(Originally written as a comment on IndyLib’s fine diary, The F Word. The comment grew beyond its intended bounds, so…here it is. Uncut and unexpurgated. As they say when they are trying to sell dirty books. And uncircumcised males. [Talk about inequality!!!] What a way to start a life. “Hold still, kid. This will only hurt for about a lifetime.” SNNNNIP!!!)
At the risk of being inundated by angry feminists…I am a masculinist.
Never heard of it?
Precisely my point.
(Not the “Let’s go into the woods, get dirty and pound on some drums” kind. either…)
Read on.
If there can be such a thing as a feminist…then there MUST be masculinists, too.
Right?
Of course.
You CANNOT have “left” without “right”.
Up without down.
And this is not about male supremacists. THEIR complement is female inferiorists.
Nancy Reagan.
Pat Noxon
Ms. President Butch, whatever HER first name is besides “Butch’s wife.” Laura, right?
With a side order of female supremacists.
In the back parlor, late at night as often as not.
Miss Scarlet.
In the library, with a candlestick and Col. Mustard.
And/or Mrs. Peacock.
Clueless, all sides of THAT particular equation.
No…by “masculinist” I mean those who support the EQUALITY of men.
What would a masculinist be like?
Someone who stood for equal rights under the law and for equal treatment in the workplace and the media. Just like a feminist.
Right?
Now of course many will respond by saying that there are no masculinists because men are ALREADY well treated in the society.
But I could argue with that.
Women are portrayed as flighty, as weak and undependable? As defenseless? Stupid?
MEN are portrayed as heartless killers and compulsive thieves, as animals in constant, uncontrollable, violent rut.
Women are not well served in the workplace?
MEN are encouraged FROM BIRTH to go to war and get their asses shot off. To do the physically dirty work. Digging ditches, fighting fires, being cops ‘n robbers ‘n such.
Women are badly treated by society?
But it is MEN who die early, all worn out from the struggle to be whomever they have been told that they SHOULD be. Simply put…they work their hearts to death. A dog or horse who worked that hard would have books written about it.
Now before the “NAY!!!” chorus enters…let me confess that this was sort of a trick post.
Y’see…I am NOT a masculinist.
I am a proponent of human ecology.
Equal opportunity for all of the seven sexes. (Roughly counted.)
And all of the seven ages, too.
AND all the races, AND all the religions, etc. etc. etc.
A “humanist”, for want of a better word.
From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.
The OTHER Golden Rule.
And the idea of “feminism”, although entirely justifiable considering what has been done to women over the course of human history, is as incomplete without masculinism and the inevitable resultant issue of that marriage, humanism, as is a man or woman who has never mated.
But the very THOUGHT that men are EQUALLY as badly served in this system as women (although obviously in a different direction of bad service) is…well, you just never hear it.
Not really.
And NEVER on the left.
So…I just thought I’d bring it up.
Fire away.
AG
P.S. My mother is a “feminist”. Went to college in the ’30s, joined the Royal Canadian Air Force (along with my father) in ’38 when Canada entered W.W.II. (They were Americans. They just felt that it was time to draw a line.) Raised three children and a foster/grandchild and simultaneously went back to school, got her master’s degree and taught emotionally disturbed and mentally deficient children until at 80 her legs sorta gave out and she could no longer do the work to her own satisfaction.
And I am a “feminist”, too.
Since I was old enough to be interested in women as an opposite sex. (Say…3 years old. Really.) NEVER was with a woman who did not have her own mind, her own career, her own life. Can’t stand to be with dull people of ANY sex.
ESPECIALLY under the same roof.
Or the same covers.
So if you’re going to ready, aim, fire…don’t get personal.
We have met the enemy…ALL of us…and it ain’t me.
It ain’t me, babe.
Go ‘way from my window,
Leave at your own chosen speed.
I’m not the one you want, babe,
I’m not the one you need.
You say you’re lookin’ for someone
Never weak but always strong,
To protect you an’ defend you
Whether you are right or wrong,
Someone to open each and every door,
But it ain’t me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe,
It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe.
Go lightly from the ledge, babe,
Go lightly on the ground.
I’m not the one you want, babe,
I will only let you down.
You say you’re lookin’ for someone
Who will promise never to part,
Someone to close his eyes for you,
Someone to close his heart,
Someone who will die for you an’ more,
But it ain’t me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe,
It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe.
Go melt back into the night, babe,
Everything inside is made of stone.
There’s nothing in here moving
An’ anyway i’m not alone.
You say you’re looking for someone
Who’ll pick you up each time you fall,
To gather flowers constantly
An’ to come each time you call,
A lover for your life an’ nothing more,
But it ain’t me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe,
It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe.
“You say you’re lookin’ for someone
Never weak but always strong,
To protect you an’ defend you
Whether you are right or wrong,
Someone to open each and every door,
But it ain’t me, babe,
No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe,
It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe.”
Yup.
Dylan is a masculinist.
AND a feminist.
A humanist who never acceded to the stereotyping of his OWN sex.
Yup.
Even if he DOES use the “b” word.
Yup.
Rare, except amongst real artists.
VERY rare…
Even masculinists need love…
Tips, etc…
AG
Okay, one could get into a discussion about how “feminist” and “masculinist” are not two sides of the same coin, and about who is most badly served by the two sides of the inequality. And I’m sure some will and I am looking forward to hearing others discuss that with you.
For now, I just want to throw this out. As a 57-year-old feminist for whom early the 70’s round of feminism is critical to who I am today, the thing I could never get, then or now, was why the men in my little world didn’t seem to understand that they would benefit from true equality between the sexes also.
Most seemed to take it as, Yippee! I don’t have to have all the responsibility for being the sole breadwinner – and Oh boy! women now ask me for sex, I don’t always have to be the first to put my ego on the line – and never move past that.
Any thoughts? (I have my own, but I’d like to hear yours.) Most men in my world seem to think the whole subject is only interesting to women. It has been a great frustration for me not to be able to engage more men in the conversation.
What you say is quite true.
My idea is that there are as many truly committed “feminists” among men as there are among women.
Which is very damned few.
BUT…it all depends on how you define the word “feminist”.
There is a large portion of the so-called feminist world that is really more committed to female superiority than to female equality. They are reactionary, in that sense. They are reacting to eons of oppression.
Understandable, but ill considered in my view.
This attitude acted to isolate and repel men from the idea.
Plus…the oppressed portion of any society is ALWAYS more aware of what is happening than are the oppressors. Most of whom are just plain dumb.
“Why…OUR nigras is HAPPY nigras. It’s them damned Northern Yankees ‘n Jews been a’stirrin’ ’em UP!!!”
Same same here.
Plus…there was ABSOLUTELY no room for a male in the feminist movement. Still isn’t. At least in the civil rights movement white people’s help and input was welcomed, outside of the most radical groups. In the feminist movement…no way. If it had a dick, it was the enemy.
Could a man…or a few men…enter a feminist meeting and expect to get much more than polite (or NOT so polite) derision? Not the ones I saw around NYC + Boston/Cambridge.
So, what few males there were that had some intrinsic understanding of what was up…of how ALL of us would be better off if women were equal to men in all things…were driven AWAY from the movement.
Driven into a relatively inactive stance, anyway.
Friendly but ostracized.
You say “It has been a great frustration for me not to be able to engage more men in the conversation.”
Lots of very aware men were once or twice burned, thrice shy.
That’s what I saw and thought, anyway.
And then the reactionary-controlled hypno-media got ITS claws into it…and it was essentially over as far as myth and culture were concerned.
Bella Abzug was replaced with Lynda Carter (Wonder Woman on TV, a Gloria Steinem semi-lookalike) and that was that.
For several generations.
For the generation that is just turning 20-ish now, the twin bugaboos of “female liberation” and sexual disease forced the sexes apart in a TOTALLY unnatural way.
Sex as danger.
Sex as stress.
And NO one wanted to talk about THAT.
That’s my take on it, anyway.
A nasty situation, any way you look at it.
AG
There is a large portion of the so-called feminist world that is really more committed to female superiority than to female equality. They are reactionary, in that sense. They are reacting to eons of oppression.
I don’t think so. I mean I don’t believe any of those things to be true and I certainly don’t believe that the majority of women or even a ‘big chunk’ who self-identify as feminists are committed to ‘female superiority’, whatever that means. What does that mean? In what area(s) of life are feminists striving for ‘female superiority’. I trust we’re speaking of cultural change rather than, say, personal relationships, failed marriages etc?
instead of “a large portion”.
Or a “highly vocal and aggressive portion”.
I have been writing on the general left-wing blogosphere for about a year. A little less. And lurking for maybe another year. Plus I live a good part of my life in the NYC downtown arts scene and was politically and socially active in left wing circles in Boston and Cambridge before I came to NYC. I have encountered SO many truly offensive female superiority advocates…female chauvinist sows, to go with the old male chauvinist pig routine…both on the web and in real life, that I feel quite accurate when I say that there are a WHOLE DAMNED LOT of them.
The ones who, when ANY man dares speak to the problems and position of women, shout him down (or otherwise diss him) because he can’t POSSIBLY know what he’s talking about, being a man.
Others who…and I have observed THIS up close and personal,. as well…simply erect an attitude and leave it there on the table (for YEARS if necessary) if a male in ANY way threatens to know something or be able to do something that they cannot.
A non-threatening male.
A male who has no interest in them sexually or in terms of domination or any kind of competition whatsoever.
Just doing a job…I’m a musician and I work in commercial situations sometimes to make money. This is a running topic of conversation among musicians. I am not the ONLY one who sees it.
Not ALL women or ALL working women or ALL feminists.
Just some.
I will never forget the reception I got when I attended the PTA meeting at my son’s middle school…a public school in a “progressive” NYC suburb…and I was the only male in the room.
I may as well have been some kind of savage come to disrupt the proceedings and abscond with the goodies.
The LOOKS!!! “What could HE possibly know? The NERVE!!! Bet he’s trying to take over.” And I wasn’t. I was just…there.
It’s everywhere. Especially in the white middle and upper middle classes.
Bet on it.
And…it’s bullshit.
AG
The ones who, when ANY man dares speak to the problems and position of women, shout him down (or otherwise diss him) because he can’t POSSIBLY know what he’s talking about, being a man.
Others who…and I have observed THIS up close and personal,. as well…simply erect an attitude and leave it there on the table (for YEARS if necessary) if a male in ANY way threatens to know something or be able to do something that they cannot.
No, you don’t understand my question. What you’ve given me is a list of traits and reactions various women have had in response to you. Nothing about this list justifies the notion that these women, much less a ‘big chunk’ of feminists (and you’ve not presented evidence that these women consider themselves feminists either) seek a culture based on female superiority. And this was your somewhat overblown claim.
To be frank (and I tried to make this clear in my post to you)I’m not interested in your personal problems with relating to women. We’re not all going to have personalities or goals you approve of or are comfortable with. That’s the way the world works. But I will say that you really do not appear to understand what feminism is about. It seems to me that you use it as a descriptive for women who don’t react to your personality and behavior in a manner you are comfortable with. Whereas, for me, feminism is about long term cultural and social change. Do you understand that distinction?
I think that the women here and women in general are extremely receptive to men speaking about the ‘problems and position of women’ if the men have things to say which aren’t unfair and self-referential and if they’re willing to contribute to the dialogue. Indeed, MAJeff did a series of diaries about feminism which was an interesting read and was very well received.
You know…I started to answer you seriously.
But you have already decided.
I have “personal problems with relating to women” in which you are not interested.
My problem is “women who don’t react to [my] personality and behavior in a manner [I] are comfortable with. “
So…OK.
It’s all about me.
As long as you believe that…no conversation is possible.
You are a self-fulfilling prophecy, Colleen.
No conversing with THAT.
Later…
AG
“For the generation that is just turning 20-ish now, the twin bugaboos of “female liberation” and sexual disease forced the sexes apart in a TOTALLY unnatural way.”
I have read this over and over. I’m at a loss to understand what you are saying to us. Sexual disease and female liberation are both bad things? They keep men and women apart in a way you believe is unnatural?
Certainly sexual disease makes contact with strangers dangerous, but sex with strangers has always been dangerous for women. Are you mourning for promiscuity ? Does this feel to you like the death of sexual freedom ?
Well, sexual freedom is many things to many people. It is not just the freedom to have sex. It is also the precious right to refuse to have sex. Ask a thirteen year old prostitute in Thailand which is more important to her. Ask any battered wife. Ask every incested daughter whether she’d rather have freedom to have sex or the right to refuse it. Freedom to have sex pales into insignificance when compared to freedom from unwanted sex.
One of the barriers I’ve discovered in over forty years of talking to men who believe in equality and all that crap as long as dinner is on the table at six, is a stubborn refusal to understand how really horrible it is for a woman to have sex when she doesn’t want to. I think it’s analogous to slave owners who choose to believe their chattel are happy and content, or at least don’t really mind being slaves. Seeing the truth would require them to either give up their privileged position or see themselves as the exploitive monsters they are. That’s so inconvenient.
The raw truth is, if all things were truly fair, truly equal, if every women made enough money to care for herself and her children, if we had equal status, respect, power, opportunity, and safety, we could be with a man of our own choosing simply because we wanted to have sex with him and not because we needed other things from him. Were this ever to come to pass, there are a whole lot of men who would NEVER get laid.
“”For the generation that is just turning 20-ish now, the twin bugaboos of ‘female liberation’ and sexual disease forced the sexes apart in a TOTALLY unnatural way.”
What am I saying here?
I am saying that as I watched the generation to which my children belong grow up…and I was right there, in the thick of things, a mostly stay-at-home-during-the-day musician while my wife worked a day job… after about the age of 6 or 7 the girls and boys began to be separated. Not by law, by FEAR.
Not the childrens’ fear. Not at first. Their teachers’ fear, their parents’ fear, the fear expressed over and over and over again in their media lives.
Fear of disease, fear of saying or doing “the wrong thing”…fear.
Now admittedly this occurred in the mostly middle-class, semi-intellectual world of the Upper West Side (and later a Hudson River
suburb) of NYC…but I have seen the same things in the countryside of Maine, in the south, the midwest…
In the body language of adults AND of children. The “Don’t look OR touch or you MAY be accused of (GASP!!!) SEXIST BEHAVIOR!!! Plus…YOU COULD DIE FROM IT!!!”
By the time my kid’s generation hit middle school…forget about it. De facto sexual segregation was the order of the day.
I spent YEARS assiduously trying to fall in love and get laid. So did almost all of my compatriots, male AND female. Sure, adults shook their fingers at us, but hell…no one much listened. And we were the healthier for it, in my opinion.
is that a mourning for the passing of promiscuity/ Or simply the passing of promise. I was NEVER “promiscuous.” Always monogamous. And always sexually engaged, after the age of about 13. One way or another.
You did not HAVE to be “promiscuous”. Only involved.
This changed somewhere, and from talking to my many friends who are in the generations BETWEEN that of my son and myself, it appears that is happened quite steadily from the late ’70s right on through today.
Now it is ONLY the promiscuous ones who are heavily sexually engaged. Right on through college and beyond, often. Like my son said to me one day when he was about 14 “Dad, did you ever notice that nobody likes the popular kids?” (A lovely observation, by the way.)
I am NOT equating sexual disease and female liberation, nor am I saying that they are both “bad things”. I AM saying saying that the particular daily double of which we speak had some unintended (on the female liberation side) and to my mind negative consequences.
There is in EVERY society a sexual tension between men and women. It is what balances out societies in many ways, and every society finds its own particular balance at any given time.
I think that we LOST our balance during the ’70s and ’80s and ’90s…in the direction of rigidity, a rigidity that was a direct reaction to the fear of being too loose and getting sick/getting dissed as a male pig…and the only reasons that i can see for that are those I mentioned. As a matter of fact, I think that these problems came to a head…literally AND figuratively, I suppose…in the hounding Bill Clinton out of office for indulgence in a little recreational sex.
Not rape, not pedophilia, not wholesale murder and theft…consensual sex.
‘HE’S A BAAAAAD MAN!!!” thundered the Grandma and Grandpa No Nos.
And here we are, 6 years later. Up to our ASSES in shit.
At least in part because…it was an accident, bad things DO sometimes result from acts that were done with the best of intentions (like the female liberation movement)…but at least in part because WE LOST A SEXUAL BALANCE THAT HAD BEEN GROWING FOR 40 YEARS.
Since W.W. II.
And the reactionaries…who are ALWAYS unbalanced sexually, it’s a reactionary DISEASE, sexual uptightness…they POUNCED!!!
So THAT is what I was saying.
Clearer now?
I hope so.
AG
P.S. FUCK dinner at six. And all the REST of that male inferiority shit. Sure, there are male assholes, just like there are FEMALE assholes. Do not stereotypeme, and I will try to do the same for you.
And if you have spent “over forty years of talking to men who believe in equality and all that crap as long as dinner is on the table…” then sister…
YOU have been talking to the wrong MEN.
But I think your thoughts are very unformed here. You seem to see “female liberation” (in scare quotes) as . . . what exactly?
Now this in itself is complicated territory. I was sexually abused as a child – no child should have to deal with that kind of “touching.” I am sure that you don’t disagree. And I have been groped by total strangers both as a little girl and as an adult. I think any man who does that is a pervert. I mean, is it any kind of sexually healthy development that gets off to groping strange women, much less children? I doubt that you would disagree with this either.
So many of us YELLED – do not do that shit, fuckers!!!
Now it seems to me that a number of men seemed strangely disturbed by this vehement – and perfectly rational, imo, request. Men who are neither child molesters or subway gropers. As if something was being taken from them. What??? What were they losing that they are so determined to defend?
I think that you may reply – so I’ll try to pre-empt – that some women went “overboard.” I’m sure some did. You can find someone who does just about anything that it’s possible to do.
But why do the “overboard” women shape your view of this? When I look around I see very few women getting hysterical about ordinary friendliness. Or welcome flirtation. But I see many more men being super-sensitive about some fear of being accused of something.
I think it’s because most men had a free pass to act in thoughtless, careless, disrespectful ways around women for most of their lives. Then they got called on some of it. Like the thoughtlessly racist things that many of us white people say around black people because we have not really thought about how what we are saying actually implies, and how insulting it is. I’ve used this quote before, but it fits here – hearing a white friend ask, before a group of both whites and blacks, “Should we hire the most qualified person for the job, or should we hire a minority?” I was sure that the black people heard that “or” at about 100 decibels. My friend didn’t hear it at all.
So we get angry at men like you who do things like that to women. And then you add in a rant or two from us about some man who has done something that was really vile. Like say, the prospective employer at a job interview I went to once who said straight out that he was looking for a woman who was willing to “date” him. I mean, I was 22 at the time, and he was 50+. Extremely unattractive. Slimy, personality-wise. Wearing a wedding ring. The very thought of sex with him . . . oh, yech, bleh. And this wasn’t five minutes after I walked into his office and sat down in front of his desk.
Anyway, I think some men take rebukes from women – “Think about what you are saying! Treat me with a little more respect, please” and conflate it with tirades about real assholes. And then they get focused on what they are losing – the easy-going not really having to worry much about what I say or do, and now . . . oh, this is SO terrible! I could be embarrassed, I could be made to feel uncomfortable, I might have to feel like a thoughtless jerk.
In um . . . 1974?, I slunk out of that idiot’s office with my face burning. I would like to think that if such a thing happened to my daughter, she’d tell him what an asshole he is, preferably loudly and with colorful language. I think she’s more “liberated” than I was. Liberated = free. Free to tell an asshole he’s an asshole. But you would blame this “liberation” for an unhealthy relationship between the sexes?
In short, (ha! – I am never succinct), you think women have gone overboard. I think many men are oversensitive. They are terrified of criticism and see it lurking everywhere. They focus on what they have lost – not having to be made to feel uncomfortable. They don’t seem to care much about what we women have gained. The freedom to flirt and touch and be touched by men we like and are attracted to, the freedom from forced or coerced sex, the freedom to just be left alone when we have other things on our minds than sex, like when we’re immersed in work we’re excited about, and not having to be distracted from it by demands for sexual attention – right now!
It just seems to me that we gained more than you guys lost on this one. When I hear one of you whine (I’m sorry, but it sounds like whining to me), “you’ve made me worry that my innocent friendliness or flirtation might offend a woman – I hate this terrible ‘liberation’ – I want to go back to how it used to be.” Well, I, for one am not going back – not without a whole lot of kicking and screaming.
I’m waiting for the day when I hear a man like you say, you know, it is kind of a drag to have to be more careful about what I say or do around women, to do a little work to be kinder, to try to see things from your point of view. But, well, for you to be able to be sexy and sexual with men you find attractive without being condemned as a slut, for you to be able to tell a lecherous asshole to fuck off, for you to be able to dream and dare and create and not have to be constantly on-call to fulfill sexual demands . . . I guess it’s not such a big deal for me to lose a little comfort.
Janet, your last paragraph expressed my feelings precisely. That’s all I want, too, because it would signal a huge change. While not all men are personally sexist, they are all affected by societal sexism. Men are under tremendous pressure from other men uphold the otherness of women, and it takes a passion for social justice and a great deal of courage to risk losing membership in the boys’ club.
As a straight, white woman, I vowed to NEVER stand silent when friends or co-workers told racist or homophobic jokes. It was very difficult for me, very embarassing, and it felt very risky. In fact, I found that almost everyone I knew was as uncomfortable with bigotry as I, and they were happy that somebody had finally said something. (Surprise)
I have waited in vain for good, progressive, liberal men to take this small step. I see groups of guys together, joking about women, leering after women, denigrating women, (male bonding in all its juvenile glory) and the honorable men who like women and treat them well are part of this crowd, uncomfortable perhaps, but joining in, laughing nervously. Some seem able to pass from the co-ed world, where they act like women are human too, into that Band of Brothers Land without skipping a beat. This compartmentalizing really scares me. How can I trust the character of someone whose commitment to human rights desolves when he’s hanging with his buds ? And why, I ask myself, is the opinion of other men so much more important than the civil rights of a man’s wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend ? Ooops, I forgot. It’s all about power and status, and too many men, in their hearts, believe that the approval of other men, which demands submission and comformity, is far superior to the love of women. It would be SO much easier if women would just shup the fuck up, and accept their role as props in the Yes, We’re Men game so nobody has to examine the disturbing bedrock of institutionalized patriarchy.
And so the circle closes.
I wrote:
Not the childrens’ fear. Not at first. Their teachers’ fear, their parents’ fear, the fear expressed over and over and over again in their media lives.
Fear of disease, fear of saying or doing “the wrong thing”…fear.
Now admittedly this occurred in the mostly middle-class, semi-intellectual world of the Upper West Side (and later a Hudson River
suburb) of NYC…but I have seen the same things in the countryside of Maine, in the south, the midwest…
In the body language of adults AND of children. The “Don’t look OR touch or you MAY be accused of (GASP!!!) SEXIST BEHAVIOR!!! Plus…YOU COULD DIE FROM IT!!!”
By the time my kid’s generation hit middle school…forget about it. De facto sexual segregation was the order of the day.
.
Are you so blindered by your own rhetoric that you can no longer read a phrase in context?
My point was…as is obvious when read as part of the extended thought…that the “good” concept of not permitting non-consensual sexual contact in any way, shape, manner or form had (unintentionally and in concert with the equally real dangers of HIV/AIDS) been twisted and perverted into an ongoing “Don’t look, don’t touch” mandate that almost FORBADE sexual exploration and consent among a whole generation of young Americans. Certainly seriously crippled it.
Which is counterproductive to human growth, in my view.
This is not ABOUT “me”. I actually have no trouble whatsoever dealing with women on any level that they will accept. from lover to friend to colleague to noncommunicating stranger.
It’s ALL OK with me.
Have it your way.
Men AND women.
I do not force myself onto other men…in an interpersonal way, because I am biologically completely heterosexual, at least on all the evidence of a long life of active sexuality and a personal predisposition not to give a fuck what ANYONE thinks about how I live…and neither do I force myself on women. In ANY interpersonal way, including sexually.
It’s a big world, and everyone is a potential friend. If not you…someone else and have a nice day.
But I witnessed a whole generation of people grow up…those in the twentyish years now…who were largely deprived of the intersexual friendships (on ANY level) that I quite freely enjoyed throughout my life.
And I think that I know why this happened.
Fear of disease and “women’s liberation” that ITSELF got carried too far in some wrong directions and became an unproductive social orthodoxy instead of a productive social movement.
I had a strange and wonderful experience today. I was in a small room with several heterosexual males, one heterosexual woman who has an ongoing relationship with one of the men, one committed and very open lesbian (who has a lesbian mate and a new baby who I am sure she will raise well and cherish all of her life) with whom all of those males…including me…have a fine and intimate working relationship (as in being together for weeks at a time on the road, traveling, sharing meals, work, etc.) and a clown in full makeup. Eating Chinese takeout. (Don’t ask. A musician’s life is a strange one, I will admit.)
Now this clown was new to me. I have not been working with this ongoing group for months…I’m what they call a sub on this gig…and they have bonded as all working groups must. Found their personal and intersexual balances. So here I am in this little room…a small living trailer, actually…with these people and this clown. And I am talking with them, joking as old friends will after a separation, with the clown being part of the group. No introductions, I just entered the trailer and it was “Hey, AG. Have some fried rice!!! How ya been?” and the conversation continued.
It was about…among other things…a laptop that belonged to the clown that had gone south. Several of the people in the trailer, myself included, are Mac users, and we were kinda ribbing the cl.own about the difficulty and general unreliuability of PCs compared to Macs. And there I was, in the midst of this conversation, suddenly realizing that I HAD NO IDEA IF THE CLOWN WAS A MAN OR A WOMAN.
None.
Late ’20s, early thirties, I guess. An asexual outfit, as many clown suits are, Affable and funny, as are most clowns that I have known in OR out of costume. A voice, way of speaking and attitude that could be either male OR female…
And I also realized that it was GREAT not to know.
Great.
Don’t ask, don’t tell brought up to an almost impossibly high level.
In a very healthy way.
Now THERE’S your female liberation.
AND your male liberation as well.
HUMAN liberation.
Unfortunately…we cannot all run around in clown suits.
So we have to deal with what is.
And what IS, on some very important levels, is that the healthy sexual contact between men and women (and its exquisitely fine balances) that is an integral and necessary part of human experience has been disturbed by the initially truly correct women’s liberation movement here in America, and it troubles me.
Don’t make it about “me”, please. That is one of the most troubling PARTS of that movement. A m,an observes something negative about it or its results, and is immediately dissed as someone who can’t handle the entire idea.
It simply ain’t so.
Not in my case, and not in the cases of any number of other men as well.
As I said…we have met the enemy, and it ain’t us.
Not ALL of us, anyway.
AG
(P.S. I STILL don’t know if that clown is male or female. Because I didn’t ask. Nor will I. It plays a female role in this circus, this clownperson. But so does the MAIN clown, who is a hetero male. I suppose I will find out eventually, and it will be a disappointment either way. What freedom until then, though!!)
P.P.S. To the moderators here. Susanhu or whoever else. This reply is long, but it is both necessarily long and not something that would survive or scan very well outside of this thread as a freestanding diary. l;ease do not delete it. Thank you.
OK, I’m having trouble figuring out why you are so angry. I told my personal stories – where is the “rhetoric” in my comment (please reread and identify) that so blinds me? How was this about you? I referred to “some men” and “many men” but I don’t think I made it about you, except when I said, “you think some women have gone overboard.” Is that not what you are saying?
I was trying to make the point that pre-1970’s were a very bad time for me as a woman, as a girl growing up in the 50’s and 60’s, as regards interaction between males and females. That I experienced that time as one of sexual manipulation (by both sexes), by attempts to coerce me into having sex – usually by some version of “if you don’t put out you are a cold, frigid prick tease'” and a huge dose of dishonesty between the sexes. For example, I was totally disgusted by the two-facedness and manipulativeness of women who did nothing but flatter men and stroke their egos in their presence and then ridiculed them mercilessly when they were “among (female) friends.” This is what I saw when I was growing up. I also saw, then, appalling disrespect from men towards women during that time. God, the jokes alone were enough to make a young girl doubt that there was any reason for her to continue to pollute the planet with her presence. The only reason really, to stick around – if you were a young teenage girl and trying to figure out what men thought of women by listening to the the jokes they told endlessly and thought were so hilarious – was so that (straight) men would have something to fuck and clean up after them.
I think my perceptions of that time are typical of many women my age (57). For me, “liberation” meant that I could be honest with men – I could say yes when I meant it – and mean exactly that – I want to have sex with you. Not, as I was taught growing up (often by men giving me “helpful” advice), to use sex as a way to get something else – usually a lifetime of financial security by way of a “good” marriage (read marriage to a man who will make a lot of money and support me in the style to which I would like to become accustomed), but even as a way to get a free meal and not have to pay for my own movie ticket.
Or I could say no – after “liberation” – and have that respected. Not – as before, as it was constantly explained to me by men in those days – when a woman says no, she really means yes – she just wants the man to try harder, flatter her more, or she feels guilt and shame about sex and wants to salve her conscience with initial protests, but she really wants it. Heh heh, wink. I just wanted, you know, honesty.
You seem to think the 50’s and 60’s were a kind of golden age for interaction between men and women, and that something precious was lost. I asked you what has been lost, for men, and asked you to compare it to what has been gained, for women. I did my best to look at it from your point of view – though it is difficult for me, since I assume that you – like all of the men that I have had similar discussions with, have absolutely no interest in child molestation or forcing sex on a woman who is unwilling (e.g. the subway gropers), I have a hard time seeing what you have lost when we speak up to condemn them?
I asked you to try to look at it from my point of view. To try to see that that “golden age” was not so golden for many (most?) women. I don’t see any willingness on your part to do that.
You seem to believe that women embracing honesty caused some horrible rift between the sexes. That huge numbers of women are shrieking “rape!” and “hands off!” whenever a sweet, caring man makes any kind of sexual approach. I’m sorry, I just don’t see it. To paraphrase your put-down to another woman on this thread – if the women you are around are doing that, well, you’re hanging around the wrong women.
You know, this evening, I spent time with my daughter and her boyfriend. They’ve been together for six years now, and I can’t tell you what I felt – I mean, almost in tears, I was so moved, when he came home shortly after I got there and both their eyes lit up when he walked in just like a couple newly in love. When she was a teenager, she and her friends were so uninhibited and relaxed with each other – the boys and the girls – no game-playing, none of the dishonesty and manipulativeness that I was taught was natural when I was that age. I just don’t see in her generation – in her and her friends that I got to know when she was in jr high and high school – the fear and distance that you describe in the young people you know. You describe that fear as communicated by an entire battalion of adults that children cannot escape from. Again, I don’t see it. I think you exaggerate the influence that some hysterical adults who spend too much time imbibing sensationalist media have on our children – and I submit that whatever harmful influence they have should be blamed on that sensationalist, ratings at all costs media, not feminists. That was IndyLib’s point in her original diary – that what feminism actually is has been distorted – true feminism is not about hatred or fear of men.
I’m not entirely sure of your point with the clown story. I think it is that you wish that men and women would act toward each other the way I see my daughter and her friends act around each other. When I was first exploring feminism – a decade before I had a daughter – that was the dream I had for any daughter I might someday have. (Well, along with full equality for her in every other sphere of her life which she does not yet have – though she has a lot more than I had, and that’s definitely something I’m glad of.) I think “women’s liberation” has a lot to do with why things are better for her.
My point is that the gains that have been made, the ways that being female is better for my daughter than it has been for me are the result of feminism. You seem to be saying that feminism was a good idea that has somehow gone wrong and has caused some terrible rift between the sexes. Can you explain, exactly, what we should have done differently? Should we have remained silent about child abuse, rape, sexual coercion, disrespect and ridicule of women? About incidents in the workplace like the one I described in my comment above? All I can see you saying – and I have heard this from other men – is that by speaking up about these things we have made men who would never do them uncomfortable, worried that they might be accused. I’m sorry if you feel like that, but I’m not willing to go back to silence in exchange for relieving that kind of discomfort. The trade-off isn’t worth it. Is there any possibility that you could see that our freedom, including the freedom to be honest with men and not return to the manipulativeness and game-playing of the 50’s and 60’s is worth a little discomfort on the part of men of good will?
Is my asking you to consider this worthy of this kind of dismissive put-down?
I’m thinking that maybe some of what he is talking about may be caused by the right winger attitudes, not feminism, and he has been attributing it to feminism.
Actually the Republican right wingers have been gradually becoming more prominent, and it would seem it would be especially noticed in the more well to do folks since so many of them are Republicans.
Feminism really was more prominent in the 60’s in the younger people in a positive way, it has been attacked ever since then by the people that want to go back to the early 60’s and before. I remember it too, and it was pretty bad with all the dishonesty and put downs of women. You know, like Archie Bunker(for those that know who that was :-D).
I see that now in the folks that are over 65 now, especially if the woman was a stay at home wife. Many of the men are downright arrogant and dismissive of the women.
Masculinist – google the definition and it means pro-feminist. Men seeking their own name to fight for equality.
As 70’s women seeking equal pay for equal work we were given the name of feminist – as a disparaging title.
Then and now the term from the powers that be meant ball-busting, man hating women.
Big difference in what we do with names we are given. As feminists we proudly claimed the title and fight daily for it to stand for equal treatment – for everyone.
I’m not finding your diary supportive of the accepted definition of masculinist. My perception is that it the comments are a mockery of both words and therefore a mockery of equality.
First…to tell you the truth, I did not know that there WAS an “accepted” definition of the word masculinist.
Never heard it before. It just came to me as I read IndyLib’s diary.
In fact…I am STILL not convinced that it even has an accepted definition among a broad swath of English speakers.
I just visited your website…nicely put together, by the way…and a quick run about it suggests to me that it is VERY female-centric. So be it, if that is your choice. But I take your criticism with that in mind.
I am NOT “mocking” anything or anyone in this post.
As far as I am concerned, people who are EITHER male or female-centric are missing the boat.
EACH position is only half there, s far as I am concerned.
But this is not mockery.
Just disagreement.
Wanting people to see the whole picture. And then live in it.
If you do not see that in my post…go well.
I wish you no ill.
AG
I think we’ll agree to disagree on terms here. I’ll accept your statement that it is not mockery and a disagreement.
There are very macho, strong men in my life, that accept that women are equal partners. There are men in my life that are more sensitive and caring than me. These men will tell you that they are feminists as I defined it above. These men will also tell you that they want there to be a time when we don’t have to use words such as feminist.
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Thank you for visiting my blog. There is no claim that the blog is other than my personal observations – a diary for public viewing if you will. The colors are female centric.
The topics – well – a number of them were posted here at Booman as general topics and reasonably well received. A birthday wish for my Mom’s 80th birthday – I’m not sure what makes that female centric.
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We’ll just have to disagree. I also have no ill wishes for any and will make no further attempts in this diary to share my perspective.