My friend Twisty had a very intelligent commentator on this post say:
Women need to know men hate them… [their] refusal to accept men’s hatred [is] why patriarchy is so fearsome.
The essential confusion that analyzing gender creates doesn’t come from nature, from the physical body that can be typed as female or male, but from the cultural construction of femininity and masculinity. You can truthfully state that men hate women, but when you say men you are speaking of a cultural construction called men that includes a great many people who disagree on what masculinity is and how they need to express it. The same with women.
Under the cultural role that men take on to become what they consider manly, there is still a human being who is capable of having normal emotions about other humans. Even the manliest man will allow himself human feelings in his dealings with certain other men, like fathers and sons can have. So we become confused by the human apart from the role he plays. The human may be decent, and feel decent, and still will aspire to being manly in many ways, some more destructive than others, but all of them just as superficial as the social construction of masculinity.
So we have this deep gut feeling towards the humans we know with male parts who we love, and can still feel the unthinking hatred of the superficial acting out of masculine tropes that define us and that men use to define themselves. Therefore many men aren’t lying when they say that they don’t hate women. Under the cultural role they play, they really don’t hate women. But when you spend your life striving to be manly and think that women want you to be manly, you spend your life acting in ways that degrade and devalue women, and approve of all of it completely, thinking that your underlying feelings are more essential and true than your actions and words and assumptions.
As long as you identify yourself as a man, and define your personality on a foundation of adherence to cultural norms for masculinity, you act and think in ways that assume your superiority over women. Your assumptions about masculinity could marginalize women sexually if you are gay, for example, but you would still be thinking of yourself as a class of person who is male, and regard women as essentially feminine, and still end up in the same place: On top of all of them, as part and parcel of being in the same class with straight men.
It’s interesting to note that straight men lump gay men in with women, since both are regarded as passive recipients of aggressive male sexual attention. Both are seen as encouraging and even demanding masculinity from men as a prerequisite for relationships of any kind. Gay men can accept a manly man’s straightness if he presents himself as too straight to consider a partner, through the expression of heightened masculinity, for example. And straight men distinguish between gay men and women in terms of sexual preference that they present as masculinity. Some straight men see themselves as so masculine that they can have sex with men or women, seeing every other human as a target for sexual aggression. Within gay relationships there are often subtle variations on masculine and feminine roles that are used to recreate the status of pursuer and pursued, with varying levels of flexibility due to the freedom to identify as masculine, feminine, or opt out of it altogether and try for humans together.
It’s easy to see why feminist women are somewhat for lesbian relationships, since the possibility to transcend gender roles is higher between two people who are both physically identified as not being masculine, and masculine is the default superior sex in cultural terms. But to aspire to creating genderless roles between men and women is important for many women and men. So even though men hate women, and most of the definitions of men contain seeds of a broad assumption of superiority, especially when viewed in contrast to feminine identity, a human who rejects masculinity can aspire to transcend this hatred by removing and living without masculine traits.
The problem with doing this is that we tend to see losing masculinity as acquiring femininity, as if there were only two ways of existing as a human being. What helps men to realize that this is not right, and if this is what you’re doing, you’re doing it wrong, is to also reject femininity. All of the traits of any human that we assign to each sex belong equally to all humans. It’s just that aligning ourselves with a sex to assert a superiority over the other sex is wrong. If you want to rid yourself of the burden of masculinity, you have to give up the expectation of femininity. And embrace mutual humanity in the place of these externally-imposed cultural roles.
belenen | 28-Feb-09 at 8:55 am | Permalink
creating genderless roles between men and women is important for many women and men. So even though men hate women, and most of the definitions of men contain seeds of a broad assumption of superiority, especially when viewed in contrast to feminine identity, a human who rejects masculinity can aspire to transcend this hatred by removing and living without masculine traits.
YES.
All of the traits of any human that we assign to each sex belong equally to all humans. … embrace mutual humanity in the place of these externally-imposed cultural roles.
EXACTLY. I really just could not agree more with this post.
I’m currently reading “The Mismeasure of Woman” and being delighted and strengthened by how it proves that gender is false. I’ve known this by simple logic; but seeing how science confirms it makes me feel more able to express these things to people who currently believe in gender.
chris lz | 17-Jun-09 at 10:12 pm | Permalink
Hi,
New to this site, and as someone (male) who doesn’t (yet?) feel comfortable with the points of view expressed above, I have some rather basic questions, if that’s OK. I have tended to regard radical feminism as misguided, and itself a dehumanizing force. However, I’m willing to give it another try. If you aren’t already offended by my words (I am only in favor of questioning ideas, and bear no ill feelings towards anyone based on their views,) I would welcome any feedback on the below.
Let me begin with some mundane everyday observations, if I might. While I grant one never has to look to far to observe jerky, selfish men in action, I also see example after example in everyday life of men being kind towards women. Whether it’s a women who’s dropped her grocery bag, or who needs help with opening the door, or needing a hand lifting a baby stroller off the trolley, nine times out of ten I see not just women, but men spontaneously stepping in, offering their help and doing the right thing. We may argue that things aren’t always as they seem, and deconstructing such acts may well result in our questioning our intuitive beliefs. But in the final analysis, are such everyday acts described above more akin to kindness or hatred? (Would it be kinder not to step in and help in such situations?) Thus there appears to many of us (non radical feminists, that is) an unsettling rift between evident reality, and what we read from radical feminists. Either that, or we must be doing some serious misinterpreting, (a possibility I’m perfectly open to.) For it’s not self-evident – to me at least – such everyday observations of apparent kindness can be reconciled with the view of men as creatures of hate.
As another example, let’s look at “manliness.” Sure, some of that concept unpleasantly conjures up chauvinism, even misogyny, or men pathetically trying to prove their manhood in obnoxious ways. But just how much so? Manliness is often equated with “aggressiveness.” If true, aggressiveness seems (to me and many others) a neutral concept in itself, and it’s potential for oppression depends on how it’s used, much like, say, an automobile. How much “manliness” must a man give up to be a nice guy (non women- hating man)? Indeed, are any parts of “manliness” worth salvaging? If some women claim to like “manliness,” are they automatically and of necessity mistaken if they believe it’s not harmful to them?
These are just a few of the questions I have had over the years I’ve been hoping to ask of radical feminism. I hope these questions are taken not just as criticisms, but as trying to glean insight and understand radical feminism a bit better than I do now.
Thank you,
Chris
Chris
Fred | 18-Jun-09 at 8:13 am | Permalink
Hey, Chris, lighten up! Even though the radical feminist friendly nature of this blog might seem intimidating, it’s actually a place where men can discuss feminism without rancor from me.
The confusion you remark upon, that men seem kind to women on a daily basis, and don’t act like creatures of hate, is a fundamental one. The key is to think of everything as relative, and to understand that sometimes we act like human beings, members of a common humanity that we all share that is a gender-neutral reality, and sometimes we act like manly men, filling whatever roles we think we understand about how to act like a man in this man’s world.
A lot of the ways of being manly require you to reject, if not despise and hold in contempt, various customs we regard as feminine. It’s OK for women to act that way, or like these things, but not us. Sometimes, in extreme but shockingly common cases, feminine attributes can include such once-common virtues as truth, beauty, justice and other things that most people would see as gender-neutral and unambiguously good, but which the manly man laughs at and holds in contempt in order to extend his dominion over those weaker than he.
Feminists have done a lot of excellent work at identifying and understanding what is feminine behavior, rather than gender-neutral human behavior, and have done some work identifying the obstacles male behavior places in their quest to free themselves from gender-based oppression. Men have done some work on trying to understand what is masculine behavior and what is human behavior, but much less, and most of it in terms of feminist viewpoints.
Like John Stoltenberg, I refuse outright to be a man anymore. Since everything about being a man that isn’t normally shared by women as a gender-neutral virtue is all activity designed to increase my more negative qualities, I’m done with it.
The big mistake I used to be afraid of about rejecting masculinity was thinking that rejecting masculinity was the same as embracing femininity. Knowing that women who aspire to free themselves from male oppression also need to free themselves from the need to please men by acting in artificial ways we call feminine cleared this up for me. There’s actually a third way, a more aspirational ambition that I have modeled in place of being manly or girly. And that’s being a human being, seeing all people in terms of our shared humanity first, and regarding gender, race, opinions, and customs as all interesting details that are secondary to the essential humanity we all share.
Last, reading radical feminism has also shown me that the highest and best parts of human nature are mostly considered manly virtues, because men regard women with unconscious yet potent contempt, and see these virtues as masculine only, such as a certain amount of assertiveness which you could label aggression if you wanted. Men, unlike women, have little work to do in order to cultivate their best side, since it’s always been considered a man’s nature to be virtuous, and a woman’s nature to be weak.
chris lz | 25-Jun-09 at 7:24 pm | Permalink
Thank you for your reply. I have many more questions and follow-ups (though little time due to a tight schedule.) May I do this here? Or if you prefer, I could correspond by e-mail.
Here is one such question: the very notion of “unconsciously hating” or being an oppressor, strikes many as counter-intuitive. I think part of why radical feminism is still “radical” is because the various descriptions and statements we hear from it are often expressed as if everyone was intimately familiar with the underlying assumptions and definitions used. An obvious example is “all men hate all women.” I’m wondering what radical feminists, if interested in convincing us about the errors of our mainstream ways, really think they are going to accomplish by coming out with unqualified absolute statements such as this (which I see fairly frequently), which tend to antagonize people. I find myself receptive to many radical ideas, but typically much more so when expressed sympathetically towards its (nonradical) audience. Maybe if we looked at a specific example of the alleged universal hatred of women by men I would be more confident where radical feminism is coming from.
regards,
Chris
Chris