Archive for the 'Male feminists' Category

Self-awareness good, navel-gazing bad: some thoughts on men, accountability, and the lesson of Kyle Payne

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 10, 2008
in Aggression and violence, Male feminists and Narcissism and Borderline Personality
. 36 Comments

Cara, Jill, Belledame, Renegade Evolution and Jeff are just a few of the feminist bloggers to take on the disturbing story of Kyle Payne, a progressive feminist blogger and anti-pornography activist in Iowa. According to the Iowa Independent:

An Iowa blogger who claimed to use activism and education to promote “a more just and life-affirming culture of sexuality” for women, especially those women who have been victims of sexual violence, has pleaded guilty to photographing and filming a college student’s breasts without her consent.

Kyle D. Payne, 22 of Ida Grove, presented his guilty plea Monday in Iowa District Court for Buena Vista County. He agreed he was guilty of felony attempted burglary in the second degree and two counts of invasion of privacy, a serious misdemeanor.

At the time of the incident, Payne had been employed by Buena Vista University as a dormitory resident adviser. Police reports indicate that while attending to an intoxicated and unconscious female student, Payne reportedly assaulted and photographed her. The guilty plea entered Monday did not include assault charges. Tips received by police and campus security following the incident led to a 10-month investigation that resulted in Payne’s arrest in February.

There are other allegations on some of the blogs that Payne had child pornography on his computer as well, though I haven’t been able to find any substantiation — if anyone has more info on that aspect of this case, please include it in the comments.

It’s always immensely disheartening when any advocate for social justice is discovered living a life in contradiction to his or her professed values. In my initial comments on the subject at Jill’s, I wrongly implied that there was something particularly troubling about a “male feminist” betraying his commitments. I noted how angry I was that a young man who shares the same passion for sexual equality that I do had done such a thing, and I worried — and indeed still do worry — about the negative impact Kyle Payne’s appalling behavior will have on the public perception of feminist men. Some of the commenters on the thread pointed out that my concern was at least partly misplaced; Kyle’s real victim was the woman he attacked, and worrying about the impact on progressive men distorts the real impact of his actions. I think that’s right. Continue reading ‘Self-awareness good, navel-gazing bad: some thoughts on men, accountability, and the lesson of Kyle Payne’

“Men are more objective than women”: Second Wavers, Third Wavers, and the complexity of teaching feminism and inter-generational conflict

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 10, 2008
in Academia, Age, Feminism, Feminist Pedagogy, Male feminists, Mentoring and Teaching
. 3 Comments

It’s taken me far too long, but I finally finished Deborah Siegel’s immensely engaging Sisterhood, Interrupted: From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild. Deborah is a wonderful writer, and she’s produced the most readable summary of the last forty years of intra-feminist conflict that I’ve seen in print. I may find a way to work it into a syllabus sometime in the next year or two.

At times, Siegel visits a similar theme to the one Astrid Henry explored in Not My Mother’s Sister, a book I reviewed here. Read together, Henry and Siegel offer a sobering account of how the conflict between so-called “Second” and “Third” wave feminists emerged and has continued to play out. Both books were, of course, written well before Hillary Clinton’s run for the White House formally began, but the issues raised by her campaign make the two texts (particularly, perhaps, Siegel’s) seem positively prescient.

But what I was keenly aware of as I finished Deborah’s book was the degree to which intra-generation feminist conflict facilitates male privilege. Specifically, it facilitates my privilege as a male gender studies professor.

I don’t spend a lot of time in my women’s studies classes dwelling on my own maleness. I may have a robust ego, but I draw the line at a kind of pedagogical narcissism that invites the students to reflect at length on their feelings about the professor. Still, there’s no point ignoring my maleness, any more than there’s any point ignoring my whiteness or my age. We teach, after all, as embodied persons. All those who can see or hear (and all of my students can do at least one of these tasks) can sense that a man is teaching women’s studies. I’m not the only man in academia doing it (read my tribute to David Allen), but I am the only one doing it at Pasadena City College. It’s appropriate to create a forum where students can question whether a man can or should be teaching feminism to a predominantly female class, and I try and do that at least once a semester. Continue reading ‘“Men are more objective than women”: Second Wavers, Third Wavers, and the complexity of teaching feminism and inter-generational conflict’

Off on America’s latest spring break, and a Friday reprint

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on April 11, 2008
in Housework, Male feminists, Marriage and Men and Masculinity
. 15 Comments

It’s a crazy Friday, and I’m not sure how much time I will have to post over the next ten days. I’m off on Spring Break next week (Pasadena City College has America’s last spring break, I’m nearly certain), so posting will be intermittent (but not entirely absent) between now and April 22.

Here’s a reprint of a 2005 post: Relinquishing Control: Some Thoughts on Men, Women, and the Domestic Sphere.

The comments below this post continue to come in, and there’s an interesting exchange worth following up on.

Stacer wrote:  it can be very hard for women to relinquish control over what is traditionally her domain, especially if she was raised traditionally and/or has family members who pressure her in that regard.

I replied: Helping wives to relinquish that sort of control is a task that men, especially those who also come out of a conservative background, ought to consider embracing.

Caitriona asked in response: Uhm, just how do you propose that men "help" their wives relinquish control in these areas?

This is getting into some tricky stuff.  Let’s see if I can wade through it.

I’ve known a fair number of women who have been raised with the notion that the home is their domain.   The cooking, the cleaning, the childcare, and the general presentation of the household are things they see as entirely, or nearly entirely, within their bailiwick.  While many feminists have rightly asked their boyfriends and husbands to "step up" and take an active role in domestic tasks, many traditional women have not.  In some instances, they don’t ask because they don’t expect their male partners to be interested or willing to help.  But in other cases, these women have bought in to the notion that their very identity as wives and mothers is inextricably linked with how they "keep house."

Again, it’s difficult not to share too much from personal experience.  I’ve lived with quite a few women (some to whom I was married, some not).  They came from widely divergent social, economic, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds.   In some of these relationships, my partner and I agreed to live in a kind of low-key slovenliness.  (I’m a bit of a slob, as anyone who has seen my office can tell you!)  In other cases, we agreed to keep the house or apartment up to a "higher standard", and we either shared the labor or (more recently) hired help to do it for us.

Continue reading ‘Off on America’s latest spring break, and a Friday reprint’

Girlfriends, boyfriends, feminism: a long response to “Gwynn”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on April 7, 2008
in Feminism, Links, Male feminists, Men and Masculinity and Relationships
. 32 Comments

A reader named Gwynn writes:

I’ve been thinking about you recently as my boyfriend and I have been talking about feminism.

He’s 25, I’m 34, but this is not about our age difference per se. A bit before we started dating, I told him I was a feminist, and he took the kind of not-uncommon position something like “well as long as you’re not mad at me personally…” But when we spoke further, I found him very receptive to feminist ideas. He was simply clueless, which isn’t uncommon in either sex, I suppose.

I gave him a bunch of links to read (from this blog and elsewhere).

So everything was great and I’ve been calling him a feminist. But lately he’s admitted he’s not comfortable calling himself a feminist because of his lack of actual education about it, and because he’s afraid someone like his sister or mom will argue with him if he uses that title. And also, feminist stuff is starting to seriously stress him out and sometimes when it comes up, it makes him really miserable, partly from a generic perspective (”the world is really fucked up!”) and partly selfishly.

The way I can approach sympathy for his position is as a white person. Racism is an issue where I’m in the oppressive majority, so I can understand the discomfort that comes with that position. Otherwise I’d probably get truly irritated when he says things like “I just don’t like having so much anger directed at me that I don’t deserve,” etc. I talk him through this stuff as best I’m able.

He’s also freaked out around ideas like “what can I personally do about misogyny?” and “seriously, I can never use the word ‘bitch’ again?” and “do men really have a vested interest in keeping women down?” and “but how does patriarchy benefit me personally?”

I’m not a gatekeeper of feminism. I’m a student of it, like most people. I don’t want to be his feminist authority.

I’m pretty good at answering the questions and challenging him. We had, for instance, a whole discussion in which I convinced him that the position that all heterosexual sex is rape is, while (IMO) wrong, not actually ridiculous. He’s open to everything that I say. He agrees that gender stuff is fucked up. (Of course, he’s especially receptive to arguments about how patriarchy hurts men, but I’m fine with that. I hate how patriarchy hurts men too, and as long as you’re not using that as a way of saying “so shut up, bitches, at least you don’t have to do dangerous jobs”, I’m totally cool with discussing it.)

I wish he had a male feminist mentor of some kind, but I don’t see that happening. I wish he was more well read about it, but he’s been reading “The Republic” for about the past year, which indicates how much time he spends with books and how slow he is at it.

I guess my sort of general question is, without doing all of his work for him, or letting him off the hook, how does a girlfriend help a boyfriend with feminism?

One of the problems in any age-disparate relationship — particularly when the older partner is committed to a spiritual or political ideal about which the younger knows little — is that a kind of complicated mentoring relationship can develop. The younger partner, so often infatuated with the older, can easily associate their new love’s beliefs with the new love himself or herself. In other words, the interest in feminism could (and in Gwynn’s boyfriend’s case, I don’t know for sure) become inextricably linked with Gwynn, and his receptivity to feminism thus rises and falls with the status of the relationhip. That’s always problematic.

But there are two basic issues here: how to get young men to understand — and embrace — feminism, and how can a romantic partner help in that process, if at all? Continue reading ‘Girlfriends, boyfriends, feminism: a long response to “Gwynn”’

Refusing membership in the Boys’ Club: an answer to Derek about what feminist men can do

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on April 1, 2008
in Favorite Posts 2008, Male feminists, WAM 2008 and Working
. 64 Comments

The first session I went to at the WAM conference on Saturday afternoon was a panel discussion, chaired by the sublime Ann Friedman of Feministing, on women journalists confronting the “old boy’s network.” There weren’t many men in the session, but during the Q&A portion of the workshop, one young man asked an excellent question of the panelists: “What can male feminists do, especially those in the media, to confront the Old Boy’s Network?” It was a variation on the classic question that all well-intentioned men in the feminist movement ought to ask: “What is the most helpful thing I — as a man — can do?” The panelists gave some excellent answers about supporting female colleagues and introducing feminist themes into one’s own writing, but they left out, understandably, what I see as the single most important thing that any feminist man in a male-dominated field can do.

After the session, I went up to the young man and introduced myself. He’s Derek Warwick, an undergraduate women’s studies major from the University of Alberta in Edmonton (where my father taught, many years ago). Derek blogs at DoingFeminism. (I’ve been saying his name in my head, trying not to confuse him with the poet Derek Walcott.) I told Derek how delighted I was he asked the question, and told him that I hoped he would forgive the presumptuousness, but as an older male feminist, I thought there was one thing he really needed to hear in answer to his excellent query.

Male feminists must support women, of course. In the journalism world (which was the arena up for discussion on Saturday), that means standing in solidarity with women colleagues and fighting for the inclusion of feminist perspectives in all aspects of reporting. But I’m convinced that the single most important thing that feminist men can do to dismantle the Old Boys’ Network is both far more simple and far more difficult: refuse to join it.

Particularly for young white men working for older white men, the pressure to join the the Network can be both immense and subtle. All of us, as we age and climb whatever ladder it is we are climbing, look to mentor younger folks. The desire for a protege is a common one, and the classic model in the Network is for an older man to look for a younger version of himself — which in journalism, or academia, or law, may mean a middle or upper-middle class white guy in his twenties. Even those male supervisors who are ideologically sympathetic to feminism may find themselves more likely to support and nurture a young man with whom they feel that emotional affinity, that sense of themselves at a younger age. Resisting the “unearned privilege of the protege” is a very difficult thing to do. Continue reading ‘Refusing membership in the Boys’ Club: an answer to Derek about what feminist men can do’

Final WAM notes, with some thoughts on changing attitudes towards male feminists

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 31, 2008
in Male feminists and WAM 2008
. 1 Comment

I’m at home, just after 2:00PM California time. We got up at 4:00 this morning, Massachusetts time — 1:00AM West Coast Time — to get to the airport and get on our plane from Boston to Southern California. I’m home, haven’t even thought about unpacking, and in need of both exercise and a shower (in that order).

It’s Cesar Chavez Day, a state holiday observed by some, not all public institutions across California. Pasadena City College wisely is among those that do observe the occasion, so I get to be at home to process through my tiredness rather than at work. And though I have a lot to blog about later this week and next, I wanted to write some closing thoughts on the Women, Action, and Media conference I attended this past weekend on the MIT campus. My summaries on specific events are in my two previous posts.

This was my first WAM conference, and of course, I came eager to meet and network with other feminists, particularly those whom I already “knew” through the blogosphere. I did get to meet a lot of bloggers and activists whose work I admire, particularly at the WAM party on Saturday night. Networking really does happen, and I am especially grateful to those who sought me out for the purpose of introducing me to others. So much of the blogging aspect of new media feminism is essentially solitary, so to get a chance to meet folks “in the flesh” whose online work was so familiar to me was really a delight.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, there were — not surprisingly — very few men at the WAM 2008 conference. I’ve been going to conferences and participating in the gender studies world for over two decades, so being in a minority based upon my gender is not a new experience for me. What was new, and initially disconcerting, was feeling, well, so much older than everyone else. The number of feminist bloggers over 40 is a good deal smaller than the number of feminist bloggers under that (admittedly arbitrary) demarcation line. If there were other male academics at WAM in my age bracket, I didn’t get a chance to meet any; the few other men with whom I chatted (more about one such chat in my next post) were all under 30. I did meet up with a number of women journalists, academics, and bloggers closer to my age range, but most of those chats included an almost obligatory, humorous reference to the “age gap” between ourselves and the majority of WAMmers. Continue reading ‘Final WAM notes, with some thoughts on changing attitudes towards male feminists’

“Find out what it means to me”: some thoughts on respect, chivalry, and campaigns against sexual violence

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 17, 2007
in Aggression and violence, Chivalry and performing gender roles, Feminism, Male feminists, Men and Masculinity, Music, Sexual harassment and Youth ministry
. 29 Comments

Vanessa posted last week about the Coaching Boys into Men program, a product of the New York Family Violence Prevention Fund. Vanessa posts one of the flyers produced by the program; it features a boy in an orange hoodie with the words “Awaiting Instructions” emblazoned across the front. And the instructions the boy receives:

1. Eat your vegetables
2. Don’t play with matches
3. Finish your homework
4. Respect women

And in the comments section at Feministing, there’s a mix of praise and criticism for the campaign, mostly revolving around the “problematic” meaning of “respect” for women. ProFeministMale writes:

…often times, when I hear the general, non-feminist public teach young boys to “respect” women, I get the impression that a lot of what they’re teaching also involves “chivalry,” to to see women as somehow being “different,” that they’re nimble and weak and need to young boys and men to serve as the “protectors.”

This is a good idea - but I can’t help but think these boys are also being indoctrinated into gender roles that so much of the world is buying into.

In the various workshops I’ve put on for young men (and not so-young-men) in church and school settings, I’ve talked a lot about the real meaning of one of my favorite words, “respect.” (And if you’re thinking of the Aretha Franklin song now, hold on, I’ll get to it.)

I often start by writing the word “respect” on a flip chart or chalkboard, and then ask the folks I’m working with to play the word association game with me. Everyone gets to throw out the first thing that comes into their head when they hear or see the word. As you might expect, I get a lot of different definitions. Some people do think of chivalry; almost always, someone will say that “opening the door for a woman” is the first thing that he thinks of when he hear the word. Others will offer a negative definition, suggesting that “respect” is more about what you don’t do than what you do: “It’s like watching your language around a girl”; “It’s about not grabbing her just ’cause you want to”; (I remember that definition vividly from one high school group), “It’s treating her as a girl and not like a guy.” I write as many of the definitions and word associations on the board as I can. Continue reading ‘“Find out what it means to me”: some thoughts on respect, chivalry, and campaigns against sexual violence’

“But he could not say what he wanted”: part one of a series on Robert Bly, feminist men, and “Nice Guys”

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 19, 2007
in Male Transformation Series, Male feminists, Men and Masculinity and Men's Movement
. 22 Comments

This is the first of what I hope will be a successful three-part series. Part two to come next week.

This past week in my “men and masculinity” course, we began discussing Robert Bly’s Iron John. Nearly two decades after it was written, Bly’s alternately captivating and exasperating call for a return to the “deep masculine” still resonates. Many people who know nothing else about the men’s movement (not to be confused with the men’s RIGHTS movement, a different beast altogether) have heard of Bly and “Iron John”. I make sure that my students read Bly in conjunction with very different figures in the movement, like the pro-feminist Michael Kimmel. But as confounding and opaque as Bly’s writing can be, my students seem to enjoy “Iron John” more than any other book I assign in this course.

Re-reading the book in preparation for this week’s lecture, I found myself thinking about the much discussed “Nice Guy” phenomenon. “Nice Guys” often cloak their misogyny behind a facade of sensitivity. “Nice Guys” often talk garrulously about gender issues, and often establish their bona fides by bemoaning the way in which “other guys” treat women. About every ten minutes, a Nice Guy will drop an “But I’m not like other men!” into the conversation. The Nice Guy becomes less nice when he realizes that despite all he obviously has to offer, women are remarkably uninterested in dating or sleeping with him. Nice Guys often lose their temper when rejected, launching into embittered, “slut-bashing” diatribes about how foolish women are for choosing “bad boys” (or traditional men). Most Nice Guys alternate between stunningly low self-esteem and staggering hubris, secretly believing that their “sensitivity” makes them the answer to every maiden’s prayer. A great many feminist women have their share of “Nice Guy” stories, and if you spend much time in the feminist blogosphere, you’ll read your share of ‘em.

Nice Guys are, in a few respects, similar to the famous SNAG (”Sensitive New-Age Guy”) who first made his appearance some four decades ago. SNAGs, I suggest, aren’t automatically as passive-aggressive as Nice Guys; SNAGness is about much more than a tactic to get sex from women. Becoming a male feminist isn’t easy, and most men who start down this road do so with the best of intentions, often with a profound and genuine desire to create a more just world for both sexes. The stereotype that many SNAGs are the sons of single-mothers doesn’t always hold true — but a great many pro-feminist men did grow up acutely aware of their mother’s feelings.

I was raised the first-born son of a single mom; from age six (when my parents separated) on, I was a “student of my mother’s emotions.” My grandmother and aunt told me that I needed to “take care of my mother” after the divorce, as she’d been through a “hard time.” And so, of course, I did my best. While I did often annoy and exasperate my mother (not least when I would torment my little brother), I did become very, very good at taking her emotional temperature. My mother is hardly mercurial (though she is a Gemini), and she was generally on an even keel. But she was anxious about many things, and I picked up on that anxiety very early on. She and I talked a great deal together, and in some ways — especially in the period between the divorce and the onset of my interest in girls about seven years later — my mother was my best friend.

I’ve talked to many other men active in the feminist movement, and a very high number of us have similar stories about our mothers. Let me clear that this isn’t the only reason we remain committed to the feminist movement today. It’s easy to play armchair psychologist and pathologize every activist. An adult commitment to justice is always rooted in more than childhood experience. But one thing I learned about myself a long time ago applies to a great many other men in the movement, including the “SNAGs”: we often confuse verbal dexterity for authentic insight. Our commitment to women’s rights is sincere, but we’re often incapacitated by a surprising lack of self-awareness.

Bly, who is often wrong about the remedy but rarely wrong about the diagnosis, writes of men like this:

Part of their grief rose out of remoteness from their fathers, which they felt keenly, but partly, too, grief flowed from trouble in their marriages or relationships. They had learned to be receptive, but receptivity wasn’t enough to carry their marriages through troubled times. In every relationship something fierce is needed once in a while: both the man and the woman need to have it. But at the point when it was needed, often the young man came up short. He was nurturing, but something else was required — for his relationship, and for his life.

The “soft” male was able to say “I can feel your pain, and I consider your life as important as mine, and I will take care of you and comfort you.” But he could not say what he wanted, and stick by it. Resolve of that kind was a different matter.

Emphasis in the original.

Living a feminist life as a man is about more than sensitivity to women. It’s about more than ideological assent to egalitarian principles, and it’s even about more than putting those principles into practice in one’s public and private life. Part of being a true feminist is acknowledging the enduring reality of male privilege. For men in this society, that means doing the best one can to renounce that privilege. But the danger in that renunciation is that it can destroy the capacity to act. Too many aspiring feminist men, too many nice guys, are incapacitated. They are incapacitated by a fear of doing the wrong thing — and, as Bly points out, deep down they aren’t really sure what they want. These good guys have spent much of their lives focusing on women’s concerns, and have developed the vocabulary of sympathy and solidarity. They have not developed genuine self-awareness in the process.

And this self-awareness is a prerequisite for continued growth. It is the prerequisite for the sort of resolve that Bly mentions. And righteous action, predicated on both empathy for others and upon deep self-awareness, is something far too few men comprehend.

More to come.

Profeminists, Christian Men’s Groups, and Men’s News Daily, updated

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 25, 2005
in Christianity, Male feminists and Men and Masculinity
. 287 Comments

The emails continue to flow in to my in-box in response to Sunday’s Glenn Sacks show.  Right now, they’re running about 5-1 in favor of Glenn and against me.  Sample:

Whether you are an evil man or merely a wretched
brainwashed void I do not know.  But I know without doubt that your cause
is repugnant and wrong.  And whether you are eventually made accountable in
some way only time will tell.

Matilde the chinchilla has been reading some of these impertinent missives and is becoming rather cross!   (I can tell by the way she nuzzled close to me  while she had her almond this morning that she was feeling protective.)

To be fair,that invective is characteristic of most, but not all, of the criticism I’ve received. Some has been more eloquent and civil, like this recent comment by Stanton.
Anyhow…

I’m not going to become a one-issue blogger.  By tomorrow, I promise something on a topic other than men’s rights and pro-feminism.  But there is one topic I wanted to touch on today.   When we were first chatting about doing his show, Glenn asked me if I ever read Men’s News Daily.  I admitted I was familiar with it, but rarely visited.  Given that our topic for the show was the men’s rights movement, he asked me to take another look at it.  I’m told that MND is perhaps the single most important website for men’s rights advocates.  (I have no way of knowing whether that is true or not, but given the look and feel of it, I suspect that Glenn is right.)

In preparation for Sunday, I spent some time reading the various articles and following the various links at Men’s News Daily.  The topic of the site never came up on the show, but I do have some reflections to share.  MND has an eclectic list of articles, some of which have precious little to do with men’s rights issues. (Today I find links to articles on China, Iran,guns, and Social Security, for example).  Not surprisingly, the politics of the site are solidly right-wing.  Many columnists from the likes of Townhall or the National Review can be found spouting  their consistently conservative views at MND.  That’s not surprising, of course.  To the extent that they share a political vision that transcends anti-feminism, it would seem safe to characterize most men’s rights advocates as right of center, though with libertarian rather than authoritarian leanings.

Now, I’ve spent many years in friendship and dialogue with conservative men.  But most of the conservative men I’ve worked with on male issues come from a different strand of the men’s movement than the rights advocates do.  I’m talking, of course, about Promise Keepers.  Back in June of last year, I posted a brief summary of the men’s movement.  I argued that there are actually four distinct groups with radically different approaches to men’s work:

1. The Men’s Rights Advocates, represented by everyone from Glenn Sacks to Warren Farrell to Men’s News Daily to Stand Your Ground.

2.  Pro-feminist Men’s Groups are where my heart lies.  They include the likes of NOMAS, Men Can Stop Rape, and XYOnline.  Important leaders include Michael Flood and Michael Kimmel.

3. Mythopoetic Men’s Groups, represented by the important work of Robert Bly and the Mankind Project.

4.  Christian Men’s Groups, represented most famously by Promise Keepers.  (Others include International Christian Men’s Institute, and New Man Magazine.)

The first and fourth groups have much in common.  Both Men’s Rights Advocates and Christian Men’s Groups take a variety of traditionally conservative positions.  Both are highly critical of the feminist movement; even the briefest visit to the websites of their various affiliates will make that much clear.  Frankly, I’d be willing to bet that most of the American membership of both strands of the movement voted for President Bush. 

But pro-feminist men and Christian men’s groups also, surprisingly have something in common: they both place their emphasis on the ethical and behavioral transformation of men.  If you go to Men’s News Daily or any other Men’s Rights site, you won’t read much about the responsibility of men to change.  Men’s Rights Advocates believe that men don’t need transformation, they need defending!  The enemy of the MRAs is feminism and those who have helped to spread feminist influences through our courts, our schools, and our culture.  But the MRAs don’t believe that their members ought to engage in critical self-examination.  They don’t believe that MRAs primary responsibility is to help other men grow and mature.  They rarely mention discipling or mentoring other adult men.  In the MRA world, men are victims of both a feminist hegemony and individual women.  Blame is never placed on men themselves.

Christian Men’s groups, as I’ve said, almost always share that same hostility to feminism.  But visit their websites, and you will see that the emphasis is NOT on defending men but on changing them.  Read, for example this article from this month’s New Man magazine: Talk Your Walk.  It briefly tells the story of a man learning to become more humble and learning to better express his feelings to his wife and daughter.  It’s also a lesson about the real goal of the Christian Men’s movement; as the article says:


Jesus sets the standard as the perfect role model, the only example necessary…  It’s a wise man who practices the character of Jesus in order to develop gentleness and self-control in speech.

Now friends, that’s a tall order. Whatever else may be said of Christian men’s groups, they are most decidedly not "defending men just as they are"!  They are not interested in blaming men’s suffering on women. Rather, they are interested in guiding men to become ever more Christlike, a process which surely is long, intensive, and requires much in the way of mutual support and hard work.  Most pro-feminist activists are also interested in helping men develop some of those very same characteristics cited in New Man; most of us (regardless of faith) are big believers in "developing gentleness" in men! 

And over at Men’s News Daily, I find many things that Christian men’s groups would find objectionable.  To give just one example, at the top of the page, there’s a link to poker babes.  In two words, we’ve got sexual objectification of women and a promotion of gambling.  That’s not a link you’ll ever find at Promise Keepers!   The Christian men’s movement, as one might expect, places a huge emphasis on male sexual purity.   For example, helping men win the victory over porn addiction is a critically important, perhaps even central, focus of the movement.  But to put it mildly, I haven’t found anything negative about porn at any of the men’s rights sites.  Indeed, to the extent that they are discernible,  the sexual ethics of most Men’s Rights sites are decidedly libertarian if not positively hedonistic.  (For a blunter example of what I mean by the connection between MRAs and hedonistic exploitation, check out this blog hosted by Men’s News Daily.  Warning: not entirely work safe.)

I am an evangelical of a sort, though with fairly progressive views compared to the stereotype.  Over the last few years, I have been to one rally and a couple of small group meetings of Promise Keeper (PK, as it is called).  Though I disagree with many of the conservative social positions of its members, I have far more respect for PK and its allies than I do for the men’s rights movement.    That respect is rooted in the understanding that the fellows in the Christian Men’s Movement are, like pro-feminist men, doing the hard work of individual and social transformation.  Pro-feminist and conservative  Christian men are both committed to ending the sexual exploitation of women.  We are equally committed to creating "new men" of character, self-restraint, courage, and gentleness. We have much about which we disagree, but we do agree on the need for men to be transformed.  In that, we share something that our MRA brothers do not.

I’ll have more on the similarities between pro-feminist men and Promise Keepers another time.

UPDATE:  Men’s News Daily has a link back to this article with the charming headline:

AMBUSH: Pro-Feminist ‘Girlyman’ Hugo Schwyzer Takes Potshots at MND’s Politics, "Hedonism"

Ambush, huh?  Where can I get the pro-feminist "girlyman" t-shirt?  Oh, and I am not a miltary historian — what exactly is a "potshot"?  What’s the etymology?  I’d like to know, so I can know whether I am being accused accurately. 

And they have another banner linking to Glenn’s site which reads:


Glenn Sacks Gores Misandrist and Feminist Apologist Hugo Schwyzer…

Huh.  Gores.  I’ll go inspect my torso for signs of injury.  (Oh, and I like the play on Glenn’s name — "sacks" can be a fine verb in that sentence,if only you add a comma after it.)

Some more thoughts on the radio show — UPDATED

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on January 24, 2005
in Feminism, Male feminists and Men's Movement
. 123 Comments

It’s noon, and I am finally ready to blog.  I tried going for a run on one of my favorite trails this morning — but, alas, it was closed due to mudslides.  The torrential rains of the past month have left my favorite fire roads and single-track trails impassable in many places.  I think I may have to bite the bullet, as it were, and go back to doing serious training on asphalt.  I might even do a paved marathon this spring for the first time in two years.  I hope my knees hold up — they do love dirt so!  Of course, in the aftermath of all of the havoc that bad weather and natural disasters have wreaked upon our earth this past month, the last thing I need to do is complain about the fact that my favorite running spots are blocked off.

I just downloaded the MP3 of last night’s Glenn Sacks show.  (It’s available, if you follow that link, in MP3 and streaming Real formats.  You can also spring $7 for a CD).  I’ve only listened to bits and pieces of it so far.  Like most folks, I recoil at the sound of my own voice; "God", I think, "is that what I really sound like?"  Perhaps I’ll sit through more of it later.  (By the way, if you listened live last night, there’s now some "extra" stuff, about seven minutes worth, tacked on at the end of the show that wasn’t originally broadcast.)

First off, I’d like to say that it was a very pleasant experience.  My fiancee and I arrived early, and Glenn and his producer gave us a tour of their Glendale studios.  I’ve never been to a radio studio before, and so I was very interested to see how a show gets put together.  Glenn was very kind, answering all of my questions about the various screens and dials and microphones that he and his assistants operate.  It was very educational.

The show itself may have been the quickest hour of my life!  As a teacher, I’m used to adapting my lectures to the available time — 50 minutes, an hour, 75 minutes.  I’m accustomed to slowly building an argument in stages.  I’m not used to the speed at which radio happens!  One doesn’t have time to construct an argument — one only has time for quick, pointed soundbites.  As a result, I felt that what I was saying was incomplete, partial, and in the sense of contributing to a truly lofty dialogue, totally inadequate.  Still, I was able to get a few of my points across, and I felt better about my performance in the second half of the program.

There were times when I felt as if Glenn was baiting me, but I understand that’s his job as a radio host.  After all, programs like his are "info-tainment" –  and the teasing directed my way (describing me, sarcastically, as "more evolved" and "enlightened", things I’ve never said and don’t believe) is part of creating a lively atmosphere.  But I am also aware that my ability to take that in stride is, yes, a function of male privilege.  Had I been a woman saying the same things that I do on this blog and in the classroom, I’m not sure I would have ended up on the Sacks show in the first place.  And second of all, I suspect there might well have been more of an edge to Glenn’s words to me.  The very fact that I can laugh off the teasing, and say, "Aw, I disagree with Glenn, but he’s a heckuva good guy" is pure male privilege.   The men’s rights advocates simply don’t have the vocabulary to attack a heterosexual pro-feminist man with words that really wound.  That’s not their failing — it’s that our language is filled with far more hateful words for feminists than for the men who support them. 

But here’s what’s really on my mind today:

Male privilege functioned for me in other ways yesterday.  After the show, I laughed and joked with Glenn and his producers.  There was hand-shaking and back-slapping and plenty of mutual affirmation along the lines of "Dude, you did great."  Because I am a man, I can distance myself a bit from the issues I care so passionately about.  You see, male privilege gives me the freedom not to take anything Glenn or his callers said personally, because I know their real "enemy", if you will, is not me!  It’s the people whose causes I choose to defend.  But as a straight man, I have the unearned luxury of being able to walk away from pro-feminist positions any time I like.  I can change my mind in an instant, and it won’t cost me a damned thing.  If I were a woman who had come to the feminist movement out of my own intimate experiences of oppression and brutalization, there is no way in hell I could have bantered so freely and so warmly with a man who held such radically different views from my own.  That’s not to say that women in the movement can’t laugh, or be civil — they can indeed — but the firsthand experience of oppression surely makes it a lot harder.

In any event, we weren’t able to get to many of the issues that I had hoped we would touch on.  I would have been happy to spend an hour exposing the myth of gender symmetry in domestic violence cases, or taking on Glenn’s association with Choice for Men, a project of men’s rights advocates that I find particularly odious.  (I was so ready! I had notes!)   Above all, I wish I could have been clearer and more detailed about the fact that the profeminist men’s movement is not hostile to individual men, but to the patriarchal structures that shape their lives.   In any event, I’d love to be invited back to debate many more specific issues that were simply glossed over in the light and heat of a single hour.

I’ll have more to say soon.

UPDATE:  One thing I’ll say about the Stand Your Ground fellas.  They are an industrious lot.  One of them is busy transcribing yesterday’s show — a snippet is here.  It’s always dangerous to take off-the-cuff remarks out of context, but I’ll stand by what I said.  For what it’s worth, the language I chose around manipulation and domination is inspired by a well-known confession of sin in Anglican churches:

we have used our power to dominate and our weakness to manipulate;
we have evaded responsibility and failed to confront evil…

If there is a prayer that all of us working for justice could agree on, it might be that one.

I ought to cite my sources, but I don’t think referring to prayer books would have been helpful last night.