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Reddit mentions of Masculinities

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Masculinities
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Release dateAugust 2005
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Found 9 comments on Masculinities:

u/Mauve_Cubedweller · 112 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Political Scientist here. I'm not an expert on the minutae of either movement, but I feel that I have a pretty solid grasp of the broad strokes. My own research examines the role of gender in white supremacist communities.

I don't know that each 'side' has an obligation to make their ideas more palatable, but I do feel that each needs to ensure that their claims are backed up by serious quantitative (and qualitative, to an extent) evidence.

In the case of feminism, the concept - and later movement - arose from the recognition that there are definite, demonstrable and observable inequalities in society (specifically European and North American) which placed women in the position of 'inferior' citizens - if they were even considered citizens at all. Women could not vote or hold elected office; it was exceedingly rare for a woman to run a company or to even be educated, since many colleges and universities were 'men only'. These weren't hypothetical problems, they were tangible and endemic. It is a simple fact that for much of the history of western society, women have been considered to be of less 'worth' than men. This attitude has changed to an extent, but it is still the case that women are often at a disadvantage in many sectors of society - from being encouraged to enter 'feminized' careers like secretaries, nurses, teachers, etc, to often being dissuaded from entering other sectors of the workforce - IT, Industry, the Military, etc. While on paper, women have been afforded the same legal rights as men, in reality there are still observable structural barriers for women that do not exist for men.

The "Men's Rights" movement, on the other hand, is an ideology based on the assumption that as women have gained rights in society, men have been 'losing' theirs. The most commonly cited examples of this 'discrimination' are, as you've pointed out, so-called 'false rape' accusations and parental rights. More often than not, allegations of 'false rape' are based on anecdotal evidence and are therefore untrustworthy as a way of determining actual statistics on the phenomenon - although I will provide a source below which seems to indicate that such 'false rape' accusations account for less than 8% of all accusations.

While in some respects the movement has attempted to 'piggyback' itself off of more established rights movements (such as the civil rights, gay rights and women's rights), it nevertheless suffers from a crisis of evidence. Put simply, there is currently zero evidence to suggest that men are in any way the victims of widespread, systemic discrimination based on their gender. While there are instances of men receiving short shrift at the hands of judges who perhaps feel that women are simply 'better' or more 'naturally' able to care for children, these do not prove the existence of systemic or structural discrimination. (Look at Myths 4, 5, 6, specifically)

As some scholars and authors have noted (see below), the crises of masculinity so often noted and lamented by Men's Rights activists can be better explained by examining the sexist social structures put in place by other men, rather than lamenting the 'feminization' of society. Why does it seem that men lose out in custody battles? Maybe because men have been taught from an early age that women are more 'nurturing' or possess a 'maternal instinct' that makes them natural parents - which is an essentialist position that demands that women behave in a certain way. This same belief can also affect how judges (who are mostly male) choose to assign custody in cases where they are forced to.

Put simply, while feminist critiques of society are based on observable instances of institutionalized sexism, the Men's Rights movement, and its attendant critiques are not.

Additional Sources:

Cancian, Maria, Meyer, Daniel R. “Who Gets Custody?”, Demography, Volume 35-Number 2, May 1998

Philip N.S. Rumney (2006). FALSE ALLEGATIONS OF RAPE. The Cambridge Law Journal, 65 , pp 128-158 doi:10.1017/S0008197306007069

Who Cares? The classed nature of childcare

Kris Paap "Working Construction: Why White Working-Class men put Themselves -- and the Labor Movement -- in Harm's Way"

R.W. Connell "The Men and the Boys"

R.W. Connell "Masculinities"

u/feminista_throwaway · 8 pointsr/againstmensrights

Not to what I would consider a good academic standard. I mean, yes, he references where he gets his stats from, and dictionary definitions and a few other things.

But there's stuff he doesn't reference that he should. For example, in the above bit about powerlessness and crime, Farrell references nothing. And yet, there is (and was in 1994) a huge amount of crime research - you can even reference notions of power.

Farrell could have easily turned to the Groth Typology - written in 1979 - for rapists - which actually has categories for those who use rape as a means for power. It wouldn't have been hard for him to read about that, expand it, and then discuss it in more depth. Of course, then he would have to allow for the fact that not all rapists seek power through rape, and that this is not because men are powerless as a whole, but rather that it's about asserting masculinity.

Farrell chose not to do this. So we can assume that he either didn't read the work of other people far more qualified than he is, and therefore that he just liked the idea because it fit with his bias; or that he deliberately disregarded this research because it didn't paint men as victims of nebulous people who give commands.

Either way, he devotes a whole two fucking sentences to something that has had hundreds upon hundreds of papers done on it, and doesn't bother to elaborate or prove that it is a fact.

Not only that, but Farrell doesn't devote much time to proving anything - his book is a series of statements about what is really going on, without much proof at all to back it up. Most feminist books for example, have a far sharper focus with about as many references.

A recent one I read - Pornland by Gail Dines (fear not, I disagreed with her and her stance, but I had to read it for the same reasons I read Farrell) focused solely on sex and porn and women's role in pornography. Where Farrell would give about a page's worth to a subject, Dines made sure she gave a chapter, with lots of references. She didn't try to cram her notion of feminism into the pages - and even though I disagreed with her bias and her conclusion, I couldn't really disrespect the way she wrote it. It was in a university library because of the difference in the way it was treated.

Farrell's central point is that male power is a myth - and yet he devotes 350 pages to that - which is fucking pitiful - because he threw in every single man, so many men's issues and the kitchen sink. Considering that just describing masculinity as a concept took 300 pages or so for R.W. Connell. Here's her book - go and look at the references she uses and how much she references. Which is of course, also in university libraries.

Yet, Farrell deals with concepts with at most a page - for some a sentence or two - and at worst, a foregone conclusion. So rather than reasoning out his thesis that rape, murder, domestic violence are features of powerlessness - by, you know, going and talking to men who have done such things, then using research that fits with that view, he just declares it so, and shows none of the workings to get to that conclusion. That sentence alone should have warranted a chapter of its own, with lots of interviews with men, lots of statistics, lots of research - pointing out that the profiles of men who do such things includes features of men's powerlessness like poverty and lack of education. But instead, he just doesn't bother, gives a two-line throwaway and onto bigger ideas.

I always think about it like maths. You have to show your workings - same with research. Farrell is fucking sloppy - he shows none of his workings. He just gives you the answer, and you can't really see if it's right or not. It just is, as far as he's concerned. So he doesn't have enough references to show his workings.

u/DerBonk · 5 pointsr/GamerGhazi

Masculinity Studies is a huge field in Gender Studies, there are shelves and shelves full of books about masculinity. This book sounds like a good starting place: http://www.amazon.de/Masculinities-R-W-Connell/dp/0520246985/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414234224&sr=8-1&keywords=masculinity

Porter is so convincing to many gamers/nerds, I believe, because nerds traditionally did not conform with at least some aspects of the "man box," which just makes this rabid anti-feminism and misogyny even harder to stomach for me.

u/anon2929 · 5 pointsr/OneY

There is a lot of research going on with organizations and journals dedicated to the subject.
American Psychological Association: Division 51 Society for Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity. This is probably your best resource. They have a page dedicated Research Briefs. Their Div 51 Journal - Psychology of Men & Masculinity will provide a thorough review of research published in the area.
There is also the Men and Masculinities Journal, the
Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality, and the
Journal of Men's Studies. I'm sure that I am missing some but these are the ones that I know of. You could probably also find a text book that covers a lot of these ideas. I think the standard is APA Handbook of Men and Masculinities, Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, and Masculinities 2nd Edition.

If you find anything you think interesting please post it over to /r/manfeelings. I'm collecting interesting articles and pieces over there.

u/Qeraeth · 4 pointsr/feminisms

>And then there is this thread of comments where one person asks why an article about bisexual males is included in /r/feminisms.

You'll notice that that person got pretty heavily downvoted and that a whole bunch of heavily upvoted people in that thread politely took apart the idea that feminism shouldn't involve itself in the issues of LGBT men, including one of the moderators. I would not take that as a sign of being unwelcome.

>The closest that anybody came was when somebody pointed out how feminism is concerned with the expecations placed on men and how they effect women's inequality.

I think that's an important issue to consider because it works both ways. The perpetuation of women's inequality also hurts men. There is a reciprocal effect in oppressive systems that necessarily create difficult situations for those who are supposed to be privileged within it; thus the genesis of many male gendered social issues and traps.

Sometimes one has to consider issues discretely, other times you can only consider them as part of an interconnected system of social relations. What happens to women impacts men and vice versa to varying degrees for different issues.

>Am I wrong about this? Is feminism concerned with men's experiences as well?

These days there as many feminisms as there are feminists. A welter of different responses could easily accompany your question. My answer is yes. It absolutely is. Partially for the reasons I outlined above- the interconnected nature of humanity- and partially because the business of undoing the various straitjackets of hegemonic gender require everyone's participation.

Men's Lives is one of the leading gender studies texts on masculinity; it's an anthology.

Masculinities is also a critical text. What I meant by 'hegemonic gender' is elucidated on in its pages, and as the title implies, Professor Connell's thesis is that there are multiple ways of 'doing' masculinity in our world that vary by culture, race, class, age, and so on. Her contention is that each plays a critical role in maintaining the established norms of gender, while some are more subversive.

Manhood in America analyses the relatively recent history of how modern ideas of what it means to be a man (the ideas of your father that you rebelled against, likely) came into being.

On Amazon's "Related Books" pane you can find several others on this subject by men and women alike and it'll give you some insight into the multiplicity of progressive and feminist perspectives on manhood in Western culture.

I think part of the issue that so many of us, men and women, still suffer from is that we do tend to see everything oppositionally. Even I'm still getting out of that Manichean mindset. However, as you read and research you'll eventually come to see the at times delicate but synchronous waltz of men and women's relations within feminism. You should understand that women discussing their issues vis a vis men they've dealt with or been hurt by is not an attack against you as a man, but attempting to guilt them for speaking up will be problematic.

Rather, try to understand where they're coming from and why. The vast majority of feminist women do not hate, automatically mistrust, automatically dismiss, or automatically marginalise men. But discussing feminist issues requires frank discussion of people's (men and women's) experiences with gender, which often includes conflicts with masculinity and/or men, as that's just how power is often distributed and flowing.

The trick is to learn not to be threatened by it and go "but not all men are like that!" and you'll be fine. Because we all know that. :P

Conflict is omnipresent in feminisms. Conflict is what gave rise to feminisms rather than just a continued unitary feminism. Disagreements are common, writers and bloggers go back and forth with each other, academic conferences can be acrimonious, battles of inclusion are still being waged in various sectors... It wouldn't be feminism without the arguing, I'll tell you that!

You learn to embrace it, after a while.

What feminism en toto consists of is thousands of groups, great and small, millions upon millions of men, women, and those otherwise identified, disassociated women's and gender studies departments in universities worldwide, tonnes of academics, writers, intellectuals, slam poets, street activists, clinic escorts, journalists, editors, web mavens, bloggers, artists, musicians, and more who inform feminism with their work, research, reporting, passion, art, and every day experiences.

They're never all going to agree with one another. :)

Feminism isn't one thing controlled from a central location wherein we all have nice matching hot pink uniforms- awesome as those would be. It's very widespread and diffuse. There's room for quite a lot within it.

If you look, you'll find your place. ::smiles::

u/bluemamie · 3 pointsr/SRSDiscussion

Sure. I would argue that those stereotypes of sexual prowess and masculinity are very clear examples of how these standards can hurt men. I don't believe there is such a thing as 'perfect privilege' either. There is only more or less in relation to others.

Just like female beauty standards can keep all women, regardless of appearance, from experiencing their true potential in different ways, standards of masculinity inhibit men the same way.

Men are often robbed of emotional support by these unreasonable standards of masculinity. Just like women, men often feel deep, deep shame for not measuring up to these standards. Conversely, the men who do live up to these standards often live in fear of losing that status. This manifests as the stereotypical jock beating up the weak kid. It's the male analog to the thin girl who is constantly afraid of becoming fat.

Personally I think that's why so many male Redditors feel so angered by being called out for dog-piling inappropriate jokes and catcalling women in Reddit threads. They are essentially screaming "Don't you see? This is the only emotional outlet I have!" And they feel that to be true in a profound way.

I don't say that to make excuses for the behavior, but I can see it as an explantation for why so many otherwise decent guys do this.

Have you ever heard of RW Connell's theory of Multiple Masculinities? Like I said above, I'm not an expert, and I've only begun my reading on the subject, but her concept of varying types of masculine ideals makes a lot of sense to me.

here is her book

a jstor article

this looks like a good basic introduction

u/GrassRabbitt · 2 pointsr/Anthropology

Ah, I study this literature. First, go read Matthew Gutmann's everything. Then, read all his articles, but especially 'Trafficking in Men' in Annual Review (1997).

Secondly, read a good part of RW Connell's Masculinities, which is theory heavy but very, very good.

More ethnographically focused work is [The Cassowary's Revenge] (http://www.amazon.com/Cassowarys-Revenge-Masculinity-Society-Sexuality/dp/0226819515/ref=sr_1_14?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344394669&sr=1-14&keywords=masculinities) and Dwight MacDonald's work in Palestine. That should be enough for now

u/bobbyfiend · 1 pointr/InsightfulQuestions

That's exactly what I'm saying. Here is one of the go-to works that really got this conversation going a few years back. And it's not "unlikely" at all, in a linguistic sense, for labels--especially those that refer to really broad things imbued with social and political import--to be multivalent, to have different definitions for different individuals, or to just be really vaguely defined. For example, go ask a hundred people to talk for a few minutes about what "freedom" means to them, or "America," or "education," etc. Cultures (and certain groups in the culture) sometimes have a vested interest in restricting the definitions of various terms, and this masks their true variety. For instance, many people believe that there is only one definition of "American," and might become angry if you explain that there are various ways to define that term.

"Masculinity" is very much like the examples above. I think some examples will demonstrate:

  • In the domain of "grooming," a person can be very "masculine" by smelling awful and never shaving his face or trimming his hair, looking like a tidy lumberjack with a bit of stubble, looking crisp and James-Bond-like in a tuxedo, being perfumed and manicured all metrosexual, having just the right amount of rumple and scruff in a hipster way, etc.
  • In the domain of "sexual fidelity," you can be "masculine" by being unfailingly faithful to your current partner, by sleeping with everything your junk is compatible with, by practicing "serial monogamy" with many partners in a row, and probably some other things.
  • In the domain of "parenting styles," you can be "masculne" by being extremely patient and engaged with your child, by stoically modeling a keep-your-mouth-shut-and-get-things-done ethos, by being a cold and harsh authoritarian drill sergeant, by yelling and hitting your child, etc.

    All those examples are "masculine," and they don't all work together. You might say that some are more masculine than others. I'd say "prove it." I've met people who have very different core beliefs about what it is to be a man, or a "good man," or a "natural man," etc. (we can't even agree on that--what "masculine" actually refers to).

    There is a concept sometimes called "hegemonic masculinity," and I think it refers to what many people sometimes call "traditional masculinity." It looks a lot like the Hispanic concept of machismo. It is not a nice way of being a man; it usually includes dominating others, constantly being prepared for violence, being sexually promiscuous to a pretty riduculous degree, etc. It's not called "traditional masculinity" as much in scholarly circles, I think, for a good reason: it's no more "traditional" than any other conceptualization of masculinity; in the (admittedly Western) cultures I have experience with, there have always been multiple masculinities. They vary by geographic region, social stratum, personality type, family background, religious expression, ethnic heritage, education level, and probably more stuff. In fact, I think masculinities even vary within individuals--we are a different kind of masculine (at least many of us) depending on the situation we are in, or the life tasks we're dealing with (e.g., finding a mate in our 20s versus raising children or building a career later).

    So OP's question can't be answered as asked, because there is not one thing that is "masculinity."
u/ordinarylove · -5 pointsr/TwoXChromosomes

Side note that didn't get addressed by Dr. Nerdlove- The LW's family was not a feminist family even though her mother was the breadwinner. An abusive relationship cannot be feminist in nature because abuse (from any party in a relationship) goes against the very heart of feminism.

There's some great research being done by academics in gender studies on toxic masculinity and if anyone is interested in some reading material, there are some great folks like R. W. Connell, Michael Kimmel, or Tony Porter that might be helpful.