Grow a Pair

Patriarchy is often consider a feminist (or should I say feminazi!!) conspiracy theory: the idea that all penis-wielding entities are somehow in on the maintenance of a worldwide phallocentric hegemony. Well, understandably this is how it looks sometimes before you read the literature. Some feminist assertions do sound rather like conspiracy theories when there is no “hard evidence” to back it up. After all, suggesting that men around the world not only benefit from but seek to perpetuate, whether consciously or unconsciously, Patriarchal hegemony in its various manifestations (e.g. gender norms; sociocultural and political hierarchies based on race, sex, etc.; rape culture; Sex Binary Construct; etc.) sounds, well, like the Patriarchy: it is a sex-based and thus sexist proposition, for one thing, but also sounds a touch crazy– penis-carriers from around the world subconsciously and/or actively participate in systems of mass control (i.e. dominance hierarchies), even perhaps with the knowledge that they are submitting to a position within such systems, themselves, as a way to make gain?

I admit, that does sound a little X-Files-y. But there is more substance to this theory than readily meets the eye. Something that has become more and more prominent as a concern for the Modern Man is testosterone.

This ad is used to promote testosterone supplements.

One often hears about the falling levels of testosterone among the modern male population, especially in “developed” countries. Stories and blogs and conversations about and from men claim that they are emasculated, that society has stripped them of their Manhood (capital ‘M’); there are even commercial ventures which benefit from playing off this fear of limp-dickedness (and they sell it with lines like, “when we were still cavemen, we knew how to get what we wanted even if it meant dragging women by their hair into our caves”). The backlash to emasculation often expresses itself, frighteningly, as violence…especially violence against women and marginalized groups.

The flipside to this coin of the Modern Male is that the vast majority of violence is perpetrated by men, against men. Testosterone has long been linked with violent and aggressive behavior. Yet rates of violence have not decreased with the apparent drop in levels of testosterone. Why should this be?

The link between testosterone and aggression is somewhat of an overstated one: there is, in fact, little evidence to support this link in humans and our close relatives (via Nature, Eisenegger 2009). Rather there is a link between testosterone and dominance behavior (which in humans does not usually mean aggression, or “behavior intended to inflict physical injury” [Booth, et al.; Testosterone and Social Behavior, 2006]), which is impacted by sociocultural environment (e.g. ‘social perception, previous experience, propensity for specific behavior’, etc.) in combination with genetic, physiological, and other environmental factors (Booth, et al. 2006). Thus, links between testosterone and dominating and aggressive behaviors are highly individualistic. In general, there does appear to be a causal relationship between higher testosterone and more frequent expression of dominance behavior, but trends of higher testosterone and violence (including perpetration of violent crimes) must be considered on an individual basis that accounts for social, environmental, and physiological factors. In humans, there is little firm evidence correlating increased testosterone and aggression (and, it’s interesting to note, decreased testosterone and reduced libido).

Thus, while dominance behaviors may decrease as a result of lower testosterone,  a drop in testosterone does not necessarily mean a drop in violent behavior. That violence is influenced by so much more than biology, alone, possibly supports the idea that men who feel emasculated tend towards violence as a way of regaining masculinity. Indeed, it could be that the very suggestion of emasculation, such as a drop in their collective, “manly” testosterone, increases a man’s aggressive or violent behaviors.

I have often heard men complain about how Politically Correct their world has become, and how much they hate it. They can no longer make sexist jokes. They can no longer openly sexually harrass women. They jeopardize their jobs and risk being socially ostracized by failing to be “PC”. I also hear [American] men complaining a whole lot about how much women are complaining about how much control they’re losing over their reproductive health and bodily autonomy. The justification for this often goes something like, that’s the way it goes because women are the baby makers. (Or they may mention Eve, which really goes too far… Sort of kidding.) Similarly, many American men don’t seem to understand why women desire things like equal pay and equal employment and equal, uh, rights. Why should they need those things when they have men to Provide for them?

Modern men in Developed countries seem to be at the brink. They feel out-of-control, emasculated– like they are losing, have already lost their Manhood. They feel like they’re going soft, and that women are far too dominant over them. They feel that they are under attack, that they can’t be Real Men anymore. Some of them are seriously pissed off by today’s gender bending. Some of them may feel like they can get Manhood back by acting out violently and aggressively, by asserting power or by intimidating and threatening.

This escalating trend of men complaining about losing Manhood and being emasculated, which has really been going on quite a while now (probably quite a bit further back then I recognize) and may be coming to a head, is very strong evidence of Patriarchy. Not a global, organized network of men from all walks of life and cultural backgrounds who actively organize to promote their agenda, but an agenda it still is. And men from all walks of life and cultural backgrounds recognize the benefit of maintaining this agenda. When the agenda begins to slip out of their firm control is when the Patriarchal structure that underpins all societies in its various forms begins to manifest itself. Really, Patriarchy works best when it’s taken for granted, and on the DL.

The idea of society being anything but phallocentric terrifies a lot of men. Many places in the world still loathe female leadership. It is unnatural. Even in a family, my male Cambodian compadres tell me, there may be “equality” but there must always be a head…and that head should be male. It’s really a law of nature.

But let us not forget the role that women play in Patriarchal hegemony, as well. Their role is really crucial, in fact– without their cooperation, Patriarchy would quickly collapse. Women must believe in the naturalness of sex roles– of sex itself. And most women buy willingly into Patriarchy because they, too, benefit somehow. Patriarchy is not a totalitarian regime, but a very cleverly, seemingly organically-built construct that is adaptive and flexible. It would not have lasted this long if it were a pure slave state. The slaves must believe in their own subordination to perpetuate such a state for as long as Patriarchy has survived.

So when women mock men who are too feminine, or talk about how they want a Real Man, or really when they do anything to promote the Chicks-from-Venus-Dicks-from-Mars notion…they are reinforcing their own degradation. And really, the degradation of all humanity. Patriarchy is degrading for all of us.

Patriarchy: How Everyone Suffers

I’m fond of using the word Patriarchy (especially capitalized). Lots of people are. It’s a catchy, encompassing term. The problem is, Normal People tend to associate it (and thus its most ardent users, feminists) with crackpot conspiracy theory.

Can we take a minute and dissect this concept?

A few definitions of Patriarchy I have stumbled across recently are:

from Wikipedia: “Patriarchy is a social system in which the males, especially fathers, have central roles of political leadership, moral authority, and property. Many patriarchal societies are also patrilineal, meaning that property and title are inherited by the male lineage. The female equivalent is matriarchy.”

from blogger ballgame: “Patriarchy is a system of rigid rules and expectations around gender that unjustly overvalues certain qualities and undervalues others. Typically, dominant males are overvalued, and the average woman’s macropolitical agency is significantly constrained. (Patriarchal societies also frequently devalue the average man’s emotional value and possibly his micropolitical agency, though I don’t know whether this is necessarily a hallmark of patriarchy like devaluing the average woman’s political agency is).”

from Kamla Bhasin: “[The concept of Patriarchy] is a tool to help us understand our realities.” She continues, “The word patriarchy literally means the rule of the father or the the ‘patriarch’, and originally it was used to describe a specific type of ‘male-dominated family’– the large household of the patriarch which included women, junior men, children, slaves and domestic servants all under the rule of this dominant male. Now it is used more generally to refer to male domination, to the power relationships by which men dominate women, and to characterise a system whereby women are kept subordinate in a number of ways. In South Asia, for example, it is called pitrasatta in Hindi, pidarshahi in Urdu and pitratonto in Bangla.” She also adds that Patriarchy assumes different forms in different times, places, and cultures.

(Also, interesting essay here.) 

Parts and conceptual sums of these definitions, among others, have shaped my [working] concept of Patriarchy. I guess I don’t have a simple definition, but this is generally what I mean when I say it…:

Patriarchy is both a system and a way of thinking which holds certain values that benefit some peoples and individuals and necessarily discriminates against others. Although these values and their manifestations vary by culture, location, and time, a general pattern can be identified: value for competition; value for strength, power/authority, and domination; value for role conformity; value for hierarchical structure; value for masculinity. Patriarchy also devalues femininity, weakness, subordination, and deviation. The forms these values take are necessarily shaped and expressed by culture, by which ‘masculinity’, ‘femininity’, gender roles/norms/expectations are defined, and the specific values of a culture in terms of race, age, sexual orientation, etc. Hierarchy within Patriarchy is multifaceted; multiple hierarchies may exist which are interconnected or interdependent and function around concepts not only of gender but also race, age, sexual orientation, and so on.

Thus can it be that “progressive” America (in which women can vote, run for office, work outside the home, have sex with other women, and so on) is a Patriarchal society and “backwards” Afghanistan is a Patriarchal society, as well.

The BBC just had an article on Men’s Rights activists. The reason why I am so irritated by this movement is not because I want to subjugate men, don’t believe in their rights, etc. Obviously not (see my definition of feminism). What is so utterly bothersome is that these proponents are either a) complete ignorant of their victim-agent status within Patriarchy (and sometimes Patriarchy, itself), or b) want to have their cake and eat it too. That is, they want all the benefits and privileges of their Western White Wealthy Phallocentric Patriarchy without any of the consequences. Well, I’m sorry people, but if you subscribe to hierarchy (and even if you don’t), you had better know there are drawbacks for those who are not at the top.

Some of those consequences/drawbacks are nicely illustrated by the article. I will go through some of them. Please note the irony of blaming feminism for these “ills upon men” (nevermind their Patriarchal origin).

As described in the article, David Benatar’s new book addresses the various ills of men which include: being conscripted into the army, being victims of violence, losing custody of their children, and taking their own lives.

1. Conscription into the army. Last time I checked, there was a lot of hesitation (confusion?), even disgust, about women joining the army in “the West”. Yes, they can do so in a lot of countries. Yes, publicly they are praised as patriotic for their service. But American women are still not allowed into combat. Hatred of women by the military apparatus, itself, manifests as [tolerated] violence against their own. And the Ideal Soldier will never, ever be recreated as feminine or female in the eyes of the Patriarchy. Fighting for one’s country is a classic Patriarchal value in America and much of Europe, not to mention elsewhere. Blood-letting is considered masculine and unfeminine, and unfeminine women are often portrayed as “butch” and repulsive. But ultimately, allowing for the conscription of women into the army would not reduce Patriarchy, at all: the very purpose of the war machine as a tool of domination is both a manifestation of and means of perpetuating Patriarchy, regardless of whether the fighting puppets have penises or not. (Personally, I don’t think anyone should be conscripted into the army. But I’m radical like that.)

2. Victims of Violence. It’s true that men are more likely to experience and die of violent crime than women (excepting rape).  It’s also true that men are more likely to commit violent crime than women. This probably has little to do with the inherent nature of men or women as more or less violence-prone, and more to do with our socialization within a Patriarchal society. Patriarchy often dictates that men are naturally (and should be) assertive, aggressive, even forceful if that is necessary to get what one wants. Women, on the other hand, should not be aggressive, or are “naturally” more nurturing, passive, and empathetic. Men who display these attributes are labeled emasculated, effeminate, even gay (oh god, not that!) the world over, from the States to Cambodia. Women who are assertive, aggressive, or forceful are abnormal, unnatural– “bitches”, reallly. All this masculine-identified aggression is partly responsible for violence in all forms. This is not to say that women aren’t violent– of course they are, but statistically they are far less likely to be physically violent– perhaps because the Patriarchy has many recourses to put them back in their subordinated place. The other aspect of this is risk-taking; both as perpetrators and victims, men are encouraged to do more risk-taking than women. The leading cause of death for young men is accidents, and more men die of accidents than women, generally. Women are encouraged to adopt “safer” lifestyles than men. They are child-bearers and raisers, after all.

3. Losing custody of the kids. Alas, the Woman as Nurturer motif has finally come back to bite men in the ass. Patriarchy, of course, doesn’t only discriminate against women in its sometimes ironic functioning. Discrimination has long worked in apparent favor of women in this regard: women are Mothers and innate Nurturers; men are (or should be) distant, emotionally-detached Providers. You can’t rightly expect a Provider to properly raise babies, now, can you? But also, the realm of babies and children is a necessarily feminine one, for babies and children are weak, just as women are. This is why women and children need the Protector/Provider male, and why single motherhood equates to child abuse.

4. Suicide. Higher rates of suicide among men can be partly explained by the methods men employ as differentiated from women. Suicidal men statistically resort to more violent means than women, which results in higher rates of success. Although women attempt suicide more often (and have higher rates of self-harm), men actually succeed in killing themselves more often. It has been suggested that men are not only encouraged to seek out more violent means to commit suicide, but also are able to attain those means more easily (such as acquiring and using a gun). Mental illness is a major (if not the major) factor leading to suicide, and men are less likely than women to seek help over mental health issues. This tendency is also founded in normative masculinity: “real men” don’t show weakness, don’t cry, and don’t talk about their feelings. [Interesting side note: the suicide rate is actually higher for women than men in China. Between that and female infanticide, the future sure looks grim for Chinese women.]

Other points mentioned:

5. 90% of prison inmates are male. This ties in with much of the above. Value of male aggression and even violent competition are at the root of this issue, but it should also be pointed out that the majority of prison inmates are people of colour. The systems within the System are not simply based on gender, but privilege or disadvantage is based on a myriad of other factors, as well– including ethnicity and social class. Many styles of Patriarchy love White Wealthy Westerners, hence one reason why you don’t see a whole lot of them in prison. And class is of course derived from our status within the system of capitalism. Let me tell you, Patriarchy loves Capitalism. (Hehe.) They are old friends, although Patriarchy is a lot older. Capitalism has a lot going on that Patriarchy adores: cutthroat competition, domination, winners and losers, and so on. But as a way of life, Capitalism sets up a situation which almost ensures that some groups of people are going to be underrepresented in the upper classes and overrepresented as the bottomfeeders or criminals; Patriarchy helps shape how those groups are defined (as by colour, religion, etc.). As a fortune cookie once told me, “Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it.” It should have added, “And Patriarchy unfairly molds certain groups of people into the criminal role.” If you’re about to say, “Crime is an individual’s choice,” say no more Dickensian nonsense; crime as an individual choice complete removes both the crime and the individual from the context of culture and thus makes it into a moral dilemma-scenario in a philosophy book. In other words, completely detached from reality.

6. Men are invisible victims. An American web designer in Ohio is setting up a domestic violence shelter for men. I think this is an absolutely pro idea. A lot of people, though, are probably going to laugh their heads off at this. Why? Because MEN HIT WOMEN NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND, DUH LOL. Well, that is certainly what Patriarchy wants us to believe. And, more often than not, that is the reality; most perpetrators of violence are men, most survivors and victims women and children. But not all. And an increasing number of women are becoming perpetrators (which, by the way, women have long perpetrated violence against children, no surprise there) as the physical and psychological moorings of Patriarchy continue to shift. Women are Patriarchs, too, after all. Anyhow, this shelter: it directly points to how Patriarchy does not simply function on gender, but is multidimensional. Hence why white middle class American men should think again about their fervent support of Patriarchy, for when they becomes its victims, who is left to turn to? Suddenly the marginalizers have become the marginalized. Men are supposed to be the aggressors, not the victims. Am I being redundant? Is a pattern emerging here?

7. Men’s body image. Pressure and negativity surrounding male body image has grown steadily from an almost-neutral standpoint in the industrial era of “the West”, to a nigh-obsession today. Women have experienced this since…well, who knows when, and that’s not to say male beauty standards have not also been prioritized for a long time. But for modern men, I can see why these changes should come as a shock; they’re not the fair sex, after all– women should be the ones worrying about their appearance, dammit! A man can and should be able to fuck anyone he wants regardless of how he looks, and to be loved by anyone without them caring about his appearance. My, how the times have changed. Vanity and beauty are suddenly no longer so, well, feminine. Does this mean we are now going to admit to the subjectivity of beauty and toss out antiquated “ideals” and norms that control people’s lifestyles and cognitions? Somehow I doubt it…

There are a lot of other points mentioned in the article that should be addressed within a conceptual framework that accounts for Patriarchy. Maybe I’ll get to them later, but I don’t want to bore you… The point is, Patriarchy is shit. It’s not just bad for women. It’s bad for men. It’s bad for black people. It’s bad for Cambodians. It’s bad for Canadians. It’s bad for the elderly. It’s bad for kids. It’s really really bad for young, black, poor single moms, and it’s the least bad for White Wealthy Western males. This is not just about sex. This is not just about colour or class. And no, Men’s Rights Activists, you cannot have your cake and eat it, too.

I know, I know: you’re trained to hate women, right? (a review)

As I started reading David Wong’s article “5 Ways Modern Men Are Trained to Hate Women”, I found myself startled by the (male) author’s willingness to identify and discredit certain misogynist attitudes and behaviors. Wow, what a thoughtful, self-reflective writer, one might be tempted to think. Then I got to the paragraph where he identifies himself as the author of John Dies at the End, and everything started making more sense. I started thinking over Wong’s novel again, this time with his article in mind.

In John Dies at the End, Wong (which is the author’s pen name, by the way) conforms almost exactly to what he says are five misogynist concepts that society has ingrained into “modern men”: #5, Wong (also the name of the protagonist of JDatE) not only gets “the girl”, but he gets a few, even though he, himself, admits that he’s basically a “loser” and demonstrates childish self-entitlement about sex throughout the novel, sadly without irony. #4, all the female characters in the novel are ancillary, and even those which qualify as main characters serve basically the same function that “hot babes who can also wield a sword” serve in video games like the Final Fantasy series. Once in a while a female character in the story will make some comment about how she doesn’t like being objectified or this and that, but this is for comedic purposes, obviously, as she is dismissed and then– you guessed it– sexually objectified. Wong clearly wrote this for what he thought would be an all-male audience; I probably would have ended up a devoted fan had the story not been so cholk-full of predictable, boring sexism. *yawn* Anyway, #3, this one sort of goes hand-in-hand with #4 in that during crucial moments in the action of JDatE, Wong’s sex drive kicks in and he makes random sexual comments even when he and his friends are in imminent peril. If Wong’s real goal was to reinforce every possible stereotype of how “guys think with their dicks”, he did an excellent job. #2, it seems to me that the entire purpose of both the author’s writing this noveland the protagonist’s journey in the story was to regain some kind of “lost” or “diminished” manhood. The character Wong at times expounds on ways he’s been emasculated by society (or more specifically by “girls”) in a very Chuch Palahniuk-esque way; what better way to regain one’s masculinity than by chasing monsters and getting the girl. Or several. And that plays nicely into #1, the powerlessness Wong ultimately claims the Modern Man feels, and which the protagonists of his story experience again and again in the course of the novel– but eventually overcome. You know, the whole “conquering your fears” motif. I haven’t read the sequel. (Notice I didn’t say “yet”.)

Back to the article, itself, specifically #3. I think Wong’s insights into the demonization of women as penile conspirators are quite poignant. It’s the philosophy underlying the classic victim-blaming strategies of rapists who say “she was asking for it” (i.e. “my penis made me do it”?), and which also bolsters arguments I have heard men close to me put forth: “If she didn’t always talk back/defend her ideas, I wouldn’t have to yell at her, call her names, and threaten to leave her.” (In that sense, #3 also goes hand-in-hand with the whole “endangered manhood” argument of #2.) So men hate women for being merely a pair of boobs, but when those boobs suddenly grow lips which voice ideas men hate that even more. Unfortunately, Wong lays all this out as if he’s “telling it like it is”. He, like misguided pseudofeminists who seek to subordinate the male gender on the basis of female moral superiority, reduces men to an organ– and it isn’t their brain. (Well, he does cite that supposedly comedic line which calls the penis a man’s “little brain”.) Perhaps he’s just basing this (as he did the entire JDatE novel) on his personal gendered experience, but at the end of the day all he’s doing is reinforcing ugly stereotypes. Worse, he seems to be using them as a justification, too.

I’ll skip to #1. It’s more reducing-men-to-penises, but he also reduces women to their vaginas. Well, first he reduces them to food, which is nothing new. In this analogy, sex-starved men perceive all women as literal pieces of meat. Again, Wong doesn’t say, “This is messed up,” or “Men are more than their dicks,” or “We should reject this view of sexuality that portrays women as fuck objects”, etc. More or less he seems to accept it. I did appreciate his assessment of George R.R. Martin’s writing of female characters (wherein their breasts are the sum of their parts), but if he really thought this was messed up or wrong, why would he repeat the pattern in his own novel? Oh, because he feels a distinct self-entitlement to portray the stereotypical male fantasy because it’s his book? Classic Nice Guy™.

The final blow is when he (without bothering to connect this idea to the former except to say “Do you see what I’m getting at?” as if it should be self-evident) insults our intelligence by stating that all of civilization was created “with [women] in mind”. Or, more accurately, with fucking women in mind.

See, the sad thing is that all of this is intended to be funny and ironic. But in that Wong fails, because through his writing he embodies the kind of misogyny he’s describing. Sorry, Wong, but I just don’t find sexual objectification all that amusing (which is maybe why my eyes started to glaze over during the second half of JDatE, in particular), and the only irony is that maybe on some level you see this article as actually supportive of women being treated like human beings while it excuses men from doing the opposite of that.

They’re Not Commodity, Either

As promised, the “male counterpart”, so to speak, to the last post on commodification. Hah.

I should clarify up front that I believe the fetishization, hypersexualization, and sexual commodification of any person is wrong, regardless of their gender, age, race, location, etc. My ideal world would be one in which we choose to learn about and relate to other people, celebrating diversity while exploring commonalities– which means, sexual objectification has got to go. I know, you love your shirtless firefighter calendars and your semi-pornographic “news” websites, but that shit got to go. (Non-sexual idolatry, admittedly, is still one of my major weaknesses, but putting someone on a pedestal of aesthetic appreciation, amazement, and/or worship is still rather othering, isn’t it? What are people’s thoughts on this?)

The fact of the matter is that every group of people gets objectified. Sometimes it’s racist. Sometimes it’s pedophilic. And sometimes it happens to men. In fact, it probably happens to men more than we acknowledge it does.

Men are not immune to being portrayed as fetishized accessories. It may stand out to us as unusual, however, when we see them posed in ways that reduce their dominance or emasculate them. Male sexual objectification typically idealizes the male body as strong, powerful, visceral, whereas the female body is merely a prop or confection. Male bodies can be admired and envied, and are consumed by males and females alike, whereas female sexual objectification is chiefly for male consumption and female bodies are desired for consumptive (and thus disposable) purposes. Also, it is not so much male sexuality that is being commandeered as it is the male body. It is more common for female sexuality to be appropriated for consumption and sale in conjunction with the appropriation of their bodies and body parts.

Cisgender, straight males may even be offended by the overly effeminate or emasculated portrayal of their gender; it is socially abnormal, even unacceptable. The female body, however, is perceived socially as much more aesthetically pliable, and can be feature in situations which play up either hyperfeminine or masculine traits– so long as the woman is still visually sexually consumable. It’s also common to see the blatant pricing of female sexual entities, but this form of commodification would still be perceived as offensive by cisgender straight males.

It remains, however, that “real” men do the consuming, and aren’t consumed. If you are consumable, you are something less than a man– maybe you don’t even deserve that penis, which is why society semantically castrate you by calling you emasculated. Emasculated men are consumed, real men consume.

One could rephrase Rich Zubaty’s extremely effed-up quote, “Our job is not to get along with the Goddess. Our job is to fuck the Goddess.” as “It’s not our job to accept mutual consumption with the Goddess. Our job is to consume the Goddess.”

So, at the end of the day, everyone is commodified and everyone suffers. As commodification is an unsurprising side effect of Patriarchy, we should really say, everyone suffers under Patriarchy. But some people definitely suffer more than others. Maybe that calls for a post about the particularly horrid depiction of the black female entity.