The Good Men Project - No, Seriously, What About the Men?

This article could easily have been an attack on all forms of feminism, but it isn't - it identifies certain strands of misandrist feminism. Quiet Riot Girl looks at the legacy (or lack of one) of Mark Simpson’s 1994 classic book, Male Impersonators: Men Performing Masculinity, which examines the various ways in which men "perform" masculinity.

No, Seriously, What About the Men?

OCTOBER 19, 2011
QUIET RIOT GIRL

A closer look at how misandrist arms of feminism institutionalize the neglect of men and masculinity in women’s and gender studies.

Tom Martin is becoming quite well known in the feminist and anti-feminist blogosphere. He has taken the unprecedented action of suing a Gender Studies department—the renowned LSE Gender Institute in London, UK—for discrimination against men. As Martin has said:

When “women’s studies” became “gender studies” departments, it signalled a new era of inclusion for men’s issues—a rejection of this now is a betrayal of men and equality.

In America, the situation is even worse for men, potentially, as many universities and colleges retain the subject of “women’s studies” on their curricula. I have a Ph.D in gender studies, from the UK, and my view is that no matter what the subject is called, it will always be based on extreme feminist dogma and on a misandrist view of the world. Again, as Martin has pointed out:

Patriarchy theory—the idea that men typically “dominate” women—is omnipresent, when research shows that women tend to boss men interpersonally. Texts highlight misogyny but never misandry, its anti-male equivalent.

It is in light of this bias in gender studies that I came to read Mark Simpson’s 1994 classic, Male Impersonators, and examine how and why it has been omitted from the reading lists of gender studies courses, including modules on “masculinity.”

In Male Impersonators, Simpson undresses the idea of the “natural man” and shows us how men perform masculinity, in popular culture in particular. Male strippers and drag artists, “macho” body builders, pornography, sports, the War Movie, reality television, the “men’s movement,” rock and roll. They all reveal, as examined by Simpson, the complexities and subtexts of modern masculinities. One of the many striking things about reading this book in 2011, 17 years after it was first published, is that it seemed as “fresh” and new as it must have in 1994. It’s because the subject it focuses on—men, and their representation in culture—is one that has been ignored and distorted by subsequent gender theory and by some misandrist strands of feminism.

Read the whole article.

The authors suggests that feminism has offered three perspectives on masculinity, "which relate to how gender studies has come to ignore and belittle men’s experiences and perspectives. And these three things explain why excellent books such as Male Impersonators are not on gender studies reading lists."

(1) Whatabouttehwimmin?, (2) Men are Monsters, and (3) “Masculinity” is Gay

Owen Marcus - Guess what? Turns out, Men Are More Sensitive than Women, Part 1

Excellent post from Owen Marcus - in this two-part series, Owen looks at some research on the sensitivity of men. We are not big dumb brutes.

Guess what? Turns out, Men Are More Sensitive than Women, Part 1

You don’t believe me? I have science backing me up. The Huffington Post’s article by Peggy Drexler explains how scientists discovered that men are hardwired to be more emotionally sensitive than women.

University of Pennsylvania neuroscientist Dr. Ruben Gur says that the same way men and women have different bodies, they have different brains — with eons of evolution creating distinct wiring. It goes well beyond the formative impact of testosterone and estrogen. Other studies elaborate on the biological link to male-female communication styles. Men are wired to act during times of high emotion, since emotion can lead to violence; there is a shut-off mechanism. He stops talking — just when women, wired entirely differently, want to talk.

The article goes on to say:

… boys reacted to the crying with a higher release of stress hormones. Boys are more fragile than girls medically and emotionally. Boys are more susceptible to birth defects and developmental disabilities; they are more vulnerable in the womb, with more fetuses lost in miscarriage. As children, they are more easily stressed, which means they cry more when they are upset and have a harder time calming down. And they are more emotionally vulnerable to the ill effects of extreme lack of affection.

Men avoid confrontations with emotional women

I know I am not alone in saying that I have avoided confrontations with a partner when she is upset. Obviously, I do it less now that I understand what’s going on. Yet, I still find myself recoiling when a partner is upset. I can taste the sharpness of my cortisol and norepinephrine rushing through my blood. I want to run, but if that doesn’t work, than the urge to fight arises.

At the same time I feel the love and concern for my partner. I am overwhelmed between my reptilian-brain needs and my love. Then my head jumps in to tell me what I should do. I feel trapped in a no-win, triple bind. All this is going on while my partner is getting more upset.

Does this feel familiar?

Read the whole article, and see also Guess What? Men Are More Sensitive (emotional) than Women, Part 2

Bryan Curtis - Man-Cave Masculinity: A man’s quest for his soul starts with a walk downstairs

Well, damn, I don't have a man-cave, so does that mean I am soulless, less than manly and masculine?

No. But men are gathering in their homes now instead of at the corner bar - this is probably not a bad thing. I have a client who quit drinking a couple of years ago who is starting a poker night at his house, sans booze, to have some "man time" away from his girlfriend, but also to avoid the temptation of alcohol.

Men need spaces to hang out besides bars and the tools and hardware sections at Home Depot.

Man-Cave Masculinity

A man’s quest for his soul starts with a walk downstairs.

By Bryan Curtis|Posted Monday, Oct. 3, 2011, at 6:44 AM ET

Students of anthropology, by now you’ve heard of “man caves”: the basements and above-the-garage spaces where men gather to watch the Red Zone Channel. What requires further study is the culture that has arisen there. It is man-cave masculinity—a new male code. Study man-cave utterances (“This is everything and more of what I’ve ever wanted in a basement”) and you begin to see fear. You see confusion. You see men galloping into adulthood like Leon Lett running toward the end zone in Super Bowl XXVII. That this unsteady manliness would be celebrated with big-screens and kegerators and Golden Tee machines is part of what makes it so touching.


To see how far men have come—or maybe how far they’ve retreated—we need to start at midcentury, at a proto-man cave: Toots Shor’s eponymous saloon in New York City. The décor at 51 West 51st Street was manly in extremis. “[I]t is as devoid of subtlety and fussy trimmings as a boxing ring,” John Bainbridge wrote in his three-part New Yorker profile. Fleshy and obscene, Shor pulled in manly types—Frank Sinatra and Jackie Gleason; sports stars like Joe DiMaggio; sportswriters like Jimmy Cannon; even Chief Justice Earl Warren—to join his nocturnal party. As Shor liked to say, “A bum who ain’t drunk by midnight ain’t tryin’.”


Shor also enforced a male tribal code. To be one of his “crumb bums,” you had to make frequent and tender declarations of friendship. You were expected to smother your ego. (Charlie Chaplin, enduring a 20-minute wait for a table, was told by Shor, “Have a drink and be funny for the people.”) And although he was happily married, Shor did not make his inner sanctum particularly woman-friendly. Bainbridge: “[A] member is not forbidden to bring a female companion into the restricted area, but it is understood that he will not do it too often.” Switch up a few particulars, and this is man caving today.


What changed is that middle-aged male “palship”—Shor’s excellent phrase—is now practiced on sofas. The saloon came home. There are two big reasons for this. First, there was the women’s movement, which made it verboten for married men to be at bars until all hours. Men (or this was the idea, anyway) took on a bigger role in rearing children, cooking dinner, and maintaining the house.


The second reason is that the sports bar became redundant.

Read the whole article.

Art of Manliness - How to Quit Mindlessly Surfing the Internet and Actually Get Stuff Done

OK, but what if actually getting stuff done looks like surfing the internet? Well, okay, I'm probably rationalizing a bit. I do a LOT of online research, but I also waste a lot of time on Facebook, Twitter, and Google + that could be better spent doing what I am supposed to be doing.

How to Quit Mindlessly Surfing the Internet and Actually Get Stuff Done

by BRETT & KATE MCKAY on OCTOBER 17, 2011

9 pm. A college campus in the Midwest. Rob sits down to study. His inner monologue:

Okay, time to hit the books. I’m really going to get crap done tonight. Let me just sit down here and crack open my giant textbook. Mmmm, interesting, interesting. But I don’t understand this term here on pg. 307. I should look it up on Wikipedia. Okay, got it. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to check my gmail tab before I get back to the book. Oh, Amanda sent me a Facebook message, let me just get on Facebook really quick and write her back. Hey, the Art of Manliness put another article up. And I love pirates! I’ve got to check that out–I’ll just skim it really fast. That was good. I wonder if anything has happened on Facebook since I read the article, let me check that real quick. And I guess it wouldn’t hurt to give the front page of Reddit a fast little scan, and then I’ll get back to studying. Wow, this thread has links to a lot of interesting sites, I’m just going to click on a few…

12:00 am. Textbook is still open to page 307. Rob’s inner monologue:

Arrrrghhh! What happened?

Read the whole article.

The Origin of Monogamy (podcast)

The podcast is from Miller-McCune, the Curiouser and Curiouser Podcast, featuring Dr. Laura Fortunato, an anthropologist at the Santa Fe Institute, discussing the origins of marriage and monogamy with Jai Ranganathan.

However, as the image above (from New York Magazine) suggests, not everyone agrees. Many people think traditional monogamy is obsolete. In The New Monogamy, marriage is less rigid and restricted than most of us would think.

I, however, do not buy into that perspective. I agree with Robert Augustus Masters (Transformation Through Intimacy: The Journey Toward Mature Monogamy, Kindle only, the paperback is available through Robert Masters' site) that mature monogamy is a spiritual path that can transform our lives.

The Origin of Monogamy

Where does the idea of marriage — monogamous marriage specifically — come from? Anthropologist Laura Fortunato has some answers.

Ways of listening to the audio podcast

1. Listen to the podcast in your browser

2. Download the podcast (right-click or option-click)
 

By Jai Ranganathan

With summer here, the 2011 wedding season has finally arrived. But with all of the ill-shapen bridesmaid dresses, Bridezillas and talk of till death do we part, one question comes to mind: Where did this idea of marriage — monogamous marriage specifically — come from?

It may seem like a difficult question to answer, given that people have been getting married since prehistory. In this podcast, Dr. Laura Fortunato, an anthropologist at the Santa Fe Institute, discusses how she got to the bottom of the marriage mystery.

Fortunato, who spoke with Michael Haederle last year about the agricultural roots of monogamy, talks about a recent study of hers, published in the journal Human Biology, where she used current patterns of language and marriage to determine when monogamous marriage got rolling for Europe and much of Asia.

It turns out that this kind of marriage is much older than anyone had thought, beginning 8,000 to 9,500 years ago in what is now Turkey. And monogamy likely established itself for a very modern reason: to avoid headaches with inheritance.

Jai Ranganathan’s travel to the Santa Fe Institute was arranged and paid for by the Institute.

 

Women, Men, and the Bedroom: Methodological and Conceptual Insights That Narrow, Reframe, and Eliminate Gender Differences in Sexuality

A little more research that refutes sexual stereotypes about men and women. A press release from the Association for Psychological Science looks at a new study from University of Michigan psychology professor Terri Conley (and her team of graduate students – Amy Moors, Jes Matsick, Ali Ziegler and Brandon Valentine) that challenges many of the stereotypes people hold about sex and sex roles.

Women, Men and the Bedroom

In the racy television hit show, Sex and the City, Carrie, one of the main characters tells her best girlfriends that “Men who are too good looking are never good in bed because they never had to be.” This is just one of the many gender stereotypes that audiences were exposed to in this show. The show challenged many stereotypes about sex and gender and refrained from the gender caricatures that typify so much television fare. Now, a new review article written by University of Michigan psychology professor Terri Conley and her team of graduate students – Amy Moors, Jes Matsick, Ali Ziegler and Brandon Valentine – examines how such gender stereotypes fueled the sexual revolution started by women in the 60s, now carried on proudly by Carrie and her gang.

The review article, published in the latest issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, challenges the assumptions and myths that people have about sex and the roles that men and women have in the bedroom. According to the authors, “the take home message of our review article is that people should not take gender differences in sexuality at face value.”

Conley’s team set out to review recent research and literature on gender roles and sexuality with the aim of providing a contemporary understanding of how women and men engage, think and desire sex and romantic partners. For example, there are some who think of the fairer sex as being gentle, delicate flowers – shy and timid in the bedroom, with the men being in control, taking charge and showing off their prowess in the bedroom. Since time immemorial, gender stereotypes about sex have persisted and it is only in the modern era that people have begun to shake off stereotypes and challenge the existing assumptions and myths about it. “We’re hoping that this article helps to debunk and dispel common myths and make people more aware of the social factors (rather than supposed biologically based reasons) related to sex,” state Conley and her co-authors.

The idea behind this subject occurred to Conley and her team who felt that psychology needed a more eclectic and representative perspective on contemporary relations between men and women. “In short, the driving force behind this article was that people typically think that men are sex-crazed and women are sexually-prudish; however, we believe that these descriptions may not paint the picture of how men and women typically behave,” says Conley and her co-authors.

After reviewing the various literatures, Conley and her co-authors arrived at several conclusions regarding gender differences in sexuality which demonstrated that none of the original assumptions people have had about how men and women engage in sex, think about sex and desire sex are not as compelling and well-founded as previously believed. “We expect people to be surprised by the small or, in some places completely absent gender differences,” says Conley and her co-authors.

This review article is important for today’s society because it questions how society views sexuality and the role of men and women in sexual relationships. Conley and her co-authors hope that this article could help debunk some stereotypes that might be the result of inaccurate information.

“When stereotypes based on inaccurate information are left unquestioned, they will continue to impact people’s perceptions. For example, the assumption that men think about sex so much more than women could potentially contribute to the stereotype that men are more sexual, while women are more prudish.”

Daily Om - Owning Your Tendencies

A little more wisdom for a Friday morning, from the Daily Om a few days back (October 4th).

Owning Your Tendencies
Understanding All Sides

Looking at only one side of our life can make us blind to the many other ways of looking at our situation.

Whenever we examine our lives, we examine them from a particular side or angle. Most of us tend to favor one side over the others. For example, we may tend to look at things from an emotional perspective rather than a financial perspective, or we may prefer to think in terms of details rather than the big picture, or vice versa. To a certain degree, this is not a problem, and these tendencies add color to our individual personalities. However, they can also make us one-sided, blind to the many other ways of looking at our situation. Even if we have decided that we are most happy when we focus on one particular side of things, it is always worth exploring the other sides. When we do, we become well rounded, more understanding of other viewpoints, and even more solid in our own.


Perhaps you are a person who tends to see your life in terms of your spiritual well-being. As a result, other concerns such as financial comfort or social standing may not be prominent in your mind as you make decisions. However, taking just a moment to consider those angles will help you in several ways. One, it will enable you to see more clearly what your priorities are and how they influence your life situation. Two, it will enhance your sense of confidence, because you will see your situation from all sides, even as you choose one. And three, it will help you communicate with others about who you are and what you are doing, because you will come from a place of understanding that your own biases and tendencies are unique as are theirs.


Most of us instinctively come at things from a particular angle, and in many cases this is the right way for us. Still, understanding the other angles only strengthens us. When we look at our lives from all sides, we shed light on the big picture, giving ourselves access to many points of view and highlighting more clearly the one we have chosen to take.




What do you think?
Discuss this article and share your opinion

The Fear of Impermanence

The following is a quote from Tibetan Buddhist teacher Sogyal Rinpoche on the fear of impermanence we all carry with us. Often we can successfully keep that awareness buried and out of awareness, but when it does surface - through experiences of loss, death, and the like - we can glimpse our own impermanence and experience that fear. But Sogyal Rinpoche argues that this awareness can also be our best friend if we are willing to hold that space and gently look behind the appearance of impermanence.

Glimpse of the Day, October 14, 2011


The fear that impermanence awakens in us, that nothing is real and nothing lasts, is, we come to discover, our greatest friend because it drives us to ask: If everything dies and changes, then what is really true? Is there something behind the appearances? Is there something in fact we can depend on, that does survive what we call death?


Allowing these questions to occupy us urgently, and reflecting on them, we slowly find ourselves making a profound shift in the way we view everything. We come to uncover in ourselves “something” that we begin to realize lies behind all the changes and deaths of the world.


As this happens, we catch repeated and glowing glimpses of the vast implications behind the truth of impermanence. We come to uncover a depth of peace, joy, and confidence in ourselves that fills us with wonder, and breeds in us gradually a certainty that there is in us “something” that nothing destroys, that nothing alters, and that cannot die.

the image at the top is called "Impermanence," by Sheryl Luxenburg

The New York Times Wants Men to Do More at Home

Back in July, in the New York Times' Room for Debate series, they asked a collection of variously known people how to get men to do more at home. I find this kind of funny in that I - and many of the men I know - actually do at least half of the household chores. Granted, I am not the norm for men in this country, which would also make most of the men I know outside the norm, but no one is asking about us and why we willingly do our share of the work.

How Can We Get Men to Do More at Home?

 

A year ago, Fredrik Friberg, a Swedish civil servant, said that he was complimented for cutting his work hours to raise his child, but that his wife, who did the same thing, was not. 

Introduction

A recent article in a series in The International Herald Tribune noted that while German and other European women are making strides in education and in the workplace, their professional advancement stalls once they have children. They opt out of the job market, or seek part-time work, just as they do in the United States, as well as in Canada and Australia.

The reasons are similar: the availability and affordability of child care are cited as factors, combined with the hard-to-quantify traditional ideas about parenting, housework and the need to care for elderly parents. Lisa Belkin of The Times's Motherlode blog last week discussed the issue of the work-life balance equation around the world.

If greater equality between men and women in the work force has not led to greater equality in child-rearing and other domestic responsibilities, what will?

Read the Discussion »

Debaters

• Don't Work if You Don't Have To

  Neil Gilbert
  

• Institute 'Daddy Leave'

  Andrea Doucet
  

• Change Rituals and Behavior

  Ute Frevert
  

• A Tax Rebate for Diversity

  Joshua Gans
  

• What Women Have to Do

  Sandrine Devillard
  

• What Men Have to Do

  Jeremy Adam Smith
  

• The Obvious Conflicts

  Virginija Langbakk