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Masculinity Crisis

Jill

via Ecdysiasm I came across this op/ed in the Seattle Times that illustrates pretty damn well why feminism cannot be separated from other gender-justice issues, and why women’s rights will never be fully realized until we also get rid of narrow masculine roles and homophobia. The op/ed starts out discussing the new “men’s movements” in conservative churches, aimed at re-establishing masculine roles as a way to deal with what church leaders perceive as a masculinity crisis. The result?

Personally, I have no problem with the effort to make church work better for men or challenging men to step up and do something with their lives. I do have a problem with it when it means, as it sometimes does, putting down women or insisting women play only secondary roles in church or family. And I have a big problem with the guy emphasis when it relies on making gay men objects of derision and ridicule.

Such appears to be the case in remarks made by Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland. Hutcherson has gotten headlines for his efforts to pressure Microsoft on gay issues. He has a right to his views — views he supports with texts from Scripture. Reasonable people can disagree over whether gay marriage is a good idea.

But Hutcherson goes beyond reasonable, at least to judge by the report of Seattle psychologist Valerie Tarico. Tarico, a former staffer at Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center, was raised in a fundamentalist church. In recent months, she has made it her business to attend services at many of the large, conservative churches in the Seattle area, including Hutcherson’s, to see what’s going on.

On a Sunday when Tarico was present, Hutcherson was preaching on gender roles. During his sermon, Hutcherson stated, “God hates soft men” and “God hates effeminate men.” Hutcherson went on to say, “If I was in a drugstore and some guy opened the door for me, I’d rip his arm off and beat him with the wet end.”

Emphasis mine. Unsurprisingly, Hutcherson later defended himself by saying that it was a joke.

There is something very, very wrong with a masculinity premised on violence. There is something very, very wrong with a masculinity that sees femaleness as so insulting that men should react with full outrage if someone treats them like a “woman” by holding the door.

Hutcherson’s misogyny and his homophobia are not separate issues. He doesn’t just dislike homosexuality for the sake of it; he dislikes LGBT people because being queer challenges traditional gender roles. If penises and vaginas were just body parts without superiority attached to one or the other, and if sex was just an attribute like any other, two women pursuing a romantic relationship wouldn’t matter all that much. Two men getting married wouldn’t be any bigger a deal than a man marrying a woman. A person saying that their genitals don’t match their understanding of themselves, and taking steps to change that, wouldn’t be a threat to the social order.

These are not separate issues. And yet there are far, far more people in this country (and perhaps even reading this blog) who support women’s rights, but not gay rights or trans rights or the full destruction of traditional gender roles. Hopefully, comments like Hutcherson’s will at least help to convince more feminist-leaning moderates and progressives that all of us have a dog in this fight.

63 thoughts on Masculinity Crisis

  1. I play World of Warcraft, which as an online game populated mostly by the male 16-24 set is about as rife with homophobic language as you might expect. In the couple of weeks I had to listen to “that’s so gay” jokes and various denigrations of each other’s sexuality before I finally snapped and called my friends out on it, I learned a lot.

    As far as I can tell, calling a man “gay” is insulting primarily because it means he’s like a woman. The jokes I heard all focused on receptivity — it’s bad to be the one *getting* fucked, the one *giving* the blowjob. It makes you like a woman, and that makes you bad.

    They are the same issue. We will not be able to get rid of homophobia without fundamentally changing how people think about women. We will not be able to get rid of sexism without altering how people see those who cross gender lines. It is completely intertwined.

  2. This is why “men’s movements” often disturb me so much. They’re based on a view that being a man means only one thing (and in this case, that “real men” get to hurt you if you don’t measure up to that.)

    Plus the whole “and women get protected” and stay in the kitchen.

    It’s too bad that men trying to focus on what it means to be a man so often turns out that way instead of being something positive. (I’m sure it’s not always true… I’m just tired of seeing these examples.)

    Also, while I realize it’s a “joke” (only not in the sense of being funny in any way) I’m tired of hearing about who opens a damn door. Where I live people just open doors for people and virtually no one makes a big gendered deal out of it.

  3. Funny, I always thought not slamming a door in the face of whoever was behind you was just common courtesy, regardless of your gender or theirs. But next time I see Ken Hutcherson and he’s following me out the door, I’ll make sure he gets a plate-glass nosejob. Just ’cause that’s how he wants it.

  4. One of the interesting things in having a vantage point in two different cultures is how different is the idealization of gender roles. For instance, these dudes think that getting angry and beating someone for insulting their “masculinity” is proof positive of it.

    From my vantage point, that’s precisely the opposite of being masculine and an adult. The impressions of American masculinity leave me with the idea that losing one’s temper and expressing it through temper tantrums and violence is a good thing….whereas I often consider those behaviors more appropriate to a 5 year old kid….not an adolescent or a fully grown adult.

    and why women’s rights will never be fully realized until we also get rid of narrow masculine rolls and homophobia.

    Did you mean roles? Just a heads up. 🙂

  5. women’s rights will never be fully realized until we also get rid of narrow masculine rolls

    While I understand the argument for equal opportunity body fascism, I never expected to see you endorse it, Jill.

    (I know, bad pun and typo troll all at once… yet still I couldn’t resist.)

  7. Allie, The gay insults young men often make towards each other are usually not related to denigrating women, although that may be part of it for some. The trading of gay insult lines are a competition for dominance status. Competition for hierarchy status is a primary focus of mens lives, and like our genetic cousins the chimpanzee humans often use sexual posturing to display that status. The payoff for high status in humans and many other mammal species is the first choice of sexual partners. The many gay lines are a culturaly influenced subconscious metaphor for competitevely asserting ‘I have more sexual power and choice than you.’

    Joe

  10. (Oops, hit post too soon. Here’s the other half of that sentence!)

    I am not a religious person in any way, but I think that if I were, I would find a sermon about about casually ripping men’s arms off deeply sacrilegious and an insult to whatever deity I believed in.

  11. Wonder how he’d react if a woman held the door for him? He’d probably die at the implication that he’s more womanly than an actual woman. It’s sad that he’s so insecure.

  12. Wonder how he’d react if a woman held the door for him? He’d probably die at the implication that he’s more womanly than an actual woman. It’s sad that he’s so insecure.

    … am I so petty as that I would pay to see that?

    Or at least faint, if not die.

  13. Joe, if you think homophobia is not rooted very much in misogyny and a the denigration of women and their specific place in society, you are seriously mistaken. Homophobia exists just exactly because homosexuality upsets the cultural idea of masculinity, and those adolescent jabs come out of that, whether those who make them are aware of that or not.

  14. Allie, The gay insults young men often make towards each other are usually not related to denigrating women, although that may be part of it for some

    I don’t think that they’re intended to denigrate women by the people who say them, in general. I don’t think they think about it that much. I do think they’re indicative of the way we as a culture think about weakness, gender, and gender roles. It’s similar to the way that everyone who uses the word “retarded” to describe something that don’t like isn’t thinking about people with developmental disabilities and making a statement about disability, they’re just reflecting overall attitudes and repeating things they’ve heard. In both cases, though, it still comes from a root of prejudice and lack of understanding.

  15. thats the thing allie, when I was younger and then when I played warcraft when it first came out, many of the guys thought of using gay as an insult in much the same way they would use weak or soft. The thing is though they just didnt realize where it was really coming from and why they were using it until they got a little older or mature, whichever came first.

    i wouldnt confuse this though with the mens rights movement as a whole in much the same way i wouldnt take any one feminists thoughts or comments to represent the whole movement. a lot of people from both camps are simply advocating equal rights for all, such as with the shared parenting effort.

    There is something very, very wrong with a masculinity premised on violence

    Yes, yes there is something very wrong with that but I find it very interesting to look at it from a historical perspective. While it indeed may have always been wrong, cultures that adhered to masculinity premised on violence dominated and destroyed cultures that did not. I think now we have the ability to change that but we are far from the tipping point.

    As far as the gay issue and masculinity in general, perhaps it’s because of a lack of a religious upbringing but I never really understood a lot of the homophobic people i know, especially as it related to sexual choice and freedom. I’m not sure if its just the way I’m wired or it was a rational choice but being bi works out much better for me and I dont see why one would exclude half the population from sexual consideration.

  16. “If I was in a drugstore and some guy opened the door for me, I’d rip his arm off and beat him with the wet end.”

    Any decent guy would open a door for someone like Hutcherson — that dude is old.

    But he is amazingly weird. You can read about him at thestranger.com — Seattle’s free paper.

  17. Hutcherson is extreme even by the standards of the evangelical church; he goes way beyond where Promise Keepers go in terms of the fascination with violence.

    Here’s an old post of mine on a similar outfit to Hutcherson’s, the Godmen.

    Jill says, rightly: There is something very, very wrong with a masculinity premised on violence

    Yes, and it’s bad theology too. The only times Paul uses military imagery, he makes clear it’s just that:

    Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.

    I’m a theistic kinda guy, in love with Jesus, best friend and Savior. And the fact that Rev. Hutcherson and I share the same faith and read the same texts and come to such radically different conclusions and live such radically different lives is a source of bewilderment and sadness to me.

  18. Going through highschool at the turn of the century, calling everything gay was pretty common slang. Gay, like fascist, eventually got watered down to almost mean anything undesirable. In terms of its roots, I don’t know if it’s misogyny, male dominance issues, or just the ever present fear of the “other” that drives it.

    By the way, there is a really good blog that tangentially goes over this issue. Hot Chicks With Douchebags is certainly not a hard hitting site, but is eerie in how well it documents those who feel extremely insecure in their masculinity.

  19. Allie, even if women weren’t the initial target of the insult, usually the men and boys who use terms like faggot are public misogynists as well (calling people pussy). However I have noticed that the individuals that I have known who use the term faggot on other males are using it to call them weak and girly. To them women are both weak and girly, so I suppose I could make the connection that for them, calling someone a faggot is the insult equivalent of calling someone a woman, and women are bad, don’t you know. My logic might be off, or I might just have known a strange subset of males, but there it is.

  21. Competition for hierarchy status is a primary focus of mens lives, and like our genetic cousins the chimpanzee humans often use sexual posturing to display that status. The payoff for high status in humans and many other mammal species is the first choice of sexual partners.

    Joe,

    At one point in my life, I find comments like this extremely insulting, both to men and women. Now I just find them really, really sad. There is far more to life than “hierarchy status” and if it really is the main focus in most men’s life, then seriously, I feel terribly sorry for them because they are seriously missing out.

  22. Doesn’t look like anyone has posted yet about the recent controversy surrounding this jerk. He was recently invited to give a speach about tolerance at Mount Si highschool in washington and the glbt group on campus threw a fit as did several of the teachers. They tried to point out the hypocrisy of his statements and were promply ignored by the principal. When the pastor gave his MLK day speach he got booed by several teachers and students who were then reprimanded. It’s all here at The Stranger


    This pastor is really a class act.

  25. The whole “gay” as an insult is, of course, older than dirt. Back in day after highschool PE class in the showers it was most prevalent. The thing I thought was interesting was that the ones who used it the most also had a preoccupation with teenage boys’ butts and snapping towels at them.

  26. As I often like to throw in a bit of historical trivia, the above-referenced comments about dominance and social hierarchy reminded me of rumors and anecdotes from the Roman Republic: Julius Caesar, in one of his first assignments as a Roman official, served in the court of a king allied with the Republic. His opponents started rumors that Caesar and the king had an affair, which was not considered scandalous because it was a homosexual relationship, but rather because he was the “passive” or “female” partner rather than the “active” or “male” partner.

    Thus today we have “ultra-macho” men threatening to “skull-fuck” their opponents, intermixing violence and sexual imagery until they’re almost interchangeable…and therefore we have a pastor falling into that same imagery.

    Something has gotta change…

  27. Ugh – makes me so glad we’re not religious. Don’t even have to bother with whether or not to believe religion is inherently patriarchal. Just sidestep the whole deal.

    It just makes me sick. We have a baby boy – 5 months old right now. He is the sweetest, cutest, most loving little guy. Just bursting with humanity and love and friendliness. I love him to pieces. People like this fuck would probably say I spoil him and he’s going to end up insufficiently manly as a result. Well Ay-fucking-men to that. I will get between my son and this sick idea of manhood any way I can. This idea of manhood that perpetuates itself by beginning to brutalize both males and females, in different ways and to different ends, from birth: to make women complacent and submissive and make men into unfeeling, power-mongering brutes. How can anyone look at a vulnerable baby who happens to be male and make a conscious choice to hold them *less*, to respond to them *less*, so that they’ll be properly individualistic and aggressive? No wonder these kind of MRA freaks exist.

  28. Rev. “Let’s Bankrupt Microsoft” Hutch must be having apoplexy over a recent bequest by Microsoft pioneer Ric Weiland to leave $65 million for gay causes.

  29. FYI, the link is to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, not the Times. Separate newspapers, but they are nearly equivalent in suckiness .

  30. I agree that while the term “gay” is just used as a synonym for “stupid,” when someone calls someone else a “fag,” the insult is not really that he likes men, but rather he is a man who is more like a woman. And that certainly is misogynistic.

    This is definitely off-topic, but I just want to mention that while the word “misogynistic” is used often on here, I’m the only person I personally know who uses that word. I’m not even sure if I’m pronouncing it right because I’ve never heard it said.

  31. The Rev taps into the uselessness that many feel because their merit was tied to their job. Women can birth and prove their value. What do men do? For years it was the job. Since the elites shipped work overseas, what are they to do for contributions to the commonwealth?

    Not every male finds it profitable to be sensitive, caring, or gender-confused in the search for mates. Some had bet on being a strong, protective provider. Call it traditionalist, but it is what they knew and felt at home with. Now they have nothing and the Rev is there to help.

  33. “Women can birth and prove their value?” Jesus christ. Guess what Mold? I’m a woman, never ever want to give birth, and rather like being a strong, protective provider. It’s not actually mutually exclusive from having compassion.

    These men are well capable of being strong on their own. When their strength is linked to violence and holding other people down then they’re just pathetic.

  34. It’s always amusing (or frightening, depending on the context) to see male hysteria in action. And your initial point, that all forms of gender-justice are inseparable, is very true. These people have pathetic notions of masculinity. Apparently their thinking is more deeply informed by Hollywood action movies than by any remotely rational consideration of the real consequences of their ideas. Living in LaLa land for sure. Or else suffering from testosterone poisoning.

  35. I just discovered your site this afternoon and could not resist. Knowing that I am entering the river in midstream, so to speak, please forgive me if my small contribution here overlooks certain contextual issues or is otherwise disconnected.

    The issues raised in this posting, and many of the comments, scream out for commentary. First, groups and organizations whose existence is predicated on a perceived need for change all too often choose to examine the minority extreme fringe in order to make their case. In building your entry around this character “Hutcherson” you are magnifying the supposed problem beyond its actual and real dimensions. Had you chosen to build your entry around the vast majority of Christian churches, fundamentalist, traditional and “progressive” alike, you would have not enough fuel with which to build a fire and your entry would not exist. Furthermore, had you chosen to look a bit closer, in more depth, at the so-called “masculinity crisis” that is being addressed in a small segment of the fundamentalist protestant church, you would have found that the vast majority of the issues being raised and addressed have nothing to do with women. They are addressing men in juxtaposition with the larger and broader society, and not in relation to their role with women.

    However, if what you want to address is the role of women in the church as prescribed in church history and doctrine, as well as current practice and modern day interpretations of the scriptures, I believe you are going to have a struggle if your thesis is that the church is invested in holding women back or in keeping them in a subordinate position. There have never been as many women in roles of leadership, including the highest levels of leadership, as there are today. Again, if you focus your lens on the minority fringe groups, you will find all the support for your thesis that you could want. But, your data from that search will not fit for the vast majority of churches in practice currently.

    Second, I find it hard to believe that so many of your comments have taken up this issue of men/boys using slang words for homosexual to insult each other. Please, sit back and relax. Not everything in life should be personalized. It will make you an angry person for no reason and, you know, if you keep that angry look on your face too long your face will freeze that way!!

    Men/boys using sexually oriented slang to insult each other has nothing to do with their view of women. Calling someone a fag does not equate with calling him a woman. It purely and simply is one variation on the same theme: a mark of immaturity on the part of the name-caller, and an indication that he is saying “Be a man, stop being not a man.” Pure and simple. Not a put down of women, … just a rebuke to straighten up and fly right. If you have a problem with men being men, sans the genuinely anti-women attitudes carried by the vast minority of men, then you should have that discussion and label it as such. But, please don’t impose your interpretive framework (i.e., the interpretive framework of a woman) on the discussions and conversations of men with men among men and about men. In order to truly understand those discussions, you would have to have been a man and/or hung out with men continually for the greater part of your life. (Please, be fair, … men do not and will not understand conversations women have with women among women and about women any better.)

    And, in regards to teen age boys using the word “gay” to insult each other, … please relax and take a valium. You have no idea what it is to be a teen age boy dealing with that extraordinary level of testosterone (just as I have no idea what it is like to be a teen age girl dealing with that onrush of estrogen). However, transgenders do have some idea of these phenomena, and many M to F transgenders will tell you how emotional, easy to cry and relationship oriented they become as their estrogen levels increase and their testosterone levels decrease. In the same vein, many F to M transgenders will tell you how sexually oriented and downright aggressive they become when their testosterone levels increase and their estrogen levels decrease. In fact, I just heard on NPR an interview with a feminist F to M transexual who described her/his transformation from a caring, sensitive and militant feminist woman into a “cretan pig” (her words) when she began her testosterone treatments. She found herself thinking of sex at every corner in response to nearly every visual stimulus (including non-sexual stimuli). THIS is what it is like to be a teen-age boy. And so, combine that hypersexuality and sexual sensitivity with the biologically determined greater immaturity of the teen age boy (as compared with the teen age girl), and the use of sexual slang to insult each other is easily understood. Besides, this is a time of sex role identity formation, and at the beginning of the formation of most psychological self-image “ideals”, extremities are the rule.

    Finally, the days in which men saw sensitivity and caring as a sign of “unmanliness” are rapidly disappearing. The fact is that most men have learned that those who are more sensitive and caring reap a far more valuable harvest in life than those who are less sensitive and caring. This can be seen on all levels. Just take a cursory look into the majority of business books on leadership over the last 20 years, the wildly successful 360 Leadership courses, or the widespread acceptance of the psychology of emotional intelligence by business leaders worldwide, and you will find all the evidence you need to recognize that, more than ever, men have come around to recognizing the importance of emotional and interpersonal functioning.

    Now, if you want to ask if we are naturally comfortable with emotional expressiveness, you will find a different answer. But, the research increasingly tells us that this, as well as many of the personality traits of women, may be largely attributable to hormonal influences. Its pretty hard for us to blame a whole class of people (men/women) for the effects of biologically given and necessary chemical reactions.

    Are there men who are afraid of homosexuality? Of course. Are there women afraid of homosexuality? Of course. There are homophobes and lesbophobes (?) Okay. Will they be eliminated by enacting rules and laws against them? Or would it be better to direct a bunch of hate speech at them and role model for them the rigid, non-accepting, condemnatory attitudes for which we are indicting them? I think neither approach will be effective. I think education is the preferred course. Honest education, not the kind we see so often in academia these days that leads to the politically motivated ouster of university Presidents who simply speak on the results of years of academic research – some of which was conducted at his own university!

    Thank you for the opportunity to comment. I look forward to a lively debate.

  36. It’s amazing to me that there’s a good subset of gay men who don’t get this either–that think that they can just get their agenda through and go back to being privileged men.

  37. Everyone should check out this post at Shakesville. That especially includes you Rich. This isn’t an isolated case of one church, this is a systemic cultural obsession with violent masculinity.

  38. And, in regards to teen age boys using the word “gay” to insult each other, … please relax and take a valium. You have no idea what it is to be a teen age boy dealing with that extraordinary level of testosterone (just as I have no idea what it is like to be a teen age girl dealing with that onrush of estrogen). However, transgenders do have some idea of these phenomena, and many M to F transgenders will tell you how emotional, easy to cry and relationship oriented they become as their estrogen levels increase and their testosterone levels decrease. In the same vein, many F to M transgenders will tell you how sexually oriented and downright aggressive they become when their testosterone levels increase and their estrogen levels decrease. In fact, I just heard on NPR an interview with a feminist F to M transexual who described her/his transformation from a caring, sensitive and militant feminist woman into a “cretan pig” (her words) when she began her testosterone treatments. She found herself thinking of sex at every corner in response to nearly every visual stimulus (including non-sexual stimuli). THIS is what it is like to be a teen-age boy.

    As someone who’s dealt with the “onrush” of both hormones that you’re blaming people’s behaviors on, let me just say that

    a) hormones are such an easy scapegoat to whip out, but biological factors don’t straightforwardly cause behaviors or interpretations any more than every single drunk person likes to throw punches at random strangers;

    b) none of this has anything to do with why “fag” is an insult, and how homophobic + misogynist that is, and how damaging that is to the development of a healthy, non-oppositional concept of masculinity for boys.

  39. Mold, part of being a good concern troll is not making bonehead slips like saying that women need to “prove their value”. Have some respect for the craft, dude.

  40. To Diana: To interpret my phrase “small segment of the fundamentalist protestant church” as equivalent to “an isolated case of one church” is as misguided and incorrect as implying that the post in Shakesville to which you provided a link, in which the author proposes his interpretation of what he describes as the media’s love for John McCain, reflects a “systemic cultural obsession with violent masculinity”. In my case I did not state nor do I believe that the behavior described in the original posting was isolated to one church. Instead, I stated that it is limited to a segment of the fundamentalist protestant churches. While this includes a large number of churches in the absolute, it is a small minority of the mass of christian churches in this country. For example, did you know that both the Episcopal and Disciples of Christ churches openly ordain homosexual ministers of both sexes? Or, did you know that the Methodist, Disciples of Christ, Episcopal, United Church of Christ, Lutheran, and several others ordain women? Before you minimize their numbers, be aware that the Methodist and Lutheran churches are in the top five of membership worldwide.

    In your case you have taken the opinion of one writer about the opinions of news media persons to be the equivalent of a culture-wide obsession. Is that not just a bit hyperbolic? If your hypothesis is correct, how then would you explain the media’s even greater obsession with Barrack Obama, hardly the embodiment of the so-called “tough guy” image? However, that point aside, it is the stated opinion of a vast number of pundits that the news media’s love affair with John McCain had its roots in their recognition that he was the most liberal of the Republican candidates, and, now that he is the presumptive nominee, the press will gradually turn on him, infamously initiated already by the New York Times. This would be at odds with the link you provided.

    To Holly: To your point a) I would agree. In no way would I attempt to imply, nor did I state, that hormones are solely determinative of all social or interpersonal behaviors. They do, however, provide a fundamental inclination or bias, and as such, must be taken into account. That men are more aggressive and inclined to acting out is clear (try to raise your sons without toy guns like I did and you will find very quickly how many inanimate objects can become imaginary guns), and that women are more relationship inclined and more inclined to act inwards is equally clear. Research has fairly conclusively linked these predilections to hormones. However, such taking into account in no way provides excuses, merely partial explanations. Assault is assault, and rape is rape regardless of whatever other factors may be involved. And, the larger society must be protected from these persons. That the vast majority of physical assaults and rapes are perpetrated by men goes without saying, and is reflective of a serious problem in the raising of our sons. However, I would suggest this does not reflect a societal bias as much as it reflects the failure of fathers to step up to the plate and do their job properly. I happen to work with such youths, and the percentage of violent youths raised in a father absent home is astounding.

    To your point b) I cannot respond as straightforwardly as to a). That a word is an insult may be a characteristic of the intent with which it is delivered and/or a characteristic of how it is received. My comments regarding the use of this word by teens and immature men was addressing the delivery, and my intent was to say that it is not in the vast majority of cases the equivalent of calling someone a “woman”, and in any case, even if that was the intent, it is not meant or intended by most teens in the “misogynistic” sense that many commenters have implied. Instead, among boys, it simply means your not being manly enough, and does not imply that women are worthless or other such notions. To interpret this as anything more is to over-personalize.

    As to the remainder of your comments, I am unsure of what a “healthy, non-oppositional concept of masculinity for boys” might be. If you can explain or provide a link to an explanation I would certainly appreciate it.

  41. You know what would be a novel concept Rich? Treating people as people rather than boys and girls. Of course there are differences, of course hormones have influence. But not nearly to the degree we like to think.

    Testosterone makes you think about sex constantly? I really find it difficult to believe any teenage boy could have thought about sex more than I did as a teenager. It was on my mind pretty much constantly, and a major distraction. As an adult, I feel frustrated to the point of distraction if I haven’t had sex for two consecutive days. I can say with 100% sureity that I am a woman-born-woman with more oestrogen than testosterone.

    I also have a terrible temper. I get angry easily, and when I get angry I want to break things/hurt people. I don’t, because I’m not an arsehole. But testosterone is not required to have a violent temper.

    Homophobia (and homosexuality means attraction to your own sex so it is the same word for both gay men and lesbians) is not acceptable. At all. The fact that things are getting “better” (or at least have got better, I am dubious that there’s currently any forward movement) does not mean we should shut up and wait for the world to fix itself. Things don’t usually get done that way.

    How you can say that calling someone “gay” is saying they’re not manly enough… and that “not manly enough” is not by extension denegration of femininity I really do not know. Asserting that all homosexual men are effiminate is stupid in and of itself, and implying that “girliness” = weakness, submissiveness, vunerability feeds into our current rape culture.

    If you think that portraying women as invariably weaker than men, passive and disinterested in sex (thus it must be tricked out of us) does NOT promote rape as borderline acceptable then you’re pretty determinedly blinkered.

  42. Personally, I have no problem with the effort to make church work better for men or challenging men to step up and do something with their lives. I do have a problem with it when it means, as it sometimes does, putting down women or insisting women play only secondary roles in church or family.

    The problem is in a family dynamic is that someone needs to take a secondary role; there cannot be two people occupying the primary role. So the question is what is the purpose of a men’s movement. Is it to learn how to accept a secondary role in the family or is it to reassert the traditional role as primary breadwinner and pillar of family support. If it is the latter does that not create an inherent conflict with the feminist movement? In recent years there has been a lot written on the anxiety borne by women who have taken over the primary breadwinner role and the discomfort women have bearing that burden, particularly when children are involved. I would be interested to know the results of any studies that have done concerning the marital success of couples with children where the wife is the primary breadwinner.

  43. That men are more aggressive and inclined to acting out is clear (try to raise your sons without toy guns like I did and you will find very quickly how many inanimate objects can become imaginary guns), and that women are more relationship inclined and more inclined to act inwards is equally clear.

    Correlation does not imply causation. For instance, there’s a link between testosterone levels and aggression, but nobody who’s not a poor scientist would claim that we understand that testosterone causes aggressive behavior. That would be such a gross oversimplification as to be false. What usually gets overlooked here is that there are obvious social factors that influence behavior as much or moreso than hormones, and can be understood much more readily, even if there are no “chemical pathways” for things like expectations of stereotypical male or female behavior. You can’t claim that men are “fundamentally” inclined to do this or women are inclined to do that without removing the effect of social conditioning not only on the people you’re observing, but on the interpretation of the observer as well; every scientist who studies this stuff comes to the table with their own host of prejudices and assumptions about gender, which becomes blitheringly clear if you look at what some published researchers and “science journalists” seem to think are common-sense assumptions.

    However, I would suggest this does not reflect a societal bias as much as it reflects the failure of fathers to step up to the plate and do their job properly.

    That’s also a social problem, obviously. It also might be a problem if it’s entirely the responsibility of fathers to do this for sons — i.e. if the only solution we have is some sort of patrilineal training. Obviously that’s not absolutely necessary in all cases though, since there are plenty of men who turned out just fine who don’t have fathers, or even significant male role models.

    Instead, among boys, it simply means your not being manly enough, and does not imply that women are worthless or other such notions. To interpret this as anything more is to over-personalize.

    The question is, what is “not manly enough?” Our gender system is a binary. To not be manly is to be womanly; there is no third category that gendered behaviors and traits are measured against. Androgyny is just a balance, and un-gendered things have nothing to measure against at all. An “oppositional masculinity” is one that is defined against something else. That is to say, in order to be manly, masculine, an adult male, you must prove that you are NOT something else. Part of what you’re not is a child, right? That’s the adult component of the equation. But just as importantly in the traditional concept of masculinity is that you’re not taking the other, “wrong” path to adulthood either, to negate any qualities or behaviors stereotyped as “female” in order to prove that you’re male.

    A non-oppositional concept of masculinity would actually be positive instead of negative — emphasizing positive qualities that you think boys should have, instead of as you suggest “fag” means, “stop being not a man.” And sure, there’s plenty of this in the traditional idea of manliness too: bravery, honor, duty, integrity, guardianship, yadda yadda yadda. Nobody really has a problem with any of these positive qualities; the only feminist objection is that girls should be able to be brave, honorable, dutiful guardians with integrity too. And these days, only the most reactionary would argue that they can’t.

    However, there’s still a trend in our society to want to be oppositional, to try and exclude qualities for one gender or the other — and not based on science, but just on cultural stereotype. If biological inclinations were all that powerful, face it — nobody would be fretting about children developing the right kind of gendered characteristics and being masculine enough or feminine enough, because it would be automatic. To some people, if the path to having those qualities (bravery, duty, honor, etc) is open to girls, if those are part of the possible landscape for being a great female leader, then they somehow don’t mean as much for boys and men. It’s a “if everyone can have it then it’s not valuable” mindset of exclusivity. As a result, positive qualities are not as prominent in some versions of masculinity as negative ones — not being a woman, not being a “fag” which basically means someone who fails to be a man, right? And what exists in the “not man” category besides queers, trans people, women, and children?

    You’ll pardon me if I’m skeptical that “fag” could refer to being childlike somehow. It refers to not being manly enough, which as Joe and tannenburg point out above, has to do with sexual dominance. Going back as far as the Romans (see tannenburg’s Caesar anecdote) and further. In a lot of cultures, insults like “fag” refer to the receptive partner in homosexual male sex, and less often or never to the penetrating partner. So kids calling each other “fag” (which they learn from adults doing it to adults, or worse still, adults doing it to kids) means “to be a man, you must fuck things, and not get fucked — it is weak and bad and an insult to get fucked.” And I’m sorry, that is about as misogynist as you can get. Not to mention, it’s utterly disgusting , sick and rotten to the core to have so little respect for receptive sexuality, especially if the kind of sex you have involves a receptive partner.

  45. LOL Moose, I am really easily offended and even I laughed when I read your comment. Are you serious?

    The problem is in a family dynamic is that someone needs to take a secondary role; there cannot be two people occupying the primary role. So the question is what is the purpose of a men’s movement. Is it to learn how to accept a secondary role in the family or is it to reassert the traditional role as primary breadwinner and pillar of family support.

    Hold on, why is breadwinner “primary”? I personally support a family system where one parent (if there are two) can hopefully afford to be the primary caregiver with the support of their partner – of either sex.

    If my partner and I were to have kids he would be the primary caregiver. He enjoys children’s company, has more patience than I, would quite simply enjoy parenting more. But that’s just the way it worked out – lots of couples end up in more traditional gender roles due to preference.

    In recent years there has been a lot written on the anxiety borne by women who have taken over the primary breadwinner role and the discomfort women have bearing that burden, particularly when children are involved. I would be interested to know the results of any studies that have done concerning the marital success of couples with children where the wife is the primary breadwinner.

    I would imagine honestly that there would be more issues from men facing social pressure from their peers. If I could earn enough money to support us I’d love to be the primary breadwinner in our household. I don’t necessarily enjoy working in and of itself but I enjoy financial independence very much. And our 3 dogs and 6 cats are provided for entirely by me… The dependents don’t worry me too much 😀

  46. Dana: Treating all persons as persons without unfair discrimination would be a wonderful condition for the world. And, perhaps we will make it there someday. However, this would not eliminate the differences that are real and important to understand.

    I hear what you are saying about individual differences and I am thankful for them. However, your temper and sexual desire notwithstanding, there is a vast cross-species literature that provides overwhelming support for the notion the higher levels of testosterone are associated with higher levels of aggression. And yes, Holly is partially correct, correlation does not prove causation, though it might imply it as the body of evidence increases in size (I turn to the evidence used to “prove” that smoking “causes” cancer. All research on this connection has been correlative … indeed, to conduct the study that would “prove” smoking causes cancer would not pass the ethics committee.) The fact that we have higher cognitive functions giving us the ability to override the effects of our biochemistry does not change the fact that each of us is endowed with various predispositions, inclinations to behavior that, were it not for the application of our ability to override, we would automatically engage.

    That homophobia is not acceptable to you and many of us in our culture goes without saying. But, if you think that a teen age boy’s use of slang in his desperate struggle to define himself is going to change any time soon as a result of laws, injunctions or demands, you will be frustrated for a very long time. The solution to these kinds of struggles is education, and the effect of education does not take hold in one generation.

    Your last two paragraphs make leaps in logic that I cannot endorse or support. However, the fundamental problem with these paragraphs is that you are attributing to me thoughts and attitudes that I was merely suggesting are the ways in which teen age boys consider the matter. Even more, in your last paragraph, you are responding to something I did not write, do not believe and do not endorse.You could not possibly know what I personally believe or feel about the matter because I have not made any such statements. Indeed, you might be a bit surprised.

  47. Holly: Thank you for the thoughtful response and explanation.

    Indeed, correlation can be used to imply causation, though it does not prove the existence of a causative link between two events. I refer you to the scientific community’s widely accepted causal link between smoking and cancer in the absence of controlled studies designed to specifically demonstrate that link.

    And so, while studies that report only coefficients of correlation (or more advanced statistics derived from the basic correlation coefficient) for their statistical analysis cannot be cited as conclusive evidence of a causal link, the accumulation of sufficient supporting evidence often is used to imply causation and give direction for future research. The vast literature across species on testosterone strongly implies some manner of causation. Furthermore, there is a vast literature using primates and so-called “lower” animals in which levels of testosterone are systematically varied that consistently demonstrates an increase in aggressive behavior following an increase in testosterone levels. So, that causation is involved has been fairly clearly supported in the literature.

    Nothing in those results, however, negates one of your central tenets: that the relationship is a complex one, especially in human beings, and that the effects of testosterone (or any hormone and biochemical action in your body) is subject to some degree of volitional control. Neither does this suggest that testosterone is the sole and only cause or precursor to aggression. That researchers have biases and that they allow them to influence their work is an unfortunate fact. But, I stand by statement that males and females, by virtue of their differing biochemistries, have some (not all) distinct and different predispositions, and that, these predispositions are factors that must be considered.

    I would agree that father absence is a problem for society and, as such, is a social problem. But, labeling something a social problem implies that the solution is to be found in some sort of social engineering effort. With that idea, I would only partially agree. Yes, some changes in our current “social engineering” are needed, but I would suggest that this problem is at a level of complexity that requires “engineering” on several levels. And, I would agree that the evidence makes it clear that it isn’t necessary in all cases, just as having a mother at home isn’t always necessary for the healthy development of girls. But, this goes to your non-oppositional concept of masculinity.

    First, I hope you are not suggesting that we eliminate entirely the use of “not me” categories in the process of developing a sense of “me”. For, if you are, you are suggesting that we try to eliminate consciously one of the most fundamental sensory and perceptual operations with which we are born: the identification of difference. Indeed, specialists in the area will tell you that what we see is not necessarily the object itself but the difference between the object and the background. In fact, early experimental psychologist in Germany identified a “difference that makes a difference” as a Just Noticeable Difference (JND), and this became the foundation of their work.

    However, if what you are saying is simply that children should be raised and encouraged to base their identity on traits they do possess (positive identity) as well as on their differences from others (negative identity), then I would agree. And the idea that girls can possess the same traits that boys might possess, with the reverse being the same, is obvious to all but the least observant (or the most dishonest).

    I am going to have to let go of this issue of teens using gay slang to criticize each other. I am not articulating very well on the issue and it seems from the comments I am reading that this whole arena is filled with symbolic meaning and value that I do not connect with, have not found in most of the writings and literature that I have read, and frankly, I do not find relevant when you are talking about teen age boys calling each other names. The conclusions you reach in your final paragraph may make sense to you and to a host of others who share your perspective or world view, but I find them to be a real stretch. I mean no offense now nor have I intended any at any time, but they remind me of when I discovered the post modernists like Foucault, Lacan and Derrida and, after having read several volumes, came to the realization that for them we are ultimately unable to distinguish truth from non-truth and therefore, all truths are equal and all truths lie in the perception of the beholder. A convenient way to view life, but ultimately disastrous.

  48. “The problem is in a family dynamic is that someone needs to take a secondary role; there cannot be two people occupying the primary role.”

    Or you could have a partnership, where neither is primary nor secondary. No one gets to overrule the other.

    In my marriage, we both work outside the home and we both care for our children with daycare 2-3 days a week.

    Getting back to the Rich’s original point that these churches are marginal. I don’t think we need to take a Valium; I think you and other progressive Christians need to open you mouths more & marginalize them further. You think my (atheist) opinion matters to a follower of Hutchinson? If you want to improve things, you need to go talk to those people.

  49. Ah Raoul, … if marginalizing these folks could just be as easy as simply opening our mouths and speaking reason to them. Men like Hutcherson usually (but not always) are not persuaded by reason-based discussions that suggest that there might be something worth paying attention to other than a concretely literal interpretation of scripture. What is even worse is to suggest to them that the scriptures must be interpreted like everything else: in context. (They tend to play on the emotions, and if reason had easy sway over emotion, the world would be in a much better place than it is.) Suggestions like that too often are considered by preachers like this as the influence of Satan, and you are tossed aside as a backslider or not a true, “born again” Christian, making your input unworthy. I think the more productive approach to this is to recognize that these “leaders” would not exist without the audience, and the world seems all too happy to provide sufficient numbers of followers to keep them in business. To persuade the followers that another way might be better, … that is the key.

  50. Raoul that sounds good and even works sometimes, but what if both spouses work in highly competitive careers, who suffers the children or one of the spouse’s careers? And if a spouse, for the good of the children, sacrifices his/her career doesn’t that place them in a secondary role? In terms of financial return to the family it clearly does. I am glad you have a career that accommodates your spouse and children, unfortunately for most of us that is not true. It is in these instances that the conflict arises because men do not want to take a secondary financial role in the family and I would go so far as to say that women do not want, for the most part, to bear the burden of primary breadwinner.

  51. I muddied my point by bringing myself into it.

    I suggest people stop thinking about their relationships in terms of primary & secondary or other hierarchical terms. Just because one person spends more time at work and/or earns more money does not have to mean that they should have more say in decisions that should be reached by consensus. Also, if you no longer consider taking care of the home and children as ‘secondary’ to earning wages but then it becomes easier embrace that role. My male friends who are the primary caregivers tell me that one of the worse parts about having that role is the lack of respect they get from family, friends, and strangers. I think men rejecting this role says more about societal pressures to conform to expected roles than innate characteristics based on your sex. Same for women being the bigger earner.

    There are ways to minimize the imbalance if there is a big difference in earnings. Like having the larger earner contribute to a retirement fund in the other partner’s name or having the lesser earner manage the household budget. The money belongs to the family, not the individual who’s name is on the paycheck.

    Most of the married people I know are 2 career families. The ones where both work fairly long hours (with the salary to go with it) make it work by hiring a nanny in their home.

  52. So you get a stranger to raise the kid? If you think money doesn’t mean power, you are naive. You are right men who are primary care givers don’t get the respect they deserve and that may be a societal dysfunction, but it nonetheless affects the man’s self-esteem and a woman’s maternal instincts can cause resentment where the wife is the primary earner yearning to be home with her children. Most the married people I know both husband and wife are working, but the man generally outearns the wife by a significant margin allowing the wife to spend more time with the children. The wife in these instances either works part time or in an occupation that allows her to work a significant number of hours from home. I would be interested if any studies have been done regarding the marital success of households where the wife/mother is the primary breadwinner and the husband/father is the primary caregiver.

  53. “I would be interested if any studies have been done regarding the marital success of households where the wife/mother is the primary breadwinner and the husband/father is the primary caregiver.”

    Oh really? And what would you say if marriages where the woman is the primary breadwinner are less successful? Please tell me what you would do with such information.

  54. “So you get a stranger to raise the kid? If you think money doesn’t mean power, you are naive.”

    I said neither of these things. I suggested a couple of ways to offset the power of the money-earner.

    As far as your ‘stranger raising my kid’ remark goes. You are being an ass. You imply that those who hire some help for childcare do the equivalent of standing on a street corner saying “Who want to take care of my kid? I’ll give you a hundred dollars to take care of my kid! Anyone, anyone? You sir, you’ll take care of my kid. Great. Come by tomorrow.”

  55. Nannys are not parents. They cannot replace parents. Parents who spend long hours at work are absent parents. Nannys don’t generally stay around for the long run. Recall the Au Pair who shook the doctors’ kid to death and was tried for involuntary manslaughter. I am not suggesting that you pick up someone on the street to care for your kids, but the optimum child care arrrangement is to have at least one parent caring for the children a majority of the time. Whichever parent that is lacks the economic muscle of the primary breadwinner. I submit to you that when the wife/mother is the primary breadwinner neither the husband nor the wife is particularly pleased with that arrangement, for whatever reason.

    And Rika what would I say if several reliable scientific studies showed that the marriages of primary breadwinning wives failed at a greater rate than marriages of wives who are secondary earners or primary caregivers, well I would say the studies spoke for themselves. As far as what I would do with that information, well, since I am not a policymaker, I suppose the best I could do is support those policymakers who seek to protect families and will get rid of affirmative action policies that favor women over men in the workplace and college and graduate school admissions.

  56. Nannys are not parents. Parents who long hours are absent parents. The optimum situation is to have one parent caring for the kids most of the time. Whichever parent that is, lacks the financial muscle of the primary breadwinning parent. I am not suggesting you pick up a childcare provider off the street. But nannys as a general rule are not there for the long run. Recall the Au Pair who shook the doctors’ kid to death and was tried for involuntary manslaughter. Those doctors had thought they had done a good job of vetting their child care provider.

    And Rika what would I say if several reliable scientific studies indicated that the marriages of primary breadwinning wives failed at a greater rate than those of secondary earning/primary caregiving wives, well I would say that the studies spoke for themselves. And what would I do with that information, well since I am not a policymaker I guess I would support policymakers who sought to preserve the family and to repeal policies that supported preferential treatment of women in the workplace and in admissions to colleges and graduate schools.

  57. Enlightened –

    I would look more into the factors of what “caused” that marriage to fail before pushing people back into gender roles.

    Was the family struggling financially (perhaps as a result of a woman earning less)?
    Did the man feel upset/angry/demasculinized by not being the primary breadwinner?
    Was the woman doing both housework and working at an outside job?
    Was it her role to take care of the children whenever she was not at work?

    The questions can go on and on. Right now, many families cannot afford to be supported by one person. Hell, it’s just my boyfriend and me and the two cats and we both have to work full time jobs.

    Studies that ultimately come up with one result that pushes people into little boxes will only ruin our society and create fodder for those who want to enforce sexist viewpoints. If we really want to look at marriage where the woman is the primary breadwinner, we have to examine our entire society — is the woman earning the same as a man in equal status would? Is she treated like the breadwinner and or the mom, maid, and breadwinner? Is society setting these women up for failure and then blaming them for not perfectly carrying out more tasks than she can handle?

    And what do you mean about preferential treatment of women in the workplace and in college? Studies showwomen are just as, if not more, successful than men in school. More women graduate from college than men EVERY YEAR. I can’t speak on success in the workplace, but I know many career-driven women who have done more than their peers from college or high school.

    Are you saying women shouldn’t be admitted to college or given scholarships as often as men? Or they shouldn’t be given maternity leave from the workplace? Or perhaps they should not have day care centers in the workplace, is that what you’re suggesting?

    Fortunately, more employers and schools are looking to add these women-positive elements so that women can be

    as successful as they choose to be

    , not as successful as someone else says they should be.

  58. Enlightened, you will be happy to learn that women do not receive preferential treatment re: college admissions.

    In fact, since girls’ colleges applications are increasingly of higher quality than boys, BOYS are now receiving preferential treatment from colleges and universities. Yep, that’s right. The admission standards for male applicants are lower that female applicants at American colleges and universities.

  59. Enlightened, your answer was exactly what I thought you’d think, but I didn’t think you’d be so blunt.

    Clearly, your name is a misnomer. I personally would prefer if you would now go away.

    BTW I think your manner of speaking is pretentious.

  60. In fact, since girls’ colleges applications are increasingly of higher quality than boys, BOYS are now receiving preferential treatment from colleges and universities. Yep, that’s right. The admission standards for male applicants are lower that female applicants at American colleges and universities.

    A Prof well-renowned in her field once told our grad class that was what she observed when she volunteered to assist the admissions department. From what they’ve told her, without the “Male Affirmative Action” admission policies, the campus would probably edge closer to 70/30 or more in favor of female students. The fear is that if this happens that the desirability of potential topflight applicants to apply to their school would drop, especially among high-achieving female students due to the gender imbalance.

    Out of curiosity, has this been going on for a while (10+ years) or is it a Post-2000 phenomenon?

  61. In fact, since girls’ colleges applications are increasingly of higher quality than boys, BOYS are now receiving preferential treatment from colleges and universities. Yep, that’s right. The admission standards for male applicants are lower that female applicants at American colleges and universities.

    While I might agree that girls’ college applications may be of “higher quality than boys” I don’t believe boys are receiving “preferential treatment”. I would like to know the source of this assertion. I know someone who works in the admissions department of a major university and has worked there for a long time. They tell me that guidelines for admissions decisions included at one time consideration of gender, but recently the guidelines have been changed to remove gender as a factor. So as an official policy I rather doubt boys are being given preferential treatment. In addition for the past 40 years we have focused our attention on the inequities historically suffered by women. In light of this assertion that girls are better qualified for college admission may be we need to enact affirmative action for boys. Sounds like a good idea to me. The topic here is Masculinity crisis, right? So I am simply suggesting sources for that crisis. Or do you not think there is a masculinity crisis. Rika I am sure you would like to see me go away, philosophies that cannot stand the test of challenge are inherently weak.

    Raoul regreted referencing his personal experience and I may too, but here goes. I made substantial sacrifices in my career to accommodate my wife’s career advancement. It involved moving from an area where my career was starting to develop and take root. In our new locale my career has suffered, while hers has advanced, but not nearly at the rate she had hoped. I am the primary caregiver to my 3 kids and I work, but don’t earn enough to sustain the family in the life style my wife has become accustomed to and my wife resents the fact that I don’t earn more and she can’t spend as much time as she would like with the children. It has caused great difficulty in our marriage and she has recently filed for divorce. So that is my experience. In the last couple of years there has been a lot of popular literature on the subject and I could link to it if my computer weren’t so crappy. But about a year ago MSN.com ran article on this issue entitled “The Secret Lives of Breadwinner Wives”. New Yorker magazine ran a similar article entitled “The New Alpha Women” it talked about the difficulties created when women out earn their spouses. I submit this has been a major source of “the masculinity crisis.”

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