Pelle Billing . com

Lagging at school, the butt of cruel jokes: are males the new Second Sex?

You might not have realised it, but men are being oppressed. In many walks of life, they are routinely discriminated against in ways women are not. So unrecognised is this phenomenon that the mere mention of it will appear laughable to some.

That, at least, is the premise of a book by a South African philosophy professor which claims that sexism against men is a widespread yet unspoken malaise. In The Second Sexism, shortly to be published in the UK, David Benatar, head of the philosophy department at Cape Town University, argues that “more boys drop out of school, fewer men earn degrees, more men die younger, more are incarcerated” and that the issue is so under-researched it has become the prejudice that dare not speak its name.

Do Benatar and Farrell have a point? A handful of statistics seems to bear out their thesis. Not only are men more likely to be conscripted into military service, to be the victims of violence, and to lose custody of their children in the event of a divorce, but tests conducted in 2009 by the programme for international student assessment, carried out by the OECD thinktank, showed that boys lag a year behind girls at reading in every industrialised country. They work longer hours, too: in 2010 the Office for National Statistics found that men in the UK work an average of 39 hours a week, compared with 34 for women. Healthwise, men develop heart disease 10 years earlier than women, on average, and young men are three times more likely to commit suicide.

It’s great to see a book on men’s issues gain some international traction. Warren Farrell has of course been the pioneer, but other academics and authors joining the ranks leads to more credibility.

The following is a guest blog that I recently wrote for Owen Marcus’ blog.

The statistics are becoming increasingly well known. Men earn a lower percentage of college degrees than women. Male unemployment is reaching alarming heights. Fewer and fewer men get married (in the US and the UK alike); seemingly more interested in video games, beer and hanging out with friends.

What is going on here? Are men prolonging their boyhood indefinitely? Do men need to man up?

There is more complexity to these questions than meets the eye. Summing up the solution as men needing to “man up” bypasses this complexity and implies that there is no knowledge to be gained here – only a return to the manhood ideal of the 1950s. But going down that route will not lead to a transformation of men, nor a transformation of society.

We all make our own choices, and we all have to live with our own choices. Few people would disagree with such a statement. However, no decision is made in a vacuum. Depending on the context some choices may seem overwhelmingly easy to make, while others require jumping through hoops and going against the flow.

So what is the context of young men making choices today? Why has the choice of ignoring manhood (and marriage) become so much more common? Understanding young men’s view of the society they find themselves in is vital, if we want to help more young men to actually enter a form of mature manhood.

I believe there are a number of factors that end up affecting the life choices of young men:

1) A lack of guidance from older men.

Male teachers are disappearing. Single mothers are increasing (PDF) in numbers – a process that may well escalate due to single women insemination. Fathers who live with their children still tend to work away from home and take primary responsibility for providing for the family. Where are boys to connect with older men? How can the wisdom, nurturing and yes – even firm guidance when needed – be passed on?

2) The taboo around discussing men’s unique abilities.

You’re allowed to call women more peaceful, more empathetic, more cooperative and less violent than men. However, it’s considered sexist to say that men are more goal oriented, more analytical and more interested in achieving greatness in the workplace. This double standard means that it’s hard to give young boys role models, or help them feel a sense of pride in their coming manhood.

3) Women’s sexual revolution

In the 1950s the guidelines for the sexes were easy. Men needed to find a job, women needed to be feminine and everyone was expected to keep sexual connections to a minimum before marriage. Then everything changed… The sexual revolution means that we now have a whole marketplace for dating, hooking up or finding a relationship.

Young men of today find themselves asking questions such as: Should I get married or stay in the sexual marketplace? Do I want to marry a woman who is 30+ years old and has had 30+ partners? Evolutionary speaking men have been programmed to bond with younger and (seemingly) not too experienced women. Today, these male thoughts are considered sexist (and not without reason), but it’s well nigh impossible to change ancient programming overnight.

Conclusion

Men need to feel that they are uniquely needed and uniquely qualified to be fathers, role models and long term romantic partners. They need to hear this message from older men, from society and from young women. Decades of feminism has meant that we stopped thinking about men’s needs and the development paths leading to a healthy male identity. The time has come to reverse that trend and show young men that without them society, culture and even our planet, has no future.

I just saw a TED talk about shame. The speaker was Brené Brown, who’s previously talked about vulnerablity.

This talk is especially interesting from a gender perspective, since she addresses the specific types of shame that men and women tend to struggle with. For women it’s more of a case of wanting to be perfect, and wanting to handle everything from having a nice home to keeping it together at work. For men it’s about always being strong and not showing any weakness.

So how does this relate to gender issues? To feminism? Well, feminism (combined with consumerism and the traditional female gender role) can be a driver of female shame, since it tells women that they can have it all, they can do it all, and perhaps they even should do and have it all.

For men, the obligation to always be strong (in order to avoid shame) means that it is very hard to address men’s issues. Talking about men’s issues feels like admitting to weakness, even though it’s really about vulnerability and being human.

Enough said. I leave you with her talk. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Check this out. What happens if the women are men, and the men women, in a bar:

A man slaps a woman, the men reject the women and a man is totally self-centered when a woman talks to him.

The men have to deal with various kinds of unwanted attention from the women, as well as some touching.

All in all a pretty enlightening clip.

From Youtube:

Tom Martin began studying an MSc in ‘Gender, Media and Culture’ at The London School of Economics in the 2009/10 term, but withdrew six weeks into the course, filing a £50,000 damages claim against the elite university, for ’sex discrimination, breach of contract, misleading advertising, misrepresentation, and breach of the Gender Equality Duty Act.’

It’s interesting to see how the gender students don’t actually know much about their own subject.

I’m impressed by Tom Martin’s ability to handle strong criticism and aggression. I hope his case gets even more attention when the court proceedings start.

(Thanks to ConZor for sending this in.)