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

[ImSoNotTelling]

In the last couple of days there have been a few threads about how difficult life is for boys, how our whole society is weighted against them, how they are set up to fail academically by a system weighted against them, how they are victims of violence, how no-one takes them seriously.

I understand that a lot of the protagonists on these threads have sons and are naturally worried about how things will play out for them in their lives, That is a given when you have children I think. You also want the best for them, for them to have all the advantages in life.

However this business about men being done down all the time, I just don;t see it.

For every one ad on teh telly with a man being incompetent at cleaning, I see 10 with a man in a sharp suit being successful, with loads of adoring women gazing at him.

I see images of men doing exciting physical activities, being powerful, swishing out of expensive cars, glanching at their expensive watches, exuding authority as they sweep down the road.

Most of our politicians are men, in the papers the vast majority of "experts" consulted are men.

Men will on average earn a lot more money than women over the course of their lifetime, even if the fact that many women go part time is factored out (sorry I've got no links). In fact women on average are earning less than men, in the same jobs, before they have even started their families. In my old industry the women earned 40% less than men.

So are boys and men in our society really having a terrible time, and we need to redress the balance? If we redress the balance, what does that actually mean? What do people who call for this want? For men to earn even more money than women in the same job? For more men to be decision makers?

I just get when I think about just how shit it is for women and girls, still, here and around the world, and yet we are all supposed to ignore that and accept that yes, men have it worse, let's forget abotu the girls (again) and concentrate on making everything even better for men.

I write all that about my son in the context of a thread here this weekend in which women of boys from 9-12 were talking about their sons being physically aggressive in the home, using verbally abusive language, setting the mood of the whole home and already at those young ages flexing patriarchal privileges.

Dittany, that distinction between 'apolitical academic feminism, and the political movement that happens out there in the real world' doesn't tell the whole story.

I have ten years of different kinds of community activism under my belt as it happens. It has been much discussed elsewhere on mn before that the hiring structure of academia, and the demands of the research culture make life very difficult for women, especially those with children and of course that takes its toll on what women in that system can do outside. There's another spin-off thread there I think ...

I haven't studied feminism or sociology or politics at uni (I do have different areas of knowledge) so I apologise if my point is dim / offensive. I have only barely understood the thread's finer points and just want to clarify something.

Regarding masculinity. When I think of masculinity I think of competetiveness, sport, bravado etc. When I think of femininity I think of softness, passivity, gentleness etc. I know these are reductive stereotypes. But doesn't feminism require that we focus on our humanity rather than our gender differences?

I understand that I can teach my son to behave with empathy and kindness. But I see these as human traits, not masculine or feminine as such. So my son hopefully doesn't see me as an actualised woman, or himself as a deconstructed male. He sees us as human beings. Isn't that the most helpful way to raise a boy?

By the way I don't believe in those stereotypes! Hope that's clear!

Dittany - I agree that you have a point about gender studies departments loosing the feminist edge/ the focus on women etc, it can seem like it has been a backwards step, but I think that it has been a strength to the feminist cause. If masculinity remained unquestioned, it remains the "norm" to which women become the abnormal/inferior. Gender studies allows the masculine norm to be brought down from that untouchable position and analyzed as a construct.

As for Gender Studies departments, I particularly had the University of Oslo in mind. Norway is at the forefront of feminist analysis within the academy as well as politically/socially. They operate a Centre for Gender Research. Over here Birkbeck has a leading department Birkbeck Institute for Gender and Sexuality.

Like I said, I think there is a place for academic debate about feminism and gender studies, but I would really like to see feminist debate much more mainstream again in women's lives.

Dittany, I can see you are clearly passionate about all this. And I suspect if we sat down for a coffee together we'd find a lot we agreed on. I also think second wave feminism has been too quickly dismissed. Catherine MacKinnon is a heroine of mine and hearing her lecture is a highlight of my academic career.

"A life lived as a woman is a body of research in itself."

WOW!

Dittany, I take exeption to your last comment

We clashed on one main thread, I outed you and had it retracted and apologised. I have seen other people also out your previous posting name but I am the one you remember. Also, after that thread, I had quite a few CATs from people telling me I hadn't warranted the intellectual beating I got

I haven't followed you anywhere, I have an interest in a number of threads you have been on.

I wanted to get involved on these new topics, especially as a parent of a young man but I was worried I would be shouted down again, especially after seeing some of your posts here

I would like to know more and I'm getting lots from many of the posts, I just don't want to be someones beating post and that's why I steered clear

Redlentil - I have a young adult son. I have been a single parent for over half of his life. I hope I have installed in him a feminist stance. He is a lovely young man and is going into a traditionally female occupation. We haven't bought into gender roles in this house and he has been bought up with household chores/cooking/diy having no gender definition - we all cook and they all do their own washing and ironing for eg

I am hoping he will enter the adult world as a feminist man - by that I don't mean well read in academics, I mean by truly believing men & women are equal

Blinder, I think that is a great way to raise a boy! I think feminism has given us to tools/vocab/awareness of the gender stereotypes you mention, and allows us to move on from them to something more constructive.

I want to let this go but if you search, you can find at least one more than me and that one is still there, so please get your facts right. That is where I am leaving it

But please, people who are lucky enough to be well educated, please continue to remember those of us that aren't. We would like to contribute but it can be scary to join in sometimes

I hate to think that anyone has been put off by the discussion of feminist theory on this thread: maybe theory talk should be labelled as such on its own thread(s).

Are you alright there Frank?

Dittany, the modular system means that very few students who are on humanities degree programmes, other than women's studies ones, read any feminist theory, or indeed any other kind of theory, in any form other than handout snippet before they start on a dissertation. 'Tis a huge loss from the year-long course system.

It doesn't mean you can get people to think really powerful stuff from that snippety jumping off point. In her new book, Butler asks in her convoluted, rhetorician's way 'Who do we grieve for and who isn't grievable?' and I'm not going to get my students to read her new book, but just thinking about what I've gleaned from web book reviews, I could go into my class on Wednesday and say: 'Why do the papers grieve for the victims of paedophiles and not for the victims of rape? Have you spent as much time being upset for rape victims as you have for the victims of paedophilia?'

I could post that question here on mumsnet and have a debate flying with anyone here and people would reassess their own views and draw all kinds of feminist conclusions after thinking on that conundrum.

Abstract feminism can produce 'real' results. The people in my class might well not be asked another big feminist question after they leave college, but as teachers, social workers or whatever, they might well carry those views or ideas forward in the form of action.

I do see why you think the focus on masculinities plays into the hands of patriarchy, but here in Ireland I see huge potential in helping people to disaggregate patriarchy so that it is exposed as a set of competing interests. Patriarchy's difficulty is feminism's opportunity to misquote an old nationalist proverb. Ireland got it's first woman president, the radical feminist lawyer Mary Robinson, because men fought with other men and stalemated each other.

We need women attacking patriarchy's formidable power, and unpicking its inadvertent misfires and mistakes.

ISNT, I feel you already know this, but to return to your OP for a moment, you are not irrationally angry. Do you ever hear a man blame a surge of testosterone for his feelings? No, if he's pissed off he assumes it's for a reason, not because he's got some kind of internal brain difficulty. Sorry this is of course not an attack on your choice of words - I love this thread and your posts have been fantastic. But I get well and truly fed up with both men and women attributing irrationality and mood swoops to women alone. Luckily we've got someone to be objective about sexism when our poor minds are so bewildered all the time.

I don't teach full-time any more as it happens, but when I did I taught mainly mature students with young families, huge novels to read and lots of assessments. Many had part-time jobs as well. If they wanted to watch a spot of TV to relax that was up to them, I thought. I liked to spoil it for them by linking it to the course. The student experience is not what it was ...

I agree with lots of the posters here that you don't have to have read lots of feminist literature to be a feminist, though I do obviously really encourage people to explore that area. But when I was teaching disengaged middle-class girls when the last series of Sex and the City was on, riffing on that while we all unpacked our bags was a way of getting them to see that feminism still had work to do. It took them from stuff they did identify with to the stuff I wanted them to identify with ...

Most young women are heavily invested in patriarchal culture and you have to pick ways to start feminist discussions with them. Where you get them 3 years later is of course another thing.

In three years, I'd like to post a thread here asking people which ideas they've taken from the topic and what they've done with them.

Dittany, did you see my post from earlier today? There've been loads of posts on this thread so you might not have done. I have been thinking about this thread all day and was hoping you'd reply to help me understand your argument better. Reposting so you don't have to scroll back:

I think where I was stumbling last night was on the definition of gender as both a power relation and as a source of identity. I'm struggling to understand dittany's viewpoint that gender is only a power relation and wonder if the identity part of it is ascribed to sex instead, in which case she might find the idea of multiple sexes acceptable but multiple genders not. So the 'problem' is shifted onto sex instead.

There's no doubt that a lot of the more academic stuff is going over my head, but it's truly fascinating material. The ideas and discussions have certainly got me thinking in ways I haven't for some years.

I wonder if I have been a bit reluctant to think too deeply about some of these issues, since I'm now happily married and a mum to a little boy, but the truth is now I'm exploring these topics again, it's rather exhilarating to find the blood pumping to my brain once more!

It's a great thread, so I'll keep reading and hope I do okay in RedLentil's review in 3 years time!

hi all

i havent posted on this thread (although been reading avidly) because frankly i havent a clue what you are all talking about. but thats cool, i suspect i will get there eventually.

am actually only posting on it now to say please dont fight amongst yourselves and leave the trhead/topic (and no not because girls should play 'nice') because we need all of you to keep doing what you doing so we can learn.

ta muchly

Hi Phokojo.

I had a good reply drafted there and DD2 (18 months) turned the computer off.She woke me singing 'Glory, Glory Man United' this morning. I think I may have a patriarchal mole in my camp.

We don't have to disappear into abstraction. What is the point in book reading of any kind if it doesn't give us more impetus to act? In fact lots of the progress for women in the 20th century came as the inadvertent consequence of patriarchal foolishness. The world wars inadvertently helped to release women from the domestic sphere for example.

Let's go back to MrsBean's husband who, despite his declared feminism is 'uncomfortable' with being the main caregiver. In this recession, plenty of men who think they are feminists, some who have given lip service to feminism and others who disagree with it wildly will be put in a position where they have to be the main caregiver in a household where the single income is being brought in by the woman.

Overall of course the recession has made life harder for women. My husband is on a rolling contract and was gutted yesterday when DD1 (nearly 4)said she doesn't want to be a mummy because 'all the cooking would be boring. His ferocious attempts to hold on to his job means that she isn't picking up on the equality that is at the heart of our family.

The recession is mainly bad for women, but who knows what other inadvertent effects that economic mishap will produce?