a different role perspective. Namely, most of our "professional" fields were constructed when the expectation was that a highly professional job, such as a doctor, a lawyer, a business executive or an academic, would be held by a man, and that man would have a full time wife at home to see to "household duties". These careers were never intended to be populated by people who did less than dedicate the majority of the weekdays to career, placing family into a secondary position. In order to rise among the highest eschelons on those careers, family had to be essentially neglected.

I've had this experience in my own career as an academic. Early in my pre-tenure years, my colleagues recognized that I have a talent for organizing things so I was blessed with service assignments. Also early in those years, I married and had our first child. One reason that I enjoy an academic careeris that it has flexible hours, but given that I was responsible for program administration, would never short change my students and was determined to be an involved father in my daughter's life, I did neglect one aspect of my job: scholarship. I published, but the kind of time commitment needed to churn out a large number of articles each and every year was not something I felt I had. I took my time working on projects that got me a few, high quality publications prior to tenure.

And prioritizing my family when I got high accolades at two aspects of my job and did reasonably well at the third nearly cost me my career. My closest colleagues appreciated my work and how I worked, but further up the university hierarchy, being satisfied with slow but high quality scholarship was greeted with hostility even at a university with an undergraduate, liberal arts focus.

At the end of the process, I came out tenured but not without extraordinary efforts on my behalf.

So what does this teach me? That we have entire career trajectories that are modeled after people not being able to engage home and work with both being satisfactory if one values both. It is very likely that corporate CEOs, high level government employees and their equivalents in academia, law and medicine will never have a work/home balance, but does one have to expect career consequences at all levels of these professions? I know junior faculty who believe they can never prioritize family life for fear of losing tenure as I almost did, and junior law associates and medical residents are well known for their inhumane work schedules.

These are not work patterns that were designed to privilege women. A men's movement that discusses work and family would need to ask MEN to think about how necessary these career requirements should be and why anyone finds them acceptable.


Issue #4:


"Men's Rights" advocates are not wrong to point out that men are more likely to be victims of violence overall. What they obsfuscate is that sexual and domestic violence are overwhelmingly perpetrated by men against women. It isn't that men are not victims of violence; it is that the seriousness of what women face at the hands of rapists and abusers is not diminished by that nor does it make it less important to investigate what elements of our culture are teaching a cohort of men that violence is an acceptable response in a home dispute or that sexual violence is ever something they can justify.

Simply put: violence that is visited by men against other men is not a phenomenon, however how tragic, that takes away from the fact that someone who is beaten or killed in the home environment is overwhelmingly likely a woamn at the hands of her partner.

And men are raped as well. I say that as someone who was sexually assaulted by another man. But again, what I see as needed to help with that is more and better feminism on the subject of rape prevention. My assailant needed to believe that he had no right to assume an aggressive physical advance would have been acceptable towards ANYONE, even someone who might have been a willing sexual partner. I needed support in the wake of that attack that helped me understand HIS violation was HIS fault.

Sounds like feminism to me.

And even in the general outlier case of female on male sexual violence -- it is almost always something I observe that is made more difficult by a fairly perverted view of male sexuality. Think of the case that makes the media with some frequency: a female teacher or other adult authority figure having sex with a barely pubescent boy. Since boys are frequently raised to believe that saying "no" to sex is something boys don't do, it makes the violation of trust even more damaging for many, and that is directly the fault of a view of male sexuality that is perpetuated mostly by men. What can the "men's movement" do in this case? It certainly has no external, female power structure to deconstruct -- it is much more a case of "Physician, Heal Thyself".



So there I have it, after mostly personal reflection and experience, a conclusion: I don't need a "men's movement" that is organized around reforming a power structure that disempowers men. If anything, I need a men's movement that is dedicated to changing how men view ourselves and disinvesting ourselves of distorting elements of privilege that lead to bullying, maladjusted senses of relationships, alienating ideas about career expectations and flat out disordered views of power and sexuality. I'd be interested in men talking to other men about those things.

I wouldn't mind more and more successful feminism too.