As I have mentioned before, the patriarchy ain’t doing a lot of guys any favors. Sure, the men at the top (plus the women and minorities who trade their compliance for acceptance and protection) have power and autonomy, but the further down the economic ladder a man goes the more the Big Boys piss in his face. Moreover, the patriarchy is all about hegemonic masculinity. There are “two key factors in producing a hegemonic masculinity: domination and marginalization. Domination establishes the ideal qualities by which some men are elevated, but marginalization describes the oppression involved and the actual ranking of men based on masculinities. As these factors are only what society currently deems masculine, and domination and marginalization are static, hegemonic masculinity is a dynamic standard.”
Because hegemonic masculinity requires you to “prove” how non-feminine you are to be a “real man” it is profoundly homophobic and misogynist. (Real men don’t bang dudes! That’s something bitches do!) It’s also something you have to prove all the damn time, because one slip will knock you to the back of the bus with the vagina-owners and girly-men. It’s this bullshit that drives calling a guy a “pussy” if he doesn’t “walk off” a sports injury, or calling a man a “cock-sucker” to insult him. There is nothing more horrible in hegemonic masculinity than being compared to women and gays!!
The concept of hegemonic masculinity has leaped once again to the forefront of my mind lately for two reasons.
First, there are the super-vile commercials for Slim Jim jerky that depict men as being feminized by women but recovering their masculinity by (feel the irony here) putting a long stick of meat in their mouths. Apparently your hegemonic manhood can be wrested from you if you so much as eat salad. Do you hear that vegetarians! You aren’t real men! You can also have your penis shortened and made floppy if you act like your wife and kids are more important to you than your own wants. Yes, nothing says weak like loving your family, you limp-wristed weenies!
Gwen Sharp points out that, “It’s fascinating, really: femininity is depicted as weakness, the sapping of strength, yet masculinity is so fragile that apparently even the slightest brush with the feminine destroys it. This entire ad campaign — and the discourse about masculinity it draws from — is just an adult version of the game of cooties, with men fleeing the symbolic pollution of femininity.”
Gee, you know what else some males do, besides eating slim Jims that is, to regain their feeling of hegemonic masculinity? They rape. And the patriarchy that perpetuates rape culture lets them get away with it, because their victims are usually those lesser human beings — non-hegemonic and non-patriarchy members, AKA women, children, and men who can be physically overpowered. Reinforcing ideas of hegemonic masculinity aren’t funny, and they have real consequences.
Secondly, there was the nasty piece of garbage (reported on by Jezebel) written by some asshat name Kevin D. Williamson, wherein he insists that Mitt Romney is the better candidate not for any political reasons, but because he is richer than President Obama and has more sons.
No joke. Williamson actually wrote: “Professor Obama? Two daughters. May as well give the guy a cardigan. And fallopian tubes.” The message there is clearly “Look how unmanly Obama is! He has an education and daughters! What a wimp!”
Before the enlightenment people used to believe that weak and non-masculine men made weak sperm, which in turn made girl babies, who were deformed boy babies without the “heat” to push their penis outside of their body and thus inherently inferior to males for the rest of their lives. Nowadays we know that sperm have both X and Y chromosomes and whichever little swimmer gets to the egg first fertilizes it. someone needs to explain that to Williamson. I recommend they use small words.
Leaving aside the fact that Williamson was a huge Bush supporter, and that Bush has two daughters and a degree from Yale (thanks to a legacy leg up), his belief that Mitt Romney is a better man because he has produced sons sends a clear message that sons are better than daughters because boys are better than girls. Girls are weak, lesser, and to deal with them as equals threatens the fragile hegemonic masculinity. Obviously men have “failed” some crucial test of manhood if they have daughters.
I know that people have asked me if I was going to have another baby so I could try to give Sweet Babou a son. You know, because three healthy daughters is such a cross to bear. I usually say, “Oh, that’s not a problem. Sweet Babou isn’t some knuckle-dragging idiot who needs sons to verify his manhood. He’s intelligent.” That usually shuts them up, because they can’t figure out if I have insulted them or not but they know it is not a line of inquiry they wish to pursue. (For the record, I did indeed just imply they were shitkickers.)
There are many reasons I am a feminist fighting to dismantle the patriarchy, but the fact I want my daughters acknowledged as every bit as wonderful and worthy as sons is the most important to me. Millions of female fetuses are aborted and baby girls abandoned because of bullshit like this.
RAGE
Not to mention that the whole “manly men produce boys” is bullshit. It’s not even fucking true.
Okay, I have this philosophy about men and the XX / XY chromosome thing. See, those of us who have made it out of the Dark Ages and got educated where Science and not “folklore” was taught (somebody somewhere today use “folklore” as the term du jour for the non-science of Akin and co– I love the term and am too lazy now to google it to credit the originator, apologies in advance, should this person stumble across this response…).
ANYWAY…
As I was saying, those of us who made it out of the Dark Ages and actually paid attention in Biology know that all fetuses actually start out female. Then some turned into males. Turns out that the differences lie in the fact that one leg of an X is missing in males, i.e., “a piece fell off”).
(Yes, I know this is also non-science, but stay with me just for the fun of it.)
So, depending on what jerkoff thing some male has recently done, you can speculate on what was on the piece that “fell off”. Like, since my DH often does totally doofus things that any person in their right mind would not do, I explain it by saying, oh, well, it was common sense that was on the piece that fell off.
In Akin’s case the missing piece contained his logic genes, his common sense genes, and his empathy genes. For example.
(A corollary to my XX vs XY theory is this: the broken piece wandered southward and became a penis, which is why so many men “think” with it…)
Okay, now I have to get back to real science, ladies. ;> (Spot on again, Fokke!).
Oh, yeah, and it was the gene for brain development that fell off in Williamson’s case. Which explains everything. Douchebag.
Oh, I really needed this laugh. And I’m definitely going to share your ‘philosophy’ LOL! (I read this to my teenage son who just rolled his eyes at me. Teehee.)
I sometimes refer to the y chromosome as puny and defective. It’s not nice, but It does get a satisfying response from the knuckle daggers. I should be a better person.
Naaaah — why????? Being snide is sometimes just so gratifying.
I do that too. It’s like a tiny mangled chromosome that governs gender, impulsivity and a few other things from what I gather.
I’ve known families that kept going, hoping for a girl, too. There are sentimental ideas about men wanting sons and women wanting daughters that aren’t *necessarily* rooted in the idea that sons are better than daughters, although they do have a lot to do with stereotypical gender roles.
Okay, I had a girl. LOVE my girl. Always wanted a girl. Was beyond ecstatic to know in our ultrasound that she was (a) healthy and (b) a girl. I would have been happy with either, was thrilled to be pregnant, but I had always had a tiny secret dream of a daughter. And yet when the technician said “girl,” I glanced at my dh as if to ask is this okay? I got mad at myself inside my mind and looked back to the screen before he could even look at me because dh was so transfixed by the ultrasound and the sight of his moving breathing daughter that he didn’t care if they’d told us she was a kangaroo.
Regardless, my joy is forever tainted by that moment of patriarchy-induced uncertainty where I looked to dh for “approval” of our daughter. He adores her. I adore her. I have three friends with multiple sons who would give at least a kidney for a girl. But when my SIL was pregnant dh’s parents kept saying I HOPE THIS ONE’S A BOY FOR HER HUSBAND’S SAKE I HOPE THIS ONE’S A BOY! To which I always always replied, I just hope this baby is as healthy and terrific as its big sister.
Oh this shit incenses me.
There is a sometimes subtle, sometimes not, prejudice against the fact that Obama is educated and intelligent here. I am astounded by that. Do we want a president who is uneducated and stupid?
I know I don’t do my share in the fight against patriarchy. I just don’t have the capacity for all the anger it gives me. I applaud your strength and want to support you in any way I can.