Can I talk about men ?

[Blistory]

In light of the recent threads and the perception that some feminists hate men, can anyone confirm that what they really feel about men as a class ? And whether they believe that feminism harms men ?

I see more disrespect for men on the general boards, the 'men just don't see dust', 'I'm as well doing it myself as he makes a mess of it' 'bless them, they just don't get it' 'women are naturally the better parent' types of threads. To be fair, those posts usually attract rightful condemnation but I can't understand why just because feminism demands more of men and expects more of men, feminism is seen as disrespectful or dismissive of men. Surely it's the opposite ?

In the interests of honesty, there are individual men I like, admire, love or respect. There are individual men whom I trust but it has to be said, not unreservedly.

Men, as a class, on the other hand, I fear. I fear the stranger in the dark alley, I fear the man driving the taxi, I fear the men attending conferences with me who decide to retire to their rooms at the same time. Not because I think they are definitely going to harm me but because I equally fear that if someone does harm me, I will be judged for not recognising the danger and protecting myself. This, I blame, not on men but on a patriarchial society that tells me men are predatory and women are victims. I blame it not on men but on a rape culture which reinforces the attitude that women are there for the taking. The only individual men I blame are the ones who rape, kill and assault but I start with the premise that those individual men are not identifiable to me therefore I should be cautious of all. Man hating ? I don't know.

In terms of feminism, I've always been quite comfortable with the idea that whilst not an aim, the accepted by product of feminism will be that men's lives are also enhanced. The prevailing notions that men have to be strong, assertive, to be the bread winner, emotionally detached, not to cry, to be able to physically protect themselves are all damaging to men, particularly those who don't conform to the stereotype. I firmly believe that while feminism seeks to break down barriers, the result of it will be that men also benefit significantly. And I welcome that. If feminism was simply about achieving a position for women that significantly put men in jeopardy, I wouldn't be supportive of it and I don't know many feminists who would.

Given that men who suffer under patriarchy will benefit from feminism, I see no need to actively campaign for men's rights so I'm entirely comfortable with focusing on women. For men who won't benefit, I'm sorry but I just can't shed any tears for someone who has had all the advantages and is now being asked simply to share them.

I've asked, not to be controversial, but because I didn't want to derail any existing threads that are, quite rightly, about putting women first. And I've been genuinely perturbed by the current threads that insist there is a genuine and strong sense of men being hated by some feminists on here. Is it just misunderstanding of language, a lack of understanding of feminism or am I so blinkered by my beliefs that I can't see it ?

[YonicScrewdriver]

Harold, just to be sure, if I say "men as a class commit more violent crimes than women as a class", am I beyond contempt?

[OutsSelf]

People are asking for opt outs of male violence by insisting NAM

Male violence differs in scale, kkind and effect than female violence. We should be able to name that. Saying that is not the same as saying men are dominant and women are victims at all in relation to this issue

The fact of male violence is a million times more concerning to me than offending people who don't like acknowledging the relationship between men they know/ who they are and male violence.

[FloraFox]

and simply adding "as a class" doesn't change that. It's basically the gender equivalent of "I'm not racist but...

No it's not. I've certainly heard people involved in race activism talk about "white people...". It's quite obvious they are talking about their experiences in a white-dominated culture, not the behaviour of every white person everywhere all the time.

Also interesting that people trying to identify and reduce oppression are "beyond contempt". Why?

[HaroldsBishop]

No because that is a statistic not a generalisation.

This is the stuff I'm referring to:

"Men as a class are rapists."
"Women as a class are inferior drivers."
"Men as a class objectify women."
"Women as a class are poor manual labourers."

See museumum's post at 9:42, basically.

[specialsubject]

any discussion that starts by asking about feelings about 3 billion people is really a little bit silly.

[Beachcomber]

Nojacketrequired

Game over because if you can't talk about women as a class/group you cannot talk about structural oppression against that group. Men and women cease to exist as meaningful groups within society and become simple individuals. And then women cease to be a collective, a group with a common identity and common issues or a common root to their issues. And men cease to exist as a group which is awarded higher status and privilege because they are men and they become simply individuals who are better at running the world/economy/holding power/being in charge/doing well paid jobs than those other individuals who just happen to have vaginas.

[Nojacketrequired]

Thanks for the response, Beachcomer.

Further to my earlier post, what do we know about the class of men who are violent, versus those who are not? Has there been a lot of research? Given that all are subjected to the same influences, what differentiates them?

[FloraFox]

they become simply individuals who are better at running the world/economy/holding power/being in charge/doing well paid jobs than those other individuals

Which is how they see themselves for the most part. It is very jarring for their egos to address the fact that being male, upper class and white might have something to do with it.

[Beachcomber]

HaroldsBishop that isn't how class analysis is used.

I've never heard a feminist say 'men as a class are rapists'. The only example that you give which might be used/useful in a feminist discussion is "Men as a class objectify women" - although it would be better expressed as "Men as a class are socialized to objectify women".

Class analysis isn't about applying offensive stereotypes to people - it is about observing and analyzing trends within populations and within groups, groups that are defined by society.

[Beachcomber]

Nojacketrequired, gosh, I have no idea what makes some men actively violent and others not or less so. I bet it would be interesting to research.

I disagree that all men are subject to the same influences however. There is a general background of living in male dominated/hypermasculine society that affects us all but we do all have individual experiences too and I guess they all join up to make us who we are.

Why do some men think it is OK to catcall in the street and some men don't?

Which is an interesting question but it doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of the world's catcallers are men and women are the victims of their harassment.

[grimbletart]

Can any poster who has been involved in class analysis tell me, in order to qualify as a class e.g. men as a class are violent, women as a class are more concerned with appearance (whatever example you wish) is there a definitive proportion of men or of women who have to exhibit these characteristics to before they can be defined as a class?

I'm not being very clear. Try again…

I could understand if, say, 80% of women were more concerned with appearance that could qualify as a class. But if it were, say, 50% i.e. half weren't concerned with their appearance, would that still qualify as a class?

Would 30% qualify as a class. Or 10%?

Is it as vague as "we observe a statistical tendency for women to be more concerned with their appearance or men to be more violent"?
And at what point would that tendency reach statistical significance? Or does it ever?

If not, that would seem to be an incredibly blunt weapon for analysis.

This is a genuine question from a feminist - a practical get on do it feminist rather than an academic, gender studying feminist. Sorry if it is a dense question

[museumum]

beachcomber - As one of those here generally uncomfortable with the 'as a class' terminology i have encountered, I have no issue at all with your example "Men as a class are socialized to objectify women".
I have however read on these boards many times people saying 'men as a class are violent' and other things, then getting annoyed if anybody dares to clarify 'not all men'.
I didn't study social scientists, I do not know about 'class analysis' as a methodology, this is my only encounter with the 'as a class' terminology and I will be relieved if you are right about how it is meant to be expressed and that the instances I have read on here are just lazy/sloppy or shorthand use of jargon not intended for people like me unfamiliar with the jargon.

[PetulaGordino]

grimble i don't have an adequate answer to your question and i'd be interested to see what others say. but on your point about "practical get on and do it" feminism presumably at some point you must have identified a problem in order to then put into action your practical stuff? e.g. if you raise money for DV shelters for women you will have identified that there is a problem here that is disproportionately affecting women and that men are disproportionately the perpetrators, not necessarily in specific numbers but in general? or if you work to avoid your daughter being constrained by gender stereotypes you will have identified that this is something that has affected women as a group and you count her among those at risk?

obviously i'm making tons of assumptions about what you mean by practical and get on with it, but i just mean that at some point you must have identified what you felt was worth putting your time and energy into, and it didn't have to include feminist literature or statistics or whatever, perhaps just your own lived experience and that of other women that you could see? because that sounds a lot to me like looking at men and women as a class.

sorry if i've misunderstood anything of your post grimble, or of the as-a-class bit which i hope others will correct me on if i'm wrong

[Nojacketrequired]

Grimble, this isn't my area either. But I wonder if rather than xx per cent of men have to be violent in order for men as a class to be reasonably labelled as violent, feminism comes at it from a different angle. So, if 90 per cent of violent crime is committed by men, then of the two classes, it is overwhelmingly men who are the violent class.

Then again, if only 10 per cent of men are violent, it does seem, as you say, rather blunt. If 90 per cent of men are violent, it seems pretty accurate.

All of the above figures are made up, and are for example only.

[Beachcomber]

I would need to see 'men as a class are violent' in the context it was used museumum. In my experience feminists tend more to use terms like 'male violence' or 'violence against women'.

grimbletart - it is society which defines the groups/classes.

The group 'men' and the group 'women' exist because society is set up the way it is - not because feminists decided that men or women were distinct political groups.

It isn't feminists who decide what is statistically significant and what makes a group or class.

I don't think I've really come across feminists saying 'men as a class are violent' - they are more likely to say 'men as a class benefit from male violence'. Which is something rather different and much more nuanced and analytic. It is much more useful. The point of talking about male violence or men as a class is not to be nasty about men - it is to try to understand and further the position of women and to examine the societal wide power dynamic that exists between men and women. In other words, we suspect that women don't get the top spots in running the world/economy/jobs/in government/etc, not because we are a bit crap but because we are discriminated against and sometimes actively prevented (via male dominance and male violence and a system of male status and privilege that is buttressed by the threat of violence) from accessing opportunities.

[PetulaGordino]

i thought that buffy - presumably for example politicians (or their staff) do that sort of analysis when they are looking at impact of policies on different social groups? (well given my jaded view of them perhaps they don't, but i'll be charitable for now). iirc it was noted recently that the one class they hadn't tested budget cut effects on was that of women

[RabbitOfNegativeEuphoria]

I don't hate men. It doesn't take much analysis of my friendship groups or my social and professional interactions to see that I have many more male friends and acquaintances than female, that I prefer the company of some of my male friends and acquaintances to most of my female ones (not all) and that my most enduring friendships are slightly weighted towards my male friends rather than my female ones (and when you insider that I went to an all girls school and an all girls oxbridge college, that might be mrs significant than for someone who was educated in a co-ed environment). However, working as I do in a hugely male dominated area, I have met far more men who infuriate me and who I believe act...poorly...than I have women. And the patriarchy drives me up the wall.

But I really like my friends and most of them are (lovely) men.

Perhaps that means I'm not a feminist. I certainly don't think their rights are being threatened by me demanding my own rights. They have plenty of rights. They don't think their rights are bing threatened either. I suspect that's the key to it - I know nice men as well as less nice ones.

[RabbitOfNegativeEuphoria]

Generally speaking I don't feel scared of men - I'm very lucky in that, I know. I do feel professionally disadvantaged by sexism a lot though, and in that I am unlucky.

[grimbletart]

Thanks for trying to answer my question everyone.

Petula: I've been a feminist since kindergarten - when I first noticed boys were treated differently at school than girls (always, it seems to girls' detriment). So, long before I read my first feminist tomes (Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Frieden) etc. By practical feminist I meant always challenging sexism, the status quo, misogyny and so on (as well as supporting women's charities) rather than studying the subject academically.

Nojacket - I think your point about e.g. 90% of violence by men is a good explanation of class. We would have the statistics to verify the % of violence carried out by men. I am not sure we have the statistics to verify the % of women who care about appearance though…..

Beachcomber: I understand it is society that defines classes and not feminists. Agree on your point about nuance - I was being too broad brush.

I think some things are more amenable to class analysis - things were statistics are available e.g. violence crime, numbers of men/women in various jobs etc. but I am a bit sceptical about it as a tool for more amorphous situations such as caring about appearance.

It is clearly a useful tool but I can understand how hard it is for individuals to put aside the "not me" response e.g. NAMALT.

I have a personal NAPALT response when I find, usually on AIBU, that pensioners are attacked for being selfish, not caring about the problems faced by today"s young etc. when I now how much DH and I have impoverished ourselves helping out the younger generation and how life was just as difficult in a different way when we were growing up in the 40s and 50s. Very hard to detached when you are swept up in a class analysis that confers on your class a behaviour or attitude you are not part of and actively strive against. But that's a personal response and I just have to get over it.

[PetulaGordino]

grimble i have the same re "young" women / "young" feminists - NAYWALT etc. though actually you have far more reason to object to ageist comments than i do to those about younger women.

[vesuvia]

grimbletart wrote - "is there a definitive proportion of men or of women who have to exhibit these characteristics to before they can be defined as a class?"

I don't know of any definitive figure for the social sciences.

I do know that one of the the more obscure mathematical/philosophical definitions of a class (or group or set) is along the lines of "a collection of things that doesn't contain all its things".

[scallopsrgreat]

I think your reaction to those comments grimbletart are perfectly reasonable. You are, in effect, part of the oppressed class as ageist remarks are disproportionally directed against older people. It's not really a class analysis if you are perpetuating the abuse against a minority or oppressed group.

Hope that makes sense.

[YonicScrewdriver]

"It's not really a class analysis if you are perpetuating the abuse against a minority or oppressed group."

I think this is a factor.

[Blistory]

I use ‘men as a class’ as shorthand in feminist discussions – the assumption is that there is an understanding of what I mean by that. Apologies if that leads to confusion.

And it’s a useful tool of analysis but only goes so far. For me, it’s not so much what individual men do within the class of men, it’s the fact that patriarchy gives all men the theoretical ability to oppress all women. Do they all do so ? Of course not, but the main tool of them doing so and most successful tool is violence. As a class they are given (have taken?) that tool, the fact that many men don’t require to use it, wouldn’t wish to use it, whatever, doesn’t negate its existence.

Caveat – when I say that it’s not so much what individual men do, I mean that entirely for debating the theory of men as a class. In RL, it’s very much about what individual men do.