At Medium, UNC professor Ian Williams discusses his students’ views for insight into the election. They love podcasts and take them as gospel but distrust text; they hate the inflation (the piece ignores inflation the past year has been extremely low); they aren’t impressed by celebrities other than Trump; and while many of them have strong liberal views, they hate Democrats (for which I blame 30 years of “Democrats are Satan” from the right-wing media. It’s had its effect). And they don’t believe Trump will do any of the bad things he threatens because … good question
(LGM points out the upside is that nobody else on the Republican side has the same Teflon. Democrats down ballot did well in a tough year)
One moment, however, I found more infuriating than informative. “When we did a week on feminism, I asked what did feminism offer men. Nobody said a word … The answer is obvious: you can be a different sort of man, a kinder, more generous one, than what you think you must be.”
I would agree with that, though as The Mask You Live In says, being even a little girly — and being kinder and gentler probably qualifies — is absolute taboo to too many guys. At the same time … I can’t imagine Williams would have discussed black history and asked what the civil rights revolution offers white people. Or what gay rights offers straight people. We all know that those movements are about equality for the disenfranchised; the benefit for the mainstream is that we get to live in more just, more equal world. So it should be for feminism. As Elizabeth Spiers says, “It is not the responsibility of women to convince men of our humanity, abilities and potential.”
Except feminism affects men differently. Even after decades of modern feminism, our culture’s marinated in the whole image of the man having a woman on tap to handle cooking, cleaning and kids (as Anna Kendrick says, it’s easy for men to talk about “having kids someday” — women can’t treat it as a vague fantasy because they have to deal with probably being the primary caregiver, even if they work). POC equality, gay equality may not affect white men directly; women’s equality will. It may require change, compromise, not having a homemaker or a hot lover.
And there’s a lot of right-wing media and podcasts insisting that’s wrong, that male dominance is the way, the truth and the light. Not to mention Trump, in Spiers’ words, offering “a regressive idea of masculinity in which power over women is a birthright.” As someone else put it, “they get to idolize a man who feels entitled to all the sex he wants without worrying about all that #MeToo stuff and the constant need to apologize.” (see also this earlier post of mine).
Of course, when Trump and the right-wing engage in male identity politics, that’s never seen as identity politics. Because saying that men should be in charge, that’s just normal and unremarkable right?
As I said Tuesday, Trump pushes people to disregard convention and ignore rules — but it’s rules like “don’t harass women” and “get consent before you get physical” rather than “don’t say anything when your buddy gropes a woman” or “boss, you’re too sexist, let’s pick the woman candidate.”
Matriarchal Blessing argues this is why guys are less and less interested in college: with more women attending, college is girly and guys can’t stand that. Which may explain some of what’s discussed in this LGM post and the comments, that guys who do go are apathetic about studying — if good grades are girly, better to slack off. Which is unfortunate for them if they can’t get ahead, and seems to lead them further into the world of online misogyny.
Which is something we need to stop, but how? On BlueSky, Fred Clark suggests community or high school theater (which certainly made me a better person) to forge connections with other people, some of them women. Other suggestions in comments there.
(I have some sympathy for the frustration about yet another reason to cater to the needs of young men. Writing here and here, Celeste Davis argues persuasively it’s still necessary — and in the end, benefits everyone).
On BlueSky, John Rogers points out some of these misogynist attitudes aren’t surprising. Modern feminism is slightly younger than me; it’s not surprising “they were voting to remain in a fondly half-remembered 20th Century instead of the scary difficult future …This is a combo of backlash and also future shock.” I think there’s some truth to that — though as plenty of people have pointed out over the past decade, we’ve been waiting to get out of that state and into the future for far too long.
