Below last week’s post on toplessness, Brian takes issue with my suggestion that men are capable of empathizing with women’s nearly-universal experience of being objectified. He writes:
Dialogue between the starving and the force-fed ain’t easy; even establishing a common frame is hard; nevermind agreeing on whether something looks tasty.
It should be easy enough to see terms aren’t used the same way. It comes up often enough that men can’t readily distinguish between objectifying and finding aesthetically appealling. (I know I can’t). Lack of a frame of reference.
The “force-fed and the starving” image refers to the experience of most men (who never feel themselves as objects of desire) and many women (who are objectified and ogled for much of their lives.) It’s an offensive analogy, because it suggests comparable injury between never being wanted and being harassed on a daily basis; the subtext is that women should even feel grateful for the attention they receive, and think sympathetically of men who never know what it is like to be whistled at. Given that we live in a world where a large number of men sexually assault women and use their own desire (inflamed by a woman’s choice of clothing, or behavior, or something similar) as an excuse, it’s silly to suggest any equivalence whatsoever. (Note that I am not unsympathetic to men’s lack of experience of feeling desired; see this post.)
Besides the problem of false equivalence in Brian’s remark, there’s a corollary to the “myth of male weakness” in what he writes. The myth of male weakness suggests that all men are cavemen; brutish and hyper-sexual, our civility is a thin veneer that can drop at any time. Driven by the irresistible forces of the Y chromosome and testosterone, we are to be applauded (so say the peddlers of the myth) for even the most half-hearted efforts at self-restraint. Because of our inherent vulnerability to temptation and our concomitant single-mindedness, the myth suggests it is women’s job to protect us from ourselves. Women need to cover up so as not to distract us; women need to flatter and cajole us rather than ask us directly for what they want; women, in other words, need to treat men like potentially dangerous but nonetheless loveable overgrown infants rather than as full and complete equals. And of course, while this sounds demeaning to men, the real pain of the myth is born by women — who are held responsible for men’s inability to exercise self-control. (This is a good place to recommend, again, Martha McCaughey’s magisterial corrective to all the bad evolutionary biology in the popular media, The Caveman Mystique: Pop-Darwinism and the Debates Over Sex, Violence, and Science.)
Brian’s corollary is a familiar one: men are too simple-minded to understand women, who are infinitely more complex. The “men are simple, women are complicated” myth works to serve the interests of a sexist status quo. The myth excuses men for being uninterested in women’s inner lives and inattentive to women’s concerns; it suggests that a man trying to understand a woman is like having a toddler try to grasp advanced mathematics — taught in Finnish. It is not flattery to tell women that their inner lives are infinitely more rich and nuanced than those of men. It’s part of a very clear agenda to tell women that asking men to “get” them is an unreasonable and bootless request. It may be the soft bigotry of low expectations in a new form, but the real victims are women, who are urged not to expect too much. And the beneficiaries, whether they realize it or not, are most men, who are excused the challenging but certainly not impossible task of listening to women, developing empathy, and remembering what it is that they have heard.
Whether dressed up in the pseudo-sophisticated language of popular neuro-science, or in the lyrics of a country and western song, the notion that all men are obtuse little boys while women are mysterious to everyone (including, at times, themselves) is reinforced over and over again in American culture. On a superficial level, the myth seems to explain why things are the way that they are, and there is comfort in that for some. But what we miss is the simple and elegant truth that the myth doesn’t reflect an inherent reality — rather, it reinforces an artificial, created one. The myth fosters mistrust, hostility, and cynicism; it explains away cruelty, defends the indefensible, and blames the victim for the abuse she endures. We can do better.
Though many animals are sentient, and quite a few probably have what philosophers call “consciousness”, it seems likely that human beings are nearly unique in the sophistication and complexity of their inner lives. That multi-layered richness of thought and desire; that capacity to reflect and plan, that ability to connect and love is found in all but a handful of sociopaths. Men and women alike have no enduring biological impediments to mutual comprehension and mutual respect, save for the ones erected and maintained by what is still, for lack of a better term, a patriarchal culture eager to lay the blame for the enduring curse of human suffering on Eve and her daughters.
Excellent and though-provoking post!
I wanted to comment on something that struck me about Brian’s reproduced comment, “Dialogue between the starving and the force-fed ain’t easy.”
This dichotomy effectively ignores responsibility and hierarchies. While yes, patriarchy and sexism do harm men as well as women, such a dichotomy/metaphor erases responsibility. Who is in control in a patriarchy? Who decides who is force-fed and who is starved?
I don’t mean to single out Brian, and I doubt you mean to either. Rather, if one person voices an idea or belief, you can bet countless others share those ideas or beliefs, but just aren’t saying so. I think that a huge factor of the rejection of feminist ideas, ESPECIALLY for men, is the idea that if you’re a guy, you’re automatically horrible and have been consciously participating in patriarchy. In truth, many of us have no idea we’re participating in this system until we’re introduced to feminist ideas, often through our own experiences. There’s also the fear of change or loss of privilege, of course.
And so on.
C’mon Hugo, I haven’t said anything like that, and I’m not sure why you’d try and ascribe it to me. As third party observers, we should see (pseudo-objectively, or whatever) see that neither being force-fed or starved is desirable or pleasant, and see clearly why our disparate frames of reference make understanding each other difficult.
The morally “correct” answer isn’t contained within either of our treatments; it’s patently silly to suggest that I’m suggesting anyone should be happy having to drink a gallon of whipping cream a day (my own experience ends at a quart, but drinking a quart of whipping cream is awful, and’ll turn one off of food for quite some time).
We are perfectly capable of understanding each other; but that isn’t to say it’s easy, and it certainly can’t be done without acknowledging the reality of all of our experiences. If you want to talk to men, you need to take some fairly realistic picture of their experience into the dialogue; the same is true if you want to talk to women. If you want to talk to both, you’ll need both pictures.
Beyond that, I’m pretty clear in constructing parallels between men and women and the difficulties of understanding across gaps where our experiences differ widely. Indeed, I’ve constructed a lot of it in parallels with all the subtlety of Gene Roddenberry explaining racism is bad. How to jump from “differing experiences make understanding each other comparably difficult” to “differing experiences are inherently morally equal” (and beyond that, to where you argue that I argue women receive inherently preferable treatment, which isn’t explained at all.) It’s excellent rhetoric, but it fails any empirical comparison to what I actually wrote.
What lacks, then, is a message of how people ought to be treated in this regard (or at the very least, one framed so as to be visible from where men stand.) Especially given that women have been coached more than men to value their appearances, waking up tommorow and telling them all they’re fuck-ugly and nobody wants to look at them is not the correct approach. A positive, understandable “this is how one ought to be acting”, not laden with vague generalities, but something implementable. If you want to draw a distinction between acceptable and unacceptable attractions, acceptable and unacceptable ways of acting on attraction, draw it, don’t just assert that it’s there.
Brian, you’re still playing the game of assuming moral equivalence between the harasser and his victim. The woman being wolf-whistled and leered at doesn’t need to work harder at understanding the fellow who’s doing it; he DOES need to understand just how ugly and hurtful his actions are. This isn’t an interaction of mutual culpability.
And if we need to spell out the rules, we could start with basics like avoiding catcalls and keeping eye contact. But that’s another post.
Hmm, I hadn’t really thought about their moral standings. I hadn’t thought at all, really, about ethical requirements. Only the mechanics of how to communicate what you’re interested in communicating. Left in isolation, I think few men’ll figure out how women generally feel about such things on their own, it does need to be explained to them because it’s so different from their own experience. I suppose we can agree there’s a moral obligation to be a receptive audience to this (if assigning moral culpability is of interest; I’d frankly assumed that an audience’d listen if spoken to in a way that made sense to them.) Doesn’t matter much to me. Accurately anticipating everyone’s reaction to everything isn’t going to happen, whether we have the moral leverage to demand it or not.
But if anyone wants to talk to him, they do need to take a realistic view of where he’s coming from if they want to communicate with him. Not that they have an ethical obligation, but that otherwise no information will get passed. (Or maybe it will in a badly garbled way. There’re more than enough examples of this, too.) This isn’t to say that J. Random Woman is responsible for communicating to him; Hugo (if I understand you correctly) you’ve taken the historical attitude that other men should explain this, which is also at least plausible. But if, in doing so, we ignore our own experiences, ignore our own framework for understanding, we’re just wasting our time.
Brian, I think you’re illustrating the point of the post. The problem isn’t a defect of understanding, it’s a defect of courage and a defect of will. And that can be encouraged and developed, by other men, who will be willing to meet the target audience “where they are.”
Hugo
If you think that, I don’t think you have a lot of hope of meeting the target audience where they are. People generally do “golden rule” it instinctively (at least, most of us do). The biggest, most widespread problems like these arise when we fail to anticipate that other people might not want what we want. When men “get” why a woman is upset or offended, they’ll (generally) try and rectify it. They’re swinging and missing so much because of a defect of understanding.
There are exceptions, of course. But that isn’t nearly the majority of cases.
Brian, I’m not talking about well-intentioned guys trying to pick up on women at school or in a coffee shop. I’m talking — and the original article about toplessness — was talking about the larger issue of harassment. A guy who leans out the window of a car, smacks his lips, and says, “ooh baby, you lookin’ fine” is under no illusion he is paying a compliment; he is under no illusion that this is a pick-up line. He is exerting power, the power to shame. (He may also be bonding with the other men in the car at women’s expense, the phenomenon we call homosociality.) Those guys understand what they’re doing all too well.
To use your metaphor, harassers aren’t swinging so that they can get a base hit. They’re swinging to hurt.
Hugo,
“We can do better.”
Everyone always can attempt to. No one ever said biology is destiny, but it’s definitively dispositive in a lot of respects as long as we don’t live in the matrix. Of course, as I said over and over, embodiment and all, the balance of nature and nurture in all of us is extremely difficult to disentangle. But as you’re using your disbelief in male essentials to formulate a categorical imperative, I think it would be useful to actually understand what you accept as essential features of each sex. I’m not sure why you never answer that question as it is immensely important to any
interpretation of your hypotheses.
“Men and women alike have no enduring biological impediments to mutual comprehension and mutual respect”
You do understand that statement is basically contradicting the very foundation of feminist standpoint epistemology, don’t you? Because even if biology didn’t matter at all, you’d never be able to tell the difference at an age at which people are able to however imperfectly communicate their perception of themselves and others.
“it’s silly to suggest any equivalence whatsoever.”
I don’t know. You’ cannot know. No one can. We just don’t know, actually, all we can probably say is that sex/gender may be a rather problematic epistemological category to generalize about when it comes to such largely perceptive matters. In fact, you’re prioritizing *some* perspectives over others, and you don’t actually have a non-axiomatic frame of criteria for this priorization.
Brian is completely right. Dialogue between the starved and the forcefed isn’t easy, if it is possible at all. But that realization *includes* the inability to assign moral precendence to one perspective. It’s simply logically impossible in that case. But if you say that men and women *can* truly understand each other, that there is no gender based epistemic privilege for women, if we can establish a shared reality, then there is, once again, no reason to prioritize female perspectives over male perspectives as it would lead to as skewed a perception of reality as is often critized by feminists then usually doing the exact same thing in their part of the public sphere.
You really can’t have your logical cake, and eat it, too.
Hugo,
“To use your metaphor, harassers aren’t swinging so that they can get a base hit. They’re swinging to hurt.”
Yeah, sure, but *that’s* really not what the discussion about toplessness/weakness/tempting/temptation was about.
In other words Hugo - to accept that “male weakness” can be and is used as an excuse by people who are exercising the opposite of male weakness where it’s clearly not appropriate doesn’t mean there can not be male weakness.
Sam, I’m a social constructionist (as opposed to a philosophical constructivist, I do acknowledge reality — played with John Searle when I was a tot); I do think we can transcend whatever impediments are placed on our capacity to know (in the emotional sense, not the biblical or epistemological sense) others. And that is as true of men as it is of women.
I’m not privileging women’s views automatically, despite your suggestion. But I recognize that when it comes to the current culture, we don’t have a situation in which men and women are equally impacted by cultural rules. The collective oppression of women exceeds that of men.
I am more concerned with alleviating the suffering of those who are the primary victims of sexism than those who are the (sometimes unwitting, sometimes unhappy, but still) beneficiaries thereof. That is indeed my bias. I do men’s work out of a genuine affection for men, but also out of a profound desire to shift how they interact with each other and with women.
Hugo,
“I’m not privileging women’s views automatically, despite your suggestion. But … The collective oppression of women exceeds that of men. … I am more concerned with alleviating the suffering of those who are the primary victims…”
Well, I think that does mean that you’re privileging female perspectives, to the extent that you’re able to understand it (we once had this discussion about Wilhelm Dilthey, remember?) - maybe not *automatically*, but as a matter of chosen principle.
Again, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s *one* axiom about the state of the world - “The collective oppression of women exceeds that of men” - and it’s not even an unlikely one (without saying that all your prescriptions follow from that (collective) recognition). But truth cannot be declared, it can only be identified. And axioms are declarations, assumptions, not identifications even though they are usually assumed to be even though it is rarely admitted -
“That is indeed my bias.”
Thanks for that. We all have our biases, but if we can indeed do better, as you say, then we should strive to not let ourselves be too influenced by them with respect to identifying truth to the extent possible.
See, I for one, am grateful for all these debates, because they challenge me and my perceptinos and biases, and in a lot of ways, I have adjusted them since I started reading your blog. Occasionally, I have the impression, that’s also happening with you. These are the moments that bring us closer to a joint understanding of reality. That’s why it’s worth having these debates.
As for the “social constructionist”, all fair and well, but how radical are you? When you watch House and he’s treating an inmate who became violent because something squeezed his adrenal gland and he had much higher concentrations of testosterone, do you think, “ok, for tv, but in reality that guy could have rationalized his behaviour irrespective of his medical condition?” There are people who believe that the history of the 20th century would have been completely different had a certain Adolf Hitler received treatment with lithium. Mind and matter certainly aren’t independent, they’re extremely interdependent. We just cannot really identify the limits and degrees of freedom of that interdependence. But we should not deny it simply because it’s possibly politically convenient.
Brian, I’m not talking about well-intentioned guys trying to pick up on women at school or in a coffee shop.
That is not clear from your post. I assumed you were speaking of men in general, which you later confirmed in your response to Sam. So, despite your intention, your post comes across as if you are talking about well-intentioned men.
As for the equivalency, I do not really know what you are referring to. If you are speaking of actions, then I would agree that being ignored is not the equivalent of being harassed. This would hold true for the men who are ignored and the women who are ignored (the latter of which you have previously suggested is equivalent to the experiences of harassed women). However, if you are referring to the effect of those things, I would argue that they are very much equivalent. Both induce shame and extreme self-consciousness. Both may stem from intentional malice and a desire to humiliate, particularly when done in public. Both can result in a great deal of mistrust of others.
Perhaps your bias plays a role in your view of this. It is clear, however, from the experiences men have shared that they feel the same way many women feel. I am not sure you can simply declare that the experiences are not equivalent based solely on your personal bias of favoring women at men’s expense.
Okay, lads, I’ve been through this with you 180 times — those of you who are to one degree or another sympathetic to the men’s rights position will invariably accuse me of bias, and I will invariably respond in the same way.
Done with it. This thread is now ONLY for discussing the topic, which is the notion that “guys are simple, women are complicated, former can’t be expected to understand latter.”
Earlier in this thread, Brian wrote that “Left in isolation, I think few men’ll figure out how women generally feel about such things on their own, it does need to be explained to them because it’s so different from their own experience.”
Maybe I’m a naïve young person who hasn’t had to experience the same degree of warped gender relationships as older generations (although I become more convinced every day of just how warped gender relationships remain), but are men’s experiences really so entirely, completely devoid of objectification, unwanted or inappropriate attention, being misunderstood or stereotyped based on outward appearance, etc, that they really have *no* framework to understand how a woman might feel about this? Sure, men don’t get cat-called at all the time, but I think everyone has had an experience where he or she was treated poorly and like less than a full human being (for whatever reason, sexual or not), and therefore felt bad. This experience is enough for men to extrapolate that if they don’t like to be treated poorly, neither do women. It’s not rocket science, it doesn’t require equivalencies of the starving and force fed, it just requires that men treat women the way they would like to be treated. (Hopefully no one will seriously suggest that, even if they feel starved for attention, men genuinely want to be harassed…)
Ann, in general there is really very little empathy afforded to males when they are dehumanized. The typical response is “Suck it up” or “Grow a pair.” Indeed, in some respects the process of “becoming a man” is an internalization of this dehumanization. It is not at all surprising to me that a group which has been desensitized to its own vulnerabilities may not always fully empathize with the vulnerabilities expressed by another group.
I think there’s some mileage in focusing on the power of “myth” (of the post title) in masculinist discourse generally. Every since Bly, myth has proactively been located at the heart of most streams of men’s movement thinking. But as Barthes says, “the function of myth is to empty reality; it is, literally, a ceaseless flowing out, a haemorrhage, or perhaps an evaporation, in short a perceptible absence. … myth is depoliticised speech”.
Hugo, you have been married 3 times, so you know that women can be (in general) more emotionally expressive. That is a challenge for most guys who cannot refer to their own inner life as a direct reference for what their partner needs. This does not excuse men from trying to understand their partners’ needs and responding with compassion.
I have a friend who is bi-sexual and while if it were just the sex, he would probably be with women — he just finds relationships with men less emotionally demanding. Male bonding is perhaps easier because men (whether intrinsically or due to cultural factors) tend to suck it up when they are upset or just get alone until that bad feeling goes away. I think women are just as befuddled when their man stops connecting and goes into his internal cave when emotions rear us as men are when women turn to them for emotional support. These are generalizations, of course.
Try this test — ask women to describe their emotions in any particular circumstance and you’ll often get a detail and nuanced response. Guys (unless they have done an unusual amount of self-work) will often not even have the vocabulary — unless we are talking about anger (which is a catch-all surface manifestation of a range of upsets). Guys are taught to suck it up and get over it. Women not so much.
Women also face the challenge of relating to men from a similar position of disadvantage not having walked a mile in male shoes. People are complicated. I’ve heard many women descry that their partner can withdraw which is the opposite of what many women would do in circumstances of stress or upset.
Hugo
Brian, I’m not talking about well-intentioned guys trying to pick up on women at school or in a coffee shop.
Err, I sort of suspect this, and sort of have all along, but I think you’re doing a very bad job of distinguishing. Toysoldier seems to also find that you’ve not communicated this clearly. Maybe some of the others? I dunno. You (I think?) argue that this is easy and obvious to distinguish; in short, I don’t buy it. As your audience (presumably) I’m asking you to be clearer (and just saying “I only mean X”, then continuing on like that’s not the case certainly makes me uneasy thinking I follow what you mean by “I only mean X”. I don’t think I can construct how you’re distinguishing honest expressions of attraction from dishonest ones and so forth. You may feel this is obvious, but I don’t think there’s much reason to believe this is true for your audience as well.
Ann
Hugo has a fairly good narrative of the issue here. Men certainly get misunderstood or stereotyped based on outward appearance for instance. I’m really only speaking to sexual objectification, which is a pretty strongly gendered thing, with regards with how we perceive how we’re perceived. With even if they feel starved for attention, men genuinely want to be harassed, there certainly are large numbers of men who think they’d be happier this way than they are now. This may well be based on a poor understanding of the situation, but people who’re starved for attention often don’t distinguish between good attention and bad attention. (And even still, other issues compound the differences; four young ladies at a stoplight demanding a man on the corner perform oral sex on them don’t inherently come off as threatening the way four young men would.)
Sam
But that realization *includes* the inability to assign moral precendence to one perspective. It’s simply logically impossible in that case. No, of course not, but Hugo’s assigning moral responsibility based on their actions, not their perspective, which is perfectly sensible. It doesn’t really jive well with what I’ve said because he needs to assume some actions I’m not, but I think if you look at what he’s said, and ignore what I’ve said that he’s responding to, it’s perfectly sensible. It’s perfectly sensible to look at a harassment situation, and decide that the needs of the harassed exceed the needs of the harassing, and as well balance the moral perogative for assistance that way. Indeed, it’d be kind of silly to suggest we can’t choose between these when confronted with the situation or whatnot, even if it’s harassment done in ignorance rather than with malice (Hugo has indicated he believes it’s the latter, realistically, I don’t think it matters for this anyhow.) It’s perfectly fine (in this case) to put the harassee’s needs before the harassers.
Now, I think if we want talk to people, balancing perspectives aren’t morally inferior/superior with agents are in morally inferior/superior positions, it’s obviously not easy. Hugo thinks I should distinguish between hanging out with a group of friends and saying “Hello casual acquaintance, would you like to go to the box social?”, and yelling out a car window “Hey lady, would you like to mate with me?” At these kind of extremes, maybe it’s easy enough to distinguish; though on a personal level, I still retain a lot of the nice guy-esque “expressing any attraction to women is offensive” mindset, and it isn’t obvious the former isn’t problematic, if less so than the latter. And while I’ve never asked a woman at a busstop to show me the front of her bum, I’m (fairly) confident on multiple occasions I’ve glanced/starred at a woman in a way that made her uncomfortable; I’m sure a good inventory could dig up other problematic behaviour. Hugo suggests eye contact remains okay, but I’d wager I’ve flubbed that and made someone(s) uncomfortable.
Err, in short, it’s silly to suggest that there’s an asymmetry in ability to understand (and I pretty ham-fistedly put everything in a symmetric framework; how Hugo managed to assign this asymmetry to my argument, I still have no idea.) But (on this issue) there’s (generally) a pretty wide gulf of understanding, and we need to be cognisant of both viewpoints to construct dialogue. (However it’s constructed.) If Hugo wants to argue that the ethical responsibility for constructing this dialogue lands upon men, that’s his perogative. I’m more inclined to take a “problems need to be solved” approach that favours “How do we fix things?” over “Who fixes things?”, but that’s not even a quibble, I think. (While I suppose both questions must be answered, I’m inclined to answer them in the order presented. (Perhaps?) Hugo believes he knows the answer to the first one, my own impression is that he does not, but (obviously) I may be wrong.
Brian,
“It’s perfectly fine (in this case) to put the harassee’s needs before the harassers.”
oh, absolutely. But deciding what constitutes harassment can only be done based on an outside, or shared, perspective, not by a priori assigning that moral authority to one person but not the other. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?
“four young ladies at a stoplight demanding a man on the corner perform oral sex on them don’t inherently come off as threatening the way four young men would.”
Well, no, and that’s a matter biology. If women were the physically stronger sex, that would probably be the other way around. But yes, this difference is something that needs to be taken into account. This is the “no right to be assumed harmless” point in different words.
“I still retain a lot of the nice guy-esque “expressing any attraction to women is offensive” mindset,”
Try this one, I think it’s a pretty good feminist article to deal with some of the issues at hand and the question of expressions of male sexual interest in a cultural environment. Not sure why Hugo linked to it once, as it seems to operate from a completely different point of view when it comes to acceptance of male sexuality as such.
http://saucebox.almeidaisgod.com/?p=85
Sam
I’m not sure I buy that’s there’s some objective standard of “What behaviour is harassment, regardless of how it’s received.” If a behaviour makes one feel harassed, then it’s harassment. We all have the authority to decide how we feel, I think, and harassment is nothing more than created a feeling of harassedness. So while the harasser can decide whether it’s malicious or ignorant or whatnot, only the harassee can decide if they’re harassed.
Somewhat separately, the question of “What is reasonably anticipatable as harassment such that we ought to eschew it from the get-go?” is a much shared-er perspective and whatnot. But it’s a different question.
Ann,
I think perception comes into play when we are talking about women and men’s actions. In many instances neither group thinks what they are doing is harmful because they do not intend to do any harm. I agree with Brian that this is mostly a lack of understanding, both of the impact of behavior and the way our social interactions work. I also disagree with Hugo’s position that women are the most impacted by our society’s view of men as simple, stupid, barely civilized creatures. While I agree that it places women in an unlikeable position, it is far worse for people to dehumanize anyone on the “you’re barely human so I don’t have to listen to you” level. Part of this norm is a carryover from older social, largely religious, norms. Part of it results from our cultural shifts in views about women. However, it mostly comes from our unwillingness to listen to what men have to say. This whole myth could be dispelled if men were allowed to demonstrate their complexity without all the social and political rhetorical crap that typically follows — from other men mocking them to political groups saying “what about teh menz.”
Brian,
“But it’s a different question.”
I don’t think so. That’s exactly the question. Yeah, subjectively, I can decide whether I feel harassed or not. But that should not give me the power to define all by myself whether that was what ‘objectively’ happened in our shared reality, and certainly not wether you were subjectively harassing me from your subjective perspective. When you try to shake hands with me and I hiss “don’t touch me, you’re harassing me’ it would be absurd to assume that as a general standard, even though it may well be my honest subjective perception.
“What is reasonably anticipatable as harassment such that we ought to eschew it from the get-go”
is actually the only question that can be legitimately asked without assigning a priori priority to one perspective or another.
Sam
The person who feels harassed by handshakes is entitled to say something like “Handshakes make me uncomfortable and I’m unwilling to shake hands” and we ought to respect that it constitutes harassment of them and knock it off. A hostile response is only justified in the situation where someone can realistically anticipate that someone’d feel harassed, if they’re violating what we can agree on as a general standard. If we accept that someone can witlessly harass someone (especially when you’re offended by unusual things; someone really offended by the odour of celery can’t reasonably expect me to keep celery out of my office unless they ask, in a way that isn’t parallelled by foot odour, say.) we can accept that harassment is decided by the harassed, social standards are determined by society as a whole, and that we can only be reasonably be expected to adhere to social standards as to what’s offensive behaviour (and where behaviour is widely problematic but not recognised as so, we fix the social standard).
Harassment we can’t reasonably anticipate from the get-go still ought to be eschewed. We need to separate it from reasonably anticipatable harassment as the former can only be corrected by explicit advertisement by the subject or after the fact remedies; but we still ought to do those things for the same reasons we ought to avoid reasonably anticipatable harassment in the first place.
“we can only be reasonably be expected to adhere to social standards as to what’s offensive behaviour (and where behaviour is widely problematic but not recognised as so, we fix the social standard).”
Exactly. If someone is offended by unusual things, their proprietary standard can only be respected after being clearly communicated. If the initial communication is rude, that may be understandable given the subjective emotional state, but given the applicable standard may in itself constitute harassment.
The problem begins where one perspective is given discourse hegemony over what’s the appropriate standard. Who owns this discourse, who has definitional rights others don’t. That’s the question we’re dealing with here. Hugo believes his bias is affirmative action, while others may believe it’s unfair to ignore their point. In the end, there’s no logical solution to this problem, just a political one.
And I think that both is possible at the same time: That feminist/female perspectives are in need of a certain affirmative bias in some areas while other voices need to be given that same affirmative bias where the feminist bias has become the standard - as on feminist blogs. It’s the same discoursive dynamics, just the other way around.
Hugo: “It is not flattery to tell women that their inner lives are infinitely more rich and nuanced than those of men. It’s part of a very clear agenda to tell women that asking men to ‘get’ them is an unreasonable and bootless request. It may be the soft bigotry of low expectations in a new form, but the real victims are women, who are urged not to expect too much. And the beneficiaries, whether they realize it or not, are most men, who are excused the challenging but certainly not impossible task of listening to women, developing empathy, and remembering what it is that they have heard.”
You’ve addressed that this myth (as I agree that it is) is degrading to men, but I would amend this aforementioned statement of yours to “the beneficiaries…are the men who wish to perpetuate the myth for their own benefits.” I’m not as confident as you are that “most men” fall into this category. I’m revolted by the myth of male weakness because I’m tired of our entire gender being dragged down by those who, mystifyingly, are glad to sacrifice their reputations and image so they can get a lil’ “play.” Every man and boy who values his self-respect more than sexual fulfillment should be outraged by the myth. The men who self-effacingly say, “I can’t help it; I’m a GUY!” should leave the rest of their gender out of it. Just because some guys are okay with calling themselves unable to control their urges, or stupid, or inferior to women, or whatever else they THINK women would like to hear, doesn’t mean we all do.
Brian (no relation): “(And even still, other issues compound the differences; four young ladies at a stoplight demanding a man on the corner perform oral sex on them don’t inherently come off as threatening the way four young men would.)”
Not 100% with you there. Much of it depends upon the circumstances. I know I’D feel threatened.
@bmmg
Well, not to knock your experience. I felt vaguely confused and made fun of; which I imagine to be far more typical. Though we all feel more typical than we are.
bmmg,
“should leave the rest of their gender out of it”
fair enough, but if so, that does (again) raise the question of gender/sex as an appropriate analytic category in this respect.
It ought to be empirically tested to find out if men and women have equally complex inner lives.
Until then, it’s a matter of faith. From which apostasy is punished.
What if men really are less complicated in their inner lives?
Men are taught to suck it up because there are things which need to be done and leaving distractions unsucked can compromise the goal.
If we’re going to move toward equality, teaching women the same thing would be the way to go.
I think that centuries worth of literature and philosophy produced by men provide abundant evidence of the capacity of the be-penised to be every bit as profound as the be-uterused.
Proust? Tolstoy? Shakespeare? Freud? Thoreau? Outliers in their genius, perhaps, but not in their capacity to ruminate and reflect.
And women don’t have things which need to be done? In traditional cultures where children are women’s work, children aren’t all consuming, requiring women to avoid distractions and focus?
Richard, this is the last comment of yours I’m letting through, because you’re the walking embodiment of a misogynist troll.
Yeah, Hugo. Sure. Got any real arguments? Got an empirical test demonstrating that men and women have equally complex inner lives?
Thought not. As I said, it’s a matter of faith and apostasy is treated harshly.
Thanks for stepping into it, though.
We seem to have a choice. Stop teaching men to suck it up or teach women to suck it up. Since you and commenters talk of men being taught to suck it up, you don’t think women are being taught to suck it up. If women can function well, then they must be sucking it up.
So. Are women not functioning well? Um. Hugo can’t say that. So they must be sucking up. So why only talk about it as if it’s bad when men do it?
Ah. I have it. Men are different. Or, wait. No….
It must be confusing to keep these confections of convetional wisdom straight.
By the way, there are endless discussions among the normal on the overuse of “racist” accusations. You might take a lesson and stop slinging “misogynist” around to the extent you do. You’re making the entire concept look silly.
I wasn’t referring to being profound, but to being able to take care of business. You know. Like following the south end of a northbound mule and vice versa all damn’ day and kicking clods. Or standing still for conditional absolution and then going into the line at Gettysburg, or up the stairs of the WTC.
Being profound is nice, and all, but somebody else had to build them their houses and grow them their food and keep the bad guys off them.
Fortunately for you, your students know where their bread is buttered and you can go for weeks with nobody disagreeing with you.
Out loud.
Coming in a bit late on this, been busy this week. Two things:
1) Hugo, I’m note sure how the corollary between Brian’s comment and the proposition that “men are simple, women complex”, et cetera, is drawn. I’m familiar with that cultural trope and, based on experience, I reject it out of hand. I don’t know how many actual subscribers it has today. It sounds very retrograde to me.
2) Leaving the proposition aside, it’s still fair enough to say that many men, if not most, fail to understand and appreciate, and may lack the basis of experience to understand and appreciate, women’s discomfort and vulnerability with the sort of public objectification that is the subject of the original post. I know, intellectually, that many, though probably not all, women do experience such reactions but I’d have to admit that they still don’t “register” for me on a gut level. I’ve received unsolicited sexual attention and notice before in public, from both sexes in fact, and my general response has been to shrug, perhaps a time or two to chuckle a little at the flattery, and then just do to avoid the person in question. The idea that for women such matters would be of such personal and public significance is, again, something that I hear but that I can’t really understand as an experience. I’m not sure if that has to do with the fact that I’m not plausibly physically threatened by someone who would express a sexual interest in me; or if it’s a result of the probably much lower volume of such attention that I’ve ever received in comparison to many women; or if it’s a question of cultural programming as to men’s allegedly irrepressible desires and women’s duties as to modesty, or some other cause that is responsible for this gulf of experience and comprehension.
I’m venturing forth on this topic again (any other women out there reading this thread?), because I thought Tom brought up some interesting points about his experience with harassment compared to “womens’” experience with harassment. Honestly, my experience has been a lot closer to Tom’s - a very few, very mild comments in situations in which I was in absolutely no danger. I know a lot of friends, however, who have dealt with much more threatening harassment on a regular basis. I don’t think you can trivialize any category of harassment - that’s not what I’m suggesting. I think what I’m trying to suggest is that just as men and women experience harassment differently, different women experience it differently - yet, I think most of us would agree that many women, whether they’ve been systematically harassed or not, generally understand what constitutes harassment and why it is bad. If women can extrapolate, regardless of whether or not they’ve experienced harassment, so too can men. Unless they’ve been culturally programmed otherwise - but, as I believe was the original point of the post, that is a cultural construct, not genetic, biological, or otherwise inherent difference, and therefore can be overcome. I refuse to believe that men are inherently stupider than women, and it honestly surprises me that so many men seem so willing to make that very argument.
Ann:
Thanks for the benefit of the doubt, but I don’t think the argument is that men are “stupider,” just that our minds work differently than women.
Not surprising given that the mind is embodied, both culturally and physically.
To wit:
Woman reading here. Gobsmacked by the complaining men. Can only conclude - the only way they will understand the truth of what you are saying is to live our reality.
Ann: “I refuse to believe that men are inherently stupider than women, and it honestly surprises me that so many men seem so willing to make that very argument.”
Thank you. And it surprises and disappoints me, too.
ideaealisme: “Woman reading here. Gobsmacked by the complaining men. Can only conclude - the only way they will understand the truth of what you are saying is to live our reality.”
– and vice versa, right?
Richard, you’re being an ass. First, can you empirically quantify someone’s inner life? Not so easy. Second, why does one have to have emotional constipation in order to “function”? You seem to think that repressing all your emotions is the only healthy option. Got some empirical proof of that?
Thanks for the benefit of the doubt, but I don’t think the argument is that men are “stupider,” just that our minds work differently than women.
Sigh. Your minds don’t “work differently” from women’s. There is no fricking organic difference between men’s and women’s cognitive abilities.
Men have the privilege to sail along through life, blithely ignoring sexual innuendo from women they’re not interested in, because there’s no cultural expectation that they respond in any specific way and because there’s no threat to them regardless of their response.
Men aren’t simple. Men are allowed to ignore their emotions and neglect their personal growth because that’s the societal expectation. It hurts them tremendously, but the very lack of empathy this conditioning creates is what keeps them from rejecting the status quo. (They also get more “goodies” from going along and not doing much work on themselves than they do from learning to treat women like fellow human beings instead of like space aliens).
In other words, men are conditioned to be lazy and thoughtless about their own emotions and to discount those of others. They’re not born that way.
“Men have the privilege to sail along through life, blithely ignoring sexual innuendo from women they’re not interested in, because there’s no cultural expectation that they respond in any specific way and because there’s no threat to them regardless of their response.”
I disagree with that part. Men who turn down sexual attention from any woman are said to have something wrong with them, or “accused” (since the person saying it considers it an accusation) of being gay. There have also been women who have committed violence against men or falsely accused them of something after the men refused their advances.
This stems from those same societal expectations you have cited. When the stereotype is that men are battery-operated toys whose switches you can turn on simply by asking, “Shall we?” some people take it as a personal affront when the men respond with, “No, thank you.”
There have also been women who have committed violence against men or falsely accused them of something after the men refused their advances.
Riiiiight.
Cara, I counsel abuse victims online, just so you know. These things happen.
“There is no fricking organic difference between men’s and women’s cognitive abilities.”
——
You really sound sure of yourself there.
The basic argument of the men who disagree with Hugo can be surmised as: Since we don’t know whether the way people act is because of their biological makeup or because of their life experiences (completely one or the other, an equal mix, or any varying degree between the two), we should leave things in status quo.
This is the time-old nature vs. nature debate and nobody will ever truly have an answer to it.
But because we will never have a complete, satisfactory answer to the question of from where people’s behavior is derived, should discriminatory and degrading behavior therefore be excused/accepted by way of some kind of flawed “logic” along the lines of reductionist postmodernism (the view that since we will never know the real truth, all viewpoints about it are equally ineffectual and thus none of them can be given much credit and a moral decision can never be made)? I think we can all agree the answer is a resounding NO. I propose that we put aside this argument of nature vs. nurture because it doesn’t actually matter, since we are all sentient and moral beings that are capable of NOT doing an action when it has been brought to our attention that it is degrading.
(This is an addendum to anyone who may feel that men catcalling women is not discriminatory/degrading/a BAD thing. Before I explain to you why it most certainly is we should distinguish between “communication with women” and “catcalling.” Hugo is not suggesting that you stop communicating with women (one commenter seemed to think this was the case). Approaching a woman with “Hi, how are you? Would you like to get coffee sometime?” is not discriminatory and is perfectly fine. Shouting a command at a stranger who is walking down the street minding their own business “hey baby, come over here!” or making unasked for remarks about a stranger’s appearance “you look fine girl!” is discriminatory and should not be tolerated because it serves to reinforce a system of power of men over women. The men who make these catcalls aren’t doing it to foster some kind of twisted communication with women. Do you think that they are actually expecting the woman they just catcalled to come over, exchange numbers, and set up a date with them next Friday night? No. They do it to show that they can yell out things at a certain class of people on the street (women) and get away with it. (could you imagine if a man yelled this out to another man he didn’t know? chances are that man would be very offended, not because he is not attracted to men although this would probably be the case, but because a man was trying to exert a force of power, no matter how menial, over him) They are the privileged class (they have the privilege of shouting things at people and can probably expect that nobody will reprimand them for it) and women are the not-privileged class. i.e. a show of power.)
Now that I hope we can all agree that catcalling is unacceptable, I hope it will also be clear that defending it by way of an argument about the source of human behavior is also unacceptable. It doesn’t MATTER whether nature or nurture plays whatever role it may in the way that men act. Because since you can acknowledge that a behavior is not ok, and you are sentient and intelligent human being, you can refrain from doing it! Oh the joys of being a human capable of rational decision making, right! And don’t give me some apologist bullsh*t about this would be denying our biological instincts, please. When you dislike someone, instinctively you would also like to punch them in the face, but you don’t do you (?) because you are a sentient and rational being who is fully capable of overcoming whimsical urges for higher decision-making.
Yes this means that you should be opposed to something you will probably encounter on the streets every day and it will be uncomfortable to have this knowledge while everyone around you seems to be ok with it, but don’t confuse these events as evidence that this makes catcalling ok. It is still not.
sorry for writing such a long comment Hugo, but I felt it needed to be said to back up your post which was being misconstrued. I am a big fan of your writing and I just wanted to say don’t let the idiots keep you down!!! there are plenty of rational people out there too who really like your stuff.
Oh wow. I missed this the first time around.
It is not flattery to tell women that their inner lives are infinitely more rich and nuanced than those of men. It’s part of a very clear agenda to tell women that asking men to “get” them is an unreasonable and bootless request.
Yes yes yes. This.
“Riiiiight.”
—–
Cara, when women are in their 20s, men are chasing them. The situation flips around a little when you are talking about later in life. And although it’s more likely when people are older, men of any age have been known to occasionally refuse the advances of women, and women have been known to not be entirely enthused about it, with some getting violent.
I don’t know why that is such a hard concept to fathom.
As for there being “no fricking organic difference between men’s and women’s cognitive abilities”, a sweeping statement like that, not based on any science, just shows that you personally have an agenda and nothing more.
Last point: “Men have the privilege to sail along through life …” simply shows a lack of understanding and empathy. You almost sound like a bitter person that men get all the breaks and women have all the suffering in life. That’s not the case.
Well, shoot me now, because I am going to disagree with you on this one. I think it is very difficult for men to understand women; we are incomprehensible to the average guy. And yes, we are more complicated. But it is not the result of biology, rather it is the result of authoritarian worldviews and our society’s agreement that women will do the emotional heavy lifting in relationships and society.
An authoritarian worldview makes life really simple: obey those who have dominion over you. For those who have dominion, this creates simple if circular logic: “I am right because I am in charge and I am in charge because I am right.” This requires very little nuance or and creates very little ambivalence. But for those who are ontologically devalued, there are invariable complications and ambivalence. The logic which says “Those who are in charge of me are right because they are in charge and the are in charge because they are right. I am not right unless I agree with those in charge. But even if I am right, I do not get to be in charge.” Combined with the genuine affection the “never in charge” feels for the “always in charge” it gets pretty damned complicated. I believe that those who have always been on top of the ontological hierarchy in authoritarian religions and society will always have far less complex emotional processes than those who must pretzel themselves into love and unquestioning obedience to authority.
Arlene Hochschild also suggests that women are more complicated or far more adept at “emotional work” because we are trained it from birth and we use emotional work as currency, as a way of equalizing the inherent material inequality in most heterosexual relationships. But for that to be effective as currency, we must appear to do it effortlessly and naturally. Is it effortless or natural? No, but we engage in more emotional work more frequently and on a level of complexity that men do not - - - as a rule
So are women more complicated? Yes. We have collectively taken on emotional labor as a way of making unique contributions and as a result of ambivalence created by affection and authoritarian views.
I believe that those who have always been on top of the ontological hierarchy in authoritarian religions and society will always have far less complex emotional processes than those who must pretzel themselves into love and unquestioning obedience to authority.
It seems that way on the outside. I’d put it differently: those in positions of privilege find less occasion and necessity to tap into their own depths and to explore their own complexity. I wrote about that a bit in this post: Privilege conceals itself from those who possess it: of feminist epistemology, marriage, and “standpoint theory.”
But I think we need to reiterate that this is socialization, not nature — and as such, is subject to our own restructuring. Men are far more complex than we imagine; and women more comprehensible — and perhaps most importantly, the average person is capable, through effort and will, of overcoming the handicaps of that gender-based socialization. In other words, it’s not unreasonable to expect adult men to be able to understand women’s emotional lives; it can be learned like anything else. We vastly oversell the difficulty of this work in order to justify our remaining in our roles and ruts.
Beyond what I already said, Hugo, I think that we are missing an opportunity for compassion and healing here. And I think that there are two ramifications to our theories of power and control that we as feminists overlook.
If rape is about power and control – if it is about wrenching from a woman power and control over her own body and sexuality – then we are saying that her ability to say when and with whom she has sex or even allows sexual flirtation, is also a matter of power control. What we seem to forget is that unless and until force or harassment enters the equation, the person with the “no” has all the power.
I think that this is one of the places, Hugo, where your own history might get in the way of compassion. You have stated that seduction was a very successful strategy for you in your “promiscuous” years. But not all men or women can deploy that strategy as effectively as you have. For them, “no” is constant and it is not only denying them access to meeting a basic human (not male) need, it also is absorbed into the person’s psyche as a rejection of their personhood on a basic human level. In other words, these people who are ineffective or unskilled in seduction, hear no all the time, have difficulty getting their sexual needs met and feel personally rejected. I understand that this has likely not been your experience, but for many people constant rejection is the norm.
The second ramification is that we know from our own studies that disempowered populations will always create a subversive protests. Now, dont hate me for this, but there will always be a way in which the disempowered express their dissent or exercise their meager power. Historically, women, at least women with some degree of power, have exercised this power of dissent by saying “no” to sex. This no has become so ingrained that we are now saddled with the mistaken belief that women are inherently less sexual than men, that we want sex less frequently.
Yes, the threat of having our “no” violated in large and small ways is horrifying. But being met with “no” on a constant basis is disempowering and degrades a person’s sense of worth. And being shamed for asking for what we need in the only way we know how, is soul-shattering. There is a sense of shame that is attached to this conversation, as if we are saying “Shame on you, men!”
You wrote recently that men long to hear that they are the objects of desire, but that they rarely do. You rightly cited this as a way in which patriarchy harms men. But is this not also a way in which men do unto others as they would have done to themselves? Men are expressing to women the desire they long to have expressed to them. Can we not spare a little compassion for this? Can we not find a gentle way to collectively say, “Thank you so much for using your words, for asking for what you want. But the way you used your words is not helping you, and it is offensive to the person you are asking. This (fill in the blank here) is a respectful way of asking for what you want.”
Perhaps the equivalency of starving and being force-fed is false, but can we not look beyond the bad metaphor to hear the longing and desire? Must we trivialize or demonize that longing?
We know that a quarter of all middle-age marriages are sexless. Does this not worry us? Are you., as a Christian, not worried that from a Pauline perspective someone is being “defrauded?”
Perhaps we would do better to say that some men see themselves as pan-handlers in sexual relationships. And that their other options is armed robbery (rape) or committing a Bernie Madolph style fraud whereby victims volunteer (seduction). But none of these place a man in a position of equality – or the woman either, for that matter.
I will allow that this might be yet another way in which I have pretzeled myself around the complexities of loving the “dominant” group as a member of the non-dominant group. But could this not be yet another way in which patriarchy has wounded women *and men*. Can we approach it from a position of compassion rather than shame? Very little is gained by being right or shaming others, but a lot can be gained by trying to come to a place of mutual healing.
FWC, all true, but I fail to see where a call to accountability is equivalent to shaming, or where I’ve said that male desire is an inherently bad thing. I do bristle at the suggestion (one I usually hear only from the extreme men’s rights advocates) that I lack compassion for men, and particularly with this post above, am having a very hard time seeing — specifically — how and where that is the problem.
And here’s my post on marriage and Paul and “rights”.