Feminists anger men, for some strange reason
After looking over a few of the comments submitted, I saw that one concept floated to the top pretty quickly. Men generally look on feminism as a personal affront; almost an insult. To acknowledge sexism is a form of anger, and feels aggressive and confrontational to men. Challenging male privilege is a hate crime to Misogynist Mike.
Well, of course, this makes a feminist angry, too. Because, as my Aunt Twisty always says, it’s not all about the men. It’s all about the oppression women feel, which is caused by, promoted and championed by men. Men look at their privileges as rights, and justify them by inventing parallels with nature that are easily revealed as shallow, self-serving excuses rather than scientific facts beyond any alternative interpretation.
A man finds little in our culture to encourage him to criticize himself in any manner, much less constructively. How can we get in there and start the process of reexamining assumptions when we are facing this wall of denial?
The anger that men exhibit, either subtly or overtly, when confronted with their own culturally-inculcated sexism arouses our anger. So the discussion becomes a fight, whether we want it to or not. And in a fight, men have a neurotic and potentially dangerous greed for winning. A fight with a man, once started, can get so vicious and arouse such a bestial desire to dominate that it can’t even be conceded to the man; since he will continue to beat on his own sick and sorry arguments even long after you’ve given up on him.
I’m not saying this has to be something uncivilized; actually, when it comes to your Nigel, the whole thing might take place over the course of a couple of chilly, civil, polite minutes.
The first thing to establish is that this is not about the man you are talking to. It is, but it isn’t. Take the personal away and move it to the universal and a man can have a chance to look at it a little more objectively. I like to start by stealing Twisty’s famous and useful pronouncement: “I Blame The Patriarchy!” If you want, you can just say you blame the culture we live in. But starting with universals, you can establish truths that can be reduced to specifics that can lead to increased awareness of a woman’s point of view.
We live in a patriarchy, where fathers pass on names to sons, men lead most of the businesses and hold most of the positions of authority, and where women are expected to act like men (domineering, childless, competitive to the point of obsession) in order to share in the patriarchal spoils. If you can get there, you might be able to get further. If you can get some agreement on this without lapsing into the specious and indefensible position that women have all the real power because of the inestimable Power Of The Pussy, then you can try to get across the idea that these things weigh more heavily on women than they even care to acknowledge, and that most women use a certain amount of denial just to get through the day because of it.
I personally think that working on men in stages, slowly, over time, is more effective than trying to force a feminist perspective from scratch in one session. So I’m going to stop here, as I would with Misogynist Mike of Pornsick Pat, and wait a week or two for it to sink in.
Now if anyone please has any suggestions or criticisms of this approach, let me have them. Getting to something that works to awaken men to the common sense truths of feminism is my goal here.
October 17th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Its probably the only approach that will work, but I’m tired of taking care of men’s mental and emotional health when they are not expected to care for me in that way. Educating men about sexism reinforces the gendered division of care work as the natural order.
October 18th, 2007 at 8:57 am
aroundthebend is right about how unfair and tiresome it is for women to be expected to educate men about sexism. It’s not unfair or tiresome for men to educate other men about sexism, though. It’s an important way to change your world. Much like those of us who dislike having people say racist shit around us when we are trying to be less racist ourselves, it’s more tiring to listen to sexist crap without some kind of response when the total obviousness or it all has become second nature.
I don’t think that finding ways to shift the perception of feminism in men from a personal problem to a problem created by our culture is exactly taking care of men’s emotional needs. It’s not exactly a need that men feel, understanding women’s problems and how they create and promote them through their own sexism. The only need it fills is the need to get across a little common sense in the sex that has this huge culturally-engrained fear of seeing anything at all from the perspective of a woman, because being like a woman is the worst thing a man can be.
It’s not about men and women so much as it is about oppressed and oppressing. Without the oppression, there would be nearly nothing to distinguish between the sexes outside of some small organs.
Any way anyone can find to strip away the denial and confusion that men feel about sex roles is a good thing for all of us. Many a man isn’t worth the trouble, though.
October 19th, 2007 at 8:12 am
College was really good to me about feminisms. Both my Critical Analysis professor and my Continental Philosophy professor were fantastic instructors and I walked out with a whole new mindset. Where before, I really tried to be feminist but didn’t have a good understanding of causes and effects of my actions and privilages, those classes really helped to make it clear. My mindset would never have changed, though, if it wern’t for my willingness to accept new information into my worldview.
That background was what helped me when I read I Blame the Patriarchy. That, and taking Twisty’s mantra of “It’s not all about you.” really seriously. That’s something guys need to learn before anything else, maybe. That it’s not all about them. It’s not all about how males feel, and it’s not all about their, personal, feelings. If they’re offended by what Twisty says about ‘men’, then they need to consider if it’s them she’s talking about, or the culture they’re raised in. If it sounds like something they’d do, then that requires reflection, too.
Reading I Blame the Patriarchy is a lesson in the school of hard knocks. It’s one I’m glad is there. I don’t post there because I feel that it’s best while I’m there to shut up and listen, and learn. I post here because it feels a little more like ‘men and women talking about the feminisms that influence them, and the reaction of a patriarchy to feminisms.’ You’ve got the voices of the patriarchy here, so I feel like it’s a place to engage them, and that’s something I can do even if I’m a man.
(In fact, it seems like an obligation when talking about society as a whole. Men should work to change things, too. Laying it all at women’s feet and just saying ‘good luck’ seems like it just propagates the issue.)
October 20th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
As a guy, that may work for you.
As a woman, after three hundred years of trying to get men to set aside the myth they live by, and take a cold hard look at reality, I’m thinking the gradual approach leaves you going in circles. When the ignorance is willful, it sustains itself.
October 21st, 2007 at 7:31 am
The most important work of feminism isn’t raising men’s consciousness about it anyway, but women’s. And for that work, I hope for the women who taught me to continue to speak out and help other women undo the cultural damage. As a man, I can’t talk credibly about feminism to women. The absurdity of an oppressor educating the person he oppresses about her need to understand his oppression is insane.
But can we men who have tried to understand this issue just sit around and either feel bad that we are reluctant oppressors, or else congratulate ourselves on limiting our sexism to the extent we can? Just sit and sulk, or sit and smirk? What should we be doing that is active?
I decided that the least I could do was speak out to men, and share some of my insights to others on how I felt it might work, and what some of the more obvious problems could be.
The majority of men will remain willfully ignorant of the female experience for the foreseeable future at least. But many good men are ready to understand the ways that our culture has deluded them about their roles. I feel an immense burden lifted from me when I imagine myself living in a world where sexism isn’t required of us in order to lead our lives.
I will try to focus on moving men from sheer sexist bullshit to some kind of understanding, even though three hundred years has only got us to this point.