Charles Murray, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and co-author of the infamous “Bell Curve” study from a few years back, weighs in with this month’s load of good old-fashioned hooey: The Europe Syndrome and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism. Murray makes his living from an organization devoted to the defense of the indefensible: that unbridled American capitalism, married to conservative Protestant religious values, is the last best hope for humankind. He does his wealthy patrons proud in this essay and lecture, attacking the Obama Administration for its apparent zeal to remake the USA in the image of Western European-style social democracies.
Would that it were true; as fond as I am of our new lad in the White House, I doubt even he can move this country that far to the left in the short time he has been given. I’m certainly fond of Western European style social democracy; I hold an EU passport as well as an American one, and have close family scattered across half a dozen nations of that splendid continent. I’ve seen the strengths and weaknesses of the systems in Austria, Germany, and the United Kingdom in particular and have found much that is enviable. But I’m not a political scientist nor an economist, and will leave the arguments over the specifics of the welfare state to those better equipped to defend them.
There’s much that is risible in Murray’s defense of the American “free enterprise system”, but nothing so jaw-dropping as his thesis that working class males need weak public institutions in order to feel like, well, real men:
When the government takes the trouble out of being a spouse and parent, it doesn’t affect the sources of deep satisfaction for the CEO. Rather, it makes life difficult for the janitor. A man who is holding down a menial job and thereby supporting a wife and children is doing something authentically important with his life. He should take deep satisfaction from that, and be praised by his community for doing so. Think of all the phrases we used to have for it: “He is a man who pulls his own weight.” “He’s a good provider.” If that same man lives under a system that says that the children of the woman he sleeps with will be taken care of whether or not he contributes, then that status goes away. I am not describing some theoretical outcome. I am describing American neighborhoods where, once, working at a menial job to provide for his family made a man proud and gave him status in his community, and where now it doesn’t.
To paraphrase a line from a fine old Guns n’ Roses song, “You’d better start sniffing your rank condescension, Chuck.” Murray, probably intentionally, is repeating one of the Great Lies of Masculinity: men — particularly working-class men — only feel useful and valued when the women in their lives are weak and dependent. In other words, Murray is peddling the myth that male responsibility is inextricably linked to female vulnerability. Provide a social safety net that permits women to survive on their own, that allows them to raise their children without the “good provision” of a hard-working man, and all sense of purpose magically vanishes from the lives of these lads, or so he argues.
It certainly isn’t a myth that some males have been raised to identify their self-esteem with their ability to take care of women and children. It certainly isn’t a myth that some men, lamentably, continue to see their own virtue and their wives’ vulnerability as a vital exchange; call it the “I will work hard and bring home money for you if you depend on me and make me feel needed” transaction. But it most certainly doesn’t have to be that way, not for CEOs or janitors or coal miners or anyone else.
The goal of feminism, first and foremost, has been to liberate women from this dependent status. But is has also been long understood that feminism holds out the promise of new opportunities for men. The traditional world of American masculinity generally allows men to publicly display two emotions: lust and anger, and forbids them from showing vulnerability, doubt, tenderness and empathy. Feminism reminds men and women alike that the latter are not so fragile that they will break if given a chance to work in the wider world — and the former are not so hardened and emotionally incompetent that they cannot nurture a child with great gentleness and care.
Strong public institutions of the sort we associate with healthy social democracies make the promise of feminism available to those of all social classes. The welfare state recognizes what feminism recognizes: that dependence on family and spouse may be lovely if one’s family and spouse are kind and congenial, but all too often, families are prisons. We speak of our relationships as “ties that bind” for a reason; women from traditional families in particular are likely to be raised with a strong sense of both duty and guilt. Charles Murray can wax eloquent about the marvelous qualities of the traditional family, but I suspect he’s not scrubbing floors or putting on another meal for a truculent and incommunicative husband with a sense of entitlement. Strong public institutions are not, as Murray would have us believe, “traps of dependency”; rather, they are agents of liberation. Excellent day care, good hospitals, inexpensive education and a strong social safety net give the traditionally underprivileged, men and women alike, the chance to do something vitally important: form and maintain relationships based on desire and mutual respect rather than on need and vulnerability.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that more men than women vote Republican in this country for this very reason. Whether they are able to articulate it or not, I suspect a great many men sense that the weaker the state, the more dependent women become upon them. The fewer publicly-provided alternatives to getting married exist, the more likely women are to put up with unhappy marriages, and the less likely they are to have any heft with which to demand that men make necessary changes. The stronger the social safety net, the more options women have for raising children without men; those women who do choose to raise children with men will do so by choice rather than necessity. And when you have a choice, you can begin to demand a degree of mutuality and accountabilty from a partner that you could not otherwise demand. No wonder so many angry men vote Republican, and no wonder the likes of Charles Murray sing the praises of the “free enterprise” system.
My late grandmother, born in Vienna in 1901, was a close friend of both Friedrich Hayek and Karl Popper, two great Austrians whose hostility to socialism was legendary. Hayek’s most famous tract is his The Road to Serfdom, a book often misunderstood as a defense of pure free-market capitalism. The basic thesis, as understood by Hayek enthusiasts (though not necessarily by Hayek himself) is that social democracy enfeebles and enslaves in much the way that Murray describes. Of course, as my grandmother (who earned a doctorate in phliosophy from the University of Vienna in the 1920s) pointed out, socialism was a way out of perpetual serfdom for women. A society built on the free market and on marriage alone is a society in which a wife (particularly a stay-at-home mother) is far too vulnerable to the neglect and abuse of a husband; as my Oma said, “one man’s serfdom is another woman’s liberation”.
Murray posits a false dichotomy: either we have free-market capitalism and responsible, hard-working men or we have social democracy with lazy irresponsible louts. This is the tired old “risk maketh the man” myth, and it certainly is a perpetuation of the lie that responsibility and vulnerabilty are transactional. Obviously, men are capable of being loving and responsible without any sense that their female partners are financially dependent upon them — the examples are far too numerous to list. But to the extent that Murray is right, our response ought not to be to discourage the build-up of a strong public sector, but rather to encourage the tearing-down of the myths of traditional masculinity. Those of us who work with young men need to offer a vision of what it means to live a life as a full and complete human person within a male body. We need to show young men that they can be valued not merely for their capacity to fight or to earn but for their capacity to be complete, well-rounded human beings.
Bottom line: traditional gender roles, with all their attendant limitations, are indeed reinforced and encouraged by economic instability and a weak social safety net. Strong public institutions which offer alternatives to traditional family structures and allow for maximum personal autonomy and responsible self-expression are a key way to promote a feminist vision on a macro-economic level.
If that’s socialism, sign me up.
The way this is phrased undercuts your point. Though pregnant women have the right to choose to either bear a child or abort, once the child is born, the child is just as much the father’s as the mother’s (though I think there’s a real question as to the extent that society genuinely recognizes this). Shouldn’t sound public policy also allow fathers to raise children without necessarily being dependent on wives to do the caretaking?
Ballgame, that presumes the existence of large numbers of men who do want to raise their children, and the existence of large numbers of women who don’t want to have anything to do with the children they mother. That generally doesn’t prove to be the case, but where it does, the social safety net should of course enable single fatherhood.
Nota bene: this is not to be a thread about father’s rights, that great bugaboo of the men’s rights advocates. Feminist blog, feminist-friendly thread.
Your argument that we need to “encourage the tearing-down of the myths of traditional masculinity” reminds me of just how long this liberalism*-induced “anxious masculinity” has been going on - I mean, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poetry was an attempt to reconcile traditional ‘male’ values with conventionally ‘female’ traits, in order to create a more emotionally stable and fulfilled maleness - and this was back in the 1840s and 1850s. I don’t think he was terribly successful.
*I don’t know if liberalism is used the same way in an American historical context as it is in Canada - I refer to the worldview that free markets are good, the individual is the most important element of society, and that hard work results in worldly success and esteem.
I should add, that I don’t mean that we shouldn’t try re-imagining masculinity (and femininity). We’ve had 150 more years with this system than Longfellow’s contemporaries did, and I don’t see how we can continue to defend it.
Livy, I agree that masculinity probably can’t be “re-imagined”. I needs to be more thoroughly deconstructed, along the lines that Robert Jensen sketches in “Getting Off”.
Hugo, I am a feminist, and my comment goes directly to the core point of your post. I support the expansion of a safety net that will allow people to better tend to dependents (whether those dependents be children, mates, or aging parents).
I honestly do not know what you do and do not to consider to fall under the heading of “fathers’ rights,” Hugo. I was addressing the cultural dimension, and what I assumed was the unthinking way you phrased your point. It is simply not possible to tear down “the myths of traditional masculinity” and “show young men that they can be valued not merely for their capacity to fight or to earn but for their capacity to be complete, well-rounded human beings” as long as women are treated as the default gatekeepers to families. To the extent that children are considered ‘mothers’ property,’ men (as a group) will feel peripheralized from families and inevitably some will feel threatened by public policies which diminish their economic importance to their families.
Really, is this controversial here?
If feminism only pays lip service to notions of egalitarianism and freeing people from traditional gender roles, but treats men’s struggles to be recognized as equals in their families as a mere “bugaboo”, it will be treated with justifiable skepticism by working class men. Many of those men will likely be attracted to the pied piper of neoconservatism, which might screw them macrosocially but will at least (appear to) treat them as being important microsocially.
In my view, it is in feminism’s interest to show that these men are wrong, and that they do, indeed, stand to benefit from being seen as complete human beings, and that their standing as parents is not dependent on the size of the paycheck they bring home.
What part of this is unfeminist??
2.3 million (more than 1/6 of single parent households and growing) isn’t a large number?
I’m glad we agree.
Hugo, I had the same thought as ballgame reading this post; I second everything he said.
Hey, I’m happy to have ballgame on board with this one. I’m not trying to replace myths of male weakness with myths about lack of male interest in child-rearing. I thought I made it fairly clear that feminism is about releasing all of us from traditional gender roles.
The fact is that in a world where the majority if single-family households are headed by women, poverty often wears the face of a single mother with primary custody of her child(ren). That makes it a particularly vital feminist concern to build robust social institutions.
Reading your blog, ballgame, gives one the impression that you are deeply critical of mainstream feminism and its “gynocentric concerns” — hence the tone of my response. But since we agree on the importance of building strong public institutions and a strong cradle-to-grave European style safety net, I’m delighted to regard you as an ally on this issue! Hurrah for consensus!
Why would you bother reading anything Charles Murray said? After Katha Pollitt’s takedown there is really nothing left.
I actually agree with ballgame; I’m all in favor of men being more involved with their children and more frequently being co- or primary parents.
Hugo,
I agree very strongly that the social safety net for women with children- married or not- should be strengthened. While I’d ideally like more men and women to stay together (and ideally married) to raise their children, manipulating the welfare state is not an acceptable goal to that means, and will risk forcing women into unhappy or abusive marriages. There are other places to make the case for marriage and male involvement with their children- the welfare office isn’t one of them.
It would be nice if we could create a culture of duty and obligation at _all_ levels: where we honored _both_ our collective obligation to ameliorate poverty and break down class differences, _and_ our individual obligations to our spouses, children, and friends. One doesn’t and should not exclude the other.
The odd thing about Murray’s point is that it’s unclear why it should apply only to the welfare state. If wealth and comfort undermine virtue- and they quite probably do- then they undermine it at all social levels, not just among the poor. The obvious answer to that isn’t to make the poor poorer- it’s to try and shift our entire society to a more austere, less consumptive, less materialistic basis. I’d support that (not least, for environmental reasons), but I doubt Murray would.
So, did you grandmother have a chance to point this out to Hayek, and if so, did he have a response?
Hector, it’s been a while since I’ve agreed as enthusiastically with anything you’ve said.
DJW, I don’t know — she died in 1992 (same year he did) and they weren’t close after the war. (She stayed close to Popper for all of their lives, and Popper was a mentor of my father.)
A society built on the free market and on marriage alone is a society in which a wife (particularly a stay-at-home mother) is far too vulnerable to the neglect and abuse of a husband
Well yeah, you need other institutions in there (a church, a secular society, a justice system, etc.) as well.
However, I would argue that a free market society provides opportunity to mothers, more than it increases their vulnerability. The ability to get a job means that a woman who wants to get away from a “bad man” can support herself economically. It’s not an ideal situation, but many women acquit themselves heroically in such scenarios.
If a woman wants to stay at home and be a full-time parent, that is a fantastic decision that I fully support. But that doesn’t relieve her of the obligation shared by all adult humans, to labor for their own support. (Some of us are lucky enough to be able to buy our way out of much of that obligation, but relatively few.) It is often possible for a woman to negotiate a mutually beneficial labor-exchange scenario with a man; kudos to all those hard-working souls and God bless their unions with peace.
In the tragically too-common cases where a man takes advantage of economic vulnerability on the part of his mate, by abusive behavior, attempts at controlling her, etc. then the market gives a woman the potential to found her own viable economic unit. I agree that the state ought to support this kind of transition - and we do, both directly and indirectly, with things like community colleges to help such women gain employability, food stamp programs for transitional economic shortfalls, tax credits for working poor, etc.
It would then be the duty of the members of the community to care for and help any woman who needed to escape abuse, but was unable for whatever reason to earn her own living, whether temporarily or permanently. I think such care is much better given out of the charity of community members who have a surplus in their own life to share - other people favor a more governmental approach.
By the by, I would say that the central thesis of Hayek’s Road to Serfdom is that a central bureaucracy cannot adequately plan production or set prices, because they do not have access to the distributed wisdom of the entire set of people who are involved in economic activities. The market, by providing economic incentives to individual initiative, risk-taking, labor, etc., sets prices that provide a flow of goods roughly commensurate to what people demand; the central bureaucracy is unable, despite its much superior goodwill and even its loving intentions, to consistently perform that service. The market has its flaws - an admission Hayek would have signed onto in a second - but it does perform this price-sorting function.
Socialists who intend to actually run economies are forced to reach an accommodation with Hayek’s insight, which some of them actually manage to do sometimes (Sweden).
Hugo,
very, very intersting angle. I’d disagree with your Oma about the merits of socialism, but I, of course, have the benefit of having seen and read a couple of things she did not in the 1920s.
But I’d really get a bit deeper into this wanted/needed bit.
I think this is getting somewhere - what’s left for men in a socio-economic reality in which women are still both wanted *AND* needed (as per their centraliy in human reproduction), but the lack of need for males makes them feel less central in a relationship, to a society.
You’re saying that men should accept their role as being less central, being a some kind of a “luxury” to women, with being wanted, but not needed.
I’m using the term luxury good for lack of a better term, and because it is used in this most interesting thread at reclusiveleftist.com about this very topic (although put in anthropolical terms and the benefits of magic that gives men the impression of equal importance to women) - I’m quoting (selected parts of) commenter Mandos’ comment #87 -
Let me repeat - When the protection racket is over, how are men valuable *as men*? What would you suggest? How can they feel valued as a human being if there’s basically nothing only they can do that women cannot while there’s a lot of things men cannot do that women can’t? You either get detachment or service in this situation, but service, of couse, is requiring social checks on women - some kind of affirmative action for men, which one may call patriarchy. Which leaves a bit of a problem: reject patriarchy and you’ll get male detachment.
How would you get around this? What would you suggest that would make men actually feel like complete human beings AND complete men that would overcome this potential dichotomy? Whenever you’re bashing young men for their alleged inability to act responsibly because of your three Ps, you’re reframing Kant’s duty. Absent transcendental motivation, absent social centrality, where should that sense of duty come from?
Personally, while hoping that it can happen, I have doubts whether it will be possible to give both complete individual freedom (through socialized security, for example) and give both genders a feeling of (mutually felt and accepted) centrality.
Seriously interested in your opinion.
The comment link for the quote above is
http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/2006/05/07/the-origin-of-male-dominance/#comment-5871
I’ve never understood the “we have to MAKE them want us” argument Sam proposes. It’s little more than a justification for exercising power and control out of insecurity.
In the real world, Sam, men and women get together all the time because they want to, not because one of them is holding a figurative gun to the other’s head.
Mythago,
I think you did not quite understand the point I was making (with the comment quoted above) - of course, you can’t make someone want you. And I’m not really talking about individual relationships (and neither is Hugo) but the question whether there is a necessary connection between a lack socio-economic uncertainty and the male desire to be NEEDED *as well as* wanted, to also feel at the center and not be a “luxury good”. If this is a natural dilemma for all cultures that has its origin in differing male and female functions for human reproduction, and the only options are “magic” (as in Didgeridoos etc, the article calls it “male jojo”), service (as in patriarchy) or detachment, then we have a big problem to deal with - because it means that both existence and absence of a gender straight jacket will be unfair to one sex. Then gender justice would indeed look a bit like a zero sum game.
I hope this isn’t the case, but so far I haven’t seen any refutation of the argument - I’m looking forward to it. Another quote from the blog mentioned above (#44) -
http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/2006/05/07/the-origin-of-male-dominance/#comment-5720
Again, Sam, I’m not seeing the argument. What does reproduction have to do with females being economically dependent on males? Cultures that do not connect sex and reproduction still have marriage and do not treat males as superfluous.
There’s no “refutation” of the argument because you haven’t offered more than “if”s and speculation. The way this works is not that you throw up a lot of possiblys and if nobody can prove them wrong, you’re right.
I’m not sure there are cultures that don’t connect sex and reproduction, but if there are, I imagine they are cultures in which men do certain things that women can’t do because of their smaller, weaker stature or child-raising responsibilities, like hunting large game.
I think Sam’s question is an interesting one that might ring true for some men. It doesn’t seem right to me, personally. As a woman, I don’t feel a sense of having a special role in society, culture, or my family as a result of my ability to give birth (perhaps because I don’t actually have children). I’m not sure this need to feel special because of gender is a real one. I suspect that men who feels this diminishment/lack are actually responding to a loss of privilege rather than to the non-fulfillment of a legitimate human need.
When people long for “good old days” of traditional gender roles, they usually also blithely forget just how much work women did those days.
The traditional stay-at-home woman works just as much as the man. Usually she doesn’t do the same things, of course, but raising and feeding a family, scrubbing floors etc. is just as back-breaking work as any traditional male occupation.
This has always bothered me in discussions of evolutionary biology: there seems to be a kind of a pretty, enduring fantasy, in which the strong and capable male alone was responsible for bringing food to the lazy female and the kiddies.
C’mon, we are hunter-*gatherers* for a reason.
I think the evopsych fantasy is more of a temporary reality, Molly - both hunters and gatherers were working hard, but a woman who has just had a child and (pre-refrigeration, pre-pumping, pre-farming, pre-anything) has to stay in close physical proximity to that child, can’t really do any gathering. She needs someone else to bring her food and is dependent on that, for a relatively brief time. Thus, partnering with a male who will provide ongoing support, or cooperating with other women to bring food to the temporarily vulnerable, etc.
Sam, I think you’re complicating matters more than need be. From what I can tell, most women (and men!) are a) heterosexual, and b) interested in a long-term partnerships with a romantic/sexual dimension. Now some might speculate the end of patriarchal socio-economic relations will lead to (a) and/or (b) not being true anymore (a few feminists have hoped for/predicted something like this, but it’s by no means a position that has much of a place in mainstream feminism). As long as you agree with me that change on these fronts is not coming, men will be ‘needed’ in the sense that I feel a “need” for the love and companionship of the person I’ve built a life with. Perhaps that doesn’t meet your condition of being “needed as a man”. But I’d rather be “needed” as the whole person I am than be “needed” due to my abstract status as a member of a particular gender (or race, or whatever).
How wise your grandmother is, Hugo. I wish either of mine were as perceptive. What a contrast to Katha Pollitt’s speculation that perhaps socialism is just another way for men to evade their paternal reponsibilities. Thanks for an illuminating post.
Robert,
Nursing mothers can still do light agricultural work or gathering with a baby in tow….they continue to do so in many developing countries, although there may be a culturally determined period of a few months after the birth where they don’t work. Having a baby in tow certainly lowers one’s working efficiency but it doesn’t cast one out of the workforce entirely.
“It doesn’t seem right to me, personally. As a woman, I don’t feel a sense of having a special role in society, culture, or my family as a result of my ability to give birth (perhaps because I don’t actually have children).”
Nor do I. In fact, I went as far as to give up my ability to give birth via tubal ligation. Being able to give birth isn’t always the blessing some people like to believe it to be.
“I think the evopsych fantasy is more of a temporary reality, Molly - both hunters and gatherers were working hard, but a woman who has just had a child and (pre-refrigeration, pre-pumping, pre-farming, pre-anything) has to stay in close physical proximity to that child, can’t really do any gathering.”
A breastfeeding mother is not physically incapacitated. As someone who has breastfed two children, I can tell that I was more than capable of moving about out of doors with a baby in tow. I do have two arms that work quite well, as do most women. And while I am currently living in a modern society in which it is not necessary for me to “gather”, I still somehow have managed to raise both my children without the help of a single man. Go figure.
“Sam, I think you’re complicating matters more than need be.”
He has a tendency to do that.
I still somehow have managed to raise both my children without the help of a single man
Really? No men worked to build your home, pave your streets, create infrastructure to support you, grow the crops that feed you and your children, protect you from criminals, or preserve your nation-state? That must be an interesting place, where you live.
What you mean, I assume, is that you support(ed) yourself economically by working at some kind of paid job, or received charity from some source, and so were able to function independently without the daily aid of other people. That’s great, and it’s part of why you’re subject to different evolutionary pressures than your great-to-the-thousandth grandmother - but she didn’t have the options you have. It’s apples and oranges.
“Really? No men worked to build your home, pave your streets, create infrastructure to support you, grow the crops that feed you and your children, protect you from criminals, or preserve your nation-state? That must be an interesting place, where you live.”
Very cute. And why yes, men did do some of those things for me. However, I quite firmly believe that women alone could do all those things for themselves.
“That’s great, and it’s part of why you’re subject to different evolutionary pressures than your great-to-the-thousandth grandmother - but she didn’t have the options you have. It’s apples and oranges.”
Perhaps not. But women have been raising children quite well without men around since women have been raising children. That’s a simple fact. And my point was simply that breastfeeding, or even having a small child, does not mean that a woman is incapable of providing her own food or sustenance for her offspring.
Incapable, no. Less capable, obviously. Handicaps are handicaps; I have terrible arthritis in my legs and feet which, in the state of nature, would greatly impair my ability to hunt and gather for myself whenever it flared up. My disease wouldn’t mean that I died on day one, but it would certainly make me less able to fend for myself than my peers. Similarly, having a newborn to tend to doesn’t make you lion chow instantaneously, but it reduces your ability to function. (Much less these days than in those days, of course - just as these days we have canes and cars and handicapped ramps that make it easier for ME.)
Imagine if everyone in the species, in the state of nature, had arthritis - there would be evolutionary adjustments for that group. For example, people with a genetic predisposition to do everything for themselves would probably thrive less than people with a genetic predisposition to finding allies and sharing the work. Over time the species would pick up more and more genetically-suggested behaviors that work around the problem of its members becoming periodically crippled.
You don’t have to get to “incapable” for differential capability to make an evolutionary difference. Women with little babies who found help did better, across the generations, than women with little babies who weren’t able to find help.
“Handicaps are handicaps”
Having a child is not a “handicap”. Yes, having children slows women down somewhat if we do not have someone to help out. What bugs me is the insistence that women of any variety need a -man- to help us raise children. We do not. Quite simple fact. Some women (possibly most) -want- a man around to help them raise children, but that is personal choice, not a necessity. And at no point in history have women actually needed men to help us raise children. Even in pre-industrial societies women can raise their children without having a man around.
“Women with little babies who found help did better, across the generations, than women with little babies who weren’t able to find help.”
And when women have been unable to find help, it’s usually been because they lived in a patriarchal society which treated women without a man as something akin to an abomination. The greatest barriers to women raising children without the help of a man have always been created by humans, not nature.
I’d like to second Molly’s comment above, but neither she nor Hugo seems to have noticed the most glaring error in Murray’s thesis: poor women have always worked, not just as “stay at home moms” (in Molly’s terms), but outside the home as well. Murray is peddling a myth about working-class families in the Good Old Days, but he’s actually describing a middle-class practice that has been mythologically transposed to everyone else. Poor men have always had poor women helping to contribute to the household income. Poor women have worked as maids and nannies; they’re sewed and knitted goods for sale; they’ve mended old clothes, picked rags, and so on. Poor men have long been accustomed to their wives or partners contributing to household income, often in excess of the men’s own contributions. It’s the middle class that is scandalized by the idea of a woman having a job.
This basic historical ignorance on Murray’s part is enough, on its own, to topple the whole pile of garbage reasoning built on top of it. Like his work on race, he’s dealing in social mythology directly at odds with the actual evidence.
I also don’t get Sam’s obsession over being “needed” AS A MAN. I mean, doesn’t the predominance of heterosexuality pretty much take care of that? Why is economic “need” the only need that counts/counterbalances a woman’s ability to give birth? It really makes no sense as an argument. Both men and women “need” each other to create a child. So far I don’t know of any synthetically manufactured sperm. If men as a group “need” to be “needed” by a stable partner, then they could get together and refuse to provide sperm outside of a committed relationship.
Again, I feel my response is rambling because the more I think about it, the more Sam’s comment, while interesting on the surface, makes absolutely no sense.
Robert, yes, I agree with you (and Faith and Picador).
But I also think that you might very well call bearing a child and then giving it birth “work”. It’s not a vacation, for example.
If child-bearing were seen as work or as something fully comparable to (heavy) work, it might be more appreciated in our society. (In *any* society.)
It’s work as far as I can see.
Faith,
You think I’m making things more complicated than they need be and then you make my point…?
Emily et al,
Two things - this is a thread not about individual wants or needs but about social arrangements and the question whether economic security is connected to gender equality - if anyone actually read the thread I linked to, you’ll find that increased economic insecurity (worry about protein intake in earlier times) seems to have led to an increase in “affirmative action” for men, the creation of male magic roles, the thread speculates about this being the origin of religious practices - we have to remember that today, things are actually quite different when it comes to the centrality of child-bearing for a community - there was a time when women had a lot more children and lived much shorter, when motherhood was a much more central part of their lives than it is today. I don’t find it surprising that motherhood was easily identifiable as a specificall important and central part of the human experience and the community’s/tribe’s procreation, while it was much harder to identify the male role - which is apparently why most indigenous cultures have come up with some magic role that only man can do but everyone “knows” is equally important as the female role in the community - doesn’t work in “non-magic” societies.
Now the question for me is - is the reduced role of motherhood today sufficient to say that men don’t need anything only they can do? Or do we/they still need something that is independent of a personal relationship in which we are wanted (not needed) for what we are as a person.
I don’t think that the predominance of heterosexuality necessarily solves the problem of a possible male detachment from the community (which is, as I think, the real problem we’re talking about here) as both sexual contacts and relationships aren’t equally distributed. I don’t think sexuality has a pareto distribution but throughout the human evolution weak polygyny was the norm, and reoccuring tribal violence/war was the way to deal with excess males.
What are we - as a society - going to do with detached males today? There’s a lot of testosterone out there that doesn’t feel needed or wanted, in my opinion. Isn’t that the question Hugo was asking? How do we give people a feeling that they ARE needed when in fact they’re not? Isn’t communal detachment their only way to keep a healthy psyche?
I agree that there is a lot of speculation in this argument - that’s simply inevitable given the subject matter at hand. But saying it ain’t so wihtout backing up disagreement with more than “because” isn’t too convincing either…
“You think I’m making things more complicated than they need be and then you make my point…?”
Yes, I do believe you are making things more complicated than they need to be. Women only need men for sperm if they should wish to reproduce. That’s the only reason women -need- men. Likewise, men only -need- women if they want to reproduce. There is no imbalance there. Outside of reproduction, members of both gender usually -want- a member of the other gender around…unless, of course, they are homosexual or bisexual. I personally don’t have much desire for a man beyond sex and a bit of companionship, but that’s just me. I’m bisexual and these days lean far more towards women than men. There were quite a lot of heterosexual women running around last time I checked, however…and most of them still seem pretty damn hung-up about wanting a man in their life to marry or be otherwise committed to.
Why you are so adamant about men being a necessity in the life of women is totally beyond me. You are grasping for something that just isn’t there.
“”there was a time when women had a lot more children and lived much shorter, when motherhood was a much more central part of their lives than it is today.”
You’re forgetting that many women didn’t particularly want to have that many children and they had little say in whether or not they actually had those children. And I’m not just referring to lack of access to birth control or abortion either. Women have historically had little say in whether or not men were allowed sexual access to our bodies.
Another key factor that you’re missing is that while societies claim to adore mothers and mothering, mother in reality are often treated terribly, single mothers in particular. Being a single mother in the society in which I currently reside - even with all the gains that women have made because of feminism - is far from easy. There is still a stigma. You don’t seem to be able to make the distinction between what society -says- it thinks about women, and what society actually does think about women.
“What are we - as a society - going to do with detached males today?”
There are many ways which men can be involved in society without being involved with a woman, or having children. Your blog host is a pretty good example of that. That I even have to point that out to someone as obviously educated as you are is somewhat bizarre.
Ah, this again. Sam, as long as humans are social creatures, I don’t really think your concerns should keep you up at night. We pair up, we group up, we have a strong drive to find friends or lovers or family or companions or partners or even just someone to listen. If an individual finds him or herself unwanted or, as you cling to, unneeded, it’s probably something going on with that person that’s repelling social contacts, not crazy imbalances in the necessity of one gender over the other.
“If an individual finds him or herself unwanted or, as you cling to, unneeded, it’s probably something going on with that person that’s repelling social contacts, not crazy imbalances in the necessity of one gender over the other.”
Not to mention the fact that the argument that men need to be needed by women positively reeks of narcissism and/or insecurity.
Faith,
will reply in more detail later - for now just this -
“Not to mention the fact that the argument that men need to be needed by women positively reeks of narcissism and/or insecurity.”
Again, I can’t seem to make it clear why I would make a distinction between individual relationships and social gender arrangements - maybe I’m looking at this differently because I have a background in institutional economics.
And of course this is about male insecurity - and the potential effects of non-controlled testosterone - that’s probably the whole point of any social organisation. Male insecurity has always had a notion of potential violence and sociopathy - and it still has, it’s a very conservative theme, but it’s also present in almost every kind of feminism. But I’m only hearing - “it’s not a problem” or “it’s not our problem” from the very people who also claim “the personal is political”.
I think it likely that women will always “need” men, and men women, simply because of heterosexuality being a relatively common phenomenon. I don’t think that’s what Sam is getting at.
Men need to feel needed. Perhaps this is evopsych, perhaps it is just pure biology, maybe God designed us this way, or maybe it’s just our dreadful patriarchal cultural conditioning - but if we don’t feel needed, we existing men here and now, then something goes very wrong in our psyches. I think, perhaps, that some women don’t understand that on an emotional level, because they don’t seem to generally experience the same phenomenon, and many of the explanations offered by men come freighted with a great deal of baggage that the men expect women to lift for them.
That is what Sam is getting at. This fact does not create an obligation on the part of women (”well, we’d better order society so that the damn men feel ‘needed’, I guess”) but it is something that anyone thinking about social order and human culture should take into consideration.
Men’s need to be needed is, of course, “our own problem” - it’s something that each man, and men in the collective, must find an accommodation with. At the same time, most women live with men, and while deciding that this problem is something men shouldn’t bother women about is within each woman’s prerogative, it’s probably not all that conducive to good relationships, any more than it’s conducive to good relationships for men to dismiss women’s issues as being just their problems.
I think there’s also a connection to Hugo’s favorite issue of pot, porn, and playstation - those are escapes from the world for men who don’t find meaning (another way to say they don’t feel needed) in the roles society is offering them. As a personal example, my wife and my daughter need me - my wife for emotional, physical, and economic support, and my daughter for the same plus all the normal roles of fatherhood. I remember the time in my life before these women were part of it, and it’s not a good memory. For all the joking men do about “freedom” and “the ball and chain”, without those responsibilities we feel less than, alienated, inadequate. It isn’t a good feeling, and men will go to great lengths to get rid of the feeling - often in negative and self-destructive ways, or most awfully in other-destructive ways.
To put it more dramatically, there are no serial killers or mass rapists who feel needed by the people around them. Does that mean that women need to order their lives to accommodate this male emotional state, to be responsible for these male actions? No, of course not - but surely part of love and relationship is taking into account the different psyche of our partners, and to mutually shape a relationship that honors the needs of all parties.
“Men need to feel needed.”
Many men need to feel needed. I do not, however, believe this to be a biological phenomenon. I believe this to be a purely cultural phenomenon.
And no, it is not women’s responsibility to help men understand that women do not need them for anything beyond reproduction (and not even that if they don’t want to reproduce). It is not women’s, or feminists job, to help men deal with the insecurities that have been bred into them. To be quite blunt, we women have a helluva lot more important things to deal with..like, oh, surviving and getting men to stop beating us, raping us, killing us, and taking away or denying us our rights.
“To put it more dramatically, there are no serial killers or mass rapists who feel needed by the people around them. ”
I’m not so sure about that. I strongly suspect that many serial killers and rapists are driven in part by the very insecurity that we are discussing.
“No, of course not - but surely part of love and relationship is taking into account the different psyche of our partners, and to mutually shape a relationship that honors the needs of all parties.”
And maybe it’s high time for men to stop projecting their insecurities and feeling to be needed onto women and deal with it themselves so that we don’t have to keep having these conversations.
““To put it more dramatically, there are no serial killers or mass rapists who feel needed by the people around them. ”
I’m not so sure about that. I strongly suspect that many serial killers and rapists are driven in part by the very insecurity that we are discussing.”
I read that statement incorrectly. Strike that particular comment.
To respond again:
Many serial killers and rapists are likely driven by the very insecurity that we are discussing. I’m not so sure that none of them feel needed by the people around them. Serial killers and rapists are often upstanding members of society. Married with kids, active in their community, and the whole shebang. In other words, many of the men who commit these heinous crimes already had/have the things that men like Sam Seaborn are always talking about men needing.
“And of course this is about male insecurity - and the potential effects of non-controlled testosterone - that’s probably the whole point of any social organisation.”
Really? You think social organization is all about placating men and making sure they don’t self-destruct or commit acts of violence?
Yet you think feminists have the low opinion of men?
How sad.
Faith,
I think we’re constantly talking past each other - I’m thinking about social organization in a very macro way and you’re using micro examples - that’s often difficult to square, particularly in conversations where the other’s wording and interests and background is difficult to understand.
Do I have a low opinion of men because I think that the original “social contract” was that some women made a deal that offered their reproductive resources and their sexuality to some men in exchange for protection from other men? Of course not, that’s purely descriptive. I can explain that something that would be considered rape probably played a part in human evolution and not have a low opinion of men today. Sexuality and the human brain have evolved, too - and sexual mutuality (a biological desire for sexual consent, mutual love and psychological attachment to one person) is probably a big part of what differentiates humans from most other animals.
We’re not sitting around the campfire anymore, things have changed a lot. But if you’re wondering about social organisation and the quesiton of male detachment, I think it’s well worth considering how we got where we are now and to which extent male attachment to a community comprising women is the product of economic (and other) insecurity - a situation in which men are *needed*.
So, my point is - how can we have peace, economic security and still have men who are attached to the community (a woman/a group of women). That’s, in my opinion, the big question.
To bad that Hugo hasn’t weighed in yet. I’d really love to hear from him.
B,
Individually, that is likely true. But socially? Evolutionary? I’m always surprised to which extent relative scarcity is ignored as a factor. Probably because it suggests inevitabilities in outcome that contradict the human desire to overcome…
I will weigh back in on this, Monday — b’ezrat Hashem and the crick don’t rise.
Evolution seems to have taken care of the whole ‘needing the opposite sex’ problem very neatly. If you’re talking about companionship, you do know that there are very long-term, successful societies where men and women don’t even live together; women live in the “women’s village” with the children, men go over to the “men’s village” when they become adults, and they get together but don’t actually share households. Men manage not to feel superfluous.
Robert, the problem comes in guaranteeing one is needed by making one’s partner dependent.
Mythago,
“Men manage not to feel superfluous.”
no, but that’s exactly the kind of tribal societies I thoughg of where men do usually seem to have a magic function (like playing the didgeridoo to keep the universe from collapsing and make sure no woman ever touches it) to offset the female centrality in raising the next generation. Do you know of any non-magic (non-indigenous) society that practices something like this?
“I think we’re constantly talking past each other - I’m thinking about social organization in a very macro way and you’re using micro examples - that’s often difficult to square, particularly in conversations where the other’s wording and interests and background is difficult to understand.”
I think on both a micro and macro level. You can’t have a macro level without the micro.
“Do I have a low opinion of men because I think that the original “social contract” was that some women made a deal that offered their reproductive resources and their sexuality to some men in exchange for protection from other men?”
Women make that deal when men create a society in which they have little other choice but to make that deal. There is nothing evolutionary about it. It is a purely patriarchal practice.
“I can explain that something that would be considered rape probably played a part in human evolution and not have a low opinion of men today.”
Rape is rape is rape. Just because it wasn’t considered rape 1000 years ago does not mean that it wasn’t rape 1000 years ago. Men have historically defined what rape is or is not. Not surprisingly, the definition of what is or is not rape as defined by men has been far from accurate.
“So, my point is - how can we have peace, economic security and still have men who are attached to the community (a woman/a group of women). That’s, in my opinion, the big question.”
Hmm…well, some examples: they can get involved in activism, they can volunteer, they can get a freaking job and support themselves and make donations to worthy causes, they can become mentors, they can become teachers. Really, I’m sorry but given all the possibilities of what men can do to be attached to society without making a woman and children economically dependent on them are all so obvious that asking the question of what the poor men can do if women aren’t submissive and dependent on them just seems absurd to me.
Faith,
“I think on both a micro and macro level. You can’t have a macro level without the micro.”
I agree, but I have the feeling our micro-level experiences are differing quite a bit which is why it’s difficult to make each other understand what we’re talking about. Abstracting from them is probably the only way to improve our understanding.
“Women make that deal when men create a society in which they have little other choice but to make that deal. There is nothing evolutionary about it. It is a purely patriarchal practice.”
I’d prefer to leave terms like “patriarchy” out of the description (for the moment) as they are heavily tainted by individual value judgements and make it much more difficult to look at the process itself. Well, I wouldn’t say that current social organisation is mostly about protecting women from sexual predators, but I think back in caveland that was pretty much the deal. Women were physically weaker and men were physically stronger, yet women had the scarce reproductive resource and chose their partner - which left men with two alternatives: stay detached and occasionally attack women or form a team with some to jointly deal with other competing teams. Those who formed a team were more successful, which is probably why we have tribes and resulting forms of social organisation, which is why we evolved the brain circuits for love and attachment.
“Rape is rape is rape. Just because it wasn’t considered rape 1000 years ago does not mean that it wasn’t rape 1000 years ago.”
I was thinking more about 1,000,000 and 100,000 years ago. 1000 years ago was a completely different thing. Sure, by today’s standards there was probably a lot of rape that wasn’t considered rape. Chances are we’re all to a differing degree the offspring of one or more episodes of “rape” in the course of human evolution. Do we consider it “rape” when a male animal has sex with a female animal simply because they’re not able to give verbal consent? Hardly. So using today’s standards for a time when human’s weren’t what we are today is more than a little problematic.
“Hmm…well, some examples: they can get involved in activism…”
Sure, they can do all this - and still, the original problem of an imbalance isn’t solved by any of your suggestions. Is there anything as central as giving birth that can only be done by men? I repeat myself -
http://www.reclusiveleftist.com/2006/05/07/the-origin-of-male-dominance/#comment-5720
Is it really so difficult to see what I’m trying to say???
“The stronger the social safety net, the more options women have for raising children without men; those women who do choose to raise children with men will do so by choice rather than necessity.”
That’s a very odd thing to say. Why should a man’s ability to continue to raise his children be dependent upon the “choice” of his partner?
Let’s say you fail to form and maintain a relationship based on desire and mutual respect with your partner (we’re all human), what’s keeping your in your children’s lives? Without a strong welfare state men are able to bargain financial support for a place in their children’s lives, and maintain a relationship with their children even after the relationship with their partner has broken down. Maintaining this relationship is a good thing. But if these needs are met by the state then they find themselves without a bargaining chip. There’s no problem with them being cut out, and their role in their children’s lives is dependent upon their relationship with the child’s mother and her goodwill.
If your wife walks out, you can find yourself another one in a bar somewhere, it’s not as easy to find new children. There’s every reason why we should let spouses walk out on each other, but no reason why you relationship with your kids should be dependent upon maintaining a relationship based on desire and mutual respect with your spouse. But that’s where we end up.
“I’d prefer to leave terms like “patriarchy” out of the description (for the moment) as they are heavily tainted by individual value judgements and make it much more difficult to look at the process itself.”
You might wish to leave patriarchy out of it. I do not. We live in a patriarchal society. We have lived in a patriarchal society for most to all of recorded history. Simple fact. Don’t like that simple fact, you are free to not direct comments in my direction.
“Women were physically weaker and men were physically stronger, yet women had the scarce reproductive resource and chose their partner ”
Actually, women had little say in the choice of their partners. It has only been very recently in history that women began to have any real say at all in who they partnered with. Women in many countries still lack this basic fundamental right.
“stay detached and occasionally attack women or form a team with some to jointly deal with other competing teams.”
That’s it? They can find a woman to be attached to or they can just attack them at random? Do you have any idea how you sound? Any idea at all?
“I was thinking more about 1,000,000 and 100,000 years ago. 1000 years ago was a completely different thing. Sure, by today’s standards there was probably a lot of rape that wasn’t considered rape.”
You’re getting into a seriously dangerous area here. Rape was rape 100,000 years ago and rape was rape 1,000,000 years ago. Just because it wasn’t called rape, doesn’t mean it wasn’t rape.
“Chances are we’re all to a differing degree the offspring of one or more episodes of “rape” in the course of human evolution.”
Yes, certainly. I also don’t believe there is any need to add quotation marks around the word rape in that sentence. And your point?
“Do we consider it “rape” when a male animal has sex with a female animal simply because they’re not able to give verbal consent? Hardly.”
Animals can not give verbal consent because animals cannot speak, at least not in any way that is understandable to the average human. However, male animals most certainly do rape female animals. I’ve witnessed the act myself. Stopping a pack of dogs or cats from raping a female animal is the only time in my life I’ve ever been violent towards an animal in any capacity.
“So using today’s standards for a time when human’s weren’t what we are today is more than a little problematic.”
It isn’t problematic in the slightest. The only problem here seems to be your refusal to acknowledge the hideous reality that men have subjected women to for much of our existence. You’re seeming belief that much of what has occurred between men and women has been simply evolutionary is extremely offensive.
“Is there anything as central as giving birth that can only be done by men?”
No, there isn’t anything that can be done by men that cannot be done by women other than producing sperm. That’s the end sum game. Not only is there nothing else that men can do that women can do, there is no need for there to be anything that men can do that women can’t do. There is no imbalance there either. I’ve already stated women must have sperm to reproduce. Again, you are making this far more complicated than it needs to be. That men are not super special and important to society in some way which women are not is a fact that you and the rest of the men on this planet are just going to have to accept.
Sam - what those societies have is patriarchy. Which is to say, feeling “needed” by forcing dependence, and basing an identity on that.
Should we bar men from having anything to do with childrearing so that we, women, can feel “needed”? I mean, gosh, my husband could ditch me and go find a wife in a bar somewhere, apparently, to rear the children. Should it be illegal for him to get custody so that we preserve women’s sense of feeling “needed”?
Faith,
I’m getting the feeling that I’m not able to get my point across…
“Stopping a pack of dogs or cats from raping a female animal is the only time in my life I’ve ever been violent towards an animal in any capacity.”
Sorry, but that’s, well, like a former neighbour of mine who put a necklace with bells on her cat so it didn’t kill any of those “cute” squirrels… I found that rather strange.
“That men are not super special and important to society in some way which women are not is a fact that you and the rest of the men on this planet are just going to have to accept.”
Yes, that may well be so. But if men won’t be able to “just accept” this, this will likely be - as written by the commenter I quoted - the biggest source of backlash. And we’ll see how social organisation will adjust,
“I found that rather strange.”
::shrugs:: You can find it strange all you like. I’m still not going to stand around and do nothing when I see a 6 month old female kitten trying desperately to get away from a pack of adult male cats who are attempting to, or actively raping her. It’s no different from breaking up a fight between two or more animals to keep them from killing each other.
“but if men won’t be able to “just accept” this, this will likely be - as written by the commenter I quoted - the biggest source of backlash.”
It is their responsibility to accept this. If they can not, they are the ones to blame for their poor behavior. Not anyone else.
“Sorry, but that’s, well, like a former neighbour of mine who put a necklace with bells on her cat so it didn’t kill any of those “cute” squirrels… I found that rather strange.”
I’m also curious, especially since most of your theory about male/female relationships seems based on nature…do you have much actual experience dealing with animals (or living close to nature), or is most to virtually all of your knowledge of animal behavior from books or other written sources, like the internet?