No! Not the Washington Post, too! Well, judging by this op-ed by Suzanna Danuta Walters, identified as “a professor of sociology and director of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Northeastern University [and] editor of the gender studies journal Signs,” it’s okay to hate all men, and, further, to ask them to stop running for office and let women take over.
Of course the Washington Post should publish diverse opinions in its editorial section, but this one is pure bigotry—bigotry disguised as feminism. Imagine if the headline were something like “Why can’t we hate white people?” or “Why can’t we hate Jews?”, which, of course, are implicit views of some extremist black movements like the Nation of Islam or anti-Semitic groups like Students for Justice in Palestine. But nobody would publish articles with such titles! When it’s women, though, it’s okay to call for a general hatred of men. Why isn’t that bigotry?
Click on the screenshot to read Walters’s hate-filled piece.
Now of course there is considerable justification to hate the sin rather than the sinner, and the sin is sexism against women. There’s no doubt that women have been hard done by, oppressed (more so overseas than in the U.S.), neglected, kept from having the opportunities or recognition that they deserve, and in general not allowed to “hold up half the sky.” And there’s no doubt that that oppression comes almost entirely from men.
The attitude that women are inferior was pervasive not so long ago, but it’s changing, and it’s changing because women are demanding their rights. Yet people like me, who generally see themselves as pro-feminism—I’ve defined feminism for me as the view that women should be treated as moral and legal equals, and should from the outset be afforded exactly the same opportunities as men—aren’t necessarily on board with those who see sexism everywhere, who conflate unequal outcomes with sexism, or deliberately look for sexism where it might not exist. After all, if by virtue of your Y chromosome you’re automatically placed in a class with monsters like Harvey Weinstein (whose photo illustrates the article), you’re going to be a bit resistant to the message!
I call myself a feminist in the sense above, but I cannot share Dr. Walters’s hatred of men as a class. For one thing, I think sexism and “the patriarchy” are indeed rooted in biology, whether in the greater strength of men that allows them power over women, or in the fact that women are the childbearers, and therefore are often seen as assuming that role naturally and are unsuited for other roles. Those biological differences have been transformed into sexism as a worldview, but how else can you explain, save through evolutionary differences, the fact that men originally relegated women to roles as breeders and homemakers, and kept them from power? Walters, though, seems to see sexism as having other roots: in some inherent evil in men that is completely independent of biology. She starts like this:
It’s not that Eric Schneiderman (the now-former New York attorney general accused of abuse by multiple women) pushed me over the edge. My edge has been crossed for a long time, before President Trump, before Harvey Weinstein, before “mansplaining” and “incels.” Before live-streaming sexual assaults and red pill men’s groups and rape camps as a tool of war and the deadening banality of male prerogative.
Seen in this indisputably true context, it seems logical to hate men. I can’t lie, I’ve always had a soft spot for the radical feminist smackdown, for naming the problem in no uncertain terms. I’ve rankled at the “but we don’t hate men” protestations of generations of would-be feminists and found the “men are not the problem, this system is” obfuscation too precious by half.
Well, you could make the same argument, as many have for years, about whites and Jews. Whites are responsible for most (but not all) slavery, and they are responsible for oppressing blacks right up to the present day. Is it then not “logical” for blacks to hate all whites? And indeed, some of them do; just browse the Internet. As for Jews, there are many who entertain the idea that Jews hold the levers of power everywhere, controlling banking, the media, and even Hollywood. And we’re not even talking about the “apartheid state” of Israel. Is it not then logical for everyone to hate Jews, too?
I doubt it. Because there are some good people among whites and Jews, as there are among men, and a blanket condemnation of those groups is just another form of bigotry—just like condemning all Muslims because we don’t agree with the beliefs of some of them.
Here’s where Walters argues that sexism has no roots in biology (my emphasis):
But, of course, the criticisms of this blanket condemnation of men — from transnational feminists who decry such glib universalism to U.S. women of color who demand an intersectional perspective — are mostly on the mark. These critics rightly insist on an analysis of male power as institutional, not narrowly personal or individual or biologically based in male bodies. Growing movements to challenge a masculinity built on domination and violence and to engage boys and men in feminism are both gratifying and necessary. Please continue.
Male power may be rife in institutions, but it’s not, at least in the U.S., “institutionalized” in the sense that the government or the law makes women unequal. It doesn’t. Sexism may be pervasive, but it’s not institutionalized. More important, I think sexism is, at the root, based on biology. If it is not, is it just an accident that men oppress women rather than the other way around? (Of course, I am not justifying sexism because of evolved biological differences. My own view, which I’ve expressed frequently, is that those differences are irrelevant to the moral and legal equality of women, and their right to be treated like everyone else.)
Walters goes on to recount the many injustices women experience—”underrepresentation” in high-paying jobs (she takes this as prima facie evidence for sexism, though preference may play a role), sexual assaults and harassment, unequal responsibility for children, and so on. These are undeniable, but, as Steve Pinker has shown, they’re disappearing, and they’re not just disappearing because of women. Many men have realized the nature of these injustices, and are also helping efface them. But to Walters, it’s easier to just hate all men and fight for women’s equality rather than to bother with those apparently rare men who are sympathetic to women’s equality. Not only that, but Walters calls for men to give up political power, apparently asking for a government and economy run solely by women. “Don’t run for office,” she says. “Don’t be in charge of anything.” Is that for now, or forever? She doesn’t say. But her whole tone is sexist against men, and it this tone that is unproductive. Read this:
So, in this moment, here in the land of legislatively legitimated toxic masculinity, is it really so illogical to hate men? For all the power of #MeToo and #TimesUp and the women’s marches, only a relatively few men have been called to task, and I’ve yet to see a mass wave of prosecutions or even serious recognition of wrongdoing. On the contrary, cries of “witch hunt” and the plotted resurrection of celebrity offenders came quick on the heels of the outcry over endemic sexual harassment and violence. But we’re not supposed to hate them because . . . #NotAllMen. I love Michelle Obama as much as the next woman, but when they have gone low for all of human history, maybe it’s time for us to go all Thelma and Louise and Foxy Brown on their collective butts.
The world has little place for feminist anger. Women are supposed to support, not condemn, offer succor not dismissal. We’re supposed to feel more empathy for your fear of being called a harasser than we are for the women harassed. [JAC: who ever said that?] We are told he’s with us and #NotHim. But, truly, if he were with us, wouldn’t this all have ended a long time ago? If he really were with us, wouldn’t he reckon that one good way to change structural violence and inequity would be to refuse the power that comes with it?
So men, if you really are #WithUs and would like us to not hate you for all the millennia of woe you have produced and benefited from, start with this: Lean out so we can actually just stand up without being beaten down. Pledge to vote for feminist women only. Don’t run for office. Don’t be in charge of anything. Step away from the power. We got this. And please know that your crocodile tears won’t be wiped away by us anymore. We have every right to hate you. You have done us wrong. #BecausePatriarchy. It is long past time to play hard for Team Feminism. And win.
Well, I’m not going to respond petulantly by saying, “Okay, I’m no longer a feminist since it includes unhinged loons like Walters.” That’s equally unproductive. What we need to do is recognize that views like hers are just as sexist, bigoted, hateful, and extremist as the views she decries. Most important, Walters’s path is the wrong way to have the two sexes live on a basis of equality and comity. South Africa was healed not by stirring up post-apartheid blacks to hate all whites, but by a Truth and Reconciliation movement. That was based on hating the sin but forgiving the sinner. Walters might take a lesson from that. After all, how many men will voluntarily admit that they deserve to be hated, pushed aside, and demonized like Harvey Weinstein?
The solution to sexism and racism is not more sexism and racism. Pretty simple when you think about it.
Scott Forbes
Nice to see that most of the couple of thousand comments thus far call out this tripe for what it is – an antagonizing useless rant, among other things.
Slight typo there. The second “sin” should be “sinner” I think.
Fixed, thanks.
To answer the question posed in the headline of the article – yes, you certainly can hate men. However, you may find that it takes a considerable amount of time and energy to hate half of the human race so maybe it isn’t the best way to live your life.
Yes.
When I find out someone hates me, the very first thing I want to do is hand over power to them at their request. Yes, that should work out well. Danuta is a smart person.
“..hand over power to them..”
What does that mean?
did you read the article?
Last paragraph. I see.
You poor creature fell victim to “there’s no tone in internet comments”.
We seriously should normalize using sarcasm markers in text.
I actually didn’t read the post or the article because I didn’t want to be tempted to comment. I wandered down to the comments, saw that comment, and was curious. Then I went back and read it.
“if you really are #WithUs and would like us to not hate you”
The delusion here is that the men who meet that criteria are enough to change everything. The actual problem is all the men who would say “nope, go ahead and hate us, we don’t care.” She is alienating her friends, while ignoring her enemies.
“Whites are responsible for most (but not all) slavery”
No, that is factually wrong, 100% full stop. Not only was slavery common virtually everywhere in history, even if you narrow it to African slavery it’s wrong. The whites bought the slaves from the African rulers, so the African rulers had to have the slaves in the first place. Even on an intercontinental level, more slaves were sent to Arabia than to America. The Muslim kingdoms in Arabia continually bought new slaves from Africa, because they would castrate all the male slaves and any female slave who became pregnant (which was often a foregone conclusion, due to the number that were put into sexual slavery) were garroted.
How about, whites were responsible for slavery in America, would you go along with that?
How about white men. What was the gender that wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin?
I just read a bit on Rebecca Latimer Felton, the first woman US Senator, and the oldest,(who only served for 1 day) is also known as the last US Senator to have owned slaves. Though a supporter of woman’s suffrage she was an unrepentant racist; she had a hard life recovering after she lost her slaves during the Civil War. But she was able for rebuild her life, bless her heart.
A very touching story but I have no idea what that has to do with my comment. You find a women who had slaves and want to use that as proof that it was women who were responsible for slavery in the U.S. How stupid do you think I am? If she had slaves it would only be because they become her property because after her husband died and there were no males left in the family.
Randall, as gently as I can… you tried to deflect tomh’s comment about whites being responsible for slavery in the US onto only one group of whites; you even used a member of the other as proof. What’s good for the goose….
Okay, you think me bringing up a female who wrote an important book on slavery before the civil war is the same thing as you bringing up a woman who owned slaves. Good idea.
One woman writes an anti-slavery book and that absolves an entire gender of any responsibility for slavery?
Right. And using that logic, I guess we can claim that John Brown let’s all white men off the hook for slavery!
Only institutionally, rather than at a personal level. It is a regrettable part of history that there were also Native Americans who kept African American slaves.
(Humans suck sometimes, what can one say?)
There were Native Americans who kept Native American slaves.
Many native American tribes, through the American continent, had slaves long before the Europeans arrived. Slavery has been a wide practice in a number of different civilizations. But I do not know of a period where slavery was carried out on an industrial scale except by Europeans and their colonial descendants.
So almost all are ‘guilty’, but we whites can bear the most guilt if one wishes to assign guilt.
From an old Hitch essay, I recall that over about a two century period leading up to the 18th century, Muslim empires took up to 1.5 million slaves, many of which were Europeans. They apparently even pillaged as far as Ireland.
They did indeed. The last raid was just down the road in Baltimore (the Irish one, not the North American one). The local traitor who gave up the locals to Barbary pirates is still reviled in the town to this day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Baltimore
There doesn’t seem to be any large civilisation which has not had the institution of slavery at some point. You can see this as a pleasing vindication of the psychic unity of humanity, if you like
Perhaps for the 90 or so years between independence and the end of the civil war, within the confines of the slaveholding states in the US. But not for the thousands of years before that, or for slaves taken by Native tribes or owned or traded by non-whites during that period.
The base argument, like many leftist views, would be reasonable if their understanding of history were accurate. But any conclusions made from the analysis of bad data are going to be flawed. I guess a major goal of revisionist histories is to justify revolutionary actions.
Well, when one says “America” one generally means the country we know of as America. I don’t know why you would include thousands of years before that . I also don’t know what “revolutionary actions” you refer to.
Well, if we are speaking of the USA, then slavery was a thing in parts of the country for 82 years. That is a tiny blip in the ongoing history of slavery in the world, if we want to look at things in perspective.
By “revolutionary actions” I mean the whole spectrum of smashing the patriarchy, dismantling capitalism, decolonizing science, etc.
Well, I was actually thinking of several hundred years since the Europeans brought Africans to America in the 17th century. After all, slavery was legal in all 13 colonies at the time of the Declaration. But, regardless, if you want to absolve white people, I really don’t care.
“smashing the patriarchy, dismantling capitalism, decolonizing science,”
Where are all these horrors happening, again? Because I haven’t noticed them in the US.
But the US too was a result of revolution.
If the more radical of the founders had won the arguments, the US might have been founded as a slave-less society. That’s what I meant above about the institutions.
How so when we know that Africans sold their people to the highest bidder?
I think that who is responsible for most slavery depends on relative numbers of the different groups. If whites were more numerous at those stages of development of society in which it included slavery, then yes, they are responsible for most slavery. BTW, I suppose that Arabs should be counted as whites.
No, although by the actual biological race division they are the same race as Europeans, they are always firmly fall under the “people of color” category in the modern American division. They are not considered whites.
Nevertheless, the “Whites are responsible for most (but not all) slavery,…” claim is simply not true in this form. You could say that it could be true if you look at only a particular time period of a particular country, but it is not what is written there.
Especially funny from the perspective of my country’s history. Just a few centuries ago (not much earlier than the heydays of slavery in the US), we were preyed upon by Turkic slavers, who were people of color in this modern categorization.
You are right, Arabs are biologically close to Europeans, but nevertheless Americans and some Europeans regard them as people of color – and when you see this descriptor applied to Linda Sarsour or Malia Bouatia, you want to send somebody to an eye doctor.
“Just a few centuries ago… we were preyed upon by Turkic slavers”
So were we (Bulgarians}! A regular motif in our folk songs is how young women or (less often) men are enslaved and led away. Often the slave traders are called “black Araps” (with “p”). In fact, these men sent to serve in the Balkans were just marginally darker than their victims.
I can’t find the more recent article I read about slavery of blacks by blacks in Africa
right now, but here is another article:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/may/13/modern-slavery-african-migrants-libya
As DW rightly states,slavery was common throughout history. Unfortunately, it has returned to haunt us. It seems to me that most if not all cultures have practiced slavery. It’s an abomination no matter who practices it and regardless of their culture or skin color.
Is it OK to hate all privileged upper/middle class women who write stuff like this?
No.
And I don’t know whether your comment was serious or not, but in case it was:
1. It is never okay to hate.
2. Don’t use someone else’s bad behaviour as an excuse for your own.
3. Most women and girls around the world suffer every day simply because of their gender. No matter how bad things are for the men/boys in their society, on average, they are worse for women/girls. That doesn’t mean we should ignore it when men suffer of course, but men should be aware of the reality of female suffering.
4. It’s not better in the US for women than everywhere else in the world. International indices have the US only slightly above average amongst OECD nations.
(Note: There are some dodgy indices that put the US much lower, and if you come across them it’s safe to ignore them even if they come from somewhere like the UN. The politics of religion are tied up in their production. Indices look at different factors, but any that doesn’t have the US within the top 25 is bogus imo. A good index won’t have them lower than c. 15 overall.)
Yes, the idea that women have it better here than most – when it comes to medical care it can be far worse. Most civilized countries have health care for all, what a strange thing that would be. What bits we have in the U.S. takes away common items for women in many areas. Remember Hobby Lobby? How about the attacks on Planned Parenthood who provide the basics for millions of women who have no health care. The impact of religion in the U.S. makes it much more unequal for women.
Is she asking whether it is possible for a woman to hate all men? Or is she asking for permission to hate all men? I guess it is possible if a woman can hate her father, brothers, husband, sons, etc, as well. As for permission—go ahead, knock yourself out. Just glad I don’t know her.
“What we need to do is recognize that views like hers are just as sexist, bigoted, hateful, and extremist as the views she decries.”
I completely agree with this conclusion.
I suspect she is being extreme on purpose. It has more impact that way, more people might at least pay attention for 5 seconds. What is the big deal when compared to other forms of bigotry by our own president who did get voted in by somebody. And voted in not long after his rant on the bus about all the fun he has had with women. Yet look at all the votes. Look at what he says about Mexicans and Mexico and all the votes he gets.
You say sexism is not institutionalized in this country? I wonder how many women in this country would say that. How about the military just for starters. And lastly, how many women will dare jump in here to argue with all this male interpretation.
I agree Randall, it is institutionalised. An example:
“a professor of sociology and director of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Northeastern University [and] editor of the gender studies journal Signs,”
“And lastly, how many women will dare jump in here to argue with all this male interpretation.”
No one is stopping them. You think they are incapable of defending themselves or are they just too afraid? Like little girls? I don’t think the regular XXers here at WEIT, at least, fit that description. Do you think we men should just shut up about why it’s ok to hate us?
To me, it is OK to hate any group (free speech), it is not OK to demand to be considered a nice person while hating others. Hate comes at a price. (And when directed to the opposite sex, it of course interferes with reproduction.)
Actually, you do not make sense. You don’t think the regulars fit that description. What description are you talking about?
Things are getting better. But I’m old enough to remember when we women could not have our own credit card. (I don’t know how it was for single women with a career.)
But married women, such as myself in those days, could not have a credit card. We could use our husband’s card if he permitted us, but nothing of our own.
Oh my, and at Penn State back in the day, girls had to sign out and sign in in the dorms and be back in time for curfew. Guys had much more freedom.
That was institutionalized sexism, but I do think, as I said, that things are getting better.
Thanks for that. As I recall, women have to get to the lawyers and get those powers of attorney if they hope to get anything done during their husband’s absence – even to get the kids enrolled in school in some places.
It wasn’t just credit cards. It was any debt. The first time I got a loan in my 20s, my father had to approve it. He couldn’t have paid back the loan if I’d defaulted, though that’s the reason they pretended.
My father expected to be allowed to approve a husband choice. Some men still ask a woman’s father’s permission to marry. My father saw that as his right to give or refuse. My first major argument with a serious boyfriend was because he thought he should ask my father if he could marry me. The boyfriend saw it as politeness, but I couldn’t and don’t accept that. It implies the right to say no. The boyfriend had no good answer to the question, “Why not ask my mother?” The question, “Should I ask YOUR father?” completely flummoxed him.
The golf club over the road from me has always had both male and female players. There are carparks for Club President, Club Secretary, Women’s President, and Women’s Secretary. I hope people can see the point without having it pointed out.
And Randall’s right. Yes, we women have no problem speaking up in this particular environment created by Jerry. However, we often feel like there’s no point. There are attitudes here that just aren’t going to change, and it doesn’t matter how often we explain. Many men just don’t get it. They look at themselves, and don’t see anything bad about their own behaviour, or that of people they (think they) know, so don’t think any changes are required.
I agree with what Randall wrote at the top too about the author being provocative. She’s at least got people talking, and that shifts the Overton window.
Well, Randall and you are correct about the Overton window, but I hope you (at least) see two things – first, that had a different target for her call to hate been chosen, no matter how accurate or truthful the charges against the malefactor, we’d be having a very different discussion.
Second, that in this sea of hate and intolerance we are desperately trying to avoid drowning in, adding more hate, even just a few drops (no matter how righteous), doesn’t seem productive. In fact, it’s downright Trumpian.
Another thing, Heather. I respect your commentary here and on your very well written blog. You always make me stop and think. But to suggest that you and other women are just too tired of explaining it all to us men is a cop out. It’s a throw away that dismisses those of us who have an understanding of the issues (even as much as anyone who isn’t a woman can have) but wish to express our own views. It is deeply frustrating to be binned into a despised group for commenting on opinions on why that group deserves to be despised.
I still do comment on the posts about women. (There are a couple more long ones below.) I’m explaining how I know a lot of other women feel, and I understand why they feel that way. It sometimes feels like we have to justify our existence, and if you don’t comment as much as I do, and have a bad experience, it can drive you away. It’s much more emotionally exhausting when you feel like you’re trying to speak up for all women. Obviously we’re all individuals, but in these situations you feel an extra responsibility.
I imagine it’s not unlike how our host feels when he gets yet another creationist “proof” of the lie of evolution.
Hmmm. Are you arguing from “lived experience”? And collectively too, for women? You say “It sometimes feels like we have to …”. This seems like the same sort of argument you reject in other contexts.
I agree it seems like that because that’s the way it feels in such situations. You’re right I
normally completely reject that, and I shouldn’t feel like I do, but because of the years of attacks and being someone who usually doesn’t have a problem speaking out, I somehow feel a responsibility to get it right for all women. I know it’s wrong to feel that way, but I do anyway.
In a way, my sister and her husband asked all four parents and the respective brothers before hand. She’s a bit more traditionalist than I am (after all, she got married. :))
I don’t know what would have happened if anyone had suggested anything like “don’t”, though.
Brava, Heather!
Even now, most credit for married couples (M – F) is in the husband’s name only. The credit record built up is only his. If the husband dies, the credit does not go over to the surviving spouse who must establish credit in her own name. She is likely to have low credit limits initially. This despite the fact that part or all of the income that established the previous credit may have been from her.
Things balance out, though. As of 2014, women control the finances in 90% of households. Also, take the finances of divorce into account.
The point of my correction here (and in other posts in this comment section) is not that men somehow have it worse than women, but that, in many situations, men do have it worse. Our society isn’t one where men have all the benefits and women have all the disadvantages, but one in which women are severely disadvantaged in some areas, and men severely disadvantaged in others. The trouble is that we don’t talk about the areas where men face difficulties.
You make an interesting point. In divorce situations, for example, most states decide in favor of the female spouse when divvying up the income and goods (when there are children especially, since usually she gets custody of the kids.)
Women having control of household finances (and I doubt it’s 90% though it may be a majority) doesn’t balance out having no credit rating when your husband dies. Most couples I know manage their finances together.
And I frankly get sick of people saying there are areas or situations it’s worse for men. There will always be cases where it’s worse for one or the other. On average, it’s worse for women, and that shouldn’t be the case.
And aren’t we talking about a situation where it’s worse for men right now, where a woman has been allowed to be bigoted against men to make her point?
I don’t think its obvious that things are currently worse for (newly born) women. The culture within the educational system continues to shift against men, despite women doing better by almost all metrics.
I believe wholeheartedly that women 30+, and possibly even 25+ grew up at a socially imposed disadvantage, but to a large extent that is water under the bridge. No amount of propaganda will fill CEO positions with stay-at-home moms, or turn marketing degrees into doctors.
The best we can do is make sure children who grow up today are given a fair chance; free from the sins of their ancestors.
(Those goals seem reasonable to me, but I’m not sure they are held by the majority anymore.)
I think women in their 20s today don’t realize how easy they have it compared to those of us twice their age. Things are getting better all the time. I’ve noticed a huge difference in my lifetime.
Education has been equal for a while I think in many places. On average, NZ women have been better educated than men for over 100 years. Now, 2/3 of degrees here go to women. In that particular index of men vs women, we’re #1, but there are lots of countries where women are better educated than men. Over 20 iirc, incl. the US. That’s a reason why we should be doing better even though things like having babies takes us out of the workforce.
There’s also the issue that work women normally does simply isn’t valued as highly as work men does. So those jobs aren’t paid as well. When jobs are analyzed objectively against the skills, education etc needed to do them, there are several jobs that women do that should be paid much more highly, and jobs men usually do that shouldn’t be as paid highly in comparison. Not that I’m advocating cutting anyone’s wages – I just think remuneration should be judged more fairly. Keep paying the men what they get, but adjust the wages of those jobs that aren’t paid enough upwards.
I agree that the focus should be on getting it right for the children who grow up today.
Also, we can’t keep worrying about what we suffered years ago. Most people had bad stuff in their lives. We all have to find a way to deal with it. As you say, going forward is what’s important.
Well, this is the kind of assumption that I think needs to be fought: that things are obviously worse if you’re a woman. The point I was making is that we hear about the issues women have every day, but we rarely hear about issues that affect men, and that will obviously result in severely skewed perceptions of the situation. To say that, in a country like the US, a young woman has it worse than a young man strikes me as far too concrete. There are twenty other issues I can list off the top of my head that affect men far worse than women.
Also, the fact that a response to what I said is often something like “And I frankly get sick of people saying there are areas or situations it’s worse for men” says a lot to me regarding how little consideration society has for any of the issues that affect men greatly. Not only do we not hear about them, but when anyone brings them up (even in a post where the subject is an article telling everyone about how it’s OK to hate men!), they are told to stop being so selfish and taking the spotlight from women’s issues.
Just a few more: homelessness, severe mental illness, victimization from violent crime. Also, to be a young woman now means to earn more than your male counterparts until you reach the age of 30, on average (which is when many women start reducing their hours, taking time off, etc.).
I have no problem with looking at issues relating to men. The problem I have is when it’s framed the way you did, which is why I responded the way I did, which I admit wasn’t helpful.
Just yesterday I was commenting (here I think) that the second highest cause of death for men in NZ is suicide, and I bet most NZers don’t know that because no one talks about it. Everyone thinks that talking about it will make more people do it, but I’m not sure things can get much worse. As I said, I think we should be talking about it.
Ime, things that affect men get looked at. Women have to fight to get attention. Mental health is an issue where everyone misses out, though here at least, we’ve been making strides to improve that. I’m shocked by how bad homelessness is in the US. We have a problem here too (though not as bad as yours), but again, big efforts are being made. Women earn more now because they’re better educated at the top end, so they should be better paid, and they should have been for some time, but they weren’t. By the 30s, experience becomes more important than education.
A cursory google search shows that the jury is far from decided on which gender suffers more from the things you listed in your final paragraph. I’m sure you can present studies that say men earn less; I can present ones that say women do.
Do you have much actual experience with the large-scale workplace? My wife and I both have decades of stories we can tell about the different way men and women are treated in the business world. And frequently, the treatment is such that it can fly under the radar, and not necessarily be reflected in studies that simply look at numbers companies report.
I’m arguing here from a place of simply and sincerely thinking you’re mistaken, not in a spirit of animosity.
I agree about the pay thing, Heather: it does make sense, and it’s OK with me because it’s logical. Where I start having issues is with the double standards, like when it comes to education and gender parity in industries: over 60% of people going to college are now women, and that gap is likely to continue growing. “In 2013, for every male active psychologist, there were 2.1 female active psychologists in the workforce.” :http://www.apa.org/workforce/publications/13-demographics/index.aspx
The therapist/psychology gap will continue to widen as that area continues to be dominated by women when it comes to earning degrees in the field. Women now also earn the majority of college degrees and even doctoral degrees: http://www.aei.org/publication/women-earned-majority-of-doctoral-degrees-in-2016-for-8th-straight-year-and-outnumber-men-in-grad-school-135-to-100/
http://www.aei.org/publication/table-of-the-day-bachelors-degrees-by-field-and-gender-for-the-class-of-2015/
And these degrees extend to many white collar areas, like psychology and law, as you can see from the second link.
Now, I have zero problem with this. Men and women have different interests. As you can see from the tables, men outdo women in places like engineering and computing. My issue is that, in the areas where women aren’t 50% or more, this is considered a huge problem that produces thousands of online pieces, blogs, newspaper articles, and TV pieces every year, and they often don’t just report these facts, but blame the sexism of men in those industries and the general patriarchy for the disparities. When it comes to fields where women are dominating, this is not seen as an issue at all. In fields where men dominate, tons of scholarship programs are set up for women, but the same is not the case for the other side. Hell, we even have scholarships exclusively for women when it comes to college degrees generally, even though they are significantly out-earning men in degrees, and that gap seems to be widening.
I find all of these disparities to be logical, and to in fact prove that the disparities in different sectors are natural (otherwise men would surely be dominating in all white-collar areas, including law, psychology, veterinary science, etc.). My problem is that it’s considered a big issue among influential and ubiquitous media and activists when women aren’t equally earning or dominating in certain fields, but it’s of no consequence when things are the other way around.
It’s the hypocrisy and double standards that I can’t stand. And I of course do not mean you. This is simply a general statement.
Please try to limit the length of your comments, as per the Roolz. Thanks.
Sorry, I forgot the link: http://www.businessinsider.com/infographic-women-control-the-money-in-america-2012-2
Thanks for the reference. I’ll read it.
I’m curious if they address the millions of U.S. women who end up with little or no social security at retirement age for numerous reasons. Many live in poverty for years because they live for years after their spouses die and they have little or no work
history.
That’s a great point. And I don’t in any way mean to take away from the issues women face. The only issue I’m trying to get across is that men and women face different issues, and we, as a society, need to stop making this a competition to see who has it worse. A truly good society functioning at the highest level talks openly about all the issues affecting all its people, and tries to address them.
I would not put any credence in that infographic. It’s based off a small (about 1400), privately conducted survey of women in the US with access to smartphones. That is hardly representative of anything. The survey was commissioned as part of the “Marketing to Millennial Women” annual conference, a collection of data-distorters so bad that they actually claim that there are 33% more US women in their 20’s than men (see here: https://m2w.biz/fast-facts/).
Here’s another from USA Today: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2017/01/05/do-women-call-financial-shots-household/95537058/
I don’t know what conclusions can really be drawn from the information presented in that article. Women “control finances” because they’re the ones out spending money on clothes and food for their families? I don’t think that makes the point you’re trying to make.
That article doesn’t link to the survey nor does it provide enough information to track it down. I would strongly caution anyone against blindly believing survey data that is not generated by reputable firms (like Pew or Gallup). There are hundreds of tiny, private survey companies that are glad to cook up whatever results you want them to for the right price. These firms are not in the least bit scientific, nor do they practice scientific polling methods. And popular media is notoriously inept at reporting even accurate polling data (e.g. virtually any election polls).
Accurate polling is extremely difficult to do well even for the best firms (and oftentimes it’s impossible). If you can’t trust the name, and you can’t check the methodology, then it deserves no credence.
Thank you, Ed and musical beef.
P.S. I’m old enough to remember when there were no such things as credit cards for anyone. Or student loans. Or banks trying to entice people to take out loans for houses whether they could afford the bank’s terms or not. Etc.
I’m not nearly that old, but I do wish things were still that way. Credit cards have not only allowed everyone to sink further into debt, but studies show that people feel like they’re not really paying for something if they don’t have to physically hand over cash or, at the very least, write a check. The problems with the other things you mentioned are even more obvious.
By the way, I just want to say thanks for always having such reasonable and polite conversations with me. It’s always a pleasure disagreeing with you 🙂
And that goes for Heather, as well (if you’re reading this)!
“And lastly, how many women will dare jump in here to argue with all this male interpretation.”
Not me. I’m sorry it’s become such a regular topic on this website (but I’m not telling our host what to post!). The only solution is to not participate.
I agree with what you say here almost totally. Just one small nit.
You say “Walters argues that sexism has no roots in biology”. Actually, she didn’t say that, at least not in the part you quoted. All she says is that critics are right not to focus on that.
I didn’t think she said that either. I read the whole article, and it’s the only place biology gets a mention.
Attitudes like this are to be expected in this age of intolerance and hate. Such a legacy we are leaving to the future.
I agree. This is what bothers me the most about this kind of article. It is the attitude that all men are evil as it is (a) close enough to the truth and (b) makes life simpler. Such women might bear in mind the fact that many women voted for Trump over Clinton in the last presidential election. Their absolutist rhetoric is just not flying in this day and age and it enables the opposition to a very great extent. It makes me want to say, “Shut up! We have an election to win!”
Institutional sexism is quite present in the US. Lack of universal maternity leave and childcare provisions impacts women more than men. So does the underfunding of women’s healthcare facilities. And the increasing threats to the availability of abortion. US maternal and infant mortality rates are the highest in any developed nation.
Right, but saying “all men are evil” is not going to fix these problems.
Yes, that’s a good point that I think warrants an emendation in the OP.
Perhaps you meant “parental leave”. In any case, maternity leave is more widely supported among companies than paternity leave, and the fact that women do more childcare (and thus are more impacted) isn’t an artifact of the law (which is neutral), but of the wider society. I don’t see how it’s institutional in the sense that Jerry meant.
And how much institutional funding is there for men’s health care facilities? I think government funding for gendered health care, such as it is, flows more towards women’s health care than men’s. Perhaps women need so much more health care than men that the current lopsided funding in favor of women’s health care is somehow still ‘institutionally sexist against women’, but I don’t think it’s obvious.
“And how much institutional funding is there for men’s health care facilities?”
Even less. Take, for example, the fact that more men die from prostate cancer every year than women do from breast cancer. How often do you hear about prostate cancer? How many organizations are devoted to raising money and “awareness” for research toward it? How often do you see corporations and sports leagues have awareness and charity drives?
https://prostate.org.nz/2014/01/men-die-earlier-womens-health-gets-four-times-funding/
The amount of funding that goes toward breast cancer is at least four times greater, and, if some different calculations are used, other sources say it’s as high as sixteen times.
Meanwhile, men already die 4.5 years earlier than women on average. This is not an issue that ever seems to come up in any sort of national conversation. They also die from suicide more often, by the tune of three to four times the rate.
Well, to be fair, breast cancers strike earlier in life and many types have poorer prognosis than prostate cancers. So there isn’t quite the impetus in public health awareness.
Plus men don’t count.
In most developed countries parental leave is the law. The US is way behind.
The US has the worst maternal and neo-natal mortality rate in the developed world because of your crap healthcare system.
Your crap healthcare system results in more men being covered than women.
The restrictions to abortion access in many states is indeed institutionalized sexism.
One of the reasons universal prostate checks aren’t done in many places are:
1. Men haven’t fought for them. Women fought for breast cancer and cervical screening checks, and they take advantage of them.
2. Men don’t get the checks done even when they’re available. They have stupid hangups about it. We have the checks, but we’re constantly trying to get men to have them done.
A big reason is because it isn’t as necessary or as pressing a medical need. Prostate cancers are often slow growing, many kinds don’t metastasize easily and the cancers strike at a later time in life – mean age at diagnosis for prostate cancer is 66 with a mean survival time OF more than 17 years – a lot of things can kill a man in the 17 years after his 66th birthday.
Breast cancers (the plural is key) are a different horse altogether. Some forms are wildly metastatic. Breast cancers range between 40 and 62 for mean age at diagnosis. Mean time to death depends greatly on the stage at diagnosis, but can be as little as 5 years. So in addition to your points about the differences in the way we seek treatment for our own health, there are some good reasons why prostate cancer doesn’t make the headlines like breast cancer does*.
Plus men don’t count. 😉
*both types of cancers respond to therapy (some forms much better than others) but early diagnosis is key to survival. Get. Tested.
Yes, men, GET TESTED. Get over your unease about a finger up the bum. If something is there, there’s a really good survival rate. It’s important!
I’ll tell ya, that finger up the bum isn’t…well…it ain’t fun, but once you do it the first time, it becomes a bit of a comical situation from then on. Just make a couple of jokes with your doc (which he’s heard many times before (and I’m assuming it’s a he because I’ve never met a female finger-up-the-male-bum doctor before, and I’m assuming most men would be too icked out by the prospect)) and get on with it.
Personally, I don’t try to make any jokes because I know there’s almost no way my doctor hasn’t heard them a thousand times before.
And breat càncer in young (under30) and bla k women are even world, most die with 2 year, even with the best treatment.
I actually tried to get a prostate exam but the doctor dissuaded me. 😛 He said that it’s not too likely at my age and would be expensive. I appreciate him watching out for my pocketbook, I guess, but I also wish people in the US didn’t have to make such choices. Perhaps I should have gotten the exam anyway…
If you’re young and there are no symptoms, it’s probably not something you need to worry about too much. But yes, a doctor here might do it if s/he thought it would help your peace of mind, and it wouldn’t cost extra.
Guess it depends on what type of exam is being talked about. The long-used DRE is going by the wayside since the consensus appears that there is no clinical benefit, especially in asymptomatic men. PSA is probably the most used screening exam, but it is certainly not without flaws.
I’m sure opponents of abortion would say their motivation is the belief that killing a fetus is murder rather than a desire to oppress women. (I’m willing to believe that they secretly think women should have to “face the consequences” of sex, though. But men have to face the consequences too. We have even less choice about whether we want the responsibility and cost of a child.)
It’s ironic that most abortions are had by those who belong to religions that oppose abortion. They tend not to get proper sex education, and don’t use, or perhaps even have access to contraception.
The best way to stop abortion is to make contraception available. Abortion rates are dropping in NZ because of increased availability of contraception and more education, especially to younger people.
Hear,hear!
Yes, its been said so many times that it has become cliche, but, if these people really wanted to drastically reduce abortions, they would make contraception, family planning services, and comprehensive sex education priorities. I guess that, in many cases, they oppose these things for the same reason they oppose abortion: misguided religious beliefs.
+1!
I hope that, one day, abortion will be free and easily accessible everywhere in the world, but I do believe that most who oppose abortion truly think it’s, in essence, murdering babies. I think the best evidence for this is the amount of support for ending abortion among women (this also makes a large amount of sense because women tend to be more religious than men). When it comes to issues that are, at their core, philosophical, I try to understand as best I can and respect people’s professed reasons for their positions unless they prove to have ulterior motives. Considering the fervor with which many oppose abortion, I’m inclined to believe their professed reasons for doing so.
The stats I’m referencing apply only to the US. I do not know about other countries.
Also, to be clear, I think most people who oppose abortion are doing so on philosophical/moral grounds, while those who support free and easy access are being more utilitarian.
Lack of universal maternity leave isn’t sexism. Yes, I know it’s popular today to say that anything that affects women more than men is sexist, but that’s because it’s useful to label everyone a sinner.
What *would* count as institutional sexism, in your view?
Walters wants justice, but where is the justice in condemning all men living today in the US (she doesn’t seem to call out men in other countries), for all the crimes of all men thoughout all time? Surely, in justice we cannot be held liable for the crimes of our ancestors, any more than any other group is? And, surely, not every man alive to day is guilty, and not every man who is guilty is equally quilty? I wouldn’t step aside to let a person who believes things like this have my place, because I think think Walters is bad person. It might be comforting to treat entire groups as the enemy, but we’ve learned the danger of doing so.
Like much of extreme left and right thought, it often seems more about revenge for history than about equality.
The primatologist and feminist Barbara Smuts wrote a paper I really enjoyed reading on the factors that influence male vs. female dominance in non-human primates and how they relate to male dominance in many human societies. Some of her hypotheses of why males dominate in many human societies include strong male alliances combined with female dispersal from their natal groups resulting in weak female alliances (also observed in chimpanzees), male control over resources, strict hierarchies among men, which allows a single male to dominate females in a group without interference from other males, females preferentially mating with the highest ranking males, which may result in increased reproductive success at the expense of reinforcing male dominance, and the evolution of language which allowed for the reinforcement of sexist concepts of male superiority. She then goes on to discuss how understanding the biological basis of male dominance can be used to allivate it; for example emphasizing women’s property rights to prevent male control of resources, and emphasizing female participation in politics to increase formation of female alliances.
The paper is free to read with the unpaywall app:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02734133
And I spelled “alleviate” wrong! I apologize for that.
Interesting article. Thanks, Scott.
Why are humans so prone to fantastically over-broad generalizations like this? I don’t see what would be so difficult about issuing condemnations on an individual basis.
One semantic nit I’ll pick: I think it would be ok to “hate the sinner”, if by that you mean condemn the individual. The thing to remember is that many men aren’t sinners, ie, they haven’t committed the “sin” of misogyny in any way.
I agree and would add that even men who have “sinned” may be convinced not to sin in the future. Most (all?) men have committed some level of misogyny in their lives, at least of the “ingrained prejudice” variety. Biology sets us up for it. Equality between the sexes is a necessary cultural overlay that must be maintained by society and taught anew to each boy. It is an ongoing battle that women will never 100% win, at least not without some kind of severe genetic interference.
“committed some level of misogyny”
I would not label all negative stereotypes that men hold for women to be misogyny….that just plays into the hands of radical feminists.
Yeah, “misogyny” is overused. I think both men and women misunderstand and have sexist opinions about the opposite sex, but few people actually hate or dislike the opposite sex.
I think they are more common than usually thought. I remember how on this blog I advocated for much longer maternity leaves, and was accused that I wanted “Sabbaticals for women paid by men”, and told that I hopefully had no children to inherit my “retarted” genes.
“retarded”, sorry.
I will say I’m heartened to see all the women running for office since the 2016 election. Many primaries have been won by minority women to boot. For the first time there are three Native American women running for different offices. There will always be the zealot driven women like Michelle Bachman, but by and large, women are better at working together, compromising, and easing tensions and disputes. In this hateful, ultra-partisan time in the U.S., having more women in government leadership positions is a good thing.
No way will men just step out of power because of this unhinged rant, but at the ballot box, they can be pushed out. That’s how a democracy works.
If the female looks like the better candidate, the male should be pushed out, but if the male looks like the better candidate, there is no way I’d vote for the female just because of her sex. Where I work, the first female head in the history of the institution made such a mess that we had to call an emergency assembly to vote her out after just 1 year in the office.
Yes, of course. Anecdotes aside, a democratic female (for me) will always be on the better side than a republican male or female, just as a democratic male would be on the better side than a male of female republican. (I’m using ‘better’ as my political outlook concludes.} I can’t think of one republican, male or female, that I would ever vote for instead of a democrat. It’s just not the way it works for me anymore…I can’t even remember the last time I’d call a republican the “better” candidate. When it comes to two progressive democrats running in a primary, then I’m with you, I’ll choose the better candidate. But after vetting, if I conclude “they are the same on the issues” I’ll vote for the female, for the reasons I stated above.
Randall is undoubtedly correct that Walters is using idiotically extreme language as an attention-getting device. But there are dangers in the kind of language used when she affects to hate all men as a class.
Once upon a time, the gang who seized power in Russia hated as a class several different constellations of humans, and called explicitly for their extermination: the aristocracy, which they dealt with as recounted in Douglas Smith’s “Former People”; and the capitalists; and then all other political elements, like the Mensheviks, the liberals of the Kadet Party, the peasant-based SR Party, etc. etc; then after a few years, the more successful farmers, called kulaks. And then all of the imaginary enemies eliminated in the purges of the late 1930s. By the beginning of Stalin’s dementia in the early 1950s, “rootless cosmopolitans” were about to be eliminated.
The language of the kind Walters used merges smoothly into the mentality behind those phenomena, which is why the term “regressive” Left is so appropriate.
Is that op-ed, at the end of the day or night, subtly, but unmistakably homophobic toward gay men?
I oppose this professor’s expressed points of view for the same reasons that Jerry puts forth above. I don’t want radicalized feminism to impede our progress towards bettering our society and I do criticize it when it seems appropriate.
However, I have a great deal of empathy for even the more radical iterations of feminism compared to other views I oppose (religious views for example). In my opinion, in general women have good reason for pretty much the whole spread of feminist views of men from 1st wave through whatever wave we’re at now. I don’t expect every women to be capable of avoiding becoming radicalized given the enormous provocation that has been the norm for so much of human history, and still is to a significant extent.
I agree with Jerry that in the US, and many other countries of course, our laws have improved to the point that women and men are equal. And that’s definitely improvement. But there are a whole lot of buts. There are always arguments in the comments on this topic claiming not only that sexism and unequal treatment towards women are no longer issues but that the scales have been tipped too far and are now unequal in favor of women. It always makes me shake my head in wonder at the diversity of experience in human societies. Because I see widespread unambiguous examples of those things every-single-day.
I took notice of this professor’s mention of Trump and, not for the first time, it made me wonder how much of the recent apparent uptick in outspoken feminism (and racism, gender issues, etc.) has to do with the election of Trump. My wife’s reaction to Trump winning the election was a bit surprising to me, though given her experiences with abuse and sexism in her life perhaps it should not have been. When it finally became apparent to us that Trump was going to win she was very distraught. She really felt let down and disgusted by her fellow citizens. It’s hard for her to express why she reacted so strongly to it, but to try and summarize, besides Trump being the exemplar of a shit human being, that enough voters approved of him enough to either vote for him or vote against Hillary Clinton was a re-validation of the sexism, unequal treatment and abuse of women that she has been so familiar with throughout her life, but had hoped was on the wane.
I too was distraught and felt let down and disgusted with my fellow Americans when Trump won- and I’m male (go figure, right?). And I agree that the uptick you see in outspoken feminism is because of the ascendancy of Trump. Much of it, unlike this bit of nastiness, is constructive. There is cause to be hopeful (see Mark R’s post above).
But the mistake Democrats will make is thinking Trump is the cause of all that is wrong with what he represents. He is not. He is a symptom of a deep malaise in our country, one that is NOT helped by broadening the flood of hate and intolerance we are drowning in.
I agree and I think you said it pretty well. And the point you make about Trump being a symptom, not a cause, that is the key reason why my wife was so upset. She wasn’t upset at Trump. She was (is) upset because her society elected Trump and what that means about her society.
I think I mentioned it once before here, like you I also had a serious negative reaction to Trump’s election. I was as surprised, perhaps more so, at my own emotional reaction to it as I was my wife’s. Heck, I was actually expecting it for weeks but when it finally became evident on election night? I was really surprised at my own unthinking, unpremeditated, emotional reaction. Something like I imagine an anxiety attack might be like mixed with tragic disappointment. Guess I’ll have to turn in my man-card.
I felt exactly the same way. And little that’s happened since has made me feel any better. I’m devastated that this is the
America our children (including our grown children, like mine) are experiencing and inheriting.
While Trump isn’t the cause, things will immediately get better the day he leaves office. I’d like to think that no future president will be as bad as Trump, at least not in my lifetime.
It is worth pointing out that a majority of women (white women at any rate) voted for Trump. That openly misogynistic, bullying, frat-boy-level-of-engagement-with-the-opposite-sex Trump. Maybe some women need to stop hating women? Show the poor men folk the error of their ways by way of example.
Michelle Obama recently made the exact same point (albeit with a little less snark)
It is not as clear-cut. The immigration program of the Democrats favors the most misogynist societies on Earth. Trump will be out after two terms at worst, and he cannot personally abuse many women. The misogynist immigrants stay in the country forever, transmit their views to most of their children and can abuse many women. At least one escapee from such a society, Asra Nomani, publicly stated that she had voted for Trump.
And Trump’s Justice Department is doing their part by announcing they will no longer give asylum to abused women, reversing years of (Democratic) policy. That should help.
I think you are optimistic.
I too felt immense disgust for men after Trump won. I also felt immense disgust for older women (>60) who I learned voted for Trump. That took some time to heal (is that right word?).
Taking a lesson from my dislike of religion is the best: it’s not the people, it’s the ‘idea’ that I despise. We will all go a great deal forward if we remember people are not deterministically bad: their actions can be guided by bad ideas.
I’ve had friends who smoke, who are obese or who listen to country music 🙂. None of these qualities make the person bad or justify reasons to dislike them personally.
I think this woman was radicalized not by the age-long historical oppression of women but by a few short years of being paid to preach hatred of men, which, to me, is the function of Gender / Women’s Studies departments.
And you base this belief on…oh right, nothing. It couldn’t be that she thought this through and came to a conclusion, it must be that she is being paid to “preach” this. It’s the only logical conclusion.
What is she paid for? It is for a reason that in so many situation, we are required to disclose any conflicts of interest!
I assume she’s being paid to teach. What is the conflict of interest?
She is not paid to teach math, grammar or history. She is paid to teach Women’s Studies, a discipline born when bashing white males became the official party line in the West.
And I didn’t even know “the West” had an official party line. Still wonder what the conflict of interest is.
The conflicting interests are the hypothetical wish of the professor to be fair to men and the undisputable fact that she is paid to indoctrinate students to be unfair to men. But maybe it is just me, and there is no problem for one to be impartial while being paid to bash one of the sides.
It is just you. Faulty premises lead to faulty conclusions.
I am glad that when I need the truth, I have you to turn to.
“She is not paid to teach math, grammar or history”, but she is if she is doing her job in a professional manner. In all of my biology courses, I assign essays, and while accurate content is primary, I also grade on grammar and proper use of words and spelling. I also expect the math and the history to be accurate. One would think that Women’s Studies would also cover some math and history.
I hope you realize that the same argument could attempt to justify teaching History of the North Korean Communist Party, don’t you?
My point is that it is not the individual to blame but the institution of Women’s (or Gender) Studies, and other “Studies” as well. They are all indoctrination in hate of Western civilization personified in white males who are regarded as its biological carriers. This explains why Women’s Studies professors are not too active in criticizing non-Western rape cultures.
“They are all indoctrination in hate of Western civilization personified in white males who are regarded as its biological carriers.” Geez! Wan’t like that in my day- where/when are you “crediting” this being… the standard?
I am sorry but I don’t understand you. If you are asking for my source(s), I have none, this is my summarized impression.
OK, got it.
I also expect my students to know Krassimir, the Man-Voice. 🙂
I didn’t know him!
After a stint in LA, including voice instruction from my sister, I think that he is back in Bulgaria.
I find it scary that in some 1st World societies, there is a large proportion of people hating the opposite sex. How do you think, why do some women write such insane texts, and why do some men form Internet groups devoted to hatred of women?
Do you not think your questions answer themselves. Hint – why do women write such insane texts? Why do men form Internet groups devoted to hatred of women? Just say – why do some women and men hate each other.
Try this answer – you won’t like it. I say some women write these articles because they want to shake things up. Men go on line in packs to find others who think just like they do. It is called insecurity in some circles and it is done right here.
Insecurity, yes. Often masked by a demonstrated feeling of entitlement (“I am so great, and they still appointed my miserable male rival”).
She teaches a 100-level class at NE. I wonder how she can possibly give unbiased grades to her male students. I think if there were a white professor who wrote that they hated all black people the administration would recognize that that would present a problem for black students in classes taught by that prof…at the very least.
very good point
Jerry, you definitely qualify as a feminist. I wish the word “feminist” wasn’t being used by people like this writer. It’s embarrassing. I certainly condemn her conclusions. I don’t know of any good polls on how many women would support this, but based entirely on personal experience, I doubt that many. That column reads like a tantrum. Tantrums persuade no one and accomplish nothing. While I do want to read a true diversity of viewpoints in any good newspaper’s op-ed section, the Washington Post sank to a click-bait level with that one.
“While I do want to read a true diversity of viewpoints in any good newspaper’s op-ed section, the Washington Post sank to a click-bait level with that one.”
It sounds more like you want to read a diversity of viewpoints that you can agree with.
I read plenty of things I disagree with, and most of them don’t involve open and proud hatemongering.
I think you know this and are just being churlish.
I’m sure you’d be saying the same thing if the Washington Post published an opinion piece from a member of the KKK justifying the hatred of all minorities and exhorting others to engage in that hate.
Huh? Does this mean something?
If the article in this post was from a KKK member asking why we can’t just hate all black people, and Cate Plys said, “While I do want to read a true diversity of viewpoints in any good newspaper’s op-ed section, the Washington Post sank to a click-bait level with that one,” would you still be saying “It sounds more like you want to read a diversity of viewpoints that you can agree with”?
Thanks, BJ. Exactly.
“Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.” (Nelson Mandela).
Ms Walters is drinking her poison all right.
And she exhorts other women to imbibe as well.
There’s a line in the movie Ulzana’s Raid, when a young cavalry lieutenant tells his scout that he hates Indians. “Well, it might not make you happy, Lieutenant, but it sure won’t make you lonesome.”
“”underrepresentation” in high-paying jobs”
There’s actually evidence for the factors that contribute to this, such as receiving vague feedback in performance evaluations, being evaluated based on relationships or communication style (“abrasive”) rather than productivity, and subconscious bias.
Re: hating people
We can’t legislate feelings, only behaviors. If someone with her bias has the self-awareness to keep herself from grading with a bias, good for her.
This is why implicit bias is such an important thing to know about within oneself. If you subconsciously think fat people are stupid, your fat student gets a lower grade than a thin student who produces equal results.
It seems pretty obvious to me what this phenomenon is. Just like the far right manifests itself most luridly in fundamentalist religiosity, so does the far left.
This is the new fundamentalism. It’s a fundamentalism whose Satan is called patriarchy. Whose blasphemy against the holy spirit is called sexism (and just like blasphemy, it is only in one direction). Whose original sin is male privilege. When Satan is tempting you to sin, it’s now internalize misogyny. The same disconnect between truth and ethics that plays out on the far right (e.g., against evolution) plays out on the far left too (again, against evolution). Due to the belief that giving any quarter to this science will engender immoral behavior, they claim that it’s not “real science” and is just another faith/ethical theory.
Of course something like this would be written. We can easily imagine the same sort of screed from the far religious right, where they write about hating sinners. And bet that the same sort of things that lead to deconversion on the far right can be applied to this new fundamentalism on the far left.
We know of at least two instances where male power is indisputably institutionalized: the Catholic church and Islam. That’s where a real feminist would propose to start with.
Good point. (Christianity, too.)
All of Christianity, I meant.
I can understand why a woman might wish to issue such a cri de coeur in a fit of pique and pain. I’m not so sure why WaPo would want to print it on its editorial pages.
Hell, my mom, who had a Mensa-level IQ, felt herself ensnared in the 1950s Leave-It-to-Beaver world of housewifery and child-rearing. Once in a while she’d head to the cellar to purge the frustration with a good scream. But she never tried to publish one of ’em in the paper (though, now that I think of it, maybe she shoulda).
To look back at the condition of women in the 1950s, particularly in the work place is a good look at how far they have come maybe, but also in how far they have to go. You won’t hear much of that here, however, because the boys are too busy circling the wagons over just this one article. It may not be hatred but might be some insecurity. It reminds me of all the white folks that stand around convincing themselves they are no longer prejudice toward African Americans.
I don’t think the response here is about circling wagons. It is about how this woman is shunning as partners in the battle for womens’ rights and lumping us in with those that are not on the team.
Ha! When I read “cellar”, I was thinking “wine cellar”. I suppose screaming is healthier.
Your mom had a Mensa level IQ? Really?
Tested as a young woman at 145 (which, if memory serves, is three standard deviation units above the mean). Haven’t been tested myself, but I’ve got good reason to suspect I’m a victim of regression toward the mean. 🙂
That’s cool. Although IQ is not everything, to think what she could have accomplished with more opportunity.
Like Huck Finn.
I am so annoyed with women who write negatively about “all men”! I try to explain to some guys that feminism doesn’t mean putting men down but saying that we women have equal rights and often equal (or better) abilities. And then this! Blanket statements about hating men do not help create equality.
All that is axaggerated is insignificant. I do not remember who said it.
Women are hardly counterexamples as her argument suggests. They are as full of flaws as men are and even tend to have the same sexist attitudes toward their own sex as men do, as well as toward men. Bad attitudes are everywhere and they are what need changing.
What’s this, a “me too” post? Yes and no. Yes in that I’ve had my share of abuse, humiliation, put-downs, loathsome ugliness from certain men. No in that I don’t hate men.
There are plenty of nice guys running around. Why on earth should I hate them? I enjoy those considerate, friendly fellows!
A distinction just came into my mind. I suspect that some times ignorance can be mistaken for hatred and bigotry.
Asking for myself, am I a racist because I’m white? Am I prejudiced against Black people, or am I *ignorant*?
There’s so much I don’t know about the experiences of Black people. I don’t know about the fear Black parents feel, worrying about their son and whether he will be beaten or shot.
There are things I just blindly take for granted and don’t notice, but Black people see. There are things I’d say that are intended as a kindness, but a Black person rightly sees as an invalidation. (This happened. I did make a blunder and cause pain and stress. I’m glad that the Black woman took me aside and told me why what I’d said was so hurtful. And then we were both hugging each other and crying, because we really liked each other and did not want unfinished pain and misunderstanding between us.)
I’ll bet there are good men who say or do something hurtful, not meaning to be sexist, but not understanding how it would impact a woman. I’d hope that it might be possible to draw the man aside and explain why it hurt and give a good person a chance to learn. I’m glad the Black woman gave me the chance to learn.
+1 ladyatheist makes much the same point above.
Ain’t the tolerance of people who constantly preach tolerance grand?
“a professor of sociology and director of the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program at Northeastern University [and] editor of the gender studies journal Signs”
…and to think the RegressBros and New Racists keep gaslighting us and claiming these people are part of out imagination.
She’d be right at home at FreeThoughtBlogs, or some other cesspit that attracts far left loons and hate-filled bigots.
BTW, if you are a male student in one of her classes, how can you trust her to be fair?
Answer: you can’t.
Proclaims someone with zero evidence.
Obviously having read her article means evidence is not at all zero.
“Tomh” must be a little slow.
Right, because not swallowing invented, unproven statements must be a sign that one is “slow.”
Really? An article is evidence of what goes on in a classroom?
I does suggest her state of mind. Ladyatheist writes above;
Replace “fat” with “testicle having” and you’ll get the idea.
So I guess someone who writes about the evils of religion, who might subconsciously think religious people are stupid, will give religious people a lower grade in the classroom. It looks like we need to weed out a lot of teachers.
Look, Tomh, you think I can’t read back up the thread?
You complained that Paul hadn’t given any evidence as a rebuttal to your claim against Richard that there was no evidence that, based on this essay, the professor might have a bias toward her male students (if there are any fool enough to be one). Her essay IS evidence, whether you like it or not.
And yeah, if a college admin was doing her job correctly, she would call in that teacher who shows evidence of bias against the religious for a talk about professional ethics, just as one at NEU should have a talk with Prof Walters.
Of course we all know no such administrator lives.
Well, you might consider an article in a newspaper evidence of favoritism but I would prefer an actual showing of it before making an accusation. And I was answering an accusation- a commenter said you CAN’T trust this person. No ifs, ands, or buts, nothing about calling in the teacher for a talk, as you suggest, according to the original comment you categorically can’t trust this person. There’s your bias.
Not necessarily, the teacher has “something” to lose from bad grading… like the job!
so, there is always a counter to discrimination, however hidden or small an impact it has on your decisions.
Biases, heuristics do play a role in bigotry, we know this, so it can’t be fully discounted.
It could be as mundane as self preservation (stated above) as opposed to someone who is aware of it, practiced at recognising it’s trap. It is up to the individual to negate it’s effect.
You may have a good rapport with a religious student and not with another, so you nit pick the later and champion the former.
This is life unfortunately, as teachers and employers do have their favourites, it may have consequences or not. It happens.
I think though, this is what this post is about, shaking this out, that is, not favouring one gender over another, regardless of the evolutionary biological and evolutionary culture imposed differences.
Is the problem (female inequality) not a species problem rather than a problem caused by males? Also, females are contributing around 50% of the DNA of their male offspring. They must have some culpability?
Condemn the species, not the gender.
How does she see the future of procreation? Parthenogenisis?
People like her don’t think of the future.
Honestly I don’t take much issue with her title and lede. Like Randall, I think she’s just using hyperbole intentionally to provoke discussion, which is fine by me.
I thought her proposed solution was naively ludicrous though. ‘Get out of the way and let us lead’ is a pretty authoritarian position. And frankly I care a lot more about policy position than gender in a candidate. You give me a choice between Palin and Biden and tell me a good feminist would pick Palin so that we can let the women lead, I’m going to laugh in your face.
Such a communication should- at least- be bold. Either…
“Please step aside and let us lead” or
“Get out of the way! We’re taking over!”
“Get out of the way and let us lead” equivocates.
I wonder if she is representative of her field or an outlier. It is distressing to think that some right wing criticisms of higher education might have some truth to them.
I think that it is safe to bet that gender / women’s studies departments attract such toxic women.
Talk about hatred: I hate this editorial opinion of Suzanna Danuta Walters. I hate her brand of hateful “feminism”. And, I hate that she is teaching her hatred of all men to however many generations of college students, female or male.
“Seen in this indisputably true context, it seems logical to hate men.” The rationales she gives for hating all men are not “indisputably true”. She can express her hatred all she wants (hyperbole, or not) but we, and she, must know that it is irrational to tar all men with the same brush.
She might acknowledge that she’s met some good men as well as some bad ones. I know I have. Not all women are good either.
Mistreatment of other human beings is not a gender specific trait.
For those women who’ve been so badly mistreated by males for such a long time that they can see absolutely no good in the bunch, I’m sorry. I wish you hadn’t had those experiences. But living your entire life steeped in anger must be very damaging to you.
There is nothing conservatives (i.e., old school Bull Connor conservatives of the racist, sexist sort) would love to see more than a wedge driven between women’s rights advocates and potentially progressive men. Luckily for them, feminists like Walters are doing all the heavy lifting for them.
That’s why I changed my mind on Sandra Harding – she’s not a misandrist, she’s a misanthrope, simplicter.
Perhaps we should hate all women.
They’re the mothers of all men, after all.
And they had sex with those evil men to produce more evil men.
That’s okay, Suzanna — despite being an evil male, I would still piss on you were you on fire.
Ever the gentleman.
Hey, as a man, my aim gives me a better chance of saving her. We’re good for something.
Oy vey.
On the issue of equality, I am tentatively for a basis of equal rights possibly modified with laws rectifying large and long lasting asymmetries such as in salaries. But while I read headlines that it may take centuries to equalize wages between sexes, I also read an article a few years back that global main cities are starting to have a salary leading, well educated female subpopulation. I have not checked that, but the very notion of writing it tells me the issue is not one of fundamental unequality.
And in an update I saw a recent article claiming that Swedish women now has 40 % of board chairs in large corporations, pre-empting the leading party idea to institute one of those temporary asymmetric laws to that effect.
On the issue of #MeToo, I wish Walters did not go there. I realize it is not the largest and most pressing issue due to differences in statistics and power, but I am still miffed that the discussions does not include female sexual offenders. Despite that a poll in US had 20 % of men having been exposed to female sex offenders, say.
The writer ignores the incidence of lesbian I.P.V., which is much higher than commonly supposed. Paper after paper shows that this is under-reported in the mainstream. It seems doubtful that the writer does not know this, so another possibility suggests itself…
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/hive-mind/201806/the-one-you-shouldnt-hurt-all
In spite of the backlash the article has generated, this is the ideology of millennial feminism. It’s written by a professor of Sociology and Gender Studies who is an editor of a leading feminist journal. It’s been retweeted and defended on feminist blogs etc.
The worldview espoused by this wave of feminism is supremacist, but with a ton of post-modern ideology to argue that it’s not. The article shows they don’t want equal treatment under the law, equal representation or parity of outcome.
I read the article, then canceled my subscription from the Post. Hopefully a few thousand other people did the same.
And I didn’t even know “the West” had an official party line. Still wonder what the conflict of interest is.
Sorry, that’s out of place.