Men Ain't Shit.

I seem to be on the road to self-identifying as a feminist. Some of you might be looking at me like, well DUH, but let me explain: I've always had feminist tendencies. It's funny, but since birth I've had this nagging conceptualization of myself as a person that deserves recognition as such...but I digress. I've always had feminist tendencies. I just used to be wary of downright against calling myself "a feminist." And before you start thinking I'm some little punk, it wasn't because of all of the shit that gets talked about feminists. Who gon' check me, boo?!

My problems with feminism come from its longstanding history of ignoring the particular struggles affecting women who are anything other that White, middle-class, and heterosexual. And yeah, okay, I know the movement is officially for all women now, but honestly, I believe that like I believe Santorum was talking about "blah" people...like hell.

Get at me when you stop producing foolishness like this, feminism. It's like, damn, and I liked SlutWalk too...

I still see the experiences of women of color, queer women, and poor women being addressed primarily by in-group members. I still see personhood being portrayed as Whites-only when feminists report statistics about "Women," "Men," "Blacks," and "Hispanics." (Should I clap that you're trying when you're doing it so very wrong?) And it's just like, while I'm so glad the right to breastfeed at work has become protected by law, I'm just much more concerned with the fact that unemployment is rising for Blacks as it falls for everyone else. 

And yeah, okay, I know that Black feminism is a thing. It's a really fucking awesome thing. And then there's the whole womanist movement, too. And when I discovered these, I got more open to the idea of maybe calling myself a feminist. And when I realized the error of my previously pro-life ways, I got even more open to the idea of maybe calling myself a feminist. And the above photograph says more than I ever can about how the movement as a whole isn't doing nearly enough to address race and racism, but at least part of that needs to be interpreted in a Gandhi "It's not your Christ I have a problem with; it's your Christians" kind of manner. 

And there's another It's-not-your-Feminism-it's-your-feminists problem that I have: man-bashing. I really don't know what it's going to take for people to realize that the celebration of one thing does not necessitate the belittling of its opposite (not that I believe men and women are inherently opposites). It is possible to love one thing without hating its counterpart. I love being Black, but that doesn't mean I hate Whiteness. I'm pro-choice but not anti-children (for other people). I'm pretty sex-positive, but that doesn't mean I'm abstinence-negative. And I can't stand it when so-called "feminists" attack manhood and masculinity, rather than attacking patriarchy. I can't stand it when "feminism" doesn't realize that portraying women as "good" and men as "evil" not only belittles both genders by erases heterogeneity, but is creating the exact same issues that patriarchy creates by portraying men as significant and women as not. By talking about all the things that are "wrong" with "men," these people are just playing into the narrow stereotypes and archetypes patriarchy has carved out for men to exist in. 

Men have emotions. They hurt. They think. They dwell. They worry. They love. They fear. They have stories to tell, too.

And with that, I give you this awesome short documentary I discovered thanks to Tunde (@BrazenlyVirile) today. It's called Men Ain't Shit, and it goes out to everyone who has ever said any version of that statement. (I'm guilty of "Boys are stupid.")


Men Ain't Sh?t from Le Femme Flaneur on Vimeo.
 

Hmm...

I've bemoaned Disney's presentation of femininity and relationships in the past, but this is something I've never considered: Disney's teachings of masculinity to little boys are just as problematic.

I-can't-believe-someone-thought-this-was-okay advertising strikes again! (NSFW)

Why yes, in case you were confused, this is a White woman lying on a bed of naked, contorted Black men, in an advertisement for luxurious handmade bedding. 

"Merge into the colours of the south. Feel the beating heart of the city of light at night. Breathe the scent of the forest. Feel the briny of the breakers on your skin." Funny, I don't associate any of those things with the naked, contorted bodies of Black men. Do you?

My first question is whether these men are intended to be interpreted as being alive or dead. I'm not sure which is more problematic: If they're alive, every single stereotype about the hypersexualized savage Black man out to rape and ravage the pure White woman comes into play here. I realize this is 2011 where interracial relationships are no longer condemned and denigrated to the degree they once were, and could perhaps be less of a big deal in France than they are here (this is a French ad), but...anyone who knows anything about the history of race relations should recognize this damaging trope and not try to replicate/propagate it. Or if I'm supposed to view this from the liberated empowered woman standpoint, are they her playthings? I can't get behind that either. If they're alive, are they/their work supposed to represent the labor that went into creating this luxurious bedding? Dozens of Black men working to make something for one White woman...do I have to say the s-word? (Their contortion does make me think of the arrangement of certain ships...) At the very least this smacks of all sorts of oppression.

If they're corpses, which I hadn't considered until someone pointed it out in the comments on the Sociological Images post that alerted me to this ad, then we're dealing with the Black-body-as-disposable notion that society has never really seemed to shake. They almost look as if they were tossed into some kind of mass grave. Were they worked to death to create the luxury this White woman desires so? Were they sexed to death in some crazy orgy that created the "heavenly" aura the woman finds herself in?

I suppose the best possible way to interpret this is that Black men's bodies are supposed to be a luxury, which is at the very least a kind of rare positive association. But even that has objectification written all over it. PEOPLE cannot be luxuries. THINGS are luxuries. Black man = person. Sheets = thing. Let's not equate the two, okay?

I approve very highly of The Good Men Project.

It's an online magazine about masculinity and gender issues from the perspectives of progressive men. I think the world needs more things like this. I wish the ratio of women to men in my Sociology of Gender class hadn't equaled than the student-faculty ratio for the class. I wish that most of my conversations about masculinity weren't female-dominated. One of my big problems with feminism [I know you're all like, damn, how many big problems with feminism does she have?], or maybe just with the way feminism has been perverted over the years, is the tendency of feminists to condemn the masculine. 

Tad Hargrave exemplifies this beautifully in this article from TGMP:

"If you were to sit down the average progressive male and ask them, “What are the gifts that women and the feminine bring to the world? What are the gifts that sexism, patriarchy and oppression have blocked the world from receiving?” The list would be long. Of course, there are dangers of conflating women and the feminine together directly–these lines are often not so clear. One can be in a woman’s body and deeply masculine and vice versa. But still, the list would be long. The gift of birth. The gift of their cycle. The gift of nurturing. Deep intuition and sensitivity. An amazing capacity for depth of feeling. The way that women are often the ones to carry a community–often the invisible giants on whose shoulders a community rides.

But if you were to ask the same man, “What are the gifts that the men and the masculine energy brings?” You would often see silence. And shame. Answers come but . . . not as readily. There’s a deep sense, in this culture, that men are a bad animal. A sense that “we don’t need men’s protection–we need protection from the men.” "

If we've reached a point where we feel that men as a collective cannot be celebrated, then we are doing something horribly wrong. Yes, patriarchy exists, and needs to be eradicated, but it doesn't afflict all men, and afflicts many women. Patriarchy is not a "men's issue," just like the work-family-balance isn't a "woman's issue". These are people's issues, society's issues. 

He also quotes a progressive female friend of his, who says the following:

“I’ll tell you something many of us women talk about in these circles for conscious change. We’re surrounded by sensitive new age men and what we really want sometimes is a man who could just bend us over the couch. Yes, we want men to be more sensitive. But sensitive to US as women. Sensitive to our needs and desires and body language. Not overly sensitive and taking everything personally. I need a man who’s solid in himself enough to notice what’s happening over here–not someone who’s obsessed with himself and what other people think of him.” 

 I added the italics there, because for a very long time I've felt like it makes me a bad...person-who-is-conscious-of-the-problems-of-patriarchy to want to be "man-handled" (I wish there was a better term) from time to time. I'm almost uncomfortable asking this question, but I've learned that questions that make you feel that way are the most important ones to ask, so: Does every action that could be construed as being based on male privilege (or white privilege, or class privilege, etc.) have to be interpreted as such? It seems to me that being progressive should be about finding ways to do these actions respectfully. Like, I don't mind being hit on as long as dude is coming correct. I like to wear makeup and flowers in my hair, and I don't think this makes me any more or less of a woman. And sometimes I want "a roughneck n***a, mandingo in the sack/ who ain't afraid to pull my hair and spank me from the back" -- LL Cool J feat. LeShaun, "Doin It". I just also want to be able to hold insightful conversations and go on romantic outings and just kick it on a couch somewhere with him. All of that can be confusing for me, so I can't even imagine what the conflicting messages must be like for guys.

I've been wanting to talk about masculinity for a while

Specifically, about changing definitions/cultural understandings of masculinity and how it's becoming slightly more okay in some places to be a man who is not "macho," just as it's becoming okay to be a woman who isn't excessively feminine. I think both of these things are wonderful, but I think that the not-particularly-feminine woman is something we see a lot more often (particularly within the realms of people of color and/or low income groups) than the not-hegemonically-masculine man. But I'm one of those crazy liberals who wants to rip gender norms to shreds and promotes egalitarianism in partnerships and shit, so maybe I'm more attuned to this kind of stuff. I don't know. I know that I want a man who isn't afraid to have and share his feelings. Who can appreciate art. Who can cook and clean and will split these responsibilities with me when we're on that grown shit level. Who reads. I don't give a damn whether he likes sports or video games or if he can change a tire (though I'm not gonna lie, handyman-ness would be convenient). Who is at least somewhat fashionable. I guess what I'm hinting at is that I am attracted to "other" masculinities. Quiet masculinities. Some might even go as far as to call them androgynous masculinities, but I'm not really a fan of the "androgyny" movement because it seems a far cry from simply ceasing to associate certain traits with certain categories of the [far too narrow] gender binary. 
Okay I'm devolving into a tangent. Back to the point here. I've been wanting to talk about masculinity for a long time now, since that Sociology of Gender class I took last semester, and more acutely since a conversation I had with a very dear friend of mine a little over a month ago about what kind of a man he is. This conversation included me listing some of his traits that I think align to "masculine" ideals in quiet ways, and I had the sneaking suspicion that he felt unconvinced. It made me want to do something, because other masculinities shouldn't feel illegitimate [nor should other femininities, other racial identities, other LGBTQQ identities, other anythings!]. And so the day after that conversation I clicked the "New Post" button and stared at the blinking cursor for a while, feeling totally uninspired as to what I wanted to say. I would start typing things and then delete them, and eventually I just deleted the post and figured I'd try again later.
But later never really rolled around, and I have come to realize that I just felt like it wasn't my place to be trying to write about masculinity. And I'm not one to usually let myself be put in places, but it's like, you know, there are few things I hate more than when someone who is not a Black woman tries to tell me about myself as a Black woman. Hell, I don't always take to other Black women telling me about myself as a Black woman. So who am I to try to talk my way around and through something I can only ever be an outsider to? The first rule of writing is to write what you know. So I let the talking about masculinity thing go for a while. It was still something that I knew needed addressing, but I just didn't quite know how. 

This man's thoughts are a really good place to start.

I'm sure I'm supposed to find something wrong with this

or at least I would be supposed to if I was a hardcore enough feminist, but mannnn...I think this shit is hilarious. Mad props to B for sharing it with me.