Other Tales

"Unfortunately, ‘men in crisis’ fall into the easy trap of blaming women’s growing ‘advantages’ as the cause of their malaise: this satisfies nobody and turns us away from a more politicised recognition that changing employment structures are gradually crippling us all and fatally skewing our relationships to ourselves and each other."

Imelda Whelehan, Overloaded: Popular Culture and the Future of Feminism, p. 134.

I just want to comment on this quote myself. I wholeheartedly agree with it. Part of the problem at the heart of many strident anti-feminist men’s groups doesn’t simply lie in the blatant damage they do to women, but also the damage they do to men. Many of these men’s organisations fail to actually probe the wider social and economic contexts that lead to ‘men in crisis’. Limiting the discussion of ‘men in crisis’ to blaming women and feminism bypasses the influences of race, class and economic status as larger determining aspects of masculinity. It also keeps masculine identity stuck in some archaic gender binary we have inherited from history (not nature), rather than compelling us all to realistically examine our relationships in the modern world. It’s time to let go of this idea that if women go “up”, men go “down”. It’s time to actually consider the multiple social forces that shape our identities rather than looking for a convenient scapegoat.