Male privilege, and my inbox is getting full

Posted on January 26, 2005 by Hugo Schwyzer

When I first started blogging, I had no intention of making this a forum that focused exclusively on feminism and gender issues. In recent months, however, I’ve found that those topics are both closest to my heart and the ones that seem to arouse the strongest responses. Accordingly, I’ve been more single-minded than usual in posting on these issues, particularly on the men’s movement.

First off, many, many folks have written me in the past week, demanding that I defend something I have written here or said on the radio. (I’ve had well over 100 such emails, as well as requests in the comments section). I’ll try and respond to some of the queries in my blog, but I simply can’t get to them all, even if I am break from teaching this month. So, if you are waiting to hear from me, my apologies.

One helpful link I’ll share: The Male Privilege Checklist, created by ampersand at Alas, A Blog. Amp and I don’t always agree, but this is a terrific list — so good, that I have shared it with my classes on men and masculinity. Lots of MRAs have written demanding that I defend my contention that all men are privileged, and I do intend another lengthier response. But in the meantime, Amp’s list is a very fine summary.

Oh, and John has an interesting rebuke for both me and men’s rights advocates here.

I’ve had over 10,000 unique hits on this site since the weekend, easily a record for me. That’s nice, but it’s also been a bit overwhelming. I blog under my full name. And I wonder about the spiritual energy that is created by having so many folks out there angry with or hostile towards me. I don’t feel threatened, but it’s almost as if I can feel the dislike and antipathy coming my way. I’m not saying I can’t handle it, I can –it’s just a little sobering to be on the receiving end of so much opprobrium. All the more reason for prayer, and all the more reason to continue to choose my words carefully.

Profeminists, Christian Men’s Groups, and Men’s News Daily, updated

Posted on January 25, 2005 by Hugo Schwyzer

The emails continue to flow in to my in-box in response to Sunday’s Glenn Sacks show. Right now, they’re running about 5-1 in favor of Glenn and against me. Sample:

Whether you are an evil man or merely a wretched
brainwashed void I do not know. But I know without doubt that your cause
is repugnant and wrong. And whether you are eventually made accountable in
some way only time will tell.

Matilde the chinchilla has been reading some of these impertinent missives and is becoming rather cross! (I can tell by the way she nuzzled close to me while she had her almond this morning that she was feeling protective.)

To be fair,that invective is characteristic of most, but not all, of the criticism I’ve received. Some has been more eloquent and civil, like this recent comment by Stanton.
Anyhow…

I’m not going to become a one-issue blogger. By tomorrow, I promise something on a topic other than men’s rights and pro-feminism. But there is one topic I wanted to touch on today. When we were first chatting about doing his show, Glenn asked me if I ever read Men’s News Daily. I admitted I was familiar with it, but rarely visited. Given that our topic for the show was the men’s rights movement, he asked me to take another look at it. I’m told that MND is perhaps the single most important website for men’s rights advocates. (I have no way of knowing whether that is true or not, but given the look and feel of it, I suspect that Glenn is right.)

In preparation for Sunday, I spent some time reading the various articles and following the various links at Men’s News Daily. The topic of the site never came up on the show, but I do have some reflections to share. MND has an eclectic list of articles, some of which have precious little to do with men’s rights issues. (Today I find links to articles on China, Iran,guns, and Social Security, for example). Not surprisingly, the politics of the site are solidly right-wing. Many columnists from the likes of Townhall or the National Review can be found spouting their consistently conservative views at MND. That’s not surprising, of course. To the extent that they share a political vision that transcends anti-feminism, it would seem safe to characterize most men’s rights advocates as right of center, though with libertarian rather than authoritarian leanings.

Now, I’ve spent many years in friendship and dialogue with conservative men. But most of the conservative men I’ve worked with on male issues come from a different strand of the men’s movement than the rights advocates do. I’m talking, of course, about Promise Keepers. Back in June of last year, I posted a brief summary of the men’s movement. I argued that there are actually four distinct groups with radically different approaches to men’s work:

1. The Men’s Rights Advocates, represented by everyone from Glenn Sacks to Warren Farrell to Men’s News Daily to Stand Your Ground.

2. Pro-feminist Men’s Groups are where my heart lies. They include the likes of NOMAS, Men Can Stop Rape, and XYOnline. Important leaders include Michael Flood and Michael Kimmel.

3. Mythopoetic Men’s Groups, represented by the important work of Robert Bly and the Mankind Project.

4. Christian Men’s Groups, represented most famously by Promise Keepers. (Others include International Christian Men’s Institute, and New Man Magazine.)

The first and fourth groups have much in common. Both Men’s Rights Advocates and Christian Men’s Groups take a variety of traditionally conservative positions. Both are highly critical of the feminist movement; even the briefest visit to the websites of their various affiliates will make that much clear. Frankly, I’d be willing to bet that most of the American membership of both strands of the movement voted for President Bush.

But pro-feminist men and Christian men’s groups also, surprisingly have something in common: they both place their emphasis on the ethical and behavioral transformation of men. If you go to Men’s News Daily or any other Men’s Rights site, you won’t read much about the responsibility of men to change. Men’s Rights Advocates believe that men don’t need transformation, they need defending! The enemy of the MRAs is feminism and those who have helped to spread feminist influences through our courts, our schools, and our culture. But the MRAs don’t believe that their members ought to engage in critical self-examination. They don’t believe that MRAs primary responsibility is to help other men grow and mature. They rarely mention discipling or mentoring other adult men. In the MRA world, men are victims of both a feminist hegemony and individual women. Blame is never placed on men themselves.

Christian Men’s groups, as I’ve said, almost always share that same hostility to feminism. But visit their websites, and you will see that the emphasis is NOT on defending men but on changing them. Read, for example this article from this month’s New Man magazine: Talk Your Walk. It briefly tells the story of a man learning to become more humble and learning to better express his feelings to his wife and daughter. It’s also a lesson about the real goal of the Christian Men’s movement; as the article says:

Jesus sets the standard as the perfect role model, the only example necessary… ItÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s a wise man who practices the character of Jesus in order to develop gentleness and self-control in speech.

Now friends, that’s a tall order. Whatever else may be said of Christian men’s groups, they are most decidedly not "defending men just as they are"! They are not interested in blaming men’s suffering on women. Rather, they are interested in guiding men to become ever more Christlike, a process which surely is long, intensive, and requires much in the way of mutual support and hard work. Most pro-feminist activists are also interested in helping men develop some of those very same characteristics cited in New Man; most of us (regardless of faith) are big believers in "developing gentleness" in men!

And over at Men’s News Daily, I find many things that Christian men’s groups would find objectionable. To give just one example, at the top of the page, there’s a link to poker babes. In two words, we’ve got sexual objectification of women and a promotion of gambling. That’s not a link you’ll ever find at Promise Keepers! The Christian men’s movement, as one might expect, places a huge emphasis on male sexual purity. For example, helping men win the victory over porn addiction is a critically important, perhaps even central, focus of the movement. But to put it mildly, I haven’t found anything negative about porn at any of the men’s rights sites. Indeed, to the extent that they are discernible, the sexual ethics of most Men’s Rights sites are decidedly libertarian if not positively hedonistic. (For a blunter example of what I mean by the connection between MRAs and hedonistic exploitation, check out this blog hosted by Men’s News Daily. Warning: not entirely work safe.)

I am an evangelical of a sort, though with fairly progressive views compared to the stereotype. Over the last few years, I have been to one rally and a couple of small group meetings of Promise Keeper (PK, as it is called). Though I disagree with many of the conservative social positions of its members, I have far more respect for PK and its allies than I do for the men’s rights movement. That respect is rooted in the understanding that the fellows in the Christian Men’s Movement are, like pro-feminist men, doing the hard work of individual and social transformation. Pro-feminist and conservative Christian men are both committed to ending the sexual exploitation of women. We are equally committed to creating "new men" of character, self-restraint, courage, and gentleness. We have much about which we disagree, but we do agree on the need for men to be transformed. In that, we share something that our MRA brothers do not.

I’ll have more on the similarities between pro-feminist men and Promise Keepers another time.

UPDATE: Men’s News Daily has a link back to this article with the charming headline:

AMBUSH: Pro-Feminist ‘Girlyman’ Hugo Schwyzer Takes Potshots at MND’s Politics, "Hedonism"

Ambush, huh? Where can I get the pro-feminist "girlyman" t-shirt? Oh, and I am not a miltary historian — what exactly is a "potshot"? What’s the etymology? I’d like to know, so I can know whether I am being accused accurately.

And they have another banner linking to Glenn’s site which reads:

Glenn Sacks Gores Misandrist and Feminist Apologist Hugo Schwyzer…

Huh. Gores. I’ll go inspect my torso for signs of injury. (Oh, and I like the play on Glenn’s name — "sacks" can be a fine verb in that sentence,if only you add a comma after it.)

Some more thoughts on the radio show — UPDATED

Posted on January 24, 2005 by Hugo Schwyzer

It’s noon, and I am finally ready to blog. I tried going for a run on one of my favorite trails this morning — but, alas, it was closed due to mudslides. The torrential rains of the past month have left my favorite fire roads and single-track trails impassable in many places. I think I may have to bite the bullet, as it were, and go back to doing serious training on asphalt. I might even do a paved marathon this spring for the first time in two years. I hope my knees hold up — they do love dirt so! Of course, in the aftermath of all of the havoc that bad weather and natural disasters have wreaked upon our earth this past month, the last thing I need to do is complain about the fact that my favorite running spots are blocked off.

I just downloaded the MP3 of last night’s Glenn Sacks show. (It’s available, if you follow that link, in MP3 and streaming Real formats. You can also spring $7 for a CD). I’ve only listened to bits and pieces of it so far. Like most folks, I recoil at the sound of my own voice; "God", I think, "is that what I really sound like?" Perhaps I’ll sit through more of it later. (By the way, if you listened live last night, there’s now some "extra" stuff, about seven minutes worth, tacked on at the end of the show that wasn’t originally broadcast.)

First off, I’d like to say that it was a very pleasant experience. My fiancee and I arrived early, and Glenn and his producer gave us a tour of their Glendale studios. I’ve never been to a radio studio before, and so I was very interested to see how a show gets put together. Glenn was very kind, answering all of my questions about the various screens and dials and microphones that he and his assistants operate. It was very educational.

The show itself may have been the quickest hour of my life! As a teacher, I’m used to adapting my lectures to the available time — 50 minutes, an hour, 75 minutes. I’m accustomed to slowly building an argument in stages. I’m not used to the speed at which radio happens! One doesn’t have time to construct an argument — one only has time for quick, pointed soundbites. As a result, I felt that what I was saying was incomplete, partial, and in the sense of contributing to a truly lofty dialogue, totally inadequate. Still, I was able to get a few of my points across, and I felt better about my performance in the second half of the program.

There were times when I felt as if Glenn was baiting me, but I understand that’s his job as a radio host. After all, programs like his are "info-tainment" – and the teasing directed my way (describing me, sarcastically, as "more evolved" and "enlightened", things I’ve never said and don’t believe) is part of creating a lively atmosphere. But I am also aware that my ability to take that in stride is, yes, a function of male privilege. Had I been a woman saying the same things that I do on this blog and in the classroom, I’m not sure I would have ended up on the Sacks show in the first place. And second of all, I suspect there might well have been more of an edge to Glenn’s words to me. The very fact that I can laugh off the teasing, and say, "Aw, I disagree with Glenn, but he’s a heckuva good guy" is pure male privilege. The men’s rights advocates simply don’t have the vocabulary to attack a heterosexual pro-feminist man with words that really wound. That’s not their failing — it’s that our language is filled with far more hateful words for feminists than for the men who support them.

But here’s what’s really on my mind today:

Male privilege functioned for me in other ways yesterday. After the show, I laughed and joked with Glenn and his producers. There was hand-shaking and back-slapping and plenty of mutual affirmation along the lines of "Dude, you did great." Because I am a man, I can distance myself a bit from the issues I care so passionately about. You see, male privilege gives me the freedom not to take anything Glenn or his callers said personally, because I know their real "enemy", if you will, is not me! It’s the people whose causes I choose to defend. But as a straight man, I have the unearned luxury of being able to walk away from pro-feminist positions any time I like. I can change my mind in an instant, and it won’t cost me a damned thing. If I were a woman who had come to the feminist movement out of my own intimate experiences of oppression and brutalization, there is no way in hell I could have bantered so freely and so warmly with a man who held such radically different views from my own. That’s not to say that women in the movement can’t laugh, or be civil — they can indeed — but the firsthand experience of oppression surely makes it a lot harder.

In any event, we weren’t able to get to many of the issues that I had hoped we would touch on. I would have been happy to spend an hour exposing the myth of gender symmetry in domestic violence cases, or taking on Glenn’s association with Choice for Men, a project of men’s rights advocates that I find particularly odious. (I was so ready! I had notes!) Above all, I wish I could have been clearer and more detailed about the fact that the profeminist men’s movement is not hostile to individual men, but to the patriarchal structures that shape their lives. In any event, I’d love to be invited back to debate many more specific issues that were simply glossed over in the light and heat of a single hour.

I’ll have more to say soon.

UPDATE: One thing I’ll say about the Stand Your Ground fellas. They are an industrious lot. One of them is busy transcribing yesterday’s show — a snippet is here. It’s always dangerous to take off-the-cuff remarks out of context, but I’ll stand by what I said. For what it’s worth, the language I chose around manipulation and domination is inspired by a well-known confession of sin in Anglican churches:

we have used our power to dominate and our weakness to manipulate;
we have evaded responsibility and failed to confront evil…

If there is a prayer that all of us working for justice could agree on, it might be that one.

I ought to cite my sources, but I don’t think referring to prayer books would have been helpful last night.

Quick reaction to the show, and John has a blog

Posted on January 23, 2005 by Hugo Schwyzer

Well, the Glenn Sacks show is over, and I have much to say about the whole experience — but that will have to wait for tomorrow. Gosh, I’m beat! I’ll have a longer post about the whole experience by Monday afternoon. In the meantime, Ampersand (who made a wonderful call to the show), had this excellent response to one particular issue that was glossed over. The "Stand Your Ground" fellows have some slightly different reactions to the show here (scroll down).

Oh, and before I forget — wonderful news for those of you who have been reading for a long time. My very conservative but delightful blog-friend from New Zealand, John, has finally started his own blog, titled (appropriately enough) Home, Throne, and Altar. We agree on nothing, but I like him immensely. Here’s his self-description:

I’m from rural North Canterbury, in the South Island of New Zealand.
I’m passionate about this country, and both concerned and hopeful for
our future. I believe in Conservative values; the Queen, a strong
defence, strong families and local solutions to local problems,
informed by what T.S. Eliot called "the Historical sense". No, I am not
an 82 year old member of the Orange Order, I am 21, a vulgar
Pentecostal with Wesleyan roots, compulsively opinionated, a die-hard
Crusaders fan, and I have a very mild form of cerebral palsy. If you
start considering me a victim, I shall hit you. Hard. I went to a boys’
grammar school, and I know how. I simply mention it to establish that
my credentials to victimhood are impeccable. I’m a lay teacher in the
Church, I take a class of about 20 ten year old boys, from the bad side
of town. Teaching is one of my loves, and doing it where I have has
shaped both my life and my philosophy. I love baroque, gospel and soul
music, I am forced to tolerate gospel hip-hop. My favourite authors are
Jane Austen and C. S. Lewis; my favourite philosopher is Burke. I have
a B.A. in English and History, and a BSc. in Biological Sciences. I’m
happily reactionary, and I was probably born in the wrong century.
Pleased to meet you all.

He’s a new must-read. (And though he doesn’t know it, we share the love for Burke.) And oh, how I wish I wrote half as well as this fellow barely more than half my age.

More on the Sacks show tomorrow. Sundays are not for blogging.

Quick Saturday check-in on vanity, radio show research, and the Christian Eve Ensler

Posted on January 22, 2005 by Hugo Schwyzer

I’m home from the gym. My New Year’s Resolution to give up all diet sodas is going well. I haven’t had a diet Coke in three weeks, and the cravings are diminishing. Mind you, for years and years I drank gallons of the stuff. My students often gaped at my huge, 52-ounce, Xtreme Gulp mug from 7-11 that I refilled faithfully before each class with diet cola. When the next semester starts, I’ll be sucking down the water.

I’ve also cut way back on my desserts and other treats. After all, I’m 20 pounds heavier than I was when I was running my fastest races six years ago. That weight has been gained slowly, but in the past year and a half, it’s really become a liability. Now, I was a very skinny lad back in the late ’90s, and I never lifted weights. I may have looked scrawny, but I could move on down the road a good deal faster than I can now. If I ever want to run a sub-3:15 marathon again, I’ll have to face the fact that some of this poundage just has to come off.

This desire to lose weight is a kind of "functional vanity". It’s less about improving my looks than it is about regaining my speed. But isn’t all vanity just vanity? It seems easier to defend dieting for the sake of athletic prowess than for the sake of outer appearance. Now, I don’t think wanting a faster marathon time is any less superficial than wanting to look hot. So call me shallow…

Anyhow, I’m straying from my goal of not blogging on the weekends. (I have all sorts of things whirling in my head that I am not going to post.) I do need to spend some time now reading various articles in preparation for tomorrow’s radio show. I’ll let you all know what I’ve been reading after the show airs. (Once again, in the spirit of self-promotion, here’s the link for all the info.)

Oh, and I’ve updated both my "favorite posts" and "regular reads" sections on the right. I’ve added several new blogs I’ve found. In particular, let me draw your attention to the Feminarian, whose blog header asks the question:

What happens when a socially liberal theologically conservative
inclusive tolerant feminist Episcopalian goes to one of the world’s top
evangelical seminaries?
Let’s find out.

Heck if I know. But the anonymous Feminarian might just be my twin. She’s got an interesting proposal:

A friend and I came up with a potentially marvelous idea for a play: a
Christian version of the Vagina Monologues
(http://www.dazereader.com/vaginamonologues.htm). Christian women have
a very unique relationship with their sexuality, largely influenced by
what they’ve learned at church. She and I want to put together stories
of our Christian sisters’ struggles, funny moments, revelations of
truth, etc. It’s not exactly the process the great Eve Ensler used, but
I was thinking that perhaps you might want to contribute. Just post a
story anonymously (unless you’re proud of it!) to my comments
(implicitly giving permission to use it). I don’t know how exactly this
thing will come together, and I surely don’t know who the audience
would be, but it feels important.

Love it. If you have something to contribute, folks, send it her way.. And if you have nothing but trollish spite to share, send it my way and leave her site out of it.

Okay, research time. God, I’d love a diet Coke right now! But the water bottle it is…

A personal note on faith and feminism

Posted on January 21, 2005 by Hugo Schwyzer

Reading through my own recent posts, I’ve been struck and saddened by how little I have written about how my faith and my feminism intersect. I realize that I have spent too much time writing for an audience. Most of the blogs that I read that deal with feminist and men’s issues aren’t much concerned with faith; only a few of the Christian blogs I am fond of spend much time on gender issues. (There are some fine exceptions, like Lynn, Jenell, Camassia, and Christy).

My Christian faith and my pro-feminism do not exist in separate compartments. Though I’m pretty good at living with internal contradictions, my faith and my feminism are not at odds with one another. Indeed, I’d like to think that they inform and shape each other, always challenging me to grow spiritually, intellectually, and morally.

As I’ve blogged before, I’m a "cradle pro-feminist." From childhood through young adulthood, I was raised with egalitarian, liberal, and thoroughly secular values. In my family, politics was our civil religion, and the fight for equal rights for women the central focus. But as I grew through adolescence towards manhood, I did not find sufficient purpose and meaning in political struggle alone. I tried, believe me, even abandoning liberalism for revolutionary socialism in my mid-teens. (Guess who was subscribing to the Militant at age 15?) It wasn’t enough. I had a harder and harder time matching my language and my private life. I spouted fine things in public, and was a mixed-up, typically self-destructive guy in private. My political feminism did not help me in my relationships with girlfriends, I found. When it came to relationships with women, ideological commitment alone was not enough to overcome my selfishness and my insecurity.

I first came to Christ in college. In the eighteen years since I first asked Jesus into my heart, I’ve known most of the classic highs and lows of the convert. I’ve gone from absolute, blissed-out certainty to horrible, crushing doubt — and back again. I’ve church-shopped with the best of them: I’ve called myself a Catholic, a non-denom evangelical, a Mennonite, and an Episcopalian. I had brief but intense flirtations with the Assemblies of God and the Salvation Army. I’m at home now, in my church, and far more at peace with my faith than ever before. My denominational affiliations shift from time to time, but my Christology doesn’t. Jesus is Lord, the ancient and simple statement of faith, remains a creed I can say and believe without hesitation. Beyond the power of words to describe, I love Him.

I don’t blog much about my faith these days because it is, in some sense,almost embarrassingly simple. I love Jesus and I try and follow Him. I want to grow to be he whom He wants me to be. I pray to Him, I talk to Him in the car, I listen to Him when I run in the mountains, I read His word and am humbled and shaped by it. But though all of that is true, I’m still in some sense fiercely protective of my faith. I don’t mind my politics being ridiculed — I do mind my relationship with Christ being questioned in the wide open spaces of the blogopshere. Faith, like the intimate details of one’s sexuality, ought to be more private, or so it seems to me.

But how do my faith and my feminism intersect? We all read the Scriptures with our own preconceptions, of course. I need other Christians who don’t share my poilitics to show me my biases, and I am grateful to have such friends in my life today. There is much in the New Testament that touches on male-female relationship, and I’ve turned to it regularly as I reflect on gender issues. It’s eas to get into proof-texting, and I don’t do it and ask my commenters not to. (That means quoting a passage out of context as "proof" that Jesus or Paul felt a certain way on a contemporary issue). But in recent years, I’ve become increasingly aware of God’s call to do radical justice in the world at large and in one’s personal relationships. Sexism,in its myriad forms, is profound sin. I believe Christians are called to question what the world tells us about men and women, and to be in our own lime as subversive of traditional roles as Jesus was in His.

I believe in the Christian idea of a "calling", or a vocation. I believe God wants me in the classroom, and He wants me doing gender work. I don’t mean that I think that every word I type or speak is God’s will — heaven forbid! Rather, I believe that working to reconcile men to the reality of their privilege — and to help them to transform — is real ministry. I don’t do it as well as I’d like. I get frustrated and ill-tempered and filled with doubt. But I do believe that in my own deeply imperfect way, I am doing exactly what it is I was meant to do.

My faith has given me the strength to live out in private what I proclaim in public. Without God, my feminist commitments would be passionate but superficial. Whatever success I have had in matching my language to my life is thanks to Him, not me. I don’t push my faith on my students or my allies in the feminist movement, but I don’t generally try and hide it, either. Lately, however, I haven’t been blogging about it, and it was starting to nag at me.

Before I go on the Glenn Sacks show on Sunday, I’m going to say a small prayer for Glenn and his listeners, and I am going to ask my God to guide my speech. I want to speak — and listen — in love. I want to be slower to anger, less prideful, less condescending to those who don’t seem to "get it." (Lord, remind me that sometimes, I don’t "get it" either.) I’ve been praying a lot lately for reconciliation within the men’s movement and for those who are on the "other side". I would be so grateful if some of my readers who are of faith would pray for me and for Glenn before Sunday’s show.

Thanks, an apology, and weirdness

Posted on January 21, 2005 by Hugo Schwyzer

First off, a general note of both thanks and apology. I give thanks that over the past year, so many more folks have come to this blog. I’m chuffed that so many have linked here, and so grateful for all who have left comments. But as I get more and more comments and emails alike, my abiility to respond thoughtfully has dropped. As a result, I’ve resorted to being flip and glib in many of my comments and replies, and I am aware that that may appear either dismissive or condescending. I’m deeply sorry for that, and resolve to do better. But doing better may, in some cases, mean not replying to various comments for some time. So, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Second off, the fellows at the Stand Your Ground forum get odder and odder. I didn’t want to give the rascals any more attention, but this one was too good to resist. This is by far the most interesting theory they have about me:

…bet you a box of donuts this Hugo guy is
related to the international banking cartel in someway. ie the
Rockefellers, Rothchilds or some government agency that financially
benifits in someway and is threatened by the men’s movement. The cash
cow of the bureaucrates are at stake here.

Dang. My cover has been blown. But he forgot my close relationship with the Trilateral Commission, the Rosicrucians, the Illuminati, the Freemasons, and the Templars. Almost all self-respecting pro-feminist bloggers belong to these organizations as well.

Oh, and next time you fellows see one of those little black helicopters? I sent it.

I’m resisting the temptation…

Posted on January 20, 2005 by Hugo Schwyzer

… to post samples from the two dozen emails I have received in the last six hours from fans of Glenn Sacks. I wrote earlier this morning that most of the email was polite, taking the stance that I must simply be delusional to support the feminist movement. Lately, the email has taken an unfortunately ugly turn. Still, as nasty as some of it is, I am confident that my female counterparts face worse. After all, it’s a lot tougher to think up insults for straight white men than it is for women. That dpesn’t mean the old boys don’t have a damned good try:

Thisgirl alerts me to this discussion forum, where some fine fellows think my pro-feminist stance has pedophilic overtones. (In my work — heck in any man’s work — there’s no more hurtful lie than the attempt to disprove one’s trustworthiness. Hence, it’s an all too-common line of assault.) As I’ve pointed out before, attacks on pro-feminist men follow a prescribed pattern. How many of the four types of slurs can you find here?

I don’t think I’m worth all this attention, frankly, and after this post, I’ll try and get back to the real issues.

Reflecting on Sunday’s show, I am clear that I do want to honor the anger that is out there. And on Sunday, as forcefully and firmly and politely as I can, I’m going to make the case that the men’s rights movement has misdiagnosed the cause of that hurt and anger – and they have wildly misprescribed the cure.

A long response to “B” about men teaching women’s studies

Posted on January 20, 2005 by Hugo Schwyzer

Speaking of folks who see me as well-intentioned and misguided, I received a long email from a woman I’ll call "B in New Hampshire" yesterday. In polite but passionate terms, she questions whether men should be teaching women’s studies:

My personal reaction to hearing about men teaching in
WS is saddness and then anger and then a sense of one
more defeat. Feminist studies as an academic
discipline has become watered down in title to womens
studies and then nearly made invisible with the sugar
coated gender studies which tries to include every
conceivable topic other than direct feminist studies.
I would be insulted and feel quite disrespected that a college or university would think
so little of women studies as a formal site of study
to offer a Women’s History class and have it taught by
a man. You say in your site you do acknowlege you
bring your maleness into the class. I appreciate that
but it does little to legitamize the situation in my
eyes.

I do acknowledge that having a man teaching women’s history to a class filled with women (and always at least one or two other men) is problematic. I know just how important it is that young women have feminist role models who, in both their work and their private lives, can live out feminist principles. But higher education is not just about providing role models! It is about the principle that knowledge itself has no sex, and that all human experience is equally worthy of study by all human beings. When we limit the teaching of women’s studies to women, we send the message that this subject is not, somehow, worth the time and attention of male academics. This does not mean that a male teacher confers a legitimacy his female colleagues do not — though some students may perceive it that way. But it does mean that it is immensely counter-productive to "ghettoize" (I use that term carefully) an academic discipline by suggesting that only some folks can teach it.

Below, my Thursday Short Poem from Audre Lord makes clear that merely "being a woman" does not guarantee compassion or empathy with other women! Women of color in the feminist movement have spent years having their concerns marginalized by their white, upper-middle class sisters. What makes a wealthy white woman more qualified to teach her Latina and African-American sisters than, say, a Latino man — or for that matter, a white man? Feminists who insist that the oppression of sex transcends racial and economic discrimination do a colossal injustice to the experiences of both men and women of color. My point is simple: if we are going to take a teacher’s sex into account, we must also take his or her race into account — and that sets up a slippery slope towards the extreme Balkanization of academic disciplines.

But I don’t mean to trivialize B’s real concerns. I am aware that for some women, having a male instructor is problematic. I would never want to be the ONLY professor at the college teaching women’s studies. This semester, we will have four sections of women’s history; I will teach one and the other three will be taught by my female colleagues. I am happy to have students transfer from my class into one of my colleagues’ classes, should they wish to have a woman professor.

B also asks:

When you were hired for the course was there any discussion of the conflict presented by having a male faculty member teach the course?

I first started teaching women’s history at PCC when one of my colleagues went on maternity leave at the beginning of the spring semester, 1995. I liked the experience so much, I asked for my own section for the fall, and was given it. The division chair at the time was a woman, and she took considerable heat from the female faculty members who taught the other sections of the course. It was one thing to have me "fill in" for a semester; another to have me continue to teach the class year after year. We had some fierce and public disagreements back then about a man teaching such a course — but over the past decade, as my evaluations have come back semester after semester, my colleagues have either accepted the situation or decided to keep their concerns to themselves.

B goes on:

I do believe there a few men who may have authentic
feelings toward women as a gender and may want to help
in our fight, however, for men to co-op the term
feminist male is yet another insult. It is useless to
get into specific instances of incidents, mine
personally or the uncountable ones that fill history
from all over the world, but do let me say that i have
spent the last 20 years observing on a daily basis the
impact men have on women just by listening and
watching and reading and talking in daily life. At
gas stations, supermarkets, movie theaters, schools,
restaurants, on the street, in my home, in my friends
home, in literature, music, art, and film and
magazines there is an unfathomable record of
injustice that has reached women physically, socially,
economically and politically.

B and I disagree about the use of the term "feminist male". But I am aware of how troubled many are by men’s appropriation of the term "feminist", and this is why I, like many of my brethren, use the term "pro-feminist." And make no mistake — I am aware that men do have a profound impact on women!

I know that I have male privilege in the classroom. Because I am a man, few of my students assume that my course will be a "man-bashing" course. (Some of my men’s rights advocate critics are convinced it is, but none of them, to my knowledge, have sat through a single lecture.) Where my female colleagues are assumed by students to be "pushing an agenda", I, as a supposedly objective man, am considered more "fair." I’ve heard these comments over and over again, and I am saddened by them. But what should I do with this privilege? I can acknowledge it and withdraw from the classroom, leaving women’s studies to female professors. But how, exactly, does that help things? How would my quitting further the legitimization of gender work? I think it’s better to stay in the classroom, while openly calling attention to that unmerited assumption of objectivity that so many students have about male professors.

I’m convinced that feminists and pro-feminists can, in good conscience, continue to disagree about the role of men in the women’s movement. But after a decade of instructing dozens of sections of women’s history at PCC, I do believe that neither my biology nor my acculturation are bars to effective teaching of historical and contemporary feminist issues. But as always, I welcome alternative views.

Promo for the Sacks show

Posted on January 20, 2005 by Hugo Schwyzer

Glenn Sacks has posted his promo for Sunday’s radio program (scroll down a bit). Here’s the bulk of it:

According to Gender Studies professor

Dr. Hugo Schwyzer, Ph.D., a member of the
National
Organization for Men Against Sexism, the
emerging men’s rights
movement is a reactionary expression of deep-seated societal
misogyny and homophobia.

According to Dr. Schwyzer, talk show host/columnist
Glenn Sacks is part of the problem–a "purveyor of a victim
mentality for men" who "masks men’s own responsibility" for
their problems and who "lashes out at those, such as feminists,
who call men to accountability for their actions." Schwyzer
also labels Sacks a "denier of male privilege," adding "just
because a group doesn’t feel privileged doesn’t mean that they
aren’t."

Schwyzer, an accredited speaker for
Men Can Stop Rape
who teaches Gay and Lesbian history and Western Civ. at Pasadena
City College, laments that "one of the problems with being a
man involved with the pro-feminist men’s movement is that we
often get mixed up with the men’s rights activists who are virulently
anti-feminist."

Schwyzer will attack Glenn and the men’s
movement on His Side with
Glenn Sacks on Sunday, January 23 at 5 PM PST/8 PM EST.

My goodness, I highly doubt I’m going to be attacking anyone. On the other hand, Sacks accurately characterizes my criticisms both of the men’s rights movement and of his own denial of male privilege.

The emails from his fans — an earnest lot, I’ll say that — have begun to pile up in my inbox. I note that while some are nasty, most (so far) see me as a hopelessly misguided (but perhaps well-intentioned) fellow who just needs a little "enlightenment."