Jessica Testa is a reporter for The State Press, the student newspaper for Arizona State University for which I now write. The rant you'll read here began after seeing Ms. Testa's October article titled "Beyond the 'glass ceiling,'" which covered lectures given by two prominent feminists at ASU's Tempe campus. Some of what you'll see in my post here is part of a letter that I sent to The SP in response to the article. It was that letter to the editor that caused them to offer me an editorial column on their staff.
From the article, I was impressed with the perseverance of the women’s movement. Ms. Testa pointed out the state of the current generation of young women, “unable to identify with feminism.” One of the speakers, Gloria Feldt, “said the cause of young feminists’ disconnection is not for lack of support but for lack of awareness.”
Sadly, for the very real gender inequalities our society faces today, there is no comparable men’s movement. Yes, across all ages, there are deficiencies in the number of women in upper management. Yes, women’s reproductive rights are still being challenged. And yes, women are still objectified in much of the media, which causes unrealistic expectations of body image. All of that must be remedied. Ms. Testa’s article cited all of those issues, and on those points I agree with feminism. But they are not the entire story of American inequality.
While the lack of a men’s movement means that political and financial support is non-existent, the glaring problem at the moment is the complete lack of awareness in popular culture that young American men face social inequalities also. Over the last 20 years, with the dramatic strides of feminism, the fact that America’s boys were falling behind in comparison to their female peers barely registered on the cultural radar screen.
For Americans under 30, women measure higher in almost every aspect of psychological, professional, and personal well-being than their male peers. Based on Carol Gilligan’s research in the early 1990s, millions of third-wave feminists believe that girls have less self-esteem than boys. That wasn’t true when her study was conducted in the early 90s, and that’s not true now. Gilligan’s study was heavily flawed from an academic standpoint: she did not follow standard research protocol, relying on qualitative interviews with a hand-picked selection of 11 year-old girls; her research did not go through peer review; and to this day, she refuses researcher requests to see her data. Feminists launched a successful public relations and lobbying campaign in support of her research, and in 1994, the women’s movement scored a major victory with the passage of the Gender Equity in Education Act, releasing millions of dollars in federal funding. Girls’ academic performance is better than that of boys in every field except for math and science, where performance is about equal according to recent research from UC-Berkeley and UW-Madison. Yet girls’ verbal and social sciences skills far exceed those of boys, and there is no similar push to help our nation’s boys out of their verbal hole.
This academic discrimination extends to the collegiate level. There are Women’s Studies programs at nearly every college across the country, yet there are only a handful of Men’s Studies programs. According to a report by the Department of Education, in 1991, 55% of college students were female and 45% were male; in 2003, 57% were women and 43% were men. Another study by the Dept. of Ed. shows that in 2007, women surpassed men in achieving degrees at every level of higher education: 166 associate's degrees for women to every 100 for men; 140 to 100 for bachelor's degrees; 156 to 100 for master's degrees; 102 to 100 for professional degrees; 101 to 100 for doctoral degrees. That is utter domination across the board. University of Michigan economist Mark Perry, PhD explored how this trend would produce a larger gap by 2009.
For young women just entering the workforce, the glass ceiling has shattered. In it’s place, a new glass ceiling is being built. Research by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that for Americans under 25, women are employed at much higher rates than men. In 2009, for the entire 16-24 age group, 85.1% of the female labor force was employed, while only 79.9% of men were.
The current recession has hit men particularly hard, so much so that several journalists working for respectable media sources are calling it a “mancession.” Hillary Clinton’s chief strategist, Mark Penn, calls these men “Guys Left Behind.” Penn writes, “men continue to outstrip women in most of the downers in life.” He cites prison population (1.5 million men compared to 115,000 women), alcoholism, obesity (almost 75% of men; less than 66% of women), population in drug treatment centers (2 to 1), fatal auto crashes (66,000 to 33,000), unemployment (7.2% to 5.9%), college graduation (60% to 40%), declining enrollment in graduate schools, declining political and consumer influence, and life expectancy (75 to 80; in 1900 both men and women in the U.S. were expected to live to be 47 years old).
Penn acknowledges that there is a disparity in wealth in favor of men, but it does not cover the whole population. “The one area in which men still dominate is wealth, especially at the multi-million dollar upper end – but that’s true primarily because of the oldest generations. The pay gap is closing for people in their twenties; income tax filings show that at least in big cities, women in their twenties are earning just as much as their male counterparts.” Or more. In fact, the article he links to says that women under 30 in big cities like Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis, Dallas, and New York City all make significantly more money than young men their age, to the tune of 20% more in Dallas and 17% more in New York City.
In terms of political influence, Penn says that men are outgunned. “We have very few gender-specific programs to help close the emerging gaps in high school and college. No political movement driving funds to reduce the double-dose of heart-related deaths among men. No serious Web sites devoted to supporting men and their disproportionate suffering in this regard.”
When it comes to advocacy, the issue of spousal abuse is another area where men are at a cultural disadvantage. Actual spousal abuse continues to occur between both genders, but that is not reflected in popular culture. The literary and humor website McSweeney’s publishes Bitchslap: A Column About Women and Fighting. The column’s description below the byline states, “Self-defense instructor, black belt, and generally cranky person Susan Schorn trains at Sun Dragon Martial Arts in Austin, Texas, where she learned karate from a second-wave feminist who could snap people’s bones like breadsticks. Here she chronicles instances of everyday combat, from the dojo to the shoe section of Macy’s. Groin protection is advised.” On her reason for fighting, the author writes, “There is a common perception that women can’t fight, or won’t fight – at any rate, that we don’t fight. That perception is one reason we are targets of violence, and I fight in part to prove that perception wrong.” That perception reflects popular opinion about domestic violence, but it fails to take reality into account. While men do more damage when they are violent, scientific studies show that women are more violent and aggressive towards men – they are more likely to slap, hit, kick, bite, and throw things at their spouses. “Meta-analyses of sex differences in physical aggression indicate that women were more likely than men to ‘use one or more acts of physical aggression and to use such acts more frequently’” (Archer 2000). All spousal abuse is wrong, but we are socialized to not give the male victim equal weight. Men make up a significant number of the victims of domestic violence, but this is not publicized at all, and thus remains hidden from cultural awareness. Women who fight are given columns to describe their motivations – “we women are so often the targets of violence.” Without similar columns, similar news stories, similar books, and similar programs describing the male perspective on issues like self-esteem, education, employment, and spousal abuse, the mass of popular culture produces a heavily biased and inaccurate picture of American inequality.
Many men believe, whether rightly or wrongly, that by definition feminists don’t care about them. Most feminists have not done much to help dispel that image. Recently, there was a line of shirts that had slogans like “Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them” or “LOBOTOMY: how to train boys.” A People magazine article about the slogans began with a quote from a 10-year-old girl who said, “I want to make boys feel bad because it’s fun.” I view myself as a fairly well adjusted 22-year-old and I take these slogans and shirts in a light-hearted manner. But if I was a kid, I don’t think it would feel very good to see a shirt with a drawing of a boy with an X where his eye should be and a caption that read “Boys lie, poke em in the eye!” When radio-host Glenn Sacks tried to get the shirts taken off the shelves, he was blasted by women who identify themselves as feminists. San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jane Granahl wrote an opinion telling Sacks to “shut up and get a life already.” Helen Grieco, the Executive Director of the California chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW), belittled Sacks and dismissed his claims, saying, “At NOW we don’t have time for T-shirt campaigns.” Apparently sexist behavior and media and gender gaps that hurt females will be examined and pored over and studied and protested against, but similar sexist behavior, “light-hearted” propaganda, and statistical disparities aren’t even worthy of critical attention if they hurt males.
The aggressive attitudes of the feminist leaders I just spoke about are legitimate. Regardless of my disagreement with them about the validity of the issues, they are leaders of a political movement, and they have the right to take whatever tone or attitude they feel furthers their cause. However, feminists in academia also have the same aggressive, militant attitude. I took an introductory Women’s Studies course in my junior year of college in order to get my required cultural credit. At the time I didn’t have a particular opinion about feminism one way or another. In fact, as a liberal political science major I knew a little about the women’s movement and admired its political organization, and I knew the history of the patriarchal system, which was at the height of its power around the 1950s-1960s. I was somewhat predisposed in favor of feminism. But I was shocked at the tone my professor took.
In our unit on portrayals of women in the media, she showed a series of images that she claimed were advertisements in magazines. A woman with (digitally) severed body parts strewn about, a woman’s face crossed with heavy chains, a woman kneeling beneath a standing man, covered in red paint. The images were truly shocking and degrading to women, but the vast majority of them didn’t have any text or product visible; they didn’t appear to be advertisements. I raised my hand. I said that I had no doubt that mainstream television, magazines, and other media had sexist portrayals of women, but that many of the images seemed to be artistic photos. They could’ve been productions of female photographers or performance artists who wished to show how they felt degraded by society, rather than examples of oppression levied on women by male advertising or media executives. I concluded simply that it was important to be skeptical where you get your information. I never referred to my professor specifically; I did want a good grade after all, and calling out your professor in the middle of class is generally not helpful. I wanted to make an academic point and facilitate debate. Yet she got extremely angry and defensive and – in an openly hostile barrage of challenges that lasted for at least a minute – stated that she’d used the slideshow for three years, had never undergone such inquisition, and asked me pointedly if I was questioning her sources. She behaved as if I was oppressing her, as if I was some sort of agent for the elusive male patriarchy, and that she was battling at the front lines. I still think the only thing that prevented me from getting kicked out of the class was that several female students intervened on my behalf. I remember one of them stopped her with, “No no, I get what he’s saying.” I made a valid academic point, using language that was chosen so it didn’t embarrass my professor, and she responded as if I had personally attacked her, as a representative of all women.
Her presentation that day linked the media’s sexist portrayal of women to the development of eating disorders in adolescent girls. I have no disagreement there, and eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia should be stopped by political action and education. But her PowerPoint specifically stated that “50,000 individuals will die as a direct result of their eating disorder.” When someone in the class asked, she said that number was “per year.” Having my laptop, I did a quick Google search and found that timeline to be grossly incorrect. One website, most likely where she got her figure of 50,000, says, “Over one person’s lifetime, at least 50,000 individuals will die as a direct result of their eating disorder.” That statistic itself isn’t backed up by any study. Mortality data from the CDC says that eating disorders are underreported as causes of death for several reasons, but they are often listed as either the primary cause of death or contributing cause. In 2005, there were 56 cases where an eating disorder was the primary cause of death, and another 78 cases where it was marked on the death certificate as a contributing cause. That makes a total of 134 deaths per year as a result of eating disorders. Given a high-end estimate of 300 deaths per year, multiplied by the female life expectancy of 80 years, that equals 24,000 deaths over the course of one person’s lifetime. Far from 50,000.
Somewhere near 75 students left the classroom that day accepting that number as fact. When statistics like these are flippantly reported without serious consideration or strict scholarship, the reality of the problems facing women is overblown. Because of human nature and our tendency to believe that Bad Things are caused by Bad People, rather than the unfortunate outcome of humans acting the best they can in a bad situation (i.e. the Fundamental Attribution Error), people have a need to blame something or someone for causing the problems of women. Consequently, since bad things happen to women, and some of them are caused by some men, all men get the bad rap. Thus, women become the oppressed martyrs, and men the overseers of a subtle but insidious patriarchy. This narrative reflects the popular imagination, but it is not based on scholarship, not based on research, not based on data, and it no longer adequately describes reality.
Feminists – or more specifically, third-wave feminists – are good advocates for women, but not for equality. As long as they’re held to that standard, this is perfectly fine. After all, it is not the duty of feminists to advocate for men or equality. It’s not in their job description. But instead of showing support for fledgling attempts to create a men’s movement, or even staying neutral, feminists have come out in direct opposition to men’s groups and men’s advocates.
ASU has seen this firsthand. The organization Caucasian American Men of ASU, or CAMASU, was established in the fall of 2006. However, it quickly came under fire from ASU’s feminist organization, as well as feminist organizations throughout the country. In an interview for an article on the group, feminist organization member Cali Kahlman stated, “The group sounds like it consists of white men who cannot comprehend how much easier they have it than the majority of society. They are aggravated because people are ‘taking away’ their rights, which is complete nonsense.” (Aside: I don’t have it any easier than Cali Kahlman. As a young white male, the job market I face is worse, the options for financing my future education are worse, and the cultural support for my demographic is non-existent.) Two female ASU professors harassed and assaulted one of the group’s organizers, Emily Mitchell, as she was passing out fliers north of the Memorial Union, angrily scratching her, breaking her camera, and calling her “racist.”
The group was immediately labeled as conservative. Ms. Mitchell, who drew comparisons to Ann Coulter, has never been an ASU student, and was a campus representative for the Leadership Institute, a conservative political action group. This is unfortunate because it connects a truly legitimate cause to conservative circles, which aren’t typically known for their reason or rationality. But regardless of the group’s unfortunate beginnings, it had a right to exist, and what’s more, it represents one of the most liberal traditions in America. The only way to enact social change in the United States is through political organization. Mobilizing individuals into a whole that is greater than its parts provides political power and influence, and all Americans have the right to do so. One of CAMASU’s goals was to open dialogue about the true state of equality in the country. But without even attempting to engage the group in civil discourse about the existence of men’s issues, self-proclaimed liberals attempted to shut the group down. Which sounds more conservative?
The group dissolved shortly after that in the face of the media onslaught. It was established in the tradition of numerous other ASU organizations focused on diversity: the African-American Men of ASU (AAMASU), the Black & African Coalition, the Black Business Association, the Black Graduate Student Association, the American Business Women Association, the Network of Enlightened Women, the Society of Women Engineers, the Nzinga Sisterhood Circle, Woman as Hero, Women Beyond Borders, Womyn’s Coalition, Supporting Women in Geography, among many more. However, outside of AAMASU, every other group specifically for men is a club or intramural sport. By vilifying a group like CAMASU, people who would call themselves liberal (e.g. journalists and bloggers, feminists and other women’s activists, etc.) made a statement – that men who can’t joint AAMASU because of the color of their skin have no problems specific to them, and can’t organize unless they want to play sports. For feminists and other civil rights advocates who fought to get a foot in the political door for so long, I find this hypocritical to the extreme.
(And for those who say that Caucasian men already have a say in government through Congress and the Presidency and Supreme Court, I challenge you to find a legislator who champions the rights of young men under 30; in actuality they are all old guys working for the benefit of other old guys.)
One of the things we should have learned from the struggle for civil rights is that it is not okay to assault or censor a person or organization simply for belonging to a certain group. But that seems to be encouraged by many feminists – who don’t deserve to be called liberal – out of a visceral fear of a return to patriarchy. With the powerful juggernaut that is the women’s movement, this fear is entirely unfounded.
Our political system works in much the same way our legal system does. In an adversarial system like ours, an attorney is supposed to advocate for his client to the best of his legal abilities – he is encouraged to push as hard as he can for his client’s interests. The success of this system depends on the idea that the attorneys for both parties are doing the same thing, and that in the majority of cases this head-to-head, all-out advocacy will result in the outcome that most reflects justice. But in the case of gender inequality, the level of organization and funding for women's advocacy towers over the sorry state of men's advocacy, and this is unfair. It is the equivalent of having a legal team composed of Johnny Cochran, Alan Dershowitz, and Clarence Darrow, all arguing against a public defender fresh out of law school - the newbie could be representing a client with a valid case, but there is no way he isn't going to get pummeled.
Male and female equality aren’t mutually exclusive; they’re inclusive. One implies the other, and they should be fought for together. But the feminist machine is squarely opposed to this idea, and it doesn’t look like this will change anytime soon. Male issues of inequality within our current society are real issues. In order to effect change, to create true equality, men need a voice also.
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