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Masculinism Redux

  
 
deletia
05:50 / 02.07.01
Hey, Margin Walker, it seems like the "Masculinism" thread has crashed. So, sadly, we may never get to share your thoughts. Except, you know, if you post them again.

So, yeah. Masculinism. I've been on a lot of encounter groups for men, retreats, kind of thing, but they were mostly chanting and howling and recovering memories of parental neglect.

I'm getting kind of a vibe here that "masculinism" is, like, something else. Something involving reclaiming manliness for men and womanliness for....uh.....women.

But, hey, somebody fill me in.

What is masculinism?
Who are its gurus?
And do we reckon it's, you know, cool?
 
 
Ganesh
07:12 / 02.07.01
Hmm. Sounds eminently hijackable as a gay men's movement a la 'bears' etc...
 
 
grant
15:07 / 02.07.01
http://www.psyberlink.net/~flash/
says

quote:So, as the feminists began their journey to erase what they saw as gender inequalities in the late 19th century, we males must begin to change our thought processes or we will be trampled under their hooves. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with being male. There is nothing wrong with being a sexual being. These things are genetically inbred for a purpose- and the culture has metamorphosed faster than the physical evolution could take place. We must stop being afraid or ashamed of what we are. We need to be proud of our accomplishments. We must not allow revisionists to alter history to suit their view. Because as I have stated above, culture changes and so will their views.

Billions of men have sacrificed their lives in order to save women and children. This has happened in wars, and natural disasters as well. Men are genetically wired for certain things, and so are women. It is not the fault of men that the culture has changed its ideas on these things faster than we could physically cope. We need to be willing to deal with the things as they are- and do our best to change things so that the world is not so miserable a place for the male animal.


There are also links.
 
 
Tom Coates
15:27 / 02.07.01
Seems to me that masculinism at a kind of liberal politics level would be the same thing as feminism was for women only with one fundamental difference.

Women wanted equal access to positions of power and freedom from the stereotyping of them as inadequate for certain kinds of work. Men under a same model should be embracing the politics that says that the 'roles' of men and women are no longer stable and fixed and should be looking for freedom from the kind of definition of themselves as oppressors. In a sense - being forced into the working world, it being expected of you, the role of 'breadwinner' - all these things are essentially pressures placed upon men that - while they might come with more freedom and prestige attached to them - are essentially no less limiting and restrictive than the roles for women.

Another part of a liberal politics of masculinity should be about regaining the space of masculinity and reclaiming it as a positive place to occupy both for men and women. To divorce these roles from actual gender, and explore them - this seems to be an interesting way to develop.

In a sense, masculinism should be the same thing as Queer theory - a theory that views strict gender identity and the enforcement of same as being by its nature repressive - and encourages a plethora of various gender and sexual identities.
 
 
grant
16:17 / 02.07.01
Here's a big page o' links. http://dmoz.telekurier.at:81/Society/People/Men/Men's_Studies/

Interestingly, a few of the masculism essays I've skimmed are very eager to redefine "male" as something OTHER than the opposite of "female".

It seems like many masculinists are engaged in the same project as feminism, only from the other side -- not much different from what Tom has outlined.
 
 
Jackie Susann
20:27 / 02.07.01
correct me if i'm wrong, kids, but it seems like these masculinists are basically saying, "men should be masculine, we have a right to be masculine and nobody's going to take that away from us". it sounds about as far from a no-fixed-gender-role position as i can imagine. what happens to sissies who turn up to masculinist meetings (are there meetings?) are their gender identities affirmed, or are they encouraged to reclaim their stolen masculinity? what if butch dykes turn up? are they allowed to enjoy the fruits of masculinity, or is it a boys' club for the chronically under-confident?
 
 
Blank Faced Avatar
20:58 / 02.07.01
Thing is, if you're a man and you do something 'traditionally' in the female gender sphere like look after a baby or have sex with a man, you'll be categorised as being feminine, as 'like a woman'. If you're female and you show physical strength or don't 'do' the beauty myth you'll be said to be being masculine, showing men's traits.
But there could be a particularly male way to nurse a baby - or a female way to be physically strong - and it would be narrow minded to only acknowledge that behaviour in reference to the perceived gender role...
A woman showing physical toughness isn't necessarily just aping a man, she may not be being masculine but be a strong woman; perhaps we just don't have the vocabulary to refer to it and our culture/language traps us into calling her mannish.
On the other hand you may find this reasoning offensive because it supposes differences in performing the same tasks between males & females ... oh, now my mind is open and my reasoning is falling out.
 
 
Jackie Susann
22:23 / 02.07.01
What's potentially offensive isn't that you suggest that there are differently gendered ways of doing things, but that you assume particular people should take up particular gendered ways of acting based on their apparent gender. You're basically saying, if I get you:

Women can do masculine things in a womanly way.
Men can do feminine things in a manly way.

It's a complication of the same-old system, but not much of one. What if a woman does masculine things in a manly way, or a man does masculine things in a womanly way, or vice versa, or around about in some other different direction, there being far more than two genders in any case?
 
 
Tom Coates
23:00 / 02.07.01
I've become very interested in the relationship between masculine and feminine roles over the last few years. This is part of the same thing that I term the democritisation of sex - where partners believe that the apparent fluiditiy of sexual roles that they have fought for means a uniform, sexless, genderless homogony of self, and that sex is therefore an entirely collaborative equal process. I don't actually believe that any more - I think there are urges to power and urges to submission, and urges to be dirty and degraded and urges to degrade and urges to love and own and encompass and consume and urges to be worshipped and adored. And I think that each of these binaries has been wrapped up in packages of gender and that these packages should be unwrapped and the constituent parts releaased, but that instead the packages are being concealed leaving two eunuchs in the bedroom, each scared of overstepping the sexual mark of political equality by degrading or being degraded...

Yes, I think that self-proclaimed masculinists often are concerned with reclaiming masculinity and inhabiting it - and indeed can be anti-feminist. I don't think that's what they SHOULD be, however, although the masculine man is a ver interesting position to occupy. I think there is a space for a politics of male liberation - but it's liberation from the same thing that feminism was a liberation from - not from men or from women, but from a system that prescribes roles and requires consistency.
 
 
pantone 292
07:32 / 03.07.01
quote:I think there is a space for a politics of male liberation - but it's liberation from the same thing that feminism was a liberation from - not from men or from women, but from a system that prescribes roles and requires consistency.
Basically I'm really sympathetic to what Tom's saying, my only quibble, since this is zhe Headshop, is 'liberation', thinking along a foucauldian/Butlerian stylee in which liberation would presume a pre-existent subject - a subject before the law who is only subsequently oppressed by it, rather than, as F & B would have it, brought into subjection in and through the law.

also 'democritisation of sex' - is this a felicitous typo Tom or are you thinking of a neologistic democracy/democricy/democritics type thing? 'tis a very good word.

[ 03-07-2001: Message edited by: Facteuze Blue-Stocking ]
 
 
deletia
07:47 / 03.07.01
Although I also think we should not track, in our speculations on what Masculinism should be, I don't think we should lose sight of what it is - a doctrine, it seems, that holds that feminism takes advantage of man's natural instinct to protect women to degrade men's rights and feelings of self-worth without fear of retaliation.

Thoughts? I'd love to hear from any avowed Masculinists here...
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
08:34 / 03.07.01
"natural instinct to protect women"? Did this come out of one of the links?
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
08:48 / 03.07.01
There seem to be two different lines going alongside each other here. Is it possible to consider something called masculinism as an adjunct to Queer Theory, (like that - and where you're going with the fluidity of gender thing, Tom), when it appears already have an accepted meaning as applying to a way of thinking about gender that is seems to be extremely gender rigid? Based, in the stuff I've read, on some notion of 'the pendulum swinging back towards men'. It appears to be an emancipatory project for men, and therefore has a lot invested in the stability/borders of this categories.

Probably yes, a quick flick grant's links on 'masculinity' reveals links to gender studies departments, theses on masculinity with roots in Foucault, Derrida and Butler amongst others, as well as the 'real man' camp.

Tere seem to be gender-studies masculinists distinct from 'men's rights' masculinists. It's a newish term that's developing in a variety of directions at once.

My perception, admittedly limited of masculism is the 'men's rights' half of things.

And major alarm bells start ringing when I read stuff like this:

quote:So, as the feminists began their journey to erase what they saw as gender inequalities in the late 19th century, we males must begin to change our thought processes or we will be trampled under their hooves

This is oppositional, binary-laden language. Also emotive and polarising, if meant to reference Pankhurst it's pretty offensive, if not it's merely bizarre.

I have problems instantly with a theses which doubts the existence of gender inequality in C.19 (or today, for that matter). Makes a matter of female bigotry/bias...

quote:So, at the expense of the male animal, the females begin to install a system that provides a superior position to themselves.

And not only is C.19th gender inequality possilby illusory, we ladies have overthrown the patricharchal system and are evening now sitting on top of the heap.

No. Just so wrong, it's almost ridiculous, and not a little frightening, as it's not hard to see how this thesis could be very attractive.

and while in the above piece there's a hint of a liberatarian attitude to sex, reasoning that repression of sexual inclinations is bad, it's already been well-established this will be for men, to attain their evolutionary right. I'm assuming women don't need freeing similarly.

How do gay men fit in here? or as J. points out butch dykes? Not at all, I suspect, as it's an incredibly heterosexist project.

Unlike Grant, I'm going to warn you that clicking on that pysberlink site will subject you to the Mission Impossible music. For pity's sake.

wondering whether to have a look at alt.masculism...
 
 
Goodness Gracious Meme
08:58 / 03.07.01
history of men's movement - links page

Article with an interesting section on different parts of the mens' movement. Useful for briefly delineating the various strands we're talking about, and others including masculnist groups' crossover with self-help/therapy groups. Mentions various big names... Don't like the slant, personally, but good for starters?

[ 03-07-2001: Message edited by: Lick my plums, bitch. ]
 
 
Blank Faced Avatar
10:00 / 03.07.01
quote:Originally posted by Jackie Nothing Special:
... You're basically saying, if I get you:

Women can do masculine things in a womanly way.
Men can do feminine things in a manly way.

It's a complication of the same-old system, but not much of one. What if a woman does masculine things in a manly way, or a man does masculine things in a womanly way, or vice versa ...

Oh yeah, I can see that, but I think what I was trying to say was more like: expand the definition of feminine to include types hitherto only thought of as masculine, so that I don't have to describe a woman who, for instance, is intensely physical, in terms of how much like the masculine gender costruct she is. That essentially we divide roles into the masculine or feminine boxes when neither sex has a monopoly on them. That these activities aren't really male or female bound, just human, etc. I guess it ends up being pretty circular, ie just redefine both masculine and feminine to include all known activities just before dropping them from the language altogether 'cause we don't need 'em any more.
Yeah, that's the real point here, masculine is dead, it just ain't stopped moving. Maybe it's only us older folks who get freaked out when we see a man acting in a way we're used to seeing women act - let's all just be genders unto ourselves! I know I am.

[ 03-07-2001: Message edited by: johnny alpha ]
 
 
nul
11:53 / 03.07.01
Women are becoming more like men, and men are, reluctantly, becoming somewhat similiar to women. As it pertains to historical role playing, that is.

Does this about sum it up?
 
 
deletia
12:30 / 03.07.01
Brenden - No.

Johnny - as I understand it, you are saying that, while male and female still exist as physiological identification possibilities (a penis makes you male, a vagina makes you female), either male or female can exhibit anyt behaviours without those behaviours being masculine and feminine. Or are you saying that male and female are also meaningless?
 
 
deletia
12:32 / 03.07.01
quote:Originally posted by Johnny O'clock:
"natural instinct to protect women"? Did this come out of one of the links?

No. It's just what I believe.

Oh, OK, you got me. It's from http://www.psyberlink.net/~flash/.
 
 
nul
14:46 / 03.07.01
Haus - Didn't think so. I must've fallen asleep after reading the same arguments about thirty times on different threads. My apologies.
 
 
deletia
06:05 / 04.07.01
And it's sweet of you to try to cut through all this discussion with a simple, sentence-long summary. I just don;t think that's a workable project right now.
 
 
nul
20:59 / 04.07.01
Don't be silly. It's always possible to reduce the arguments of a group down to a soundbite. I just don't have the same staff that CNN does, alas.
 
 
Cat Chant
18:49 / 05.07.01
quote:Originally posted by Facteuze Blue-Stocking:

Basically I'm really sympathetic to what Tom's saying, my only quibble, since this is zhe Headshop, is 'liberation', thinking along a foucauldian/Butlerian stylee in which liberation would presume a pre-existent subject - a subject before the law who is only subsequently oppressed by it, rather than, as F & B would have it, brought into subjection in and through the law.

Well pointed out, Facteuze. I was thinking something along these lines - though not specifically in reference to Tom's post (yayy Tom!) - but more generally, and more explicitly related to psychoanalysis. Which might also address Haus's point about the penises.

Anyway, my Freud isn't great and my Lacan is practically non-existent, so I'm looking forward to being corrected here, but:

Basically, as I understand it, for Freud and Lacan becoming-human, that is entering into language and a symbolic relation with the world (rather than an infant's purely instinctual cry triggered by discomfort), is bound up with becoming-sexed. Access to language comes about through the castration complex and the recognition of sexual difference. Part of your point, I think, Factueze - that we're not just "human beings first, men and women second".

To some extent this looks pretty deterministic and hopeless. But Luce Irigaray (sorry, F) has argued that it would be possible to gain access to language through a "castration" complex cathected around the umbilical cord/navel rather than the penis, and thus accept separation from the mother's body/environment without necessarily then carving the environment up into pointy things and holes.

On masculinism more generally, I'm reminded of the SCUM Manifesto discussion and, more generally, a strand of feminism which similarly argues for intractable differences between the sexes (men - rational/phallic; women - relational/matrixial). The difference is, however, that within feminism you could argue this had value as a reclaiming strategy - ie, taking values traditionally associated with 'the feminine' and revaluing them - reversing the masc/fem hierarchy rather than undoing it. The "men's movement", by contrast, isn't reclaiming fuck-all, just reiterating a particular fantasy of 'natural' superiority. (You can tell because the "women-good-earthy-compassionate" feminist tactic was aimed at bringing about specific changes in, eg, working practices, and the "men's movement" doesn't seem to be.)

As far as I can see, 'good masculinism' (the queer-theory/gender-studies inflected strand, rather than the Threatened Hunter-Gatherer strand) is (a) feminism.
 
 
pantone 292
19:08 / 06.07.01
quote:As far as I can see, 'good masculinism' (the queer-theory/gender-studies inflected strand, rather than the Threatened Hunter-Gatherer strand) is (a) feminism.
perfectly put, and does a good job of deflecting any tendency to by default place feminism for the feminine and masculinism for the masculine.
Re: Irigaray and the navel - I dont know what she says about that but do recall Eliz.Bronfen doing a whole thing about the 'omphallos' - the navel - similarly - however I also recall Lichtenberg-Ettinger saying that if you still have a separation from the mother that is a cutting then the model is *still* castration. Maybe if we dont *begin* the story with the idea of whole beings subsequently being separated/cut/fragmented then we would end up with a less traumatic model of subjectivity?
 
 
solid~liquid onwards
13:25 / 25.10.02
ive just personally saved this thread from extinction...aint i great AND SHINY
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
13:51 / 25.10.02
That depends. Are you going to add anything to it? Otherwise, you're just attenion-seeking.

So, a few months on, is there anybody ready to take up the right man's burden on this one?
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
14:27 / 25.10.02
No, no, sstab's asserting a hunter-gatherer aspect in the information age. The useful response is to cook and eat the thread with every evidence of delight. Otherwise you're liable to get some informational bison dumped on your doormat next time.
 
 
Cherry Bomb
08:30 / 26.10.02
Isn't it possible for a men's movement to actually fall under the umbrella of feminism? This is kind of related to the "men doing feminine things/women doing masculine things" idea. One of my goals as a feminist is for it to be no big deal for men to be in traditionally female areas such as nursing or taking care of children. Ideally (among many other things, but focusing on the men now) I'd like to see men feel comfortable to cry if they need to or emote and not feel that they are being "unmanly."

Is this part of masculinism? Or should it remain safely tucked away in feminist theory?
 
 
Pepsi Max
11:55 / 27.10.02
CB> Well, I think it's clear from some of Bengali/Plum's links/comments that there is no single "Men's Movement". Just as there is no single "Feminism". But there are certainly points of overlap between a variety of groups under both headings.

And certainly some groups ( out of this lot I'd say 2. and 4.) seem like likely bets for mutual support with women's groups.

Are there any indications how these male groups react to each other? Is there any sense of shared struggle/identity that you do still come across in feminist circles? I suspect not.
 
  
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