My student Mon-Shane, the same wonderful person who has recorded and uploaded a number of my women’s history lectures, points me to this piece from the ever-reliable Ann Friedman in today’s online Prospect: It’s Not the End of Men. Friedman is responding to this Hanna Rosin piece in the Atlantic, another offering from those who are convinced that feminism, cultural shifts, and economic transformation have led to a terrible crisis for American men. Friedman:
The latest contribution to the masculinity-crisis meme is “The End of Men,” a cover story in this month’s Atlantic by Hanna Rosin. Women are outperforming men in schools, at work, and at home, she argues. The global economy is shifting in such a way that it favors “female” characteristics, and male-dominated industries such as manufacturing, construction and finance are declining. “As thinking and communicating have come to eclipse physical strength and stamina as keys to economic success,” she writes, “those societies that take advantage of the talents of all their adults, not just half of them, have pulled away from the rest.” What if, she asks, “the economics of the new era are better suited to women?”
It’s disappointing that, despite a history of sharp observations about gender and 5,000 words to work with, Rosin makes the same oversight as all of the other hand-wringing articles about the state of the American male. She thinks the problem is men; really, it’s traditional gender stereotypes. The narrow, toxic definition of masculinity perpetuated by Rosin and others — that men are brawn not brains, doers not feelers, earners not nurturers — is actually to blame for the crisis.
The goal of feminism was, first and foremost, to win rights and freedoms for women. While changing men was never the primary focus of any wave of the movement, feminists of both sexes have long understood that egalitarianism is not a zero-sum game. Feminism offers men something of tremendous value: the opportunity to escape at last the suffocating straitjacket of traditional masculinity. As feminists have long pointed out, and as serious science and comparative anthropology have made clear, that straitjacket is a cultural construct, not an immutable biological reality. As I said in 2007,
I’m a feminist because I want to create a world where men and women alike can realize their potential; I’m a feminist because I believe that our potential is not directed or confined by our chromosomes or our secondary sex organs. My penis and my Y chromosome do not destine me to be unreliable, predatory, and emotionally inarticulate. My wife’s uterus and her estrogen do not limit the horizons of her professional or athletic ambition. Feminism is, as we’ve all heard, the radical notion that women are people. But it’s also the radical notion that men are people too, complete human beings, with the same range of emotions and the same capacity for empathy and self-control as any woman.
We’re all in agreement that modernity poses a challenge to traditional gender roles. To the historian, of course, the point is that it has never not been so: the sense that we are only now entering a prolonged period of masculine uncertainty is rooted in a false nostalgia for a time that never really was. As Michael Kimmel and others have shown, masculinity has always been “in crisis”. Generations of American men have complained of feeling “emasculated” by assertive women (read Rip Van Winkle sometime); a century ago, social conservatives fretted that co-education would make men irrelevant. The one constant from generation to generation is the keen anxiety that masculinity is fragile, perpetually at risk, always in need of protection from the encroaching and emasculating effects of luxury, intellectualism, and feminism.
None of us deny that the new economy has left many men — particularly working-class men — feeling bewildered and disheartened. The shift from a manufacturing model to a service and information model has brought instability and high levels of unemployment, particularly among men who don’t have a college education. But the same anxieties to which Rosin points were found nearly two centuries ago, as industrialization meant an end to a way of life for millions who defined themselves as artisans and farmers during the agrarian age. The discombobulation and uncertainty that defines contemporary men is an old story, not a new phenomenon. In the 1800s, farmers and blacksmiths had to become office clerks and factory workers; they were forced indoors (into a traditionally female space). And they coped, mostly by adapting themselves to new economic and social realities. (For example, men who had once built muscles naturally through manual labor now built them in gyms and through sports. The games that had once been considered childish — like running around with a bat and ball – became all important signifiers of adult manhood. The point is, masculinity is highly adaptable, and to its critics, remarkably difficult to kill.)
Friedman shares that same well-founded optimism for men’s capacity to adapt:
Perhaps the answer lies in the success of high-achieving women. In previous generations, women busted all sorts of gender stereotypes in order to get their piece of the economic pie. While there were various schools of thought among feminists about how to best make the case for hiring women, all involved reshaping popular notions about women’s abilities. Women could be firefighters and floor traders, CEOs and carpenters. The best man for the job just might be a woman, or so the 1970s slogan went.
It’s long past time we also acknowledge that the best woman for the job might just be a man.
Indeed. Shaped by a shifting culture and driven by economic necessity, the next generation of male workers at every class level will show the willingness and the enthusiasm to move into what were traditionally female professions. I see it in the increasingly egalitarian attitudes of my working-class community college students, where the number of young men interested in professions like education or nursing has begun (slowly, it must be admitted) to rise. Feminists have long suspected what reason and experience and science all show, that testosterone is not an impediment to empathy and that the the possession of a Y chromosome needn’t hinder the development of emotional and verbal intelligence.
Men are not weak. I make that case over and over again. But there’s a corollary to the myth of male weakness: the myth of male inflexibility. It suggests that unlike women, men are too rigid to adapt to a changing culture. It suggests that extricating oneself from the straitjacket of traditional masculinity is more difficult than escaping the corset of traditional femininity. And whether this incapacity is consciously feigned or sincerely believed, it’s rooted in a myth rather than a reality. If feminism alone can’t get men to develop their own emotional and vocational dexterity, then we can be certain that the inexorable realities of global economic patterns will accomplish the task. It has always been that way in the past, and will surely be so again.
I think what can be stifling to male flexibility is, in part, the masculine expectation of other men. I’m basing this notion, in part, on the experience my sister’s had with her son’s teacher.
Because her son has two moms, my sister was very pleased that one of the two kindergarden teachers at their local school was male. She requested him as my nephew’s teacher, thinking it would be great to have him exposed to younger adult men (he’s mostly around women and grandfathers). Later she heard from his teacher how grateful he’d been for that request as more than 10 families that year had requested that their children not be placed with any male elementary teachers. These were largely requests coming from fathers some of whom had flat out asked him “why would any man want to teach kindergarden after all?”
I wasn’t surprised (well, not too surprised) when my sister recounted this as I’ve heard the same from men who go into nursing. Assumptions are routinely made by other men about their masculinity or sexuality based on their career choice.
As the stigma about women doing “men’s work” has receded, men seem to be socializing each other against doing work deemed as “women’s work,” especially in the “caring” professions. I hope you’re right that it’s changing.
I’m reminded of the masculine additions put on certain “traditionally” feminine jobs … it’s always “he’s a male nurse,” or a “male secretary,” etc. Never just “he’s a nurse.” I guess the exception is teachers, although I had zero female teachers (save our gym teacher, of course!) until I got into junior high.
Hugo’s absolutely right that men are not weak and that it certainly is possible for men to adapt to a changing culture. For instance the number of American men who are accepting of gay relationships has increased sharply the last few years and now more men than women think so (53 vs 51%). Women’s attitude has been at a standstill the last 4 years. While there’s been a myth that men can’t change, perhaps the belief that women are good at changing is too strong.
I also find it strange that in the comments, both in this and other posts and in the posts themselves related to the male weakness myth, the female participation in gender stereotyping and gender role enforcing is almost completely erased or explained away as not their choice or as being inconsequential.
Tamen, it’s a given that anyone living in a patriarchal society, man or woman, is going to internalize a lot of the messages that society teaches. Of course women participate in gender stereotyping, because they learn all the same messages that men do about how the genders are supposed to behave. But Hugo’s quite clearly shown over time that his angle in this big feminist picture is to speak as a feminist man to other men. Us women in our feminist blogs and feminist groups do a lot of talking to other women about our roles in this stuff and picking apart the expectation that we perform for men’s approval. It’s not being ignored by any means and Hugo doesn’t ignore it so much as pick his focus and audience.
Love this post. Have you seen the article in the NYT on Sweden? Incredibly encouraging.
Yes, and thanks for the reminder to link to it, Victoria! Evidence of what we’re talking about. The key line in the Times piece:
“In perhaps the most striking example of social engineering, a new definition of masculinity is emerging.”
Stockholm today, San Antonio tomorrow. Bring it, Sweden!
I’m going to play devil’s advocate here and give you the traditional man’s debunking of that NYT piece. (NB: I am not a traditional man.)
The Karlssons are an interssting case because they are an extreme one: a soldier-turned-game warden father and a police officer mother. I think their arrangement is possible in Sweden, but in the US those occupations mold one’s character too rigidly. Our soldiers and cops, irrespective of sex, are expected to embody traditionally masculine values, chief among them being the use of force.
If anything, American cops and soldiers would probably tell you their role in our society is much more important and serious than in Swedish society, and that the use of force demands a discipline of the total person, not just of training. They live a harder, more martial code than most Americans, and because we feel we may need it at any time, they are not taught how to turn it off to be family women/men (or even just everyday citizens). Women probably do better at switching back and forth, because the code is somewhat foreign to them. But men turn their backs on it only at a certain cost to their identity as men. The ideal for men is to “compartmentalize” – a very telling word, because it suggests repression and bottling-up.
All right, then, what about men whose daily lives don’t involve the exercise of deadly force? Well, guess what. There is still a lot of pressure on them to be traditional men. The daddy track will cost them in terms of employment and respect (maybe not as much as the mommy track does women, but the rat race exacts its toll on anyone who opts out of it). There will be tensions between daddy and mommy, friends, grandparents…and the reason? Because American sex roles, and especially masculinity, are far too fundamental to American culture for individuals to go against them without some social sanction.
For better or for worse, it is going to take generations to change what it means to be a man in America. I’ll go further and say that because of the ways most of us construe and perform masculinity, individual men’s voices are not going to raise other men’s consciousness nearly as effectively as individual women’s voices have done. Work, duty, and providing will always come before nurturing, contributing yourself, and being yourself – as long as there is a price to be paid if if they do not.
Hugo, I share your optimism. I would emphasize, though, that at the research university where I teach there are very big changes afoot. Two years ago was the first one in the U’s century and a half history in which most new faculty hires were women. Many’s the time that I get into a crowded elevator and I’m the only male there. This has not been widely reported yet (as far as I know) but many such institutions are now practicing affirmative action in u-grad admissions — in favor of men! At William and Marry a couple of years ago the policy was openly debated (usually it’s just quietly done) and one of the proponents said “After all, this is William and Mary, not Mary and Mary”! The times they are a-changin’.
Paul, if you look at the history of how masculinity has shifted and moved in the past two centuries, we see that it is constantly in a state of flux — and though we will surely lag behind places like Sweden for any number of reasons, we will find our way to something very similar in the next few generations. The kind of jobs that will be available to Americans will require a heretofore unimaginable flexibility — but a flexibility that is within most men’s repertoire, whether they know it or not.
Yes, we’ve been talking about AA for men for a while now, Lester — and our hiring practices are roughly the same.
Hugo, I don’t doubt that that kind of flexibility is in most men’s repertoire – the issue to me is that he (gender intentional) who calls the tune doesn’t always pay the piper. Men’s attitudes don’t change as fast as their needs, and that is still, for the most part, tough noogies. There will be men needing to talk and share about this for many years before it’s all right to do so. Privilege is one reason: if you’re male, straight and not part of an underclass, you are somewhat expendable as part of established discourse, because the very trees and rocks supposedly speak for you.
Hugo,
all fair and well, the main problem is that mating, at least in the early stages, is dominated by female choice, and women do have a tendency to prefer doers, not feelers as partners. Sure masculinity and feminity are ever-adjusting, but the problem at this point is, it seems to me, that masculinity is squeezed between an expanding concept of feminity (the best man for the job may be the woman) and the reality “on the ground” that forces most men to compete more intensely for the fewer places “in the sun” because, put in overly simplified terms, it’s those men most women seem to be interested in. I’m not saying men have no power in sexual negotiations, but those who have tend to be the ones who are in scarce supply, and that’s those who managed to get through the fiercer competition.
Again, I’m all *for* changing that, but I don’t see female CEOs being interested in male kindergarten teachers. This is the crux of the problem, and feminism isn’t really offering any advice.
Well put, Sam. A huge problem – a bigger one than whether men will accept each other changing – is: How many women will accept men who are ready to leave the script? Who aren’t willing even to start acting it?
It’s at times like this that the essentialist, evolutionist gospel of the sexes begins to seem inevitable, even though it doesn’t make sense with what we know about people in our hearts.
Think of the future and imagine a fist pounding on a table, forever. Only the men can hear it, though, because it’s in their souls.
Does that mean you really don’t believe your argument and you’re merely presenting it so Hugo can strengthen his case? Or is this the Internet meaning of ‘devil’s advocate’, which is to create plausible denial if it turns out other people think your argument is dumb (“Hey, don’t get on my case! I was just playing devil’s advocate!”)
Sam, it’s one thing to point out that women participate in gender policing, but it’s really tiring to have this painted as yet one other thing that is all women’s fault. Are men only capable of being doers or feelers, but not both? Do men play no significant part in policing their gender, such that the male kindergarten teacher is a hero to his buddies no matter what female CEOs think of him?
women do have a tendency to prefer doers, not feelers as partners.
Doers, right. Yeah, who ever heard of a teacher or a nurse or a daycare worker who did anything? A tree stump with feelings could do that job. Well, or a woman, same difference.
I promise a follow-up next week. This whole “men would change, except women don’t seem to really want us to” trope has gotta get taken to the proverbial woodshed.
It’s funny, because the most fundamental myth of Real Manhood has always been that men do what men want, whether or not women like it or understand it — indeed, that the less women understand it or like it, the manlier “it” must be. Real Manhood in fact thrives on the myth that one of the things women never do understand or approve of the higher virtues, honor, self-sacrifice and so on.
So to claim that Real Men can’t do “it” (“it” being human decency, compassion, the caring professions, hard work, et cetera) because girls will laugh at them and stop sexing them is, you know, the least Manly thing a man could say. So you can claim to be trapped by the demands of Manhood or you can claim to be afraid to do anything women won’t like, but the one thing you can’t do is both.
@Sophonisba: false dichotomy. That assumes that women would be attracted to men or approve of men as men doing the “not real man” stuff that they say they like men doing. Experience teaches most of us that that generally won’t be true.
While we’re at it, can we finally proclaim that whole “feminism offers men something too” idea disproven? When the stimulus was put together last year and the “shovel-ready projects” looked like they were going to benefit men too much, the Obama Administration shifted priorities to female-dominated health, education, and welfare sectors. Now, rather than breathe a word about commensurate material efforts on our behalves, the response apparently is to explain how the destruction of livelihoods and prospects for so many of us is either a) nevertheless beneficial to feminism’s overall goals; or b) our own damn fault.
Tom, the Obama Administration’s spending priorities are hardly illustrative of a feminist agenda. There is no Feminist High Command dictating policy in the White House (would that there were, mind you, but alas, there isn’t.)
Mythago,
Where do I say that it’s *all* women’s fault? It’s a simple case of scarcity and opportunistic behaviour on all sides. We’ve been there last year when we discussed wanting vs. needing and the lack of desire in most men’s life. You know, the kindergarten teacher *would* be the envy of all men, if being a kindergarten teacher would be considered sexually attractive by women… seriously. I mean, I’m not saying a kindergarten teacher cannot be a Casanova. But his decision to invest more in “feeling” rather than “doing” would be unlikely to help him with most women. Being a wealthy banker would, in all likelyhood, although a few may also see his power as a turnoff. Overall, I think the argument is pretty solid, but I’m interested in what Hugo has to say about this next week.
That assumes that women would be attracted to men or approve of men as men doing the “not real man†stuff that they say they like men doing.
>What assumes that? Certainly nothing I said. What I said was that even if a Real Man is terrified in his weak and shriveled heart of hearts that LADIES WILL NOT SEX, he does not allow that to influence his decisions, which are based on what is right. If he is only half a Real Man, he may allow it to influence his decisions, but he will never admit to it.
The men who are scared to do anything that won’t get them laid have long since renounced any pretension to manliness, and I do mean any. You can be the butchest lumberjack in the forest, but if you’re just doing it to make women attracted, you’re a whiny modern type, not a traditional man in any sense. In traditional man lingo, ‘pussywhipped’ is an insult, see.
I mean, there is a rejoinder to my argument, although you haven’t made it, and that rejoinder is that Traditional Men are puling little hypocrites who don’t really believe any of their own hype. And of course that is true.
I am from Norway and we have pretty much the same paternity leave arrangement as Sweden – although the total time is shorter in Norway. At the moment 6 weeks out of 53 (with 80% salary up to a certain limit) is reserved for the mother while 10 weeks is reserved for the father. The remaining weeks can be divided between the parents as they see fit. Or one can pick a total of 43 weeks with 100% salary (up to a limit). Many employees offers as a perk to pay the difference between the upper limit the state will pay and one’s normal salary, others don’t. This is a good thing in my book and I had 11 weeks leave when my boy were 6 months old and I will take 12 weeks leave when my girl become 6 months this fall.
A year ago the father had 6 weeks reserved for him, later it were increased to 10 weeks. Studies then revealed that many men would like to take more than 6 weeks, but they felt pressured by either the child’s mother or their employer to not do so. So women were the major push-back force for men trying to involve themselves more earlier in their kids life. Mainly because they considered the leave their own.
Recently the political party (the conservatives) which a few years back introduced the law requiring incorporated companies to have at least 40% women on their boards proposed to remove the 10 weeks reserved for the father. Denmark have done that and not surprisingly it turns out that fewer men take a leave and those who do take a shorter leave than before. Again, due to push-back from women and the expectation of being the breadwinner.
B: Well, I do lurk quite a bit on several feminist blogs and discussion of how women maintain gender stereotypes, not only towards women, but also towards men is not exactly a commonly occurring thing. And when they do they also tend to put it in the same passive wording as you did: “…picking apart the expectation that we perform for men’s approval”. I saw the discussion around engagement rings a while back. And also there it was explained away as a performance for men’s approval – the ring was used by the man as a way to mark the woman as his or as taken. The fact that it often is the other way around – a performance by a man for a woman’s approval (using at least one month wage on a ring to prove his commitment) didn’t seem to be considered.
There is nothing related to men’s approval behind the women’s pushback against fathers who wish to take a longer paternity leave.
Sophonisba,
so what are you saying? That people are teleologists and not deontologists (like this – http://www.nowomandiet.com, learn to let go so they will want you more)? That they are opportunists? That feminism is a huge hypocrisy (as per men being “pussywhipped”, in your terms)? That it’s all a bit more complicated than most people understand? I’m not quite sure what your point is.
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Hugo,
now I’ve finally had time to read both articles you cite – interestingly, I feel that Ann Friedman is, inadvertendly, making my point. Take these two quotes -
– and you have my argument about female mate choice squeezing masculinity and men competing for an ever shrinking sexually attractive kind of allegedly hegemonic masculinity. Of course, assuming a large majority of women will stay heterosexual, they will eventually have to either share the scarce masculine resource (http://www.economist.com/node/15867956?story_id=15867956&source=most_commented) or adjust their expectations – in the latter case, that may include cultural processes leading to a perception of male nurses as sexually attractive, thereby actually broadening what is considered sexually attractive in the masculine. There certainly is a possibility for that.
But to be honest, if I had to bet, my money would be on a rising polygyny factor, or a “sharing of men conforming to hegemonic masculinity”, thereby creatig a higher payoff for conforming to that kind of masculinity, more intense competition to get to that point, and a rising amount of disaffected men, with potentially problematic social consequences to follow. We all know what history’s usual way to deal with excess testosterone was, don’t we?
SamSeaborn, you seem to be skating around a semi-spoken misogynist trope that women are only interested in rich men. Why don’t you just come out and say it?
Where I come from, teaching and nursing do not take a man out of the “wanted” pool—it’s the polar opposite. Those are considered decent jobs. Are female CEOs (yeah, there sure are a lot of those) dating those men? No. But are women of the same social class dating and/or marrying them? Hell, yes. People—men and women both—date within their social class. Men of high socioeconomic status might recreationally fuck a woman of lower status, but they sure the hell don’t marry them (or even introduce them to their country-club friends).
Who do you know, in your life, that has rejected a man with a decent paying but below six-figure job because of his earning power? If you don’t have any anecdata, what statistical evidence can you show me that states this? I have never seen that—ever. I see the opposite—heterosexual men who hold those jobs that you (as a male) regard as unmasculine, are almost always married. Evidently, women have a different measure of what constitutes masculinity. We don’t really give a hot damn who is King of the Mountain.
Seriously, no. Think of the argument directed at male feminists that they’re just sucking up to women in order to get laid. If “but chicks dig it” were the sole or even major metric of What Other Men Approve Of, then “you’re just doing it for the pussy” would be a statement of admiration, not disgust. Think of ‘metrosexual’ or artistic men who are popular with women; are the ranked high among their alpha-male brethren?
Again, you’re dumping it into women’s laps, literally; men only gender-police because they’re following women’s lead.
But mythago, surely you remember back to when we solved poverty in a generation because women as a group fuck upwards and so no woman of any class would have sex, and therefore children, with a poor man, still less an unemployed one?
LaLubu,
“you seem to be skating around a semi-spoken misogynist trope that women are only interested in rich men. Why don’t you just come out and say it?”
Because I don’t think so. That’s truly bollocks. You’re absolutely right that homogamy is the (likely) the most important factor in (current) human mating decisions, although, for a male CEO it likely wouldn’t be a major problem if she was a kindergarten teacher – but that’s my experience (and, I think, statistics). But that wasn’t the point, as I understand it. The point, as I understand it, was the question of what defines masculinity, and what makes masculinity sexually attractive. And I’d still say that most women see male “power”, social or economical, as an aphrodisiac, and will consider a man’s will to be a “feeler” as a cool secondary criterion – doer, not feeler. That’s completely different from saying that women only want “rich men” – it’s about how perceived female preferences influence men’s decisions about their lives.
And yes, I have a bunch of female friends who have ended relationships in their late twenties with men whom they did not consider sufficiently financially stable to have family with, mostly artists.
“Evidently, women have a different measure of what constitutes masculinity. We don’t really give a hot damn who is King of the Mountain.”
Could you be more specific here, I’d really like to hear this. Honestly. How would you define masculinity? I do believe that we only care about the kind of the mountain because women care about us being or not being the king of the mountain. And experience tends to support us on this. But lets say you’re right and “women” – you said “we” – in general don’t care about that. Why aren’t women able to communicate that? And why do we always seem to see the winners of the mountain king contest be the ones women are interested in? Maybe this *is* just a huge misunderstanding. But if so, why?
Mythago,
“Seriously, no. Think of the argument directed at male feminists that they’re just sucking up to women in order to get laid.”
I’ve never heard that argument. I have heard the argument (and read it, by Jensen himself) that male feminists have a problematic relationship to their own sexuality, and that’s depending on the person, a possibility I won’t completely rule out… I don’t define as feminist, but I did have a troubled relationship to my sexuality and that was certainly one reason why I became interested in gender matters. So, yeah, I can’t rule that out for other men (or women). But I’ve never heard someone argue that male feminists would just do it to get laid. Seriously? Pretend-feminism as a pickup strategy? That’s sounds not just slightly absurd to me.
“Think of ‘metrosexual’ or artistic men who are popular with women; are the ranked high among their alpha-male brethren?”
I would consider myself among those men, and I am a guy other guys approach in the toilet asking about how to talk to the women they’d like to talk to. These days, it’s usually my ability to talk to women (now – remember our discussion last year) that makes me popular among other men.
“then “you’re just doing it for the pussy†would be a statement of admiration, not disgust.”
You’re kidding, right? So if a woman was asked why she wears mascara, would she say “because men like it” or “because I like it”. If she was a normal person, she’s likely say the latter even though the former probably played an essential part in her liking it. Same on this side of the aisle.
“Again, you’re dumping it into women’s laps, literally; men only gender-police because they’re following women’s lead.”
Tricky. So much in this comes down to personal experience. Even though it wasn’t always easy, I’m by now glad I was able to look at these issues from different angles. I do honestly believe that men are mostly concerned with intra-gender hierarchies because they believe that’s what women want – and not rarely that’s a fair assumption, in my opinion, as per above. Would men gender-police at all if they wouldn’t care at all about how they themselves would be perceived by women? Would we care about what other men think of us without women? I suppose that we would, but only to the extent that we would care about what other people would think of us. I do believe that the gender issue only enters the equation through female choice.
although, for a male CEO it likely wouldn’t be a major problem if she was a kindergarten teacher – but that’s my experience (and, I think, statistics).
O rly? Statistics? Well, bring ‘em! Show me the stats on “marrying down”. And I mean stats, not “but Tiger Woods married a nanny!”
The point, as I understand it, was the question of what defines masculinity, and what makes masculinity sexually attractive.
Now see, this is interesting to me, because the only time I think about “what defines masculinity” is during conversations like these. And as a heterosexual woman, maleness is automatically sexually attractive to me—obviously, not every individual man is going to be sexually attractive to me, but I already dig the physicality of maleness. I like the feel of male bodies. But I don’t think of “masculinity” much, because I don’t have to defend it, or defend the socially-constructed notion of it (remember, masculinity is different in different cultures). So, we are inevitably going to be talking past each other, because you hold a set category in your mind that is different from mine.
And I’d still say that most women see male “powerâ€, social or economical, as an aphrodisiac
Absolutely not—not for most women, anyway. What we don’t find attractive is having to be “Mom” to a full-grown man. That is the finest anti-aphrodesiac around. It’s a burden to have to be the “rescuer” all the got-damn time; emotionally, physically, and yes, financially (oh man….don’t get me started….). I’m already a single parent. I don’t feel the need to find someone who has just as little (usually inclination, not) ability to do for himself as my 5th grade daughter, yet without her strong desire for and growth towards independance. My home is my castle. When I come home, I want to lay my burdens down, not pick up a few more. (I think we’ve had this “starving artist” conversation before on another thread, Sam. I’m sure of it.) In my trade, we have a saying about one of the qualities of a good foreman—you don’t ask someone to do something you yourself are unwilling to do (translation: if it’s a shit job, help out your crew.). In that light, I don’t think it’s asking too much for a man to bring just as much to the table that I do.
I don’t define masculinity in terms of….let’s say, superficial descriptors. Especially superficial descriptors that are also held by women (that indeed, are usually the basics for leading a life of dignity and integrity no matter one’s gender).
I think anything I may have to say about masculinity and what qualities I find attractive or alluring in men are going to be distinctly colored by my cultural background (rust belt, urban, sicilian-american, etc.). In my upbringing, men can and are “feelers” as well as “doers”—and that preceded feminism. In the last thread that went down this path, I believe you brought up the film, “The Wrestler” (I did watch it—excellent film, and it reminded me of someone I know, sans the shitty father parts. The guy I’m thinking of has an excellent relationship with his three adult daughters, but he has that same “stuckness”, the same tenuous, over-the-top relationship with his masculinity, that like The Wrestler, just may kill him). Let me bring up another one—the lyrics of Bruce Springsteen (what? shut up!). I know I’m not the only woman fan to appreciate the expressed emotion and vulnerability shown by the characters in his songs. That, to me, is a necessary quality for a man to have in order for me to find him attractive—the willingness to be emotionally and not just physically naked. Again, that’s standard-issue masculinity in some places—it’s not “pussified” to be either emotional or sensual.
(by the way, I hate the term “pussified”. Pussy is strong. It brings new life into this world, through great pain and struggle. It can take a pounding and be ready for more. You know what is delicate, highly-sensitive, and can’t take any pounding? Balls. Why don’t we have a term, “ballified”?)
One more thing: I hope my mention of the physicality of male bodies didn’t bring to mind six-pack abs and guys who look like they live at the gym. I’m talking about the sensual difference between male and female bodies, not exaggerated enhancement of that difference.
La Lubu, bless you, but that’s the comment of the year so far. Will integrate it into my next post.
Regarding the “female CEOs don’t want to date male kindergarten teachers” I think it’s funny that’s being entirely attributed to the women in the scenario when I’ve heard an equal amount of stories describing the opposite outcome — successful female makes lower-earning man feel less manly, so he bolts.
La Lubu,
thanks for your thoughtful reply. Will dig up those stats and be back with more later – just one thing for now -
“Now see, this is interesting to me, because the only time I think about “what defines masculinity†is during conversations like these. And as a heterosexual woman, maleness is automatically sexually attractive to me—obviously … So, we are inevitably going to be talking past each other, because you hold a set category in your mind that is different from mine.”
Yes, I suppose that the male body is inherently attractive to heterosexual women, just as the female body is inherently attractive to heterosexual men. But you rightly say * not * every male body is equally sexually attractive. And to be honest, my body didn’t really change a lot over the last 5 years, while my *performance* of masculinity definitely changed a lot, with quite impressive results with respect to attracting women sexually. What sets apart my earlier self from my self now with respect to interactions with women is not my body, but my behaviour – not necessarily about *stereotypcial* presentations of masculinity, but presentations that are still very *distinct* from my physical attractiviy.
I broke up with a “starving artist” not because I could not envision being the primary breadwinner in our hypothetical family, but because if I were going to take on that role, I would have wanted him to put family above his (totally un-lucrative) career, which I didn’t think he would do, and because even if he were willing to, I wouldn’t have wanted him having primary responsibility for our kids given a stormy temperment that involved occasional fits of rage over stupid little shit. Now, I’m sure someone from the outside might have thought it was his inability to be a “provider” that was a problem. But it was his inability to be an emotionally mature, equal partner capable of carrying his weight either in the work or caretaking area.
And, my sister married an elementary school teacher (male) who was very much in demand among the women at the school and in his wider social circle.
La Lubu,
will reply to Hugo’s new post in a minute, but here are some papers – basically, the trend is firm, but there are observable changes (as, say, documented by the PEW paper).
Genes, Legitimacy and Hypergamy: Another
look at the economics of marriage
- http://idei.fr/doc/wp/2008/genes.pdf
Preferences in Human Mate Selection
http://www.landofangels.de/py1/buss-barnes-1986.pdf
Women, Men and the
New Economics of Marriage
http://pewsocialtrends.org/assets/pdf/new-economics-of-marriage.pdf
Women with MBAs marry up while men with MBAS marry down
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=4777141
Marrying Up:
The Role of Sex Ratio in Assortative Matching
http://www.stanford.edu/~ranabr/marriage.pdf
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=4777141
But you rightly say * not * every male body is equally sexually attractive.
Close, but not quite. I said that every male body is not equally sexually attractive to me. What individuals of any gender or sexual orientation find attractive is going to be idiosyncratic. Most folks have a “type” of look they are attracted to, and that can have narrow or broad parameters (as well as folks being willing to step outside their self-set bounds of what constitutes “attractive”). It’s worth mentioning, because in the hypermedia-aware state of everyday life in these days, men and women are being (literally) sold a bill of goods in regards to beauty—the concept of beauty is appropriated and commodified to sell consumer goods. Sure—it’s been like that for awhile, but I’m Hugo’s age, and I didn’t grow up in the advertising-soaked atmosphere that my daughter is growing up in. (her reaction is one of biting cynicism, so don’t think my mention of this is parental pearl-clutching. More like a mention of thirsty mosquitoes or endless stop-and-go traffic, or any number of life’s little pestilences.)
Anyway. Point being, that both men and women have a broader conception of what constitutes “beauty” when it comes to personal preference.
And to be honest, my body didn’t really change a lot over the last 5 years, while my *performance* of masculinity definitely changed a lot, with quite impressive results with respect to attracting women sexually.
I believe you. From the outside looking in, I’d say this probably has a lot to do with becoming more comfortable with your self, body and soul. And that’s it’s primarily a function of age—getting older, more experienced, more tested by life, and (inevitably) spending more time knowing yourself, parsing out the real from the trying-it-on-for-size, only to find out it doesn’t fit. Self-assurance is sexy. It’s also a matter of figuring out who finds you attractive. Just like “everything ain’t for everybody”….well, everyone isn’t for everybody, either. And, if I can make a wild guess, I’d say you’ve probably learned somewhere along the way (which is sometimes evident in these threads, and sometimes not) that listening is an important attribute to have. Actual listening, not just mere nodding of the head while thinking, damn….how long is this gonna go on before I get laid?. If I could give but one piece of advice to young men, I’d say, “learn to listen. quietly. without interruption.” Because if you can do that, it will put you miles ahead of your competition.
Women with MBAs and their husbands had higher earnings than men with MBAs who had higher earnings than their women classmates. There were some similarities and some differences in the occupations of the wives of men with MBAs and the husbands of women with MBAs
Sam, I gotta get going, so I’ll look at the rest of the stuff later, but this? All this says to me is that male MBAs are more likely to have stay-at-home spouses—nothing about marrying women without formal education. This one doesn’t speak to “marrying down” (or at least, marrying down as I conceive of it—marrying someone who is clearly of a lower socioeconomic strata, rather than marrying someone who is temporarily out of the workforce, or who holds a lower-paying job within the same social strata).
And I mean stats, not “but Tiger Woods married a nanny!â€
A minor point (since I agree that stats are more important than anecdotes), but Tiger Woods marring Elin Nordegren wasn’t exactly a case of marrying down all that much. She was a nanny, sure, but a nanny whose mother was a well known political figure in her own country, whose father was a radio journalist, and who had plans to become a child psychiatrist. That reads to me more like, upper class young woman takes nanny job to see the world before settling down to preparing for some profession, than like a woman coming from a class background well below that of Woods. (Not that Tiger Woods couldn’t afford to choose the totally penniless daughter of totally penniless parents.)
LaLubu,
“Anyway. Point being, that both men and women have a broader conception of what constitutes “beauty†when it comes to personal preference.”
I completey agree. But my main point was the ceteris paribus part of my argument. My body didn’t change, what changed was my behaviour. I made that point to rebut your assertion that the male body in itself is what is attractive to women, when male behaviour – MASCULINE behaviour, the *practice of being a man* – is definitely another very important element in attraction.
As for myself, I think you intuitively got some parts right. I’ve definitely become relatively comfortable with myself (not least working through my feminist and religious guilt baggage with respect to my sexuality) and age has definitely played a certain part in that. But it was more conscious than that. As I became more self-aware I became more interested in other people and their stories, as I became more “successful” with women I was willing to see their point of view without constantly being concerned about my own issues. But it’s not *just* this that will put you miles ahead of your competition. The *other* part is the “stereotypically” male initiator part that most women still require men to fulfill for various reasons, part of which we’re trying to address here – and I’m still not that good at actually initiating physical initimacy. Which is why it’s, in my case, not rarely the women, who may, at some point wonder “how long is this gonna go on before I get laid?”.
Do you really think it wouldn’t be a major problem if she were a dispatcher for a trucking company? Or a kindergarten teacher whose parents were farmworkers? That class is important to women, but men are utterly oblivious to the concept?
“Financially stable” and socioeconomic class are quite different and it’s interesting that you’re conflating the two. An auto mechanic with a steady work record is “financially stable” in a way that an MFA graduate student isn’t, for example. Are your female friends really turning down men of lower income, or “lower” class? Or are they rejecting men they think are going to be financially careless or leeches?
But go ahead, pretend that men only gender-police each other because the girls make them do it. Every fucking thing is the bitches’ fault, isn’t it?
I made that point to rebut your assertion that the male body in itself is what is attractive to women, when male behaviour – MASCULINE behaviour, the *practice of being a man* – is definitely another very important element in attraction.
But sexual attraction for many people, including women, all stereotypes to the contrary, starts with physical attraction. When behavior enters the picture, it becomes a whole ‘nother ball of wax. Behavior is not universal amongst cultures. The “practice of being a man”, as you put it, varies considerably. The “strong, silent type”, to take one stereotype, does not really exist in my world. I don’t see “him”. That’s not part of the standard repertoire where I’m from. Men who think dancing, singing, musicianship or other artistry is effeminate? Again, not in my world. The men in my world are emotive, expressive, use expansive gestures….and it’s thought to be perfectly masculine.
That works both ways, too. Since we were talking earlier about class differences, it may interest you to know that while working-class men think I’m feminine, middle-class men think I’m butch. Who’s right, hmm? The fact is, the codes of behavior are completely different in different social groups.
So, while you may think it’s merely your behavior that has changed (and really, I suspect it has changed in relatively subtle ways), I also suspect that your audience has changed—you have learned to recognize the women who are already attracted to you, and have learned how to maximize that pre-existing attraction. You’re no longer wasting time trying to get women who aren’t attracted to you interested. That’s no small thing.
A larger share of men in 2007, compared with
their 1970 counterparts, are married to women
whose education and income exceed their own,
according to a Pew Research Center analysis of
demographic and economic trend data. A larger
share of women are married to men with less
education and income.
Sam, that’s the second paragraph of the Pew paper you cited. The graphs on the first page are more dramatic. Remember that in 1970 there were considerable barriers to higher education for women. There was no Title IX. Women could be legally barred from public colleges or denied admittance to various programs based on our gender. Women were denied admittance to apprenticeship. Want ads were sex-segregated. Pregnant women could be legally kicked out of school and/or kicked out of a job. No surprise that the stats are changing; we’re no longer relegated to the narrow band of opportunities from the 1970′s.
Tell you what. I’ll try to read through some of that stuff tomorrow night after I get home from my union meeting. I suspect it’s going to confirm my suspicions that there isn’t any real marrying down; that people marry within their social strata, and the income differential between men and women within that social strata can be chalked up largely to lower pay for most traditionally women’s jobs (the “pink collar ghetto”).
LaLubu,
“But sexual attraction for many people, including women, all stereotypes to the contrary, starts with physical attraction.”
yes, of course, I forgot to put an “not only” where it belonged in my statement. And of course, the codes vary. I didn’t say that they are universal, just that behaviour is also a very important part of attraction, and, in my opinion, more important than looks for most women. I mean, as I mentioned last year in Hugo’s “missing narrative of hotness in the lives of straight men”-thread, I was older than 30 when a woman first told me that. Even if that’s true for more than just her, women didn’t tell me this before I changed my attitude. Now they do, from time to time. Whatever my body *is*, its presentation through a changed practice certainly changed the way it is *perceived*. Performance does matter.
“I also suspect that your audience has changed”
I’d say it’s become larger, if anything. Two years ago I wouldn’t have dreamt of flirting with a nude woman sitting next to me in a steam bath. Now I can. And we had fun. Same body. Different attitude.
“you have learned to recognize the women who are already attracted to you”
Probably, too, yes.
“That’s no small thing.”
No, it isn’t.
La Lubu,
“A larger share of women are married to men with less
education and income.”
Sure. That’s why I said there is some noticeable change. I haven’t said that women “marrying up” is a law of nature, just that it is currently the case and it’s *one* (as I said: “put in overly simplified terms”) of the reasons leading men to reconstruct stereotypical concepts of masculinity because it leads to a perception of a squeezed masculinty.
One of the French papers is (simplified) arguing that a balanced demographic profile will lead to women marrying up while male scarcity will allow men to marry up (as also indicated by the recent article in the Economist I cited above).
The men in my world are emotive, expressive, use expansive gestures….and it’s thought to be perfectly masculine.
That’s the version of masculinity I learned from my Greek immigrant father; the middle class WASP grandfather on the other side of the family displayed a more reserved kind of masculinity. Both were, in their different ways, recognizably masculine.
Popping in here to say something sort of off-topic: Sam, whenever you bring up your increased confidence in flirting with women or talk about needing to be more bold in initiating sex, it squicks me out. I’m gay, I have no interest in flirting with anyone male, and when men I’ve never met decide it’s okay to come up and harass me (not in the cat-calling way, but in what they probably think is flirtation) it’s sometimes frightening and always irksome. I realize my experience isn’t universal, but I think it’s more common than you might expect. Even women who are attracted to men might not enjoy flirting with strangers or might have other things on their mind at the time, and there’s a very good chance that any given woman you run into is already in a monogamous relationship. I don’t think that the chance a woman will enjoy flirting with you outweighs the much larger chance that you’ll annoy or even frighten her.
As for being more bold about initiating sex, there’s already far too much pressure on women to acquiesce to sex they don’t want, to keep silent their feelings and desires -and if a woman tells you she doesn’t want to after you “initiate” something (I’m assuming you mean initiating sex through physical means because of some of your comments on other threads), you’ve already groped her without permission.
I don’t mean this personally -I don’t know anything about how you interact with women in real life. But I think promoting the idea that heterosexual men should be more “confident” (in this context meaning dominant, aggressive) in their dealings with women perpetuates the rape culture, and that’s a very, very bad thing.
To everyone else, sorry for derailing the thread.
Aishlin,
it’s not very manly, I know, but your comment had me on the verge of crying. Not just because of your unfair comment itself, but because of what it says about our (human) general inability to actually have a productive dialogue about these things on the internet because of different set of assumptions about the terms we talk about.
Think about it – how is your comment *not* personal? How is it *not* personal when you don’t know anything about me, say so, and still think you need to make the point that women probably don’t enjoy talking to me. You want their phone numbers to check? How do you meet people? Bluetooth? http://-handshakes? Wtf? Sorry, this *is* personal for me – I have had to deal with sexual shame my entire life. And I’ve had to deal with it because I was told that male sexuality is toxic, just like you do it, that expressions of my desire, even as simple as saying hello because of sexual interest, are potentially violent. I have healthy friendships and relationships with women now, and you’re saying I shouldn’t have talked to my friends when we met? I don’t get this. See, rationally, I can shrug off your unfair comment and its baseless assumptions, I have learnt to deal with that, but as much as I try to be rational, it’s really hard here – I may be a man, but I’m still human (men are people, too, you know), and your unfair comment got to me. Good job. I won’t reply to this anymore.
Sam, I’m sorry I upset you. What I meant was that, as I said, I know nothing about how you, personally, treat women in real life, so I can’t comment on it. I’m not saying anything about whether women enjoy talking to you specifically. For all I know, you could have perfect intuition when it comes to who to approach and who to leave alone, when to touch and when not to touch, though I think that as a general rule for most people it’s risky to rely on intuition at all. What I am commenting on is not your behavior in your private life but your words, here in a public space, which seem to me to be promoting an attitude that causes problems for women. I should have made that more clear.
I remember seeing a great blog post somewhere, I think Hugo linked to it a while back, about why men shouldn’t approach women they don’t know. I wish I could link it to you but I can’t remember the title or who wrote it, so I can’t find it very easily. Anyway, the gist of it was that men commit violence against women all the time, so it’s reasonable for a woman to dislike being approached by a man she doesn’t know, even if that man knows himself that he’s a perfectly nice guy with good intentions. Basically, the woman doesn’t have a responsibility to put herself at risk by talking to the man just so that she doesn’t hurt his feelings. Her safety comes first, and if men are upset by that situation the solution is to help end violence against women, not to complain about the statistically reasonable expectation that any given man might be violent.
That said, I don’t quite agree with that view. Most violence against women takes place within relationships, so it’s unlikely to be a problem when a man approaches a woman on the street. I’ve never felt there was a risk a man who approached me would hit or rape me. However, the conversations do often become rude or offensive, and I’ve been groped twice. Even if the man is a nice guy, I have to go through the unpleasant experience of turning him down. In addition to that, if I’m reading a book on the subway or doing my grocery shopping or whatever, I just don’t want to be bothered. More than anything else, it’s like dealing with a telemarketer. It takes up my time without my permission and introduces unnecessary unpleasantness into my day.
The idea that if men don’t approach women to whom they have no connection they won’t ever have female friends or romantic partners is a false dichotomy. Again, not to discount your personal experiences, but I’d guess it’s much more common for people to form successful relationships (whether successful means friendship, a lasting romantic partnership or even just a sexual partnership) through mutual friends, hobby groups, etc., than through approaching people they don’t know on the street. By the way, I’m talking here about approaching people in neutral public spaces such as the bus stop or the post office. Obviously the dynamic will be different if you’re approaching someone in a club or some similar space.
The other troubling thing about approaching people you don’t know out of sexual interest is that it’s inherently objectifying. Unless a man starts talking to me because I’m reading a book he likes or wearing a tee-shirt with the logo of his favorite band or whatever, it’s pretty obvious he approached me because he likes the way my body looks and is prioritizing that over my thoughts and feelings as a fellow human. Again, my experience is not universal. Some women might not mind that sort of situation. However, some women do mind and that alone should be enough to recommend not doing it.
The caveat to all of this is that of course similar problems arise no matter the gender of the person approaching and the person approached. I’m using the terms man and woman here because in the segment of society in which I live and, it seems, in which you live as well, that situation is the most common. Also, when a person who has been born into an oppressor group, whether he likes it or not, approaches a person who has been born into an oppressed group, whether she likes it or not, there’s a higher potential for abuse.
Finally, male sexuality is not toxic. That is, as long as you define male sexuality as a male person experiencing sexual feelings, which is probably about as specific as you can get given the vast diversity in the ways people experience sexuality. If you define male sexuality as having the “confidence” to push a woman against a wall (the other thread going on right now) or put a hand up her shirt (a much older thread) without her _explicitly_ asking you to do so then, yeah, that’s pretty toxic. I suppose I’d better add, one more time, that I’m not accusing you of doing those things -in fact, you’ve said you don’t. I’m saying that presenting those actions as good and desirable and shame over them as unfair and wrong is unethical and threatening.
Aishlin,
since you did apologize – This is what you couldn’t find. Maybe the discussion will give you a better idea about some of my points.
http://hugoschwyzer.net/2009/10/15/of-schrodingers-rapist-zenos-paradox-and-the-problem-of-trying-to-prove-a-negative/
Sam: thanks for the link. I’d forgotten that the post included advice on how to approach women without coming off as threatening, and therefore wasn’t completely in line with my more extreme view that approaching strangers in the first place is a bad thing. I’ll add here that my view comes in part from having been approached in that way starting when I was thirteen (mostly by men in their twenties). To be fair, I looked much older than I was -when I was thirteen or fourteen I went to sign up for a summer reading program for kids and teenagers at the local library and the librarian asked me incredulously if I was under the age of eighteen, so it wasn’t just men with a vested interest in “mistaking” me for an adult who thought that. My point in bringing this up is that there are some situations in which it is so overwhelmingly bad to try to flirt with someone you don’t know that these situations, even if rare, ought to overrule the potential good of an encounter with a woman who does want to be approached. Another example of this would be approaching victims of sexual abuse who are still trying to work out their feelings about sexually-charged interactions. I think it was you who said in the comments on the thread you linked me to that trust is a matter of deciding when something or someone is worth the risk. It’s true: even when approaching people you (general ‘you’ here) know through some other context, they have no guarantee you’re safe. However, if you only romantically/sexually approach people you already know at least a little through mutual friends or interests (or even personal ads) you’re less likely to approach someone who is underage, not of the corresponding sexual orientation, or not looking for a relationship. I also think giving instructions on how best to approach women upholds the idea that all women are potentially available to men until stated otherwise, instead of the (greatly preferable) other way around.
I’m still troubled by your comments about pushing women against walls, by the way. That’s not something anyone should be doing without explicit permission.
Aishlin,
sorry for your bad experiences. I guess I can understand where you are coming from, but that doesn’t make your assumptions about my motivations and intentions ok. It’s interesting how people who tend to think in oppressor/oppressed-terms often seem to be completely unaware of their own discoursive privilege in discussions like this…
“I also think giving instructions on how best to approach women upholds the idea that all women are potentially available to men until stated otherwise, instead of the (greatly preferable) other way around.”
You know what? Just as every man is a “potential rapist” every women *is potentially available*, as long as you don’t know otherwise. It’s simply the logical structure of *any* communication between people. As long as you don’t know x is true or false, x is *potentially* true (or false). You can’t get around this.
It’s probably also not what you’re think of as problematic – you’re probably concerned about the assumed “male privilege” that any women is not just “potentially” interested but assumed “actually” interested and some mens’ acting like it. These are two different things, though.
And the more men are able to spot the difference between women who want to be approached and those who don’t want to be approached, the less problematic the consequences of the assumed privilege will be.
Helping men in interactions with women is – I’m certain – one of feminisms most important allies. There’s just a lot of potential for misunderstanding because of different ways to communicate. The Schroedinger’s rapist article is nothing but advice for men, but it was seen as an attack because it was written in feminist-speak, and generally, feminist-speak is using abstract, general terms, even when the people using it are actually thinking of a specific case. Case in point? Your post – FIRST: “I don’t think that the chance a woman will enjoy flirting with you outweighs the much larger chance that you’ll annoy or even frighten her.” Lot of implicit assumptions in this that aren’t necessarily accessible to someone with a different horizon: LATER qualification: “By the way, I’m talking here about approaching people in neutral public spaces such as the bus stop or the post office. Obviously the dynamic will be different if you’re approaching someone in a club or some similar space.” You see what I’m saying? It’s hard to even assume we’re talking about the same thing, because we’re – and not just the two of us – not aware of the other’s implicit assumptions.
“Again, my experience is not universal. Some women might not mind that sort of situation.”
Actually Aishlin, I wanted to chime in and say that what you’e written about here is very similar to my thoughts, feelings and experiences as well. I actually appreciate hearing your voice about it.
Actually a few women I knew were raped by strangers, although I know violence tends to be perpetrated by people who are not strangers to us.
Sam: I don’t think it’s a matter of feminists using more abstract speech. There are only so many qualifications and disclaimers you can fit into a comment on a blog (you may notice that my comments are already littered with them).
I meant potentially available. Seeing women as actually available is a different problem and maybe more representative of male privilege; seeing women as potentially available is what causes even nice guys who’d be willing to take no for an answer to approach women they don’t know. In my view, people can’t be available or unavailable because those just aren’t words that apply to people.
What bothers me about your response is that it sounds like you’re dismissing my experiences as an exception and therefore irrelevant. Even assuming that women who have these sorts of unpleasant or painful experiences are in the minority, and I’ll assume that only for the sake of argument, whatever happiness other people get out of this practice isn’t worth it. Basically, the question is, how many hit-on kids are an acceptable sacrifice to the greater good of guys being able to hit on women they don’t know? How high do the rates of rape and sexual assault have to be before it’s reasonable for women to dislike being approached by strangers? By the way, teaching men how to minimize the threat they pose to women they approach still doesn’t save women from having to make those calculations, and still doesn’t do much good if the woman in question is actually a kid. That said, I grudgingly agree that it’s better than nothing.
Opponents of feminism, like white supremacists crying “reverse racism” and certain Christians in the US claiming to be persecuted despite the majority of Americans and almost all our elected officials being Christian, have figured out that it’s easier to paint themselves as victims then to defend their power outright. Often that involves co-opting the language of opposition to oppression. You “have had to deal with sexual shame [your] entire life,” I have “discoursive privilege.” Of course, I do have “discoursive privilege” in this case, because we’re on a feminist blog, but that’s by no means a general rule. In most parts of the US, ‘feminist’ is considered an insult. I understand that it sucks to be held responsible for problems that were around long before you were born, but just as simply not wanting these things and finding them unfair doesn’t allow women to escape violence, rape and workplace discrimination, men can’t shrug off their responsibility to help end, or at the very least not perpetuate, the current situation. The throwing-women-against-walls thing is a good example of this. It’s unfortunate that we live in a society in which men are expected to be aggressors and women are expected not to tell their partners what they want, but that doesn’t make it less of a good thing if feminists have convinced a man shoving women against walls without their permission is shameful. If the alternative is being shoved against a wall when you don’t want to be, or finding out that you just committed a non-consensual act of violence, it is preferable to not be shoved against a wall when you do want to be, or to hear that your partner wished you had shoved her against a wall. It’s also bit presumptuous (or insensitive, or just plain ignorant) to refer to that sort of shame -being too ashamed to possibly assault someone- as unfair sexual shaming when talking to someone who is gay.
Karen: Thank you for telling me that. Sometimes I feel like I’m alone on this, and I really appreciate hearing that I’m not. I’m so sorry to hear about what happened to your friends. That’s horrific.
Aishlin,
I’m really at a loss here. I honestly believe we could have a great chat about this in person and resolve possible disagreements within minutes. Honestly. Even if we wouldn’t agree on everything, I’m fairly certain we’d get to a reasonable understanding and respect of each other’s position. That is my experience of such discussions in person. Online it’s a different thing, for any number of reasons.
“In my view, people can’t be available or unavailable because those just aren’t words that apply to people.”
Pick any synonym you like. I think they do, though. I am available for this discussion. Later on I’ll be available for a chat at the bar I’ll go to. Of course, since no one knows whether I’m actually available for a chat before I have replied to the offer extended to me, I will be *potentially available* until that point. Why are you trying to disprove 1+1=2?
“What bothers me about your response is that it sounds like you’re dismissing my experiences as an exception and therefore irrelevant.”
I’m not dismissing your experience, but I’m not sure how you can expect me to understand it in the way *you do* and draw the same conclusions when my experience is different (and equally difficult for you to understand, apparently). I mean, maybe to you it sounds like a reasonable thing to compare men saying “hi” to “hitting kids”. In my world, that’s a comparison that’s so unfair it should be disqualifying, even with discoursive privilege. See, in a personal conversation, you could expand and explain your position, add context to your statement that may increase its validity. Online, that’s much more difficult, and the unqualified statement is simply unfair. I understand that this is an area of importance to you, and I understand that your reaction is likely even more emotional than my initial response to your first comment, but so is mine, and you seem to be forgetting that. Since there is no way to talk this over in person, I’d say we just drop it here – maybe, should we both keep commenting on this blog, we’ll eventually get to point where a discussion may be less emotionally overwhelming and more productive. I’d actually hope so – I do believe our differences are caused by language and different implicit assumptions more than anything.
“Of course, I do have “discoursive privilege†in this case, because we’re on a feminist blog, but that’s by no means a general rule.”
No it is not, but we’re having this discussion *here*. Are you saying that feminists reproducing something they identify as problematic is ok when they do it themselves? I’m not saying it’s ok to exploit discoursive privilege in other areas, so why are you saying it’s ok here?
“men can’t shrug off their responsibility to help”
Of course they can’t. But the problem is that the theoretical debate is largely going on *without men*. What responsibilities are believed to exist is not something men really have a say in – in the gender discourse their voice is certainly not heard to the extent it needs to be heard for them to make this *their* issue. Why is *my* problem merely a case of “coopting a language” of oppression instead of a description of an actual problem to be listened to, a problem that can not be discounted a priori because of the assumption that an assumed category of privilege shields me from feeling this way because of my genitalia. There are so many logical fallacies in the conceptual setup of this kind of feminist theory that I often think it really only makes sense as a mechanism of discourse hegemony. Although I don’t think you *intend* to do that, I think the way you are presenting your point about discourse hegemony here makes the case for me, in my opinion.
As for the wall thing, could you drop that already? I’m almost always the one who *is kissed*, and I’ve gotten good at making women do that. But I’m afraid of being wrong about women’s actual wishes to an absurd degree because of my sexual shame issues (that are not only feminist, of course). I am the one who forces women to do what they usually believe to be my job and would *want* me to do, because, apparently, having to initiate kissing seems to be a pleasure-limiting factor for them, for whatever reason. And not being pushed against a wall while kissing seems to have a similar limiting effect on their pleasure (30 or so women who said *that* is not empirial research, of course, but among the subset of women I know who kissed me or came close to kissing me that is a large majority). And how fair is it to force them to take the risk of being wrong about my intentions, when they are kissing me? Of course, there is the assumption that female touch is always wanted and male touch is always toxic… but it’s not a healthy concept, which, I think, you will be able to relate to.
By the way, since you mentioned you’re gay – I’m not, so I can’t relate personally, but it is my impression that sexual negotiations between gays and lesbians are *far* less verbal and *far* more physical (and physically assertive) than among heterosexuals. When I was out with a bi-sexual female friend recently, she did things in public with women she had merely said hi to that would have definitely have looked like groping and sexual assault if done by men at that stage of the interaction (like running her hand all over their bodies, including breasts and the “lower abdominal region” while dancing). I asked her what’s the difference between picking up women and men for her, and she said – “picking up girls as a woman is much more physical, as they will love the touch, but won’t be afraid because you’re a woman. You sort of swoop in under their radar, even if they aren’t gay. Men are usually expecting women to be less physical until they initiate the contact.” (yeah, talk about mutually reinforcing problematic stereotypes – this person is doing a phd in sociology, btw, and a part of that is about sexual communication, no kidding). Of course, that’s only her opinion. But still.
Unfortunately, I think that being hit on repeatedly by men much older than you, in public spaces while you’re a still not legal teenager, is actually a pretty common experience. I myself was hit on repeatedly by men old enough to be my father before I ever got anything I could recognize as a pass from any guy actually my own age. Personally, I think, in addition to any other advice in the Schroedinger’s rapist thread, that a good rule of thumb if you’re going to approach women you don’t know in any situation where they aren’t guaranteed to be adult is not to use the rule “only approach if she looks to me as if she’s at least 18,” but rather, the more conservative rule used by stores in carding people for alcohol, you know, the ones that advertise that they’ll card you if you don’t look as if you’re at least 25?
I asked her what’s the difference between picking up women and men for her
In my experience as a bisexual woman, part of the difference between picking up women and picking up men is that the standard feminine role approach (position yourself near him, catch his eye, approach, maybe chat him up, but don’t actually make the first move on anything as overt as inviting him on a date or trying to kiss him) actually works rather often with men but has a really lousy success rate with women. But that might just be me, or a function of which women I picked.
Lynn, I can only assume the first part of your reply wasn’t directed at me – the age aspect is certainly relevant in general, but not related to anything I’ve said.
As for the second part – “… but don’t actually make the first move on anything as overt as inviting him on a date or trying to kiss him) actually works rather often with men but has a really lousy success rate with women.” – I know. I should probably just stop telling people about things that may contradict their worldview…
Lynn, I can only assume the first part of your reply wasn’t directed at me
It was exploring one of the topics the thread seemed to have moved to. It was not intended to suggest that anyone specifically on this thread makes advances to women who look barely legal (and who may in reality be underage) in neutral public spaces.
Sam, I don’t know your friend or what clubs you’re going to, but I’m completely unfamiliar with what she’s describing as a picking-up-women strategy. What I have seen along the lines of what she describes is a sexual display women put on in public that are really meant to get men to look at them (“Check it out, those chicks are getting it on right on the dance floor!”) – particularly as she’s talking about “even if they aren’t gay”. I’ve been to a lot of dyke bars and dance clubs and so on, and grabbing a strange woman’s breasts was really never part of standard lesbian pick-up behavior.
It’s true that gay men can also be ‘touchy’, but outside of certain bars they don’t generally say hello by grabbing somebody’s crotch. Initial contact is “cruising” – openly staring at somebody to signal your interest. If they’re interested they return the stare, if not they turn away.
Lynn, I assume you know the joke about lesbian sheep.
Sam: okay, I think we’ve reached the point where we’re picking apart each other’s sentences instead of exchanging ideas, so I’m going to drop this unless I think I have something a little more fresh to say.
all fair and well, the main problem is that mating, at least in the early stages, is dominated by female choice, and women do have a tendency to prefer doers, not feelers as partners.
Sigh.
Sam, for God’s sake. Knock it off.
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