Here are I my thoughts on the article, unusually succinct for me:
Oh dear. One study comes out with dubious findings, so let's forget about the mountain of other studies that say otherwise. He gives away his bias when he calls feminism a 'pernicious and poisonous creed'.
He is clearly unwilling to accept the facts - and has misinterpreted the ones he does know. One in four women suffer domestic violence during their lifetime - this does not mean that one in four men 'batter their wives' as he puts it; some men will be serial abusers and some of those one in four women will not stay in that relationship for life.
Someone in the comments section calls this article 'specious' and that is profoundly accurate. It shows little respect for the findings of social sciences or for the struggles women have faced and continue to face every day, for example some women in Darfur being unable to leave their homes to collect water without facing the threat of sexual violence.
Clearly he feels uncomfortable with the challenge of feminism's calling and is using the study to defend himself as a man.
Doesn't he get it? Women just wanted to be treated like human beings. 'Feminism is the radical notion that women ARE human beings.' (Charis Kramarae)
We don't particularly like having to campaign and complain so much - feminists aren't sympathetically looked upon - and if we were treated as equals we would stop.
Neil Lyndon, we just wanted to be treated as human beings. Here and across the world, the fight for women's equality is far from over. Please leave your own neuroses out of a serious debate that involves the lives and fates of real women.
He is clearly unwilling to accept the facts - and has misinterpreted the ones he does know. One in four women suffer domestic violence during their lifetime - this does not mean that one in four men 'batter their wives' as he puts it; some men will be serial abusers and some of those one in four women will not stay in that relationship for life.
Someone in the comments section calls this article 'specious' and that is profoundly accurate. It shows little respect for the findings of social sciences or for the struggles women have faced and continue to face every day, for example some women in Darfur being unable to leave their homes to collect water without facing the threat of sexual violence.
Clearly he feels uncomfortable with the challenge of feminism's calling and is using the study to defend himself as a man.
Doesn't he get it? Women just wanted to be treated like human beings. 'Feminism is the radical notion that women ARE human beings.' (Charis Kramarae)
We don't particularly like having to campaign and complain so much - feminists aren't sympathetically looked upon - and if we were treated as equals we would stop.
Neil Lyndon, we just wanted to be treated as human beings. Here and across the world, the fight for women's equality is far from over. Please leave your own neuroses out of a serious debate that involves the lives and fates of real women.
P.S. These thoughts don't even touch on the way Lyndon examines gender in the article or the bit where he assumes that Fay Weldon speaks for feminists everywhere.
What a profoundly stupid piece of writing.
Thanks to Jenna for the heads-up
Men just want to be treated fairly too and in today's society a lot of us certainly aren't. Good men get taken advantage of just like good women do. So please don't rally hatred into groups(gender) but to specifics; an example like pathological liars or physical abusers.
ReplyDeleteThe article is in itself idiocy but don't just throw the whole jist of unbalance between genders into the gutter.
Sorry if you think I did that; I certainly didn't mean to. I believe that patriarchy (and heteronormativity) are detrimental to men in a lot of ways too. Because men are expected to act in a certain way to fulfil society's expectations of men and conceptions of masculinity, I think a lot of men have to suppress their true selves. And still others suffer because they don't fulfil those expectations.
ReplyDeleteI just don't agree with the 'men have it worse' type arguments that appear in articles such as Lyndon's.
Let's not split hairs though. Patriarchy is an abominable system that harms all of us.
How's that?
Are you saying it's impossible for men to have it worse? Get over it and take some responsibility for yourselves. Some people want to be victims and always will put themselves in bad situations regardless of gender.
ReplyDeleteLike I've been saying it's not a whole gender that is a victim in the society anymore it's individuals. Focus on helping them, the individual human. Neither gender needs another monkey on their back telling them they're wrong. If household duties on average are divided evenly is this not a great accomplishment for people as a whole?
Contrary to popular belief not all men love subservient women, nothing bores me more.
"Are you saying it's impossible for men to have it worse?"
ReplyDeleteObviously I can't speak for Kate, but I didn't read Kate as saying this. On the whole, I'm pretty unsympathetic to feminisms that claim that no man can ever have it worse than any woman...but I'm also pretty unsympathetic to attempts to "rank" types of oppression. All oppressions are bad, and they don't need to be worse than what someone else gets to be bad.
"take some responsibility for yourselves."
I don't think it's fair to blame feminism for the ways that men are treated badly by patriarchy, given that most feminisms aim to campaign *against* patriarchy. Maybe joining in the campaign would be more productive than saying "get over it"?
"Like I've been saying it's not a whole gender that is a victim in the society anymore it's individuals."
I think it's important to track general trends in social injustice, and it is in fact the case that we *can* track significant trends like workplace inequality, and the disproportionate allocation of domestic responsibilities to women, and women facing higher risks of sexual assaults. We can also track trends on race or class or other social bases. And I think those are important things to do: we need to know where the problems are to be able to fix them.
But if I'm understanding you correctly, you also seem to be saying that the general trend doesn't mean that, for example, men don't get a rough deal. Am I reading you right? If so, I agree.
I'm not sure what you mean about individuals -- could you help me out here? If you mean these aren't systemic trends, I disagree. If you mean we could humanize the issues more and be less abstract, then I completely agree.
"If household duties on average are divided evenly is this not a great accomplishment for people as a whole?"
It would be, but most studies tell us this is not the case at the moment.
--IP