It’s noon, and I am finally ready to blog. I tried going for a run on one of my favorite trails this morning — but, alas, it was closed due to mudslides. The torrential rains of the past month have left my favorite fire roads and single-track trails impassable in many places. I think I may have to bite the bullet, as it were, and go back to doing serious training on asphalt. I might even do a paved marathon this spring for the first time in two years. I hope my knees hold up — they do love dirt so! Of course, in the aftermath of all of the havoc that bad weather and natural disasters have wreaked upon our earth this past month, the last thing I need to do is complain about the fact that my favorite running spots are blocked off.
I just downloaded the MP3 of last night’s Glenn Sacks show. (It’s available, if you follow that link, in MP3 and streaming Real formats. You can also spring $7 for a CD). I’ve only listened to bits and pieces of it so far. Like most folks, I recoil at the sound of my own voice; "God", I think, "is that what I really sound like?" Perhaps I’ll sit through more of it later. (By the way, if you listened live last night, there’s now some "extra" stuff, about seven minutes worth, tacked on at the end of the show that wasn’t originally broadcast.)
First off, I’d like to say that it was a very pleasant experience. My fiancee and I arrived early, and Glenn and his producer gave us a tour of their Glendale studios. I’ve never been to a radio studio before, and so I was very interested to see how a show gets put together. Glenn was very kind, answering all of my questions about the various screens and dials and microphones that he and his assistants operate. It was very educational.
The show itself may have been the quickest hour of my life! As a teacher, I’m used to adapting my lectures to the available time — 50 minutes, an hour, 75 minutes. I’m accustomed to slowly building an argument in stages. I’m not used to the speed at which radio happens! One doesn’t have time to construct an argument — one only has time for quick, pointed soundbites. As a result, I felt that what I was saying was incomplete, partial, and in the sense of contributing to a truly lofty dialogue, totally inadequate. Still, I was able to get a few of my points across, and I felt better about my performance in the second half of the program.
There were times when I felt as if Glenn was baiting me, but I understand that’s his job as a radio host. After all, programs like his are "info-tainment" – and the teasing directed my way (describing me, sarcastically, as "more evolved" and "enlightened", things I’ve never said and don’t believe) is part of creating a lively atmosphere. But I am also aware that my ability to take that in stride is, yes, a function of male privilege. Had I been a woman saying the same things that I do on this blog and in the classroom, I’m not sure I would have ended up on the Sacks show in the first place. And second of all, I suspect there might well have been more of an edge to Glenn’s words to me. The very fact that I can laugh off the teasing, and say, "Aw, I disagree with Glenn, but he’s a heckuva good guy" is pure male privilege. The men’s rights advocates simply don’t have the vocabulary to attack a heterosexual pro-feminist man with words that really wound. That’s not their failing — it’s that our language is filled with far more hateful words for feminists than for the men who support them.
But here’s what’s really on my mind today:
Male privilege functioned for me in other ways yesterday. After the show, I laughed and joked with Glenn and his producers. There was hand-shaking and back-slapping and plenty of mutual affirmation along the lines of "Dude, you did great." Because I am a man, I can distance myself a bit from the issues I care so passionately about. You see, male privilege gives me the freedom not to take anything Glenn or his callers said personally, because I know their real "enemy", if you will, is not me! It’s the people whose causes I choose to defend. But as a straight man, I have the unearned luxury of being able to walk away from pro-feminist positions any time I like. I can change my mind in an instant, and it won’t cost me a damned thing. If I were a woman who had come to the feminist movement out of my own intimate experiences of oppression and brutalization, there is no way in hell I could have bantered so freely and so warmly with a man who held such radically different views from my own. That’s not to say that women in the movement can’t laugh, or be civil — they can indeed — but the firsthand experience of oppression surely makes it a lot harder.
In any event, we weren’t able to get to many of the issues that I had hoped we would touch on. I would have been happy to spend an hour exposing the myth of gender symmetry in domestic violence cases, or taking on Glenn’s association with Choice for Men, a project of men’s rights advocates that I find particularly odious. (I was so ready! I had notes!) Above all, I wish I could have been clearer and more detailed about the fact that the profeminist men’s movement is not hostile to individual men, but to the patriarchal structures that shape their lives. In any event, I’d love to be invited back to debate many more specific issues that were simply glossed over in the light and heat of a single hour.
I’ll have more to say soon.
UPDATE: One thing I’ll say about the Stand Your Ground fellas. They are an industrious lot. One of them is busy transcribing yesterday’s show — a snippet is here. It’s always dangerous to take off-the-cuff remarks out of context, but I’ll stand by what I said. For what it’s worth, the language I chose around manipulation and domination is inspired by a well-known confession of sin in Anglican churches:
we have used our power to dominate and our weakness to manipulate;
we have evaded responsibility and failed to confront evil…
If there is a prayer that all of us working for justice could agree on, it might be that one.
I ought to cite my sources, but I don’t think referring to prayer books would have been helpful last night.
I think your speaking voice is good! (But I know what you mean….I hate the sound of my voice on tape too….I only hear the flaws. Must be human nature.)
Radio might be a fast-moving medium, but the frequent commercial interruptions were a real pain in the culiddu. There was postively no room for real arguments and/or discussion….the whole show seemed like a vehicle for lucrative commercial breaks to me. Sure, there’s an amount of “shock-jock” schtick to the show, but still….I’ve heard other right-leaning shows with the same level of attention-getting controversy that afforded listeners and guests much more time to get a point across, and develop thoughts a little deeper.
This show was all heat, and no light. I did expect better. Maybe Glenn’s happy to take that paycheck home, but I found the show….boring.
I agree with la lubu; he kept the pace and the tone at such a level that it was hard for you (or him!) to say anything that might be persuasive to anyone not already familiar with your basic position and understanding of the underlying facts. Very frustrating, but not unexpected. Under those unfortunate circumstances, I thought you stood up very well.
Am I the only one who was floored by how he followed up your explanation of the function of accusations of homosexuality with a joke that made your point precisely.
It was hard to follow that one, djw!
You both are absolutely right that much more could have been said — I did the best I could under the circumstances.
Now, if I ever get a radio show of my own!
I haven’t listened to the archive yet, but something someone else said (maybe Amanda) had me wondering. There almost seemed to be more commercials than radio talk, from what I understand. I’ll have a better idea when I listen to the show. Is that show really about bringing in advertisers who can ply their trade via the radio show? You know - lawyers who advertise on the air in a sympathetic medium looking for angry male clients they can make money from, etc.?
There were tons of those ads. I didn’t actually listen to them at the time, because we just chatted in-studio while the ads were running. But from playing it back today, they did seem to be mostly focused on father’s issues. You can see Glenn’s advertisers if you visit his website.
You really are a nice guy Hugo. To slightly steal from John, if I had to be a liberal, I’d want to be like you—no kidding. I’m somewhat boggled you set through Glenn’s sophomoric behavior. I would not have done it. Was there a contract?
Write the book.
You’d think a men’s-rights activist would be extremely PRO-homosexual. What’s up with that?
Apparently, feminists are the ones who hate gays; just go look around standyourground! I’ve counted about 5 threads with reference to you now Hugo, I’m sensing a slight obsession there…
Not to mention the response on Manpower (from Maus the self-professed misogynist). It’s really quite amusing how threatened you make these guys feel Hugo!
I second calls for a book!
Well you took a chance going on the show since everytime someone reaches out honestly to the other side, they make themselves vulnerable…
If how they treated poor Maureen Dowd is any indication, they will treat you miserably precisely BECAUSE you reached out and exposed your inner most thoughts to the other side…
I mean look at how they are laughing and talking about that poor womens’ article regarding her lack of a life-long partner…there won’t be too many women following up on Dowd’s mistake by writing about that area of their lives anytime soon, I can tell you that…
So you did good but don’t expect anything GOOD to come out of it…like a little more respect, understanding, patience, etc., towards the other side…Instead, even as a I type, they are over there ripping apart everything about you from your relationship with your father to your friend’s lisp…
You give them far more credit I think, then they deserve…so perhaps that makes you better then them…
Although you (Hugo) did a great job, I think the format really pushes all discussions towards shallowness. Glenn (who I actually have a quite good email relationship with) really did seem to respond to almost everything in soundbite or gag form. Plus, the constant flow of phone calls from the audience (my call included) really seemed to cast more heat than light; I would rather the time have been spent on more Glenn-Hugo discussion.
Still, I think the constant wisecracks (”oh, sure, you’d say only 99% of men are dogs, thanks a lot”) and phone calls is more enjoyable to a wider range of people than the more academic discussion I would have preferred.
I’m listening to the show on the web right now and wish I could have caught it in real time to call in. I think a big point that’s been missed in what I’ve heard so far is that there are many involved in men’s rights dialogue like myself who find the root of the problem with contemporary feminism lies in a Marxist paradigm. By that I mean, the view that men and women comprise somewhat distinct social classes and where men somehow correspond to Marx’s bourgeouisie and women to the proletariat. Many of us see this as simply a destructive paradigm without much resemblance to reality and leading us all down the road to tyranny. In the end we see the irony as being that our daughters will some day emerge into a world of virtual equality of mediocrity and in the end no one will live with the experience of liberty that white men have had so long.
craichead, you’re right on one level, that Marxism has had a huge influence. Engels was more or less right a century and a half ago on that very point. My qualms about working with Marxists are minor (in addition to that little bit about my evangelical faith). Basically, I’ve been told one too many times that feminism is a bourgeois distraction from the “real struggle.” For that reason — and others — most feminists reject simplistic Marxist paradigms.
craic, care to clarify your comment about “equality of mediocrity?” Because how I’m translating that is “if women are allowed into formerly all-male realms…if we allow women to choose their ‘place’, then we will no longer enjoy excellence, just mediocrity.” Or “women are not capable of excellence outside of strictly defined “female” venues.”
And I, naturally, call bullshit on that.
Following up on what Hugo just said, it’s also worth noting that for many feminists, and lots of others too, Marxism isn’t of a piece. It’s a collection of empirical views, philosophical assumptions, and analytical tools. You needn’t accept all or most of them to get milage out of others. There are certainly academics out there whose research might be called Marxist in some sense, but who are also politically moderate to conservative. It’s the analytical tools they want, not the politics.
On equality of mediocrity: I didnt for one second mean to imply that women will somehow bring down standards — government will bring down standards is what I’m trying to say. The further we progress with the ideas of class distinction between men and women, the more government gets involved, the more things like affirmative action become involved and the more the vitality of our free will is dulled. I’m not saying that the greater influence of women will dull our vitality, but that the current strategy of continually using legislation and civil court to do the job is what will kill that.
We’re living in a time now just like Orwell predicted though not nearly as dramatic. There’s a synergy between liberal and conservative going on now wherein each chips away at our basic rights for different reasons and this is what I’m getting at.
Soooo….in other words, you’re saying that the government, by forcing employers, schools, and other institutions to accept qualified females (that they were previously allowed to reject, due to anatomy), will bring about inequality? How so? How does opening the field bring about inequality?
On Marxist paradigm: I think where I’d disagree with what’s been said so far is that I think the Marxist paradigm is so deeply entrenched now that it is nearly invisible to most. It seems to me to be ubiquitously dominant in every one of the social sciences.
I found interesting something Hugo said on the show and I can’t remember exactly what it was, but something like people in power use their power to dominate those who aren’t — he said it in the context of the view of women as manipulative and that men use patriarchy to dominate.
This is a strong example of what I’m talking about: Bourgeousie = men, proletariat = women, capitalist system = patriarchy. It’s deeply entrenched.
But that’s not the truism that it’s so portrayed to be. Before Marx, the dominant paradigm was the paradigm of stewardship, wherein those in power used their power to serve. Of course the world was never so rosy that it always went that way, but today we define that system by its failure rather than the fact of what it gave us. One of the great advocates of that paradigm in recent history was Lord Acton who was famous for saying, “power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Lalubu-
Read it again. I never said it would bring about inequality. I simply think it dulls the vitality of our free will by taking the determination of meaning away from where it should be.
You could look at it like this: Modern humanity lives within three levels of understanding: culture, which arises from the finding of meaning among poeple — usually at the family level or in voluntary associations of like minded people. Arising from culture is society — the application of much of this meaning to our roles in life. Arising from these is civilization — all of our institutions and specializations that allow us to step outside of our prehistoric roles. Now of course it isn’t quite that simple since at each stage these things feed back some on each other.
But what we arrive at by using government and civil court to establish a moral view — like that men and women should have access to each other’s traditional roles — what we’re doing is turning the process upside down: civilization sets culture to its own ends rather than culture as the finding of meaning within our individual free wills.
Now I’m not saying that we shouldn’t break down the barriers of social anc cultural expectation — I’m all for it! I’ve just seen throughout history that doing it through government usually leads to evil. The most obvious examples of this are when looking at the marriage between church and state. Religion in and of itself never caused harm, but when gov’t gets involved, people end up burning at the stake.
“I would have been happy to spend an hour exposing the myth of gender symmetry in domestic violence cases…”
How, exactly? Suggesting that there are MORE abused men than abused women, as the case may be?
I’ve already cited more than 100 studies that women INITIATE (again, this means NOT SELF-DEFENSE) domestic abuse against men approximately as often as the reverse occurs. Did everybody miss that?
I guess I have 2 problems with what you said there, craichead. First, I am unconvinced that culture as you are defining it has ever really been decided by individual free will. And second, it seems that this could be used as an excuse for discrimination far too easily. It might be your free will to discriminate against gays, blacks, women, etc., but should society really allow that? What about the people you hurt and their free will? How do you think we should go about achieving equality and preventing discrimination?
Your posts are very interesting and I look forward to seeing your response.
I am new here, though I have been reading the blog for a week or so - ever since Glenn linked to it in his announcement of your guest appearance on his show. I have seen a great deal here, and in the archives, to which I would love to respond, but I will limit myself to the topic at hand.
Hugo, you seem to me to be an introspective man, willing to look inside yourself, and that is certainly admirable. So it is with some hope that I ask you to consider that even your self-criticisms are filtered through some serious biases. These biases create the situation where your self-criticisms reinforce your comfortable place in the group where you have carved out a niche, where you receive welcome, acceptance and approbation. These same self-criticisms also keep the strokes flowing from the readers here, providing the rush of righteousness that can be so addicting.
There are many examples of this process in action in your blog - so much so that I am hard pressed to select a single one for comment. I will begin with a part of your response to your experience on Glenn’s show.
You said, in response to some of Glenn’s teasing:
“But I am also aware that my ability to take that in stride is, yes, a function of male privilege. Had I been a woman saying the same things that I do on this blog and in the classroom, I’m not sure I would have ended up on the Sacks show in the first place. And second of all, I suspect there might well have been more of an edge to Glenn’s words to me.”
This is wrong on every level. First, it is astoundingly condescending to women, in that you have assumed that you can do something that they cannot (which you should know is not the case), but you couch this incorrect (and in fact, highly misogynistic!) expression in language that is designed to affirm your position as one of the allies of your chosen group. You have mastered this language, and the response from your readers was, indeed, as expected, and the actual implication of your words was ignored.
Second, I have known many women, including feminists such as my daughter, who are capable of having respectful interactions with ideological opponents. If you would think without your ideological hat on for a moment, I know that you would find that you also know such women. Can it be that you have become so used to swinging your “male privilege” hammer that everything now looks like a nail?
(Yes, after your bold-print rant, you revert to small print and try to give yourself some wiggle-room by saying “women can be civil”, but even then you declare it to be harder for them than for you. Men have no lock on magnanimity, Hugo. You owe women an apology on this one!)
It also appears to me that you have not taken the time to look over the archives of Glenn’s show. If you had, you would have known better than to make the assumption that a woman holding your views would not have been on his show. Here are just a few who have: Gloria Allred (famous feminist attorney), Columnist Laura Berman, Michigan State Professor Melanie Jacobs, Dr Linda Neilson (Wake Forest Women’s Studies Professor). There are many more, from many fields. And if you had listened to any of the programs, or bothered to check out the responses of these “hostile” guests, you would find that not one of them has ever said that Glenn was anything but a gentleman toward them. So why would you be so totally convinced that the opposite is true? Why would you be so utterly certain that you didn’t even feel the need to check the facts?
And the part about men’s rights advocates lacking the vocabulary to attack you “with words that really wound” is, to be kind, inappropriate. It contains the assumption that “men’s rights” groups and Glenn Sacks in particular wish to “really wound”. This is clearly a truism for you and many of your readers. Each of you would also have many choice adjectives for anyone who assumed this to be true of “the feminists”: that their intent is to “really wound” men. (And any attempts to “wound” aside, there is an elitist arrogance in your assumptions about their vocabulary!)
Yes, you may quote the comments of some very angry men from various sources, some of whom are genuinely misogynistic. Indeed, you have often done so. You can then declare these fringe reactionaries to be representative of the “men’s rights” people. Yet you decry the unfairness of quoting misandrist women (such as Andrea Dworkin, Catherine MacKinnon, Valerie Solano, or Robin Morgan) as representative of feminism. If the game is to paint the entire group with the brush drawn from the extemists, then you must play by those rules yourself. Or, better yet, drop that silly game entirely. Fairness of that sort has no history in your blog, and it would be a challenge to make that shift. Are you up to it? You might expect some members of the cheering section to protest loudly, and then depart for more ear-tickling company. Could you accept that?
One other point. I believe that you will find, if you boil everything down to the core, that what you and Glenn (and others like him) actually want, is fairness and justice for everyone, regardless of class, race, gender, religion, nationality, etc. I grant that this is what you want. From what I have seen, it appears to me that you would never be able to grant the same recognition to men’s rights advocates. This will remain your blind spot as long as you insist on considering their lunatic fringe as representative of the whole. This is where your own introspection falls down, and tunnel vision prevents any deeper insights. Joel Klein, of Time magazine, said it so well: “Faith without doubt leads to moral arrogance, the eternal pratfall of the religiously convinced.”
Consider this possibility: You have been having such a good time swinging your twin hammers of “male privilege” and “misogyny” that you are now seeing ubiquitous nails, often where there are none.
Regards,
Stanton
Well, first I’ll say that culture I guess is occurs as an interaction among free wills. Look at it historically: the first human societies are bascially big extended families and mutually beneficial voluntary associations– this is the origin of culture and could be considered its most legitimate source. If not this — then what? There is no civilization yet and in fact the whole concept of civilization could be considered as nothing more than humanity’s most abstract tool invention.
Second, you say “should society allow that?” Society doesn’t allow anything — it’s an abstract concept and I think what you’re really asking is “should our civilization (our institutions and specialties) allow that?” which has the same problem.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that if we want to change it, then change your culture in the ways it’s always been changed. If you think say journalism doesn’t give women a fair deal — well then start a newspaper and hire women. Don’t just tell someone else what they have to do. It’s a hell of a lot harder, but in the end it’s real.
The illusion is that working for governmental or institutional solutions we’re somehow taking on a personal mission. We’re not — we’re taking on expanding governmental power as the personal mission. The gov’t as it turns out, is more than happy to oblige.
Now if you want to talk about affirmative action or something at a private institution — like say Harvard — I say fine. If it’s private, it’s their business.
craic: interesting. But see, as human beings developed larger groups than the “large extended families” of days gone by, we also developed institutions to go with that. Those smaller human groupings were automatically accountable to one another; they dealt with one another face-to-face, name-to-name on a daily basis. When we extend our groupings beyond that, say to the modern day United States, a very diverse, heterogeneous country….we have institutions like elections and representative government for holding our fellow citizens accountable. There is no conflict with using government, or any other consensus institution to further our cause, because that is an organic part of the whole. To refrain from using our government to solve problems would be like to refrain from using our left hand to lift an object, even though our left hand was available for the lifting!
Your solution for discrimination is a recipe for more discrimination. When I was born in 1967, it was quite common for colleges to refuse admission to qualified women based on anatomy. The solution was not, nor should it have been, to tell female high school graduates “well, just start your own college, then.” The female high school graduates did not have the funding, expertise, or connections to start their own colleges, even if they had tried to do so collectively. Requiring educational institutions to open the doors to the other half of the population was the correct thing to do.
I’m a female electrician. I have been discriminated against during the course of my career, due to some folks’ inability to judge me on my ability, rather than on my anatomy. Now, your solution would be “start your own business.” But that is not a solution. Why? Because 1.) the skill set to be a good electrician, and the skill set to run a successful business are two different things, 2.) it would increase the hours of my working day from 8 to 16+, and from five days a week to seven, which would interfere with my duties as a parent, 3.) what I enjoy about my work has everything to do with the nitty-gritty, and nothing to do with paperwork or networking/gladhanding, two essential skills for a contractor, especially a contractor without family connections (nepotism is the name of the game in the construction field), and 4.) I do not have, nor will I ever have, the kind of funding it takes to open up a contracting business, which requires a huge outlay of start-up cash, and a large line of credit.
Meanwhile, I’m a qualified electrician. Why should someone be allowed to reject me solely on the basis of my body parts? Why should my skills, education and work ethic be shunted aside in favor of someone’s arbitrary delusion about what women should or shouldn’t be “allowed” to do?
In our modern society, one of the harshest punishments we mete out to lawbreakers is jailing….the restriction of freedom. What you are proposing is to allow bigots free rein to mete that punishment—restriction of freedom—out to fellow citizens who have broken no laws. Fellow citizens who they don’t like, or who they think should occupy a certain ‘place’, that place not being equal to them.
Whether you want to admit it or not, barring women (or blacks, or gays, or….) from certain opportunities and institutions, is an infringement upon our freedoms. It’s a “I’ve got mine, to hell with you” argument. Meanwhile, women are also full-fledged citizens. Why should we have second-class citizenship?
craichead: It (Marxism) seems to me to be ubiquitously dominant in every one of the social sciences.
I can’t even begin to tell you how incorrect this is. Yes, Marxism has made an impact on all of the social sciences at one point or another, and yes, some elements of Marxist approaches can still be found in each of them. But dominant: not even close. Economics is dominated by rational choice theory, neo-classical economics, and institutionalism. Political science is eclectic and not really dominated by any approach, but the leaders would be rational choice theory, constructivism, new institutionalism, and a sort of positivist behavorialism. To the extent that structuralism is big, it tends to be explicitly anti-marxist forms of structuralism, like Waltz’s neo-realism. Sociology has a fairly similar mix to political science. Cultural anthropology and cultural geography seems to have more constructivism and postmodernism than anything else going right now. In each of these, Marxism remains a distinctly minority tradition; in most cases, increasingly so. I can’t imagine an actual examination of the work social scientists do would lead you to your conclusion, unless this is just your shorthand for saying social science is dominated by left-liberals, which is a really sloppy and pointless use of the term Marxism.
Lalubu-
I think one of the problems is that you and I may speak a different language on a subject like this and may therefore simply disagree.
First I think there’s a big difference between sending someone to jail and not giving them a job. One occurs through gov’t the other does not. I also find it interesting to note your use of the word “force” in an earlier post which is exactly what I’m talking about.
Next, I find it questionable that in 1967 it was common to deny a woman entry into college. I was born in ‘65 and every single woman of the generation or tow prior to mine was college educated. Are you sure this is accurate? Also in 1967 it was probably much more rare for a man to be able to stay home with his kids.
It’s also important to note that the reason this can’t be a solution is not that it’s impossible, but that it’s too hard. I understand because I have a child to take care of too, but I don’t see it as a gov’t mission for someone to make it easier for me.
I also don’t agree with the analogy of the left hand and the right hand. It’s really more like one hand holds a gun and forces the other to do it’s will than anything else.
Also craic, you contradicted yourself when you brought up religion and the state; our separation of church and state was and is instituted through our government. You view this as being a positive development, yet view antidiscrimination laws as a negative, why?
Forgive me, I’m a little tired and not explaining myself too well.
I view separation of church and state as one of the most important foundations of a free society. In many civilizations religion is morality and meaning and I was just trying to draw out the similarity between that and the use of civilization for the creation of other types of meaning.
Separation is not instituted through government since it is a mandate for government to stay out of it.
I think you and I view the purpose of government and the nature of rights and freedoms differently. I view them very much as part of enlightenment tradition and the fact of being laws of Nature — ie we’re born with them and the only ethical business of government is to protect them.
I think where we’re getting off base too is that you think I feel it’s OK to discriminate — as in refuse to employ — a qualified person based only on that person’t gender. I don’t. What I don’t believe is the leap that follows that that says certain groups should be represented in a certain proportion. I don’t find a rational or compelling basis for that and that is where I see civilization and culture turning on its head.
Also, I think that it’s somewhat possible to breakdown the value of each gender — to a limited extent — with regard to the culture, society, civilization view. By that I mean if one loosely uses the terms matriachy and patriarchy to distinguish terms of value and power, the way I see it is we live in a patriarchal civilization, but a matriarchal culture and society.
This is why within our civil institutions, more positions of power are held by men, but at the same time — at the societal level, men’s lives seem to have less value and at the cultural and societal levels women (even moreso than children) are at the center of the family unit.
La Lubu, to make it simple: It’s not cool pointing out that women are oppressed. It resembles pointing out how workers are exploited, and that’s also a big, fat, bummer.
Where do you draw the line, craic? Was Jim Crow OK? How does it serve the interests of humanity, or society, or a nation, for one group of humans to have to curtail their full range of human abilities…not for the greater good of society…but to accomodate the bigotry of others?
In other words, why should others, in the public sphere, be allowed full range to express their bigotry by using their collective, insitutional power to deny fellow citizens their full rights, and full opportunities for human development? Why must those of us on the losing end of the equation have to sacrifice ourselves for another’s bigotry? What advantage does bigotry offer humanity as a whole?
Look. You see a difference between jailing and unemployment, because this is an academic exercise to you. This is my life. Some people want to open their own businesses. That’s great. I’m not one of them. I just want to work. If I have the qualifications, I should have the job…even if the person offering the job believes that men need jobs more than women. The judgement should be on qualifications, not anatomy. And yes, if we need government to enforce antidiscrimination laws, so be it. If you want to be a bigot, be a bigot in private. Once you enter the public sphere (like by opening a business), you have to treat full-fledged human beings like full-fledged human beings, not like second-class human beings.
Don’t give me the “it’s too hard” line of crap about starting a business. If I were a teacher, and it was legal to not hire female teachers, would you recommend starting my own school? If I were a surgeon, and it was legal to not hire female surgeons, would you recommend starting my own hospital? And if so…with what? And how? When opportunities are denied, it perpetuates the system of discrimination.
Thank you so much for that clarification, Amanda! I should know better! ;)
First I think there’s a big difference between sending someone to jail and not giving them a job. One occurs through gov’t the other does not.
Except the government does not exercise its power solely through criminal sanctions, so your analysis is flawed. Government acts through incentives and penalties. Incentives can be grants, programs, tax breaks, licensing, contracting, etc. Penalties can include the withdrawal of any incentive, plus making available civil penalties for breach of certain laws.
Anyone who wants the culture to work things out seems to forget that the culture creates the government. And the government, in times past (and in certain areas, in the present) actually codified discrimination, which was a reflection of the culture. And the reason this could happen was that women and minorities had no voice in government.
Your right craic, I have a different view of government than you. I firmly believe that for a government to be legitimate, it has to protect the rights of all, not just a select few.
You seem to take the view that those of us who want full human rights should not be politically active, should not run for office, or require our elected officials to be accountable to us, and pass and enforce laws that respect our rights as equal citizens….but that we should instead beg, cajole, and pray that someday we will be accepted as equals by those in power.
Power does not work that way. Begging and scraping never got anybody their human rights. Fighting and agitating have, and do.
And fighting and agitating are more fun, too! ;)
Also, Craic? Your push for the withering away of the state sounds a little … Marxist, if you know what I mean.
Lalubu
Here’s what I wrote in the previous post:
“I think where we’re getting off base too is that you think I feel it’s OK to discriminate — as in refuse to employ — a qualified person based only on that person’t gender. I don’t. What I don’t believe is the leap that follows that that says certain groups should be represented in a certain proportion. I don’t find a rational or compelling basis for that and that is where I see civilization and culture turning on its head.”
Did you miss that part?
No, I didn’t miss that part, craic. I’m still waiting on your explanation on why I should be denied equal opportunity based on my gender. “Government” didn’t make me a good electrician; I did that. What government provides me with is a form of redress for not receiving equal opporutnity, that I should be entitled to as a citizen.
You haven’t yet explained to me why someone else’s bigotry should trump my rights as a citizen to participate fully in this society, which of course includes the avenue of employment.
“Except the government does not exercise its power solely through criminal sanctions, so your analysis is flawed. Government acts through incentives and penalties. Incentives can be grants, programs, tax breaks, licensing, contracting, etc. Penalties can include the withdrawal of any incentive, plus making available civil penalties for breach of certain laws.”
Government ALWAYS acts through coercion — where else do they get their power?
Sure they offer incentives, but where does that money come from? It comes from the labor of others and is obtained through taxation. If you think gov’t doesn’t always act through coercion, then stop paying your taxes for a while because you don’t believe in the Iraq war and see what happens. My guess is they’ll acto through some sort of coercion.
“Anyone who wants the culture to work things out seems to forget that the culture creates the government. And the government, in times past (and in certain areas, in the present) actually codified discrimination, which was a reflection of the culture. And the reason this could happen was that women and minorities had no voice in government.”
Republican (the form not the party) government like ours is designed to be limited in such a way as to minimize the impact that culture can have on its individul constiuents. I guess my view is that if people are being denied rights guaranteed to them — like with Jim Crowe, or today with the right to be a parent — that those rights should be enforced rather than having more laws regarding other things.
In the end our relationship with our rights and our gov’t then becomes contractual rather than inalienable.
“No, I didn’t miss that part, craic. I’m still waiting on your explanation on why I should be denied equal opportunity based on my gender. “Government” didn’t make me a good electrician; I did that. What government provides me with is a form of redress for not receiving equal opporutnity, that I should be entitled to as a citizen.
You haven’t yet explained to me why someone else’s bigotry should trump my rights as a citizen to participate fully in this society, which of course includes the avenue of employment.”
I never said that. If you read my post again I said you should have redress.
Let me ask you this: If I won a restaurant and I refuse to serve George Bush, should I be allowed to do that? If so, why? If not, why?
“Also, Craic? Your push for the withering away of the state sounds a little … Marxist, if you know what I mean.”
Actually, no. Marxism is a collective that manages the entire economy and way of life.
A withering of the state is libertarianism
I hate George W. Bush. But regardless, if you or I own a restaurant, we should not be able to arbitrarily refuse service to any person willing to pay, provided they are not breaking any other laws (example, W sits down and orders a burger, he gets served. W sits down and fires up a cigarette in the nonsmoking section, refuses to put it out, and throws his glass of water at the server saying, “make me put it out”…then he doesn’t get served, the police get called).
Why? Because a business is in the public sphere. Once you enter the public sphere you have the obligation to treat the public as full-fledged human beings. You can revert back to your personal prejudices in private. So, W gets served in the restaurant, but if he showed up on my doorstep expecting to be fed he’d get a hearty “F**K YOU!” instead. My home is not the public sphere.
You can’t really outlaw bigotry. Laws can be instituted that mitigate the effects of bigotry. In other words, there are teachers I had that thought it was a waste of time for women to attend college, and said so. But they did not have the power to keep me from attending.
I have listened to the online version of the Sacks show and have several comments. Glenn has a rather sarcastic tone, and the show at first might seem to be the ambush type, but I think that as time goes on one gets the sense that he tries to be fair and point out where he agrees with the guest. I shall try to be fair, as well:
1. It was suggested that “most young men” feel a strong desire to control women, view pornography (described as part of the “male culture”), and to deal with women on their terms only. Stereotypes hurt us all and this one is a textbook example. People have this idea that women and girls just want to hold hands and talk, and only have sex in order to submit to or reward men and boys, who are horny bastards and only have “one thing” on their minds. Well, guess what. I’m a 32-year-old dude, and I have NEVER pursued a sexual relationship with ANYONE. I’d much rather hold hands and kiss on the cheek than engage in more sexual pursuits. A number of people, online or in person, have ridiculed me or looked askance in my direction over this, and, yes, folks, many of these people were females who thoroughly enjoy sex (and sometimes pornography) and suggested that I need to see a physician. [rolls eyes] This business of pigeonholing everyone from one gender or another is mere Mars/Venus psychobabble. Men are from EARTH. Women are from EARTH. Each person is unique; that’s how we are different. It has nothing to do with which set of genitalia we possess.
2. It’s self-serving logic to suggest that men who control women are evil, but women who use manipulation to control men are only acting defensively because men (all together now) “have all the power.” Obviously, if men can have their children taken from them (while still having to support them financially), and only men are told to sign up for selective service, then they clearly do NOT have “all the power.”
3. Are many women raising their children on their own? Yes. Some fathers merely don’t wish to be a part of their children’s lives, but many do wish to do so but are not ALLOWED to do so (see above).
4. Ampersand correctly pointed out that women’s gains and men’s gains need not be a zero-sum game. I shall point out, then, that it is the view of many misandrists that it IS a zero-sum game…which is why, when someone stands up for men, (s)he is instantly accused of being a misogynist (Hugo has done it himself). MRAs are often accused of holding an “us vs. them” mentality, when many people here show that mentality themselves.
5. Hugo continually says that MRAs “misprescribe the cure” for their ills. The goal of MRAs is to combat anti-male (AND anti-female) sexism. The sexists we take on are sometimes male and sometimes female, and there’s nothing wrong with pointing a finger at those who practice sexism.
6. War was discussed, and Hugo said that, while men are most of the combat fatalities, men are the ones sending them off to die. When Glenn pointed out that women like Margaret Thatcher have also engaged in war, Hugo suggested that she’s merely a woman with “male types of behavior.” This is another self-serving, circular, sexist argument.
7. Hugo mentioned “what the men’s rights activists call ‘women’s violence.’” When a person physically attacks another person, just what, exactly, do YOU call it?
8. Hugo said that male-bashing is often just a legitimate expression of anger and pain. Okay, then: is FEMALE-bashing just a legitimate expression of anger and pain? Remember: you can’t have it both ways.
9. We MRAs are equally sick of gender roles. In fact, we welcome feminism over those “traditional” women who believe it is the job of men to hold the door for them (without women having to return the courtesy), pay for all dates, let them go first all the time and even sacrifice their lives for them in case of emergency. And we’re equally sick of the “selective equality” people who demand equality when it suits them and “the old-fashioned way” when THAT suits them: “equality until the dinner check comes,” if you will. But, yeah, we wish to do away with gender roles immediately.
10. Hugo stated that the problem isn’t that the family-court system needs to be fixed, but that men need to be better fathers. Um…do a little research, please.
11. Hugo also said that family and fatherhood should be a man’s top priorities, not economic well-being. Great. Now will you just convince those women who yell at their husbands to get that promotion, make partner, “or else”? And the women we’re hearing about on dating websites who actually include a salary minimum for any prospective boyfriends?
“Why? Because a business is in the public sphere. Once you enter the public sphere you have the obligation to treat the public as full-fledged human beings. You can revert back to your personal prejudices in private.”
Could you explain this a little further?
If the police want to search a business, do they need a warrant? If not, why not?
If the police want to search a business, they must have a warrant, because they must have a reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed. In our legal system, a person (in this case, the business owner) is assumed to be innocent, and must be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt by the state.
But if it’s property that falls into the public sphere, why do they need a warrant or a crime for that matter?
At what point is the line drawn between public and private?
If someone comes to a restaurant that requires a jacket, why can they be made to leave? It’s the public sphere so mandating certaind clothing is infringing on my rights and freedoms, right?
BMMG-
I also had a big problem with #10. I felt it was incredibly dismissive regarding the intense pain that so many people experience in divorce. I’ve known so many men who’ve been excellent fathers whose lives are made miserable by the state.
And there again is the problem. It’s so often presented as a male/female dilemma — that women somehow have this power in this arena which simply isn’t true. It’s the state that has the power, the gov’t just uses her as a diversion from what’s really going on which is basically unbridled power.
Again, it is the presumption of innocence of a crime that is the salient point here. If you own a restaurant, you are obligated to serve paying customers who behave themselves, but you are not obligated to open your financial records, your wallet, your closet, or your meat locker to your customers….whereas if the police had reason to believe you were involved in a crime, all of those private areas are up for play.
Now, I think restaurants or clubs that have silly dress codes are just….silly, and I don’t patronize them. However, in their defense, anyone can put on a jacket, or in the case of “too cool” clubs, hip clothing. Sex and race are a different matter.
Actually, (and maybe one of our hot legal eagles, like zuzu, around here can answer this), don’t places that have restrictive practices get around the law by calling themselves “private clubs”? Private clubs can legally discriminate. And I can legally call attention to their bigotry and inherent pus-baggedness.
I guess that’s where I’m misunderstanding. I thought property was either private or it wasn’t.
Nope, there are degrees of privacy. I hate having my picture taken, but when I step out in public, other people have the right to take my picture. They don’t have the right to invade my house to take it, but if I’m walking down the street, they do.
Your hypothetical restaurant customers have the right to sit down and be fed. They don’t have the right to examine your records or count your butt-hairs.
If a cop pulls you over for speeding, he usually won’t have the right to search the contents of your car. If there is fresh blood smeared on your trunk hood, and fresh blood dripping from your trunk, you’ll probably be detained until the warrant arrives.
Just as we have a system of checks and balances for government, we have a system of checks and balances for our right to privacy. Our individual rights have to be balanced with the greater good of society…and therein lies the rub. Different sets of folks have different ideas about such things. Hence, the need for laws.
Unless of course, you want to return to the days of might makes right? Take matters into our own hands? If someone pisses you off, just shoot them? ;)
Cathy Young has good piece on the hallucination you call “male privilege.”
craichead: “withering away of the state” is a Marxist concept, and profoundly and decidedly not a libertarian one. It was what Marx (very wrongly) suggested would happen after a socialist government had ruled for a while.
For libertarians, the idea that a state would ever just ‘wither away’ is laughably naive. From a libertarian point of view, state power is “sticky,” once a state gets involved in something, it tends pretty strongly to maintain or expand that role, unless there is a pretty remarkable political effort to roll it back. Libertarians might wish for the state to wither away, just as feminists might wish for patriarchy to wither away, but both are pretty convinced (correctly, in my view) that neither of those institutions is going away without a socio-political tidal wave.
Furthermore, if you seriously think property only comes in two flavors, I’d strongly recommend sitting in on a few lectures in a first year property law class. And while you’re at it, read some Marx, too, if you’re gonna bash him. He’s perfectly bashable; do it right.
Government ALWAYS acts through coercion — where else do they get their power?
No kidding. But you used jail, which is a criminal sanction, as the example of state power in your either/or setup. I was simply pointing out that criminal sanctions are not the limit of governmental power.
Republican (the form not the party) government like ours is designed to be limited in such a way as to minimize the impact that culture can have on its individul constiuents. I guess my view is that if people are being denied rights guaranteed to them — like with Jim Crowe, or today with the right to be a parent — that those rights should be enforced rather than having more laws regarding other things.
So, those laws that restricted voting to white male property owners were an example of the state’s minimal intrusion on individual constituents? As were laws that prevented married women from signing contracts or owning property?
LaLubu, you’re thinking of public accommodations rather than public spaces. A restaurant that’s open to the general public is still private property, but it may not discriminate based on race or sex (poor hygiene and boorish behavior are another matter entirely).
Craichead, your criticism of “contemporary feminism” is painted with a very broad brush!
Not all feminists are interested in using state power to solve the problems presented by patriarchy. Most of us, I’d wager, favor government intervention for some problems and purely cultural intervention for others, and we have our differences as to which solution is appropriate for any given problem. As a group feminists are probably more statist than you’d like, but it sounds like nearly everyone is more statist than you’d like - this is hardly unique to feminism!
My misgivings about libertarianism are legion, but this isn’t really the forum. When my focus is on feminism, I’ll accept as a legitimate contemporary feminist and potential ally anyone who admits that (1) contemporary society is systematically biased against women and (2) this is a problem that needs to be fixed. Whether or not the government is an appropriate mechanism for the fix is just quibbling over tactics.
You might be interested in this essay on libertarian feminism. Unlike most libertarian “feminists” the authors actually take non-government discrimination seriously…
Hugo,
A lot of us women have to smile and backslap and banter with people who just said something — or a long series of somethings — deeply offensive or aggressive toward women. I think that few of us who are ordained can say that we haven’t had to do that at least a few times. It’s a difficult skill to master, to be sure, but anyone who belongs to an oppressed group and has achieved any kind of societal rank has probably had to master it. I am concerned that it doesn’t do my soul much good to exercise that skill, but sadly, it seems to be necessary in some quarters in church work, among other places.
As Louie Crew is fond of saying, Joy Anyway!
Blessings,
Dylan
Thank you, Dylan — and thanks for quoting one of my heroes! Joy, anyway, indeed!
I’m a marxist, and I don’t dismiss feminism at all. There are critiques to be made of specific accounts of feminism, of strategies and tactics of specific groups at specific times. But criticism of the sexist nature of capitalism goes back to the beginning of marxism.
For some examples of current marxist thought, you could read Engels and the Origin of Women’s Oppression, and Turning Back the Clock? Women, Work and Family Today.
I’m glad, Foolish Owl, I ought not to have implied that all Marxists were dismisive of feminism.
everybody out of the pool!
did I hear someone say ” religion never caused any harm”
Amazing!!
b
Cathy Young is a little late on the “Look! I’m an anti-feminist woman, print my column!” bandwagon, isn’t she? Renee Denfield did (and, for all I know, still does) it better.
don’t places that have restrictive practices get around the law by calling themselves “private clubs”?
As long as they are actually private clubs. Simply slapping a “He-Man Woman Haters’ Club” sign over your restaurant is unlikely to be legally sufficient.
And still waiting to hear why men’s-rights activists are so virulently anti-gay. Why not embrace homosexuality and cut those greedy, oppressive women out of the loop? It avoids the whole ‘trapped into fatherhood’ problem too.
“everybody out of the pool!
did I hear someone say ” religion never caused any harm”
Amazing!!
b”
Religion in and of itself never caused any harm. Religion only causes harm when it’s coupled with government.
Religion only causes harm when it’s coupled with government.
Riiiiight. I’m sure all those women being stoned to death for adultery and the victims of the Inquisition would agree with you.
“And still waiting to hear why men’s-rights activists are so virulently anti-gay.”
I’m for male rights, and I’m certainly not anti-gay or anti-feminist. Just one reason I welcome homosexuals (other than the obvious respect for their civil rights) is because they buck gender stereotypes and roles. If the rules of “chivalry” were correct, two lesbians would never be able to date, because they’d be waiting for a (”second-class”) man to hold the door for them and then pay for their dinner. The mere fact two males or two females can go on a romantic date together contradicts the whole gender-role thing.
And us straight women just get stuck behind doors because no one will open them for us?
“Religion only causes harm when it’s coupled with government.
Riiiiight. I’m sure all those women being stoned to death for adultery and the victims of the Inquisition would agree with you.”
Those were governmentally established religions and the persecution was carried out in accordance with their established legal systems.
You also have to understand that if you’re talking about Christianity, it’s been corrupted by governmental coercion since the time of Constantine. It bears little resemblance to the true Christianity of Jesus.
“And still waiting to hear why men’s-rights activists are so virulently anti-gay. Why not embrace homosexuality and cut those greedy, oppressive women out of the loop? It avoids the whole ‘trapped into fatherhood’ problem too.”
I’m not anti-gay — I welcome them as allies with many common interests. In fact family court injustice probably hits them more severely than it does us heteros.
I think that some things which may come off as anti-gay at least from my perspective is that many of us want to see our own family ties honored in order to set the stage for gay marriage.
“And us straight women just get stuck behind doors because no one will open them for us?”
Your arm isn’t broken, is it?
It’s called Common Courtesy. I’ll hold the door for you the first time, and you hold it for me the second time. Mutual generosity. Mutual respect. Common courtesy. Y’know….EQUALITY.
“(Yes, after your bold-print rant, you Men have no lock on magnanimity, Hugo. You owe women an apology on this one!)
It also appears to me that you have not taken the time to look over the archives of Glenn’s show. If you had, you would have known better than to make the assumption that a woman holding your views would not have been on his show. Here are just a few who have: Gloria Allred (famous feminist attorney), Columnist Laura Berman, Michigan State Professor Melanie Jacobs, Dr Linda Neilson (Wake Forest Women’s Studies Professor). There are many more, from many fields.”
Those are privileged women who the Glenn Sacks of the world (with all their bullsh*t) have never been able to hurt… let’s get a Bridget Marks on that show or a couple of mothers who have lose their kids due to his propaganda and see how long the civility lasts…
“I’m for male rights, and I’m certainly not anti-gay or anti-feminist. Just one reason I welcome homosexuals (other than the obvious respect for their civil rights) is because they buck gender stereotypes and roles. If the rules of “chivalry” were correct, two lesbians would never be able to date, because they’d be waiting for a (”second-class”) man to hold the door for them and then pay for their dinner.”
I’m getting a little sick of men trying to play that phony ‘chivalry card’ again… First of all chivalry was a code of conduct that governed how MEN treated each other in times of war…closer to the Geneva Convention then the Ten Commandments…it eventually spread to include how men treated the FAMILIES of their enemies, probably when wars become more widespread and starting hitting closer to the combatants’ home terrorities…
It NEVER governed how men treated women, except in the context above…
So quit trying to rewrite history and give yourselves more praise then you deserve…
Many female historians are getting sick of it.
“Soooo….in other words, you’re saying that the government, by forcing employers, schools, and other institutions to accept qualified females (that they were previously allowed to reject, due to anatomy), will bring about inequality? How so? How does opening the field bring about inequality?”
Exactly…
You got him pegged for exactly what he said and what he meant…
“we have used our power to dominate and our weakness to manipulate;
we have evaded responsibility and failed to confront evil…
If there is a prayer that all of us working for justice could agree on, it might be that one.”
Amen on that one…
You just keeping singing it brother, just keep singing it…
bmmg39 correctly listed a lot of the problems with Hugo’s rhetoric, and nobody has managed to rebut him.
NYMOM claimed:
“I’m getting a little sick of men trying to play that phony ‘chivalry card’ again… First of all chivalry was a code of conduct that governed how MEN treated each other in times of war…closer to the Geneva Convention then the Ten Commandments…it eventually spread to include how men treated the FAMILIES of their enemies, probably when wars become more widespread and starting hitting closer to the combatants’ home terrorities…
It NEVER governed how men treated women, except in the context above…”
Please provide some actual evidence to back up these claims, because I’m not buying it. If you read the dictionary definition of chivalry, or old codes of chivalry, you will see that it includes “gallantry towards women.”
If chivalry is really just about conduct towards other men then what do you call it when men are taught to hold doors open for women, do unreciprocated favors for them, to pay for dates, and to never hit a woman in any context? If you don’t call that “chivalry,” then what is it? If you want to call it paternalism or condescension, then fine, but realize that it puts a burden on men also.
Feminism SHOULD be concerned about chivalry, and not just the paternalistic aspect of it. In the search to be chivalrous or prove how nice and respectful of women they are, a lot of guys go overboard and end up smothering women. Then they blame women for not appreciating the smothering behavior. I think that chivalry is actually a root cause of the stereotypes that women are selfish and unappreciative manipulators of men.
Also, chivalry is another counter-example to the idea of homosociality.
bmmg39 correctly listed a lot of the problems with Hugo’s rhetoric, and nobody has managed to rebut him.
NYMOM claimed:
“I’m getting a little sick of men trying to play that phony ‘chivalry card’ again… First of all chivalry was a code of conduct that governed how MEN treated each other in times of war…closer to the Geneva Convention then the Ten Commandments…it eventually spread to include how men treated the FAMILIES of their enemies, probably when wars become more widespread and starting hitting closer to the combatants’ home terrorities…
It NEVER governed how men treated women, except in the context above…”
Please provide some actual evidence to back up these claims, because I’m not buying it. If you read the dictionary definition of chivalry, or old codes of chivalry, you will see that it includes “gallantry towards women.”
If chivalry is really just about conduct towards other men then what do you call it when men are taught to hold doors open for women, do unreciprocated favors for them, to pay for dates, and to never hit a woman in any context? If you don’t call that “chivalry,” then what is it? If you want to call it paternalism or condescension, then fine, but realize that it puts a burden on men also.
Feminism SHOULD be concerned about chivalry, and not just the paternalistic aspect of it. In the search to be chivalrous or prove how nice and respectful of women they are, a lot of guys go overboard and end up smothering women. Then they blame women for not appreciating the smothering behavior. I think that chivalry is actually a root cause of the stereotypes that women are selfish and unappreciative manipulators of men.
Also, chivalry is another counter-example to the idea of homosociality.
NYMOM: “So quit trying to rewrite history and give yourselves more praise then you deserve…”
Odd. There wasn’t an iota of self-praise in what I wrote, and yet you pretend there was. Way to skirt the issue.
If you read the dictionary definition of chivalry, or old codes of chivalry, you will see that it includes “gallantry towards women.”
Actually, if you read old codes of chivalry, you will see that it was never gallantry towards women. It was gallantry towards ladies. Not all females. “The Art of Courtly Love,” in fact, has a whole explanation of how while one treats a lady with the utmost respect, it’s okay to slake one’s base urges on (i.e, rape) peasants because they don’t notice it much anyway.
bmmg, I’m glad to hear you’re not homophobic. Alas, you seem to be in the enormous minority–cf. Glenn Sacks’s snide comment about gay men to Hugo. You also don’t see men’s-rights activists advocating homosexuality or reaching out to gay men; and any time I’ve asked custody activists if they have programs to help gay men whose wives used that fact to deny them custody, I am met with stony silence.
And it makes no sense. What is there about being pro-male that leads to being anti-gay? Why is the men’s-rights movement so blatantly heterosexist?
mythago said:
“Actually, if you read old codes of chivalry, you will see that it was never gallantry towards women. It was gallantry towards ladies. Not all females. “The Art of Courtly Love,” in fact, has a whole explanation of how while one treats a lady with the utmost respect, it’s okay to slake one’s base urges on (i.e, rape) peasants because they don’t notice it much anyway.”
Thanks for pointing this out. My point stands, though. In the modern permutation of chivalry, the distinction you mention doesn’t exist.
mythago said:
“You also don’t see men’s-rights activists advocating homosexuality or reaching out to gay men; and any time I’ve asked custody activists if they have programs to help gay men whose wives used that fact to deny them custody, I am met with stony silence.
And it makes no sense. What is there about being pro-male that leads to being anti-gay? Why is the men’s-rights movement so blatantly heterosexist?”
Actually, Warren Farrell has identified homophobia as a problem for men. He has said this as far back as “Why Men Are They Way They Are” in 1986. Also, I am not sure that the men’s movement is anti-gay (although some individuals in it might be). I think the men’s rights movement mainly focuses on issues that don’t have anything to do with homosexuality. Nevertheless, if homosexuality is an issue in custody battles then, as you say, it should be addressed.
The whole notion that men are privelidged because they are men and women are burdened because they are women is in fact a intellectualized gender construct. You completely and utterly fail to move beyond the whole victim/blame game paradigm. This head space is what keeps people down. l am starting to think that it is people like hugo who actually perpetuate these social enequalities by promulgating this self imprisoning way of thinking. The idea that the so-called male oppressors must yield in order that the so called oppressed females may rise and that women need to be protected from the evil men strikes me as negativity boarding on defeatism. Why would the powerful willingly give up their power?
“bmmg, I’m glad to hear you’re not homophobic. Alas, you seem to be in the enormous minority–cf. Glenn Sacks’s snide comment about gay men to Hugo.”
I wouldn’t say “enormous minority” — again, we must be careful with the sample size we select.
“You also don’t see men’s-rights activists advocating homosexuality or reaching out to gay men; and any time I’ve asked custody activists if they have programs to help gay men whose wives used that fact to deny them custody, I am met with stony silence.”
Well, “advocating” for homosexuality is a little like “advocating” for left-handedness; it isn’t as though people switch. I can tell you that, on the sites I go to, if someone makes a homophobic or misogynist statement, that person will often be called onto the carpet for it. I’ve also debated the word “feminist” with people, as I don’t think that feminism itself is evil, but I do wish the name would change to “egalitarian” because that word is, well, more egalitarian. I oppose misandry, not feminism, although I submit that many who CALL themselves feminists have large misandric streaks in them, whereas others do not.
I also belong to an anti-abuse website, http://www.safe4all.org, that assists the “lesser-known” subsets such as straight men, gays and lesbians, teens and the elderly, but we obviously assist straight women, too…
Actually, I think you’ll find that there is a very distinct subset within men’s rights activists that are decidedly supportive of gay men.
Now I consider myself more an activist for libertarian politics and limited gov’t and I think that I overlap with many men’s rights activists. But the way I see it, there are two or three distinct paths to ending up an MRA. One path is clearly through conservative politics.
But there is another path — and one that I came from ultimately — that comes from both liberal politics and active suppport of feminism.
There are many men involved in this movement now who, when we were younger, were very supportive and somewhat active in feminism — especially in college. We had feminist girlfriends, we marched in take back the night rallies and supported affirmative action.
But then many of us came up against a crisis in our lives that pitted our interests or well-being against the interests of the groups and sometimes individuals that we once worked along side. For me, it was my relationship with a woman who is physically violent. It’s a real eye opener to work to change attitudes to see women get the support systems they need so they and their children can escape dangerous relationships, and then when we asked for help we were met with intense hostility.
And so, while many people like Hugo may see our hurt and our anger as misdirected or that what we’re feeling is grief for the loss of our privelege and frustration over an inability to control women, what we’re actually feeling is grief over personal loss and frustration over an inability to simply control our own lives in the face of a system that would so readily and easily boot us out of our families.
“what we’re actually feeling is grief over personal loss and frustration over an inability to simply control our own lives in the face of a system that would so readily and easily boot us out of our families.”
Bingo. I think you’re on to something there, craic. And I’d like to get back to ya on that and a discussion of domestic violence, but I’ve got an appointment to make! I’ll be back later. I think that statement says a lot, and gives a lot to build on.
“I can’t even begin to tell you how incorrect this is. Yes, Marxism has made an impact on all of the social sciences at one point or another, and yes, some elements of Marxist approaches can still be found in each of them.”
Doris Lessing was impressed with how much Marxism had reshaped the social sciences, and also those public views that collectively might be considered the “conventional wisdom” of her day. She wrote “Any set of ideas so universally accepted must be a spent force.” She had lived to see Winston Churchill accept the power of the labor unions, and for the idea of the forces of production shaping the relations of production be absorbed by almost everyone. So universally were some socialist accepted that the state, in the mid 20th century, became the agent of many social-democrat reforms, and Left gave up on its own anti-state tradition (forgetting those socialists who had previously argued that the state was always the enemy of the worker).
Still, I think we can agree that this was a wave that peaked 40 years ago and has since been in retreat. Friedman and Hayek have gained more ground in the last 40 years than Marx.
I agree with you in some ways, but I think that in terms of an analogous form of Marxism, the paradigm remains strong. I mean tak