I consider myself a Feminist and appreciate the efforts activists have made to improve the treatment of women in the home, work, and political spaces. These fights aren't entirely over, though after thousands of years of struggle, many cultures have had a huge shift over the last few centuries towards gender equity.
The world is heading into a new generation of emancipatory movements. At their core, they will be very similar to those which have raged on since the beginning of recorded history, but everything evolves with conditions of the world. I believe it will be more important than ever for this age of the Feminist movement to be receptive to the feelings and conditions that modern men are facing.
Before we continue with a brief history of gender roles and some dynamics that arise from them, I wanted to thank my sponsors! They are people I consider my friends from the Read and Noise community. You can put your own URL and image here, too, if you want to give me a little BCH every month!
Gender roles have always existed
In hunter-gatherer societies, gender roles were more naturally defined. Women usually played the gatherer role, as they tended to be smaller, with less muscle density and so on, but no one individual was valued over another. Any day, you could be the one to come up empty. Sometimes the hunters catch nothing, and the tribe lives on fruit and vegetables for a few days. There was no strong hierarchy on an economic basis, though women were held in reverence as having this primal, almost magical connection to nature, as the originators of life.
"Egalitarian Societies" by James Woodburn
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2801707
Societies transitioned to systems of private property as people, through relationships with others and technological advancement, were able to take and hold pieces of land as their own rather than simply living off it. Roles of the genders changed with the times.
Women naturally took on the role of homemaker and played the biggest part in raising kids. A man went out to fight battles for his lord who laid claim to the land his family lived on, while his kids ran the farm to give royalties to the same lord.
People distrusted and feared "witches" – usually just superstitious women who knew some things about herbs. When a villager kid was sick, she was the one to go to for a remedy. This control that they didn't understand made people uncomfortable, but for women who were legally barred from gaining power the way men did, the construct was empowering.
As technology made biological differences irrelevant to an individual's ability to complete work, the economically and politically empowered men grew uncomfortable, fearing they could be undermined. Not necessarily by witchcraft, but by the belief of the masses. If everyone felt healthy and taken care of, it doesn't matter by whom, they wouldn't depend on the wealthy businessmen and politicians so much anymore.
Young Puritan women in the village of Salem had been raised in this cult-like belief that disobedience is a sign of possession by demons. These girls felt disempowered in their lives and, likely being jealous of the women who were able to escape traditional constructs of power and find their own way of being influential, these young girls used the prejudices of men to attack people and the society they lived in. They managed to grip control over those they were jealous of, for a time.
"What Caused the Salem Witch Trials?" by Vicki Saxon https://daily.jstor.org/caused-salem-witch-trials/
You see, gender roles are very complicated. Men force women to act differently, women force men to act differently. Women judge women, and men judge men. It's all connected. We hold each other from accomplishing our best in an endless cycle.
Society still places certain burdens on women, and they are often accused of sexual misconduct to earn political positions, for example. A woman gained independence and influence in society? It couldn't be her competence that drove her to her place like anyone else. She must've used her mystical powers of seduction!
The women aren't murdered by the village now, though, so that's still an improvement! #Progress #Feminism
For real, though. Women have fought for many freedoms through protest and other political activism in the last few decades, and opportunities are still opening up.
As these irrational systems of power dissolve between people, men have also been gaining some more social freedom. Even though it had some kernels of truth for many kids, I think we all generally know that the stereotype of the "hands-off except-when-pissed-off" father portrayed in the 1900s media and popular culture was simplistic.
Fatherhood is huge, no less significant than the joys of motherhood!
Previously, in a heterosexual "nuclear family" you would almost always see a stay-at-home wife with a working husband. Child-rearing would fall largely to the woman of the relationship, and men were, culturally, almost discouraged from being with their kids.
Now, things have shifted in the workplace, right? Women can get jobs while the man takes care of the home. Sometimes both parents work part-time so that they can each have time with the kids. Dads should be getting more time with their kids, right?
Unfortunately, things aren't so simple in reality.
Despite many barriers breaking down, women are still much more likely to act as the stay-at-home parent. There does appear to be some growth in the proportion of stay-at-home dads, but a statistical parity is a long way off. Do you think the numbers will slowly come together, or is there an inherent difference in men and women?
Even if these statistics don't equal out over time, it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Our goal, after all, is to open all possible doors for people to walk through, not to shove them in.
So, how are we doing, opening up those doors? It's... complicated.
"5 Stay-at-Home Dads Share Their #1 Biggest Struggle" by Bonnie Azoulay
https://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/2164610/stay-at-home-dad-struggles-stigma-isolation/
Many men feel a need to be a sort of Stoic rock, a provider. It's ingrained in us from the things people say, from the way we see our parents and others around us interacting. A father is "supposed" to act a certain way and take care of some things on his own, often without expressing emotion or asking for help.
Women don't get off easy, mind you. While a woman crying or expressing herself isn't stigmatized so harshly, they're often seen as frivolous, not worthy of meaningful consideration. A man learns that these "outbursts" are shameful, leading him to demean women – and himself – for experiencing emotions.
Since men are socialized not to share their problems, and stay-at-home fathers are rare to begin with, support groups for men are much rarer than those which women use to find guidance from each other's experiences. If anyone of these dads does make any effort to reach out to other men, he will have trouble finding those who can relate to his experiences. Talking to the same support groups his wife goes to might help, but some of them won't be so welcoming to men.
It doesn't help that society still holds certain expectations and biases for men to contend with. For example, men have had the police called on them for being in public with children.
"Georgia woman calls police on black man baby-sitting 2 white kids"
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/georgia-woman-calls-police-black-man-babysitting-2-white-kids-n918476
Race was likely a factor here as well, but I am frankly doubtful the woman would've latched onto another woman with kids quite so harshly. Imagine seeing a guy and two kids at Subway getting a sandwich and feeling the need to call the police and follow them home. If you did this every time you saw someone babysitting, the United States police budget may actually be justified for once!
Fighting isn't the answer
Men are expected to be more violent, to be involved in crimes more. People are just more suspicious of men than they are of women. Unfortunately, this isn't entirely without reason.
We're taught to be expendable, willing to give up our lives for the country or for a cause. People aren't perfect. We can be convinced or tricked to give our all to something, with appeals to emotion or logical fallacies. When you combine momentary irrationality with a tendency to act without introspection, you get violent outbursts.
There exists a term for the harmful behavior that some men exhibit as a result of masculine socialization, and you may be surprised to learn where it came from!
Despite the term’s recent popularity among feminists, toxic masculinity did not originate with the women’s movement. It was coined in the mythopoetic men’s movement of the 1980s and ’90s, motivated in part as a reaction to second-wave feminism. Through male-only workshops, wilderness retreats, and drumming circles, this movement promoted a masculine spirituality to rescue what it referred to as the “deep masculine”— a protective, “warrior” masculinity—from toxic masculinity. Men’s aggression and frustration was, according to the movement, the result of a society that feminized boys by denying them the necessary rites and rituals to realize their true selves as men.
This claim of a singular, real masculinity has been roundly rejected since the late 1980s by a new sociology of masculinity. Led by the sociologist Raewyn Connell, this school of thought presents gender as the product of relations and behaviors, rather than as a fixed set of identities and attributes. Connell’s work describes multiple masculinities shaped by class, race, culture, sexuality, and other factors, often in competition with one another as to which can claim to be more authentic. In this view, which is now the prevailing social-scientific understanding of masculinity, the standards by which a “real man” is defined can vary dramatically across time and place.
"The Problem With a Fight Against Toxic Masculinity"
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/02/toxic-masculinity-history/583411/
Many arguments have been had over this term. Some people get the wrong idea, because they think it's impuning the whole of masculinity.
You can refer to "homophobic religious ideas" without implying that all religions or all ideas within them are inherently homophobic. Religion can be used in toxic ways, by people trying to impress their viewpoints on others. It can also encourage people to be caring and generous.
Likewise, masculinity can be expressed in positive ways. If your sense of duty leads you to protecting people who are injured or being bullied, that is a commendable and wonderful thing. However, that same sense of duty can also make a guy go murderous with jealousy. It leads him to go off to fight wars and kill random people at the behest of a state that doesn't give a damn about him.
It's unfortunate how many conversations have been blocked by such a tiny barrier. I don't know that just changing the term "toxic masculinity" would really solve anything, though.
Frivilous invocation of the term is part of the problem, I think. Men have been accused of toxic masculinity or "mansplaining" just for speaking their mind. This isn't a problem in feminist academia, mind you, but rather with individual people with less understanding of a topic applying broad concepts to specific circumstances far too liberally.
Conclusion
We're stuck in a self-fulfilling prophecy. As long as men are socialized to bottle up their emotions like a time bomb, we will keep failing and giving up on school at greater rates. We will continue to make up the majority of violent crime. Men will keep losing custody of children more often.
Individual acts contribute to wider social issues and vice versa. Only by understanding both aspects can we really help the individual victims AND fix the wider systemic problems, in which even the people delivering the oppression are themselves victims. Nobody benefits from the growing social alienation that people feel, and breaking these barriers down will require meeting others where they are.
Feminists need to understand how these issues intersect, so they can analyze every angle of a social dynamic and recognize how each individual is impacted by it. Healing the social fabric will require a give and take, a willingness to understand and empathize. I look forward to a future where people could be free to express themselves and exist with one another, with minimal bias and judgement.
"Finding Common Ground: A Feminist Response to Men’s Rights Activism"
https://onourterms.barnard.edu/article/finding-common-ground/
The right and respect are unobjectionable parameters that should be the standard of every person. I share your opinion