Undead sexist cliche: Men are the oppressed ones!

There’s an old line that when you’re used to superiority, equality feels like oppression. If you’re a man accustomed to the privilege that brings — from an edge at work to not having to be afraid walking home to having someone to clean up your house and take care of your kids — then begin asked to make your own dinner or participate in chores may feel outrageous. You’ve never raped anyone, sexually harassed anyone, you treat your wife great — why are you being inconvenienced? You may be happier not understanding than accepting there’s a problem.

Vice president and misogynist JD Vance offered a recent whine on this topic: “I think that our culture sends a message to young men that you should suppress every masculine urge. You should you should try to cast aside your family. You should try to suppress what makes you a young man in the first place.

“And I think that my message to young men is don’t allow this broken culture to send you a message that you’re a bad person because you’re a man, because you like to tell a joke, because you like to have a beer with your friends or because you’re competitive. The cultural message — and I think the president’s and mine is the exact opposite –but our cultural message is I think that it wants to turn everybody, whether male or female, into androgynous idiots who think the same, talk the same and act the same.”

I’ve no idea what Vance means about “try to cast aside your family” — that’s usually the charge made against feminists, that they hate happy marriages and want women to get divorced as soon as possible. The rest of his rant is a standard complaint dating back to the 1950s: feminists/the radical left are trying to turn women into men! Worse, turn men into women! Because a woman who works and has casual sex or a guy who stays home with the kids have given up the essence of their gender! Ahhhhh!

(I don’t have time to provide links but you can find lots on this in my Undead Sexist Cliches, in paperback or ebook. You can also order it straight from me from the Behold the Book page.)

The line about how men are being judged and condemned because they’re men is also an old misogynist cliche. Nobody I’m aware of is saying a man who tells jokes, drinks with friends or likes to compete is a bad person.

On the other hand if they’re joking publicly about a female coworker’s appearance or telling rape jokes, yeah, I think they deserve some criticism. Like executive sent out a press release announcing a new female hire as a former waitress at the (nonexistent) Knockers restaurant chain — what, don’t you think that’s funny? And if someone can’t control their “masculine urge” to the point they feel up women uninvited or commit assault (like so many of the Felon’s cabinet) — that’s worthy of a lot more censure. For a number of men, however, criticizing bad male behavior is an attack on masculinity itself. Even if they don’t engage in it themselves, they feel like it’s their right to do so.

And what about men who perform masculinity differently? Men are notorious for mocking and judging other men they deem too soft/girly/wimply/haven’t got their man-card punched. Men like Vance who whine about masculinity being criticized are often fine with guys who criticize the “wrong” sort of masculinity: drinking herbal tea rather than beer, wanting to be the stay-at-home parent rather than competing, having the “wrong” hobbies or interests, calling out other guys on their bullshit. If Vance wants to make it okay to be a man, that should include all kinds of men.

I suspect it doesn’t.

I suspect — indeed I’m certain — that some of the guys telling that kind of nasty misogynist joke think they’re edgy, daring, pushing back against a feminist status quo. The truth is, being a misogynist or sexist isn’t at all edgy: it’s conventional. It’s cliched (hence the title of my book) There’s nothing they’re saying that’s new or that the women they’re belittling haven’t heard from other men. I wonder, if they realized that would it make a difference?

Speaking of men, I’ll wrap up with a couple of links —

“For every girl who learns that she needs a man to save her, there is a boy who learns that he’s either the savior or he doesn’t have a reason to be alive.” — a look at the messages boys get from fairytales.

Movies about emotionally-distant dads who save their children when violence is needed.