I wrote about More to Love, the Fox reality show, just over a month ago. One theme in more recent episodes (h/t Jenn Pozner) is that many of the plus-sized women on the show are attracted to large men who make them feel “small” and, presumably, more feminine. I wrote about that subject on November 29, 2006, and that post appears below.
I was talking to a female friend of mine yesterday; she’s just started dating a new fella, and the budding relationship appears promising. My friend is about 5’8″, and her new boyfriend is 6’5″. I knew her last boyfriend, who was her height — and so, as we chatted, I asked her if the height differential in this current relationship made a difference.
“Yes, I suppose it really does”, she said. “Being with a man so much taller and bigger makes me feel smaller, more feminine. Being in his arms feels wonderful because I feel the difference between us so much more than with Jack (her ex).”
My friend, who knows I teach feminism, asked “Do you think that makes me less of a feminist, wanting a man who can wrap me up and make me feel so feminine and protected?”
Almost from the start of 2006, the broad feminist blogosphere has been engaged in an intense period of self-criticism, culminating in October’s infamous “waxing wars.” I have no interest in reviving a lot of talk about feminist credentials. But my friend’s sense of delight in the size differential between her and her new guy — and her mild discomfort at what that delight might symbolize — is worth a post.
Of course, y’all know I’m going to share the inevitable personal anecdote. In college, I had a huge crush on a gal who lived in the same co-op as I did. She was my height (6’1″) and a broad-shouldered swimmer who had started her college career on an athletic scholarship but who had tired of the intensity of the competition. She was the consummate jock, and if I could be said to have a “type”, it was always the very athletic, tomboyish women. “Lisa” and I tried a romantic relationship, but it ended quickly; my interest in being more than friends exceeeded hers.
Lisa told me, even before we started dating, that she had doubts about our chances together: “I really like big guys”, she said; “I’m a tall strong girl and I like being with a man who makes me feel petite and feminine.” She liked dating tall linemen, and I was going through one of my “skinny stages”. I was already taking women’s studies classes at that point, and in order to make my case, I quite shamelessly used what I thought were sincere feminist tactics, saying something like:
“Lisa, you only want a stronger, bigger man, because you’ve been brainwashed by a sexist culture. You’ve been taught to be uncomfortable with yourself as a tall athletic woman, and so you want to be with an even bigger guy who can make you feel more traditional. You’re surrendering to the patriarchy!”
There might have been one or two grains of truth in what I was saying, but it was evident to both of us that my exhortation was colored less by a commitment to feminist principle and more by naked self-interest. And I had no reply when Lisa told me off, saying (and this I remember more vividly than my own words):
“Don’t be an asshole and assume that what I want stems from my oppression as a woman. If you were a real feminist man you would never try and channel my feelings and desires to serve your needs, and you’d never try and use feminism to guilt me into being with you.”
That was an uncomfortable “aha” moment, and it taught me an enduring lesson. Few things are more indefensible and pathetic than a self-proclaimed male feminist using the rhetoric of gender justice to try and “get” a woman to be attracted to him. Been there, did that, grew out of it.
Of course, this argument is really raising a very old question: to what extent are our romantic and sexual desires shaped by cultural and familial expectations, and to what extent are they genuinely organic, original, and unique to our “truest self”? (Yes, philosophers, I know, we can’t even be sure we have a “truest self” independent of outside influence!) I’ve raised this question before, writing about men, women, homosociality, and weight. There, I took men to task for being overly concerned with how the weight gain of their female partners would reflect upon their status as men.
So is wanting a “big strong man who will make me feel delicate and feminine” something feminists ought to try and talk women out of? Can we presume to distinguish between a woman whose innate sexuality gets turned on by “big guys” and a woman who likes being with bigger men because she’s uncomfortable with her own size, and longs to feel smaller? Can we insist that women’s erotic desires be shaped and informed by their feminism — and thus work in conjunction with their ideals, not in opposition to them?
Here’s where I drive many of my male critics in the men’s rights movement nuts. When I write about male heterosexual desire, I am adamant that it can be channeled. When discussing what men want, I am quite comfortable — because I am a man — in suggesting that men can master and redirect their libidos. I post a lot about older men and younger women in this regard, and regularly make the case that one key thing men can do is match their desires to an age-appropriate partner. I’ve also made a case against porn, and against male fat-phobia. But I am not willing to make the same demands on women.
Is it because I think women ought to be held to a lesser standard? Of course not. But I’m a great believer in the notion that men ought to hold other men accountable. When men do try and hold women accountable, even in the name of feminism, it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish a righteous motive from a self-serving one. Too many women have been told too often what to do by too many men. Women’s transformation and accountability needs to take place in community with other women, not at male behest. Do I think that women ought to think critically about the ways in which our culture shapes their erotic drives, particularly when it encourages pleasure in submission and a sense of “being small”? You betcha. Am I troubled that we live in a world where so many women are taught to find particular pleasure in being overpowered, overwhelmed, “swept off their feet”? Of course. It may be my place as a teacher to raise uncomfortable questions, but that’s as far as I ought to go.
Explicit judgment and direction are things I choose to reserve for the men in my life, not because I am filled with self-loathing or dislike masculinity, but because I believe in the importance of same-gender accountability. And, most of all, I am leery of having any man — no matter how well versed in feminist rhetoric and praxis — telling a woman what she “ought” to want. Lord knows, I spent years wishing that more women would eroticize cross-country runners instead of football players! It’s damned hard for any man to ever escape the charge of blatant self-interest when this topic comes up, and though it’s been nearly twenty years, Lisa the swimmer’s cutting words still echo in my brain.
If you want to read the original post’s comments (there were over 100) click here and scroll down.
Hmmm. Interesting post. As a large woman (180 lbs in recent years) myself, one would think I could relate to the desire to feel small in comparison to a Significant Other, but I actually can’t. The fiance I left early this year was a 5″4 130 lb Guatemalan. If anything, I liked looking at his skin and thinking about how nice it looked and forgetting about my own white skin. (Another self-image issue to be addressed another time, perhaps.) The man I’m currently interested in is a few inches taller but equally skinny as my last. I haven’t dated someone a lot taller than me since I was 19, and I mainly remember the height difference as bothersome.
I’ve worked hard for many years at seeing myself as attractive and sexy at any size, so maybe that’s helped me? Dunno! Good to get these issues percolating in my brain, though.
that is an awesome comeback, would lisa mind if i used that. i hope she understands when i won’t quote her on it because it’ll ruin the whole comeback moment.
on a little note, i actually don’t like dating TOO tall guys for mechanical reasons. that’s my excuse and i’m sticking to it!
Lisa seems to identify the problem with your behaviour pretty clearly when she calls you an asshole. That you posit the lesson here is “Men shouldn’t judge womens’ actions/thoughts/feelings” rather than “You shouldn’t guilt people into serving your interests” is where your train of logic seems to jump tracks. Excusing your being an asshole as inherent to the situation, rather than a personal failure on your part, isn’t the right way to look at it.
I’m not entirely sure beyond this. You’re very keen on “homosocial judgements”, which still rings completely false to me. It certainly seems like most men I know take moral judgments of their actions from women much more seriously than they do from other men, but feel a lot less comfortable judging women than other men. (I’d guess this comes from mothers being primary parents, but I really have no idea.) If we want to treat women as equal people, this does mean holding them to account as peers (not the “hands off” thing common now, and just as certainly not the “as children” thing that proceeded it. Whether this is a fine line issue, or the need to move in an orthogonal direction; I dunno. There may also be a need for women to get better at telling us to fuck off and die first. It may well be that I’m much more vulnerable to moral judgments by women than men precisely because I’m much better at telling men to fuck off.)
Of course, I think (if I’m being honest, one can judge me for thinking this as they see fit) that it’s generally a mistake/bizarre/inexplicable for women to be (non-platonically) involved with men at all. This is (obviously) a far less self-serving opinion, so the involved dangers are much less.
Hugo,
what, do you think, would be the cultural explanation for a strangely statistical fact that human males are about 10% taller (and similarly more muscular and voluminous) than human females. Everywhere. Clearly desire is more complex than this, but I think a female preference for men who are about 10% taller than they are, would make a much better null hypothesis than assuming their preferences are solely shaped by the media. They are likely just looking for their size-rank equivalent.
Sam, you lost me there. I don’t think that anybody is arguing that the difference between median female and male body size is a cultural invention (although cultural factors can certainly exaggerate that difference). Where do get from that to a “preference”? Most people have brown hair, so does that mean that the null hypothesis is that gentlemen do not prefer blondes?
So is wanting a “big strong man who will make me feel delicate and feminine†something feminists ought to try and talk women out of?
Well, no. But it’s something feminists should talk about. Scolding people for their personal preferences is silly, but I’ve never understood the argument that romantic or sexual preferences JUST ARE and feminism MUST NEVER THINK ABOUT THEM, EVER.
Seconding Mythago in the attack on “just are”. A lot of things just are but they don’t have to stay that way.
My pet theory is that everyone has a master/mistress, a slave and a free person inside them in differing percentages, which accounts for tops, bottoms, switches and vanilla folk, all. A person can have sexual responses that don’t jive with the rest of their personality or what they identify themselves as. I had this problem during my sexual days, and agonized over it. Nature just does sloppy work sometimes, and society/culture isn’t any help. But after 30-some years, it ticks me off to hear doctors say they aren’t any closer to making a person’s body obey them in this function. All we have are quacks claiming to make gay people straight. [Yes I know that size preferences aren't the same thing as kink, but it's possible there might be some crossover sometimes.]
Now, whether women have an inborn fetish for tall men or whether it’s induced by the culture, I don’t claim to know. Let’s hear from the women who like little fellows or same-size ones, and how they explain that. Let’s hear from the women who aren’t big and strong but wish they were, who have spent so much time unlearning body hatred that they have never had time to have sexual preferences in the first place.
We’ve all heard of men in positions of power who get off on being dominated; can the same thing happen with women? And can’t any powerful person, or any person, period, need to feel enwfolded and protected once in a while? Wanting to bury oneself in the arms of someone bigger isn’t always a kinky, politically incorrect or oppressive thing–it might be a reasonable response to a screwy world. Another thing, I’d not want to ride a horse that wasn’t big enough to carry me. All right, I don’t know a whole lot about any of this, I just tried to figure it out, take from it what you may.
I think it’s important to not go around attacking someone’s feminist cred if she has that sort of leaning, or is into the bottom side of BDSM. It isn’t soomething one can help.
Yet.
Well, I suppose that’s still subject to Hugo’s cordon sanitaire between the sexes in discussing the matter across between, rather than within, them.
So do women get to hold men accountable for their personal preferences in a partner, then? Just … curious.
Sam
Rather than ask the question, the sensible thing to do is to measure it. Even easier is have someone else measure it and google their findings.
So start at Sear and Marlowe 2009 say, and see that although “western” culture shows an absence of woman taller marriages than can be expected by chance, that’s not a cultural constant. Nettles et al 2002 find that taller than average men have the most reproductive success, while average height women have the most reproductive success. Ah, here we go Kurzban and Weeden 2005 found that women preferred taller men regardless of their own height, for instance.
In practice, this is probably double-jumbled by expectations. I’d be a lot more reluctant to approach a woman taller than me than one shorter, if only because I’d expect it’s much more likely I’d be rejected, similar to say, how I’d probably never approach a woman older than I am for a relationship, even though women I’m attracted to are probably a gaussian around my own age, say.
Brian,
the problem, of couse, is, that there is no way to definitely answer whether revealed preferences are caused by nature, nurture or an intricate mélange thereof, wich I think is the “logical” assumption to start from knowing about biological and social evolution. Be that as it may, I don’t think it’s possible to conclusively prove or disprove either hypothesis. Cross cultural studies may indicate biological causes, but there aren’t too many cultures that aren’t influenced by current Western culture, so that’s not conclusive either.
In the end, while I think there’s good reason to believe in a strong biological element in shaping this kind of sexual preferences, I cannot prove it, and I can’t disprove the opposite. I just know that these preferences exist and I, as opposed to Hugo, don’t think that men aren’t allowed to question and morally evaluate women’s preferences while feminism is a system built on doing *just* that with respect to men – what else are the notions of “patriarchy” and “privilege” in the end.
Lisa’s angry reaction to your conjecture about the reason she wanted a mate larger than herself does not negate the veracity of your conjecture. You had a romantic interest in her, yes, and so she figured you had an ulterior motive in your charge. But maybe she WAS capitulating to a societal expectation of what she should be. (Or maybe she wasn’t. The point is: we don’t know.)
As for your 5’8″ friend who asked if wanting to feel feminine and protected made her less of a feminist: a little, kinda, yeah, because she’s expecting the man in the relationship to be the protector, rather than accepting that men and women can be protectors, and men and women can be nurturers.
And if you’re such a big advocated of same-gender accountability, then what of Melissa McEwan’s scolding of men just two posts before this — scolding not rapists or sexual harassers, but rather men smiling from across the street to be friendly? Is she out-of-bounds for not waiting for another man to censure men?
That’s so funny because I thought for years (I’m 5’8″) that I liked bigger guys too because a smaller guy would make me feel big/clumsy/unfeminine-and-therefore-unsexy. But once I let go of that, I found that smaller guys are actually much more proportional body-wise–beautiful lithe compact little frames that actually suit my tastes far, far better. And I don’t get the stupid crick in my neck/suffocated feeling I always used to get in kisses and embraces. Subliminal cultural programming is lame.
I’m 5’8″, a proud feminist, and I can’t bring myself to be attracted to anyone less than 6 feet. :/ At the same time, I can’t even bring myself to be attracted to many people taller than 6 feet, so maybe I should work on that first…
Sam: what, do you think, would be the cultural explanation for a strangely statistical fact that human males are about 10% taller (and similarly more muscular and voluminous) than human females. Everywhere.”
I’ve actually done some reading in the past on sexual dimorphism in terms of size. For one thing, I don’t think people are aware that sexual dimorphism-based size variation is wildly variant across all animal species, both in which gender is larger and in the degree. For instance, blue whales have about the same percentage variation between the sexes that humans do, but it’s the females that are about 10% larger. In contrast, in elephant seals, the males are about 300% heavier and 100% longer than the females.
Another interesting thing is how that whole “everywhere” part…well, not really. There is a 3% height difference between the average Nigerian man and Nigerian woman. There is a 7% height difference between the average South Korean man and woman. The average Belgian woman is taller than the average Iraqi man, the average Peruvian man, the average Filipino man–and many others–but they are all indistinguishably of the species H. sapiens.
It’s best to check your assumptions at the door before engaging in speculation based on ‘em. I’m just saying.
Lisa,
I didn’t say the animal kingdom is the source of all wisdom
As for humans, thanks for the more detailed numbers, but there still *is* a statistically significant difference within geographically separated genepools, according to your data. Until a very short while ago, Belgium and Iraq actually were completely separated genepools. And they still are largely separated. But the variety is interesting – do you know the extent to which female and male size reacts differently to improved dietary conditions? Or are these size differentials mostly gene-based?
LOL, my mentioning the animal kingdom in general is to illustrate that the size difference in the genders in H. sapiens is actually pretty minor–people obsess on it, apparently not realizing that in the bigger picture of sexual dimorphism between the sexes in general spans a far huger variation than is found in humans.
Indeed I don’t know the identified causes of the size differentials, though I would love to find some research that addresses it…as opposed to people’s agenda-based guesswork, which is way more abundant on the internet, tragically.
Sam, I don’t understand the argument that since biology may play a factor, we shouldn’t consider, much less critique, any social factors at play. It’s pretty obvious that in the US, at least, there is a cultural norm that women are “supposed to be” taller than their male partners; whether or not there is a biological component to that attraction, there is nothing neutral about the social component.
Tom, discussion is different than lecturing or telling somebody what they “should” want.
mythago,
didn’t say that. Just that I don’t think it’s reasonable to work from a ‘blank slate’ null hypothesis in sexual attraction, which is what I understand Hugo’s statements in this respect to mean.
i think i’m immune to whatever it is that makes height a significant factor in attractiveness, because i honestly don’t have a height preference for guys. i’ve dated them all over the spectrum, from 5’5 to 6’4 and have many “types” that i am attracted to. when i picture someone attractive, it’s really about their face and overall appearance and not their stature, although i suppose i would prefer to stay in between tom cruise and the NBA, for mechanical purposes.
i have historically had a preference for guys who are “bigger” than me or the same size, whether it’s height or build that does the job, but as i’m fairly thin (but tall), i haven’t encountered a guy i am interested in who is both shorter than and weighs less than i do, so i’m not sure of my reaction. i think that i would be pretty ok with it, apart from teasing him about needing to load up on the krispy kremes now and then, but that’s probably because i am a lot more confident in my looks these days. in my very early dating years (15-17), i was embarrassed to date guys who were shorter than me, because i felt amazonian and “wrong” next to them, but by the time i was out of high school, i managed to break free of that definitely culturally imposed fear.
now my concern is that i’ve had several shorter guys i’ve dated in my 20s thus far confess to me at one point that they were unsure about approaching me or asking me out or making a move on me because they thought i would reject them because i am on the tall side to begin with and positively towering with some of my heels and naturally wouldn’t want to be with a guy shorter than me. of course i corrected them and hopefully going forward they won’t be shy about pursuing taller women because of height.
“Being with a man so much taller and bigger makes me feel smaller, more feminine…..”
What I’m reading in this doesn’t really have much to do with the height of the guy, but the cultural messages given to taller and larger women that they aren’t “really feminine” or even “really women.” In other words, in the absence of cultural messages about the unwomanliness of larger women, would the height of their male partner matter? (this being a het conversation after all)
I’ll be frank—I’m a smaller woman, and yeah, I prefer big guys. Not just tall, but heavy too (skinny dudes need not apply!). It’s just a preference, not a fetish. I guarantee you it has nothing to do with needing validation as being “feminine” and certainly not “submissive” (Hugo, is this your tallness speaking? Why do you assume submissive from shorter? Damn, don’t you know any short people? We are far from submissive!!)—no, a great big part of it is that bigger guys (IME) aren’t as given towards macho posturing as the shorter guys are. Aren’t generally as bad-tempered, or quick to fight. Are more willing to accept a certain physicality in women; they aren’t as upset at female muscles or athletic ability.
And I know that what creates that “Napolean complex” is a lot of effed up cultural messages handed out to shorter men. I have sympathy for that; as a person that has crappy cultural messages sent out to me for my body, too (ooh! black hair! big tits! betcha she’s hell in the bedroom! real nasty slut!).
But I’m not Ms. Fixit. I’m not going to pretend I can’t carry the 40 pound bag of cat litter because it makes some poor dude feel emasculated. I’m not going to stop working out because some dude thinks muscles aren’t “feminine.” I have yet to meet a “big guy” who has a attitude problem about whether I’m up to feminine par or not.
Hugo,
It is indeed amusing to note the paradox of your insistence that gender is socially constructed, and constructed in a way that oppresses women, while at the same time advocating definite boundaries in who can hold who accountable – boundaries based firmly and solely on gender. So in other words, we must maintain boundaries between the genders, so we have a domain of people we can properly criticize and enjoin. All in an contorted effort to make those same rigid and oppressive gender boundaries disappear, to free women. Quit a feat, to hold it all together in your head.
But seriously, this post is little more than a continuing plea that gender-based policing be maintained. Men must continue to police other men, but said policing must be done under principles established by women. Women, as the higher order of humanity, are, of course allowed to police everybody directly, and to also indirectly oversee and critique the way men police men. So gender continues to be policed, we continue to need gender boundaries, but the boundary for men is smaller because they can’t cross the sacrosanct line and offer an opinion on the other gender’s behavior or motives. Women, as selfless beings, would only use feminist rhetoric and principles for the highest and most noble purposes.
“When men do try and hold women accountable, even in the name of feminism, it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish a righteous motive from a self-serving one. ”
Odd, you never seem to consider that women could have other than righteous motives in holding anyone accountable. So it follows that, since gender is socially constructed, there must be some extraordinary aspect of the current process of construction that has bred all inner selfishness out of one gender, supposedly at the cost of oppression.
Ahhh, the mills of the Patriarchy grind slowly…
Quite simply, if you want to end artificially constructed and oppressive gender boundaries, you ought to be enjoining everybody, men and women, to hold everybody, men and women, accountable to a just standard of behavior towards everyone.
There is a really, really big difference between, as a male, trying to use “feminist theory” on a female you want to date and want to use feminist theory to convince them to date you, and between calling out females you know on their non-feminist behaviors.
The former is problematic behavior, to say the least. The latter is not, and should be part of regular conversations between friends who seek to hold each other accountable and benefit from their mutual friendship.
And for the record, there are us women out there who /do/ tend to prefer men shorter than them — I’m definitely one of them. I couldn’t ever articulate why, though, so I’m no use there, and I didn’t even realize it myself until I looked at the evidence and realized it couldn’t just be coincidence 4 out of 5 guys I liked were my height or more often smaller.
@Chareth
Many men are going to be reluctant to (or flat out avoid) approaching you non-platonically if you’re taller than them. Some probably because they aren’t interested in taller women, but some because they figure they don’t have a shot. I’m not sure there’s much you can do beyond learning to approach men, though I suspect that’s a hazardous route to, if only because a lot of men are likely to find it confusing. Either because they’re not used to it, or because they’re the kind of guy Hugo outlines here.
I think the bigger point here is the debate between whether Hugo’s fuckup was inherent to the situation and his gender, or one he should own entirely on his own? Is it really inherently bad for men to question women about their preferences, or is it bad that Hugo did so dishonestly and dishonourably?
I want to connect this to something I find a little odd. Women’ll often report that when they’re doing something women are “supposed” to be bad at (I dunno, say they’re installing some wiring?) they feel extra pressure because they feel like they’re representing all women. But in the reverse, when I’m bad at something men are supposed to be bad at (for instance, I’m not a very good knitter), the expectation that I’m bad and shouldn’t be expected to be good relieves me of pressure and responsibility. Hugo’s passing of the buck from himself to our gender as a whole strikes me as problematic because of the way I look at it here; I probably should be asking how Hugo looks at it (or he should be explainin’)
Sweating Through Fog,
“Men must continue to police other men, but said policing must be done under principles established by women. Women, as the higher order of humanity, are, of course allowed to police everybody directly, and to also indirectly oversee and critique the way men police men.”
Hugo (and a lot of) feminists are clearly aware of the oxymoronic nature of such statements. That’s why he anticipated this criticism above and that’s why feminists always refer to articles of faith when confronted with such a logical juxtaposition: privilege. Since men have that elusive something and women do not, it’s ok for women to discriminate, but not for men… all this comes down to is faith, not fact. And it’s impossible to argue with faith.
LOL, male privilege isn’t very elusive. I’ve spent my adult life in male-dominated fields of employment where women are, upon visual sighting, automatically assigned the status “defective due to gender.” Must be nice to be able to find male privilege “elusive.”
I’m jealous.
LisaKS, privilege is an “elusive” concept in the sense of not being very clearly defined and delineated. You can point to outcomes that indicate it exists and has an effect, but that’s not the same as understanding what it is and where/how it’s really operating. And that’s what makes it a little too convenient an argument for the juxtapositions Sam is citing.
“Privilege” is very clearly defined; it means “a right granted as a particular benefit or advantage.” “Male privilege,” then, is “a right granted as a particular benefit or advantage due solely to the grantee’s male gender.” Pretty straightforward, and neither “convenient” nor “inconvenient;” simply reality.
I went back and looked at the “juxtapositions Sam is citing” and frankly, couldn’t find any. I did find where he quoted some confused dude who either thinks that women are a higher order of being (thanks! flattering, but I’m afraid not) or thinks that Hugo thinks women are a higher order of being (which he doesn’t, so nothing more than an attempt to establish a strawman, therefore not worthy of further deliberation). Is there something on here that he’s said that I missed?
You know well it’s not really that simple – there would be far less to discuss if it was. There is (at least today) no explicit rules specifically granting men particular benefits that you’re referring to here. Where is it specifically declared at your company that “women are, upon visual sighting, automatically assigned the status ‘defective due to gender’”? Is there a handbook somewhere saying so?
What “male privilege” is generally referring to is a certain amount of systemic bias that produces more favorable outcomes for men than women. There’s plenty of reason to believe that exists, but it’s still a slippery concept. And for that reason, when you say “Men may be held to a different standard than women here because of Male Privilege”, it’s generally not a very convincing logical argument by itself.
In retrospect, though, you’re probably right that “Hugo thinks women are a higher order of being” is a strawman; he didn’t quite say that. I am curious to hear what he’d say about women‘s right to cast judgment on men‘s desires in a partner, though, because I suspect he’d wind up employing the argument I just mentioned.
Hugo could (though I don’t know if he will) claim that men have a “moral” privilege, where they’re generally seen as superior moral arbiters to women. (I’ve above said I’m fairly certain my prejudice runs the opposite way, but if there were some way to measure a societal average, I’d be keen to see it.) If this were the case, it might be legitimate to say “I won’t exert moral judgment over women until they exert moral judgment over men with equal efficacity as men exert moral judgment over women.” as a unequal measure on unequal ground to push towards the equal ground. When to treat each other as equal individuals and when to treat each other as equal collectives is always dicey business, and one might reasonably make either choice in many circumstances. Hugo could certainly say “I have the right to cast judgments over women, but I choose to refrain to compensate for an inequity in moral judgments across the genders.”
Whether men have a moral privilege? We’re pretty sure men have an economic privilege. The spending gap aside, men generally have more money, and can obtain money more easily. Other things are … dicier, and harder to measure. Money as an abstract representation of wealth makes measuring economic status so much easier than measuring moral status, say.
” “Male privilege,†then, is “a right granted as a particular benefit or advantage due solely to the grantee’s male gender.â€
You know well it’s not really that simple – there would be far less to discuss if it was. There is (at least today) no explicit rules specifically granting men particular benefits that you’re referring to here. Where is it specifically declared at your company that “women are, upon visual sighting, automatically assigned the status ‘defective due to gender’â€? Is there a handbook somewhere saying so?”
Well, there are guys standing right there that will tell you so, though. Is that somehow less real than reading it in a handbook? It rather seems it’d be more real than reading it in a handbook to me. So yes…it is that simple…how on earth would I “know” it wasn’t, when it is..?
“What “male privilege†is generally referring to is a certain amount of systemic bias that produces more favorable outcomes for men than women.”
Ah, here’s your confusion. No doubt that exists as well, but what I was referring to wasn’t some kind of “systemic bias.” It was a bunch of guys telling me I wasn’t ever going to be as good as a guy would be at fillintheblank because I was a woman and they saw that I was a woman and that was why, and if I’d been a man, that wouldn’t have happened, so if I’d been a man, I’d have had a privilege based solely on my gender.
I’m a tall-ish (5ft8) woman who likes same height or shorter (sometimes much shorter) men; I think in my case it has something to do with being taller than average around about when I started having crushes on boys, so they were usually shorter than me and so, by association… Certainly, I find extreme tallness in men a turn off, and my partner, who is about 5ft11 is at the threshold of what I find attractive, heightwise. Small men seem so pretty and compact, and more sculpted, somehow, whereas tallness can look a bit gangling and ungraceful. I also find smaller women more attractive. (Obviously all these comments just reflect my entirely subjective, capricious thoughts on the matter and don’t reflect any wider judgement than what floats my personal boat).
With regards to height as a feminist issue, I would be entirely unsurprised if women’s preference for taller (and older) mates was at least somewhat effected by cultural pressures and norms. However, just because this is the case doesn’t mean such desires are somehow tainted and inauthentic and that we should all immediately throw them out in favour of attempting to excavate and access some pristine, pre-cultural set of ‘natural’ desires. Rather, it might be best to assess how *damaging* they are. With regards to the height issue, it does seem that the demand that men are taller than their female mates harms short men and tall women, as well as perhaps stemming from some rather unsavoury notions about who should be the big strong one in a relationship and who should be the dainty, cossetted one.
LisaKS,
“Ah, here’s your confusion.”
I’m sorry, but the kind of thing usually referred to as privilege in feminist discourse is precisely what royalPITA defined. What you’re describing could be seen as a specific instance thereof. I’m not denying that privilege can be useful to describe one’s reality. I’m not saying it cannot be a useful way of introspection. What I have said is that the unifying concept of privilege is elusive. It’s an axiom based on standpoint epistemology, and as such, it’s a matter of faith, not fact. Again, there’s nothing wrong with faith in this respect, it’s just hard to argue with faith.
Well, since I don’t have any “faith” in regards to the topic of male privilege, I think I will just have to gracefully concede that I can’t even remotely relate to what you’re talking about, and live to fight another day.
Hugo is a bright guy and a hell of a good writer, but when he refuses to treat men and women equally he loses intellectual credibility. I can’t help but wonder if he is afraid that he won’t be “cool” in the feminist community if he asks women to critically examine the possible cultural causes of their preferences and desires. In life no one can know your motivation for sure. That uncertainty shouldn’t stop us from thinking.
Hugo certainly has the moral tools to know if he is being manipulative and I certainly don’t think that asking that women consider doing a little introspection is per se manipulative.
davev, if you’re talking about how Hugo would be perceived in the “feminist community” if he asked women do do a little introspection – it might not be received so well. When stepping into “the community” (such as by posting on a website like Feministing, for example, or participating in a campus feminist group), people who have male privilege really, really need to tread carefully. What works in the hands of one male speaker may very well be disastrous in the hands of another, depending on how they approach it.
“The community” tends to ask all these questions of ourselves already, and anyone with privilege stepping in and acting like they have this great idea that they just thought of without acknowledging that it’s been discussed already without the help of the men might very well be scorned.
If Hugo doesn’t feel comfortable, coming from a place of privilege, trying to be a leader to women in the feminist community, it’s probably a good idea that he doesn’t. The feminist community will continue to “do a little introspection” without Hugo’s involvement, but the men Hugo speaks to as a mentor and leader may not have been exposed to these ideas. He can reach and resonate with people we can’t.
On a side note, within the feminist community, women who stand up and say, “You only like X because the patriarchy conditioned you to, you ought to stop liking that,” are often treated with as much anger as Hugo experienced from his friend. This happens all the freaking time on a lot of feminists websites I visit! There’s a big difference between thoughtfully exploring what shapes our desires and the sort of pronouncement that Hugo made to his friend. No women who tells other women what she “ought” to want is going to be taken very seriously, either. I’d bet that his friend’s reaction had less to do with Hugo’s maleness and more to do with the ridiculousness behind the assumption that once we know where our feelings come from, that we’ll always agree they’re bad feelings and that they’ll change.
Scape – having a preference for guys bigger than you is not inherently a “non-feminist behavior”. If Hugo were calling out his female SO because she insisted that he pay for all their meals and entertainment out since He’s The Man, that would certainly be appropriate. Lecturing her on what kind of men she “should” find attractive? Well.
Sam, the phenomenon LisaKS was talking about has nothing to do with faith. But “it’s just faith” is an excellent way to refuse to engage in a discussion – it’s one of the reasons that creationists will argue that “atheism is a religion” or “humanism is a religion”.
@La Lubu
no, a great big part of it is that bigger guys (IME) aren’t as given towards macho posturing as the shorter guys are.
Possibly, but it might also be observer bias since people already associate positive effects with being tall and negative effects with being short, even before we hand out all the negative messages to people who are short. Of course, what is “short”? Some people define short as “shorter than average” (5’9″ in the US) and some people define it as less than 6′, but that’s not a large proportion of the population.
Scape – having a preference for guys bigger than you is not inherently a “non-feminist behaviorâ€. If Hugo were calling out his female SO because she insisted that he pay for all their meals and entertainment out since He’s The Man, that would certainly be appropriate. Lecturing her on what kind of men she “should†find attractive? Well.
Part of the problem here is that a lot of people conflate “I find X attractive” to an objective message saying that “X is attractive and not-X is not”. People also say “X is attractive” when what they mean is “I find X attractive”.
When a large mass of people say “I find X attractive”, does that automatically translate to “X is attractive”?
Brian,
“If this were the case, it might be legitimate to say “I won’t exert moral judgment over women until they exert moral judgment over men with equal efficacity as men exert moral judgment over women.†as a unequal measure on unequal ground to push towards the equal ground.”
The unequal measures on unequal ground to push towards equal ground is a good concise summary of the justification for all this. For why we want to, supposedly temporarily, limit men’s moral influence within their gender, and give women wider sway over both genders. Kind of “affirmative action” for gender policing. Manifest unfairness for a while, supposedly to correct unfairness, in the hope of a more just society.
If the goal of all this is to settle scores, and make men suffer for what they’ve done in the past, and to give women advantages to compensate for past disadvantages, it would work. It works for payback. It works for settling scores. It works for revenge. But it does not work for “gender justice.”
To have this temporary injustice lead to “gender justice” you have to believe that systematic advantages that are given to one group – women – to compensate for past injustices, will never be used beyond the point when equality is gained. You have to believe that there is something different about the nature of the favored group – women – that will cause them to relinquish the excess power they’ve been given to address inequality, once equality has been gained. You have to believe that they won’t use power for selfish reasons.
So, to believe that unequal measures will lead to equality, and not just the same old injustice with different beneficiaries and sufferers, you have to believe women are different. That they will not be corrupted by power. That they an inner moral nobility that is absent in men.
And that’s where the faith part comes in.
@Sweating
Naw, it ain’t like that. I mean, instead, if Hugo wants to argue that J. Random Man exerts 0.0000000003% more moral authority over J. Random Woman, then he can correct the net imbalance by refusing to exert any moral authority over women, while continuing to accept their moral authority over him. Net imbalance vs. individual imbalances. Surprisingly we tend to think of the former as a liberal approach and the latter as a conservative one.
Now, I think where and when to do this (and how, for that matters) requires a very difficult reading of the landscape, because the inequities that exist are complex and interconnected, and where to push isn’t always obvious, but if Hugo believes that there’s a net inequity in authority for moral judgments in our favour as men, he’s certainly able to justify refusing to engage in them, whether he turns out to be right that it’s helpful or not. I don’t buy that an inequity exists there in that fashion,, but I’m not sure how we can measure it, so it might be futile to argue over how it is. We can all take steps that look right, and as long as we’re all right about it more often than we’re wrong, we head in the right direction.
Brian,
Fair enough. I tend towards the conservative side. Hugo can, of course, choose who he holds accountable for what. I just object to the calls for men en mass to adopt his own policies of accountability, in order to lend greater authority to their moral betters.
Possibly, but it might also be observer bias since people already associate positive effects with being tall and negative effects with being short, even before we hand out all the negative messages to people who are short. Of course, what is “short� Some people define short as “shorter than average†(5′9″ in the US) and some people define it as less than 6′, but that’s not a large proportion of the population.
Well, I’ll allow that I may have some observer bias; growing up in the U.S. it’s kinda hard to get away from the anti-short cultural messages. However, what immediately came to mind was the large number of short men I know personally, who have directly, pointedly criticized me for my supposed lack of femininity, some with an entire laundry list of unfeminine shortcomings which they expected me to correct. I’m defining “short” in this instance as men under 5’7″. And like I said, I understand they have crappy cultural messages to deal with, but that shouldn’t mean cascading those crappy cultural messages down to the next person lower on the social scale.
Huh. I thought “women have moral authority over men” was one of Hugo’s bugaboos. After all, that’s the anti-feminist, traditionalist view; women are pedestal-dwelling angels who “civilize” men are are solely responsible for putting the brakes of good behavior on the poor, grunting things.
Mythago,
As you well know, Hugo and I have discussed thus before. He claims explicitly that he considers men and women moral equals. I continue to argue that the only way to make sense of all his injunctions principles, and criticisms about the way men treat women, and the lack of similar injunctions, principles and criticisms about the way women treat men, is that he really believes otherwise.
Interesting post. Now I’m trying to conceptualize if my like of short petite men (around my height, and I’m barely 132cm) is because I dislike the politics associated with being with a man who can overpower me easily or because of innate sexual preferences. Interestingly, my preferences with women are not so nearly height-restricted, and typically tend towards the tall end of the spectrum.
Well, whatever the case might be, you’re right on one count: if a man—even a feminist man—took it upon himself to wax philosophical about his theories about why the above is so, I’d be really suspicious and not a little pissed off.
It’s a sad truth that dynamics between men and women often tend to work out in a way in which men twist the concerns and ideologies of women to manipulate them back into their thumbs, sometimes unconsciously. I don’t think being suspicious of men in that way goes against good sense. It’s honestly, necessary.
The only positive I find in being paired with a tall guy is that for once I am conforming to societal standards and don’t have to worry about being mocked and criticized. All things being equal, I would probably prefer him to be shorter than me, or perhaps the same height. (I don’t think I really enjoy being made to feel “feminine.”) For practical purposes, I really don’t care one way or the other.