Why do I get so irrationally angry at all these "poor men" threads?

Andrea Dworkin was.. not sure about the others.. but as I said, it's a long time ago.
(To be honest, I did a lot of medieval texts, like Margery of Kempe and Catherine of Siena.. and 18th century female travel writers.. and also looking for the missing voices of women in the canon.. so I don't think I had such a narrow education really).

"My eyes have been shut, dittany.. " I a wondering if mine have been too. I work in all-male environment and generally experience no overt sexism and DH is now working part-time while I am full-time. I suspect my life has been a bit 'cushty' too. I tend to view sexism as something that happens to other people so it's easier to think of it dispassionately. Not always good.

ISNT:

Funnily enough, I think one of the things that has brought me to revisit/begin to rethink gender/politics etc is that my own life is very 'cushty' in terms of equality etc. In my own home, our domestic partnership is very equal, our emotional partnership is very equal etc. I grew up in an all-female household, my mother holds a very prestigious position in her own profession, I work in an all-female environment where I could ask for pretty much anything I want when it comes to flexible working etc and get it, I don't have to raise my voice at work to have it heard..

My eyes have been shut, dittany.. I thought feminism had come further in the western world than it has and I am waking up to this. So rather than get angry/annoyed at the discussion, view it as exploratory?

I didn't say that Foucault invented the idea that gender is socially constructed, dittany, and I'm sure that you're right about certain truths being silenced (Foucault made this point too ). Anyway, I don't want to sidetrack this excellent and thought-provoking discussion by quibbling about Foucault.

No, it'll be me failing to express myself clearly, not you getting out of your depth ISNT!

"And no I wasn't telling you you should only resonate with female thinkers mrsbean. What I said, and what you twisted, was that women who actually challenge the patriarchal status quo are generally excluded from the academy or mistaught e.g. there are thousands of women's studies professors teaching that the second wave were "anti-sex". A much more subtle and politically important point which you chose to ignore in favour of a strawman retelling of my argument. "

Dittany, no need to be personal. I am fairly out of practice with discussions like these and as I said, I can't remember quite a lot of what I learned. It is many years since I even thought about this, as my 'academic brain' has been very heavily engaged in learning how to be a speech therapist, about a million miles removed from all of this, and, as I said, I'm just arguing particular hazy thoughts as they arise.

Eh up, don't be so ready to diss Foucault. He provided some bloody good tools to think with for feminists about the social construction of gender. The problem post-structuralism presents to feminism is that by exposing gender as a social construction, the basis for identification upon which a social movement depends disappears, so I can see why this strand of thought has been criticised: it lacks any clear idea of how oppressed people can resist that oppression. That's my understanding of it anyway, but it's complex stuff and I may be interpreting it too simplistically

"Why would you look at your ds as if he was itching to rape when he grows up. I've already said that masculinity (male dominance) is socially constructed. Teach him to respect women and see them as fellow human beings. Someone who has those attitudes won't want to harm women."

So will my son not be 'masculine' then? If feminism is structuralist and there is an 'absolute' masculinity which I am going to teach my son to avoid, what will he be instead?

I understand your point about the difficulties confronting 'amorphous' masculinities, although I think I would answer this by saying that, from my perspective, what you are referring to is a patriarchal masculinity, which is pretty easy to challenge.

I don't get why people say the education system is disadvantaging boys.
The entire education system in this country has a long history but was invented by men to educate boys.

After many centuries girls were allowed into schools, and when they weren't taking mondays off to help mother with the washing and were taught something other than needlework it became apparent that girls were able to read and write as well as boys could, and it didn't cause their brain to overheat as some (male) people said would happen.

Schools used to be quite brutal, you did as you were told and got beaten for disobeying. Whielthis was happening boys were still achieving best academically.

In the last 20 years something has happened somewhere which means biys are getting less good results in exams. This is not because boys have had teaching wihtdrawn from them, they and the girls turn up at the same places and take the same lessons. But somehow girls get better results.

If anything is disadvantaging boys it is the boys, the system has not changed to deny them anything that the girls get.

However, the system that keeps men higher paid and with better pensions is still there and so boys are not being disadvantaged by the education system.

Girls achieve more but will go on to be paid less, do more unpaid work, and get a lower pension.

How is the education system disadvantaging boys? They get better outcomes from it than the girls do.

Actually, dittany, there was a whole lot of feminism on my course. I liked Foucault's analysis and it resonated with me. Are you telling me that I should only resonate and respond to female thinkers? That's a bit problematic, no?

Yes, but that's taking the view that there is one 'masculinity'. I don't ascribe to that view.

Let's be real for a moment, rather than theoretical.

I have a small boy on my lap. He is three months old. Do I look down at him and think that he is just itching to grow up and go a-raping and a pillaging, as he has an intrinsic desire to dominate and subjugate women? If, for argument's sake, I do, what - as his mother - do I do with that? How do I mother him?

If I look at my partner, whom I love, how do I view him? Is his current provider anxiety borne out of the desire to tie me down and enslave me? Should I ditch him and run screaming for the hills because he is watching Rugby Union???

ISNt has a very good point - men are not suddenly in some kind of feminism-caused crisis - they still enjoy immense advantages over women.

I'm not out there campaigning for men! I do have a small son, and a responsibility to think about what man he'll become, and how I will shape that as his mother. As does my dh. So we talk about these things, try to muddle them out, be reflective and analytical of our own situation.

Dittany, if it happens to men, it happens to human beings. In that, if men go to war, women suffer. So in that respect, consideration of masculinity is something worthy of feminist debate.