The Depths of Male Disposability
August 18th, 2009 by Pelle BillingMale disposability is so deeply ingrained into the very fabric of our culture, that we rarely even think about it. And yet, it is one of the defining features of what it means to be a man. Throughout history, men have filled the roles and performed the tasks that demanded that you risk your life. The only risk that couldn’t be removed from women was that of child-bearing, but apart from that women have more or less always been kept out of harms way.
Now let’s not make the mistake that many contemporary feminists do and start talking about women’s evil oppression of men or something along those lines. Men being defined as the disposable sex was not a personal thing nor was it some kind of gender war (there wasn’t any room for a gender war in historical times). Women simply needed to be kept safe to ensure that the next generation was large enough to sustain or increase the influence of the community in question.
Nevertheless, it is important to analyze and raise awareness around male disposability, because it is truly the missing link of the gender discourse. As the early feminists put forward the very just demand that men and women be given equal rights and equal access to the labor market, the whole issue of male disposability was forgotten. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that it hadn’t even been conceptualized, since it takes a higher intellectual development to deconstruct a gender role than it does to notice that men and women aren’t equal in the eyes of the law.
Early feminism was an honorable struggle, and while it may not have been the perfect way to kick off the whole gender liberation movement, focusing on women’s rights was certainly a pressing concern at the time. However, what was forgotten was that men’s rights in the public sphere, had always been accompanied by pretty harsh responsibilities (go to war, perform the dangerous jobs, work all day so you hardly ever see your family). So in one sense women were handed the rights of men, without being expected to share in the responsibilities. Another example of this way of thinking is that feminists demand that half of all board members be women, without demanding that half the soldiers or half of the garbage collectors be women.
So what are some of the ways that men remain disposable?
- War. In every country where people can be drafted or be forced to do military service, it is only the men who are forced to fight for their country. And even when people sign up voluntarily, it is mostly men who do it (eg. US forces in Iraq).
- As a (straight) man you are expected to protect your girlfriend/spouse/wife at all times.
- Dangerous jobs are predominantly done by men: police officer, fire fighter, construction worker, etc.
- Outdoor jobs are predominantly done by men: lumberjack, oil platform worker, garbage collector, etc.
- Men still perform most of the jobs where you are expected to work insane hours, and only see your family at weekends (at best).
What’s interesting to note is that feminism often depicts male disposability as a form of male power. The men who work long hours are the men with power. The military is a sign of male power. Being a heroic fire fighter is a sign of male power, and so on.
However, as Warren Farrell says, true power is about having the freedom to shape your own life, and as long as many men automatically choose dangerous professions in order to be eligible for marriage and a family–then men cannot be said to be free. The argument could be made that women are freer than men nowadays, since every young woman knows that there are many acceptable options for a woman (work fulltime, part-time or be a housewife), and there is no expectation of choosing a “disposable career”.
This is not to say that men need to stop performing the jobs that men currently do. As you may have noticed from reading this blog, I do not believe that men and women are identical on the inside; as far as I’m concerned there is ample proof that innate sex difference exist in the brain and in behavior. This means that men may be more likely to continue choosing the dangerous jobs as well as the outdoor jobs. But the choice needs to be made consciously, rather than automatically. Also, society as a whole needs to become more conscious of what male disposability means. The people who perform dangerous jobs should be adequately paid, and safety measures should improve continually.
I also believe that a sense of appreciation for what men do for society, and for what each man does when he’s a 24 hr lifeguard to his spouse, needs to be reinstated. At this point, especially in Western societies where feminism is strong, the appreciation for male sacrifice has dwindled, and there is more focus on the negative aspects of masculinity than on the positive ones.
The reason that society has been able to evolve so rapidly the past few hundred years, is that male sacrifice and male disposablity has been far greater than male violence or male brutality, something that we would all do well to remember.
Tags: male disposability
August 18th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
What’s interesting to note is that feminism often depicts male disposability as a form of male power. The men who work long hours are the men with power. The military is a sign of male power. Being a heroic fire fighter is a sign of male power, and so on.
Yes feminists often try to shape the unfair expectations of male to take on these dangerous tasks as some sort of male privilege simply based on the fact that men can take them on but women can’t. What they choose to ignore is that a lot (I’d almost say majority) of those men only “choose” those paths because they are pushed into them by family (as in the family they grew up in), social expectations, etc…
An intersting thing to look at is how being a stay at home wife/mother is looked at by them. They are able to see the expectation to be a stay at home wife/mother as an unfair burden (and I agree with this assessment) but cannot see the expectation to take on a dangerous job to support the family as an unfair burden on men.
The reason that society has been able to evolve so rapidly the past few hundred years, is that male sacrifice and male disposablity has been far greater than male violence or male brutality, something that we would all do well to remember.
Yes.
August 18th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
There are some interesting studies done regarding this that stae matriarchal societies to be stagnating, while male societies alwyas are prosperous.
August 18th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
However the male succes maybe should be depending on availabble resources to harvest… are we going to space? hehe
August 19th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
Which is an overstatement of a genuine gripe feminists have: the fact that men risk their lives and women don’t was used to justify viewing women more like children than like adults. Imagine the following conversation:
W1 to M: how come I can’t vote and you can?
M to W1: because you don’t risk your life for society and I do. You live a protected, child-like existance of playing house while I interface with the real world. Be thankful and content.
W2 to W1: you want to trade places with M? I sure don’t. Be thankful and content.
I think that unspoken consideration still exists, and explains why many men and women both hesitate to vote women into office.
I think feminists are slow to acknowledge the disposability of men as a serious issue because they are afraid that it would legitimize the view that women are not as worthy of bearing responsibility as men.
August 19th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Very good point Chris.
Very often the solution lies in the paradoxical approach. Let me explain what I mean. While feminists may not want to look at men’s issues, for fear of turning away the spotlight from women’s issues, that very approach may indeed be what’s hindering gender progress.
If feminists were to acknowledge that men are disposable, and that this is an issue, then they would also be acknowledging:
1. Men can be weak, fearful and not want to do dangerous tasks (i.e. deconstructing the hardass male persona)
2. Only men doing the dangerous tasks keep women somewhat in the same camp as children (women and children first, are women really suitable to vote - as you said)
So by resisting men’s issues feminists (or even society as a whole) are resisting true progress.
August 19th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Yes Chris now while that consideration does exist what I’m talking about is more like:
M: Why is it that only you are applauded for your hard work to get into the military when we both busted our asses to get in?
W: Because I’m actually doing something women aren’t supposed to do.
M: You mean risk you life for your country?
W: Yeah. I’m following in the footsteps of lots of bold and courageous women by wearing this uniform. Its a symbol of breaking away from the female gender role.
M: And let me guess, I’m just doing what men do right?
W: Yes. Men are supposed to do dangerous things for their country like work risky jobs and put your life on the line to protect civilians.
M: So you’re doing something extrordinary while I’m just doing what a “real man” is supposed to do.
W: Exactly.
M: ::Lowers his head with a sad look on his face.::
W: Oh come on man up! You have a country to save!
What I’m saying is that in their griping feminists are ignoring the other side of the coin (intentionally perhaps?). A man’s decision to do something risky for his country, family, etc… is viewed as not being extrordinary but rather as something he is supposed to do and such bravado is a ruler by which a male’s masculinity is measured and failure measure up is an indication that he is not a “real man”.
I’m sure that whole male privilege argument looks real nice when such negative things are ignored for the sake of making men look like they live in the lap of luxury while women are put out on the street to live like paupers. I have no problem acknowledging that women have been treated like children under the guise of “protection” but for some reason feminists can’t admit that men have been treated like human shields under the guise of “power and privilege”.
About the closest they will get to it is that “patriarchy hurts men too” soundbite you hear every so often but it seems to me that even then the suffering of men is brought up as an afterthought (almost like there is an grudging but unspoken nonchalant “oh yeah I forgot” in front of it) more for the sake of shutting up people who bring up men’s issues in a manner that’s not feminist approved (meaning that said people don’t surround the mention of male suffering with caveats in order to mitigate away the suffereing with some sort of privilege to offset it) rather than actual concern for men.
I think feminists are slow to acknowledge the disposability of men as a serious issue because they are afraid that it would legitimize the view that women are not as worthy of bearing responsibility as men.
Honestly I think it has more to do with the acknowledging of male disposability would go against the “women come first” credo of feminism. Some of the things that feminists point out as examples of the system working against women (military/law enforcement, number of men vs. number of women in high end positions, number of men vs. number of women in not so glamorous jobs, etc…) feed off of this disposability. Which is why they will only go into those subjects as far as the “women are treated unfairly” angle will take them.
August 19th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Danny:
The conversation was wrote was excellent!
I have noticed that particular picture being painted by women as well. It really galls.
That conversational subtext also galls. You are very good at describing these subtexts, BTW, with wit and style.
I think that uncovering these subtexts, understanding them, and calling people on them is a huge, but necessary, task that men have to undertake if our grievances are going to be addressed.
I have to wonder, though, how common these attitudes are among women. I find myself deliberately seeking out hostile feminists to argue with.
August 19th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
“Men being defined as the disposable sex was not a personal thing nor was it some kind of gender war (there wasn’t any room for a gender war in historical times)”
Do you think this notion, that men are always expected to deliver solutions regarding survival, could have been born 60 000 years ago?
At that time, we humans were on the border of extinction, but a single male was born with a mutation in his Y-kromosom that thereafter resulted in all us males inherit that very mutaion?
Similarily, Djingis Khan had another mutation that can be tracked among someof us males.
So since we men were and are the heroes of rescuing the human population, we therefore as males have high expectations put on us to salvage mankind at any time?
August 19th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
“I’m sure that whole male privilege argument looks real nice …”
and is it therefore we men are preprogrammed to dream of larger goals to achieve? Misled or not…
August 20th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Very good dialogue, Danny. My personal view is that a man and a woman should get the same praise/criticism when they do the same thing; however, I see the reasoning behind people claiming that when a man and a woman do the same thing, it can still be different because of the different obstacles the man and the woman had to face before they could do X (from now on it’s about praiseworthy things).
I just don’t see how to make a fair evaluation of the achievement when you want to consider the different obstacles men and women have to face (and remember, while the obstacles could be higher for women in general than for men in general, an individual woman can have lower obstacles than an individual man), and intersectionality makes this issue implode completely, since no two people “circumstances which they had no influence over” are *exactly* the same.
I don’t think there is a better alternative than treating all people equal, even if one knows that there may be huge differences. To fairly weigh one woman’s advantages and obstacles versus one man’s is a task for gods, not human beings.
August 21st, 2009 at 2:13 pm
One note only: To my knowledge, Israel has or at least has had, female conscription.
August 21st, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Another note, You wrote: “Men still perform most of the jobs where you are expected to work insane hours, and only see your family at weekends (at best). ”
The exception would be the resident doctor candidates, where I’d guess nowadays there are more women then men busting there asses off at ER, but you should know…
August 21st, 2009 at 2:27 pm
@Lövet
Yes, Israel demands that men and women alike do military service. There are two important differences though: women are never forced to take up combat roles, while men are, and men serve one year longer than women. So the pattern of only forcing men into combat roles holds for Israel as well.
Regarding insane work hours, women certainly perform some of these jobs nowadays, but men still do the bulk of them. Female doctors are one category, though women tend to choose the most demanding specialties less often than men do.
August 24th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
“especially in Western societies where feminism is strong, the appreciation for male sacrifice has dwindled, and there is more focus on the negative aspects of masculinity than on the positive ones”
So what is your intention, to verify this as a necesaary view upon the male sex? Or to rally more focus on protection of these males?
August 24th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
hampus,
My goal is to make male disposability conscious in the minds of both men and women. I don’t have a problem with male (or female) sacrifice, but I think it should be done consciously and not automatically. Also, if we can make dangerous jobs safer then we should. Unnecessary sacrifice is… well, unnecessary.
August 25th, 2009 at 8:12 am
When intellectual males would show courage and look at the evidence of their family in danger + act in accordance with that evidence, they would set the balance right.
And all would benefit: their families, their communities, their region, their country, their organization, their world.
Look for inspiring examples at http://www.ted.com/talks/willie_smits_restores_a_rainforest.html & http://vimeo.com/6202666
The argument could be taken a step further: males are largely responsable for the current -always deeply interrelated- crises (water, food, huge income differences, mediocre leadership in all organizational domains, oil, coal, uranium, species, climate, bio diversity, etc), interestingly indicated in contemporary movies like ‘Zeitgeist’ and ‘The age of stupid’. These lead to sociatal collapse, as described by Jared Daimond in ‘Collapse’.
Repairing this systemic predicament to me is a challenge, an invitation, a matter of honour.
The globe has millions of initiatives in the form of NGO’s, aiming at healing our planet. On http://www.bigpicture.tv/ there are many perspectives that could be sufficiently inspiring for many to cross the threshold of action for the common good.
August 25th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Shaw on disposability:
“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. And also the only tragedy in life is the being used by personally minded men for purposes which you recognize to be base. “
August 25th, 2009 at 11:08 am
Yes, that is a good perspective Emil, and it ties into what I said about being conscious.
If a man is conscious of his actions, and chooses them freely because the goal is one that is worthy of his sacrifice, then I have no problem with “disposability” - if it can even be called disposability at that point.
The disposability I’m against is the unconscious expectation that men should always be ready to risk their life, regardless of whether the purpose is aligned to that man’s higher vision.
August 25th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
“The argument could be taken a step further: males are largely responsable for the current -always deeply interrelated- crises (water, food, huge income differences, mediocre leadership in all organizational domains, oil, coal, uranium, species, climate, bio diversity, etc), ”
And that argument would be false.
Water, food, other resources - these shortages are a function of over-population. women are 50% responsible for that. You cannot on the one hand claim that children are the domain of women when it comes ot parenting, but then on theother hand renounce all claim when it comes to the negative consequences of having children.
Huge income differences - again, since women benefit just as much from these income differences, as wives and other sorts of hangers-on, and since it is women who specifically choose men that engage in these behaviors and reject those that don’t, these women as much as the men are responsible for this type of inequity, which i really just a form of resource competition, and wjich women ahve as much reason as men to engage in. The fact that women manage to get men to do the dirty work does not absolve the women.
In fact the idea that women are aloof from all this - all women equally - pure vessels trapped in a patriarchal world that oppresses them rather than benefiting them is a uniquely Western and fundamentally flawed conceit. During the Revolution in China when party activists gathered mobs to conduct people’s courts and sentence and execute landlord families, no one thought to exculpate the female members of the family as somehow separate from the exploitation and oppression that had fed and pampered them. The very suggestion that rich women were economic and political victims in society would have been seen as showing symapthy for them, and would have landed you on the wrong side of a people’s court yourself.
Mediocre leadership - you cannot passively fail to participate in leadership and then complain of others’ failings. You also cannot passively expect to be invited to the table as if a share of power is your right. That kind of power is by definition not real power. Women have been missing in action for thousands of years when it comes to taking power and using it in open competition in societies all over the world, and there is no valid economic conditioning factor for this. The only explanation for this passivity is that they had men to do it for them, in their own families and clans, who would rule over other men and women for the benefit of the family, including these women.
Oil, coal, uranium, species, climate, bio diversity - again, these are probelms of population pressure, and women share 50% of the responsibility for that. Humans have quite frankly become a weed species on the planet, or invasive species if you prefer that term, and we as a species, not as this or that gender, have the responsibility of correcting that.
August 25th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
In fact the idea that women are aloof from all this - all women equally - pure vessels trapped in a patriarchal world that oppresses them rather than benefiting them is a uniquely Western and fundamentally flawed conceit. During the Revolution in China when party activists gathered mobs to conduct people’s courts and sentence and execute landlord families, no one thought to exculpate the female members of the family as somehow separate from the exploitation and oppression that had fed and pampered them. The very suggestion that rich women were economic and political victims in society would have been seen as showing symapthy for them, and would have landed you on the wrong side of a people’s court yourself.
Just as it was in the French Revolution. In fact Marie Anttoinette herself was responsible for a large part of the oppression that was suffered by the common people. To try to excuse women from their role in history’s problems is silly.
Water, food, other resources - these shortages are a function of over-population. women are 50% responsible for that. You cannot on the one hand claim that children are the domain of women when it comes ot parenting, but then on theother hand renounce all claim when it comes to the negative consequences of having children.
Or on the other hand Jim put it this way. If they want to hold only men responsible for the crises of the world and act as if they only happened because of then level the playing field and hold men solely responsible for the triumphs of the world.
August 25th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Jim and Danny,
Yes, either men and women are jointly responsible for the disasters and traumas of humanity, or else men are solely responsible for *both*.
You cannot have your cookie and eat it too…
August 25th, 2009 at 6:46 pm
it’s not ‘men’ as bodies/persons, but the ‘male type’ of being in the world; which happens to be more present in male bodies
and let’s direct our energy to becoming a part of the solution, wherever we came from; lets do some soul searching after we’ve made sure we’re heading in a more compassionate direction
for the clueless: do some soul searching first
August 25th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
it’s not ‘men’ as bodies/persons, but the ‘male type’ of being in the world; which happens to be more present in male bodies
While masculinity is under attack (and not just the bad parts but the whole) I have to disagree a bit on that for the male body itself does come under fire and being born with a male body has a small unique set of things to deal with.
Certainly women who present as men (whether by choice or if their choices just happen to lead to that) do face problems that face men because of how they present however for those of us who are/were born with biologically male bodies there are a few things that target us specifically. Namely circumcision. Time and time again people are trying to find some excuse to justify mutilating newborn boys. Also in the event that we transition into women we face the possibility of not being accepted by other women and be accused of trying to attack them or invade their spaces.
But whether its men who are born as men, men who don’t follow the script on being a “real man”, women who present as men, women who transition to into men, etc… we should be here, there, or whereever to help each other.
Question. When talking about men who transition into women and are then treated as if since they were once male they must really be just men in disguise laying in way to attack women because “all men are rapists” and/or trying to invade women’s spaces would that be transmisogyny and misandry at work? Such an accusation implies that said woman is not really a woman (thus attacking her status as a woman) and implies that men are just looking for ways to attack women and/or invade their spaces (thus making a gross generalization about men).
August 25th, 2009 at 9:49 pm
“it’s not ‘men’ as bodies/persons, but the ‘male type’ of being in the world; which happens to be more present in male bodies”
Emil, you are not making yourself quite clear here, but I sense that you are trying to make a distinction between men and maleness. would tyyou dare tell a owmn that she would be all good if she just stopped being so female and tried to eb more of a man? Frankly in that sense this comment is offensive, and it reminds me preachments we gays often hear to the effect that we aren’t the targets of homophobia, only our homosexuality is.
Or it may simply be that you are having trouble with the terminology when you use the term “male type” instead of the already available word “yang” - sunny side of a hill, heat, edgy, straight-lined. That is a better term because it is non-gendered and in fact doesn’t refer specifically even to humans. Yes, of course a proper balance calls for balance between yin and yang, and it is common to blame the West for being too yang. The problem with that complaint though is that the non-Western civilizations that are progressing are doing it by imitating our yang features, and a lot of what is wrong with the approaches they are dropping is that they were too yin.