So, I'm sitting here on a rather rainy Sunday afternoon drinking tea and reading the Sunday papers. Well, I was, until I had the misfortune to stumble across the most anti-feminist vitriole I have read in a long time. So much so that I felt compelled to delurk here in order to vent my utter frustration that attitudes like this actually achieve mainstream media coverage.
The article in question appeared in the (UK) Sunday Times News Review section. It's by a lovely woman by the name of Kathleen Parker. Perhaps in my British niaivity I have managed to avoid her before. Not any more. In extracts from her new book; "Save the Males: Why Men Matter, Why Women Should Care", Parker indulges in the worst sort of anti-feminist sentiment that left me genuinely distressed and actually confused.
Before I even get to the content of her "argument". Let's look at the way the Sunday Times have framed it. It's the lead article in the section and the front cover is a topless man, wearing women's underwear clearly visible over the top of his jeans inside the zodiacal ( I think ) symbol for a male, drawn to look like a drooping penis (hmm...)...
So:
"The exemplar of the modern male is the hairless, metrosexualised man and decorator boys who turn heterosexual slobs into perfumed ponies. All of which is fine as long as we can dwell happily in the Kingdom of Starbucks, munching our biscotti and debating whether nature or nurture determines gender identity. But in the dangeros world in which we really live, it might be nice to have a few guys around who aren't trying to juggle pedicures and highlights"
This actually had me incandescent with rage. Parker's argument appears to be that any engagement in a dialogue regarding gender and sex by its very nature emasculates men. The idea that this is some how "not manly" and is the fault of women seems utterly ridiculous to me. How is the very engagement in a conversation regarding gender in any way "womanly"? Secondly, the idea that for a man to take an interest in his appearance is emascualting and womanly. Have we not, in 2008, realised that there are facets of "masculinity" and "femininity" and that these are not objective standards that individuals of their associated biological genders have to achieve in order to some how convince society of their worth? WHy is it that a man is less of a man for colouring his hair? Finally, the resort to our "dangerous world" is both a completely random addition to her rant and relies on traditional stereotypes of the man as the protector of the woman. Apparently, with coloured hair or a pedicure, a man is emasculated and unable to perform his "traditional" role.
And this is our fault, both as women and as feminists. Parker appears possessed of some sort of universal power scale. As women attain power and inequality we emasculate, control and reduce the men in our lives and in our society.
Some more choice quotes:
"Men have been domesticated to within an inch of their lives...I expect me to start lactating before I finish this sentence..."
"Nothing quite says "Men need not apply" like a phial of mail-ordered sperm"
"The fact that some children manage with just one parent is no more an endorsement of single parenthood than driving witha flat tyre is an argument for three-wheeled cars."
"And now, because so many young girls have been told that it's 'empowering' to pursue boys aggressively, there's no longer any need for boys to 'woo' girls"
Parker's rant lurches from topic to topic. She seems to take great offence to the ability of women to make fertility and child-rearing choices, choices regarding their sexuality and a individual's choice to have- and more importantly- to enjoy safe and consensual casual sex. Her ability to blame women for society's ills as a result of "our" behaviour towards men is astounding. She reiterates traditional ideas of male and female roles in society and the household; denying men the opportunity to be individuals with differing perceptions of what it means to be "masculine" and objects to men behaving in a way outside of this traditional role to be a fault, which can be attributed to the women around them.
That the Sunday Times felt fit to publish this work with a supportive comment from one Neil Lyndon rather than any retort from either women or men who disagree with her makes this article doubly disappointing. It is from the supportive comment that I found the title for this article:
"I would now say that the fatherless hoodie gang-banger with the 6in blade in his waistband is Germaine Greer's bastard offspring"
It is apparent to me that we still have much work to do.
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...inside the zodiacal ( I think ) symbol for a male...
If you're referring to the circle-with-an-arrow-sticking-out-of-it symbol, that's the astrological symbol for Mars, which was also used to represent iron, especially in alchemy.