on masculinity, too (men are not women)
"the high cost of manliness" (alternet)
It's hard to be a man; hard to live up to the demands that come with the dominant conception of masculinity, of the tough guy.totally! and of course it's not just u.s. culture. and to "whether it's boys on the playground or CEOs in the boardroom" i'd add "or punks and other 'non-conformists'" too. as i was saying. this issue that men are taught to define themselves through how much they are not like women/"feminine" is not just the main cause of misogyny (which it is), but also a way to perpetuate lots of injustice that's not even directly related to gender. because, of course, to care about stuff and to show compassion is not something that real men do! real men are tough (non-ice cream-eating) motherfuckers. and, once again... they're NOT WOMEN!! which can't be stressed enough. funny how it's those who speak up about this stuff who get called "frustrated" by the "tough guys"... and some women fall into this trap too: their idea of being "cool" and "different" and "special" is to make it clear that they're not like most women, either, and they, too, view both women and "femininity" with disdain. which goes back to my whole argument about choosing solidarity as opposed to denounciation, as total and indiscriminate denounciation is far from being "radical feminism" because it's misogyny... etc.
So, guys, I have an idea -- maybe it's time we stop trying. Maybe this masculinity thing is a bad deal, not just for women but for us.
We need to get rid of the whole idea of masculinity. It's time to abandon the claim that there are certain psychological or social traits that inherently come with being biologically male. If we can get past that, we have a chance to create a better world for men and women.
That dominant conception of masculinity in U.S. culture is easily summarized: Men are assumed to be naturally competitive and aggressive, and being a real man is therefore marked by the struggle for control, conquest and domination. A man looks at the world, sees what he wants and takes it. Men who don't measure up are wimps, sissies, fags, girls. The worst insult one man can hurl at another -- whether it's boys on the playground or CEOs in the boardroom -- is the accusation that a man is like a woman. Although the culture acknowledges that men can in some situations have traits traditionally associated with women (caring, compassion, tenderness), in the end it is men's strength-expressed-as-toughness that defines us and must trump any female-like softness. Those aspects of masculinity must prevail for a man to be a "real man."
anyway, read the whole article, it's great. it's a sober insight into how the gender system based on both the masculine/feminine binary and misogyny harms men as well as women. the conclusion? both men and women need to work on this at both levels (to fluidize sex/gender roles and to get rid of their patriarchally-minded and -determined hierarchization).
in this context, i'd like to share a brilliant argument i've come across recently: so did you know that women have basically no worth because they're not... creative?! well, it's true. apparently, men have created and invented everything worth anything in this world and really women make great mothers, but that's it; they should know their limitations! and you know why? because WOMEN ARE NOT MEN (thus clarifying that MEN ARE NOT WOMEN!!) hehe.
right.
- first modern novel: murasaki shikibu
- first hydrometer: hypatia of alexandria
- first computer program: ada byron lovelace
- discovery of tool usage by non-humans: jane goodall
- first compiler: grace hopper
- first spread spectrum device (radio communications): hedy lamarr
- first gerontology institute: ana aslan
- first pollution control devices: mary walton
- one of the first non-fiction films: alice guy-blache
- and and and
2 comentarii:
I'll take a read of that article, sounds quite good. thanks for the post, and tha great comments over at my place!
the women not being creative thing... reminds me of Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. it gives a good view of how women have been systematically excluded from intellectual work.
hey. no problem, it was my (kind of) pleasure... :) sorry if i got too into it, but the "male privilege is just an illusion, let's instead focus on how gender oppresses ME" thing really drove me up the wall. and especially around the violence issue. i find it interesting that none of your other many readers felt compelled to jump into that. to me, the bad dynamic was quite obvious and i'm pretty disappointd that the opportunity for useful discussions about privilege was wasted like that. why do you think it was? hm....
and, yeah, plus it's all the more "funny" when you consider the fact that a room of one's own was written close to 100 years ago! actually what that argument reminded me of was a debate i had with my dad when i was in high school (and i had just started reading v.w., coincidentally - she totally was my original feminist theory source!!) about the fact that, according to him, while women may now have access to non-traditional activities they won't ever succeed in them entirely because men seem to be naturally better at anything from cooking to playing rock'n'roll - after all, you can see evidence of this when you look at how much men and women have accomplished in society so far (and if you look at who the top people in any chosen field are)! i still remember how angered (i almost wrote frustrated, but that wouldn't begin to cover it) i was by the way my dad - who is normally quite a logical, fair and anti-conformist person - was writing off all the factors besides biology that obviously determine the status quo when it comes to "gender equality." i remember thinking that he was overlooking something essential and i was quite shocked that he would have no problem doing so. but i remember, too, that i couldn't articulate things very well at that time, and i thought "well, maybe it's my problem that this angers me so much." anyway, now i know better; i'm aware that what my dad was arguing was the definition of someone unknowingly supporting and reinforcing the patriarchal status quo, and i see how screwed up this kind of thing is when he is also someone who doesn't much value status quos otherwise. and it's interesting, that someone wouldn't act very misogynistic in their life but at the same time be perfectly ready to use misogynistic rhetoric... hm... it's pretty much the complete opposite of someone not putting their money where their mouth is ("not putting your words where your wallet is"? :P). dunno which one is better. but it just goes to show, i think, how strong this pressure to "badmouth" women and stress how inferior they are to men really is, if you're going to do it even when it goes against what you're about. hmmm again.
anyway, you know, someone else brought up a room... recently (at the ibtp blog), in a discussion about googling the word "women" - because of the part where v.w. looks up "women" at the public library (not the university one, where she wasn't allowed entrance).
"I went, therefore, to the shelf where the histories stand and took down one of the latest, Professor Trevelyan’s HISTORY OF ENGLAND. Once more I looked up Women, found ‘position of’ and turned to the pages indicated. ‘Wife–beating’, I read, ‘was a recognized right of man, and was practised without shame by high as well as low. . . . Similarly,’ the historian goes on, ‘the daughter who refused to marry the gentleman of her parents’ choice was liable to be locked up, beaten and flung about the room, without any shock being inflicted on public opinion. Marriage was not an affair of personal affection, but of family avarice, particularly in the “chivalrous” upper classes. . .. Betrothal often took place while one or both of the parties was in the cradle, and marriage when they were scarcely out of the nurses’ charge.’ That was about 1470, soon after Chaucer’s time. The next reference to the position of women is some two hundred years later, in the time of the Stuarts. ‘It was still the exception for women of the upper and middle class to choose their own husbands, and when the husband had been assigned, he was lord and master, so far at least as law and custom could make him. ...."
and so on...
did i mention i've had a (very healthy!) obsession with virgina woolf for almost half my life?! :)
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