You've Come a Long Way, Buddy
March 20, 2019 8:14 AM Subscribe
Nona Willis Aronowitz on the short-lived Men's Liberation movement of the 1970s: This is the story of the few years when men tried to spark a parallel, pro-feminist movement linking the personal to the political, with varying levels of success—only for it to go very, very wrong.
Even since the Seventies, it seems to me that there have been several small men's movements like Iron John, Modern Chivalry, Art of Manliness that try to be positive about masculinity without being overtly anti-feminist in the same way as Red Pill and Men Going Their Own Way. That's not to say that they're perfect from a feminist perspective: they usually embrace some part of traditional gender roles while trying to avoid the worst stuff.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 9:49 AM on March 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by TheophileEscargot at 9:49 AM on March 20, 2019 [4 favorites]
Like many of my generational cohorts, I listened to a lot of the songs on Free To Be You And Me as a kid. And just as many men as women took part in the talent; one of my guy friends says he was especially impressed as a kid by Rosey Grier telling him that "it's alright to cry".
I especially remember Alan Alda participating, and also very clearly remember how outspoken he was about feminism and his support of it. He was involved with FTBYAM, but also did a good deal of ERA-support activism, and after a couple years on M*A*S*H he started pressing the writing staff to kill the sexy-nurse jokes and wrote some entire episodes with feminist perspectives. Even today he's still really outspoken about feminism, but even as a kid I remember noting this as being a major part of his identity.
So much so that, sadly, I also remember that in the 1980s there was a backlash against him for it; and I remember his very name being used as a pejorative synonym for "wimpy guy". He was frequently held up as an example of the kind of milquetoast hero that was "passe" in the 1980s, a sort of holdover from the wimpy 70s. The 1980s were presented as a sort of era of he-man manliness, in a kind of backlash against the wimpy 70s. At least that's how I remember it...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:34 AM on March 20, 2019 [30 favorites]
I especially remember Alan Alda participating, and also very clearly remember how outspoken he was about feminism and his support of it. He was involved with FTBYAM, but also did a good deal of ERA-support activism, and after a couple years on M*A*S*H he started pressing the writing staff to kill the sexy-nurse jokes and wrote some entire episodes with feminist perspectives. Even today he's still really outspoken about feminism, but even as a kid I remember noting this as being a major part of his identity.
So much so that, sadly, I also remember that in the 1980s there was a backlash against him for it; and I remember his very name being used as a pejorative synonym for "wimpy guy". He was frequently held up as an example of the kind of milquetoast hero that was "passe" in the 1980s, a sort of holdover from the wimpy 70s. The 1980s were presented as a sort of era of he-man manliness, in a kind of backlash against the wimpy 70s. At least that's how I remember it...
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:34 AM on March 20, 2019 [30 favorites]
Funny you should mention Alan Alda - he was on the radio the other day talking about the work he's been doing for the past few years teaching doctors about empathic communication.
The '80s transition sounds right to me, too. Male feminism and gentleness and emotional openness got all tied up with the pessimism of Jimmy Carter and America losing the Vietnam War. The male aggressiveness and macho posturing of Stallone and Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis got all tied up with Ronald Reagan's optimism and winning the Cold War.
The ironic result was that emotional intelligence in men got equated with sadness and emotional stupidity got equated with happiness, and we're still living with the consequences.
posted by clawsoon at 10:55 AM on March 20, 2019 [12 favorites]
The '80s transition sounds right to me, too. Male feminism and gentleness and emotional openness got all tied up with the pessimism of Jimmy Carter and America losing the Vietnam War. The male aggressiveness and macho posturing of Stallone and Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis got all tied up with Ronald Reagan's optimism and winning the Cold War.
The ironic result was that emotional intelligence in men got equated with sadness and emotional stupidity got equated with happiness, and we're still living with the consequences.
posted by clawsoon at 10:55 AM on March 20, 2019 [12 favorites]
I don't think it's gone; I see it happening all around me. The paradox is that this is a movement which succeeds by being invisible. Much of the work men have needed to do is about letting go of the tools of hierarchy, visibility, status, and recognition. The men who are most successfully achieving liberation are doing so by stepping backward, putting themselves out of the spotlight, and bringing up the whole community around them. The better a job they do, the easier it is to miss. There are no leaders to identify because the one of the points of the project is to reduce the need for figurehead leaders. There are no great structures and organizations one can point to because the whole point of the effort is to do more with decentralized, cooperative, leaderless, self-organizing cooperatives, and to depend less on rigid, hierarchical, command-and-control driven male-leader-centered organizations.
Look to the burner culture, the maker movement, to polyamory, to anti-racism, to the open source community; yes, there are many problems, of course, but things are changing all over the place. There are efforts within the tech world to bring up women, and by necessity these thrive best when they don't highlight the work men are doing to support them - but that doesn't mean the work isn't happening. The better a job men do at it, the less visible they become. That's the whole point.
The kids are going to be all right. I see a lot of this stuff already having been integrated in the younger generation coming up into adulthood.
posted by crotchety old git at 12:06 PM on March 20, 2019 [12 favorites]
Look to the burner culture, the maker movement, to polyamory, to anti-racism, to the open source community; yes, there are many problems, of course, but things are changing all over the place. There are efforts within the tech world to bring up women, and by necessity these thrive best when they don't highlight the work men are doing to support them - but that doesn't mean the work isn't happening. The better a job men do at it, the less visible they become. That's the whole point.
The kids are going to be all right. I see a lot of this stuff already having been integrated in the younger generation coming up into adulthood.
posted by crotchety old git at 12:06 PM on March 20, 2019 [12 favorites]
On preview: I have a very different view than crotchety old git.
It's thirty-five years now I've been a male feminist. It was obvious to me from the beginning that male gender roles needed to change as part of the project of feminism and that in many respects men would be liberated, too.
It made perfect sense that, as a man, my role would best be to address and work with other men on this. With the public perception of feminism -- which at that time was largely negative among women as well as men -- it also seemed obvious that the topic be somewhat distinguished from feminism proper. For a short period, before the term was appropriated and made toxic, I did talk about "men's rights".
Here's the thing, though: men were almost universally uninterested. And of course they were and still are -- the patriarchy offers men many benefits. The ways in which it hurts men, on the other hand, we're taught to either ignore or to see as benefits.
And every way in which I've ever altered my behavior outside of male gender conventions has at best been a curiosity and at worst something actively mocked. I remember the first time I heard the song "Sensitive New Age Guys" -- it was 1990, shortly after the song was released. It was probably affectionate ribbing, and the implications of that line about being concerned about women's orgasms was on point (literally and/or metaphorically) but it really made me angry nevertheless. Because even the women who were most likely to understand that men needed to change, too, found it somewhat uncomfortable and enjoyable to mock. I think right at that moment I recognized that men were unlikely to change anytime soon.
Women still don't quite know precisely how they want men to change...just that they do. Not that it's women's job to explain it to us. (Though, of course, most men are quite certain it's women's responsibility to explain it to us.)
One thing is certain: men as a class aren't interested in changing. They like the patriarchy. And that's why "men's rights" has become a reactionary swamp of misogyny.
Every feminist woman I've known has been very aware that many of feminism's aims will require that male gender roles change, they will require we address the ways in which patriarchy hurts men, too. And while most genuine male feminists I've known are aware of this, too, it's also the case that there are very few of us. Women, rightly, aren't eager to do all this work, assuming they could which they can't. But men aren't willing to do this work, most men like the status quo, and now we have a new wave of reactionary misogyny.
I don't know what it's going to take to realize these changes. But it's not as if some of us haven't made an effort.
I'm not angling for a cookie. I'm just expressing my frustration and sadness that I've spent decades thinking and talking about this, challenging myself and own behavior, and yet not only has there been much less social change than I expected, there's this virulent backlash.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:17 PM on March 20, 2019 [34 favorites]
It's thirty-five years now I've been a male feminist. It was obvious to me from the beginning that male gender roles needed to change as part of the project of feminism and that in many respects men would be liberated, too.
It made perfect sense that, as a man, my role would best be to address and work with other men on this. With the public perception of feminism -- which at that time was largely negative among women as well as men -- it also seemed obvious that the topic be somewhat distinguished from feminism proper. For a short period, before the term was appropriated and made toxic, I did talk about "men's rights".
Here's the thing, though: men were almost universally uninterested. And of course they were and still are -- the patriarchy offers men many benefits. The ways in which it hurts men, on the other hand, we're taught to either ignore or to see as benefits.
And every way in which I've ever altered my behavior outside of male gender conventions has at best been a curiosity and at worst something actively mocked. I remember the first time I heard the song "Sensitive New Age Guys" -- it was 1990, shortly after the song was released. It was probably affectionate ribbing, and the implications of that line about being concerned about women's orgasms was on point (literally and/or metaphorically) but it really made me angry nevertheless. Because even the women who were most likely to understand that men needed to change, too, found it somewhat uncomfortable and enjoyable to mock. I think right at that moment I recognized that men were unlikely to change anytime soon.
Women still don't quite know precisely how they want men to change...just that they do. Not that it's women's job to explain it to us. (Though, of course, most men are quite certain it's women's responsibility to explain it to us.)
One thing is certain: men as a class aren't interested in changing. They like the patriarchy. And that's why "men's rights" has become a reactionary swamp of misogyny.
Every feminist woman I've known has been very aware that many of feminism's aims will require that male gender roles change, they will require we address the ways in which patriarchy hurts men, too. And while most genuine male feminists I've known are aware of this, too, it's also the case that there are very few of us. Women, rightly, aren't eager to do all this work, assuming they could which they can't. But men aren't willing to do this work, most men like the status quo, and now we have a new wave of reactionary misogyny.
I don't know what it's going to take to realize these changes. But it's not as if some of us haven't made an effort.
I'm not angling for a cookie. I'm just expressing my frustration and sadness that I've spent decades thinking and talking about this, challenging myself and own behavior, and yet not only has there been much less social change than I expected, there's this virulent backlash.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:17 PM on March 20, 2019 [34 favorites]
Ivan Fyodorovich, thank you for speaking from your heart. I have felt a similar weight of frustration and sadness. We humans are so prone to wishful thinking that it's hard to know, when we see something that looks like the thing we want, whether it's really there or whether we're just fooling ourselves. I have spent a long time focused on the struggle, feeling like things are falling apart, and it's a hard place to be. Right now I'm focused on the optimism, because I'm in a place where I need to get some things done.
But I think we need both these voices. Your perspective is necessary in order to keep us focused on putting energy into continued progress - but we also need to see some progress happening, in order to keep from succumbing to despair, and that's the point of view I was trying to share.
posted by crotchety old git at 12:27 PM on March 20, 2019 [5 favorites]
But I think we need both these voices. Your perspective is necessary in order to keep us focused on putting energy into continued progress - but we also need to see some progress happening, in order to keep from succumbing to despair, and that's the point of view I was trying to share.
posted by crotchety old git at 12:27 PM on March 20, 2019 [5 favorites]
There's been progress. But if you'd asked me in 1984 when I turned 20 what I thought 2019 would look like with regard to women's rights and how men think and behave, it wouldn't have been this.
I know that we're all unrealistic about the pace of social change when we're young. But I didn't anticipate (despite history) that it would continue to be two steps forward, then one step back. There's always a backlash and I'm not going to live to see the kind of change I hoped for thirty-five years ago.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:52 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
I know that we're all unrealistic about the pace of social change when we're young. But I didn't anticipate (despite history) that it would continue to be two steps forward, then one step back. There's always a backlash and I'm not going to live to see the kind of change I hoped for thirty-five years ago.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:52 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
Look to the burner culture, the maker movement, to polyamory, to anti-racism, to the open source community; yes, there are many problems, of course, but things are changing all over the place.
Yeah, these are communities I admire, and I belong to some of them myself, and I really don't buy the idea that they have more feminist guys than the general population — except to the extent that they're concentrated in liberal areas where even the most normatively masculine of beer-chugging football fans are reasonably likely to have some positive exposure to feminism.
I'm far from the first person to point this out, but it's really useful to distinguish between "being sexist" and "performing masculinity in a traditional way." There are guys who do stereotypically manly-jock things and are still real feminists. There are guys who do wimpy quirky dorky artsy things and are still sexist assbutts.
posted by nebulawindphone at 2:35 PM on March 20, 2019 [20 favorites]
Yeah, these are communities I admire, and I belong to some of them myself, and I really don't buy the idea that they have more feminist guys than the general population — except to the extent that they're concentrated in liberal areas where even the most normatively masculine of beer-chugging football fans are reasonably likely to have some positive exposure to feminism.
I'm far from the first person to point this out, but it's really useful to distinguish between "being sexist" and "performing masculinity in a traditional way." There are guys who do stereotypically manly-jock things and are still real feminists. There are guys who do wimpy quirky dorky artsy things and are still sexist assbutts.
posted by nebulawindphone at 2:35 PM on March 20, 2019 [20 favorites]
Metafilter: There are guys who do stereotypically manly-jock things and are still real feminists. There are guys who do wimpy quirky dorky artsy things and are still sexist assbutts.
posted by Melismata at 2:41 PM on March 20, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Melismata at 2:41 PM on March 20, 2019 [3 favorites]
That 1984 date for me being introduced to feminism is when I was a freshman physics major at Texas Tech University, of all places, but had become very close friends with a (self-described) radical lesbian feminist who was a freshman physics major at Bryn Mawr. That sounds like two radically different worlds, but we both graduated from the same high school in a small college and farming town and had mutual friends. (We...discovered we had a lot in common and a powerful connection.)
Anyway, the point is, it took me years, at least six, before my milieu was one within which I expected to meet men like me -- having spent my life to that point in politically conservative environments. Well, I found a lot of men who shared my politics, some to my left, and yet almost all of them ranged from indifferent to hostile to feminism. (And let us not even mention what I found when I joined MeFi in 2004.) This all came as a shock and a profound disappointment. So, you know, these days I'm bitter and angry.
I mean, just as an example, during most of my life men absolutely did not insincerely (or glibly) identify as or spout feminist ideas in a ruse to attract women. In my personal experience, my self-identifying that way piqued a woman's interest exactly once, but otherwise was perceived as odd or suspicious. When I first started hearing claims of this being common in the 00s, mostly here, I was totally incredulous. But, no, it really happens now (mostly by college guys), and this is what it's come to? Really?
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:28 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
Anyway, the point is, it took me years, at least six, before my milieu was one within which I expected to meet men like me -- having spent my life to that point in politically conservative environments. Well, I found a lot of men who shared my politics, some to my left, and yet almost all of them ranged from indifferent to hostile to feminism. (And let us not even mention what I found when I joined MeFi in 2004.) This all came as a shock and a profound disappointment. So, you know, these days I'm bitter and angry.
I mean, just as an example, during most of my life men absolutely did not insincerely (or glibly) identify as or spout feminist ideas in a ruse to attract women. In my personal experience, my self-identifying that way piqued a woman's interest exactly once, but otherwise was perceived as odd or suspicious. When I first started hearing claims of this being common in the 00s, mostly here, I was totally incredulous. But, no, it really happens now (mostly by college guys), and this is what it's come to? Really?
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:28 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
I owned the Farrell book in the 70's. I don't remember anything about it, though.
I was already married to a feminist, and young and trainable, and I just naturally gravitated to the feminist point of view. (Using the definition 'a feminist is someone who believes women are people')
I have not spent a lot of time in the company of other men. I prefer to hang out with women, although not necessarily for idealistic reasons- e.g.- men don't have [attractive] breasts. I find the current "men's movement" to be mostly whining, but there was something in those early works. They seemed to be aimed at the idea that the patriarchy is bad for men as well, and I appreciate that.
Iron John for me was a different sort of thing, but I learned a lot of helpful stuff from that as well.
posted by MtDewd at 3:54 PM on March 20, 2019
I was already married to a feminist, and young and trainable, and I just naturally gravitated to the feminist point of view. (Using the definition 'a feminist is someone who believes women are people')
I have not spent a lot of time in the company of other men. I prefer to hang out with women, although not necessarily for idealistic reasons- e.g.- men don't have [attractive] breasts. I find the current "men's movement" to be mostly whining, but there was something in those early works. They seemed to be aimed at the idea that the patriarchy is bad for men as well, and I appreciate that.
Iron John for me was a different sort of thing, but I learned a lot of helpful stuff from that as well.
posted by MtDewd at 3:54 PM on March 20, 2019
Ivan Fyodorovich: In my personal experience, my self-identifying that way piqued a woman's interest exactly once, but otherwise was perceived as odd or suspicious.
I keep thinking back to social inequality breeds game. If you're living in a world where toxic masculinity is the rule, it can be dangerous - economically, socially, and sometimes physically - to associate with a man who doesn't have those toxic rules ingrained.
posted by clawsoon at 3:55 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
I keep thinking back to social inequality breeds game. If you're living in a world where toxic masculinity is the rule, it can be dangerous - economically, socially, and sometimes physically - to associate with a man who doesn't have those toxic rules ingrained.
posted by clawsoon at 3:55 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
I was born in the 1970s but was mostly too young to notice any of this, though I can recall seeing Farrells' The Liberated Man book here and there. The first time I really noticed men's groups was in the early 1990s, when it seemed to be all drum circles and Iron John; none of it seemed very relevant to my life.
It was an interesting article, including how views have changed over time of some of the people involved.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:30 PM on March 20, 2019
It was an interesting article, including how views have changed over time of some of the people involved.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:30 PM on March 20, 2019
Good article. Although "Iron John" was mentioned in the second comment, there has been no mention of Robert Bly so far. Strange to me. I wasn't aware of any of the other males mentioned in the article. I saw Robert Bly perform poetry and stuff in 1971 and was blown away. Emotional stuff. Especially for a man. Maybe he didn't write a book about it (OK, maybe he did. No research here) but he certainly inspired a lot of us men to become emotional beings, which could be the first step to detoxifying masculinity.
posted by kozad at 6:42 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by kozad at 6:42 PM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]
Ivan Fyodorovich: In my personal experience, my self-identifying that way piqued a woman's interest exactly once, but otherwise was perceived as odd or suspicious.
Skip all that navelly stuff. Say you don't give a shit about stupid professional sports and you will absolutey pique interest.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 5:29 AM on March 21, 2019
Skip all that navelly stuff. Say you don't give a shit about stupid professional sports and you will absolutey pique interest.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 5:29 AM on March 21, 2019
When I look at how much of any political movement relies on the unacknowleded labor of women it explains a lot about it for me.
posted by winna at 6:22 AM on March 21, 2019
posted by winna at 6:22 AM on March 21, 2019
My experience with 1990s mythopoetics is that they either ended up Nice Guys(tm) or queer along the lines of radical faeries. That probably wasn't entirely Bly's fault. But the whole thing of archetypal masculine/feminine gives me such a severe allergic reaction that it inspired about 20 years of atheism.
I think those conversations maybe are happening within limited circles of church and recovery. Earlier this week I witnessed three of my church peers do work unpacking "boys will be boys" and their own troubled pasts. So it's around but I've largely given up on trying to reconcile the performative rituals of safety that's gender as I experience it.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 6:59 AM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
I think those conversations maybe are happening within limited circles of church and recovery. Earlier this week I witnessed three of my church peers do work unpacking "boys will be boys" and their own troubled pasts. So it's around but I've largely given up on trying to reconcile the performative rituals of safety that's gender as I experience it.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 6:59 AM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]
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posted by Katjusa Roquette at 9:24 AM on March 20, 2019 [1 favorite]