Simple Sexism: Looking In

I was talking with a woman who works at a cafe I go to about what we each did over the weekend, and I found out that she was in two bike races! I like talking with her because she really likes exercise, and is one of those people who sort of radiates athleticism. Folks like that can be really encouraging to me, when I meet them in day-to-day life, because they can help reinforce the idea that one doesn’t have to be a full-time athlete to be healthy, or even athletic. Weeks ago she had mentioned a tough yoga class she was taking at the college she goes to, and I asked her how it was going now. She told me that she dropped the class--her friends had dropped out of it, it was at an inconvenient time, and there was another problem: Creepy guys from the gym next door kept walking back and forth next to her classroom, staring through the windows at the women doing yoga.

My heart sank.

It’s such a simple kind of sexism, and yet these men managed to discourage this woman enough to have her opt out of her class. It’s a good guess that most of the men don’t even think twice about staring in at the women doing yoga--or if they do, they imagine that they themselves would really love it if women stared at them while working out, not acknowledging the contextual differences between the two situations. And it my cafe buddy made this decision very matter-of-fact-ly: Too many creepy guys, so she stopped going. This is just the kind of decision she sometimes has to make, as if guys looking in at you while you exercise is just something true about the world that you have to deal with, like taking an umbrella with you when it’s raining.

But that sort of sexism isn’t a given--as men, we can recognize how that might make women feel, and adjust our actions accordingly. We might call other men out on it. We might help create a world where the literal male gaze isn’t just one more hazard to be figured in while walking through the world.

Sex-Negativity in Porn Criticism

Whenever folks talk or blog about porn, there are always strong reactions (and lots of hits!), often overstated or oversimplified. I noted a long time ago that I agree with Lisa Jervis when she asks: Can't we talk about porn without having the same conversations over and over again? Human sexuality is complex, and our relationship to porn is complex--the conversations we may want to have about porn should necessarily be kinda intricate.

That said, why is it that most porn criticism I read tends to have an undertone of sex negativity? I like criticizing porn--there are so many reasons to do so, and I think it's important to not just take so-called "porn culture" as a given. We should criticize the industry for its sexism, racism and transphobia (of course, such criticisms should also be dealt out for most industries!). We can examine the ways in which porn and easy access to it can, has and will change our sex lives. But I wish that we were having such conversations within a larger conversation about positive sexuality, rather than framing the conversations within mostly heteronormative, not-kink-friendly frameworks.

Take Marina Robinson's article about the ways in which porn viewing may be changing the structures in the brains of young men. There's some interesting stuff in there. In particular, it's interesting to read her take on how the so-called "reward circuitry" of the brain may reinforce sexual habits in a way that we may want to pay close attention to. I'd say that the science still seems "iffy" to me, but it definitely worth lots of more study, and, like I said, it's interesting.

And yet, she has to throw in subtle moralizing that, for me, undermines her persuasiveness. For instance, she says:

"Masturbation based on imagining affectionate contact with a real potential mate is stimulating enough, especially for a teenager. But masturbation based on shocking stimuli, by gradually numbing the brain, can shift the user’s priorities away from real potential mates."

There is a lot of loaded language here, and it seems to me that she must know that the language is loaded--she was a lawyer before going into the porn-criticizing business with her husband, so I imagine she chooses her words very carefully! And yet, she is above saying quite clearly that one's priorities when having sexual fantasies should be on one's "real potential mates".

To which I ask: Why? And who gets to decide that? I mean, if one's sexual fantasy life is larger than one wants it to be, that's one thing--but the idea that, somehow, the goal of fantasizing is to only imagine "affectionate contact with a real potential mate" seems (if you'll pardon me) perverse.

And this betrays her view of masturbation in general, a view which has rung out through the ages: Masturbation is practice for the real thing. And this is a limited (and limiting) viewpoint. Masturbation can be practice, for sure. But it can also be having fun with oneself. Sometimes we may want to simply be alone and jerk off. Of course we might want to take care that we don't over-isolate by doing so, and we will need to navigate our other sexual relationships (if I jack off too much when I'm alone, and don't feel like having sex with a partner, that does mean something). But starting from a place where we only masturbate as practice is limiting ourselves unnecessarily.

And the sex-negativity comes out in other ways. I mean, she argues against the use of "sex toys" (though she doesn't define what a sex toy is--are buttplugs sex toys? are feathers? how about a bed?) as another "overstimulator". These are toys! You play with them! Of course they shouldn't be the only thing you use to get off--unless, of course, that's what you're into.

It's stuff like the above that makes me question whether the science is being made to fit very limited views of sexuality, rather than coming in to explain what's going on.

A Bunch of Men Argue About a Woman's Right to Choose, Part 4,580,800

This is a fascinating piece of video to watch. It's long--I recommend watching it while doing some chores or whatever, but then you won't get anything done, because you'll keep coming back to it. The short version is this: A bunch of men argue about a bill to restrict a woman's right to choose, and the only woman who attempts to speak (at 1:09:15) is first of all repeatedly not recognized to speak, and then is shut down, even in the face of her pointing out that a bunch of men have just been allowed to speak about a law that only affects women.



Hat tip to: Crooks and Liars, although the folks at C&L then also cut off the sole woman congressperson by cutting off the clip just as she begins to speak. Sheesh.

If I Don't Lurve the Good Men Project, Am I Evil?

Recently I wrote about how much I was enjoying The Takeback, and about why I enjoy it more than The Good Men Project. I prefaced that piece by noting how exciting and great it is to have so much good writing around redefining masculinity in positive ways--when I started blogging, this just wasn't so much the case.

Thomas Matlack didn't *quite* appreciate my "faint praise" of his GMP, which is sort of understandable--who loves faint praise? And yet, I think his response to my criticisms deserves a response. Thomas says:

Well as the founder of THE GOOD MEN PROJECT I take this as faint praise as worthy of the cause. I actually think manhood in 2011 is a complex topic that doesn't fall easily into one user fits all definition, of what it means to be good, a good dad, husband, worker, son or man. That's why we promote discussion rather than playing God. If you want to hear what you already believe perhaps that is uncomfortable. But we think its important. Please come join us.

So. Here goes.
@Thomas:

Thanks for stopping by--it's always nice when the A-listers (a published book and a for-profit blog? I say you're an A-lister!) take notice.

I do have to ask: Are the ALL CAPS really necessary? I mean, I already linked to your site a couple of times. Then again, you're making money and I'm not, so what do I know about promotion? :)

I don't appreciate the condescension ("if you want to hear what you already believe perhaps that is uncomfortable"), but such a response does rather reinforce my point that I don't enjoy GMP as much as The Takeback, in part because the GMP isn't explicitly pro-feminist. If you *really* think that my preference for explicitly pro-feminist writing means that I only want to hear what I already believe, then we probably don't have a lot to "converse" about. :)

That said, I've already responded on your site (in some comments) to all y'all's "boilerplate" response to criticism, which amounts to, "Hey, we don't take sides (or, "play God", as you put it--though most people wouldn't count necessary, practical editing of content as playing god) because we want everybody in the conversation."

I had a complaint, which was part of a conversation, on your site. The "conversation" that was being had started with a post that can be summed up as "men shouldn't get married because women are gold-digging bitches and the courts hate men because of feminism" included this super interesting sage advice:
"

Learn from your partner’s behavior. How does she act when you disappoint her? What is her reaction to hearing the word “no,” or when you choose your way instead of her way? If she takes it in stride and moves on, then you might have a keeper. However, if she responds to the fact that you went golfing when she didn’t want you to by cutting you off in the bedroom for a few days, or by telling you how selfish and immature you are for having any interests that don’t revolve around her, what do you imagine she will do when she fully believes that you are responsible for every ill in her life?

"

When some folks (who are, y'know, part of the conversation that you're all wanting to have, right?) criticized the author (I use the term loosely) for not only his bitterness, but also his thinly veiled misogyny, and then criticized all y'all for your editorial decisions around letting this douche post his bile, one of your editors chimed in with your boilerplate editorial response to criticism:

Henry P. Belanger says: Mordicai, would you like our staff determining / defining “good” for everyone? It’s unfortunate that our name can be misleading, but I think you’d agree that a magazine that told everyone how to be good wouldn’t be around very long. Goodness also entails being open, listening to divergent voices, allowing for the possibility that people’s minds can be changed, believing that “once bad” doesn’t mean “always bad,” etc, etc. I can’t tell you how many comments we’ve had in the past 8 months that sarcastically put “good men” in quotes, suggesting that we did not meet their standards for goodness. these commenters have come from all across the political / ideological spectrum. The more it happens, the more confident I am that our approach here — being a wide, open marketplace for ideas — is the good approach to take.

I responded with this:

Your “editorial” position is either not well thought out, disingenuous, or both. Putting forward that you want to encourage conversation doesn’t absolve you of drawing *some* lines. There are men, after all, who believe that “being a good man” includes physically and emotionally dominating women and other men–-presumably you wouldn’t allow a well-written, clear article which centered “being a good man” on how to beat the crap out of any person who challenges one’s opinion. So, you do draw lines circumscribing the conversation that have nothing to do with how well-written something is. You just don’t keep folks like Paul Elam from adding his voice to the conversation. What folks like Mordicai and SaraMC are saying (in part) is that this sort of unsupported tripe isn’t just one more opinion among many (as you imply)–rather, it’s unsupported misogynist tripe.

Which is fine. It’s your site. Just don’t expect everybody to pretend along with you that it’s a useful conversation.

Short version: Criticism of your site and/or its authors is part of the conversation.

I'll probably keep reading The GMP (for some reasons I'll give below). So, in effect, I already have joined your conversation. But I'll likely keep complaining that you're giving voice to opinions that aren't "complex"--they're sometimes misogynistic. And you'll continue to get called out on that for as long as people who read your site care about women (and men, and folks of all genders). Saying "it's all a conversation" doesn't get you off the hook for criticism of the editorial choices you are making.

Having said all of that, there are some things I like about the GMP, in the way that I will read BUST magazine, but prefer Bitch magazine, if I can get it--you're writing to men about alternative masculinities, even if I'm of the opinion that at least some of those masculinities aren't alternative at all, but rather more of the same (e.g. MRAs who love privilege and making more money than women but hate alimony). I mean, right now you've got a great post by a transguy. It will be a long time before traditional men's magazines have such an article, I'd guess. So, yay, I welcome the GMP. That doesn't mean I have to always loooooove it.

Shall I STFU?

Or:
It's All About Me, Right?

Sometimes, I don't do well with people who are in positions of authority. It may be the case that I have a neurotic problem with authority--in part because I grew up watching my mother struggle with sexism in her workplace, with her husband, and in the larger world. I think that having "problems with authority" may be a relatively healthy reaction to an unhealthy society, where it is often the case that those in power are harming those with less power. What is an appropriate response to oppression, other than a desire to fight back? (Of course, this is oversimplifying--other responses include caretaking of self and others, compassion and empathy. But I think a desire to fight should be in there too.)

And yet, there is another aspect of my resistance-to-authority, and it is rooted in patriarchy. Men are taught The Hierarchy, and are shown over and over again, that they have a place in it--above some men, below others, above all women, etc. And generally, we are told, we should be striving to be as high up on that ladder as we can be. This is putting it very starkly, of course, but this is essentially a big part of what men are taught. So, I resist authority in part because, on some levels, I want to be higher up on that ladder of hierarchy than the men (and women, and folks of all genders) who are currently above me.

Given these two factors, and many others, my instant reaction to having bullshit called on me, and/or being told to shut the fuck up, is that my hackles go up, and all of my defenses come to the fore. (Of course, having the safety and space to be defensive, may be a reflection/product of my own privilege.) So I am sometimes left in the following position, when somebody is attempting to call me on what they see as my own bullshit: I have to decide--Are they right, in which case I need to stand down and apologize? Or are they being bullies, in which case I need to step up and perhaps take them down a notch?

And sometimes the question is very easy to answer: If I use the word "lame" and get called out for ableist language, it's pretty clear that I need to apologize and take a step back to examine my privilege in that regard. (For some reason, "lame" has been a hard habit to break for me.) If an MRA guy tries to call me out for not including his woes around child support in a post about how women make less, on average, than men, I can be pretty assured that he's a douche and a bully, and is trying to impose his opinion in a way that isn't helpful (in part because of the aforementioned privilege that makes him think he needs to/deserves to move up the ladder with every interaction). And of course, somebody can (correctly) call me on my bullshit and also be cruel and rude about it: But that doesn't make them a bully in the sense that I'm talking about. It matters who is holding privilege--women feminists being cruel to me can cause me some pain, but they (generally) aren't using their privilege to do so. Which, y'know, matters.


Sometimes, though, it really is hard to tell whether I am responding to a sincere bullshit-call-out or a bully. And in these cases, I tend to err on the side of re-examining my own privilege, because, really, who couldn't stand to do that some more? Also: I don't have to stand up to every bully myself--I am part of various communities that do social justice work, and there are lots of people ready to stand up to bullies in those communities. And this is also a situation that will always recur: Given that I live in a patriarchal society, and given that I engage with both activists and folks in the larger world, I will sometimes screw up and get called on my own bullshit, and I will sometimes run into bullies who need to be stood up to. It just will happen.

All of which is to say that I have myriad reactions when I read Twisty's words at I Blame the Patriarchy:

But really, it’s comical, the predictability with which dudes who fancy themselves feministically enlightened just can’t seem to shut the fuck up when they are found to be duding the joint up a little too hardcore.

My first reaction is that my hackles go up. (Ok, my *first* reaction is to chuckle at "duding the joint up," because that's great use of language.) But then I reflect on where that feeling I'm having is coming from (privilege!), and where the criticism is coming from (Twisty, who knows her stuff, generally)--and I have to let it go. And it's not that I can say, "Well, she's not talking about me." She *is* talking about me, and men like me, when we screw up and can't see our privilege getting in the way of our thinking and talking. It does happen, even to those of us who are trying to not let that happen. I do my best, and I will sometimes get it wrong. Nobody likes to think of themselves like a douchebag, but all of us find ourselves saying stupid stuff sometimes, getting things wrong sometimes. So, sometimes, if I'm told to STFU, it's good to do just that.

The Straight Guy Box

Thinking a lot about the lack of positive male sexualities, especially for straight-identified men, in part because of a recent post by Hugo.And then, I run into this funny-yet-poignant piece from Dan Savage (who I often agree with and who is often wrong) that sums up a lot of what I've been pondering:

Men's Stories

New men's stories in November during two nights of performance of the Men's Story Project. Anybody who lives in the SF Bay Area, we'd love to see you there. Even more info at the Men's Story Project site, and on Facebook.

A little taste of a previous MSP:

It Would Be Dark (Like This Blog Has Been for a While)

This is how I feel about feminism right now:
Not that feminism is dark, of course, just that it's very complex and can produce endless debate--and for right now, most of what I can come up with isn't much more than something like "It would be dark."

But I'm getting there. Hopefully back soon.

Roe v. Wade

On this, the 35th Anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, I'm digging Courtney Martin's take on things, which includes complex analysis and inclusion of the opinions of many:

As we celebrate the 35th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade this week, I hope we can remember a bit of the spirit at the Women's March for Choice in Washington, D.C. -- a gathering of over a million people according to some estimates -- back in 2004. Surrounded by men, women and children of all ages, I felt empowered to stand up for every woman's legal right to reproductive choice (not to mention health), but also free to disclose my complicated feelings over the issue. There was space for transformational dialogue as we lay in the grass, listening to the diverse speakers. There was time to look women of all ages in the eyes and say, "This is where I'm coming from. How about you?"

Gender in Comics: How Soft is Your World?

I was probably one of the last people to discover A Softer World, an interesting 'comic' that utilizes pictures of the real world, but sticks to a three-panel daily comic form. Usually the third panel has some sort of turn-around in thought. Mostly they are charming, funny, and full of bleak humor--and the bleakness is certainly part of the humor. One often finds oneself thinking, "Ouch!" while chuckling all the same. For a good example, check out this one. But sometimes, not so much. After reading through a bunch of their archives, I've found way too many references to violence against women than one would have expected from such a witty source.

As is par for the course with a lot of the comics I detail here, I actually really like this comic, generally. So, once again, this is tough love.

There Is Always More 'Humor' About Stalking, It Seems
Am I an old feminist curmudgeon? Perhaps. But this sort of thing still doesn't touch my funny bone at all:


I Said Peanuts
Poisoning Somebody? Not funny. Thinking About Poisoning Somebody? Funny...?


See What I Did There?
Another reference to domestic violence that's not really happening, so it can be funny, right?


The Cat's Out of the Bag, Hopefully
And finally, just out and out 'humorous' misogyny!
Because fantasizing about killing all of your ex-girlfriends and then playing video games is hilarious.

Gender in Comics: The Women As Objects Edition

I'm going to pick on F-Minus a bit this week, but that's not because I think it's more of a problem regarding gender stereotypes than any other comics. In fact, it's often better around gender and race. I love F-Minus. So think of this as tough love.

What Better Present Than a "Secretary"?
The root of this joke is pretty funny, actually--the idea that somebody would employ somebody around their home for writing daily emails or whatever (though how a secretary would do that with a steno pad isn't clear--I think the steno is there in lieu of a nametag that says "secretary", as an identifier). Thing is, as it stands, it's just creepy, what with the short-ish skirt and the fact that, by default, the secretary is a woman.

Even Creepier: A Womb as a View
Or is my title for this comic even creepier? Probably.
I think what bothers me most about this is that this represents at least a couple of things going on here that are only very slightly magnified for so-called comic effect--things that people do and experience daily. The sign isn't far from how some men talk and think about women. And the experience of having to walk by such a sign, as a woman, isn't far from the general harassment many women go through daily.

Dating Women as a Class of Things
There's an interesting storyline going on in Monty over the past few weeks, which I'll probably talk more about, because it's relatively nuanced for a comic. But some of the first strips are great examples of what men sometimes do: They attempt to date a gender, rather than a person:
Single? Check. Woman? Check. And that's all it takes, because they're interchangeable objects!

bell hooks Monday: God and Love and All That Good Stuff

Since I haven't responded yet in detail regarding a bunch of comments from my post Can God Be a Feminist?, I thought I would at least offer up a different point of view (than my own) from one of my favorite feminists on god and worship. For bell hooks, what is central to the necessity of a spiritual life is the need to keep our focus on love. It's interesting to note that she moved from being a Christian, to becoming interested in Buddhism and Islamic mysticism, to just keeping in mind that love is where we often find truth.

From Wounds of Passion:

"When I come to college, it does not take me long to realize that the really hip people do not believe in god, that no one talks about religion expect the boring born against. My relationship to god is the most private union. I learn not to speak of it. Although in classes it is always I who can name a scriptural reference. I konw the bible and am not ashamed of this knowing. In fact, it surprises me that everyone in my classes is so ignorant, mostly though they brag about being atheist. That's what is really cool--to not believe in the existence of god. I believe."(pp 152)

I had a moderately different experience in college. I did meet some self-professed atheists in college, but mostly I meet people who claim agnosticism, or a generalized 'spirituality' not unlike what hooks tells us she ends up with. Of course, the atheists I did run across there (some of whom became friends!) were relatively vocal in their atheism not unlike the people hooks seems to be talking about. Hooks, for her part, moves along from her Christianity to look around for other paths:

"Mack finds my devotion to religion strange. I have moved away from the conventional church but I have kept in me the love of the inner life, the need to be one with the divine. I search for the meaning of religious life everywhere. I study Buddhism and Islamic mysticism. In town there is a Sufi meeting. I go there to dance in the circle of love. And that I am learning about the mystical dimensions of religious faith takes me back to the heart, to loving. To be with god is to love. It is required and understood that a man be found faithful. The ethics of being that govern my life are grounded in spiritual life.(pp152-153)"

Who can argue with love, or paying attention to one's inner life? I find it interesting that hooks doesn't seem to explicitly talk about the misogynist aspects of various religions--though I haven't read everything she has written. She does, however, express various ways in which religion has left her wanting--the white Buddhists who say race doesn't matter because we all choose our race, those who try to force their beliefs on others, the difficulties of letting go of the things in this world in order to be more spiritual. In the end, she likes the seeking--seeking seems to be her religion:

"I contemplate my work. I pray for divine guidance. It comes between me and Mack that I am turning from poetry to writing critical essays, on subjects that are more political. He feels I am abandoning the aesthetics of the artists life for the mundane realm of social theory. I am trying to invent a world that can sustain me as a writer, as a woman dedicated to the life of the mind. I want to remain a seeker on the path."(pp160)

I sometimes feel this way about feminism itself, actually. The infighting just kills me sometimes. And, the need for the infighting--there are real problems that need to be addressed--kills me too. When I start feeling like abandoning feminism for, say, humanism or some such, one thing that helps me is to understand the ways in which my relationship to feminism has developed, and the ways in which feminism itself has changed and grown, is to look at it in a similar way to the way that hooks is looking at religion. Seeking a better and better feminism seems to be the way to go--still seeking, even while unhappy with the current path. (Of course, I feel this way about humanism, and anti-racism, and lots of other ways of framing the world.)

Shorter Gloria Steinem:

Systems of oppression involving gender and race can only be uprooted together, but gender is way more important than race.

Early on in her latest op-ed piece, she says:

Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House.

And then a bit later:

I’m not advocating a competition for who has it toughest. The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together.

Um, yeah, you know, you sort of are advocating a competition, what with claims of what is the most restricting force in American life. And then you offer 'evidence' for this view by noting that black men got the vote before any woman did, ignoring (just off the top of my head) lots of other facts, like the fact that white women weren't literally slaves as black men and women were. Just as a for-instance. Sheesh.

I'm disappointed in the extreme with Steinem's writing here, which feels for all the world to me like Steinem hasn't heard a word that has been said in the past three or so decades from those who have been rightly critical of feminism for being stupid about race.

What Men Can Do Wednesday: Get Some Help with Being an Ally

There is a great discussion going on over at Creek Running North on an 'Ally 101' thread started by Theriomorph around how to be a good feminist ally, and how to keep one's privilege and racism in check as much one can. I encourage everybody who isn't already reading it to check it out.

Some of the comments are simply put, but full of good advice. From commentor Christina, of Say Nothing Charmingly, in particular sticks with me:

I really just think that listening, leavened with a touch of empathy, is what is needed. Since historically, white folks haven’t had to listen to others much, nor feel empathy for others much, it’s not as easy as it sounds to learn it.

Hat tip to BlueAlto.

Tuesday Gender in Comics: Stereotypes and Double-Standards

MmmmMm...Canned Soup and Waffles...
First up, Calvin's dad provides the model for the supposed 'typical' dad, when faced with preparing dinner:
Gender stereotypes are interesting, especially when they feel sort of rooted in reality. Men aren't encouraged to learn to cook as much as women are (unless you get to the 'chef' level of cooking, and then there are more jobs for male chefs than female chefs, and a lot of sexism from higher-ups, apparently). But of course lots of men do love to cook, and lots of women are happier making soup and waffles. My stepfather loves to cook, and my mother (like me) doesn't like it so much. It works out great for both of them, because she often cleans up (and enjoys his meals!), and he gets to do what he thinks is pretty fun (I don't get it), and make meals.

Growing Fat and Love Handles
A 'classic' For Better or For Worse spells out a double-standard pretty clearly:
It's interesting to note that this 'classic' strip is probably 15 years old, at least (rather than just retire outright, Lynn Johnston has opted to do some new strips and some 'flashback' strips), so it may be slightly dated, but still mostly holds true. I think things are changing in this regard, at least in the realm of the pressures of advertising. Men are more and more encouraged to buy products that help them appear/feel younger-looking, thinner, hairless and the like. I would be happy that things are evening out if it weren't for the fact that they are evening out in the 'wrong' direction; instead of people of all genders being happier and healthier at various sizes, men are becoming (to some degree, anyway) objectified in ways that will likely not be good for their self-value.

It's Just That Simple
Mutt 'n' Jeff sum it up:

Men like to read. Women like to shop. Enough said!

bell hooks Monday: Men Who Change

Sorry, only enough time for some insightful words from bell herself this morning. Back to more regular posting soon.

From The Will to Change:

"It is not easy for males, young or old, to reject the codes of patriarchal masculinity. Men who choose against violence ar esimultaneously choosing against patriarchy, wherther they can articulate that choice or not." (pp73)

"Ultimately, the men who choose agaisnt violence, against death, do so because they want to live fully and well, because they want to know love. These men who are true heroes, the men whose lives we need to know about, honor and remember." (pp74)

Men Who Do Feminist Work -- The Men of the Movie "Protagonist":Mark Pierpont, Joe Loya, Mark Salzman and Hans-Joachim Klein

I recently had the great pleasure of watching Jessica Yu's film, Protagonist. I am sometimes a bit of a documentary film junkie, and I was looking around for something to watch on ye old online-dvd-in-the-mail service's webpage, and ran into this film. Yu has several other prior films to her credit, and I haven't seen any of them, though I hope to see them all, now that I've seen this one.

The premise of the documentary is simple: Yu interlaces the stories of four men who, on the face of it, only seem to have a few things in common. As the film goes on, the relationships between the men's stories begin to come into focus, and it turns out that all four men have been struggling with various strains of traditional masculinity, and, though self-analyzing struggle, have found different sorts of masculinities to embrace.

I'm being extremely heavy-handed in my analysis, but the film itself has a pretty light touch. It wasn't until the last third of the movie that I realized that masculinity was really at the center of things for these men--and recognizing the ways in which they could reject rigid gender roles helped them to overcome some of the central difficulties of their lives. Feminism isn't mentioned by name here, and it's pretty clear that the men involved might not characterize themselves as doing feminist work, but, since feminist theory has done so much of the heavy lifting as regards railing against traditionally rigid gender roles, I say they are doing feminist work nonetheless.

I encourage everybody who is interested in documentary storytelling, men who are struggling with traditional conceptions of masculinity, and pro-feminist men in general to check out the film. And I don't think I can encourage you to do so more than by giving a bit of background on these four men. From the movie's site:

The Stories At the heart of each man's story is the quest to transcend his imperfections. While each man's motivations are highly personal, the stories demonstrate how the individual struggle between fate and character can have far-reaching consequences.

HANS-JOACHIM KLEIN suffers through a cruel childhood in a working class neighborhood near Frankfurt, Germany. When Klein joins the leftist movement in the 1970s, he is driven as much by idealism as by the desire to rebel against his authoritarian father, a cop. As Klein's activism evolves from radicalism to terrorism, he becomes a trusted comrade in the Revolutionary Cells (RZ), an offshoot of the notorious Baader-Meinhof gang. With the RZ he joins Carlos the Jackal in the violent kidnapping of eleven OPEC ministers, which leaves three people dead and Klein with a near-fatal gunshot wound.

MARK PIERPONT has a strict religious upbringing in New Jersey. The "black sheep" of the family, he realizes his attraction to other men, but desperately wants to avoid this sentence to "eternal hell." Pierpont's drive to suppress his homosexuality leads him to become a missionary, preaching abroad to crowds of thousands. Back in the states he infiltrates gay bars to spread the word of Jesus, convincing himself that his "homosexual problem" has been cured.

JOE LOYA also comes from a home steeped in both love and fear of God, as enforced by his zealous father. At age seven, Loya's mother dies, and his father's grief explodes into violence against Joe and his brother. When Loya finally fights back against years of abuse, the act of dethroning his father ignites a sense of intense power, of triumph over hypocrisy and brutality. Loya's determination to recapture that thrill leads him to his own life of brutality, in which he eventually robs over thirty banks.

MARK SALZMAN comes from suburban Connecticut. The smallest boy in his class, he is the subject of relentless torment from his peers and his mild-mannered parents offer little guidance. Upon seeing the show "Kung Fu" on television, Salzman is convinced that he can achieve personal transformation through the study of martial arts. Though he becomes best friends with the chief bully in his school, Salzman's quest to become a man of physical and spiritual strength is warped by his allegiance to a sadistic master.

PROTAGONIST seeks not to judge its subjects or make political pronouncements, but rather to use these stories as a window into human nature. Though our subjects' backgrounds are diverse, their shared experience points to a universal conflict: the conflict between the desire to control our world, and to accept our fundamental limitations.

What these descriptions don't tell you is that all four men were able to creating something of a reversal of their own fortunes, even though there was still a cost associated with how they were before the reversal.

Thanks for Jessica Yu, and to these four men, for creating such an interesting window into the inner lives of men and their relationship to traditionally rigid conceptions of masculinity.

New Book!

Y'all should check out Shira Tarrant 's new anthology by/about/for pro-feminist men:
Men Speak Out: Views on Gender, Sex, and Power.

I can't hide that I'm jealous as heck that the piece I submitted didn't make it into this anthology, because it looks pretty neato. I'll be buying it in spite of my bitter heart, and I'll enjoy it, dammit!

Men Doing Feminist Work: Michael Flood

Michael Flood is one of the 'fathers' of the modern pro-feminist men's movement, and an activist for feminism among men. He's one of the founders of XYOnline, a resource for pro-feminist men. And do I mean a resource. The Men's Bibliography alone would warrant much thanks for Michael. It's organized by subject, and contains thousands of article listings of interest to feminist men. (Though I do have reservations about the Men's Strength campain that XYOnline supports, as I think it helps to support rigid traditional gender roles to some extent--i.e. that strength=masculine.) He's critical of the so-called Men's Rights movement (and various offshoots/related movements) in a serious way. The trap that some pro-feminist men fall into is to attack these movements as some sort of man-on-man grudge match. Instead, Flood uses (in part) core feminist principles to ask pointed questions.

I particularly like his analysis (available as a PDF here) of Men's Rights advocates as riding a wave of conservatism, all the while claiming the mantle of 'new fatherhood':

Anti-feminist men’s groups have ridden the wave of right-wing backlashes against “political correctness” and efforts at social justice.In Australia as in other Western countries, the 1980s and 1990s saw the slowing down, or development of obstacles to, progress in women’s equality and gender justice. Australia underwent an economic and social restructuring, involving the winding back of the welfare state and the increasing dominance of market economics and economic rationalism. There have been at least three forms of attack on gender justice, part of the “revolt against behaving fairly”: justifications of social inequalities through biological determinism, social Darwinism and Sociobiology; attacks on policies or principles which have been a central part of feminist agendas such as equal opportunity and affirmative action legislation; and claims of a repressive ideological regime of ‘political correctness’. Anti-feminist men’s groups are a fourth, and they have taken up such discourses themselves in asserting pro-sexist agendas.

I'll probably talk more about Michael in future editions of Men Doing Feminist work, because, well, he's done a lot of work. But in the meantime, some linky goodness:


Wikipedia Article.
Men's Bibliography.
XYOnline

What Men Can Do Wednesday: Mix It Up

Over my Xmas holiday, I spent a good deal of time watching my nephew open and enjoy some presents, but even more time sitting around with friends and chosen family, mostly eating. I had a lot of good food (but not too much, strangely--I managed to avoid that way-way-way-too-full feeling this year), all of it pretty much prepared by other people. Sure, I did some slicing and salad making, but mostly what I did was dishes. This is something that comes directly from my upbringing--my mama taught me, if you're a guest and food is made for you, you help to clean up. (Exceptions can be made at homes where guests aren't allowed to do such things, by virtue of their guest-hood, but they are few and far-between.) I have extended this to a general rule that I clean up, since I don't enjoy cooking very much at all, and I even kind of enjoy cleaning up.

It's a simple thing, but with my non-chosen family and even friends from the past, too often things play out along gender roles, with men sitting and eating (and maybe carving a bird, or doing the outdoor grilling), but women doing most of the cooking and cleaning up. Even among people who are aware of the perils of rigid traditional gender roles, such roles reassert themselves mercilessly, and one has to keep an eye out for 'em.

One of the things that I love about my group of friends and chosen family is that there is a real effort to erase gender distinctions around who prepares food and who cleans and...well, we just all do a lot of work to make sure the meals turn out good and fun and delicious for everybody involved, and that nobody is left behind when it comes to the work of the meal, or the enjoyment of it (and, for me, they are intimately related). We also tended to choose meals which aren't that labor-intensive, so that we could hang out a bit more.

The other way men can mix it up is to literally mix up the little groups that split up during gatherings--several times I noticed that we had all broken down along gender lines completely, and a couple of times I decided to mix it up a bit. I'm happy to say that my friend group doesn't as often break down along those lines (though it does at times), and that we have enough queer-ish-ness to make some of those lines blurry from the start.

So: Little things, to be sure, but worthwhile nonetheless. Mix it up a bit, guys.