Charles M. Blow: The Masculine Mistake

[Scuba]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/01/opinion/the-masculine-mistake.html

If one of the overt Democratic lines of attack against Republicans is that Republicans are conducting a war on women, one of the low-simmering, implicit lines of attack from Republicans is that Democrats are conducting a war on men, or at least traditional views of masculinity. The idea of the effete, feminized liberals threatening to suffocate the last remaining expression of true manliness is rife in Republican rhetoric. They are selling the right wing as the last refuge of real men.

...

Portraying Republican men as manly and Democratic ones as effete has been a consistent line of attack against post-Bill Clinton Democratic presidential candidates. As Glenn Greenwald put it in 2007, “For some time now, it has been commonplace for Democratic candidates to be depicted as gender-confused freaks.” He added, “One can make a strong argument, as some have, that those personality-attack themes have played a far larger role in the outcome of the last two presidential elections than any substantive issues, and liberals simply have nothing close to the potency of the right-wing filth machine in advancing these gender themes.”

The problem with having your message powered by machismo is that it reveals what undergirds such a stance: misogyny and chauvinism. The masculinity for which they yearn draws its meaning and its value from juxtaposition with a lesser, vulnerable, narrowly drawn femininity.

...

And the masculinity shaming has not been confined to Republican men. Some Republican women have been equal-opportunity offenders. At the height of the anthrax scare in 2001, Ann Coulter wrote a piece for the conservative site Townhall titled “The Eunuchs Are Whining,” in which she referenced liberals as “mincing pantywaists” and proclaimed that “women — and I don’t mean to limit that to the biological sense — always become hysterical at the first sign of trouble.” This last-bastion-of-bare-chestedness is a politically ill-fated one in a country quickly evolving to value all of its citizens equally.

[marew]

1. Excellent, insightful, and accurate post.

Thank you.

[Laelth]

2. The is THE ONE, MOST IMPORTANT issue of our time.

If we could convince the American people that the Democratic Party is not hostile to men, we would win a lot more elections. k&r for exposure.

-Laelth

[Squinch]

4. I don't know Laelth. I think the generation coming up is much smarter about those things

than we were. Young men do contribute much more equally to all aspects of family and home life. The stances that used to make Democrats seem "hostile" to men are things that younger men simply seem to take for granted. If their wives do better financially, they do better financially. If their wives are allowed to control their own fertility, they are able to have the family size they planned. They have not been raised in a world that assumes they are in charge of everything, so they don't have that deathly fear of losing their unearned advantages.

I feel like, in 20 years, all these gendered political stances will seem as old fashioned as an outcry against women in the workplace would seem now.

[Laelth]

5. Liberal policy is good for all of us.

But this society sux for men, and the Democratic Party can't seem to grasp that fact. It's not so hot for women, either, but it's worse for men.

If we liberals could wrap our brains around that concept and express it in a way that shows we seek justice, equality, and fairness, I think we would do better at the polls. I challenge those who disagree to offer a better explanation for why so many people vote against their best interests. From my point of view, many people vote for the party of the penis (the oh-so-tough and masculine Republican Party) because they feel the Democratic Party is hostile to men.

-Laelth

[Squinch]

6. How does this society suck for men?

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. Here's one.

[Laelth]

11. Surely, you jest.

Let me offer a list of questions that, I hope, will illustrate my point.

Who's more likely to go to prison? (men)
Who's more likely to be homeless? (men)
Who's more likely to suffer an on-the-job injury? (men)
Who's more likely to go to war? (men)
Who's more likely to die or be injured in said war? (men)
Which sex is likely to live longer? (women)
Which sex is likely to get the children in the event of divorce? (women)
Which sex is likely to be ordered to pay child support? (men)
Which sex is likely to get the house in the event of divorce? (women)
Who's more likely to suffer from mental illness? (men)
Which sex is more likely to commit suicide? (men)
Who's more likely to be raped? (men--if you include the prison population)
Who's more likely to be the victim of violent crime? (men)
Who's more likely to be the victim of any crime whatsoever? (men)
Which gender represents over 50% of the people attending college right now? (women)
Which gender is now producing more law school graduates? (women)

There's more, but what I have posted above will suffice. There are very few social statistics that do not show that women have major advantages over men in this society. If you look at all the bad things that can happen to people, the statistics show that, in this society, those bad things are far more likely to happen to men.

There are a few (and a very few) areas in which men still have an advantage. Men still get paid more than women do, on average, for the same work. This is wrong and unjust, and I would support any measure designed to fix this inequality, but I will not pretend that men are better off in this society than women are. We are not, and that, in my opinion, is why so many people vote against their best interests and vote for Republicans. Lots of people realize that this society is hostile to men. The sooner Democrats can figure this out, the better off we will all be.

-Laelth

[Squinch]

13. Would you say that most of those things are the results of the actions of men,

the actions of women, or the actions of "society?"

[bettyellen]

15. I don't think you can look at that list fairly without considering men are also much more likely

to be perpetrators of violent crimes. And that takes a toll on all of us.

Perhaps if they chose care giver roles more frequently, there'd be more long term thinking of consequences which would help reduce the violence. But much of this list is because of the roles our society has foisted on men, and I am glad they are more frequently rejecting those roles. I don't understand why more men don't see how feminism could benefit them.

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. Agree.

The fact that it required years of lobbying to allow a men's group here, ("What's next? A White pride group?&quot suggests that the problem isn't entirely perceptual.

[beckenbauer]

3. No amount of sensitivity training is going to help change the machismo laden Republican male's attit

No amount of sensitivity training is going to help change the machismo laden Republican male's attitude towards women. But what is scary and surprising is that any woman is left on the Republican bandwagon. Listening to the tripe dished out by Congresswoman McMorris Rodgers made me wonder if women like her who are still beholden to the misogynistic Republican clan are indeed a woman's worst enemy. It used to be that men were from Mars and women from Venus, but it seems some women have jumped from Venus to Mars.

[DirkGently]

9. Hating women / the feminine is a screwed up view of "manliness."

Isn't part of being a man ... valuing women?

This overtly juvenile, Spanky and the Gang's "He-man Woman Hater's Club" crap has been going on forever. And juvenile attitudes are what the American right is selling. Belligerence, hostility, ignorance.

But it's particularly weak to sell hostility to women as a masculine trait. It's transparently fearful and childish. "That fascinates me, but I can't figure it out, so I hate it. Arrrrrr."

Republicans: "We learned our social attitudes in middle-school, and we ain't lettin' go!"

[RobertEarl]

14. A real man loves women

And would never do anything to intentionally hurt a woman. Sadly, there are few real men.

What this means is that women, the physically weaker sex, hold real power over men. Real men can handle that; fake men just complain.

[DirkGently]

16. It's so transparently fearful -- like all rightwing anger.

And yet they think that anger is strength, and that tolerance and valuing anything but brute force is weakness.

[undeterred]

10. Ann Coulter = self-loathing woman

[Jim Lane]

12. That assumes she's honestly stating her opinions.

IMO, she doesn't loathe herself, but considers herself superior to 99% of the population. It's just that her economic strategy is to be provocative, specifically to try to stay on the leading edge of spewing RW venom, because that's how she sells books and generally stays in the public eye.

She knows that her target audience will, for the reasons noted in the OP, lap up her bashing of women.