WHY did men so readily surrender many of their privileges in the face of angry demands for equality and systematic discrimination against themselves? At The Brussels Journal, Richard Cocks blames the innate male impulse to help women in distress:

What happened when women in the early sixties cried for help? The mostly male Congress and Senate acted almost immediately and passed laws to ease women’s access to the job market. As men have always done, we seek to be the hero and savior for women. However, this time there was a twist. Women claim to be victims. So far so good. However, if they are victims, who are the oppressors? The men have turned up, eager to attack the enemy; eager to defend womankind. Where is this nasty oppressor? Who is it exactly? The response, of course, is YOU are. You, the man, are the oppressor. It can’t be anyone else.

This sets up a conflict in men which is entirely driven by traditional expectations of the male role. And it sets up a war within men themselves, not just between the sexes. This is the basis for modern male self-hatred.

The male reaction to feminism is strong evidence against feminist claims of oppression.

— Comments —

Steve D. writes:

I’m sorry, but I just can’t believe Richard Cocks’ explanation of male support of feminism, at least not in this country. He imputes to American politicians a desire to protect women, which is almost laughably naive. It was liberals who passed those laws, and they did it because it undermined traditional society — which is the only reason they do anything.

I think the answer is far simpler and at the same time more profound: “liberated” women put out more. Under feminism, women had it pounded into their brains that if they didn’t engage in sex as casually as men, there was something wrong with them. That, plus the pill, removed all the barriers for men: they could now have sex almost as often as they wanted to. All they had to do was put up with the new, shrill, aggressively aggrieved feminist attitude from their girlfriends and wives. It was a tacit agreement: “You give me what I want, as often as I want, without commitments, and in return I’ll pretend to listen to whatever nonsense you picked up in your women’s studies classes. Until I hit my personal red line and dump you for someone less lippy. Repeat, over and over again, until you finally give up on men and sign up for IVF at the age of 45.”

And what was the result for society? Divorce rates skyrocketed, marriage rates plummeted, illegitimacy is now normalized, and there is a (seeming) epidemic of women getting the crap knocked out of them by the men in their lives. All of this was predictable, should have been predicted, and probably was predicted at the time…but I was only 10 when NOW was founded, and wasn’t really paying attention.

Laura writes:

There is definitely truth in what Dr. Cocks has argued, but I agree that the story is more complicated. Obviously, many men bought into the sexual revolution that came with feminism. But also business and government benefited from it. Why did men vote to expand the franchise to include women? They wanted the votes! Why did Congress aid the entry of women into the workforce? For the same reason it has aided the mass entry of many millions of immigrants. It’s good for business — and politicians depend upon corporate contributions! There have always been women arguing against feminism. For instance, there were many middle-class women who were at one point adamantly and vocally opposed to female suffrage. If men were eager to please women, why did they not listen to them?

In any event, one cannot understand feminism if one views it as a story of men vs. women. It is the history of revolutionaries against counter-revolutionaries, of the powerful against the weak, of the fittest against the un-fittest — of both sexes.

Laura writes:

That said, the reaction by men which Dr. Cocks describes is real, which is why in order to get the attention of men to the harms of feminism, it is necessary to point out just how devastating feminism has been for women.

Thomas F. Bertonneau writes:

The beauty of Richard Cocks’ explanation of why men fell for feminism is its simplicity.  Richard’s analysis is, in fact, an elegant, minimal explanation of why modern people generally fell for claims of victimage generally.  Christianity revealed the innocent victim and made the solicitous response to her plight a moral obligation.  So powerful was the convention that even after people stopped being genuine Christians, the appeal of victimary claim retained its power.  The response to cynically crafted victimary claims belongs to a stupefied, post-Christian form of Christianity, which resides at the very heart of modernity.

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