Recently in Masculinity Category

So apparently, this survey was done on men's undie purchasing behavior (of all things), and found that men relegate that kind of shopping to the women in their lives. Unless they are looking for a sexual relationship, in which case they go on an underwear shopping spree.

What pisses me off about this, however, is not so much the "survey" being passed off as some sort of a scientific study, when it was done by a retailer, clearly for the purposes of targeting their advertizement.

The problem is that the results of this survey are being passed off as some sort of relationship advice - the title of the article is If he lets you buy his undies, you're The One .

So, what does that say about guys who go commando - are they pathologically afraid of committment?

Ironically, at the end of the article there is a little nod to feminism - I guess the authors are not complitely unaware of the issue of framing these "research" results the way that they do. Or am I making too big of a deal out of this?

Courtney's recent article on masculinity makes me want to share some of my thoughts on the matter. Her thesis is that the 'new' masculinity is still defined negatively, that young feminist men know what they don't want to be, but haven't yet figured out what their manhood is going to look like. It is, indeed, a tough question.

Most men start with a list of things they don't want to be. Sometimes, it's just a single man we don't want to emulate. But either way, it's don't be weak, don't be scared, don't be mean, don't take any shit, don't start any trouble, etc., etc. Gradually, we start figuring out who we are in a more positive way. We're funny, we're short, we're tall, we like women who wear glasses, we think Batman is cooler than Superman (who doesn't, right?), we think Lost is overrated, and so on. I expect it's not that different for young women.

For feminist men, the trouble comes with attaching gender. When I say a man should be strong, does that mean I think women are weak? Or does it mean that I think that a man who is physically weak is less of a man that somebody who can bench 350? No on both counts. In the end, there is not a single characteristic that I can think of that I think men should have that I would not want my daughter to have as well. So where does that leave masculinity?

I think, given the physiological differences, that when you look at the population level there are masculine and feminine virtues. But there is so much overlap that the differences dissolve at the individual level. I also think that it's impossible to sort out culture from biology in most of those cases. But virtue is not a zero sum game, so to claim strength as a masculine virtue is not to deny it to women, or vice versa. Ditto for flexibility, intelligence, etc. Maybe the difference between masculine and feminine is about the recipe, more than the ingredients. Or maybe it's not something that happens on the individual level.

I love to cook. Is that manly? It is for me. If my daughter wants to play dress up, and puts me in a frilly hat, does that diminish my masculinity? Definitely not, because masculinity, for me, includes being man enough to not be afraid of a little girliness here and there. Besides, I own enough power tools to more than make up for the occasional pink hat. We make the models, not the other way around.

So men and women alike make their choices, and let those choices writ large define what it means to be a man or a woman, but in a descriptive way, not a prescriptive way.

I read Courtney's article, and I was a bit surprised by it.  I figured somewhere guys were pushing along nicely with how to live in a more balanced, feminist, whatever you'd like to call it way, but to see a couple hundred dudes gather at a national convention and apparently stand around going, "Dur, what do we do, boss?" stuns the hell out of me.

You want to know why?

Because it's not that goddamn hard.

Of course, trying to change the hearts and minds is a Herculean (perhaps Xena-ian?) feat.  But that's not what we're talking about.  This is simply brainstorming ideas, ways to live by one's moral compass on these issues.  And it shouldn't be that difficult.  After all, this isn't attempting to skew one's beliefs to match the exact text of a millenia-old book.  This is simply trying to do the right thing.

What appears to make this difficult is that it often seems like guys who take these issues seriously ignore certain aspects of masculinity that are so often used for ill, forgetting that we can turn them around for our own purposes.  As I've seen it- and I admit I don't see it all- that tends to fall along the lines of disregarding privilege.  This can go a lot of different directions.  Generally speaking, though, I see guys who take women's issues seriously try and live down to where women are in our society rather than working to raise women up to the level of men.

As a very simple example, take the average college classroom.  Most of us have seen some study or article that points out women are less likely to raise their hands or speak up in class.  At minimum, those of us who have been to college probably have empirical evidence of such.  This is a problem.  But what these dudes end up doing in their attempt to be fair is not speaking up themselves, trying to give the women more of an opportunity.

This is misguided.  By doing this, the only people taking advantage of their privilege are the guys who either don't know any better or don't give a shit.  To improve this specific example, we should be actively encouraging everyone to talk- engaging those women who do speak up, for example, starting a dialogue in class that often spreads to other people (and which most teachers tend to love- makes their job a lot easier).  At minimum we can acknowledge good points being made as we say our own piece.  But we can't do any of this if we don't speak up.

This post will mainly use figures on the UK, Australia and the USA. Anecdotes will reflect that I'm an Australian who has been living in the UK for the last year. As such it will have a cultural bias that I apologise for in advance.

When I attended primary school around 20 years ago in Australia there was a fairly even split of teachers - men to women. I don't know if this was the norm at the time but I never got the impression that it was unusual growing up. Despite traditional gender roles amoungst my own parents, school gave me the impression that men and women were equally engaged with children.

While I'm not sure if an even split was usual at the time, I do know that the number of male primary school teachers has been declining in Australia. I can't tell you exactly what the figures are because they are not available but according to the UN's Gender Gap Report 2009, the percentage of male primary teachers in the USA is 11%, and in the UK 19%. There are no male primary school teachers on the Isle of Wight.

In my search to find out what candy is vegetarian, I stumbled on Twix's website. Imagine my delight when I saw that their main attraction was not delicious chocolaty goodness but an instruction manual for how to "Get The Girl". I was straightaway impressed with how quickly they were able to use the branding-women-as-property bit, but Twix soon showed me that they have their sexist stereotypes down pat!

Their "Interactive Love Story, Sort of" is about getting Our Guy (a lughead who clearly exemplifies that all men have only one thing on their minds) to get past Bruce and Francois (who, as other men, pose a terrible threat) to win over Deborah (A politically inclined yet gullible woman).  The fun all starts at a party, where Deborah is talking to Our Guy about her political views while Our Guy hardly looks at her above the neck and nods along with whatever she's saying. Deborah, mistaking his agreement for actual comprehension, starts to seem interested. This is, of course, when Our Guy asks her to go to his apartment (Surprise! All men want is sex!) and Deborah gets offended.

Cross posted at The (not so) Little Things .

There is a new book coming out called "Rules for My Unborn Son." It was sent to BoingBoing's Mark Frauenfelder, who responded, "Lamond's rules are good advice for sons, as well as anyone else, really." Hmmm, well yes, advice based on general etiquette is usually good for all people.

The book is based on the blog "1001 Rules for my Unborn Son," and is just one more attempt to shore up the author's own masculinity while making sure his kid also adheres to his version of what it is to be man. Nevermind that his kid might be gay, or trans, or born a girl.

There's an idea that's been bouncing around in my head for a while which is hard to put into clear thoughts.  I apologize in advance for the fragmented presentation and less than ideal wording of things.  But I figure better to put it out there than keep it to myself.

Anyway, there seems to be this cultural idea of men becoming men by rejecting all that is female/feminine.  There's a concept in psychology (maybe just pop-psychology or pseudo-Freudian psychology) that both boys and girls start out feeling very attached to their mothers.  Then boys start to realize they are different and they go through a crisis, where they separate their identity from that of their mother's.

Here's my thought on this:  That true manhood, or really, true adulthood, actually DOES depend on separation from "mother".  But I need to quickly clarify, because I don't mean what that typically means.

I get the impression that many men (and women too, actually) are attached to the notion of "mother" as object/ideal.  We want someone to cater to us, anticipate our needs, and care for us in a totally unselfish unconditional way.  Eventually, as a boy grows the natural desire for sex gets lumped in wth all his other needs and wants.  But if the maternal attachment remains, then this gets projected (in a warped sort of way) to all women.  Sex is something women can give him, and their humanity becomes second to his need for them.  (Kind-of like a baby or young child regards its mother.)  If he doesn't get what he wants and feels rejection, then that intense attachment turns to anger & hate (guys who shoot up fitness clubs?).

True manhood (or perhaps, I could say true adulthood) requires a real separation/detachment from "mother".  And when I say separation, I mean it as quite different from rejection of actual mothers, or women or feminine things.  In fact, men's rejection of the cultural feminine is really just continued attachment, expressed in a different way.

When I visited a good friend at Morehouse College about ten years ago, I was envious.

As a 20-year-old black heterosexual male, I was immediately struck by the diverse representations of "blackness" and, more importantly, the opportunity to actually engage in dialogue with individuals who I might have naively considered "not black enough" in my younger days.

While at my predominately white campus we often (naively) tried to define ourselves as black men in direct opposition to whiteness, while visiting Morehouse, I encountered black men truly examining the construct of black manhood for themselves and often times coming to the conclusion that black manhood is a constantly evolving phenomenon.

Drawing upon that experience is just part of what makes Morehouse's recent actions so troubling.

In an effort to "get back to the legacy" of the "Morehouse Man", Morehouse College -- an all-male historically black college -- has implemented a dress code banning, among other things, "clothing usually worn by women (dresses, tops, tunics, purses, pumps, etc.) on the Morehouse campus or at college-sponsored events."

What's immediately troubling is the notion that somehow one of the nation's premiere black colleges can "get back" to any sort of legacy with an action as superficial as a dress code that merely reinforces traditional heteronormative ways of being. In no way is that policy creating leaders in any sense of the word that I've ever imagined; it's creating mindless drones that can walk in step with the status quo with no justification other than a mandate.

However, even more troubling was a comment from a member of student  government in support of the policy .

"The image of a strong black man needs to be upheld and if anyone sees this policy as something that is restrictive then maybe Morehouse is not the place for you," said Cameron Thomas-Shah, student government co-chief of staff.

While I certainly respect the effort of any educational institution -- including K-12 schools -- to have a vision for what its graduates should become, to reinforce a standard of black masculinity that has to make explicit the exclusion of femininity is problematic.

I originally posted this on my Facebook and didn't want to cross-post it here due to the onslaught of trolls it was sure to receive. However, last night my female partner and I went out to a bar on a date and a man thought it would be funny to tell a joke about beating women. Of course, I told him that wasn't funny at all and domestic violence is never funny. I'm not writing this to big up myself but to voice my frustration that things like that happen. Men think it is perfectly acceptable to tell jokes about beating women and it's expected that other men will be in on the joke. This, coupled with the post on the main page about that iPhone app, made me think I should post this up.

So anyway, here is a "piece" I wrote about Tucker Max before the movie came out last September. Just a quick note: I am trudging my way through the book and do plan on seeing the movie (by sneaking in, if it's still in theaters) at some point.

--

Tucker Max's movie I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell and the anti-feminist clusterfuck that has come with it are an insult to women, obviously, but also to men who have been doing work towards ending sexual violence. Now, I have not seen the movie (and don't plan to ever give that misogynist turd a cent of the money that I earn working at a rape crisis center), but one doesn't need to, given that it is A) based on the book of the same name and B) the book is based on stories published for free on his website. Max's fans (duwha.. ?) like to combat detractors by pointing out that they are taking quotes from the film out of context. Can someone please tell me a context in which the phrase “get away from me or I’m going to carve a fuck hole in your torso" could NOT be considered violent and misogynist, or at the very least, humorous? Women? Of course they are going to complain. Not only is their "gender hardwired for whoredom" but they're all going to get uppity and demand respect when, clearly, they don't deserve it.

Is it too satirical?

New Anti-Smoking Ads Warn Teens 'It's Gay To Smoke'

Found here.

I’m new to the feminist blogosphere (and this is my first community post!), so I hope I’m not totally off-base. I have read lots of information on “Patriarchy hurts men too” arguments. Most of this information centers around the idea that, although PHMT is a valid point, it has no real place in the comments sections of feminist blogs.

However, despite the fact that such discussions don’t really belong in a forum for women to discuss women’s issues, there is one situation in which the PHMT discussion becomes incredibly relevant: in discussions with men. After all, what better counterargument is there for anti-feminist men than pointing out the ways in which our society’s deeply ingrained patriarchal beliefs hurt them, as well?

I am repeatedly struck, when reading about rape culture, by the persistent thought that all this should offend men too ! Victim-blaming arguments only work in the context of a worldview in which men are no more than hedonistic beasts with no control over their carnal impulses. I’ll admit that, for many men, this portrayal serves as the perfect excuse. I have repeatedly heard men justify unacceptable behaviors (verbal and physical harassment, even rape) with statements like “Well, I’m a guy! We’re scum. We can’t help ourselves.” Such statements are almost always accompanied by a sheepish grin, feigned coyness, and/or a shrug. I’ll refrain from indulging in a long rant about those comments, in an effort to stay on topic. Why aren’t men offended by being painted this way? Why do they co-opt the language of the patriarchy and rape culture in order to excuse actions they know to be reprehensible? Surely, not all men are this way.

And indeed, I do believe that not all men are that way.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574429070364650290.html?mod=yhoofront

What exactly makes this bed "for men"? According to the article: "The bed frames feature built-in TVs, iPod docking stations, wine coolers, safes and other guy-friendly gadgetry." ...Because for it to be woman-friendly, it would have to be pink and not as functional as the men's version, right?

Another gem, regarding one of the bed's built-in safes: '"A lot of our male customers want to keep a gun close to them at night, so now they have the option to have a safe in the bed," says Maya Ben, Hollandia International's vice president of operations. "It gives them peace of mind."'

A charming testimonial: "Mr. Shapiro admits his wife was less than enthusiastic when he picked the bed out six months ago. He delighted in showing her that the TV could be lowered into the footboard via remote, and he let her pick out the color and pattern of the mattress fabric. His wife declined to comment." You must mean his wife was too speechless with excitement to comment -- women just love pretty fabrics!

If we're honest, it's not the mere existence of these beds that makes me cringe, it's the marketing. The beds themselves look super comfy and fun to hang out in -- for everyone regardless of gender. The whole "Man-Cave, For Macho Manly Men Only!" angle is just so unnecessary.

Maybe not the average post on here...

OK, here we go - I'm a guy, who's been seriously shamed about his sexuality by his feminist mother and co-educating prudish grand-mother. Anything that was even remotely related to sexuality was either dirty and amoral or potentially violent against women. I mean, I was basically told as a pubescent boy that what I wanted the most was both amoral and dangerous to the girls/women I would wanted to do it with. So, well, no big surprise, I wasn't exactly happy for a long long time. It's not that I was "bad with girls", I was (and am) very popular with them but I'd still be unkissed if a girl hadn't just lost her patience with me and kissed me instead of waiting for me to do initiate. So I dealt with my sexual sexual shame in therapy and it got a lot better - but this, in a way led to a new level of disappointment. Since I no longer hide my sexuality women do seem to pick that up and not rarely seem to want more than I seem to be able to give.

I was walking through the grocery store last week and saw a display, title something similar to "Ace grooming." It was stocked with a ton of uniform personal care items, most of which were black with red trimmings. Then I saw the price. Six bucks for a nail brush, which you can get a normal one for around two bucks. Much to my disappointment, it appeared at if the product was selling.

I just went to their website, and it wasn't much better to say the least. One of the items that really got to me was a nailclipper that costs around $12 on amazon. The site was filled sad attempts at threatening people's masculinity and/or gender identity. (I'm not even to get started on the whole wallpaper thing.) 

Link to the site

The New York Times just published this article about a recent study of men's attitudes and healthcare. According to the study

Men who strongly endorsed old-school notions of masculinity -- believing the ideal man is the strong, silent type who doesn't complain about pain -- were only half as likely as other men to seek preventative health care services, like an annual physical or a flu shot.

What the article does not mention is the relevance to the current debate about health care in the United States. If we do end up with a public option for health insurance, men who cling to traditional beliefs about masculinity may end up costing taxpayers more, because preventative care is often far less expensive than treating preventable illnesses. In other words, traditional conceptions of masculinity are unhealthy, expensive, and detrimental to the public good!

If George Sodini wanted women to actually pay attention to and actually date him, perhaps the best way to go about it wasn't to call them "sluts," "whores," "hos," and a myriad of other misogynistic terms used to describe women. He should have, instead, actually talk to women and listen to them.

While I am not a woman, I'll venture to say from my own experiences that treating women like human beings, and actually showing interest more than just in their lady parts, will probably get them to like you more than simply just ogling and treating the intereaction with women as merely a means to and end - the end being getting a chance to take her home for the night. That is, the lack of sex and women in George Sodini's life is no one's fault but his own, and all the pick-up artists' whine about lack of attention from women isn't a result of women being "coldhearted bitches," but rather, because so-called pick-up artists have nothing to offer. Sadly for them, sometimes, the offer of a hard cock is just not good enough.

More importantly, and a bit frustrating, is that in the wake of Sodini's murderous spree, rather than asking questions about men entitlement and reevaluating a culture that expects to automatically sex-up anyone who shows interest, some men are blaming the shooting on feminism - that is, because women have been given the freedom to say no, that god forbid, they refuse the advances of men. This, once again, goes to show that the pick-up artist needs a reality check - a reality that's often muddled by misogynistic pornography, male entitlement, and the belief that all women are attracted to money, and that if a man has enough money, he would be able to impress (see "buy") her.

The problem with the pick-up artist, then, is that he refuses to see women as human beings - those who actually have preferences and choices, and is under the assumption that they all the same - that if he applied the same techniques to woman A as to woman B, he'd get the same reaction. He'll continue to go on and bemoan feminism giving women the freedom to choose, without recognizing that it is feminism in the first place, that makes it acceptable for women to be at bars, parttake in casual sex, and decide what they want to do. Sure, he'll honor the choice of her wanting to have sex - with him, but the moment she decides she does not want to have sex, or that she prefers someone else, she automatically becomes a coldhearted bitch.

Yet another problem with these pick-up artists is that the "other" women, and see women's only value only through their actractiveness and bodies. In their fantasy world, women and men aren't ever friends, that if an attractive woman talks to another man, she must be wanting to jump his bone, and his bone only. Worst, if the same woman is talking to someone else, she is also jumping that man's bone. Rather seeking relationships with and actually getting to know women, these pick-up artists' only concern in dealing with women is whether or not he gets laid. For these men, women aren't not worth paying attention to, or investing time in - and thus, not having women as friends or even acquaintances, is it a wonder why these men are seen as their potential targets as losers and are turned away because of it?

More than anything else, these men see women as, at worst, property, and at the very best, children. This is best exemplified by the belief that if one bought a woman a redheaded-slut or two, that she'd automatically become a slut - his slut, which is a good thing until she decides to have sex with someone else, then she's a slut, but a bad one. In such a culture, objects and rewards are exchanged for sexual access. But more importantly, pick-up artists also see woman as children - that given enough incentives, they can be, as the great liberal misogynist Bill Maher put it, "talked into and out of anything."

Already, many pick-up artists are making excuses for Sodini - that it was women's faults that he killed three people, and thankfully, himself. It was because women have been accepting drinks, gifts and other things without allowing these pick-up artists to fuck them that caused Sodini to shoot the LA Fitness Gym. Firstly, who the hell asked them to buy women drinks in the first place? Pick-up artists have a funny way of reasoning and excusing their behavior. If a woman refuses a drink, she's a stuck-up bitch. Yet, if she does accept a drink, she automatically owes them something.

Perhaps these answers, for these men, is actually coming over, introducing themselves and having a conversation with her, rather than pathetically offering so-called "icebreakers" that are unsolicted, and then expecting to get a blowjob for buying her a Blowjob.
But it just isn't their expectations that's pathetically troubling - it's also the way they are taught to talk and flirt with women. A lot can be say about male power and entitlement if a man thinks that just by touching or brushing against her (without a permission), a woman would get so wet that she'd beg to be fucked right then and there, nevermind the fact that women might prefer other women. Further evidence that pick-up artists see women as property is the fact that he believes it is within his rights to touch women without her consent - that poking women or stroking her hair or creepily kissing her hand are all acceptable, even if he's only met her for the first time.

Then, there's also the way in which the pick-up artist talks to women. They're supposed to be talked to like children - and according to Amanda Marcotte's blog, some pick-up artists actually use techniques of insulting women all the while commplimenting them. Their beliefs is that, especially for more vulnerable women, this will work. That is - if you like a woman, be mean to her. Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't this the same kind of tehcnique that boys and girls used back in grade school? If it didn't work in kindergarten, what the hell makes these guys think it'll work now?

It doesn't work - at least not most of the time, but if you're George Sodini, you'd think different. After all, if it's in a book - especially a book entitled, "How To Date Women Under 35," it must work. Firstly, women aren't cars - there isn't exactly a manual on "how to ..." anything women. Even the title in itself is problematic - if, just by the title alone, the author makes the mistake that all women are the same, and thus can all be treated the same way, I have to wonder what other kinds of bad advice are included in the book. Secondly, if they couldn't get women to date them while they were in the 20s, what on earth makes these men think that women will date them now? Oh, yeah - money, which again shows how much they think of women.

These pick-up artists will continue to blame feminism - and by extent, all women for their social woes. But, ladies and gentlement, I can sure you that all feminism's done is given women the choices to say no to these creeps, rather than having to be with them, as they have had to do in the past, where women had no voices or choices.

Their solution? Go to other countries, where women are more "gentle" and willing to take care of them. In short, they're not only looking for a servant, they're also looking for a mommy - and one they can fuck, at that. This is painfully obvious in the gripes and complaints of mail-order brides not being widely available and advices of going to other countries, where the plane ticket might cost a bundle, but in the end, being serviced by women who have no voices, choices or money, is much, much more satisfying.

If Sodini and other pick-up artists wanted actual partners - those who are equal to them, independent, and can make decisions on their own, all they had to do was walk up to a woman and introduce themselves, and talked to the woman like she's a human being - it would have actually gotten them somewhere. But they couldn't do that because they lacked the confidence, charmisma, and intelligence of being able to carry on a conversation with women. In short - they are losers who, instead of accepting the challenges of befriending women and truly dating them, chose to come up with other ways of deceiving and manipulating younger women, and women who have no economic choices to say no.

But, instead, they chose to treat women as objects, and thankfully, because of the hardwork of the feminists who came before them, these women had the right to reject them.

To pick-up artists: if you haven't gotten laid or a date in 20 years, and women everywhere are rejecting you, the problem isn't women, and the most certainly isn't feminsm - it's you! Or to put it more bluntly, if everywhere you walk, you can smell shit, perhaps it's time to check the bottom of your own shoes.

Today I decided to run with the boys cross country team (because the girls team doesn't start practicing till September) to get a little more practice for when competitions come around. Of course, I decided to "goof around" and began getting tired a little too quickly. So the boys started passing me, until I was maybe a few feet behind the last guy. Then one of the guys (one of the faster ones) dropped out to run with me. When I asked why he did this he said because he wouldn't leave a girl behind. Like it was obviously veryyy generous, but i feel like if it was another guy he wouldn't have done that. I really don't know how to feel about it thought- because he did help me out during the run, but like the fact that he thought I'd be unsafe a few feet behind. I don't know if I'm stuck in traditional ways thinking he was a gentleman for doing that.

No longer can traditional masculinity deny it is complicit to the objectification of women, and to a larger extent, sexism. No longer can the "good guys" remain silent, and by virtue of inaction, be absolved of the guilt of misogyny. No longer will finger-pointing take the blame off men who, while not rapists or abusers themselves, continue to feed into the sexism that dominates society.

Not after years upon years of objectifying Erin Andrews on sports blogs and in bar conversations. Not after Andrews' privacy was violated by a peeping Tom who drilled a hole in her hotel room wall to videotape her in the nude. Not after the millions upon millions of Google searches for the videotape that eventually made her the most searched for name over the weekend. While the violation of Andrews' privacy is an isolated incident, done at the hands of one man, her objectification - as well as the objectification of millions of other women - is systematic. As such, each one of us is guilty for the contribution to her assault.

The guilt is also mine. I am guilty for the times I tuned into ESPN only to make an objectifying comment to a friend about a female sportscaster. I am guilty for each Swimsuit Edition of Sports Illustrated I bought to share with friends. I am guilty for each time I clicked on a picture of a cheerleader to ogle at her, separating her body for her humanity. In doing so, I also reinforced traditional masculinity as well as contributed into the commercial exploitation of women's bodies, thereby adding support to the systematic objectification of all women, and by that extent, Erin Andrews.

Such guilt is also found in the men who participate in chat forums whose main discussions revolve around Andrews' and other women's bodies, their style of clothes and a rating system of these women, based on numbers from 1 to 10.

But the guilt isn't limited in just those who, using the excuse of being "sex positive" or that their misogynistic actions are merely "sexually natural," continue to excuse their own objectifying behaviors. Such guilt can also be found in professional sports - both as a money-making entity that promotes the domination of men over another on the field, and over women in the bedroom.

The guilt stems from the shots of cheerleaders acting as sideshows to men's performance of dominance.

Cross-posted on www.the-F-word.org

I saw a commercial for the new film "The Ugly Truth " yesterday.  Starring Katherine Heigl and the dreamy Gerard Butler," the film seems to be of of the "Men are bumbling idiots who think only with the head in their pants" genre -- just check out the poster for it.

Yeah, yeah, I know... men have up to 20 times more testosterone than women which leads to differences in sex drives , yadda, yadda, but unbelievably, there are men who do have healthy levels of testosterone and yet have still managed to avoid devolving into cousin-humping rabbits.  It's important to remember that sexism, in all its forms, hurts us all, men included.

We've heard the arguments before on how porn culture degrades and objectifies women. Each time the subject comes up, there are those claiming to be "pro-sex feminists" who will come to the defense of pornography, and deny that it contributes to a culture of misogyny, as if those of us who are against pornography's depiction of women are anti-sex, or that we are befriending Christian conservatives who view sex as taboo, and only to be practiced within marriage.

Today, I want to explore a different side of the argument of why pornography is harmful - and rather than echoing the arguments of misogyny, I'll write on how pornography hurts men. This is, by no means, to ask "what about the men?" Rather, it is to point out that even as consumers of pornography, and even through the objectification of women in pornography, men hurt themselves.

"When I get home, I am going to fuck that pussy raw."

"I love the sounds a chick makes when she's sucking cock and really likes it."

"I am going to bend her over and fuck her from behind ..."

So, I'm sure most (if not all) of us are familar with the way food is marketed towards men versus how it's marketed towards women. Our own beloved Sarah Haskins made a hilarious video about chocolate commercials, and the way they're billed to women as being this romantic, indulgent, even naughty thing that we only eat to fulfill some sort of primal, often sexualized urge. It's often this very indulgent thing -- this sort of "guilty pleasure" -- and I honestly thought that this mindset was mostly limited to the advertising world until recently when I had a couple of baffling experiences.

My dad and I went to this little Italian restaurant the other week that we've been frequenting ever since my sisters and I were little. I ordered a calzone, because the calzones at this place are freaking monstrously huge, delicious, and filling. If I'm particularly hungry I can polish off a good portion of one in a small window of time. When my massive calzone arrived, I got these looks from the table next to ours -- a father-son duo, I think -- complete with eyebrow raises and condescending smirks.

Maybe I was reading into it too much at this point, but after I devoured the entire thing, the glances and smirks became chuckles -- and again, very condescending-sounding ones. I glanced at them out of the corner of my eye, and the father actually said to me, "I've never seen such a small girl with such a big appetite!"

At 11:20 a.m. on June 14th 2009 a show on ESPN ran a segment that has stirred very little reaction or outrage. In between SportsCenter repeats was a story about to male wrestlers at the University of Nebraska who were dismissed for posing nude on a gay website. As a result of their softcore, that is pictures of just them posing nude not of hardcore sex, they were dismissed from the team. The situational morality of the school, and their fundamentalist Christian/ Republican Congressmen athletic director Tom Osborne, asserts that it is fine to break the law, but two men posing nude is outrageous! The school, which is not forthcoming with information on its reasons for dismissing the students, did state that it was afraid of NCAA sanctions.

Normally a story about two Midwestern wrestlers would seem out of place on a feminist web-site. However, if we look deeper at this case we see the double standard of public sexuality. Susan Bordo, in her book "Male Body Image," identified that culture only went too far after men started to appear naked. If this was too female wrestlers posing nude in Playboy would their be outrage that they were nude? What if they were dismissed from the team, the media would be all over this story? When Playboy does its' girls of the Big 12 the nude coeds' scholarships are not revoked, so why should these men's scholarships be revoked? The pundit on Outside the Lines said these men made a "bad decision," but when female Olympic athletes pose nude they are "celebrating their femininity." The reason feminist should be outraged by the Nebraska story is because by revoking these men's scholarship the university is ultimately saying that it is okay to objectifying women, but objectifying men is too far. Women are fine to be naked, but if men are posing naked then it is women, or in this case gay men, who are going to look at them and that is obsene! Whether or not it is liberating for women to pose nude is an argument for a different blog, recent literature I've read I'm starting to feel that it hurts more than it helps, but what is important is to remember that the fate of men and women are interwoven and this story illustrates that.

In one of those rare instances in my life, I was lost for words. I stared blankly at the woman I once dated - the person I'd flown five hours from where I was going to school back to California just to see.

Just moments earlier, as we talked about our lives and the things we were doing as activists on our respective campuses, this woman - the one who for nearly two-and-a-half years I'd loved romantically, and after that, as a sister, close friend and confidant, dropped a bomb on me. There I was, sitting in front of ex girlfriend - the woman so smart, strong and assertive that I thought she could do anything, and would always be the one to change lives rather than have her life changed, when she confided in me that, as a freshman, she became the victim of date rape.

Still at a loss for words, I was propelled back to reality when she reached over and, grabbing my hand, said, "Marc, I tell you this because I still believe in you, and that you have the ability to change things for the better." It was at that exact moment that I realized my call in feminism isn't just about equal pay for equal work, or ensuring that women's choices over what happens to their own bodies are guaranteed.

Seriously, Salon?

I guess I just have a lot more things to worry about than if selling an American car company is going to negatively affect the "delicate" male libido.

I saw this , this morning

Colorado Guy Trip

Fort Collins. If that’s not the perfect destination for a Guy Trip, what is? This is a town with enough manly action to give you a three-day beard in an hour and a half.

Your Fort Collins Guy Trip includes tokens for free drinks at the Odell Brewery, a testosterone-laden guided rafting and fishing excursion courtesy of Rocky Mountain Adventure and some nice digs at Cambria Suites. Suites? That’s right. You deserve to sleep like a baby after you’ve done Fort Collins like a man.

You may be asking yourself, “what else can I do in Fort Collins?” Guy stuff galore, my friend. This is Mecca for the outdoorsman with boating, camping, hiking, horses and more. You can grip it and rip it for 18 holes with the boys, test your stuff mountain biking and reel in a big one from a river or lake. You can even find some outrageous off-road trails for four-wheeling craziness. So don’t wait: enter for a chance to win today.

I was really bothered. These are some of my favorite activities. Mountain Biking, Rafting, hiking, camping and ' tokens for free drinks at the Odell Brewery' read free drinking. I don't think it's necessary at all to label it as a men's trip, women equally enjoy these activities.

This is a letter that my husband just sent out his family. I couldn't be prouder of him, so I wanted to share.

Dear Family,

So before any of y'all get alarmed, I wanted to share some news with you, none of which is bad, so please don't be worried.

My official name beginning today is B.Z. That may seem a bit strange (certainly doesn't sound normal to me), but I actually made this decision more than a year ago, when Z and I were thinking about starting a family (commencing with our wedding). Neither of us wanted to have a name that was different from our children, and I wasn't very excited about either of us hyphenating. Z is extremely proud of her heritage. Her family gave up a king's ransom to come to this country, risking their lives, so that they could make a better life for themselves. Z went on to get her PhD and never dreamed of being anything other than "Dr. Z." If I was in her shoes, I would feel the same way.

I wrote this as a response to the Tribune article on the University of Chicago group Men in Power (MiP). I don't know if it will be published. Regardless, I think it's important for male allies to speak up even if the mainstream media will not acknowledge us. If you have not read the article, you can read it at the Tribune website, or check this thread:

http://www.feministing.com/archives/015708.html

I am writing this letter in response to Sara Olkon’s article about Men in Power (MiP) at the University of Chicago. What MiP President Steve Saltarelli fails to recognize is the mere fact that MiP is able to get press coverage in the Chicago Tribune and various media outlets without yet being a sanctioned student group, let alone accomplishing anything, is proof of systemic white male privilege. Men are losing jobs in this economy because there are more men with jobs than women - which is why advocacy for women in the workforce is so important in the first place. I'm sure there are many women who wished they could have made the money that those in the auto or financial industry made prior to the collapse of the economy but were unable to because of the glass ceiling.

I believe consciousness raising groups for men are utterly important. It is necessary to establish a safe space where men can discuss their feelings and are free to be outside the gender box, that is very important in dismantling patriarchy - since patriarchy requires men to conform to rigid straitjackets that deny us of our right to be emotional and display both "feminine" and "masculine" characteristics. The fact is, that in a patriarchy men have systemic power and the framing of a group as men needing more power suggests misogyny, a backlash to feminism, and reiterates the patriarchal constructs that Saltarelli claims MiP is trying to disrupt, and that is laughable.

As a pro-feminist male activist who does outreach and education to men and boys about our role in sexual violence prevention, I am disgusted with Saltarelli’s assumption that men are somehow oppressed by living in our society – a society which values men’s voices over women’s. Men are discriminated against – by both men and women – for not fitting into rigid gender roles prescribed to us by patriarchy. This is what we need to dissect. If we are to end sexism in all its forms, we must begin discussing what it means to “be a man”. We will find “being a man” in a patriarchy means dominating women, gay men and transpeople.

And yet, somehow, holding men accountable for their action is seen as anti-male, while each day we blame women for living in domestic violence situations. We blame women for “getting raped”. We downplay women’s frustration and anger about street harassment because these are things women are told they have to live with. Additionally, any victories women make in politics or the workforce are attributed to “reverse sexism,” not a woman’s ability to lead or make good decisions. If Saltarelli and MiP truly want to eradicate sexism, they must first begin to address the role men have in perpetuating sexist systems. I urge Saltarelli and all men to ask a woman in your life who you are close to - mother, sister, girlfriend, or teacher - about how their life would be different if the threat of sexual violence didn't exist. The second part of this challenge is - listen. As men we are taught to come up with a solution for everything. It is hard to unlearn subconscious behaviors, but instead of trying to devise a solution, listen to what these women have to say about how their lives are regularly affected by the threat of sexual violence. In doing so, I believe this challenge forces us to examine our own male privilege and ultimately aid us in our goal of creating a safer world for everyone - for our generation and for those to come.

Stephen Adler
Founder / President
Men Against Sexual Violence at University of Illinois-Chicago

I've heard it called Male Genital Mutilation.  I've heard religious commentary on its necessity.  I've read about the "hygiene" issues.  I've read about so-called social stigmas for being "intact" in the boys locker room.  But I still don't know, if I give birth to a baby boy in a few weeks, should we circumcise him? 

This is an issue that has long-lasting, religious, social and cultural effects.  A botched circumcision can inhibit a normal sex life.  Some hetero women say intact males feel better.  I met a man who chose to be circumcised at the age of 25, and 10 years later, says his penis still hurts from time to time.  Does it matter if you're a baby and have no memory of the event? 

Feminists argue against female genital mutilation as a cultural practice, citing that there is no medical reason to ever cut off a woman's clitoris.  the practice is seen mostly as brutal and torture-like. Can the same be said of male circumcision?  As sisters, mothers, and friends of men/boys, should we care about this?

Lots of info here and here .  But a quick google search will yield thousands more.

Fellow feministings, I need your help.  I am a food historian finishing up my degree in history, which is dependent upon one last article-length paper due next month.  The working title of my paper is "Dead Meat: The Genderization of Meat in Twentieth Century America" (dead meat, of course, referring both to the slaughtered animal being consumed, but is also a slang term for a prostitute dating back to the sixteenth century).  The reason for the double entendre is that not only am I examining how the literal consumption of meat has been constructed as a masculine endeavor, but I am also examining the metaphorical presentation of women as objects of meat intended for consumption by a male gaze.  And while I'm trying to present as non-biased examination as possible, I'm hopeful that after reading my paper, a third interpretation will emerge, one that plays on the popular connotation of "dead meat" as slang for one that is doomed.

Here's how you can help:  I'm looking for ads, videos, illustrations, etc... that commodify women as meat objects.  I'm thinking of meat bikinis , the shameless antics of Peta and recent ads for Burger King and Arby's -- the older the example, the better (within the twentieth century).  I'm also looking for personal anecdotes and examples in which men have been shamed or made to feel less than manly because they abstain from eating meat.  A perfect example is this recent Hummer commercial that ends with "Restore the balance." The original tagline, however, read "Restore your manhood," and was changed only after a significant contingent of offended viewers complained.

I plan on posting excerpts from the finished paper on my website , and will also include recommended graphics and/or illustrations in an upcoming online gallery I'm developing, which will also feature my collection of vintage food and cosmetics/beauty products advertisements.  Your help is much appreciated!

Yes, there is such a thing as the “Top 50 Manliest Cities ” in the U.S. - the study (which I can't believe someone spent money on) found that Nashville, Tennessee is the "mecca of manliness." Why, you may ask? Well, apparently Nashville has great sports teams, monster truck rallies, lots of hardware stores and an abundance of salty snacks.

Yes indeed folks, those are the criteria by which the manliest cities were judged. Cities also lost points if they had more "feminine attributes" such as high mini-van sales, lots of home furnishing stores and high subscription rates to beauty/fashion magazines.

What do these pathetic "categories of manliness" say about the state of American masculinity if men can be reduced to such tired stereotypes? If I were a man I'd be insulted by this study that claims that manliness is all about sports, power tools and fatty food.

Stupid headlines like this irritate the hell out of me:

"Report: Boy-heavy China Faces Impending Crime Spike."

This was a story in the Boston Metro (free transit newspaper) today that my housemate and I noticed while riding the T out to Harvard Square. The entire text of the article reads as follows:

China’s budding gender gap — inspired by decades of one-child-per-family law, and the resulting rise in baby-girl abortions and infanticides — could develop into an increase in violent crimes, a new study reports.

With 32 million more young men than women, and the imbalance only growing, sociologists worry about a coming spike in crime, when men take out their frustrations on an increasingly wealthy population.

The report paints a grim picture for a modernizing China. “If you’ve got highly sexed young men, there is a concern that they will all get together and, with high levels of testosterone, there may be a real risk, that they will go out and commit crimes,” lecturer Therese Hesketh told the AP.

I was particularly charmed by the boxed quote attributed to "Researchers" (names please? the title of this report? anything that would reliably enable readers to fact-check the study**?) which read:

"Nothing can be done now to prevent this."

Because, you know, dudes are just violent animals without wives to keep them in check.

I dunno, people. I personally have faith that guys in China may find another, less violent, solution to the dearth of women.

*or "sexism" or "kyriarchy" if you prefer.

**A little searching on the internet tracked the study I'm assuming they refer to back to the British Medical Journal.

[cross-posted at my blog Future Feminist Librarian-Activist]

Last week I wrote a post on my blog about guy culture and anal sex. The gist of it was this

...the thing that really strikes me lately is a certain feature of hetero male culture that seems deeply inconsistent to me. If a group of straight guys is discussing something unpleasant, like a tax audit, or some stressful event at work, or an upcoming exam, or some interaction with police, they always, always, always use the same analogy. Which is? ...you guessed it: getting fucked in the ass. Yep. That's it. In hetero-man-language, this is how you convey that something is veryveryvery unpleasant and/or painful. It's a staple in movies that are meant to appeal to men. The most recent instance of this that I've seen was in Hancock. But most male-oriented comedies and action movies play off this meme. We could talk about the latent homophobia involved here, or take this discussion in a number of different directions. But what's really interesting to me is the deeply contradictory message involved.

I am sitting in the dining facility here minding my own businesss, too lost in the root beer float I'd made to worry about anything surrounding me ...when I was tapped on the shoulder by another soldier, pointing out to me a conventional good-looking airman who had just walked by. Already, soldiers sitting at my table are talking about what they'd like to do to her.

"That's nice," I said, getting back to my root beer float.

"Sergeant, when it comes to talking about women, you're at the level of a 7th-grader," a soldier told me, then went back to talking about the woman.

My unresolved masculinity almost got the best of me; I wanted to defend my manhood by talking about the women I've been with in the past - and join in on the conversations, as if somehow it would prove that I am, indeed, a man.

But my feminism got the best me and rather than joining in the exercise of objectification, I kept quiet. On the walk back to my tent, however, I began to think about the incident, and what the soldier had meant when he, because of my refusal to join in to an obvious male-bonding moment of objectifying women, equated misogyny with manhood.

Perhaps I should have been insulted; but perhaps, just perhaps, the world would be a more equal, pleasant place where women weren't objectified and raped if every man were to look at women through the eyes of a 7th-grader. After all, as children, we saw our opposite genders as equals and friends. For the most part - and as long back as I can remember, boys and girls go along. There were no such things as misogyny, and groups of boys never sat around and insulted groups of girls or turned them into objects.

So just one day after I was so pleasantly surprised to see the Chicago Redeye feature this http://redeye.chicagotribune.com/red-032309-abuse-main,0,6750968.story article about domestic violence on their cover, they have to make me want to puke with this lovely article on how Chicago was picked as one of the least manly cities in all of the United States. Barf.

Apparently Combo's (I guess because it's a "manly" snack) launched some search to find the manliest city in the U.S. and Chicago came in toward the bottom. Nashville ranked first based on their love of NASCAR, BBQ, monster trucks and sports bars. NYC was the city that finished dead last with Chicago coming in at 46 out of 50.

So I don't exactly know what the main point of the Redeye article was aside from to infuriate me and highlight every possible stereotype you could think of. Chicago guys like lattes. Lattes are for ladies. Chicago guys get botox...excuse me, BROTOX (because if a guy is getting something feminine done/using a female product the name must be changed - think mantyhose)...so they're obviously pussies.

I mean, the whole Combo's search for manliness in itself is based off of stupid stereotypes on what makes a "real man" and it's just so ridiculous and makes me sick (as do most Combo's snacks so I guess that's appropriate). Then the Redeye chimes in with fond memories of finer days of manliness:

"Remember the days when "Saturday Night Live" parodied Chicagoans as beer-chugging, sausage-eating, sports-obsessed schlubs?"

Those were the days of real Chicago men. And now they are replaced with:

"Chicago males of pretending to be manly. They point to Chicago guys who wear faux leather vests, play fantasy sports instead of actual sports and drink lattes."

I could go into much more detail dissecting more of the Combo's search and the Redeye article but it all just made me too annoyed. How are we still putting people, let alone cities, into these strict categories? And how can a frigging city be manly? I mean really?

I was recently tipped off to a blog post by a college-aged guy. He had seen a bulletin board post about male privilege posted in his dorm hallway, and became incredibly angry and upset. He decided to photograph each blurb from the display and rant about how each point was ridculous and promoted a man-hating feminist agenda.

I encourage anyone to help me educate this young man. Here are some gems from the post:

In regards to the gender wage gap- "The last time I checked, this injustice was abolished some time in the late '70s, my friend."

Discussing rape by intoxication- "If a guy passes out on a couch from drinking too much, he is JUST AS MUCH AT RISK to sexual or physical abuse as a passed out woman, or even a passed out homosexual, for this matter! "

In reference to females fears of walking alone at night- " Girls just get pre-emptive about this, and think the whole world is out to sex/kill them. Which is NOT true, especially considering the FACT that there ARE female assailants!"

He goes on to dismiss that there is sexism involved when the worst insults for people of both genders are words that refer to women (pussy, bitch). And he insists that victims of rape and sexual assault are partially if not equally responsible for their rape as their assailant.

And he finishes by insisting that he loves and respects women and that he condemns sexism.

Please, feel free to comment on his post and increase his awareness. Have a great day!

So one of my Women's & Gender Studies professors calls me and tells me to look up this Brad Paisley song called "I'm Still A Guy". I have no words! It is so sexist and homophobic! I get so sick of this macho man bullshit! I'm sorry but I am pretty sure when he goes on stage and performs on the CMAs and crap he has product in his hair and makeup on his face.

Chapter six of Guyland by Michael Kimmel discusses the role sports play in men's relationships with each other.

"Guys live for sports, and live through sports. It serves so many purposes--validating our manhood; bridging generational, racial and class divides; cementing the bonds among men; and more clearly demarcating the boundaries between Guyland and Herland.

[...] Sports talk provides a temporary respite from having to think about our differences and the complexities of life all the damned time. And not the least of these complexities involves women. "

While it's true that not all guys are into sports, and many women are, I think the point is true enough. I constantly see men who are perfect strangers become instant friends over sports related discussions. And it's very common to hear men talk about sports in relation to their sons and fathers. And it got me thinking. What is the equivalent of sports for women? Do we have something that transcends the differences among us? Something that can be discussed or enjoyed together casually while creating a bond between us? Is there something that does this that does not involve discussing the men in our life or our children (if we have any)? And if not, is the absence of such an equalizer among women a disadvantage?

A controversial new book in Azerbaijan, Artush and Zaur: A Legend of Love tells the story of same-sex love between an Armenian and an Azerbaijani against the backdrop of the emerging conflict over Nagorno Karabakh. From this blog entry on the book, we learn what the author says here about his book. The author, arguing that Azeris and Armenians share 'similar kitchen, music and mentality', says “Armenians are closer to us than, say, Georgians” due to the influence of the Persian culture. The novel 'exposes the absurdity of all wars in the South Caucasus a la Kusturica.' The author 'believes he has the full right to do so as he lost his older brother during the Karabakh war in 1994.'

War and gender go hand in hand, and this book, actually a lash-out against the many taboos regarding the war and both sides of the conflict, challenges the gendered nature of all conflicts by weaving the plot around the romance between the two male central characters. Just launched, the book has not actually received a wider readership, but it has caused a stir as nationalists on both sides fervently discuss “Who f**ked who?” Apparently this question worried them more than even the fact of the main characters being gay. They are ' kind of ready to ‘forgive’ and ‘forget’ the gay part of the story, as long as ‘their guy’ is ‘the man’ meaning he is ‘doing the enemy’ '. This controversy is perhaps the reason the author is being accused of 'treason and betrayal of national interests.'

Predictably, there have generally been 'plenty of hateful and homophobic comments' in forums and blogs. The publisher admits to having published his “most scandalous” novel in Baku, and comparisons are being drawn to Salman Rushdie and Orhan Pamuk. The blog post tells us that the story is 'a sort of partial deconstruction of Ali and Nino (a heterosexual love story of Azeri Ali and Georgian Nino) having instead Azeri and Armenian male lovers against the backdrop of the emerging Karabakh conflict', and the story of Ali and Nino an important part of Azeri literary heritage, we can imagine the hue and cry. Apparently, there is only one book store in Baku which still has the book on its shelves, and protesters are suggesting 'buying all the copies of the book and burning it in front of the bookstore' and calling out for the application of the 'Shariat Law'.

This incident serves to show a side of homophobia that is often missed: penetration is seen as invasion and conquest, and male homosexuality, which is much more taboo, disturbs the society's gender constructs. It also casts light on how nationalism is mostly masculinity validation, and how power contests are in a sense clashes of masculinities.

This is crossposted at my new blog, The Feminist Agenda. I finally decided that instead of constantly posting on Feministing, I should just start my own. Finally.

Many of the responses from male commenters on the orgasm gap post got me thinking about privilege in a new way. Generally we talk about being aware of your privilege because it will help you be a better listener and ally, it will make you more sensitive to the life conditions of those who were born into a different demographic than you were, and it will help you fight the inequities that are built into our social institutions. Generally we think of privilege as an unearned advantage, and when people won't acknowledge their privilege and adjust their worldview and behavior accordingly, it becomes a character flaw that causes us to question their commitment to social justice.

However, now it occurs to me that privilege can work as a handicap in some situations. For instance, many of the male commenters on feminist blogs seem to have good intentions. Many of them seem to be legitimately interested in the topic at hand and curious about the feminist perspective. But often the discussion will hit the roadblock of their privilege, in that their ability to engage in constructive dialogue is severely restricted by the way they've been socialized. Constructive dialogue requires that the participants carefully and thoughtfully listen to each other before responding. In my experience, this is something that men in a patriarchal culture have generally not been socialized to do, especially if the other speaker comes from a marginalized group. Because male (white, heterosexual) voices are so often privileged in our culture, most men have acquired very poor habits that prevent them from truly participating in fruitful discourse without undergoing some profound changes in their attitude and approach to dialogue. It's like they need "participatory discourse rehabilitation" or something (maybe I'll patent the term and build up a giant marketing machine around PDR). The question is, how do you point this out to a well-meaning man without making him feel like he's under attack? After all, the fact that he was socialized this way really isn't his fault. But the way he chooses to conduct himself now is his responsibility.

This also offers an answer to the perennial question of feminist mothers with little boys: how do we raise our boys to be feminists in this cultural context? One answer is "teach them how to really listen." It's a place to start anyway.

I was sorely disappointed to see the following posted by one of my favorite medical bloggers Notes from a Country Doctor. 

Gas Station Rants--Not About Gas Prices

No this isn't about gas prices. At the risk of sounding like a stuffy old middle aged man (which I don't think I am just quite yet) I have noticed this trend that increasingly irks me.

Here's the scene. I'm getting gas in our small town and at the island next to me is a teenage girl that has pulled in and she gets out of her car and starts to pump her gas. No problem. Sitting next to her, however, is her apparent boyfriend in the passenger seat with a baseball cap and his sweatshirt hood pulled over that. He makes absolutely no attempt to get out the car to help his girlfriend in any way, shape, or form.

If this guy can't even have the where with all to have a car to drive her around, why can't he pay for her to fill her car up, or, at very least, let her sit inside the car while he fills the tank?

Am I being too old fashioned here? 

The Country Doc

A couple of weeks ago my partner mentioned a discussion they had in one of his social work classes regarding disenfranchised grief. I had never even heard of it before, but it captured my imagination, so I've been reading/thinking about it ever since.

Disenfranchised grief is grief over a loss that is not conventionally acknowledged or socially acceptable in your culture. Couples who experience infertility, terminate pregnancy due to some genetic disorder that the fetus had, or have a miscarriage often experience disenfranchised grief. Other examples include grief over the incarceration of a loved one, the death of a pet, the breakup of an unacknowledged relationship (i.e. gay couples who haven't come out yet or have been rejected by their families) or the death of a partner in an unacknowledged relationship, the "loss" of one's parent due to Alzheimer's, the death of an ex-spouse or lover, the recurring grief of a birth mother who gave up a child for adoption, and the grief of an adopted child for the relationship they might have had with their birth parent(s). In many of these cases the people who surround the grieving individual may not understand the depth of the grief involved, or may think it's something the individual should be able to get over already. In other cases, such as in the case of unacknowledged relationships, the individual may not be able to share their grief at all.

So as I've been thinking about this it occurs to me that men may often experience disenfranchised grief more often than women, because it's more socially acceptable for women to express their grief, and because men are often expected not to have the same depth of feeling. I've known several men who really wanted children, and were deeply emotionally invested in having a family. When they (and their partner) encountered infertility or miscarriage, their grief was barely even acknowledged, while their partner received a lot of support. When men do express their grief over infertility or a miscarriage, or don't "get over it" quickly enough, they're viewed with a mixture of confusion and disapproval. So I think this is one example of the damage a patriarchal culture inflicts on men. What do you think of this? Are there other examples of disenfranchised grief I haven't thought of? Are there cases where a woman's grief is more disenfranchised than a man's?

I was wandering through Sainsbury's trying to figure out how to feed myself when I stumbled across the most amazing offensive candy bar I've ever seen: Yorkie--It's not for girls. And yes, that is a purse-carrying fem-bot on the package.

Obviously, Nestle is making a desperate marketing ploy for an under-tapped market, and on some sick level, I hear them. Chocolate has always been a gendered product. Having a bad day, honey? Eat some chocolate. Is PMS making you an irrational psycho? Crack open a snickers. Is your girlfriend still mad at you? Give her some chocolates and she'll forget all about it. In fact, I once had a male co-worker insist that chocolate ice cream was "for girls" while helping himself to another scoop of Strawberry and topping the whole thing off with strawberry sauce, leaving his bowl resembling something rejected from Barbie's Dream Kitchen. (Score one for irony...)

Nevertheless, pandering to gender stereotypes is such a pathetic way to sell something. Unless the Yorkie bar is laced with massive doses of testosterone, I'm pretty sure it's fine for everyone. Nestle's ad campaign is nothing short of farcical, featuring a man and a son in a park together, enjoying a chocolate bar. According to their site,

In 2001 the Yorkie "It’s Not for Girls" campaign was launched because, in today’s society, there aren’t many things that a man can look at and say that’s for him.
The 'Not For Girls' campaign theme for Yorkie uses humour, which resonates with today’s British male and simply states that Yorkie is positioning itself as a chocolate bar for men who need a satisfying hunger buster. With five solid chunks of chocolate, it’s a man sized eat!

And now, in the holiday tradition of making spirits bright, antoher gem from our friends at Cosmopolitan magazine.

Here's the link....

I don't believe I have to rant. It just did it for me.

Happy Holidays.

The National Hockey League has decided today that using your position as a professional athlete to prove your "masculinity" by verbally trashing a woman will not be tolerated .

Dallas Stars player, Sean Avery was suspended today indeinfitely for seeking out a camera in order to deal with his own insecurities. Calling an opponent's current girlfriend his "sloppy seconds" in an interview caused outrage today in Calgary, AB Canada as well as strongly worded statements from the hockey community. Nothing like trying to prove your "manliness" by putting down your ex-girlfriend in public for no apparent reason.

I do like that the NHL didn't hesitate to suspend Avery, and how the team owner, Tom Hicks seconded the decision, stating, "I completely support the league's decision to suspend Sean Avery. Had the league not have suspended him, the Dallas Stars would have. This organization will not tolerate such behavior, especially from a member of our hockey team. We hold our team to a higher standard and will continue to do so."

Sad that 'higher standard' = decency, but the swiftness of the decison is appreciated.

Now if only there could be something done to discourage this kind of behaviour before it happens...and if only MTV would avoid giving this dude more glorifying airtime for lame behaviour...

My Parents

Though I am young, I have always been a politically-minded person, partly due to growing up near the District of Columbia, and partly because I grew up in a bi-partisan household. My mother, a practicing Catholic from the mid-west, is a Democrat and my father, a non-practicing Jew from Long Island, is a Republican.

One thing that always surprised me, though, was how my father was not like the Republicans I usually heard about. Even at the age of nine, I noticed how my Dad simply didn’t fit the usual “Republican” archetype. From ages 5-11, I grew up in a pre-dominantly liberal area of Maryland and I remember during the 2000 election hearing school friends and their parents discuss with themselves how Republicans are anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-environment, racist, Christian right-wing Bible-thumpers. That didn’t fit my dad at all.

See, my Dad hates the idea of the proverbial “woman’s place.” He grew up with a kind but passive father and driven, vibrant mother (my late beloved Grandma Julia). My Grandmother had jobs while married in the 50’s and 60’s (and we all know how difficult that was if you were a woman back then), managed to keep a sparkling household, and was always fighting tooth and nail to encourage her children to get an education (something my father noted in his eulogy to her). My father was a Republican since he was eighteen, but that didn’t stop him from letting the example his mother set be lost on him.

Where are the feminists? Male feminists, I mean. Sure there are plenty of 'pro-feminist men', but in reality, aren't they just feminists? Feminism is, after all, the radical notion that men and women are equal. Surely doesn't have to have a vagina to support that view. And just because 'fem' is in the word, doesn't mean men can't be a feminist, which is something I've heard argued. I have one friend who declares himself to be a feminist, which I think is awesome beyond awesomeness.

Now I know there are men who contribute to this site, whether through community posting or comments on articles. Do you consider yourself feminists, or pro-feminists?

Let me just say that feminists are hot. Male or female.

Some men really piss me off and I thought that I would share. So i'm walking my dog, minding my own business, when these fraternity guys are walking by me. I don't have a problem when people want to say hello, but when a stranger says something to you, just to seem "cool" or "macho" in front of their friends, it really pisses me off and I certainly can see through it.

He approaches me and says, "hello there" and i'm like "hey." He giggles and as he walks by me, he's like "hey you dropped something!" So, obviously, I turn around, and he's like "you dropped your smile!!"

Is he serious? I didn't see him smile! Why do I have to smile? Do they expect me to giggle and smile, wide-eyed like i'm so thrilled some asshole is saying hello to me? Absolutely not! Why do women always have to be so cheery or giggly at all times? Am I supposed to be impressed in front of his buddies? Well, fuck that and fuck him.

ugh. well, thanks for letting me share. But really, am I over-exaggerating or is he just an ass?

Janel

I had a bit of an argument with my partner the other day about her brother and three year old nephew that are temporarily living with us.

The brother LOVES to play the new GTA.

Turns out the three year old LOVES to watch daddy shoot people.

I expressed my concern to her about this and she told me, "He's just a little boy." Like this explained everything. You can imagine the disagreement that followed.

She finally came around to my side after three events happened:

1) He made a gun out of legos.

2) He wanted to shoot the animals in the house with the lego gun.

3) Her brother was disgusted when she informed him that the little guy had picked a BARBIE *gasp* movie from the rental place.
And then stated we were trying to make the little one gay!
He quickly backtracked on this statement after seeing his lesbian sister's look of surprise and outrage.

I expected the boys will be boys statement from an uneducated twenty something guy, but not from my educated female partner.

UGH!

I am addicted to advertising. I don't even watch TV, but I will youtube advertisements. This is true. So when I say I am *speechless* over this Levi's 501 "Unbutton Your Beast" campaign... I mean... that doesn't happen often. I always have something to say.

"Unbutton Your Beast" is crude and over the top- sure. It features phallic-stand ins bursting out of the fly of its product (verily, the virility of "Paul the Pincher" cannot be contained by mere denim!) to stand and deliver (heh) a torrent of innuendos. You can customize these chatty little monsters into e-cards you can send to all your friends. I'll admit I did.

...Which is weird, because this is a man's product, and I don't generally think of this type of "pass it on" social networking marketing being used to target men. But then again, if anybody want to get an e-card with a talking faux-phallus, it's probably 'the dudes'.

Anyway, what do you all think? & can you imagine the furor a similar campaign for women would cause?

Sometimes reading posts can be very upseting for me because I think about all the issues that still need to be resolved and how slow progress is moving, but we can't just give up. So in the meantime while I wait I say thanks. I wrote this to thank one of the most important men in my life, my fiance. If you would like to thank a man or a woman or both leave a comment. : )

Brought to you by Doonsberry

I was more than a little disheartened upon Googling "biden vawa " to find that the top several links were to sites like mensactivism.org and misandryreview.com. These sites decry the apparently anti-male agenda of the Violence Against Women Act. Perhaps I missed something, but I fail to see how allowing women recourse against violence and abuse is anti-male.

Of course, it's clear that the architects and contributors to these sites have worldviews I just simply can't reconcile with my own. Part of Misandry Review 's tagline is "bloggers in opposition to misandry - the teaching of contempt for men in popular culture." This is a good point. All those advertisements I see on the subway dissecting men's bodies. All those Circuit Court decision s forcing men to conform their appearance to particular standard or else risk being fired. All that man-hating going on in Hollywood and Washington.

But on a more serious note, perhaps the reason the contributors to these sites feel threatened is not because of a "contempt for men," but because of a reconsideration of standards of mascuilinity . I'm sure that men who strictly conform to traditional standards of masculinity worry about shifts in society away from such standards. Thus, this sort of backlash. But to insist that they have some sort of right to the preservation of these standards, and that VAWA somehow violates their rights... I find this particularly repulsive. It's not hard to draw an inference from this rhetoric that this, what I might call extremist, group of men, believes that their ability to be manly men should be preserved at the expense of women, and abused women at that. Is that really the sort of masculinity we want to preserve?

I'm sitting here with my laptop, eating an ice cream sandwich and watching Jay Leno. He's talking about Kate Hudson being naked in a new movie. I've come to realize that every time I watch Jay he tries to prove that old man voyeurism is just hilarious. But what I really want to talk about is petroleum jelly.

Hey, a commercial just came on. New Vaseline Men! Here it is, boys! What your fierce paws of productivity have been waiting for.

Why for men , you ask? Well, because men are tough and rough, ballsy and active, gritty and burly. They need their aloe to be manly.

Chicks only use their hands for dainty activities. Like coating their lashes and typing. Or changing diapers ten times a day and washing their hands raw. They don't need resiliency -- they don't need to perform! Silly, silly. Active hands are man hands.

Gender stereotypes sure are super.

So I had trouble finding an exact category for this. While my birth sex was subtly intersexed, I was raised a girl and I've come out as transgender. My mother is a definite feminist (yet a Republican, go figure.) and is an immigrant.

Now, I've faced my share of 'isms' amongst the feminist crowd, but I really want to say that Feministing and Jessica Valenti's books are absolutely awesome. I've reccommended them to my male buddies who didn't quite comprehend what feminism was about (beyond the media she-woman-crazed-lesbian idea) and I've used that chance to educate people. I have faced discrimination as a white-appearing Portuguese person (first generation, ESL, not so "Americanized"), and for my transgender status in the feminist community. I found it similar in the LGBQ community, it somewhat felt like this;

"Well if we accept/advocate for YOUR issues, they [the populace/government/media] won't take us seriously."

But Feministing and the staff has really turned that around. I love reading the POC posts, the transgender rights (both FTM, MTF, and everything in between) and between listening to Good Asian Driver's "Our Daughters" and reading some of the double standards in Valenti's latest book, I think I can be rest assured that the girl and female-identified children I adopt in the future will be some badass feminists even posting on here someday ;)

Of course, we'll all be old and grizzly, and probably knitting (yes, I knit) together and talking about how in the Good Old Days, there were things like Duck Hunt and then Wii Fit.

Hopefully I don't get in trouble (I will be an intern for UCSD's Women's Center this fall) for writing about this but I need to get it out of my system. Precautionary measure here, the opinions expressed on here are solely mine and do not represent the opinions of the UCSD Women's Center or any of their affiliates.

During my group interview for an internship at the Women's Center one of the questions asked was, "How would you respond to a group of students coming in inquiring about starting a Men's Center?"

One of the most prevalent complaints about feminism that I hear both in the media and from people I personally know is that feminism has killed chivalry. The well-meaning majority of these people are actually referring to are gestures of courtesy shown to women by men, even though the word really connotes a code of honor practiced by medieval European knights. In fact, I am only using the word “chivalry” here because it is so frequently invoked by critics of feminism and, despite the whining of a certain subset of the population about people having tossed it aside, the word still carries a positive connotation, at least here in the United States.

My wife and I were talking the other night about a thread on Feministing about what role men would have in a "feminized world". We ended up having an interesting discussion, and she suggested that I try to bring some structure to the ideas and turn them into a post. I wanted to start with a quote from Robert Heinlein:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

I would add a few things to this list, like comfort a crying baby, but mostly I think it's a good list. I also think it's a little male-centric, because there's a focus on fixing problems, which is one of those traits that I identify as male.

(This is an older rant I had, that I thought I would share with the readers. Please... opinionify it!)

Dear Dr. Phil,

I want to thank you for bringing your ridiculousness to a new level today. Now, I may be a little biased, as I think your show is a bit of a sham, but today you really proved how useless at addressing people’s problems you really are.
The topic was sex: always an interesting topic in my books, so I wanted to see what TV’s 2nd favourite talk show host had to say on the subject. The first guest was interesting; the wife was significantly more interested in the horizontal mambo - and all of its fun variations –than her husband. Cool, I thought, someone is actually going to address gender stereotypes in human sexuality. So how disturbed was I when the husband started describing an incident where his wife tied him up against his will and had her way with him. In his own words he describes an occasion in which he feels Sylvia took advantage of him. “The time that Sylvia tied me up was very traumatic, very startling. I've never had anything like that. I had tears come down. I was scared.”. It sounded like a really bad case of marital rape. To my chagrin, you, your OBGYN specialist, the wife and the audience thought that this woman’s aggressiveness with her partner was humorous. The question was even asked, why he didn't just remove himself from the situation if he didn't want it, after all, he is a "pretty stout old boy" (No joke... those were the exact words used). Seriously? The fact that he had to dose his wife with sleeping pills to get out of unwanted sexual activity was quaint; his minor heart attack(s) during sex, garnered chuckles all around. So Dr. Phil, the self-proclaimed master of confrontation and blunt advice, did you tell this woman that she’s a rapist? I’m horrified to think that word didn’t even come up. If the same story had been told with the roles of the participants reversed, that man would likely be looking at some jail time, or at the very least, a tongue lashing from you. Rather, it was chocked up to the likelihood of an overabundance of testosterone in the wife that needed to be fixed to slow down her nymphish tendencies. Not once was it suggested that if one partner is not willing, that it isn’t sex anymore. I generally ignore the stupidity that pervades your show, but this had me reeling. First, a woman with a “masculine” sex drive shouldn’t have to be <b>fixed,/b>: women can be horny perverts, too. Second, rape can happen to men. It’s not something that should be laughed at or made into a light issue. People wonder why partner abuse against men is stupidly under-reported. Thanks for enabling that disturbing trend, Dr. Phil.

So please, do the world a favour: stop being such a double-standard holding, douchebag and do your “job”… whatever that really is.

Regards,

Your #1 fan.

I have a question for the members of this forum. Since I am a feminist a male friend of mine asked me "what is the male identity in a feminized world?' In other words, now that there is equality (ok, lets assume there is), what should be the role of men? He said that women are seen as caring and compassionate and males as violent and brute, now that that notion is changing, what should be the new male identity? I was having trouble answering him and I told him I would give him a more define answer later.

Isn't a sense of insecurity for a male to now have identity crisis because women are getting their rightful place in this world. Why is he assuming being "feminized" is something bad? The best answer I was able to give him is that now males and females identity, being equal, is to fight together for social change. What do you guys think?

I recently ran into this article in the Examiner, where the author is bewildered about why the Human Rights Campaign launched a complaint against this Snickers ad , claiming it was homophobic.  I only watched the ad after reading the headline and getting the gist of the author's argument, sure that I would find it homophobic if it was a mainstream ad.  But then after watching it, I realized I was less appalled by it (it didn't actually come across as homophobic, per se, but my assessment is that it was far too pro-masculine).  The argument in the ad isn't that they are necessarily portraying the speed walker as gay, but that they are championing standards of masculinity and ridiculing the man who apparently doesn't meet them.  But let's face it, I've seen worse.  It's fine that the HRC found this ad to be problematic, and certainly I would have supported the campaign had I known about it.  But -- where are the institutions which are challenging every ad that encourages women to be more "feminine" and submissive, or sexualized?  I want to support those campaigns, too, but perhaps that task is too daunting
 because it would require bringing down at least very beer company in the world.

Rachel_Setzer recently posted a post on Men and Feminism that was actually called Feminism and Men , and I was actually about to post a post on this topic, kind of. So consider this a comment on her post and my own post as well. Or maybe this is some sort of collective creation.

I've always been really frustrated with my mum's political inactivism. I've seen her get so heated and so frustrated about things, have such a passion about the inequality of certain things, and then I've seen her turn around and be very apathetic when I've suggested ways that she could produce political change about an issue. Despite this, I've always been extremely happy about how much she's supported me when I've been politically active with class issues, feminism, LGBT2IQQ+ issues, arts issues, etc. I was even happy when she leant me clothes to wear to an awards dinner for some feminist stuff I did (I somehow didn't find it appropriate to wear all my mens clothing to a Status of Women awards dinner, although more and more often I'm wondering why).

I wanted to share this interview I read in the Globe and Mail with Jonathan Levine, writer-director of "The Wackness".

Here's a quote from Jonathan:

"It stems from trying to figure out what's going to make me happy as I get older, and what it means to mature as a human being. I don't think that existential dilemma is ever going to go away: How do you go through life and be the person you want to be, in the face of all the things that are going to continually batter you? What do you turn to? Do you hide from your emotions, do you smoke pot and take pills, or do you open yourself up to them and own your own heartache?"

I really appreciated this article, because, frankly, I tend to forget that men also struggle with sexist gender expectations and are only "allowed" a limited range of emotional expression.  And basically, we're going through a lot of the same things.

I just stumbled upon this perfect description of what Carl's Jr commercials are like. I don't mean to give voice to someone like this but I think this is an honest description of what really goes on inside some people's heads. and I think that men especially need to step up to this voice that pretends to speak for them and confront the image that is painted of them. I also want to clear the fact that I have no problem with sexual content, rather i have a problem with the "gender role" thing that this guy is referring to. here it goes (accent is mine)

"I work in marketing and was thinking about what a great job they have been doing lately. I was actually looking up articles about there campaign and strategy when I found this blog. I actually kind of expected to find lots of feminists outraged about the commercials...which would only help their cause. I don't eat their burgers either but they really hit home with the more tradition gender roles. The psychology behind the adds make men out to be "rough" and slightly "barbaric".. and yet the woman is so understanding and accepting of the fact. She likes her man like this...as this is how men are suppose to be. One of my favorites is the one where the guy is working in a garage on his hotrod and his "sexy" girl friend patiently watches him and then she hands him a giant burger and he reaches out with his greasy dirty hands and grabs it and takes a big bite.

In a way this whole campaign offers men (which in many ways has become alienated by America's feminist movement) a positive reinforcement of "manhood". Many men would not recognize this as many men have been diluted by this movement.

So if you were wondering why marketers do what they do then now ya know.

From Melissa Calldwell, Director of Parents Television Council

"This commercial is basically soft-core porn. The way she moves, the way she puts her finger in her mouth — it's very suggestive and very titillating."

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl's_Jr.

What happened to the days a man could really just enjoy the things he likes doing and enjoy looking at a pretty woman? If you don't like watching then turn it off. If you don't want your kids to watch... turn it off."