Reader N. writes:

It is good and wise of you to both call attention to the latest feminist tirade in Newsweek and to point out how the idea is wrong. Many women do not bother to criticize openly such ideas, and that is a grave error.

Why? Because while silence is not assent, it is not necessarily dissent, either. Men who see such articles even glancingly on the newsstand, and who hear no dissent or disagreement from women in their lives, are going to naturally assume that said women agree with it. And given that, more than a few will decide that “If that’s what women think of me, then I don’t need to be around them.”

Young women complain in various fora about the diffidence, tentativeness, etc. that many young men display nowadays. Well, the constant drip-drip-drip of articles like this, from the mainstream media combined with a definite lackof any dissent from the women around them sends a clear message. And they are responding to the message they receive.

So thanks again for this posting.

Laura writes:

Thank you for writing and for your support. By the way, there are men, quite a few men in fact, who agree with the sort of views expressed in the Newsweek piece. This article was written by two men, Andrew Romano and Tony Dokoupil (I assume Tony is a man). These issues do not neatly divide along male/female lines. Obviously many more women are in agreement and many men defer to feminist views out of deference; possibly if the Newsweek staff was all male,  such a piece would not appear. But there’s a hint of revenge in your comment that men won’t want to be around women, however truthful that may be. Again, these ideological currents are the work of both men and women. There is good reason for many traditional women to not want to be around men, the Andrew Romanos and Tony Dokoupils of the world. Many women have never heard men firmly and politely challenge feminism in public and definitely feel that men prize an assertive and sexually sophisticated feminist who makes big bucks more than a demure anti-feminist. In my own personal dealings, I can count on one hand the number of times I have heard a man at a social gathering criticize basic feminist positions and yet there are more times than I can count when men, on their own initiative, defended feminist views. When I was younger and searching for romance, I only encountered one man who in private emphatically rejected feminism. [I myself was liberal in those days.]

Leaving aside the issue of why the Newsweek article is untruthful and wrong, the matter of silence and what people say publicly is important. Many men and women triumphantly agree with these ideas, but another group, perhaps even larger, falls into the category of those who say, “Oh, I am not a feminist,” but who almost never challenge feminist ideas. They frequently excuse themselves from having any articulated opinions at all by pleading individual choice: it’s okay for others to do as they please and there is no right or wrong in family life. This is an enormous cop-out and is typically disingenuous. I think it really comes down to moral laziness or the desire to leave one’s options open. This is complicity.

 Many traditional women are hesitant to offend others. This is understandable and one doesn’t want to go around trashing the way others live. But it’s wrong to make a habit of silence and not attempt to find civil ways of stating the truth. To make a habit of silence is, as you say, a form of agreement. These issues are serious and important. It’s important to speak up, again and again.

                                                                       — End of Initial Entry —

N. writes:

You wrote:

“But there’s a hint of revenge in your comment that men won’t want to be   around women, however truthful that may be. Again, these ideological currents are the work of both men and women. There is good reason for many traditional women to not want to be around men, the Andrew Romanos and Tony Dokoupils of the world.

I can see why you would read my observation that way. However, from the male side of the fence, it is not a hint of revenge. It is more than a hint of despair. I know more than one man who is unmarried and over 35 who only knows about women what he learned from his family, and what he sees in the media, including the web. Yes, those men would be better off getting to know the traditionalist women who yearn for a decent man, but many of them are unchurched. The only place they meet women is on the job, or in stores, or sometimes at clubs such as astronomy groups. So their sample is skewed. But with all of that, from their perspective, triumphalist feminism is the norm for women, and if women are fish & they are bicycles, then, well, they’ll be keeping their saddle clean and gears free of fish so to speak. I do not say it is right. I say that it is a reality.

You also wrote:

“Many traditional women are hesitant to offend others. “

Most people today are averse to conflict to some degree. Why that is, would be a whole other topic, let’s just stipulate it. We don’t go looking for a fight, and when a subject comes up that “everyone” is supposed to agree with, we either remain silent, or withdraw. It’s really another example of the kind of peer pressure that leads high school and college students astray, if you think about it. So it is important for all of us to politely, but firmly, rebut these pernicious and bad ideas in our own lives. And on behalf of the silent men, the “gray men” that are all around but who are rarely actually seen by women, I again thank you for publicly taking a stand.

Jesse Powell writes:

The main point of the Newsweek article is that men should do more jobs in the home that are typically female responsibilities, and that men should do more jobs in the paid labor force that are traditionally female dominated positions. This, supposedly, is a remedy for men dropping out of the fatherhood role and underperforming in the job market. The choices for men, as presented in the article, are to either be worthless and have no role in the economy or the family, or to be “creative” and take on women’s roles; both in the paid labor force and at home. A dichotomy is presented between these two alternatives presupposing that men taking on their traditional roles in society is impossible. The assumption of the article is that the economy, over decades, has outgrown “Marlboro Manliness”. The idea is, the economy has moved away from traditionally masculine strengths and towards traditionally feminine strengths. This is why men have been declining economically while women have been excelling economically. In order for men to maintain and regain their value in the society, they need to take on women’s roles, because the overall need for “manliness” has declined while the need for “femininity” has increased. If a man refuses to do this or is resistant to this, then he is doomed to be a worthless outsider, a “strong, silent, unemployed absentee father” as the article dubs it. 

The problem with this argument is that masculinity and femininity are two different areas of life, two different sets of related groups of skills; men having a tendency to be better at the “masculine” set of skills and abilities, and women being better at the “feminine” skills and abilities. The functions within the home can, and should, be divided into these masculine and feminine realms, with the man doing the masculine part and the woman doing the feminine part; and the functions at work also being divisible into masculine and feminine realms, women can and should perform the most feminine functions, to the extent that women are in the work place, with men performing all other functions not performed by women. 

The Newsweek article suggests that there has been an absolute decline in masculine roles and masculine functions overall, so that men must either invade the feminine roles or have no roles at all. Since masculinity is a skill set, not specific pre-programmed behaviors, it makes no sense to claim that the need for masculinity has declined. The kinds of jobs in the economy might well have changed during the past few decades, but that does not mean the “content of masculinity” in those jobs has changed. 

It might well be that the fastest growing occupations are female dominated, and therefore more feminine, occupations. However, this can easily by explained by more women entering the workforce. As women enter the paid workforce, they abandon the informal feminine roles they played in family and community life that were important to society, but not paid for directly. For instance, women entering the paid labor force leads to women putting their children into daycare instead of taking care of their children at home. This leads to an increase in the feminine occupation of day care worker. In this case, the feminine role of caring for children has not increased, it has merely been shifted away from the informal private sphere and into the paid formal labor force, leading to an increase in a female dominated profession, child care worker, but not to an increase in the feminine role in society overall. Many female dominated professions that are growing rapidly are growing rapidly simply because the informal feminine functions performed earlier without pay are now being done as jobs for the money.[Laura writes: This is an excellent point. I’m embarrassed I didn’t see this too.] 

Another mechanism through which increased numbers of women working increases the number employed in female dominated occupations is that women prefer to work in more feminine, and therefore female dominated, jobs. The overall increase in women working leads to a large number of women seeking work in the feminine female dominated jobs. This increases the supply of labor in these female dominated occupations, driving down the cost of labor in these female dominated jobs, increasing the demand for labor in female dominated jobs, increasing the level of employment in the female dominated occupations. 

So, the moral of the story is, there has been no decrease in the need for masculinity; either in the home or the workplace. Female dominated professions increasing is simply the result of women entering the workforce, entering the workforce in a way that is inappropriate and harmful to society. Women did not enter the workforce to meet the demand for female labor; women’s choice to work in the formal paid sector lead to the creation of paid positions for women to work in, that catered to women’s preferences in what kinds of jobs they wanted to work at, leading to the increase in employment in female dominated and feminine professions. 

It should be stressed; the increase in women’s participation in the labor force is a destructive choice, not an adaptation to changed external circumstances. Men taking back their traditional and rightful roles as men is the solution to the crisis of manhood, the only solution that exists.

George writes:

“But there’s a hint of revenge in your comment that men won’t want to be around women,…”

and then:

‘I can see why you would read my observation that way. However, from the male side of the fence, it is not a hint of revenge. It is more than a hint of despair.”

As a man who basically follows the ‘avoid doctrine’, I have to say that the idea that avoiding women is about revenge seems strange to me. This is an act of basic self-preservation. I also avoid poisonous snakes and spiders because they are poison, not because I’m trying to hurt their feelings. If it was revenge we were going for, I think we would take a different approach.

“Yes, those men would be better off getting to know the traditionalist women who yearn for a decent man, but many of them are unchurched.”

I also fall into this category. As a right-wing atheist I face the problem of either being dishonest and saying I believe in a god when I actually don’t, or I can end up with a feminist, or end up alone. None of which are very good options. I’m not sure how large a group of men I represent, but with right-wing women complaining they can find no men and right-atheist men finding no viable women perhaps the gap could be closed if some kind of truce was called. I doubt that’ll happen though.

Laura writes:

Equating women to “poisonous snakes and spiders” shows more than a hint of revenge. 

You might consider the inability to find decent female atheists as an intellectual challenge worth grappling with. The number of right-wing atheist women is indeed very small. You are looking for a needle in a haystack.

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