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From: jcarson@june.cs.washington.edu (Janet L. Carson)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Sexism vs. Men's Oppression
Message-ID: <1991Jun1.034124.8157@beaver.cs.washington.edu>
Date: 1 Jun 91 05:53:33 GMT
References: <1991May21.221824.5781@MDI.COM> <15266.283c2ad5@zeus.unomaha.edu> <1991May29.182720.349@MDI.COM>
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In article <1991May29.182720.349@MDI.COM> gannon@MDI.COM (Alden Gannon) writes:
>
>Based on my experiences, and those of many other men, men do not feel
>oppressed by women per se.  In fact, oppression is prehaps too strong a term.
>Men feel *disadvantaged* in at least the following areas in society:

[List appears below]

>I challenge Sharon to produce a list of ways women feel oppressed and show
>how alleviating that oppression will also address the above six points.

Well, I'm not Sharon, and I *hate* it when men post some blah-de-blah
about men's oppression and "challenge the feminists to refute it"
because it always seems to lead to flame wars, but thinking about this
one led to some food for thought I'd like to share...

For each example of men's opression cited, there is a social norm to
which women are oppressed to conform, sometimes more strongly and
sometimes less strongly, depending on the situation, which is the
"other side of the coin," so to speak.

>1.  The draft (this one is more like oppression).

Women showing strength and agression are seen as "unfeminine" at best,
and dangerous/insane at worst.  Women who might otherwise exhibit such
behavior more often are oppressed by social stigma.

By changing the view of what types of behavior women can/should
exhibit, violent, agressive behavior by women will be seen as
possible, even normal in certain circumstances, and in fact, this type
of behavior can be *demanded* by the state in times of dire need.  As
long as society perceives women as incapable of doing the dirty work
of military service, it perceives men as the only ones worth drafting.

>2.  Parental choice (Women have it, men don't).

Actually, my response to this one is going in the opposite direction:
The current trend it to *take away* women's parental choice as much as
possible (e.g. recent supreme court decision, half a dozen states
considering anti-abortion laws to challenge Roe v. Wade, etc.)
Although the law says one thing (women have choice), social norms
still say the opposite (abortion is wrong, or at least of questionable
morality).

Society tries to enforce gender-based responsibilities w.r.t.
pregnancy.  As long as society feels that childbirth is of primary
importance, regardless of the situations of the parents, this will
continue.  When society begins to *really* accept the idea that
parenthood should be a free choice, not something that must be
enforced by the state for "society's own good", I think parental
choice will be the norm for both men and women.  Working towards
freely accepting choice for women will make the opportunity for men to
have choice possible: i.e. as long as women "have no choice" (and that
is what child support seems to assume), why should society consider
giving such choice to men?

["Choice for men" meaning a male has some sort of opportunity to
legally absolve himself of the financial and moral responsibilities of
parenthood during the same period that the woman could choose "no" and
have an abortion.  I'm not sure what exact form this would take.
Also, I cannot envision the time when a man can choose "yes" over the
objections of a woman choosing "no", because it is too great of an
invasion of individual privacy and freedom to force a woman to have a
child against her will.  But, perhaps someday babies can be grown in
incubators for these men?  Or it will be possible for them to hire
surrogate mothers who freely choose this occupation without being
coerced by economic desperation? I don't know.]

>3.  Alimony, child support, and custody.

Alimony and child support: are based on the male gender-role that they
are the only ones capable of dealing with business, are more rational,
are capable of hard work, etc.  Women are oppressed by this
gender-role when they are turned down for jobs which would "take them
away from their families" (even when they don't have children!) or
when female-dominated occupations are paid "pin-money" wages, while
male-dominated occupations are paid "family" wages.

Custody: based on the female gender-role that they are better able to
understand children's emotional needs and be more nurturning, etc.
These laws are simply ways of enforcing these roles.

Once again, by changing the gender roles, society will perceive men as
potential nurturers, and women as potential breadwinnders.  By
fighting the female-gender-stereotypes (and I freely admit many
branches of feminism *don't* fight the women-as-nurturers stereotype),
society will begin to rethink these laws.  Society only sees what it
wants to see: if it doesn't want to think that non-conformists exist,
they won't be reflected in the law.

>4.  Rape and domestic abuse law.

The law comes from the gender-roles of women-as-weak and
men-as-powerful, sometimes too powerful.  When the roles expand so
that men can be seen as sometimes vulnerable, and women as sometimes
too strong, as well, then the laws can be reconsidered and
legislatures can talk about women raping men.  Once again, due to
gender-roles which oppress both men and women, society only sees what
it wants to.

>5.  Affirmative Action for only women and minorities.

Like abortion, affirmative action is not something that is fully
accepted by society.  It's an attempt (like abortion law) to foster
change of roles.  i.e. to force people to reconsider the ideas of what
jobs are "appropriate" or "permissible" for women or minorities.  When
a woman uses AA to become a soldier (fighting the stereotype of being
weak and non-agressive), or a black person uses AA to become a police
officer (fighting the stereotype of blacks as criminals) -- this leads
to fighting stereotypes, and can put these people in a
less-than-bright spot in society.  This is at least partly responsible
for the controversy surrounding AA.

Another problem is that AA, as a law, must be enforced equally
throughout the land: in companies which are blatantly discriminatory
and companies which are trying their best to be fair, but feel
threatened by the possibilities of lawsuits.  If there were a way to
write the law to force change the discriminatory company without
threatening the non-discriminatory one, I would support it.  I believe
that our lawmakers have tried their best in this regard.  On the other
hand, I cannot support totally abolishing AA until the discriminatory
companies have been forced to truly change.

Eventually, AA will outlive its usefulness.  This will happen when
there is no gender-based and ethnic-based discrimination.  Feminism
and civil rights movements are clearly trying to end such
discrimination.

>6.  Hate crimes against gay men (this one *is* oppression).

Lesbians are also harassed in society.  This is an example of society,
if not the government, violently enforcing gender-roles.  By working
to loosen gender-based restrictions and permit a greater variety of
behaviors by men and women, feminists, gay rights groups, etc. are
trying to combat hate crimes.

>If men hold the power, where did I get my six points?

While I *do* believe that men hold power (because society-enforced
gender-roles have kept women from this power), I *don't* believe that
the gender-roles which underlie your 6 points were created solely by
men.

Most examples "men's oppression" (in quotes because I, too, believe
oppression is sometimes too strong a word) are the flip side of
"women's oppression" -- which is another way of saying "enforced
gender roles cut both ways."  As long as certain roles (e.g. being a
tough soldier, a primary breadwinner, etc.) are *denied* to women,
society must *force* these roles upon the men, by default -- and vice
versa, of course.  When feminism works to expand roles for women, and
thereby change the notions of gender roles, men benefit because they
are no longer forced to do everything that women weren't allowed to
do.  Similarly for certain men's movements changing notions of
masculinity allowing women to escape from roles they were forced into
because men weren't allowed into certain territories.

[I say "certain men's movements" because there are a lot of men's
movements, just as there are a lot of women's movements: I'm thinking
here of movements to *change* gender roles, not movements to
*reinforce* traditions and let men who are being 'emasculated' by
current changes "be men again".  While the term "feminist" does not
encompass reactionary women such as Right to Lifer's, I don't know of
a term which distinguishes progressive men's movements from regressive
ones.]

Sorry this was so long...

--Janet

--
Janet L. Carson
jcarson@cs.washington.edu