| THE GENDER RAP - By Daniel Gross
From The New Republic, 16 Apr 1990, pp 11-14.
[Used with permission. Permission granted for the use of employees
of Digital Equipment Corporation for personal discussion only.
Please do not reproduce this outside of Digital.]
All is not well with roughly half the human race. Males commit a
lot of violence, have trouble expressing their feelings, and get
screwed over in divorce court. Fed up with the injustice of it
all, some men have taken matters into their own hands: academics
are giving the male species a thorough inter-disciplinary
analysis; male feminists are trying to mold men into more benign
beings; Free Men are working changing "discriminatory" laws; and
Mythopoetic Men are trying to get men in touch with their
preindustrial masculinity. New terms, some touchy-feeliness,
plenty of scapegoats, and a fair amount of infighting-- yes, we
finally have a men's movement. It lacks only national recognition
and an ism of its own.
The most visible aspects of the movement are men's studies
classes. Nearly 200 schools, from Amherst to the University of
Wisconsin, now offer a men's studies class, typically called "The
Psychology of Men" or "Sociology of the Male Experience." Last
year more than 100 scholars attended the first annual Men's
Studies Conference.
Men's studies scholars think behavioral traits and sociological
problems particular to males have been ignored in academe.
Professors apply questions traditionally asked about the human
condition to the *man* condition. "Men's studies is focusing on
what it means to *be* a man," says James Doyle, a psychology
professor at Roane State Community College in Tennessee.
A representative course is "Men and Masculinities," taught by
Harry Brod, a Kenyon College men's studies specialist who has
edited several scholarly collections-- most recently, _A Mensch
among Men: Explorations of Jewish Masculinity_. The course covers
the importance of sports in male identity, paternal relationships,
the portrayal of men in literature, and men's attitudes toward
pornography. Brod also devotes individual sessions to the
biological, sociological, and psychological dimensions of the
transition from boyhood to manhood. Such courses don't generally
have a political agenda, but students do learn about "male
liberation"-- i.e., the freeing of men from traditional, confining
gender roles.
Doyle chairs the growing 200-member Men's Studies Association and
edits the *Men's Studies Review* (circulation 400).Most of the
articles in the Review are pretty tough going. "The Developmental
Journey of the Male College Student" delineates "limiting
patterns" that define male students' gender roles. Among them are
restrictive emotionality, obsessions with competition and
achievement, homophobia, etc. The author, a University of Oregon
administrator, concludes that "we must further conceptualize the
process of gender role consciousness and design intervention
strategies that promote it." But there are exceptions. In "Some
Working Men Eat Yogurt," Jack Loughary lucidly, if not eloquently,
evaluates the behavior and self-awareness of construction workers
who labor at his housing development. In some ways this sample
consisted of stereotypical blue-collar workers-- beer-drinking,
roughhousing, homophobic tough guys. But these fellows also
avoided foul language in the presence of women and shared their
lunches. "A few even eat yogurt in public," Loughary writes. He
concludes: "They think maleness is a silly term."
Of course, the methodology buttressing men's studies is largely
feminist. "We're thoroughly indebted to women's studies
scholarship," says Brod. Men's studies scholars-- most of them
sociologists and psychologists-- have expropriated the feminist
notion of gender as a power structure in politics, culture, and
society. And to some degree, men's studies scholars dread the
wrath of their precursors. "Most of us don't advocate having
men's studies departments for fear of treading on the feminists,"
says Doyle.
Unlike the men's studies crowd, which just wants to contemplate
the condition of men, feminist men want to do something about it.
The National Organization for Changing Men is a gang of man-haters
trapped in men's bodies. Although many members describe
themselves as "feminists," NOCM co-chair Gordon Clay says, "Men
can't be feminists because they are not females." Last year the
group removed the words "male positive" from its statement of
principles partly because NOCM felt people would construe the
phrase as meaning "in support of all males including Ted Bundy."
The 500-member organization is avowedly political, albeit in a
non-traditional sense. NOCM (rhymes with hokum) doesn't lobby or
publicize causes, but holds workshops and discussion groups to,
essentially, resocialize men, sensitizing them to the needs of
women. "Men are socialized to put women down and devalue them,"
Clay says. "What we try to do is ask men to look at power and
give up that power." First on the chopping block are the
"patriarchal values" of oppression and violence. Recalling the
case of Mark Lepine, the Canadian psychopath who killed 14 women
in Montreal last year, Clay wrote, "I think there's a little bit
of him in all of us."
Male guilt is a sentiment completely alien to men's rights
activists, sometimes referred to as Free Men. They're unabashedly
male-positive, brazenly insensitive, real men. They hate male
feminists, whom they accuse of gender treason. "Male feminists
are like the men's auxiliary to the women's movement," sneers Fred
Hayward, executive director of Men's Rights Inc. (a.k.a. Mr.
Inc.). "To call them part of the men's movement is like calling
Phyllis Schlafly part of the women's movement." But Free Men hate
female feminists more. It is "The Old Girls' Network" that is
challenging traditional male dominance and turning the law against
men.
Hayward generously concedes that women have suffered
discrimination and may even deserve some relief. But today men
are also plagued by sexism, gender bias, and objectification.
"Women have reduced themselves to checking out men as providers.
They check out our cars. This is dehumanizing." Free Men yearn
for the days when women were docile creatures who quietly accepted
their marginal roles. Now men's rights activists cotton to the
notion that men are an oppressed minority (there are six million
more women than men in the United States) and charge that
America's current mores and laws are discriminatory. "Men have
been held up to expectations and forced into certain roles,"
complains Tom Williamson, president of the 2,000-member National
Coalition for Free Men. For example, whereas feminism has given
women more rights and freedoms, men are still responsible for
taking the initiative in relationships, fighting wars, and paying
alimony and child support.
In 1983 Sidney Siller, a New York lawyer, was enraged enough about
divorce laws to found the National Organization for Men, "to raise
the consciousness about the plight of men." NOM now consists of
8,000 vocal, angry men, many of them divorced. Its main goal is
the enactment of a uniform set of custody laws that would remedy
the rampant discrimination. As evidence of judicial bias, Siller
cites the fact that women retain custody of the children after
eight-five percent of all divorces, while fathers get sole
possession after about ten percent (five percent end in some form
of joint custody). Of course, these statistics obscure the fact
that men seldom apply for physical custody of their children and
actually fair quite well in the small percentage of contested
divorce cases, as Lenore Weitzman showed in her book _The Divorce
Revolution_.
Even more painful to Free Men, though, is the burden of paying
onerous child support. I asked Siller about Weitzman's claim that
as women have entered the work force in greater numbers, average
child support awards have decreased. He says her figures are
"incorrect" but offers none of his own in response, and dismisses
the volume as feminist propaganda. "It's a very dangerous book."
Divorce law reforms are just one part of a larger NOM crusade
to re-empower men. "Men have been wimpified. They've been
emasculated. We'd like to see them fight for their rights," says
Siller. To this end NOM holds Father's Day demonstrations, has
tried, unsuccessfully, to join all-female clubs, and gives out
NOM Wimp of the Year awards (this year's front-runner is Pat
Schroeder).
Finally, there are Mythopoetic Men, who meld elements from men's
studies, feminist men, and the Free Men into a unified theory.
Mythopoetic philosophy, as expounded by the poet Robert Bly,
spiritual founder of the movement and the subject of a recent
ninety-minute Bill Moyers special, posits that modernization,
urbanization, industrialization, and the feminist movement have
distanced men from their earthy, rough, natural masculinity. So
men now quietly grieve over unknown inner wounds. As the wispy,
white-haired Bly told Moyers, "I think that the grief that leads
to the men's movement began maybe 140 years ago, when the
Industrial Revolution began, which sends fathers out of the house
to work." With their fathers absent, sons do not receive any
knowledge of "what the male mode of feeling is."
For the mythopoets, ideal manhood existed in ancient times and the
Middle Ages, as depicted in the works of Homer, the Epic of
Gilgamesh, and other popular myths. These self-assured men of
yore, strong yet sensitive, hugged one another, cried, were
mentors for adolescents, and played rough--perfect roles models
for today's confused men. "Since a lot of us have complaints with
our dads, we have to skip a generation to our common ancestors,"
says Shepherd --ne Walter-- Bliss, a psychology professor who
coined the term "Mythopoetic Man." King Arthur is a prototype
Mythopoetic "elder". More recent examples include Thoreau,
Whitman, and Johnny Appleseed. Bly updates this list with the
cellist Pablo Casals, "a wonderful male mother."
To get in touch with a more productive self-image, Bly and Bliss
urge men to come together in nature, alone, in the absence of
women and civilization. "We're reassembling men around themes of
brotherhood," Bliss says. "Cooperative masculinity is very life
enhancing." So far an estimated 50,000 men have participated in
retreats that Bliss and others sponsor. These men pay about $200
to get together and, well, act like men. "We drum, we chant, we
recite poetry, we talk about our fathers," Bliss says. But
according to one retreat participant, farting, crawling around on
all fours, wrestling, crafting animal masks, and butting heads
were de rigeur for the weekend.
Bliss has a divinity degree from the University of Chicago,
several years of postdoctoral work at Harvard, a radio talk show,
and numerous articles to his credit. He also fancies himself
something of a neologist. He recently coined the term "toxic
masculinity" to describe that part of the male psyche that is
abusive. "I use a medical term because I believe that like every
sickness, toxic masculinity has an antidote."
Antidote? There's no cure. Masculinity is a terminal condition.
And although it's operable, precious few men choose a surgical
escape. But the academics, masculine squishes, and macho men who
constitute the nominal men's movement will continue to
compulsively think, write, talk, and complain about their
problems. Men would probably be better off if they emulated the
yogurt-eating construction workers examined by Loughary. "These
men appear to enjoy being men. My impression is that they do not
think about being men."
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