Reddit reviews Men Doing Feminism (Thinking Gender)

Hi! Thanks for not being a jerk.

I guess I'm confused about what people think SRS's position is supposed to be. If the position is whether privilege exists or not, or whether intersectionality is a thing, then they share a position. cojoco's comment seemed to be about how feminism deals with men, and that's what I had in mind.

SRS likes to circlejerk about how female privilege doesn't exist and how only women can be victims. Research into men's issues is totally a thing. I have a couple of anthologies at home with chapters discussing how men are oppressed by masculinity, the place of male voices within feminism, and male sexuality.

Inasmuch as SRS takes a stance on these things ("but what about the menz bloo bloo bloo?" etc.), this isn't reflected in what's published. bell hooks devotes more-than-token space to men's issues at various points. You've got chapters in Defending Our Dreams and Third Wave Feminism, ed. Gillis. Those both have plenty of references. There are lots and lots of other anthologies out there, but I can't vouch for them. I recently read a feminist piece on domestic violence committed by women against men. I'm out-of-state, or else I would pull stuff from my books. Hopefully, some less specific ones will have to do.

Men Doing Feminism is the go-to book. IIRC though, it's the target of some harsh criticism along the lines of "good idea, poor execution" in the Gillis anthology. I think I've heard of Rethinking Masculinity before. Maybe you think that academic feminists aren't discussing men's issues enough, but they are anything but hostile to them. Men's concerns and experiences are taken seriously. There's a ton of stuff out there, just do a Google search.

Beyond that, their concerns are so different that there is no distinctly SRS-ish opinion on issues in feminist theory. SRSers are in the business of pointing out specific instances of shitty things said on the internet. Theorists have higher aspirations. What positions were you thinking of?

Lots of SRSers are anti-essentialists. Gender realism is coming back in a big way, though now people are questioning whether there's a difference between the two (that is, the argument is only about whether there's a difference between realism and anti-realism when it comes to gender) (Sally Haslanger, Charlotte Witt [she maintains that she can remain silent on the realism/anti-realism question for the purposes she's got, but she gives the gender realists everything they could ask for]).

This is hard to do in a general way because I don't know which issues you're worried about or what you think "SRS's position" on them is.

Fine, I did your work for you.

Feminism and Masculinities, part of the Oxford Readings in Feminism. Here's the description:

> This Reader provides an international mixture of the best classic foundational pieces and recent key works that investigate masculinity from a feminist perspective. The chapters examine a wide range of topics including gay liberation, the men's movement, black and working-class masculinities, homophobia and the Internet.

One entry is referenced as [11] in this wikipedia entry.

> The link between the biological male sex and the social construction of masculinity was seen by some scholars[10] as a limitation on men's collaboration with the feminist movement. This sharply contrasted with sex role theory which viewed gender as something determined by biological differences between the sexes. Other key elements of the men's liberation movement were the ideas that genders are relational and each cannot exist without the other, and that gender as a whole is a social construction and not a biological imperative. Thus, second-wave profeminist writers[11] were able to explore the interactions between social practices and institutions, and ideas of gender.

This book, Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory seems to undercut your argument completely. Instead of reinforcing masculine stereotypes, it tries to rethink masculinity.

The Amazon description:

> This collection overturns old paradigms about identity, victimization, and dominant and alternative forms of masculinity to advance new dialogues between masculinity studies and feminist theory.

>How are male power and privilege constituted and represented? What are the effects of men's masculinity on women and men? How can more egalitarian forms of masculinity be fostered? Looking particularly at literature, film, and classroom practices, Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory links the analysis of masculinities with feminism's ethical and political agenda for the future.

And the Columbia description:

>Why is there so much talk of a "crisis" of masculinity? How have ideas of manhood been transformed by feminism? Does feminism hold the key to the development of more egalitarian forms of masculinity? Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory addresses central questions about the analysis and construction of masculinity in contemporary society. The volume examines the ways male privilege and power are constituted and represented and explores the effect of such constructions on both men and women. With subjects ranging from Robert Bly's Iron John to Tom Hank's "niceness," this collection overturns old paradigms about identity, victimization, and dominant and alternative forms of masculinity to advance new dialogues between masculinity studies and feminist theory.

>Looking particularly at literature, film, and classroom practices, Masculinity Studies and Feminist Theory links the analysis of masculinities with feminism's ethical and political agenda for the future. Its authors share a conviction that such a link not only reveals the persistence, now more subtle and varied, of male entitlement but also promises to create an enriched and reinvigorated feminism for a new century.

And that book is cited as [208] in this Wikipedia entry that also disagrees with your argument:

> Feminist theory has explored the social construction of masculinity and its implications for the goal of gender equality. The social construct of masculinity is seen by feminism as problematic because it associates males with aggression and competition, and reinforces patriarchal and unequal gender relations.[63][207] Patriarchal cultures are criticized for "limiting forms of masculinity" available to men and thus narrowing their life choices.[208]

I also found a blog entryclaiming to be part of the SIUE Women's Studies Program that portrays the evolution of feminism into gender studies into masculine studies, which implies that focus and questions about traditional began with feminism:

> over time, feminism has turned into feminisms, paying attention to global women’s rights, as well as to the issues of race, class, and sexuality. By the time the 1990s had rolled around, Gender Studies had started to emerge as an offshoot of Women’s Studies.

> In the 1990s, Masculinity Studies, a relative newcomer to the field of gender inquiry, began to pose questions about men and their relationship with patriarchal power (something that had hitherto seemed obvious and gone unquestioned). Do all men have power? Do all men want power? Is masculinity the same in every culture and time period? Is masculinity a word that has a plural, as well as singular, form? Does the performance of masculinity depend on the categories of race, class, and sexuality?

A blog isn't as good of a source, of course, but that entry seemed interesting.

Here's a book, Men Doing Feminism that looks interesting:

> "The wonderfully diverse entries in this volume investigate the tensions between feminism and manhood, engaging the personal and the political, the moral and the epistemological. The authors' explorations of the strengths and weaknesses of male subject position challenge simplistic interpretations both of the subject/object distinction and of epistemologies based directly on social identities. This collection makes an original and substantive contribution to feminist theory..""
-Alison M. Jaggar University of Colorado, Boulder

After reviewing this for you, I can't find anything about mainstream feminism that supports your argument. I could keep going, but I think I've gone well beyond satisfying your demand:

> How about you point me to some influential feminist sources that specifically fight against unrealistic beauty standards heaped upon men? Pointing me to a source that simply doesn't shit on men for not fitting into traditional male beauty standards is not enough. Also, pointing me to a source that gives only token acknowledgement to male issues is also not enough.

> I am a man who is very ugly and very unmasculine. Show me some serious feminist voices that are neither hostile nor indifferent to the issues I face.

> I don't care if it caused it. It condones and at times promotes it - that's my problem with it.

Everything I've cited seems to be the exact opposite of what you claim. Oddly enough though, TRP tells you to be a stereotypical hypermasculine male, so I don't know why you're siding with them.