'Man-hating feminism'

Handy link, morebeta thanks. My own DH lurks here sometimes (often because I am spitting teeth over something and say "have you read this thread?" so I can rant about it ) but he's always kept a bit of a distance because he thinks that a feminist man's place is, y'know, a listening place not a mansplaining* place. He's posted once or twice I think, but mainly, it's "my thing" - similarly, he reads some feminist-men's stuff that I only tend to read when he brings it to my attention. This dad's blog for example is pretty feminist-minded, though not always explicitly so.

*heh. we have a running joke about how when he interrupts me (though I'm a bit more of an interrupter) or explains things I already know about, the first one to say "sorry did your penis get in the way there?" wins a prize. Gets us some funny looks, I can tell you - two grown adults muttering "penis" and giggling . . .

Trillian - yes I think that does explain how in RL feminist issues are seen.

Mostly people are pootling along either not really thinking at all or just kind of assuming that because, for example, we have equality laws that women don't get discriminated against in the workplace. In fact, I think most employers genuinely believe they don't discriminate - yet if they stopped to think for a moment it is staring them in the face that there are almost no women in senior positions in either their business or many other businesses.

Beaccomber - in light of what I said above could I also draw everyones attention to Roger Carr. He is the next president of the CBI employers group, taking over from Helen Alexander in June. He is Chaiman of Centrica that has women making up 36% of its Board and a member of The 30% Club that aims to increase the number of women on Boards. He speaks knowledgably and sincerely on the issue of women in business and sometimes talks about the experience of his own daughter who works as a senior corporate lawyer.

Thanks for the insight MoreBeta.

I agree that we need men to understand and care about the issues if we want to get results. Men are more able and more likely to influence other men than women are. Robert Jensen in the area of porn is a good example.

If women want men to stop doing things that harm women then more men need to understand the issues they face.

Good point, I expect most men (and actually a good number of women too) are happily pootling about their lives thinking that everything is reasonably fair and nice and that women by and large have a lovely time. If you don't pay attention then on the surface everything seems fine.

Most men (and women) aren't actively seeking to put women down, they are just getting on with things as best as they can.

I agree that there are times that a women only space is very desirable. PH just mentioned that in her feminist group some of the realities of life for women are not discussed as not to offend the male members (ok, she didn't say that exactly, but it is sort of what it comes down to, isn't it?).

An arena where women feel free to discuss and debate these issues is surely something to foster and protect?

Beachcomber - I post in feminism occassionally because I find the topics interesting and thought provoking. After all, I do have a mother, sisters and a wife. My sons are more likely to date and get married to a woman and perhaps have children who are daughters. I invest in businesses that employ women and may soon have my own female employees.

If women want men to stop doing things that harm women then more men need to understand the issues they face.

I dont generally feel feminists are man haters but every political movement has a few extremists that are best ignored.

It seems counterproductive to exclude men from joining the debate as long as the are constructive.

That's a good insight PrinceHumperdink.

I don't mean to imply that I don't see how men could be interested in feminist spaces BTW. I just mean I'm interested in the different (positive) reasons men have for participating.

MrIC

"Whenever a post I have made here has been met with a less than positive response, or my choice of wording has been questioned, or inflections/sub-texts read into them that I had no intention of expressing, etc, etc I have never taken it as evidence of man-hating. Nor have I seen them as personal attacks.

Quite apart from anything else the idea of taking posts by two or three individuals and coming to the conclusion that they, and therefore feminists, are man-haters is absurd."

Just came back to this thread after the weekend, and I agree with this.

Because they have wives,partners or daughters?

Yes, churlish is the word for it alright.

I'm quite interested in why men want to participate in feminist discussions (apart from the sort of men who want to tell us we are doing feminism wrong, I mean).

"I can appreciate that as a man it may sometimes be frustrating the reaction one gets in feminist spaces. I can appreciate this because, as a woman, the reaction I sometimes get in every part of my life apart from feminist spaces is frustrating."

Well yes exactly! It would be churlish for a male poster to complain about being misunderstood/misinterpreted/ignored/disagreed with on here - it's one of the few places women can do so with impunity so far be it for us to begrudge you!

You're welcome MrIC. When I first read that post it struck a chord with me as how I can feel as a white person of white privilege when talking to my black friends from Martinique.

No cookies for me is a great blog (good name too).

I can appreciate that as a man it may sometimes be frustrating the reaction one gets in feminist spaces. I can appreciate this because, as a woman, the reaction I sometimes get in every part of my life apart from feminist spaces is frustrating.

I think as well, women spend most of there lives deferring to men in some way - a feminist space is one where we allow ourselves not to do that (although it is very hard not to do it in reality). Men are used to having their voices listened to over the voices of women, and they are conditioned to find this a normal state of affairs - anything else probably seems hostile whether it actually is or not.

thanks for that quote Beachcomber - that put into words for me somethings I've been pondering about what role (if any) men can/should play in feminist spaces and discussions...

(I'm not Oppenheim btw - I've never name changed)

Whenever a post I have made here has been met with a less than positive response, or my choice of wording has been questioned, or inflections/sub-texts read into them that I had no intention of expressing, etc, etc I have never taken it as evidence of man-hating. Nor have I seen them as personal attacks.

Quite apart from anything else the idea of taking posts by two or three individuals and coming to the conclusion that they, and therefore feminists, are man-haters is absurd.

Nice attempt at side-stepping there.

MummyBerryJuice Fri 20-May-11 09:14:08

I see orsinian has not been back. grin (wonder why he thinks the women on here could so easily be shut-up)

Actually not unusual this. In a previous posting I was being accused of being a multiple-personality (my 'alter' being a female scientist 13,000 miles away). We both have a laugh at that and strangely-enough are now contributing to social history project together.

Being accused of being a 'he' probably isn't so unusual. I am guessing that on MRA sites, anyone posting against the majority view will be accused of being a 'she' - a strange but perhaps understandable use of gender labelling.

MitchiestInge wrote;
'I actually do think it would be a good idea to thin out the male population by culling about 95%. Just to see if it helps.'

I was speculating about this with colleagues over the last few days. Those who saw the Canadian drama series 'ReGenesis' might see that MitchiestInge's idea would make for the possibility of a TV script.

What would the world be like if say you went to bed one night having kissed your 8-year-old son goodnight and woke up in the morning to find five-out-of-a-hundred males still alive?

Conceivably it could be done with a tailored virus that identified a particular combination of proteins to ensure that 5% of males remained.

What would such a world be like afterwards? Obviously those who had lost much-loved sons, brothers, husbands, boyfriends, lovers, cousins, nephews and best mates would be distraught.

The assumption would be that the world would be a better place for it; no more wars, violence against women, no DV, rape, environmental damage. A world of 95% women would be, as Mary Daley suggested, an absolute paradise for women. Everyone would get on just dandy.

Or would they?

Thank you for the kind words sisters.

It is lovely coming here and being 'got' by folks isn't it?

V true what you say about conditioning Sybil.

It would be interesting to have some feedback from Oppenheim on our answers to his posts.

fab explanation Beachcomber.
this is what I would like to say to Oppenheim - I typed it earlier, decided not to post it, but will put it out there anyway, even though Beachcomber said what I was trying to say only much more succinctly:

I'm not surprised if people on here treat you differently when you say you're a man - we are all conditioned from birth to see and treat men and women very differently, and feminists have never claimed to be immune to conditioning. (We would like it not to happen one day, but that is a very different thing, and we are not there yet.)
However, most of the time this conditioning works in FAVOUR of men - job applications with a man's name at the top are rated more highly, contributions to discussion in the workplace are regarded as more valuable if they come from men. (Though this is also not to say that there are not also a few situations where men lose out.)
Therefore if you are coming to this feminist space because you are serious about learning about feminism, perhaps you ought to appreciate the insight into what it feels like to be treated differently because of your sex.
Feminism is about women's lived experience so it's not unreasonable that a woman's contributions would be regarded differently from a man's in this topic. Now imagine how it feels when you are talking about something on which you are just as expert as members of the opposite sex and yet your contributions are still ignored or rubbished just because of your sex.