Defending the liberal tradition in history, science, and philosophy.

“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.” –Rebecca West

I have long been alternately amused and irritated by that famous quote. Why? Because I find myself relating to it in divided fashion:

For my part, I have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is either. But I do know that people call me anti-feminist, or a misogynist, whenever I question the logic of some self-proclaimed feminists–or express sentiments that differentiate me, as a man, from a doormat.

I began ruminating on this a few days ago upon reading an essay by the (thoughtful, rational, and decent) Willow Wilson entitled How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Feminists. There’s not a thing wrong with that essay, and I highly recommend reading it. Were I to give it a shorthand summary it amounts to, “Angry feminists may sometimes be over the top but there are some real evils in the world and they often serve a necessary function to combat that evil.” OK. I can dig it. (But seriously, read it yourself.)

On the other hand, I’ll be 46 this year, and if I’ve done my math right that means I’m about 16 years older than Willow. That doesn’t give me any special authority or make her viewpoint any less valid—indeed, I’m often wearied by Baby Boomers who obnoxiously tell me my own youth compared to them means I “just don’t understand” certain things that I think I understand very well, thank you very much. But it does mean I remember things she would never have experienced: how men, especially those of us who were boys in the 1970s and 1980s, were often castigated by self-proclaimed feminists for things we didn’t do and had no part of. Or how frequently normal boyish behavior was deemed wrong or evil–and by that I do not even mean things sexual, I mean guy stuff like enjoying professional wrestling, heavy metal music, tinkering with engines or electronics or computers instead of being concerned about the latest emotional goings-on around us, or not being very tidy.

A favorite cliche I remember from my youth that I daresay most men my age will remember: “you’re only messy because you were brought up to have your mother clean up for you and now you expect women to do it for you!” Um, no. First off, she didn’t clean up after me much. My stepfather was the neat freak. Second off, I’m just not a very tidy person thank you very much. I will consistently put up with a greater degree of household messiness than most women, and the proof has been that whenever I’ve lived with a woman who’s gone “on strike” and refused to “clean up after me,” I have obliviously gone on without even noticing. On the other hand, whenever I’m asked to clean something, I simply do so without (much) complaint, because my very male brain says “the female needs this cleaned, thus, I will clean it and she will be happy.” (Note to self: make sure to explore in a later essay just how automatically and unthinkingly most American men will do anything a woman asks just because she asked.)

I remember how frequently we were accused of attitudes we really didn’t think we had. How often we might get accused of misogyny or sexism for just uttering a thought or sentiment that was not deemed Politically Correct by many self-proclaimed feminists–Political Correctness itself being (in part) an invention of self-proclaimed feminists. Or how often we were subjected to double-standards of behavior by women in our age group, who simultaneously demanded utter equality when it suited them, but deference and chivalry when it was convenient. Or how often we experienced–and still experience!–gender discrimination in the workplace today.

I work in a field where women are given preferential hiring status, and fast-tracked for promotion because they are women. I don’t necessarily object to it–in fact I tend to prefer working for female managers over male ones–but I do note that this is a systemic bias that no one seems to care about. And that such systemic biases are common in today’s work world. Discrimination against men, either overt or subtle, is so innate to this culture that it’s either completely invisible to most people until you point it out, or, it’s often considered laudable. Indeed, in many fields, women make considerably more than men the same age do, often even when they work fewer hours. Instead of wondering if that isn’t evidence of at least some level of systemic bias against males, the usual take on that is to laud it as a great achievement.

And if feminism is supposed to be about equality for women in a world that oppresses them, what are we to make of the following facts–all of which I’ll be happy to verify with references if anyone really needs me to–which are all going on right now in modern-day America, circa 2012?

* The vast majority of High School dropouts are male.
* Fewer men now go to college than women, and are far more likely to drop out if they do go.
* Women are now by far the majority of college graduates, a trend that’s been increasing for years.
* Men are by significantly more likely to be the victims of violent assault in their lifetimes than women.
* Men are the majority of the nation’s homicide victims.
* Men are as likely to be assaulted by intimate partners as women are, but are less likely to report it and more likely to be laughed at or accused of wrongdoing if they do.
* The vast majority of prison inmates are men.
* The vast majority of alcoholics and drug addicts are men.
* The overwhelming majority of the long-term homeless population is male.
* The overwhelming majority of victims of work-related injuries are male.
* The overwhelming majority of work-related deaths are male.
* The overwhelming majority of successful suicide attempts are male.

Anyone who has a son, or a brother, or a father whom she loves should find those facts sobering.

And by comparison, while we as a nation are preoccupied with the problem of “Violence Against Women,” as Patricia Pearson noted in her classic book When She Was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence, “Women commit the majority of child homicides in the United States; more than 80 percent of neonaticides; an equal or greater share of severe physical child abuse; an equal rate of spousal assault; about a quarter of child sexual molestations; and a large proportion of elder abuse… The rate at which infants are murdered by women in the U.S. is higher than the rate at which women are murdered by men.” Those facts remain fundamentally unchanged, except for the fact that the (reported) rate of female-on-male violence has been on a steady rise for about 20 years. For her audacity in noticing things like this, Patricia Pearson wasn’t hailed by feminist political groups as a gender-role-busting warrior for equality, for giving women agency by holding them accountable for their actions, but instead was either ignored or attacked by much of the politically-active feminist community. (And if you don’t believe me, ask her.)

A good counterbalance to Willow’s essay, I think, is by the remarkable “Girl Writes What,” a blogger I recently stumbled upon whose work thrills me. She’s a bit over 40 so she remembers some of these things I’ve talking about very well, and can still see how some of it remains active in modern America. She’s by no means a conservative or a right-winger, but she’s still got beefs with modern feminism. To quote part of her Manifesto on Female Agency and Equality:

Under extremist modern feminism, there can be no female autonomy or agency because though we have freedom and opportunity, there is no corresponding expectation of self-sufficiency, accountability, or responsibility placed on women. And there can be no male autonomy or agency, because for men there is only self-sufficiency, accountability and responsibility, while freedom and opportunity is becoming a thing of the past.

If chivalry infantilized women, feminism does the exact same thing. Only instead of running to tell daddy/Sir Galahad about all those horrible brutes who are so very mean to us, we’re supposed to run to daddy government.

But I have news for modern feminism. Some of us just aren’t that interested in feeling like victims. Being victimized is something that happens to people, and is often completely outside our control. But we DO have a choice as to whether we see ourselves as victims, and choose to live our lives as victims, or not. Modern feminism wants me to feel like a default victim. And I am NOT a victim. Victims are passive. Victims are acted upon. Victims lack agency. That’s not the way I will ever choose to view myself, and it saddens me that so many women have been convinced to see themselves this way.

But I suggest reading the whole thing.

I heartily recommend reading her other blog essays. If you like having your preconceptions challenged, you’ll get plenty of that there.

Now one of the problems with Girl Writes What’s writings is her use of the term “feminism.” She offends some people when she uses it, because she writes about it critically. It points to the same problem in reverse with Willow’s article, or really, almost any article I’ve ever read or discussion I’ve ever had with anyone about feminism: nobody can tell you precisely what they mean by it. This leaves a lot of people in a whiplash condition. There are perfectly decent people who don’t hate women and want women to be free to live their lives as they wish who still say they are anti-feminist. But there are others who say, “If you respect women and want women to be free to live their lives as they wish, that makes you a feminist!” Then there will be those who read Girl Writes What, who is critical of feminism, who say “wait a minute, I’m a feminist and I don’t think those things she accuses feminists of!” And they get their feelings hurt.

To close this out where I began: I have never been able to figure out what feminism is, because it appears that no one can agree on what it is, let alone whether or not it is a good thing. If you can’t even agree on what a word means, you will usually get into tailchasing exercises where both parties argue fiercely with each other when it turns out they’re arguing as much or more about what that one word means than they are about the actual issues involved.

So me? I just won’t use the word “feminist” if I can avoid it. It’s a distraction: like the word “socialist,” in the modern English lexicon it has come to mean anything the speaker wants it to mean at the moment they say it, subject to revision at any given moment if their opinions change. I won’t even play with words like that anymore. If you want to even discuss feminism with me, I first ask that you tell me exactly what you mean by that word, and once you do we can discuss that. Hopefully in a mutually respectful way. Otherwise, frankly, I would rather use less emotionally charged terms like “gender equity” or “gender fairness” or “women’s issues” and “men’s issues” or, really, anything other than the damned “f” word that not only makes people angry, self-righteous, confused, or otherwise in a state that makes clear communication impossible.

What do I actually think about men and women? I think men are biologically, psychologically, spiritually, and pragmatically different from women, and vice-versa, although men and women have more in common than not, and no gender label perfectly describes anybody. I think neither men nor women are innately superior as human beings by dint of gender. I think that everybody should have a chance to do whatever they want with their lives, regardless of their sex, so long as they actually have that capability. I think that as much as possible, women and men should be treated equally under the law except in those rare areas where that’s impossible, and in those cases we should strive to make it as equitable as we can. Special treatment should always be avoided wherever possible.

There are those who would call all of that feminism. There are those who would call it the radical opposite of feminism. There are those who’d call it liberal. There are those who’d call it right-wing. And you know what? That’s why I eschew labels when I can. Because what do I call all of that? I call it “what I think.” And I’m open to hearing what you think, so long as you can avoid calling me names or making nasty allegations about my character or motives.

Peace out. ;-)

(This item cross-posted to The Moderate Voice.)

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