Reddit Reddit reviews Manhood in America: A Cultural History

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Manhood in America: A Cultural History
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1 Reddit comment about Manhood in America: A Cultural History:

u/Qeraeth ยท 4 pointsr/feminisms

>And then there is this thread of comments where one person asks why an article about bisexual males is included in /r/feminisms.

You'll notice that that person got pretty heavily downvoted and that a whole bunch of heavily upvoted people in that thread politely took apart the idea that feminism shouldn't involve itself in the issues of LGBT men, including one of the moderators. I would not take that as a sign of being unwelcome.

>The closest that anybody came was when somebody pointed out how feminism is concerned with the expecations placed on men and how they effect women's inequality.

I think that's an important issue to consider because it works both ways. The perpetuation of women's inequality also hurts men. There is a reciprocal effect in oppressive systems that necessarily create difficult situations for those who are supposed to be privileged within it; thus the genesis of many male gendered social issues and traps.

Sometimes one has to consider issues discretely, other times you can only consider them as part of an interconnected system of social relations. What happens to women impacts men and vice versa to varying degrees for different issues.

>Am I wrong about this? Is feminism concerned with men's experiences as well?

These days there as many feminisms as there are feminists. A welter of different responses could easily accompany your question. My answer is yes. It absolutely is. Partially for the reasons I outlined above- the interconnected nature of humanity- and partially because the business of undoing the various straitjackets of hegemonic gender require everyone's participation.

Men's Lives is one of the leading gender studies texts on masculinity; it's an anthology.

Masculinities is also a critical text. What I meant by 'hegemonic gender' is elucidated on in its pages, and as the title implies, Professor Connell's thesis is that there are multiple ways of 'doing' masculinity in our world that vary by culture, race, class, age, and so on. Her contention is that each plays a critical role in maintaining the established norms of gender, while some are more subversive.

Manhood in America analyses the relatively recent history of how modern ideas of what it means to be a man (the ideas of your father that you rebelled against, likely) came into being.

On Amazon's "Related Books" pane you can find several others on this subject by men and women alike and it'll give you some insight into the multiplicity of progressive and feminist perspectives on manhood in Western culture.

I think part of the issue that so many of us, men and women, still suffer from is that we do tend to see everything oppositionally. Even I'm still getting out of that Manichean mindset. However, as you read and research you'll eventually come to see the at times delicate but synchronous waltz of men and women's relations within feminism. You should understand that women discussing their issues vis a vis men they've dealt with or been hurt by is not an attack against you as a man, but attempting to guilt them for speaking up will be problematic.

Rather, try to understand where they're coming from and why. The vast majority of feminist women do not hate, automatically mistrust, automatically dismiss, or automatically marginalise men. But discussing feminist issues requires frank discussion of people's (men and women's) experiences with gender, which often includes conflicts with masculinity and/or men, as that's just how power is often distributed and flowing.

The trick is to learn not to be threatened by it and go "but not all men are like that!" and you'll be fine. Because we all know that. :P

Conflict is omnipresent in feminisms. Conflict is what gave rise to feminisms rather than just a continued unitary feminism. Disagreements are common, writers and bloggers go back and forth with each other, academic conferences can be acrimonious, battles of inclusion are still being waged in various sectors... It wouldn't be feminism without the arguing, I'll tell you that!

You learn to embrace it, after a while.

What feminism en toto consists of is thousands of groups, great and small, millions upon millions of men, women, and those otherwise identified, disassociated women's and gender studies departments in universities worldwide, tonnes of academics, writers, intellectuals, slam poets, street activists, clinic escorts, journalists, editors, web mavens, bloggers, artists, musicians, and more who inform feminism with their work, research, reporting, passion, art, and every day experiences.

They're never all going to agree with one another. :)

Feminism isn't one thing controlled from a central location wherein we all have nice matching hot pink uniforms- awesome as those would be. It's very widespread and diffuse. There's room for quite a lot within it.

If you look, you'll find your place. ::smiles::