Gender Critics

Just Friends

2009-06-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

Quick Post:

The Onion has a funny piece on nice guys.

But If We Started Dating It Would Ruin Our Friendship Where I Ask You To Do Things And You Do Them

I really like you. I do. You're so nice, and sweet, and you listen to all my problems and respond with the appropriate compliments. But, well, I don't really see a relationship in our future. It would be terrible if we let sex destroy this great friendship we have where I get everything I want and you get nothing you want. Don't you think?

I knew you would understand. You always do.

We're so perfect as friends, you know? I can tell you anything, and you know you can always come to me anytime you need to hear me bitch about work or how ugly I feel. You wouldn't want to ruin a friendship like that just so you could be my boyfriend, and have me look at you with desire and longing in my eyes, if only once—would you? Of course not. Well, if we started dating, it would only complicate this wonderful setup I've got going here.

It's just…you're like my best friend, and I would hate for something you desperately want to change that. I mean, sure, we could go on some dates, maybe mess around a little and finally validate the six years you've spent languishing in this platonic nightmare, but then what? How could we ever go back to the way we were, where I take advantage of your clear attraction to me so I can have someone at my beck and call? That part of our friendship means so much to me.

No. We are just destined to be really, really good friends who only hang out when I don't have a boyfriend, but still need male attention to boost my fragile and all-consuming ego.

Anything can happen once you bring romance in. Think about how awful my last relationship was at the end, remember? The guy I'd call you crying about at 3 a.m. because he wouldn't answer my texts? The guy I met at the birthday party you threw me? I had insanely passionate sex with him for four months and now we don't even talk anymore. God, I would die if something like that happened to us.

Plus, ick, can you even imagine getting naked in front of each other? I've known you so long, you're more like a brother that I've drunkenly made out with twice and never mentioned again. It'd be way too weird. And if we did, then whenever you'd come shopping with me, or go to one of my performances or charity events, or take me for ice cream when I've had a bad day at work, you'd be looking at me like, "I've seen her breasts." God, I can't think of anything more awkward that that.

Oh, before I forget, my mom says hi.

Anyway, you would totally hate me as your girlfriend. I'd be all needy and dramatic and slowly growing to love you. If I was your girlfriend, I would never be able to tell you all about the other asshole guys I date and pretend I don't see how much it crushes you. Let's never lose that. That's what makes us us.

Don't worry. You're so funny and smart and amazing, any girl but me would be lucky to date you. You'll find someone, I know it. And when you do, I'll be right by your side to suddenly become all flirty and affectionate with you in front of her, until she grows jealous and won't believe it when you say we're just friends. But when she dumps you, that's just what we'll be.
Best friends. Friends forever.

Nuff said.

Male Privilege and Ineffective Discussions

2009-06-02T13:01:00.000-07:00

Privilege generally speaking is a touchy subject. Part of the controversy really is in how it's defined (or not defined depending on what side of the fence your on). Whatever side of the fence you're on though, I found "Why Male Privilege Probably Doesn't Matter" to be an interesting post, that has presented a point of male privilege (or privilge in general) that I think gets at the heart as to why discussions on the subject are frustrating. From the post:

.....

Finally, there is the problem that no singular, monistic, objective sense of "benefit" can plausibly be defined. To some men, having to fight in wars is probably a benefit, given their temperament, skills, etc. To others, having to fight is a major burden. Are men who enjoy the trials of war more privileged than the men who don't? Are the men who enjoy fulfilling the expectations society places on men more privileged than those who do not?

Bold emphasis mine. This is a good place to start with any conversation with "male privilege" (even privilege in general). How exactly does one define benefit? We've all got differing definitions of "benefit" and that contributes to our ineffective discussions on privilege. So to get anything out of the discussion, defining "benefit" is the place to start.

continuing on:

Perhaps. And that opens another can of worms. Feminists have proceeded as if the notion of "benefit" can be simply defined, and that men simply receive them, passively. But society's expectations can be interpreted as good or bad. If male privilege is supposed to matter, then it must be argued (a) that the benefits men receive viz-a-viz their privilege really are benefits, and not a complicated package deal with burdens attached that outweigh the benefits, and (b) that, when there are burdens attached to the benefits, men in general are able to slough the burdens off on other women.

Bold emphasis mine. Let's start with the bold text first. I don't think feminists are alone in this, almost everyone involved in a privilege discussion gets caught in this trap. It's seems that we often rely on some unstated idea of what "benefit" means and set the rest of our theories and foundation on that unstated idea. For example, one foundation of benefit might be "Person A benefits if they are able to do something that Person B is not." This seems to be some of what underlies the ideas of many male privilege checklists (i.e. men can do x and women can't). However, this is idea of benefit is not often explicitly stated (maybe the idea of privilege is, but benefit, the very foundation of privilege, is not). If you start a privilege discussion with someone with such an idea of benefit they may define privilege, but completely miss the foundation of which privilege rests on. If we start a discussion on male privilege or privilege period with what our own concept of benefit is, instead of leaving it unstated and nebulous, then maybe there would be less friction about "male privilege."

Male Prisonsers and War on Drugs

2009-05-03T01:34:00.000-07:00

Recent news has brought a resurgence of discourse on the "War on Drugs." Most people when talking about the issue focus on the racism angle. I do see racism as part of the problem with it, but I think what's missed often is the gender disparity. Look at the many faces of those in prison as a result of drug war and you'll see the greatest common denominator tying people together is that they're men. People are very often quick to point out how racism is makes one more of a target in this war, but few seem to indicate that just being male seems to make one just as much of target if not more of a target. It's strange that in doing a search about gender and the war on drugs the focus is only on the increasing incarceration of women. Not to diminish the fact that the rates are increasing for women they've been increasing for all, and men are already at arrested and imprisoned at a insanely high pace.

So what's to be done about it? My suspicion is that we'll see a few cracks in dam, but we won't see substantial change on drug policy. There are examples politicians can use to make better drug policy. Both the Netherlands and Portugal are good places to start. I think with the rising prison population in the U.S. we might see a little progress over the next few years in this area. The recession might possibly help in this area.

Singing Sensation - Susan Boyle

2009-04-20T19:44:00.000-07:00

I haven't really been following the Susan Boyle sensation much but I happened to hear something about it the other day that caught my attention. Apparently, at 47, she has never been kissed. I was somewhat taken aback. The general perception I think from a lot of guys is that women have it easier than men in this area. The thinking being, as men are the ones doing the asking, women will naturally have an easier time. Maybe it's the grass is always greener on the other side thing. Either way it's a fallacy, no one has a special lock on the relationship market. Just something to keep in mind.

Thoughts?

Sperm Count Paranoia

2009-04-15T23:52:00.000-07:00

ABC has this article on sperm count paranoia. A short excerpt from the article:

"I think the evidence is growing that chemicals in the environment do affect a man's sperm count," said Shanna Swan, director of the Center for Reproductive Epidemiology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine. "It's probably not universal, but it is pretty good evidence for a decline in Western countries."
Daniels said these findings have been met with equal measures of fear and defensiveness, as they strike at the heart of social norms regarding masculinity.
"Others strongly contest these findings and say that the evidence is the result of social hysteria -- just one more example of men (and manliness) under attack in the 21st century," she added. "One thing is clear -- this question is socially and politically loaded because it involves not just questions of male health, but of how we view men in the world today."

I'm not well versed on this so I'm curious what do you all think?

Boy/Girl Graduation Rate Difference

2009-04-05T18:22:00.001-07:00

Continuing on the education series, I would like to break down each problem one by one if necessary. I'll first start with the graduation discrepancy between the sexes. If you want some information on the research as to size of the discrepancy see my previous post Education facts by Gender.

So let's start with some possible reasons as to why we see the graduation discrepancy between the sexes. I'll use a list format to show some possible reasons

1. Education's primary usefulness is job related and men can still find jobs without a high school degree or college degree

2. Males are not motivated to learn.

3. The schooling environment is not suitable for males.

4. Bias

Of the three listed, I think the first may be the most likely culprit. Looking at the broad market of jobs there are still many jobs that don't require a HS diploma or college degree. These jobs are typically male dominated and for many guys don't pay poorly. If we look at the incentives in place to get an education, men as a group, have less incentive then women. As long as a guy can expect to get a job that will pay enough to fill a provider role, they'll have a stronger incentive to forego their schooling. Of course that's the economic outlook on it.

I don't overall,l see points two and three as being overriding factor as to graduation discrepancy. I don't think males are unmotivated to learn, some may be, but in general I think it's more a matter of what they want to learn. Schools are not always able to cover the entire interest set of their students and that could be part of the reason we see some guys leaving as their interests are covered. Of course, issue three is the very heart of the debate for the boy crisis. I think that may be better reserved for another post so I won't comment on that at the moment.

Thoughts?

*Updated to add bias to the list.

Education facts by Gender

2009-04-04T02:16:00.000-07:00

My previous post on this was a mere introductory piece. I would know like to set a foundation for things that I think aren’t really arguable. These are hard facts, in which the actual raw numbers may vary from year to year (or from just in general), but the thrust of the fact still stands. That is to say that raw numbers aren’t as relevant as the truth that is trying to be conveyed. I’ll break things down by gender, and things can certainly be added to this list.

Boys:

1. Boys graduate at a lower rate than girls.

“ Female students graduate high school at a higher rate than male students. Nationally, 72 percent of female students graduated, compared with 65 percent of male students. The gender gap in graduation rates is particularly large for minority students. Nationally, about 5 percentage points fewer white male students and 3 percentage points fewer Asian male students graduate than their respective female students. While 59 percent of African-American females graduated, only 48 percent of African-American males earned a diploma (a difference of 11 percentage points). Further, the graduation rate was 58 percent for Hispanic females, compared with 49 percent for Hispanic males (a difference of 9 percentage points).” [See Source 1]

2. There exists a disparity between men and women in college. “Women currently make up 57% of all college students.” [See Source 2]

“Among whites, a clear female majority has emerged since 1995–96, with the male share of undergraduates dropping from 49 percent in 1995–96 to 46 percent in 2003–04. This change is due to a decline in the share of low-income white students who are male, from 48 percent in 1995–96 to 44 percent in 2003–04. Among Hispanics, the percent of students age 24 or younger who are male fell from 45 percent to 43 percent, due primarily to a drop in the share of low-income students who are male. African-American males saw some progress with their share of enrollment rising from 37 percent in 1995-96 to 40 percent in 2003-04, but the gender gap is still largest in this racial group.” [See Source 3]

Girls:

1. There are fewer women in math and science, although this disparity isn’t consistent across all sciences. Let’s look a little more into detail on this aspect.

“The number of S&E bachelor's degrees awarded to females has increased every year since 1966 (excluding 1988), reaching 202,583 in 2001. The number of bachelor's degrees in S&E awarded to males has fluctuated around 200,000 since 1976. Females earn more bachelor's degrees in non-S&E fields than males. [See Source 4]

I’m searching for a better source on this, but I’ve seen charts and tables that show that women are certainly a minority in engineering as a whole. I think it was NSF. Anyways here’s something from ASEE

“Women are inclined to pursue degrees in five particular engineering disciplines: biological and agricultural, biomedical, chemical, environmental and industrial/manufacturing engineering. Their representation in these fields account for over one-third of the total undergraduate degrees awarded. However, these five disciplines comprise only 17 percent of all engineering bachelor’s degrees. The four largest fields of civil engineering, computer science (within engineering), electrical/computer engineering and mechanical engineering make up 69 percent of all engineering bachelor’s degrees. Yet, in these fields the proportion of women is only 13.6 percent. I’ll try to find the source, (I think it was NSF).” [See Source 5]

Thoughts?

*I hope to continue to update this list with better information and sources. If anyone has better info feel free to share.

Sources:

[1] See “Leaving Boys Behind: Public High School Graduation Rates” from Manhattan Institute for Policy Research

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_48.htm

[2] See “College gender gap widens: 57% are women” from USA Today

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2005-10-19-male-college-cover_x.htm

[3] See “College Enrollment Gender Gap Widens for White and Hispanic Students, but Race and Income Disparities Still Most Significant New ACE Report Finds” form American Council on Education

http://www.acenet.edu/AM/Template.cfm?Section=HENA&TEMPLATE=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=17251

[4] See “Data on women in SE” from Committee on Women in Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine/ National Science Foundation http://sites.nationalacademies.org/pga/cwsem/index.htm (click on the first link on the right for the pdf)

[5] See “Engineering Statistics” from American Society for Engineering Education

http://www.asee.org/publications/profiles/upload/2007ProfileEng.pdf

Male Problem List

2009-04-02T14:28:00.001-07:00

Here is a list of problems men face. I would like to expand upon this list so if anyone has suggestions, preferably with research to back it up, please let me know. I also intend to have a list the women face, if anyone has any suggestions there that would also be a big help.

Male Death:

99.999% of American combat deaths and casualties (historically)
http://thewall-usa.com/information.asp
http://thewall-usa.com/women.asp
http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/other/stats/warcost.htm

97%+ since the 1st Gulf War (DOD)
http://www.icasualties.org/oif/female.aspx
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf
http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/other/stats/warcost.htm

94% of industrial deaths and accident (NIOSH)
(Even though murder is the leading workplace cause of death for women, that number is only a percentage of the 6% of workplace deaths that women comprise. In other words, "a fraction of a small fraction.")*

76% of homicides DOJ
80% of Suicides CDC

# Suicide took the lives of 30,622 people in 2001 (CDC 2004).
# Suicide is the eighth leading cause of death for all U.S. men (Anderson and Smith 2003).
# 24,672 suicide deaths reported among men in 2001.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/suifacts.htm
24,672 / 30,622 = .8056952
(or in other words, over 80% of all suicide deaths in 2001 were male)

Of the top fifteen leading causes of death, men lead in 12 categories, are tied in two and trail in one. Even though more women die of heart disease each year, men die of heart disease many years earlier.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/finaldeaths03_tables.pdf

*Note I want to find a link to the source for this one, if anyone has one that would be great.

**This list is a work in progress. I'll try to update it periodically so people will have a better understanding of the problems men face and to reflect new research.

Gender Activism and Politics

2009-03-28T22:50:00.001-07:00

I was planning on doing another post about the "boy/girl education crisis" but I had some immediate thoughts that I felt I should get off my chest. As someone new to blogging and a new to activism, I thought I'd open a discussion about activism and it's relation to politics. I'm interested in how others approach their activism, if they're really political with it or not. I'll start by looking at some ways of approaching activism in relation to politics.

Method 1 Politics and Activism are combined

This first method is one obvious, basically a marriage between politics and activism. Gender activists will seek political means to bring about the desired change. Activists may seek to influence politicians directly or to vote politicians in that favor their cause. They may campaign or start lobbying groups to influence politicians. These are just a few of the methods that may be used here.

Method 2: Activism without the Politics

This method is the one probably more employed at an individual level. Under this activism one might participate in charitable organizations that offer help to men in women affected by gender based problems. For instance, one might become part of a DV shelter, or maybe a rape crisis center. Maybe one might participate in a religious based organization that offers help also. The main point of focus though is not on changing laws in this instance to bring about changes in everyday life for those with problems.

Method 3: Somewhere between 1 and 2

This is probably the most preferred method of all. Most people have a tendency to combine both 1 and 2. Maybe they vote for a politician they like and work at a helpline. Or, maybe they work at an advocacy group for women or men and make donations to a shelter. There are many ways to combine the two then the ones listed here.

Why talk about this?

I'm speaking on this because I'm curious how others approach their level of activism. Is it very political, or not at all? Are you like many other activists and are somewhere in between? I'm particularly interested because the approach I prefer actually is method two. I've recently converted (this past election, as in I didn't vote in this past election) to the conscientious non-voter pool (yeah, I know I should vote, but I think I have good reasons to not do so) and interested in whether anyone else has done so, or just what you're opinion is on how it affects activism. I've been reading some of Wendy McElroy's posts on non-voting and I've found it interesting because I think she still manages to be an activist while not being political. So I'm curious where everyone sits with it, and what approaches they find useful, etc.

Gender & Education Crisis?

2009-03-27T01:19:00.001-07:00

I've been doing a little reading about the boy crisis info that's going around, trying to wrap my head around the issue. My initial reading of the stuff has led me to believe that first there's a lot of info to digest, so I think the next few posts I do will be centered on the topic of gender and education. Second though, is that without setting a foundation on what an "education crisis is" we probably won't get anywhere. I say we won't get anywhere, because I think, from my initial reading that a clear foundation is lacking. So I'll start with building a foundation in this introductory post.

Education Metrics:

The first thing that needs to be done to set a foundation is to set some metrics that can be agreed upon. What criteria do we use to determine how educated a person is? In a sense what should be valued in an education. What should every high school student know? What about every college student? Should everyone have to graduate high school or college? What science and math should boys and girls learn? What about other areas? So on and so forth. Should we value equality of outcome or equality of opportunity in education? Say for example, should we expect to see educational parity across the board in all disciplines? We can ask many more questions like this to help build a foundation.

Not surprisingly though, we don't all agree to what the answers to those questions should be. Some believe that education is only important in relation to occupation, that you need only as much schooling as your occupation requires. Hence the disparities that are seen between genders in drop-out rates aren't a problem, and the disparities between the number of men and women in college is likewise not seen as an issue. Others may fundamentally disagree about equality of opportunity and equality of outcome. So looking at say differences across disciplines may be more of a problem or less of a problem depending on what camp you're in. All of this is to say, that part of the disagreements on what is a "boy crisis" or "girl crisis" stems from these basic but often unsaid assumptions. To get anywhere we have to first talk about what education goals should be about, and what the ideal education condition would be. Only after that can we talk about how far or how close we are to it.

Measuring the Metrics:

The next step after deciding upon metrics is gathering the metrics. This is of equal importance to the first step but is wrought with many problems also. The first problem is the very processing of measuring. How do you measure someone's education? Give them a written test? Give them a hands-on test? Who designs the tests? Is the test a good test to begin with? Is the test a really bad test? etc. Like the principles of quantum mechanics measurability in the education arena often seems elusive. I'm sure we've all said at some point that a test is stupid or wow that's a really hard test or they really need a new test/they really should get rid of this test. I've felt like that myself before. In the U.S. there's often disagreement about the S.A.T. and the ACT as measurements of knowledge. So there's certainly room to debate about how we should go about testing students and the implications it has for boys and girls.

Of course testing isn't the only statistics that we can use to determine educational quality. There is data that is actually a little more quantifiable. We can look at graduation rates and retention rates. For instance engineering has a notoriously high drop-out rate, (at least when I was in). Are the retention rates different for men and women? If so what does that tell us? What about graduation rates what differences do we see between the sexes, and what does that tell us?

Another problem that exists with gathering metrics is sufficiently excluding other factors to create gender comparisons. How closely can we compare boys and girls, men and women? We need to exclude other factors that complicate our analysis, such as class or race. Getting such a comparison is sometimes difficult, but once done, we're provided with valuable insight into how much gender places a part into any discrepancies we see.

Conclusion:

I think taking both topic areas mentioned here into account we help a long ways in the discussion. We need to know exactly where people are coming from. In a sense we need to lay our cards down on the table. Once done though, we can talk about where the problems are.

Thoughts?

Confronting Abusers

2009-03-22T03:16:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't posted in ages, and this will be a short one. I want to know people's experiences with friends and acquaintances who abuse their current or previous partners. I had a fairly mind blowing conversation with someone I know recently. Not really mind blowing because what she was describing was clearly abuse, but because she really thought that I would "get a kick out of it." How do you tell someone that stalking and violent confrontation of an ex-partner really isn't "What all women really want to do, but just don't have the nerve?"

Obviously, I was quite taken aback that she thought I, in particular, would "get a kick out of it." I have a bit of a tough-girl persona, I guess, but I have never once, I think, given the impression that I hate men, and think they deserve such abuse.

I didn't know quite how to handle it, and think I just managed to look non-plussed, said it sounded "very dramatic" and reminded her that yes, she could indeed get arrested for that sort of thing. The laws, where we live, are quite a bit different on the subject of DV (I don't actually think there are any, in particular). But certainly for assault and disturbing the peace.

Has anyone had a similar experience? How did you deal with it?

Movement Support

2009-03-08T00:33:00.001-08:00

In the comment section on Danny's post What would you do Renee left the following comment:

Danny: Society tells men that we are only supposed to have certain emotions like anger and lust. This has to end for all our sakes.

Renee: This is precisely why men should support feminism. Part of the goal of feminism is to disturb the rigid gender binary that we have normalized.

Many of you know that GC doesn't have a particular stance on which movement to support. How could we since we value working together to combat gender problems? We've got feminists, those that are undeclared, and those that fit into some new category altogether. We've got people here from various vantage points, and that's fine. I think that we all can constructively work together to curb gender problems without a particular group affiliation. With that said Renee brings up a point that I've heard often and I think is good to talk about. So I'll deal with it from my perspective.

What does support feminism mean?

I've always wondered this myself whenever the "support feminism is good for men" comment is made (likewise for the MRA equivalent, although I have yet to hear it actually said). Does support mean men should accept feminist ideology? If so what ideology, as there are many different feminisms? Which feminism to support? To support feminism does one have to be a feminist or feminist ally? If one is fighting for women's rights without calling themselves a feminist, are they supporting feminism? These are the questions I've asked myself about feminism and what it means to support it. These are the same questions I'd ask about the men's movement also.

I'll leave it here for now.

Thoughts.

Gender, Technology and the Future

2009-03-05T22:01:00.001-08:00

For those that know one of my interests is technology. In my perusal of the net lately, I've been reading about robotics, particularly robotic cars. Don't worry if you don't know what a robot car is/does, I'll get to that in a minute. The thing that got me about reading some articles on robot cars was the impact the cars could have. It got me thinking how technology has an impact on not people interact, but particularly the sexes. So, I'm curious, what future technology do you think will have a large impact on gender issues? I'll take a stab at the question and talk about how robot cars might make an impact.

We should first start with a brief description of what a robot car is. A robot car simply put is a car that drives its self. It's primarily controlled by a computer, with navigation provided by GPS. That's the simplest way to probably put it. Of course, to make a car drive its self is much more complicated than the definition I provided.

So what will a robot car bring that will change gender issues? Well, we should start from the ideal robot car. In the ideal case, robot cars would be accident proof, deliverable, and green. There'd be countless lives saved, billions of dollars saved from accidents that won't occur, and a lot of energy. That's the more obvious stuff. Something not as obvious is that people likely would not own cars anymore (some already do currently in cities, but now it would be much more of the norm everywhere). The most interesting result from this is that cars no longer would be a sign of wealth. A common complaint one might hear among MRA's is that men are expected to demonstrate that they're wealthy, and a car is certainly a way to do that now. In the future that wouldn't be case with robot cars. That itself could have an impact on relationships. Another thing, we could finally get rid of the sexist driving stereotypes that currently exist, since few would ever drive. Deliverbots (robotic cars that deliver goods) could radically change the stay at home parent's options, since essential items could be ordered and then delivered. And with the money that's saved from accidents and increased efficiency, well it could be put to more useful things.

Those are just some things that could result from the cars I thought of off the top of my head. I'm sure there's more. For those interested I'm curious about your thoughts. What do you think of this tech and how it will change interactions between the sexes? What tech do you think will change things in the future and how will things change? Also, I should add that the earliest predictions for when robotic cars could show up is about a decade from now.

Thoughts?

Some Sources for those interested:

Brad Templeton's Robot Car page. He gives a detailed look at how things could change. It's one of the best I've seen.

Next big Future provides some good links on some ongoing projects in the area.

Male Reaction to Male Problems

2009-02-19T13:51:00.001-08:00

In one of the comment threads Bj0rnborg make the following comment:

I had an interesting experience at the tram a while ago. Picture this;

A man in the tram is silently crying. No one knows why.
The close by women can't decide if they should contact him and somehow comfort him (female genderroll: taking care of everyones emotional wellbeing).

The other men in the bus are looking away. Why? Sure, it's a display of weakness, and a reminder of every man's own inner fight. But the most important reason? Out of respect. Out of respect of whatever trouble that particular man had, for another man to engage into that situation would only increase that mans shame/self contempt/self awareness. So we respectfully keep away, just as we keep our own emotional baggage to ourselves so not to burden any other man. Every man has more than enough of his own.

I think he makes a good point. When I think about I think a lot of guys would act just like those guys on the tram did. Imagine if a guy did go over there and talk the crying man, what would a guy say to the crying man that would make him feel ashamed? Any guy offering comfort could actually exacerbate the problem. There are plenty of guy who fell ashamed to even ask for modicum amount of help. It makes them less of a man to do so. Even if they don't ask for help, the fact that another man recognizes that they have a problem and offers them help, is shameful to them. So any man that wants to help, likely feels that there's not much they can do in the first place. Men don't like to interfere with other men's own self reliance. To be a man is to be self reliant.

Now that I think about it, I don't know what I would have done in such a situation. I think I would want to help on the one hand. However, I'd have no idea of how to approach the guy to even offer help. I have no idea if the guy would even want my assistance or advice. Guys don't like to talk about problems with other guys.

Thoughts?

Male Gender Role – Solution Oriented?

2009-02-14T22:00:00.001-08:00

I was blown away by a comment at Pelle's blog by Bj0rnborg. I'll highlight it here.

I have more to say about the male solution-oriented genderrole, I thought id mention it here. From a genderroll-perspective, men are the providers of the family. We cannot indulge in the luxury of bitching and complaining about things, when problems arise we MUST solve them in order to live up to the responsibility we have. (taking care of family). These solutions might be good or bad, but we always strive to solve issues and move on.

It's often said that the male gender role is that of a provider, but what all goes into making a man a good provider? Well I think Bj0rnborg's point describes a large component of what goes into making a male a good provider. What do portrayals of masculinity do men look up to? The most common one that I think of is stoic, non-complaining, men of action. These portrayals are exemplified throughout the media. The John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, action hero, badass guy types. They're the guys who don't let their emotions get to them and are always able to solve any problem. The men that are most looked up to, are the men that "don't complain like a little bitch." (which is a loaded phrase, but I think describes what men think of complainers). The male gender role often seems to be one of valuing the ability to not only solve problems, to not only be resourceful, but to not complain while doing so. As Bj0rnborg put it, the male gender role calls for action, whether or not the action is good or bad.

Clearly this can cause many problems for men. The expectation that men solve every problem, and if you can't then you're less of a man, is a hard burden to bear. I don't doubt that many men have buckled under such pressure. This is possibly one of the many things that can cause male health problems. Also the fact that men are somewhat barred from talking about their problems limits male discussion in gender issues. Men still have to deal with the internalization of "don't complain" so they haven't been able to find their voice in gender discussions. Instead all too often they forego discussing it. On top of that of course, they lack the language to discuss their problems also. It's a double whammy, first their gender role makes it difficult to even begin expressing their problems and then they lack the language to do it. With that said I think more men are waking up to state of affairs.

Thoughts?

Gender Ideology

2009-02-11T00:12:00.000-08:00

Following some of the ideological discussions I have been having on GC, I thought I might post a little bit more about it and hopefully lay some foundations for my own.

One of the questions I think most people ask of themselves when approaching gender issues is whether feminist ideology or masculinist/MRA ideology or some other is necessary to solve gender issues? This is not an easy question to answer. Our ideologies guide us, they give us our sense of reality and define our capabalities of solving a problem. We use ideology to predict future events, to set goals for how the world should look, to figure out what problems we need to solve, and to actually go about solving those problems. So how can one go about telling one to choose one ideology over the other? I'm hesitant myself to do so. Where would we be without feminism pointing out the many problems women face? Where would we be without egalatarians pointing to the ways in which the sexes are getting a bad deal? Likely stuck in traditional roles (more so than what's present today).

So what is my gender ideology? Well, at the moment I think mine is one of choice and pragmitism. I say choice because, the standard I try to hold myself to (which I'm not always successful at, I'm only human) is whether I'm promoting more options for the sexes. The question I try to ask myself is "what options are imposed upon us becuase we belong to a certain sex, and how can we increase the available amount of options for both sexes?" I say pragmatism because I don't have an allegiance to an established ideology. I'll borrow from whatever gender ideology explains the problem best, or if one doesn't I'll seek a different answer.

I don't know that we can answer the question as to the whether one ideology is necessary or not to solve gender issues. What we can do though, is focus on being inclusive in terms of our ideologoies. We can focus on ways to improve our alliances with each other. That's at the heart of why this blog is here, to foster improved communication between gender groups.

Gender Authority and Criticism pt. 2

2009-02-04T02:05:00.001-08:00

In part one of Gender Authority and Criticism posed some questions on ideological policing. In particular I was concerned with when to take criticism and when not take criticism. There have been some interesting responses to that post and I'll highlight some of those since I think they deserve further discussion.

Elementary_Watson raised some points about totalitarianism:

You semm to be concerned about how a movement is perceived; I am concerned about how totalitarian a movement becomes.

At the time I think my comments lead to that impression. As with any movement, I think totalitarianism should be a concern. I don't think gender movements themselves are totalitarian, at least at their cores. Is this a problem with gender movements? I also posed the question of whether the lack of totalitarianism was a measure of how well gender movements are working towards their own goals?

A second point Elementary_Watson made was:

Also, in the best case, the arguments a movement puts forth to raise awareness of their goals are (or should be) independent of the mistakes members of that movement make. They should even be independent of any members' intention when putting forth an argument. But for that to happen we would need a humanity for whom Bulverism isn't as natural as breathing.

I agree with this. I won't touch on this point other than to say this would save us a lot of problems when discussing gender issues. We should be able to discuss the issues productively.

Another point by EW:

Honestly, I don't know how strongly a movement should penalize dissent, but I am sure that I couldn't belong to a movement which would penalize too hard for my taste.

I don't know how strongly they should penalize dissent either. I think the issue of how to penalize is much more complicated in peer movements (i.e. movements without any discernable hierarchy). So not only is there an issue of how to penalize, there's an issue of what penalties can actually be imposed. I can I hate to see men's activists fighting men's activists or feminists fighting other feminists since it's all too often unproductive. I'm unsure though of what a more productive approach would be for each group.

Danny points out:

That is the thing. Critiques don't hurt the thing being critiqued. They may hurt the feelings of the people who identify with and believe in the thing being critiqued but not the thing itself.

[..]

And considering that people like to think that they are above critique it's easy to understand why they stayed silent.

I think this a good point. On the one hand we should view criticism as something that should make a movement better. For example, one criticism I have of gender movements is using statistics incorrectly. Both sides seem to do this at some point. This criticism though, should make them better though. On the other hand there are other criticisms that should be dismissed. For example, saying "all feminists hate men" or "all MRAs hate women" is something that should be given only a modicum of thought. There's a line between good criticism and bad criticism, as always the question is where is that line?

Next post on this, I'll try to focus more on the original article, if everyone hasn't read it all already.

Recession & Gender Balance

2009-01-29T23:06:00.001-08:00

I'm basically going to continue from where I left off in the previous post.

One of the stimulus suggestions that has been made is to focus on helping women get jobs. I think the goal is noble. Certainly we should be concerned about the jobs for everyone, and with any stimulus package we should look at groups that are being underserved currently. The question, to me however, is how much are women being underserved, and are "women's jobs" in danger? For that matter, should we focus on "male jobs"? Are "male jobs in danger?" We can't answer these questions without some data on employment and an understanding of what caused the recession.

The current economic recession was caused in large part to bad investments in the housing market. A bunch of investors, as with almost every recession/depression in American history, decided they had a really good idea to make some quick cash. One guy has the great idea and starts making money, and everyone else follows. The idea this time was all housing based. Of course everything was booming along fine for a few years, and then everything came crashing down. When the housing market crashed so did a lot of banks, and well, when the banks go so does the economy.

The most immediate jobs to feel the impact of the crash though, would clearly been the ones that are most involved in the housing market, construction workers, bankers, etc. Let's focus on the construction workers for a second. According to the chart at the bottom from the Labor Department from October 2007-2008 construction, percent wise, construction was the hardest hit industry. This shouldn't surprise anyone though. What we should take away from this is that construction work is overwhelmingly male dominated. This should also not be surprise.

If we look at the rest of the chart though, we see some interesting trends. First, notice that the jobs that are held mostly by men are more at risk: construction, manufacturing, transportation, and investment. The one outsider to this is retail, where there's more parity between men and women, but has still suffered negative growth. On the other hand, jobs held by more women like in healthcare and education seems to have positive job growth. This would seem to indicate that these jobs have less relative risk of being in demand.

Conclusion

There are some things we can take away from this. First, if we're going to advocate for a particular gender to receive stimulus help we need to closely define why one would get precedence over the other. Stimulus should address the hardest hit first, and then move onto other areas. Second, which I think is more interesting, is whether or not we should even specifically target occupations on gender like this. That's certainly something that could make an interesting discussion. Lastly, I don't want to draw too many conclusions from this data due to its age (I haven't found anything on November or December yet).

Gender & Economic Stimulus

2009-01-24T21:55:00.001-08:00

Somewhat off subject:

A recent comment by economic advisor for Barack Obama Robert Reich is getting a lot of attention in the news. I'll display his comment, and deconstruct a little of it. Here's the first part:

Now let me say something about infrastructure. It seems to me that infrastructure spending is a very important and good way of stimulating the economy. The challenge will be to do it quickly, to find projects that can be done that have a high social return that also can be done with the greatest speed possible.

That seems good. America certainly could use improvements in its infrastructure. During the 1950's there was a major effort to build America's infrastructure with a big focus on roads. Ultimately that contributed to a lot of wealth during the 50s and improvements in American living. FDR targeted American infrastructure also during his Presidency. American infrastructure suffers currently from a considerable amount of maintenance problems. Infrastructure would be a great way to stimulate the economy. On to the next statement:

I am concerned, as I'm sure many of you are, that these jobs not simply go to high skilled people who are already professionals or to white male construction workers. I have nothing against white male construction workers. I'm just saying that there are a lot of other people who have needs as well. And therefore, in my remarks I have suggested to you, and I'm certainly happy to talk about it more, ways in which the money can be -- criteria can be set so that they money does go to others: the long term unemployed, minorities, women, people who are not necessarily construction workers or high-skilled professionals.

This is the part of his statement that's getting the most attention. There are a lot of problems I see with this statement. First it's not immediately clear if he has a problem with money being devoted to white male construction work. It shouldn't be an issue though. Take for example this statement from an article on black construction workers:

But even conservative estimates at the National Association of Home Builders indicate that Latinos likely hold about 60 percent of jobs in construction.

It's not immediately clear why at a national level we should be concerned about the money going to just white male construction workers. So why single them out? Some have said he just has a problem with money going only to construction work. If he has a problem with just money being given to just construction jobs, why mention anything about white males? He could have just as easily said I don't want money to go solely to construction workers.

Overall, his comment is needlessly inflammatory to white male construction workers. Besides the fact, that it unnecessarily and unfairly targets them, construction work has been one of the hardest hit by the recession, if not hit hardest. For critics who say he was targeting construction work and that he wants to see money devoted to other areas in the economy, I'd say he should have phrased it better. He could have specifically highlighted areas to give money to that would be beneficial for working women, and so on, but he didn't.

In another post I'll talk about gender balance in the recession.

Gender, Crime, & Prison pt. 2

2009-01-22T17:39:00.001-08:00

In part 1, I proposed some ways of looking at gender choices in crime. In particular I was curious as to why we see gendered crime. What accounts for the discrepancy in criminal activities between men in women? I'm now going to propose an economic model as one way of looking at it. I don't know where it will lead, but here goes.

One of the most obvious professions to start with is prostitution. Why do we find that more women are in prostitution than men?* The laws of economics would simply say that it's the laws of supply and demand. Prostitution is known as the world's oldest profession after all. Assuming an economic model, the question becomes why choose prostitution? Limiting the scope of employment opportunities just to crime there are other criminal activities to get involved in. One possible answer is lower risk. Other crimes carry greater penalties if caught. With prisons and jails already crowded as is, judges don't have time to lock up prostitutes. Another possible reason: lower education. To be a truly good criminal it seems to take a certain amount of education. One needs to be sufficiently educated enough to pull off a clever theft or something of the sort.

There are limitations to looking at the crime this way. One thing that I haven't talked about is the risk the buyer is taking. The client is taking a risk in doing this criminal activity also. One obvious question to come out of this is, if prostitution does follow supply and demand, why is there a lower demand for men?

*I suspect the number of people, male or female, is underreported.

Guests Posts

2009-01-06T21:06:00.000-08:00

I'm trying out a new feature here. I'm going to open a guest post feature (maybe weekly? monthly?) to anyone interested. For those interested you can email me at thebgimanfred@gmail. Just put Guest Post or something like that in the title. Oh, Typhonblue has expressed some interest in doing a post(s) on circumcision, so that'll probably be the first one.

Open Thread Day

2009-01-04T15:30:00.000-08:00

I'm borrowing an idea from Ampersand here. Here's an Open Thread. Post links, talk about issues, whatever. Here's something to start:

After years of neglect, there is now a growing body of research to explain the reading and non-reading habits of boys. In the first chapter of Michael Smith's indispensable book Reading don't fix no Chevys is a quick review of a dozen major findings of that research related to boys (not just teens) and reading:

Boys don’t comprehend narrative (fiction) as well as girls
Boys have much less interest in leisure reading than girls
Boys are more inclined to read informational texts
Boys are more inclined to read magazine and newspaper articles
Boys are more inclined to read comic books and graphic novels than girls
Boys like to read about hobbies, sports and things they do or want to do
Boys tend to enjoy escapism and humor
Some groups of boys are passionate about science fiction or fantasy
The appearance of a book and cover is important to boys
Few boys entering school call themselves “non-readers” but by high school, over half do
Boys tend to think they are bad readers
If reading is perceived as feminized, then boys will go to great lengths to avoid it

Thus, the boy at the booktalking session saying he doesn't read might simply be saying that he doesn't read what libraries offer.

Update on Circumcision Post

2009-01-03T14:21:00.000-08:00

A quick update on circumcision. From what I've found so far it appears Denmark would be the first country with such legislation, if it's passed. Currently, I haven't found any evidence that male circumcision is banned by developed countries. This is based upon a quick search on google and looking at a wikipedia article on male circumcision and law. I think it's great if the ban goes through. I wish the U.S. had something similar. Maybe that's something that could be taken up with President Obama. There's a vote for it on the change.gov site.

New Years

2008-12-31T20:17:00.000-08:00

Happy New Years from the bloggers at GenderCritics!

Quick Post on Circumcision

2008-12-30T23:37:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick post on some news I stumbled upon on circumcision. Denmark, is considering legislation that would ban circumcision on boys and girls. There's some opposition to this legislation. Here's an article about it. From the article:

Although the Social Democrats, the Liberal Alliance, and the Red-Green Alliance have already gone public with their support for the ban, the Danish People’s Party is calling it a “tyranny.”

“It’s completely ridiculous to compare the circumcision of girls - which is a barbaric mutilation - with that of boys, where it’s just the removal of a skin flap,” said Jesper Langballe of the Danish People’s Party.

Just thought I'd give people the heads up. What do you all think? Is this the first legislation of this kind? Does anyone know?

Rap and Gender Relations pt.1

2008-12-30T14:58:00.001-08:00

Yeah, yeah I know. I've got two other post topics to finish on. Sorry, I couldn't resist writing about this. I think I was somewhat sparked by some comment on feministing (Samhita's comments about a Toure article). I wasn't familiar with him; at least that's what I thought. If you don't know Toure hosted BET's "Hip Hop vs. America" so I think that's what got me started on this train of thought. So here I am, talking about rap and gender. I don't know the best way to approach this topic, without it sounding like a rant or covering something that has already been said. I certainly don't want to go down the old glory days path (i.e. in my day rap was sooo much better), although admittedly I may. Hmmm, I think the best approach may be to start with some of the criticism that's leveled at rap.

Criticism 1.

Rap is misogynistic.

Reply: True. From the videos to the actual lyrics much of the music is misogynistic. You can turn to BET and expect to see some misogynistic stuff at some point (when they play videos, is it me or are videos on networks on the decline?). Have you also noticed that much of the music is misandrist? When men are talking about the deaths that happen, either from them or someone else, who is it that they're talking about? It's more than likely going to be some other male. That's not say that women aren't talked about in this capacity, they certainly are, but I don't think they're talked about in this capacity anywhere near to the same degree. The reality is that it's both, it's misogynistic and misandrist. The other side to this is, what rap are you talking about? I believe most people are focused on mainstream rap when they make these comments, but there's more to rap than just mainstream. Underground rap for instance has much more variety in subject matter.

Criticism 2.

This one is from Michael Eric Dyson:

DYSON: The reason why you listen to 50 Cent, because the music is banging. Conscious rappers need to get some great beats so we can hear it and listen to it.

I respect his opinion (he often has wise things to say about rap without veering into rap is evil territory), but this is wrong. The reason why people listen to 50 Cent is because he's got hot beats and lyrics that fit for the beats. Imagine if 50 cent used the same music as "In da Club" for a song titled "Down and Depressed." Wouldn't people go, WTF? Are you being satirical? Why are you down and depressed on a beat like "In da Club." The music doesn't match the lyrics and emotions you're trying to convey. You should be dancing to the music, not feeling down and depressed, the music doesn't fit. Likewise if Public Enemy did "911 is a Joke" over an "In da Club" instrumental, it just wouldn't fit. Music has mood and feeling that's independent of the lyrics. A good lyricist matches the lyrics to music. So whether conscious rappers have beats that are banging is irrelevant if their subject matter is the same. Realistically who wants to dance to lyrics like: (taken from Nas N.Y. state of mind pt. 2)

Broken glass in the hallway,
Blood stained floors,
Neighbors looking at every bag you bring through your doors,
Lock the top lock, mama shoulda cuffed me to the radiator
Why not, it might have saved me later from my block, NY cops

…

And so on. If you take a look at dance music in particular the vast majority of it isn't socially conscious. In fact the goal of dance music is to relive tension not to create more of it.

Gender, Crime, & Prison

2008-12-26T17:56:00.001-08:00

Some of the commenters have suggested that some posts on gender and prison would be good, so I wanted to write some posts on it. There are lots of ways of approaching this. There's a bunch of statistics on the subject along with other factors like poverty and race. I could just talk about specific crimes. I could talk about sentencing disparities. It's likely that I'll touch on some of these subjects. I'll research them some more, and in the process I'm sure I'll stumble on lots of interesting information. I want to talk more in a broad sense though right now, and in particular focus on this gem from an article on identity theft:

In another surprise, 36 percent of identity theft crimes in Secret Service cases were committed by women. That's a much more equal gender split than most other crimes.

If one looks at crime, as with many parts of society, there is a lot of gender bias (bias may not be the best term for it). For example, men are more likely to go to prison to women (13 times as much), prostitution seems to be a profession dominated by women, and so forth. In many ways this is no different than any other part of society, in which gender plays a big part of in what one does. However, crime is interesting at least to me, in that it is representative of the very bottom of society. Criminals seemingly have much more freedom than other members of society (as long as they're not caught). In a sense, criminals lack the same level of institutionalization that other areas of society has. The majority of criminals aren't in organized crime, there's one less institutional bias at play for men and women. The majority of criminals are looking out for themselves (i.e. not working for someone else) or work with few partners. I think this is an important point, since it gives us a closer look at how people act without as many institutionalized roadblocks. As a whole criminals have a more mobility and less roadblocks since the nature of the occupation is breaking rules in the first place. The implication of this is that criminals have much more choice as to what they do. Which begs the question why do we see the gendered crime that we do? Clearly there are other factors and I'll likely get into some of them in later posts.

Out and About

2008-12-24T20:20:00.000-08:00

I likely won't make a post until Thursday (maybe Friday). Seems many of the other places will be posting a little less regularly. Enjoy the downtime. Happy Holidays to everyone!

Future Post Topics

2008-12-21T12:36:00.000-08:00

Hi all. I've been thinking lately of a bunch of different topics to post about, but have been unable to decide which to talk about first. So, I'll ask the audience here, what would they like discussed?

1. Gender in the Education System (The boy crisis, The girl crisis, etc.)
2. Rap and Gender Relations (Misogyny and Misandry in music)
3. Objectification
4. Circumcision
5. Domestic Violence
6. Prison
7. Other
8. Finish up your other posts, stupid!

3000 innocents?

2008-12-19T18:36:00.001-08:00

Over the years, I've learned to be distrustful of our justice system. I think there are far too many innocent people put into jails, and far too many guilty people that escape justice. Both of my parents are attorneys so I often hear about incidents of injustice. But this recent post on Glenn Sacks is disturbing. The link is here. From his site:

Last year, Agustin Uribe's conviction for sexually abusing a 5-year-old girl was overturned by California's Sixth Court of Appeals. Why? The San Jose Mercury News reports that the hospital at which the girl was examined maintained a videotape of the examination which showed that no abuse had occurred. Read the story here.
Now it develops that the hospital has some 3,000 videotapes of similar examinations in child abuse cases since 1991. As you might expect, defense attorneys in pending and closed cases are seeking access to those tapes.

This is why people are skeptical of the legal system. There are potentially 3,000 innocent people in jail. Why weren't the defense attorneys getting this evidence? Was it legally suppressed? Did someone just miss it? This is just disturbing.

Idealized Choices

2008-12-17T21:30:00.001-08:00

There's a lot of talk about Obama and who he's picking as part of his cabinet. I usually don't care much for politics (I've made the decision to not vote!), but I do think the gender discussion on this issue is interesting. A lot of groups are clamoring for Obama to pick more people of their group (women, blacks, etc.). I've always had questions about how represented a group should be or would as far as occupations are concerned. So I'll lay the ground work to how I would like to see things. In an idealized world everyone would be able to freely choose what job they want to have, there wouldn't be any magic numbers of representation; everything would be based upon free will. So I wouldn't expect there to be 50% percent women or 50% percent men in every occupation, I don't make any assumptions as to what the correct representation would be. This is important, because I think this is often lost in the discussion on job demographics – the results of having an equal opportunity society. Assuming everyone had free will to choose whatever job they wanted, what would the representation figures look like?

Thoughts?

Gender Authority and Criticism, Part 1

2008-12-16T15:06:00.001-08:00

I was reading this article about feminism entitled "The Struggle for Feminist Purity Threatens the Goals of Feminism," and it got me thinking about gender authority and criticism. As a result, I'm starting (hopefully) a series about gender authority and criticism. I'll start by dissecting some of the article, piece by piece.

From the article:

A number of years ago I got the idea of putting together a volume with the title "Ideological Policing in Contemporary Feminism." The episodes leading to this intention are by now a bit vague in my mind, but they included stories told to me by feminist colleagues, for example about being criticized by other feminists for wearing make-up, for being heterosexual, for wanting a door put on an office and thus gaining some unsisterly privacy from the feminist staff members in the adjoining office.
[…]
All this, of course, was before the burning intellectual question of the day revolved around "political correctness."
I never wrote that book--and a major reason I didn't was that I couldn't decide how to write a critique of feminism that would not in some way hurt feminism and that would not automatically place me in the enemy camp. Despite opponents' assertions, feminist concerns had not had such resounding success in the world that I wanted to hazard a public critique. And the ease with which the charges of PC have been catching on shows that I was right to be wary of writing something that could be taken to support such charges.

I'll speak more in generalities here, but the problem the Patai highlights aren't unique to feminism. In a larger sense, it's representative of any movement. More specifically with gender movements clearly no one wants to give ammo to the opposition. So how does one critique their own movement? How does one evaluate a positive way of getting rid of the problems of the movement? Clearly this is a struggle that gender movements have – policing your own.

Physics of Fighting, Does Size Matter?

2008-12-11T23:12:00.001-08:00

One point that is sometimes made in gender discussion is the size differences between men and women. It's often said women are smaller and weaker, so that a man will be able to overpower them. There's a plethora of information on the weight and height differences on men and women and most of it seems to indicate women on average are shorter and weigh less than men. I don't contest the data. However, I do pose this question, how much does fighting technique affect the outcome of a fight? Or in other words how much of who wins or loses a fight is based upon their weight/height/strength differences vs. the fighting technique?

I thought I might tackle this post with some of the physics on fighting. On second thought though, that's probably not the best way to get the point across. Maybe I'll do something on that later for anyone that's interested. Instead let's start with some basics on karate. It's almost universally known that knowing karate can improve one's fighting. How much though? Is it enough to overcome someone who weighs more than you? Well the answer lies in how well your opponent knows to fight and how well you do. If two opponents have equivalent technique then the bigger and stronger one will likely win. When this is not the case however, the bigger and stronger one likely will not. Why? Well at a young age people have enough mass to deliver devastating force to other humans. A child has enough mass to break a piece of wood or concrete because it's all about the technique that they use their mass to their advantage. So an adult that uses proper technique is a formidable opponent regardless of their weight, since technique is all about using mass effectively.

Ultimately what this means is that outcome of a fight is determined less by size and more by technique. Using proper technique one can deliver plenty of force to hurt someone. So in a couple mismatched in size and weight, the one with the lower weight and size can still win in a fight if they have better technique. Of course not knowing proper technique will put that person at a disadvantage. Women I think are more prone to not knowing about proper technique, since guys are encouraged more to fight, and hence to know more about fighting in general. However, with proper technique women can be dangerous as the many women who do know it can attest to. So the many people that think women can't be a force to fight with, that they can't cause harm, should think again.

Feminism Stole My Money

2008-12-09T14:42:00.001-08:00

There is one thing that always gets me when looking at gender issues and that's equating correcting inequality with creating problems. Probably best example of this is the "women in the workplace are ruining things" idea. Obviously this is a very traditionalist idea, one that needs to be uprooted, but the idea that feminism has caused women to work and thus capitalistic problems isn't that uncommon. It's true that having women in the workplace has changed our society and family dynamics, but that doesn't make it a bad thing. Some have blamed feminism for labor problems specifically that wages have decreased. I'm not an economist, but I do think that this idea would agree with economic theory, that if you increase the supply of something (labor in this case) the price (wages in this case) will decrease. However, I think this greatly oversimplifies things. Obviously the division of labor is different now compared to pre-feminism, but I see the division of labor pre feminism as the problem. Feminism was a corrective force in this case, trying to correct inequality of work. The market had artificially set prices (wages) higher by denying women access to jobs. You could say that workers pre-feminism we're being paid too much for their work. So while traditionalist look at things from a negative perspective, and lament how bad things have become for their work and their wages, I say that they we're never being properly paid in the first place and that correcting inequality isn't a problem but a solution. So while you could probably say that wages have decreased as the number of women in the labor market increased, no one should ever consider that to be a bad thing from a moralistic perspective.

Altruism and Women

2008-12-08T16:25:00.001-08:00

I was reading an article earlier about charity and the economy and how "charity is selfish." The article is a slate here. It's an interesting article I think, even for those not interested in the charity. To summarize the article though it was mainly about how selfish societies are. That the developed countries are not acting in altruistically but quite the opposite. If people were more altruistic, there would be less volunteering and more giving. People would work longer to give more and so on. There's a lot I'm glossing over there, check it out if you're interested. There was one part of the article that particularly caught my attention though. It's this:

In fact, the closer you look at charitable giving, the less charitable it appears to be. A recent experiment by John List, an economist at the University of Chicago, and a team of colleagues, showed that donations are less than magnanimous after all. Using controlled trials to compare different methods of door-to-door fund-raising, professor List's team discovered that it was much more effective to raise funds by selling lottery tickets than it was to raise funds by asking for money. This hardly suggests a world populated by altruists seeking to do the maximum good with their charitable cash.
More effective still was simply to make sure that the fund-raisers were attractive white girls rather than a dowdier assortment of males and females representing all shapes, races, and sizes. This dramatically increased the average contribution, because many more men decided to give money. Altruism?

My gender meter just went off. I'm curious as to whys of the results. I've got my own thoughts on it, probably too many to list. Is this a result of chivalry? Or just another attractive people benefit more thing? Or both? What about women with money? Would the same affect happen with them, or is this male exclusive? So on and so forth. I haven't read the results of the experiment, just this article, but like I said I'm curious about the results.

Thoughts?

DV, DV, DV and Recognition of Victims

2008-12-06T01:19:00.001-08:00

There are a lot of Domestic Violence posts going on lately. In light of that I thought I'd do some posts on it would be good? There are two recent events that have sparked some of the posts. First, is the Woods v. Shewry case, in which the California Appellate Court ruled that funding of women only domestic violence programs is unconstitutional. Second, there's the Glenn Sacks campaign against some ads The Family Place has been running. I've actually seen fewer posts on the first event and more on the second event. Both events exemplify to me how easily battle lines can get drawn over domestic violence. Both events deal with men fighting for DV recognition (or maybe not recognized in Glenn's case?). And that's what I'd like to focus on in this post, recognition of victims and how they can get lost in the crossfire between seemingly opposing sides.

So how are victims of DV not recognized? The Woods v. Shewry case is a great example. In the Woods v. Shewry case a group of men were fighting to make sure that the state recognized that there were male victims of DV and that as such services would be offered for male victims. They we're being denied services in part because of "administrative convenience" as the judges put it, or basically they were statistically not relevant. Or in other words some victims, in this case male victims, were unseen victims, they existed but no one was acknowledging it. Glenn was fighting against what he perceived as the men abuser/ female victim paradigm as portrayed in 2 ads (3 total, 2 that he campaigned against). There's a lot of debate as to the morality of it (maybe I'll post on that later?), but the basic script is the same, Glenn thought some victims were not being recognized. While Glenn was campaigning for the male point of view, fighting against the male abuser/female victim paradigm, some others have pointed the emphasis was placed on heterosexuals. Lastly, another way that I've seen erasure of victims is when battle lines are drawn over who commits or doesn't commit DV. Inevitable such discussions turn into a fight over which statistics are correct, what methods are best to gather the evidence for the stats, men are evil, women are evil, etc. What it is not discussed, at least not enough, are the victims. Everyone is too busy trying to make their case that DV is/isn't one sided that the discussion becomes one sided on that very point. These are just some ways that some victims are not recognized in efforts to stop DV. Is it not possible to just state that it's difficult to know precisely who the victims are and how many of them there are, but regardless anyone that needs help should have it, and move on? Is it not possible to make ads that better portray gender neutral stances on the issue and at the same time reach the target audience?

Cleanliness is next to Manliness...

2008-11-28T18:21:00.000-08:00

Thanks to natatafish at Feministing Community, news just in: Men Clean Too!

Now this is one of the many little cultural things that has been hovering over my head for a while, without my quite grasping it. I'm well aware that almost all advertising for cleaning and domestic products is targeted at women, but it never quite seeped into my concsiousness how inaccurate a reflection of society this is.

As stated in my response to natatafish's post:

I'm totally having a "D'uh, it's so obvious. Why didn't I think of it?"

So true. I'd have to say most men that I know know their way around a sink full of dishes, and are not mystified by the workings of a mop. Several even have full command of the oh so complicated operation of a washing machine (including the mysteries of separating whites, and that bright colors may bleed).

So why is the advertising so gendered?

Despite the fact that men are living the bachelor life far longer in modern times, and are participating ever more in domestic duties when partnered, the day to day domestic drudgeries still seem to be perceived by society at large as a woman's domain. I have met my share of men that will put down the mop with relief and expectation upon the sighting of a woman, and my share of women who will jealously defend their clothing, dishes, floors, and surfaces from the perceived incompetence of men.

(Not to mention those of both genders who seem to suffer from what is called "dirt-blindness." These poor individuals seem to have 20/20 vision, but are completely blind to disgusting, health problem inducing squalor. It is a tragic illness, and pity should be extended to those suffering from it, as well as those they live with, as they are at great risk of developing secondary infections such as salmonella, staph, and possibly cholera).

I'm interested in what men have to say about this. How do you feel about these constant aspersions on your domestic competence?

An Intro to BigFred

2008-11-24T14:40:00.001-08:00

Following in the footsteps of ZoBabe, I've decided to create an introduction piece also. The first question people may ask is what do I identify as? I've asked myself this question often, and haven't really got much of an answer. I think maybe a little background will clarify why I don't have an answer.

I grew up in a family generally concerned about the well being of others, but I wouldn't say that my parents are/were gender activists. Neither parent self identified as a gender activist. I didn't hear much talk about gender related issues either. Maybe that's a result of being in a predominately male family (2 brothers, my mom, and dad). Maybe that's part of the reason I'm drawn to gender issues.

I also grew up in a family that moved around frequently. As such you learn to develop an ability to try to blend in with the crowd or reach a middle ground with whatever group you're with or otherwise not cause many problems. Since most people I knew would either move away or I would, it became a necessary component in my life to learn to "go with the flow." Being a minority myself and having to live in places of cultural diversity and not so much cultural diversity made me see that things weren't one sided. Ultimately I learned to find try to find common ground, and it's this approach that I wanted to bring to gender issues.

Lastly, it was my experience in college that got me really interested in activism and gender issues. Before college, I wasn't really introduced to feminist rhetoric, ideas on privilege, patriarchy, etc. In fact they were relatively new ideas to me. It made me question where I had been all these years, because apparently everyone else knew all of this stuff already. So I became interested and started learning more about the problems people were pointing out and why the problems existed or where they stemmed from. One thing I noticed immediately though, was that things seemed very divisive, everyone was divided into their own camps (or multiple camps for members of multiple groups). Having to navigate multiple groups most of my life, I became a little turned off by this divisiveness. So that led me to trying to approach things in a more inclusive manner, and really to try to hear both sides. So I guess that's mainly what drove me here.

An Introduction to ZoBabe

2008-11-18T00:41:00.000-08:00

I’d like to thank BigFred for making this blog, and I’m excited to post here! I do identify as a feminist, but have seen and understand the lack of inclusion many men feel in participating in a “feminist” dialogue. I believe that true gender equality cannot be achieved without open dialogue and understanding between the genders.

One of the reasons I identify as feminist, is that it was the community that I found where I could comfortably discuss how gender stereotypes have affected my life, especially in the choices I have made in relationships with men. I have survived isolated incidents of gender-based violence, as well as the (apparently) prerequisite abusive relationship in my early adulthood. In retrospect... Yeah, why didn’t I just leave?

This is one of the many ways we, men and women, internalize the gender stereotypes of our culture. I didn’t “just leave,” because I had internalized the message that “good strong women stand by their men," as well as that failed relationships, no matter what the reason, would be seen as my personal failures as a woman. I also received a lot of misguided support from those around us for being so “traditional,” and not “just another feminist.”

In retrospect, it seems ridiculous. I inhibited my chances for autonomy and happiness for far longer than was necessary, and certainly didn’t do him any favors in the process. Fortunately, rather than falling into a lifelong pattern of such mistakes, I learned from the experience and moved on. In no small part, I thank feminism for that.

However, it has come to my attention that this sort of non-judgmental community, to discuss how our experiences and preconceptions affect our choices, relationships, and lives, seems be very gender segregated and one sided. While a safe community in which to discuss like experience can be a life saver, the “women are like this,” “men are like that” arguments are what got us into this mess in the first place.

I am honored to have been asked to contribute to a gender neutral community to respectfully address gender preconceptions, and the experiences both men and women face that shape our lives and societies.

It’s a grand experiment, let’s hope it takes off!

Two Sided Coin

2008-11-15T16:32:00.001-08:00

A recent post at Glenn Sacks sparked some thoughts. The post is about the treatment of mothers who kill their children by the media. The new blogger on the team talks missing questions about the father inherent in the articles about the mother and goes on to describe the minimization of fathers in these kinds of situations. He also talks about what he describes as unfair judgment on the father, that a father in similar situation as the mother would be condemned. There is some valid criticism here, but what really struck me was this point.

So this story falls into the familiar pattern – when women behave badly, we seek to understand why; when men behave badly, we judge and condemn them. One approach is love and understanding; the other is condemnation. The difference is based on the sex of the bad actor.

That sexism is destructive in itself, but it's worse than that, for both men and women. By failing to treat equally the bad parenting of mothers and fathers, the media, pundits, etc. promote the idea that women are qualified to be parents and men are not. (This article does more than just suggest that the mother was a perfectly good parent in need of help.)

So this is an example of how sexism hurts men from his point of view. He goes on to say:

in doing so, they encourage women to engage in the role of parent and men not to. That obviously encourages the wide array of discrimination men face in family courts today. After all, if men aren't good parents, why enforce their parental rights?

It also tends to turn women away from work as their primary occupation which results in the lower wages and savings, fewer promotions and greater vulnerability to financial risk in old age we see in women today. Every article like this is a two-sided coin for women. The side we see is the one that extols women as parents; the side we don't see is the one that nudges them away from work and financial equality.

It's good to hear also how the portrayal of fathers affects women also. I think he has a valid point in that constant denigration of fathers and fatherhood in general can contribute to reinforcing traditional gender roles for women. Women view themselves as the better parent and fathers as the ones more likely to cause problems, which therefore contributes to that traditional idea that "the home is where women belong." I find his point about the two-sided coin to be especially apt here. The negative impact on fathers is also felt as it discourages fathers from taking a different role in parenting. Overall, I find his last statement to be the most compelling:

For parents of both sexes, it's a lose-lose proposition. Equal treatment of men and women in the media benefits both sexes.

What do you all think?

The Fight for Equality

2008-11-13T15:05:00.001-08:00

Feminists hate men. MRA's hate women. These two statements sum up a many of the feelings feminists and men's groups have about each other. Wow, wouldn't it be nice if we could get along. Alas, it seems these two activist groups are perpetually at odds with each other. Is there any common ground? I for one think that there is. One possibility is instead of the constant focus on DIY approach, we could focus on the things we have in common instead of the differences. This could be one approach to having constructive dialogue on gender related issues. What do you all think?

About Gender Critics

2008-11-12T22:58:00.001-08:00

Gender Critics was started to promote a more neutral and inclusive way of talking about gender issues. The purpose of these blog is to promote discussion on gender issues without the partisanship. There are many activists groups fighting for equality but seemingly at odds with other activists groups. These groups should be united in fighting for equality. To that end, Gender Critics is here to promote a more united front for equality. All are welcome here.