Omnivore - Men's Issues

From Bookforum's Omnivore blog, this collection of links on men's issues should give you plenty to read for a Sunday afternoon.

Men's Issues

Jul 24 2014
3:00PM

• Sam de Boise (York): Learning to Be Affected: Masculinities, Music and Social Embodiment. 
• Stephen Burrell (Tampere): The Invisibility of Men's Practices: A Discourse Analysis of Gender in Domestic Violence Policy. 
• Joanna Schroeder on violence in the everyday lives of our boys. 
• Why are boys so lonely and violent? Niobe Way on the friendship crisis. 
• With a sequel to Fight Club on the way, are men still suffering the same anxieties and frustrations which inspired the original story two decades ago? 
• Americans think they’re smarter than the average American — rich white guys think this most of all. 
• The Louis C.K. Effect: Jesse Singal on why overweight men have higher status than overweight women. 
• John Burnside on why men avoid growing up.  
• How to Pick Up Girls!, the PUA community's foundational text, is a deeply disturbing portrait of male entitlement. 
• “Feminism is a sexual strategy”: Inside the angry online men’s rights group. 
• At what was billed as the first annual international conference on men’s issues, feminists were ruining everything (and more). 
• Men’s rights conference host Paul Elam says women who drink and dance are “begging” for rape. 
• Meet Marilyn D. York, female men’s rights attorney. 
• In praise of the “beta male”: Tracy Clark-Flory on how sensitive, nurturing, conflict-averse communicators make great partners. 
• Yes, men, you can be feminists — but it’s actually really hard work. 
• Noah Berlatsky on a short history of male feminism: From Frederick Douglass and John Stuart Mill to today's scholars, there are plenty of men who, despite their flaws, have helped advance women's liberation. 
• Men as feminist allies: 35 practical tools for men to further feminist revolution. 
• “It's not a contradiction for men to discriminate against other men”: An interview with Adam Jones, author of Gender Inclusive: Essays on Violence, Men, and Feminist International Relations.

It seems that the exploits of the sociopathic, ex "male feminist" wonder-boy, Hugo Schwyzer, has spawned a new word - the macktivist: a male who poses as a sensitive, even feminist man in order to attract impressionable and naive young women for the purpose of sex. There is nothing really new in this, only that these cretins are now using social media as the terrain in which they stalk their prey. 

Oh, wait, did I just imply that these guys are sexual predators? Damn straight. Hugo Schwyzer was the worst type of predator, the one wearing sheep's clothing. Or a the Oakland Sister Circle suggests:

First, check if he has both a beard and an astigmatism. Then, make sure he’s wearing a political T-shirt with culturally relevant tattoos creeping out of the sleeves. He may request that you let him recite a poem.

 This is a good article - give it a read.

What do you call a “male feminist” who only wants to pick up women? Meet the “macktivists”

The Internet has made it easy for a crop of men who call themselves feminists to creep on unsuspecting ladies

By Alex-Quan Pham
Thursday, Jul 24, 2014

(Credit: tommaso79 via iStock/Salon)

The outrage machine’s latest buzzword is “macktivist,” which refers to men who claim to be feminists in order to meet women. It is as gross as it sounds. The Oakland Sister Circle has helpfully broken down the anatomy of the macktivist so we can better identify him when needed. First, check if he has both a beard and an astigmatism. Then, make sure he’s wearing a political T-shirt with culturally relevant tattoos creeping out of the sleeves. He may request that you let him recite a poem.

The term “macktivist” is fairly new to the mainstream activist community. But these guys have always lurked within activist circles. Perhaps the most scandalous case of macktivism was Hugo Schwyzer in 2013, who rose through the ranks of feminism to become a professor of gender studies at Pasadena City College. After gaining a considerable amount of clout in the women’s movement, Schwyzer ultimately made two confessions that ended his reign as America’s token male feminist: He had consensual sex with several of his students, and he tried killing himself and his ex-girlfriend in 1998. He later also tweeted apologies to feminists of color whom he abused and dismissed because they were “in his way” along that shiny yellow brick road to male feminist glory.

But today, on just about every prominent social media platform and feminism message board, macktivists have sneakily staked out a vantage point from which they can seduce and manipulate women. Last year, YouTube musician Edd Blann admitted to abusing a fan with whom he had also initiated a sexual relationship. “Over the course of those eight months, I treated her appallingly, manipulated her, and behaved in an extremely misogynistic way towards her,” Blann wrote on his Tumblr page. A year before that, another YouTube musician named Mike Lombardo was charged with soliciting explicit photos from a minor, which ultimately led to a five-year prison term that he is currently serving. Tumblr celebrity Joshua Macedo faced a similar scandal, but in his case, he was the one allegedly sending sexually explicit messages and photos to a 15-year-old girl. One common thread among these cases is that these men were propelled to minor celebrity status via social media, at first projecting personas that seemed by all accounts to be gentlemanly — singing sensitive lyrics about loving, romancing and pining for women.

Then there was Charles Clymer, who was once the administrator of a now-defunct Facebook group called “Equality for Women.” Clymer previously wrote a chain of articles about feminism for the Huffington Post and PolicyMic. But eventually he was accused, whether rightfully or not, of abusing the Facebook group’s members.

What Schwyzer was trying to achieve from his public meltdown is debatable; what’s clear is that he was trying to reap some kind of personal reward from his macktivism. And he was successful until the online feminist community held him accountable.

“Macktivists” collectively evoke that ceaseless riddle of the feminist movement: Can men really be feminists? The answer, thus far, has been a definitive yes, with some parameters. The general consensus is that men can and should call themselves feminists. It’s good for everyone. But claiming an ideology is not the same as putting that ideology into practice.

Feminism and macktivism are not always antithetical; they can exist in the same person. And they can exist in varying degrees. While Hugo Schwyzer is an extreme example, his macktivism was not an isolated incident.

Sometimes, male feminists — whether knowingly or not — do damage in a less visible, immediate way. Often, male feminists don’t grasp the impact of their sexism on women’s lives. There is something crucial to learn, though unexpected, from macktivism: We might not all be as slimy as Hugo Schwyzer, but we don’t have to be straight-up macktivists to accidentally engage in macktivist behavior online.

The best example of this was the reactionary #notallmen, a reaction to the globally trended #yesallwomen. The hashtag defended the last shreds of male honor, rather than forcing men to hold themselves accountable for the ways they reinforce a flawed system. The word “feminist” can be used by men to falsely excuse themselves from that accountability. And that’s the reason why too many women in my life are more vigilant around men who call themselves “feminists” than men who don’t.

I think the first lesson in Better Male Feminism 101 is recognizing that feminism is a space for women. It’s true that men need feminism too, but men clearly possess more latitude in the social landscape. Male feminism is often about men advocating for a seemingly remote ideology that will eventually circle back to them, granting them even more privileges than before. Women, by contrast, often claim feminism not just as an ideology, but as a way of pushing back against episodes of sexism and abuse. But take it from this male feminist: The prize will never come. There is no reward for being male and not being a macktivist — it’s just something #yesallmen should aim for.

Alex-Quan Pham tweets at @alexquanpham.

Male feminist. To me, that is not at all unlike saying one is a male triathlete, or a male liberal. To be a feminist, and I am sure (as a male) I can't possibly grasp this entirely, is to want women and men to have equal rights and status in the society, both through cultural norms and under the legal system. That doesn't feel too hard, so I must be missing something.

Men can be feminists but it’s actually really hard work

Feminism is for everybody because sexism hurts everybody, but lots of men are comfortable with the status quo

Katie McDonough
Monday, Jun 9, 2014


Joseph Gordon-Levitt recently called himself a feminist (Credit: AP/Victoria Will)
The Betteridge law of headlines states that “any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no,” but a Monday piece in the New York Times may be the rare exception. “Is it possible to be a male feminist?” asks writer (and self-described male feminist) Jake Flanagin. The answer to this question is yes. Possibly even, “Yes of course come on seriously?”

It’s a fine enough question for a journalist to ask (think piece glass houses, etc.), but Flanagin’s decision to focus on Hugo Schwyzer — who was given several platforms to write about men and feminism while he spent his spare time attacking the personal, academic and professional lives of black feminists and other feminists of color – is an odd one. As Jamil Smith noted on Twitter, if you want to have a conversation about men and feminism, why not talk to male feminists? Smith’s point, I think, is to raise the issue of why we seem to have a lot of pieces questioning whether men can be feminists and very few that explore what happens after you answer that question in the affirmative. Aren’t we even a little bit curious?

The most compelling part of the Times piece comes in the very last paragraph, when writer Noah Berlatsky discusses the work that being a male feminist actually requires. “It’s true that sometimes male feminists, myself not excluded, imagine we’re brave allies, altruistically saving women by standing up for them,” Berlatsky observes. “But dreams about men saving women are just another version of misogyny — and, in this case in particular, totally backwards. Misogyny is a cage for everyone. When I call myself a male feminist, I’m not doing it because I think I’m going to save women. I’m doing it because I think it’s important for men to acknowledge that as long as women aren’t free, men won’t be either.”

Berlatsky gets to something important about the nature of justice — that it’s a radically intertwined project. Contrary to the tired trope about “mothers, wives and daughters” that generally gets thrown around in arguments about why men should care about women’s rights, men should be feminists because the lives of the women and girls they have never met and will never meet matter. Particularly in a culture that does not encourage men to cultivate or express empathy, this thing of giving a basic shit about people you don’t know is itself a kind of radical act. But Berlatsky’s point that “misogyny is a cage for everyone” also captures another reason that I think men can and should identify as feminists. Because of course men should be outraged at the violence experienced by women and girls and the systems that dehumanize them, but framing men’s relationship to feminism exclusively as men’s relationship to women’s status in the world erases the fact that men are also harmed by patriarchy, toxic masculinity and entrenched cultural and institutional sexism.

The scale is aways going to be different, of course. I’d never try to argue otherwise. Cultural norms that hold women as mothers and caregivers above all else mean that women get paid less than their male colleagues for the same work, and that women disproportionately put their personal and career ambitions on hold in order to care for children and others. But these same norms also leave men questioning their masculinity or doubting their self-worth if they want to stay home with their children. These things aren’t the same, but they both matter.

The same could be said about dominant narratives around sexual assault. Women and girls make up the majority of victims of sexual violence, but a culture that straight up says that teenage boys can’t be raped makes it almost impossible for male survivors to come forward. Destructive ideas about sexual male entitlement are at the heart of rape culture and the reason that so many women and girls are victimized in their lifetimes, but they also feed into this idea that men always want sex, which makes men who have been victims of rape question whether or not what happened to them even counts as a crime. It took a really, really long time for this to even become a crime. These same norms also encourage men to have really warped relationships to desire and sexual satisfaction. This stuff hurts women the most because of the violence it engenders, but it hurts men, too.

There are plenty of important questions to ask about how men can be feminists without making themselves the center of the movement. About the work of listening and boosting versus erasing and derailing. About how men get lots of applause and accolades for doing very basic things — like not violently abusing women. About how many men don’t identify as feminists because they are deeply invested in upholding the systems — like patriarchy and white supremacy — that benefit them. And Berlatsky’s point about the line between the male savior complex and being a legitimate force for positive social change is well made. But we can have all of these conversations while acknowledging that men who identify as feminists aren’t just cheerleading for women — they’re fighting systems that tell them that being a good listener makes them a pussy, or that they shouldn’t share their emotions, or that straight men can’t have intimate friendships with other men, or that rape in prison is hilarious.

Feminism’s relevance to everyone has been articulated and re-articulated throughout the history of the movement, and I was reminded of this again over the weekend when I read an interview with actress Mackenzie Davis, who said she couldn’t understand why “feminism” feels like such a scary word to some people.

“Feminism is rooted in racial rights and gender rights, and all of those things intersect, and to say that that’s not something you can stand behind — it confuses me,” she told the Times. “I think it’s a really great word.”

So do plenty of men.

Katie McDonough is an assistant editor for Salon, focusing on politics, culture and feminism. Follow her on Twitter @kmcdonovgh or email her at kmcdonough@salon.com.