Men’s Reactions Towards Feminism
March 26th, 2009 by Pelle BillingRegardless of what many feminists might claim, feminism is one of the largest and most influential movements of our time. There are very few ideas that have gained as much influence and universal adoption as the idea that women are the oppressed gender and men are the privileged gender. The core of the feminist message is no longer considered to be ideology, it is considered to be the truth.
There are a couple of defining characteristics that shape feminism, and therefore also shape the public’s opinion of gender issues:
- Feminism will not see or acknowledge that gender roles developed organically, as a functional fit to external circumstances.
- Feminism will only deal with male privilege and female suffering, not female privilege and male suffering. A splendid example is talking about male privilege in the workplace, while forgetting female privilege in the home and male suffering in dangerous workplaces.
When the same message is repeated time and again without any serious rebuttals, which is how the feminist message is treated by the media and policy makers, you create new stereotypes or even caricatures of the sexes.
Women are portrayed as helpless victims with high morals who are desperately trying to fight for their rights, while men are portrayed as insensitive brutes with questionable morals who actively oppress women and who want to keep their privileges at all costs. Since these distorted images of men (and women) are broadcast to us all, whether we want to or not, there is a direct impact on men’s self-esteem and emotional health.
Men and Feminism
So how do men react to being told that they are oppressors and potential rapists? There are a number of possible scenarios, and it’s possible to go through several of these phases, one at a time:
- Experiencing guilt and shame. It’s easy to become overwhelmed when we are told that men are bad, men oppress women, men cause wars, men are violent and all men are potential rapists. Who wants to be an alleged oppressor? As a result many men experience conscious or unconscious guilt and shame whenever feminism or gender issues are talked about. Feminist shaming is especially toxic for boys growing up with feminism.
- Silence. This is a very common response. Men bow their heads, want to make amends and apply the standard male formula of working harder to achieve a certain goal. Men have been largely silent as more and more feminist institutions have been created and as feminism has increasingly influenced public policy.
- Surrender. Some men become feminists themselves, which allows them to despise other men and how they continue to “oppress women”. Feminist men usually give off an aura of being smug and ungrounded at the same time. They are smug since they think they know better than other men, and they are ungrounded because they are basically supporting the view that men are inferior to women. A huge payoff for male feminists is that you get to talk about women as victims, so as a male feminist you are actually still being the quintessential protector of women, in accordance with the gender roles and gender dynamics that have been around since the dawn of humanity!
- Cracking the code. Once you can see past feminism and understand how the male gender role truly works, then you’re on your way to reclaiming your power as a man. When you get a more accurate picture of the traditional male gender role you also begin to see how one-sided and limited feminism is, and that feminism has shamed several generations of men, especially those who grew up with it.
- Anger and contempt. These feelings are very understandable, once you’ve seen past the intellectual constructions of feminism. How can you not be angry at and feel contempt for a movement that more or less tells you that you are intrinsically bad, simply for being born a man? While these emotions can be needed for a while, they are not constructive in the long run, and we need to avoid becoming stuck in this place!
- Taking action. You don’t have to come a political activist, simply because you’ve realized that feminism only talks about half of the gender issues. If all you do is change your own outlook and stand up for your views when talking to others, then you’ve done something very important towards changing the future of the gender discourse.
As men, we run a serious risk of losing our personal power, unless we find a healthy way to deal with feminism. We do not want to collapse, and become feminists ourselves. Neither do we want to stay overly tense and rigid, by staying perpetually angry at feminism. The healthy way forward is one of standing up for our own views, without adding more bitterness and polarization to the ongoing gender dialogue.
Tags: feminism, male guilt, male silence
March 26th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
In terms of personal development, I believe men go either one of these ways by feminism:
1. Unaffeccted. Feminism feels irrellevant since its not applicabal on the reality you live in. Neither the describtion of women nor men seems to fit.
2. Hypermasculinity. Trapped in a double bind of guilt, damned if you do damn if you dont, you simply go f”’k it all. Out of sheer spite you become the kind of person they hate. (and what do you know, it works pretty well for you. For instance you get all the ladies you want).
3. Selfdevelopment. Trapped in a double bind of guilt, you realise that something most be wrong with the message of feminism. You start to question, but soon realise that you first need to find you own inner voice, your inner reference, before you can separate right from wrong in the debate.
4. Cowed. Trapped in a double bind of guilt, you are crushed under the emotional pressure. You do whatever they want you to do, become however they want you to be, just aslong as you a freed from the guilt. (but sooner or later you realise that you will never be truly free of that guilt, its all encompassing, it dosent matter who you are aslong as you are a man). You will become a “henpecked husband”, or even a feminist man, but you will never become free of the guilt.
5. Selfcontempt. The guilt is so strong you start to hate yourself, your own maleness. Maybe you will even project this on other men, since that way you can pretend you are just a little better since you try to do something about your own corruption.
April 1st, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Good additional points Bj0rnborg. I think self-development may be the most important point that you mention that I had forgotten about. Feminism can be so weird a phenomenon to a man that you simply have to develop yourself and your ability to analyze a situation and take new perspectives in order to make sense of the world.
April 27th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Easy fix. Go to Asia and marry a nice young lady that listens to her heart instead of out of touch Barbarian-women (or wannabe men). It’s that simple.
September 1st, 2009 at 9:48 am
Hello there!
I must say that this new wave of masculinist movement has actually helped me to see the world a bit more out of mens perspective regarding the relation between the sexes. I can see a lot of the bad sides for you. BUT; I also see a movement that takes the same form as the so detested “feminism”. Destructive, aggressive and without nuances, even if there are a few acceptances on the issue of real opression of women thrown in here and there. Thing, is - you can´t get your fellow sisters to want to contribute to a better world and for men with this attitude. My immidiate reaction is contempt and to turn my back on you. So - what you do is just to dispose your frustration and anger and to start a new war between the sexes. Sorry.
September 1st, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Ann,
If feminists acknowledged male problems the way I acknowledge female problems, then I would be thrilled.
I agree that there are men’s rights activists that are just as unhealthy as the worst feminists, however, I am not one of them.
September 1st, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Ann:
Really? What bad sides do you see for men specifically?
September 2nd, 2009 at 6:07 am
Hi Chris,
I can’t answer for Ann, but I can answer as a feminist. And, the bad sides for men that I see are pretty much what Pelle articulated in his post…the messages that “all men are oppressors and rapists” or “maleness is intrinsically evil” causes young men and boys who hear it and internalize it to suffer a great deal of unwarranted self contempt and shame. And, this is not okay. As has been stated elsewhere on this blog, there are many voices within feminism, and many are admittedly inflammatory and coming from a very angry place. And, I also will admit that some of us feminists could take a cue from #5 in the OP, move past the anger that we feel, drop the shaming, and move towards a place that is more constructive for dialogue. After all, if you are trying to turn a perceived enemy into an ally, it’s probably best to stop shooting at them.
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:44 am
Thank you for your comment andrea.
September 2nd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Andrea:
Thanks for your post. Do you know of any feminists (or feminist blogs) that view gender liberation the way Pelle does (i.e. that men did not historically oppress women to their own advantage, but that societies, in order to perpetuate themselves and conqueror their neighbors often use men and women, in different ways, quite callously)? I would be suprised if there were very many, although I may just be looking in the wrong places.
To answer my own question, my view of the serious challenges men and women face boils down to:
1) men are disposable. Men are encouraged to take great risks with their lives and are easy to shout down when they complain on that score (”quit whining you coward”). Attempts to make it harder for society to dispose of men at will are met with the cry “but then who will defend us?”
2) women should raise children and not seriously develop their talents or ambitions. It was no big deal if a woman wasn’t able to get an education and develop her talents, so long as she was able to raise a family. It was a big deal if she did not raise a family, even if she otherwise accomplished great things (despite society’s hostility). Early moves to open up education and business to women were met with the cry,”but then who would care for the children?”.
I realize there are a lot more issues than that. I’m just trying to pick out the most common unifying themes that I can see.
Admittedly, I am not nearly as sensitive to what woman face and what men face.
September 2nd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
Ann:
In case it wasn’t clear from my earlier reply, it’s ironic that you accuse Pelle and/or the men’s movement in general of showing only token acceptance of serious women’s issues
when you only offered this nod toward the existance of serious men’s issues:
In other words, you let on that you see some bad sides but don’t mention which you find significant or why.
A token acknowledgement if ever there was, offered whilst accusing us of offering only tokens!
September 2nd, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Nice summary above, Chris.
September 2nd, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Yeah where I’m from we refer to what Chris is pointing out as lip service. Talk about it just enough to apply for ally street cred (which is interesting given the feminist mantra of caring about all people) but not really take a stand on an issue.
September 4th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Hi Chris,
I’d probably point out Helen Fisher, a feminist anthropologist whose work actually introduced me to the concept of evolutionary psych. She actually speaks of gender
roles pretty positively as something that helped the species survive and thrive, and now that they are less necessary for survival, they are passing away. I’ve never encountered anything in her work that would imply that men were anything but wonderful and certainly no talk of a sinister male conspiracy.
Also, I’m not particularly religious, (though my upbringing was in the Bible belt Southern US and my family is still deeply enmeshed in conservative Christianity…so I feel compelled to tune in to how they are hashing out the gender question) but feminists in religious circles don’t usually talk that way either. Their discussions, however, are framed from within a religious worldview, so it doesn’t seem very relevant to the culture at large. But, I’m mentioning them because they do identify as feminists, and their rhetoric typically does not include telling men to shut up and get out of the way so the ladies can usher in world peace.
And then, I know some male feminists who have spent some time discussing how gender roles are harmful to men. Michael Kimmel comes to mind. But I know Pelle has expressed some discomfort with many of the male feminists. I think I have heard Kimmel use phrases like “male priviledge,” which can be recieved as shaming, so perhaps that cancels out anything helpful he might have to say.
But, again, like you, Chris, I’m much more sensitive to my own injuries than I am to anyone elses, so I think only you can say where you are being condescended to or dismissed or left feeling invalidated. That’s why I think these conversations are important to have.
September 5th, 2009 at 1:57 am
Andrea, your comment is a breath of fresh air, and I’m sure the other men here agree with me on that.
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Dear Sir ,
THERE IS ALREADY A RAPIDLY GROWING MENS CONSCIOUSNESS MOVEMENT AND ITS ANITIFEMINIST.FEMINISM IS TRULY MALICIOUS !
please visit this most wonderful male friendly site where men dont have to apologise for being men and theres genuine discussion about mens interests
http://www.angryharry.com
PLS SHARE THIS SITE WITH ALL MEN YOU KNOW , IT IS A LIFESAVER
January 18th, 2010 at 3:43 am
I grew up with the woman’s movement. My mother was really passionate about it. from my perspective it came out like blast out of cannon. The reality of most women in the 1960’s and 1970’s was pretty dismal economically and socially. The philosophy was meant to empower women and give them tool to look at their situation with new eyes. Unfortunately that came with allot of anger. It came with allot of blame and shame and like most people learning something new there not good teachers of it or good teachers at all. I mean as a boy or youth you really don’t know enough about the world or what masculinity is you’re a kid concepts of masculinity and femininity are abstract as is domination, patriarchy, gender roles and subjugation . The redstockings really heated it up with no sex with men till equality was achieved and worse. The value of history as dead white guys really too away from them any good man in history. They essentially assassinated all male role modals – fathers, coaches, military men politicians, sports, firemen, policeman, priests, whole intuitions as aggressive, demeaning, prejudiced, brutal – to women….nothing went untouched – even sex or the type of sex…..men had to be changed to something – the sensitive guy…. The poet the artist but only the good ones not Hemingway or Not Burkoski or few others known for drinking and skirt chasing……as boy that pretty much flattens you…. You have no role modals and of the sensitive guy they wanted in the 1970’s he was crushed 99 out of 100 times. No girl or women is going to date him…they want the star football player and the guy with the cash successful.
But here is what feminism was up against and women. In 1970 and beyond. A man could beat his wife up or ex-wife and not even get a ticket. He could rape her too – nothing –zip. He could hold out on child support. There was no law to garnish his wages he paid pretty much what he wanted to. Even if the woman wanted to get a lawyer – ha with what money! She pretty much was sent into a deep poverty. I mean deep. If she wanted to go to work she had to get in line behind men usually with a high school diploma – even if she had a college degree she did not have resume. If she got a job- there was no sexual harassment law and many employers did not like hiring mothers. They liked hiring young single women. Hell women could not join the army, the police, the fire department and politically there were no women –zip anywhere in government – nowhere in upper management .
Children without fathers lack the support – that a man brings. There is a house now with no man and other men know this. The women is vulnerable and her kids. Then since she was divorced principals, police, doctors all looked down on them as used women. A divorced woman was pretty much dirty word.
Next I say this to men – as group we were pretty twisted not all of us but 99.9 of the sexual perpetrators are men. In the 1970s the laws were not that strong and the enforcement really came down to the childes words against the man’s. From priest to coaches to camp counselors –sex with children has been pretty common event. And what has been known is usually less then what has happened because people are ashamed.
So when feminist spoke about a change in men – yeah men as group have been pretty bad. Still I think feninist over shot the mark and lacked some teaching and reality skills. I am writing a book about growing up with it
January 18th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Thank you for your comment Andrew.
January 19th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
Andrew:
I really like your comment. Your expression of what it was like to have your positive sense of manhood crushed was insightful.
You make it sound like the average woman in society had a much harder time than the average man. I sincerely doubt that.
And I also doubt the accuracy of this statistic:
This is just not true. In fact, most of the sexual (and other) abuse of children occurs at the hands of women.
January 19th, 2010 at 9:05 pm
“But here is what feminism was up against and women. In 1970 and beyond. A man could beat his wife up or ex-wife and not even get a ticket. He could rape her too – nothing –zip. He could hold out on child support. There was no law to garnish his wages he paid pretty much what he wanted to.”
Andrew, I have a couple of issues wiht some of your points. For instance:
“In 1970 and beyond. ”
If you recall, this was the period in which 50,000 American men died in a war in which something like a whole SIX American women died. During this period American men but not women were subject to military service on pain of prison sentences that could go as long as 20 years. And this was a war in which support and opposition were divided quite evenly on gender lines, giving the lie to the conventional wisdom that if women ran the world there would be no war. Women hardly spearheaded the oppsition to the Vietnam War.
“…or ex-wife and not even get a ticket. He could rape her too – nothing –zip.”
This is a flat out falsehood. At no time was it ever legal for a man ro demand sex froma an ex-wife. I don’t know what lies you have been listening to, but no one who was alive during that period would be able to say that with a straight face unless it was some pathological liar who had a gulible young listener to tell it to.
“He could hold out on child support. There was no law to garnish his wages he paid pretty much what he wanted to.”
This begs the question of why he was even expected to be paying child support, why he did not have custody in the first place. After all the children were his and he should be raisning them. And this is one more point that demolishes this whole oppression of women narrative.
Men’s lives were disposable under this cultural regime, we had no right to raise our own children and access to them was mediated through a breeder, and yet the chivalrous nonsense that women were fragile trembling damsels in need of protection from a white knight in the form of legislation was allowed to become a core doctrine of feminism. It’s just stunning misogyny, as well as misandry.