'If masculinity needs to be revolutionised, so does feminism'

[ItIsSmallerOnTheOutside]

Martin Daubney's latest article in the Telegraph is an open letter to Caroline C-P.

www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/11283181/If-masculinity-needs-to-be-revolutionised-so-does-feminism.html

Daubrey says "If effective gender reprogramming were even possible, it is a concept that has thus far eluded humanity’s greatest sociologists, psychologists and criminologists – but we all like a good challenge. " But then later on regarding male suicide he says "Too often, these men are socially conditioned to think reaching out for help is “un-manly”. " So his first insinuation is that any attempt to gender re-programme is laughable, but later on pins it as the cause of high male suicide rates?

I don't know if he is being disingenuous or genuinely thinks feminism means men=bad, women=good. A truly equal society would not enforce rigid gender roles on people purely because of their genitalia... therefore am I as a feminist not asking for the same thing he is? Or is his overall point that the way things are is inevitable as gender programming is set in stone and in no way a result of societal pressures, advertising, consumerism etc.. oh wait, no, he blames social conditioning on male suicide.. therefore he thinks it can be changed?

I hope you can make sense of what I'm trying to say here. I'm mostly posting to get the views of the much wiser posters who frequent this section as I am confused and probably missing the point.

Oh also want to add:

He seems to put masculinity up as the opposite to feminism, which just isn't the case.

Feminism is not anti-men, it is not about putting women forward at the expense of men like he seems to think. A feminist society would be fairer for both sexes.

I think it is all just badly written.

His points are:

1. He wants an end to a gender war.
2. Feminism is responsible for the gender war.
3. Gender roles are hard to change.
4. Bad things happen to men.
5. Feminism needs to change.

There is no logical reason given by him as to how these things are connected to each other. I think the point is that he wants men and women to work together on men's problems. So feminism should start concentrating on men rather than women. But who knows?

The whole thing is a bit ridiculous to be honest.

He is singling out Caroline Criado-Perez for causing an 'exhausting gender war' and the accompanying image is of a woman punching a man in the face.

Is that not a bit of a cheek given that Caroline Criado-Perez woman a human rights award and has been subject to rape and death threats?

Her work has mostly been about representation of women, and particularly about how women are excluded from speaking about health issues that apply only to women.

How are men the people exhausted by that situation? Why should she stop talking about these issues and start discussing male suicide?

He just hasn't done the reading has he.

Clueless AND whiney.

It looks pretty simple to me. The author is stating that gender reprogramming is extremely difficult, but entirely necessary and that it's the current socialisation that causes male violence. He states that this is something that urgently needs to be addressed, hence the citation of both male-on-female violence and male suicide.

He then states that feminism (as currently constituted) cannot play a dominant role in that as it would be allowing one gender exclusive rights to define appropriate behaviour for the other - in other words, a simple reversal of the patriarchy rather than an end to kyriarchy.

And yes, most people believe that feminism is hostile towards men, both individually and as a class. This is hardly a controversial statement.

Ummm, why was all I heard while reading that

"Women, sort these problems our for us"?

I'd be interested to see the breakdown of which sex gives money to 'women's' charities, and which gives money to androcentric ones. We know that men earn more than women, are they giving more to women's charities? Why don't men give to androcentric ones? Is it actually men who don't give too much of a shit about other men? Is that because of the way they're socialised?

Why does he want to frame the whole thing as a war? Why does women's liberation = war to him?

He's got money, influence and power. Surely his old titty mag readers could band together and get this whole thing sorted within a week?

I am baffled. Is he the dude who edited Loaded?

If so, why is any woman listening to a single word he says? He very obviously hates us. Who gives a fuck what he thinks we should do?

He then states that feminism (as currently constituted) cannot play a dominant role in that as it would be allowing one gender exclusive rights to define appropriate behaviour for the other - in other words, a simple reversal of the patriarchy rather than an end to kyriarchy.

Then maybe he ought to be pitching to men rather than women. Why isn't he, do you think?

"And yes, most people believe that feminism is hostile towards men, both individually and as a class. This is hardly a controversial statement."

Yes, it is a controversial statement.

HTH.

gin yes he is the loaded guy so I know whaT you mean but he's writing in a newspaper that a lot of people will read and be influenced by. I feel like there's so much anti-feminist feeling out there at the moment and things like this add to that.

I should stay away from the comments section on most newspaper websites, but I do read them and I get so sick of reading about how the "feminazis" go around demanding the jobs (but not the dangerous ones)/money/homes of men and how they should think about the men's issues not focus on the issues of women.. This article feels like a big one of those to me.

Never read the comments!

I know! But I always get tempted to look for the good, reasonable ones... Don't think I've found any yet

This because the type of people because sadly, some of them are women who comment like that are fucking idiots.

There are so few good reasonable comments, which leads me to believe that all the good reasonable people stay well out of it, or come to FWR

I agree it's quite a confused argument, but reading a couple of times it's basically that old anti-feminist chestnut - as a reasonable person you shouldn't want to be a feminist, as we should all strive to be "equalist" or "humanist". That feminists by their nature seek to monopolise the discourse for the benefit of women to the detriment of men. Because he clearly doesn't understand why there is any real need for feminism in itself or how it's not in any sense a level playing field.

It's a bold bit of mansplaining transparent clickbait, certainly. And as other posters pointed out, he seems to expect feminists to do all the work.

"Then maybe he ought to be pitching to men rather than women. Why isn't he, do you think?"

Because in this case the writer is identifying feminism as the obstruction to a better gender consensus.

Reads to me like he's come up with a load of issues that men need to solve, and he wants feminism to also make some changes, because feminists think that women are good and men are bad.

Well, that's easy. I don't think that at all, and neither to the vast majority of feminists. So he can crack on with male violence, suicide etc.

I think taking this and his other article about feminism, it is not just that he wants there to be a replacement movement for feminism, it is that he wants to be one of the people leading it, despite not stating any actual solutions to the problems men face, and having no particular expertise in the matter.

It then makes sense for him to be writing open letters to a feminist who has won a human rights award, inviting her to join him, because it creates the perception that he is some equivalent level of activist and they are in dialogue with each other to create some new movement that he will be at the forefront of. Even if she responded in public by disagreeing with him, it would only perpetuate the idea they are connected in some way.

'Let’s call our allegiance a Gender Revolutionary Exchange: you show me your ideas, and I show you mine. You never know, we might even make unlikely associates.'

Ridiculous.

Agree with Chunky, think the crux is that he's saying feminists say "women good, men bad" - whereas it's perhaps more accurate to say feminists say "current notions of femininity and masculinity limit everyone's freedom and are damaging to both women and men, particularly women - see data on power, pay, violence etc. These notions are rooted in patriarchal power structures."

So, I think he's ignorant, probably willfully ignorant, about what feminism is. I guess if he accepted my version of "what feminists say", he'd still worry about what we want to replace patriarchy with. He assumes some.kind of matriarchy perhaps (amusingly ascribing us with a stereotypically masculine desire to dominate?) and he worries that we want to define what men are or should be.

For me, feminism is ultimately about freedom from restrictive expectations that are based on gender. It doesn't at all follow from that that I want to go round defining acceptable manhood. I want every man and woman to be free to grow into the best person, the best human being that they can be, without the weight of gender-dependent social expectation. (It sounds like I want to abolish gender roles entirely - do you think he'd mind?)

Agree with Chunky, think the crux is that he's saying feminists say "women good, men bad" - whereas it's perhaps more accurate to say feminists say* "current notions of femininity and masculinity are damaging to both women and men, particularly women - see data on power, pay, violence etc. These notions are rooted in patriarchal power structures."

So, I think he's ignorant, probably willfully ignorant, about what feminism is. I guess if he accepted my version of "what feminists say", he'd still worry about what we want to replace patriarchy with. He assumes some.kind of matriarchy perhaps (amusingly ascribing us with a stereotypically masculine desire to dominate?) and he worries that we want to define what men are or should be.

For me, feminism is basically about freedom from restrictive expectations that are based on gender.* It doesn't at all follow from that that I want to go round defining acceptable manhood. I want every man and woman to be free to grow into the best person, the best human being that they can be, without the weight of gender-dependent social expectation. (It sounds like I want to abolish gender roles entirely - do you think he'd mind?!)

• aware that I'm being simplistic here, forgive me - this is how i see it.myself, in simple words for a.simpleton!

The bonkers thing is that CCP first rose to prominence because of campaigning for a single woman to be on banknotes, where there were none, and receiving rape threats as a result,

Those things are unquestionably issues related to the position of women in society, not the position of men.

Oh no, multiple post and very long! Stupid phone

'Feminism has fought justly hard for its victories. But these victories cannot be at the expense of men'

Huh? So it's okay for women to continue to suffer as long as men aren't inconvenienced?

I'm fairly sure that when slavery was abolished, there were both financial and practical costs to the white slave owners. No-one to cook their tea, or they had to pay someone to do it. Poor things.

So men-as-a-class being asked to share All The Things, which might mean that they no longer get jobs just because they are men, or have to take care of their own children or clean their own toilets is unfair, is it? Poor things.