Expecting husband to be sole protector is unfair to both genders?

[AliasGrace47]

I've been reading a lot on issues of masculinity, gender relations etc and the notion keeps coming up that men have lost their role of protector & this is partly why there is a crisis of masculinity.

Articles are generally vague over what this means. Surely most men in the UK, Europe or even quite a lot of the US have not had to physically protect their wife very often, if at all, over the last halfcentury,at least, unless they lived in a particularly dangerous area?
If the notion is something broader - financial protection, emotional protection, then I can understand better...but they seem to generally mean physical protection.

The idea, floated by quite a lot of what I read, that we should keep this standard up, seems unfair to both sexes.

If a couple are walking and the man is the one physically attacked (which is much more likely to happen to men), should the wife not try to protect him? Obviously she'll probs be weaker than the assailant, but she could protect by fetching help.

In the US, where this protection discourse often seems to emanate from, women are more likely than here to have a gun which they could certainly use to protect others if need be.

If the family were in danger then I could understand (say in a burglary) the man being the one to fend off a burglary if the wife needed to protect kids. But if it's just a couple, I don't see why a man should be expected to handle an assailant alone & have the burden of protection fall solely on his shoulders

The depressing truth is that in situations where there is widespread danger, the ability of men to protect can often be limited, through no fault of their own. Eg.in postwar Italy, Germany, Poland & others, countless women were raped by conquering or even liberating armies. Most of their men had been called up, and the few left were normally unable, through no fault of their own, to stop their wives & daughters being raped. I'm studying history & have read a lot on the use of sexual violence as a weapon. Often the 'man as protector' archetype is a fuel for it, since it is designed to show the helplessness of the men & therefore lower morale.

And for women, the expectation that men should be to only ones to protect also seems to have significant downsides. You see the ugliest side of that in extreme corners of incel forums or forums which predict imminent societal collapse, where users wish for a breakdown of society so women will have to have relationships with them to get protection.

This is ofc extreme. But the inference is there, and this sentiment recurs in varied ways. Some right-wing authors (disclaimer: not all, obvs they are diverse & varied) mourn the days when a woman had to rely on a man to 'protect and provide' so there were no incels or birth rate crisis (obvs these things are v bad, but this kind of talk is hardly the way to solve it).

Douglas Wilson, the VERY conservative Reformed Christian who has worrying influence on evangelical US circles & politicians like Pete Hegseth (many evangelicals are probs unaware of his nastiest views), has said that women who claim they don't need male protection do so at their own risk, and that the only way a woman can be safe is by outsourcing her need for protection to male police officers. (He's the one who was in the ne

The late James Dobson of Focus On The Family described marriage as an arrangement where a woman exchanges sex for protection and economic support.

Obvs again these are fairly far-out figures, but their sentiments are to some extent implicit in the whole 'men must protect' idea. If men must protect, then it follows that any woman without a man is unsafe. The single mother is unsafe. The widow is unsafe. The woman who's single by choice is unsafe. Nuns are unsafe. The lesbian couple is unsafe (when Colette was imagining in a book the life of the Ladies of Llangollen, the 18th century Welsh probably lesbian couple, she included a scene where they fear the consequences if someone broke in, noting, 'Everything is permitted to two women except a certain kind of solitude.')etc

So what's the general opinion?

Note : I'm not saying that men should not protect, I'm saying it shouldn't be seen as only their duty. Obviously if a woman's pregnant or w a young child a male partner would probably take the protective role more. Obvs a man might be less able to protect for some other reason, likewise.

So, you didn't say anything that implied anything and I wasn't trying to make a point to you at all, just commenting to you regarding your comment on my comment to the OP.

Now that's all cleared up, read the OPs statement and see how my comment which you commented on, addresses what was said there and it might make sense.

I'm a Christian myself but I despise fundamentalism in any form. I definitely agree that Europeans are not aware of the power of the Christian nationalist/reconstructionist movements. Nor are many Americans for that matter.

I'm just going to drop some more book recs about these movement, I don't want to derail but I do think it's very important to be aware, esp as I've seen people even on FWR saying that Reform may be the one to vote for. I get people voting Trump or Reform (migration,in the US the crime & fentanyl crisis & lack of wc jobs etc, plus the trans issue). But it's v important to be aware of these evil elements so that they can be clamped down on & protested if they try & move on women's rights (& other interrelated ones like gay rights for that matter. The lovely Mr Wilson has praised the days of slavery as ones of racial harmony & wants homosexuality to be illegal)

Their Kingdom Come - Julie Ingersoll (really good take on the Christian Reconstructionist movement. The author is a former evangelical herself. The chapter on homeschooling is esp good. It worries me that many on FWR support Moms For Liberty. They are completely right to stand against gender ideology, but the whole parental rights movement has strong links to homeschooling. Obvs many who homeschool are fine, but it's super unrestricted in the US and the lobbies are wealthy & prevent new rules coming in. Many homeschooling are taught by fundamentalist parents. The subreddit HomeschoolRecovery obvs selects for bad cases but does suggest there is definitely a disturbing section of the homeschooling world)
#ChurchToo (book about MeToo in US church)
A Well-Trained Wife - Tia Levings
Quiverfull - Julie Ingersoll (these 2 books about the fundamentalist Christian patriarchy movement, for those who know about the Duggar family, who ofc had a SA case, this was their movement)
The Theocons - Damon Linker (this man was an editor of the conservative Christian magazine First Things, he has insider knowledge about the disregard pf many of these types for democracy)
American Theocracy (similar topic)
Money, Lies and God
The Power Worshippers (both about the considerable financial & political influence many of these types wield)
Wild Faith (ditto)
Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin du Mez(ditto)

Sorry, these are all v good posts, I don't want to ignore. A bit busy now, will reply more tonight.

Not really - the Op doesn't deny that men are generally stronger than women either. I don’t know any feminists that do, tbh - actually we’re usually the ones pointing out the reality in sports etc.

I think that there's a risk of giving too much credit to the men who actually spout this rhetoric, for most of them there's no desire to protect anyone or risk themselves, it's a way to blame women and feminism for mens' problems.

The role of protector only exists because of other men, so I don't think women should feel bad if a man takes the lead in dealing with it. However, if we could expand the idea of being a protector into covering anything that reduces the risk of male violence, bringing up their sons to respect women, being a good role model etc. that would be a useful conversation. The mix of a society level problem and individual level solutions is always going to be tricky though.

In more general terms, I think the US is really behind on women's rights and has a biblical and military undercurrent that we don't want. I would be reluctant to apply any of their analysis to other societies. Do men in Sweden and Botswana, for example lament not being protectors? American men have too big a voice on line and too little awareness that the world is varied and different to them.

A very interesting comment, thank you.

. May I ask a few questions to tease out what you mean exactly?

If all women need men for protection, do you think no woman should choose to be single? Or should she find a male protector?

What about lesbian couples? Do they need to find a man to protect them?

I have never at any point in my post said that women are the equals of men physically. What I did say is that women can also protect men in an emergency, eg. Call emergency services, use whatever weapon to hand. I don't think men should be solely expectedto protect in an emergency.

You'll note that in my post I was also pointing out that it's crucial for women to have some way of defence given that in the worst situations often men are absent. Eg. Berlin and other European cities after the fall of the allies, the Marrocinate in postwar Italy, the treatment of women in the Bosnian war, and so on. Imo, every woman should read the journalist Marta Hillers' memoir A Woman In Berlin : Six Weeks In The Conquered City for an account of a full-scale emergency and few men around the defend largely unprepared & unequipped women. It's a v difficult read, but v well written .

One thing I agree strongly with US Republican women is the important role guns can play in self defence for women. As Mao Zedong said, ' Power comes out of the barrel of a gun'. (Don't worry, I'm not a Maoist 😉). In the UK we obvs have sensible gun control laws, thank goodness, but we are still able to learn and own them, and I think it's well worth the investment.

Fluffy, I have some more questions for you.

Why is mentioning women who are happy to live without men, like single women by choice, lesbian couples and nuns, for some examples, seen as excluding men? A woman can happily live in a house without men & still have male friends and relatives she cares a lot about.

It's a bit contradictory that you talk about needing to be protected from men, but then talk about 'being punched by a very tough woman'. Are very tough women really that common or dangerous? Seems to contradicts your earlier point.

You're far more likely to be attacked by a male partner than protected by them.

If personal safety was the only consideration, it would be logical for all women to remain single.

I always find it darkly ironic bc the kind of message here seems to be essentially a threat: ' Let us protect (ie. Have relationships & sex w) you, or you'll be in danger of assault & rape. ' Sounds very protective!

I had a charming conversation with a man on a Reddit political sub recently who blamed what he thought were 'increasing numbers of lesbian couples' for the dangers of assault & rape from incels, amd said that women who choose to partner with women are thus making society worse for all women.

I enlightened this person that 88% of bi women partner with men, and the recent apparent upsurge of bi women is overwhelmingly identification, treating sexuality like an online fandom, & not actually having lesbian relationships or even sex or at most for a short time until a stopgap until a man comes, as borne out by statistics. Obvs what he was saying would be no excuse even if it were true, but it wasn't.

I should know- I'm bi, mostly (but not solely) date women, but this is very unusual. My lesbian friends sadly struggle with bi women stringing them along often- not all ofc, but unluckily quite a lot. The lesbian dating pool is tiny & dating normally takes much longer than hetero pairing as a result : but oddly, while I've certainly heard anger & bitterness sometimes, I've never heard anyone threatening rape or violence outbreaks to get women to date them 🤔

Yes. Tbf that is accurate, I think. But going from that to, 'it's single women's fault if incels rape and murder' , as I've seen far too often from men online, is quite another thing.

If you have your gun and ammo in a handy (obvs also secure) place, (and get to it in time ofc) you could shoot or at least incapacitate the burglar, depending on how dangerous the situation was.

If I had a husband, I personally wouldn't want him to confront a potentially armed burglar with whatever was to hand, without any backup from me.

Presumably your comments about cooking is hyperbole? I bet plenty of people here love cooking, or at least don't mind, I certainly do.

I'm not seeing a crisis of masculinity in my family or partners family.

The idea of a man being some sort of primary overall protector is not something my Mother's generation or Grandmothers would have recognised.

In my mother's home country men were often away working for long periods of time but there was little in the way of violence. Women were not living in an atmosphere of impending fear. Women looked after the home, land and children. They has sisters, aunts and mothers around.

The only men I know who would consider themselves to be their families main protector are from a particular Christian background. This protector role seems to include being some sort of final authority on what they need to be protected from and how. It involves control over where his family goes and does. One has used tracking devices.

Another one did have a gun but this has been taken off him now due to dementia. He is obsessed now with the loss of his gun although it been a long time since he went hunting. His wife and children were the ones who had to get the gun confiscated.

I don't think that they ever felt as if he was some special family protector or the gun would be useful in that way.

flopsy , that's nice to hear you don't see a crisis! . I read a lot of newspapers , also SM & Substack which are full of doomongers. But in my everyday life, most of the men & boys I know are cheerful and absorbed w their particular interests/goals. Obvs there are big issues in the world, but it's important to remember that the online world doesn't equal real life.

Can I ask which country your home country is? I get if not. It sounds a bit similar to Poland (where I'm partly from), where women often had to manage things alone bc men were often imprisoned/at war etc over the 19th & 20th centuries. Partly why women got the vote in Poland quite early (1918, whereas UK only got limited vote then) & played a major role in keeping the Solidarity movement going.

Incidentally, the 🐇 name theme is nice. FluffyWabbit and now flopsy.

It’s not possible to have any meaningful discussion about men as protectors without acknowledging what it is that women (and children) need protection from.

The most dangerous person a woman will ever meet is the man who loves her.

The exposure of boy children to violence is a contributory factor in the enactment of male adult violence.

And the exposure of girl children to violence increases the likelihood they will choose a violent mate.

I think that men do have a distinct and incredibly important protective role in the family structure, particularly in the current nuclear model. How that should manifest changes with circumstances.

In fundamentalist religions, they tend to extrapolate from that the crisis of new parenthood to a very broad Quod Erat Demonstrandum that woman should submit in all things to her husband.

Protection, or to put it more broadly, maintaining a safe space for a woman to carry, birth and nurture a child is a very important role. But it’s not something that necessarily requires a penis, and in various times and places, women have taken on that job, or been compelled to by gender norms and expectations. In developed nations, society and law take on parts of that role, in the creation of legal protections, statutory pay.

In terms of providing, I’m struck in my reading of historical accounts of rural life, how often the gendering of work functioned to excuse men from labour like house work, while women were expected to join them in the fields. Yet a myth persists of a past where women didn’t work.

In life, there are times when it is necessary for one member of a group, to be helped by the others, in times of sickness, incapacitation, injury, or when their efforts are more productively directed elsewhere. The nuclear family, reduces the group to a dyad. And while it’s wise to encourage a man to earn enough to support a woman through procreation, but it makes no economic sense to attempt to take her permanently out of the work force.

It's a Scandinavian country. The men were often away fishing or at sea.

Thank you for your kind words on the rabbit theme.

Thank you, that makes sense. Do you think this is partly why Scandinavian countries are more egalitarian now?

I’ve also seen this online. The “But who will get up in the middle of the night to fight the burglar” type posts. In my house, most probably me as I’m perfectly capable and my husband is a deep sleeper.

I think some men struggle with the fact that they are no longer needed in some ways and are keen to return to the days where women kept house and took care of them and the dc. The thing is, most women are exhausted from working full time plus doing everything else as a lot of men don’t step up at home in the way a lot of women have adapted to providing for the family.

Also women are generally the protectors of children. Maybe not always physically, but pretty much all child safeguarding comes from women protecting them. Global issues like child labour, child sexual exploitation, child soldiers - all rooted heavily in patriarchal male-dominated systems.

In my 37 years of life I can't remember one incident where I've needed protection from a male friend/family member/partner (other than obviously as a very young child where anyone older would be 'protecting').

I can remember several occasions when I felt threatened because of men though.

Overall I think men are more of a threat to women on a general level (obviously not individuals) than protection.

Slightly irrelevant but because you mentioned it - the ladies of Llangollen would have had a number of male staff whose role it would be to protect them - same as a widow etc. tbh at that time and social class it would be expected that the footman/hall boy/butler etc would be first line of defence before the master of the house anyway.

Who are Men protecting us from? Men?

No, that's a great point about the ladies. Just reinforces to me that Colette's psychological speculation wasn't very well-researched!

That bit I quoted comes from her book The Pure and The Impure BTW, a long meditation on the psychology of sex and love, with interviews with various people, and tangents, of which the Llangollen bit is one. Colette had a history of lesbian relationships herself and she writes with sympathy about them, though also some mean comments. Overall the book still has a lot of interesting things to say about relationships in general.

Yeah, I think you raise some good points there.

Whilst I hate the idea of being belittled by the far right, I can see its an emotive issue for men.

Put it like this. Men are definitely more likely to be the victim of, and therefore more afraid of, physical violence from a stranger. Not sexual violence, just random violence from other men.

Maybe they feel unsafe in some situations. However, its easier for them to process this fear as "I can't protect my women and children in this situation" than it is for them to admit that they are the ones at risk of violence?

My husband is very afraid of violence. Much more so than I am. He would never see himself as a protector, he'dbe halfway down the street in event of attack. 🤣 But he's very much an intellectual, and would not see himself as the protector role.

My dad, on the other hand, was very proud of his ability to protect his family, especially the women. He saw this as his main selling point as a human being.

Its partly a generational thing. Partly a core values thing about your upbringing. It varies a lot with social class, country of origin, and now these menininst views.

I don't think it's helpful actually. I don't wish to go back to the cavemen days.

Same!
My mother’s male ancestors were whalers in the 1700s. I grew up with stories too of how during these voyages of around 2-3yrs the women would be left to manage the house, small holding and children by themselves. They would even set up their own cottage businesses to earn money if their husband were gone so long the money from the prior voyage ran out before he returned from the sea. There was one story of a winter when the sea ice around the island prevented any supplies from being shipped from the mainland and a group of women built sleds and then hooked up a team of horses and braved the ice to go and bring food back so they’d survive the winter. So have a long tradition of the women in our family needing to be strong and independent.