They’re nasty creatures, evil males.

They build most of what is built, invent most of the inventions, grow most of the food, supply most of the music, make most of the films, write most of the text books, develop most of the software, make most of the discoveries, develop most of the sports, do most of the work, and pay most of the personal income tax.

Nasty creatures those evil males.

There's not a single anti-male statement in this article, simply a call to find better ways of doing masculinity. You can see this fact unpacked further at http://masculinityconspiracy.com

Males are sad creatures. Most of them are programmed (genetically and environmentally) to impregnate women and kill other males and take their possessions. Our history over the last 10,000 attests to these unfortunate facts.

Genetic engineering and pacifying drugs could alter this sad reality assuming a nuclear war doesn't come first. If it does, we won't have to worry any further.

I'm not sure that talking about conspiracy theories will change anything!

David G,
I haven’t killed anyone to my knowledge. It is true that I have impregnated, and I also changed most of the nappies during the night (because she wouldn’t do the night shift).

Males occupy a fairly broad bell shaped curve, but the number of academics that focus on what bad men do, and then attempt to define this as being representative of all men, makes it more than conspiracy.

It is now prejudice and bigotry.

Really? I think men are pretty good on the whole: it's the type of masculinity they are encouraged to enact by the "conspiracy" that I find problematic.

There is no conspiracy--just a vast historical power and control seeking PATTERN, patterning. A pattern which is rooted in the assumptions at the base of Western DOMINATOR "culture" altogether.

A pattern which is now completely indifferent to the well-being of either humankind, and Earth-kind altogether.

Where then does one find the red pill when every minute fraction of our culture is permeated with, and thus communicates and reinforces the blue pill "waking" consensus "reality" (the invisible PATTERN patterning)

Look at how hostile main stream Western culture is towards hallucinogec drugs--especially in the USA.

Why is ecstasy so popular with young people, despite the known risks.
Why is the use of marijuana so wide-spread?

Turn off your mind, relax and float down stream--IT is only shining.

Turn on, tune in, and drop out (of the consensus nightmare)

I am not advocating the use of drugs by the way.

This image, from one of my very favourite books, describes what patriarchal culture is all about about.

http://amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product-gallery/0553348639/rcf=cm_ciu_pdp_images_all

This millennia long deadly drama was also featured in the recent Avatar film. Having already "created" a dying planet, the psychotic patriarchal techno-invaders tried to monster the Navi. They even tried to use anthropologists as a kind of soft power strategy--winning hearts and minds as it were. Just like the Pentagon uses anthropologists in its various colonization projects.

At a basic level the film was very much about the "culture" of death versus the culture of death. It was therefore very interesting to see the entirely predictable group-think response to this film by those on the right of the culture wars--they all essentially came out in support of the "culture" of death.

Patriarchal "culture" in its current form is essentially psychotic and saturated with death. And has inevitably reached its terminal phase.

Sorry Ho Hum this maculinity thing isn't a western construct. Just look at those wonderful Rouseau noble saveges in the New Guinea Highlands and see how they treat each other....

Dkit

I can't see that calling it a conspiracy makes some of the false assumptions about male power and privilege (or oppression of women)any more valid. Perhaps a greater recognition that the imbalances which have existed (for both men and women) are generally constructs which have been created and championed by both men and women. A recogition that both genders have suffered loss as well as had advantage in different areas.

While the terms masculinity and patriarchy continue to be the focus of the debate many will be rightly bothered at seeing men blamed so many of societies ill's.

Perhaps we could refer to an 'Alpha' conspiracy where power and privilege are held up as goals worthy of devotion.

R0bert

http://www.redbubble.com/people/bronek/art/393697-6-dinner-time

'how this marginalises women (and atypical men).'

What a joke. The 'atypical men' are actually the small percentage of alpha males. The typical men are marginalised just as much as the typical women. The 'atypical women' isn't used by people as a definition of femininity, so why is the 'atypical men' always used to define masculinity.

'This isn't a cynical attempt to lure innocent men's rights advocates into a feminist trap,'
Haha. It looks like a duck. Sounds like a duck.

BTW: That trap being the all pervasive attempts by feminists to label all men by their narrow definition of masculinity which is based on a few powerful men, and use it to beat the rest of the men over the head with it.

'it is the choice of the individual whether or not to be misinformed. Either be spoon-fed the lies, or not.'
This individual does not accept the feminist propaganda about masculinity.

I'm happy in the masculinity I see all around me, in myself and my peers and the men I see all around me. It bares no relation to what feminist propagandists paint as 'masculinity', that's in 'crisis'.

I think really most of the bad rap men have been given is more to do with power than gender or sex.

It just happens that power corrupts and power is addictive. Replace the genders or sex of the men in power with women and I say the same result. It's the same problem of mixing race and socio-economic classes and thinking there is a problem with black-ulinity or something.

Men and women are more the same than people want to believe. It's easy to poor sh1t on men for making mistakes in positions of power and blame their male-ness for the mistake. Just because women haven't traditionally been in a position to make such mistakes doesn't mean they're all made of sugar and spice that's for sure.

Well, that and the fact that we're all evil scum of the earth that should be castrated at birth.

Houellebecq,
One can only agree. Males are the scum of the earth.

Men developed language (as well as writing and books and even computer screens).

But none of the languages men have developed have been good enough to describe how wretched and evil and scummy men actually are.

So men didn’t do a good enough job as per usual.

Gosh! Stop the presses! A young person has discovered that life is not quite the way they were told it was going to be! Some wicked people have been acting in a self-interested way!

Kleenex all round -- then get over it.

In conspiracy logic it is those who are most invested in the conspiracy who most vehemently deny the existence of the conspiracy ;)
http://masculinityconspiracy.com

One feminist got into trouble for stating, something like; 'that if women were in charge we'd still be living in grass huts.'

http://glennsacks.com/blog/?p=4724

"While I was so busy hating men, I failed to notice that their lives were actually much more restricted than mine.

And,

We feminists used to believe Liberation meant "having it all." Presumably, like men. But somehow we forgot to notice that men didn't "have it all." Men have never "had it all." Men, throughout history, have had only what their culture permitted them to have".

This article is written with the specific and stated assumption that “there are certain people who are being oppressed (men and women alike, for various reasons)”. It is not framed as a men vs women debate; it is not solely about the oppression of women. It is specifically stated this is “about finding a different ground”, not necessarily sticking to what might be perceived as orthodox “feminist” ground.

Yet the comments here pull it back to a men vs women debate, and frame it by feminism (albeit as backlash).

The Masculinity Conspiracy is functioning here with tragicomic efficiency. The conversation about the conspiracy is derailed before it can begin: plug us back in to the matrix immediately!

It’s an extraordinary collective blind spot of those who are otherwise very insightful people.

I must say you are in top form today, Houellebecq!

"There's not a single anti-male statement in this article"

LMFAO, the term 'conspiracy' is a derogatory term, suggesting that men are doing some sort of 'cover up'. Secret men's business perhaps? Gee, I must have misplaced my directions to the meeting for the last 40 years.

Isn't it interesting to see the Marxist roots of feminism emerge. Conspiracy is directly related to Gramsci's concept of "false consciousness", the notion that we just need to wake up and see the world as it 'really' is. Um, have you ever considered that *your* world view might be the false one, Gelfer? How did Marx's view work out at the end of the day?

FYI, the concept of 'patriarchy' (or any other euphemism) doesn't scare men. The injustices committed in the name of defeating patriarchy are what scare us.

There's only one answer: castrate all males at birth. Then we can all ponce around harmlessly and sing soprano.

I bet women still complain!

Dear Doctor Joseph Gelder,

If every person on the planet had to produce what is necessary for his/her survival on it and all you can produce is a controversial article for an electronic publication, it is clear that you wouldn’t last on it too long. Unless somebody else supplied you with the wherewithal.

Unfortunately, I am one of the ‘somebody else’ who cannot stop your demonic force from robbing me.

I find it simply paradox that a great many of the most masculine are batting for the other team.

Joseph,

I enjoyed your article and your site - most interesting!

http://masculinityconspiracy.com/

I'm looking forward to reading and thinking about more of your
ideas.

pynch

Joseph, I did not enjoy your article.
I love the masculinity in the males I know, and I don't want to change anything about that masculinity.

There is no 'conspiracy' Joseph, except in your mind and in the minds of many males ever wronged by a female.

Your article should be a hit on this forum in that case :)

Yes, you stupid males.

For the millionith time, feminists don't hate males.

Got it.

Stupid, stupid males.

A nice bit of innovative thinking, Joseph.
Of course there are a great many conspiracies in play in society: the 'Australian Values Conspiracy', 'the work ethic conspiracy', the 'democratic conspiracy', 'the morality conspiracy', the 'patriotism conspiracy', the 'consumption conspiracy' etc. Indeed, couldn't we just put all these under the banner 'ideology conspiracy'?
Paternalism/patriarchy are of course powerful influences that structure social discourse; indeed its very transgender pervasiveness is what prevents a paradigm shift. It's not so much what nuance of masculinity males identify with--I think we are conscious of out individual deviance from the stereotype--as a culture steeped in centuries of masculine bias that forms nothing less than a pseudo-ontology. Power-structures are defined by masculinised behavioural models. This could very well explain the dearth of women in politics; like sport, politics is dominated by an ambiance of aggression and bravado, and a rhetoric of battle cries and stirring speeches--the female politicians we tend to admire are generally quasi-masculine. These martial instincts are arguably alien to feminine temperaments (at least to femininity as it is structured in patriarchy), which thus subscribe to their own co-option, disqualify themselves based on a want of masculine prerequisites.
This is an issue I've tried to highlight on other threads. Hegemony is arguably based more on patriarchy than anything else, since half the population (un)wittingly subscribes to its own marginalised transfixion!
Women have the numbers to easily change the democratic world, ergo 'they' maintain it as it is! A world of male-dominated conflict, competitiveness and violence. Women are the peacemakers. So why don't they make peace! I would suggest that A, because they are innately conservative and B, because they believe in their own subjection.
Ladies; the world needs you!!

According to Squeers, "Women are the peacemakers"

But, nearly 250 scholarly studies show women are at least as likely as men to engage in partner aggression and that partner violence is often
mutual.

I suggest you read http://www.mediaradar.org/docs/RADARreport-50-DV-Myths.pdf and get back to us.

Stev,
try to keep up. The argument is that women too are caught up in patriarchy, including all its tropes and behaviourisms. My suggestion is that by nature, that is undistorted by patriarchy, women are not aggressors.
It would be nice if people could think outside their gender defensiveness and insecurities!

Squeers, I suggest that you are the one that is failing to keep pace.

Your statement "My suggestion is that by nature, that is undistorted by patriarchy, women are not aggressors" is completely unfalsifiable (i.e. there is not one observation that can refute your hypothesis). Any observation that a woman is aggressive will be simply explained away as being under the spell of the patriarchy". Your statement is thus a tautology: aggression = patriarchy.

Of course, back in the real world, your little theory runs into a world of trouble when we encounter intimate partner violence in up to 30% of LESBIAN relationships (Renzetti, 1992 cited in http://www.csaj.org/documents/176.pdf)

Stev,

my suggestion, that women are not aggressors by nature, does not of course mean that life experience can't make them aggressive, or that the aggression index for both sexes doesn't fluctuate like everything else according to behavioural fashions. Let's not forget too that the domestic violence women are involved in is typically with 'men', who are conditioned to dominate; or that many lesbian relationships are based on that same standard heteresexual model: one butch and one compliant. Indeed a fundamental and 'voluntary' inequality is possibly the benchmark of most relationships, regardless of gender--that is, a masculinised hierarchical order prevails and pervades all relationships and institutions. Is this not the case? Priests and nuns, doctors and nurses etc etc.
Like men, women too are influenced by role-modelled aggression, from sport to politics to porn, but there is ample evidence that by nature the majority of women are spectacularly less aggressive than men. Just look at gendered behaviour on the roads, or shopping malls, or the stats on all violent crime.
But regardless of all that, you're just not getting that the behaviour, and thinking, of both sexes is conditioned by a masculinised ontology. Women and men are affected at a deep psychological, and no doubt instinctual, level by testosterone-pumped behaviour. A sensible woman can be seduced, against her better judgement, by a 'real man', just as sensible men are easily intimidated by him.
I think the author's on a winner; our sophisticated technocracies are prey to primitive masculinism. We need to emasculate culture!

Re Coming To Our Senses & the regeneration of culture.

If you have no Pleasure Dome, you have nothing to protect, nothing to preserve, nothing to serve, nothing to perpetuate that makes any difference whatsoever.The core of life must be preserved as a Pleasure Dome of everything sacred, everything most profound, everything most intimate.

If you destroy the temple and the greatness of Woman, you reduce life to scandalous nonsense. Monotonous, aggressive exchanges, and petty concerns and rivalries, and all the rest of the nonsense of mind divorced from the realm of feeling. You must have the Pleasure Dome, temple and all. And then you will know what to do when you go to do business, when you go to Parliament.

Once the Pleasure Dome is established, human beings are not going to create any war or mayhem that is going to prevent or destroy that circumstance. But mankind is throwing that possibility with both hands. Everything about Woman - in other words, everything about the domain of feeling and the senses, and pleasurable association with the feeling and sense domain - is corrupt at the present moment, and aggressively opposed.

It is not just the Divine Spirituality that is opposed - Woman is opposed. That which Woman IS, that which she incarnates, that which her pattern is about, requires humankind altogether to be integrated with it, as the core of life.

This fundamental transformation, or the restoration of the Pleasure Dome as the context of human life is the necessary transformation that is required world-wide.

The complete restoration of it, the liberation of the human disposition from the opposition to Woman, to Shakti, to feeling, to the art of all the senses, glorifying and turned toward the Divine Condition of existence. Done in temple, done in bed, done at meals, done in human community.

The Pleasure Dome must be restored.

It would be interesting to know how different people define masculinity, or femininity for that matter. Is differentiation still important and necessary in society or do we aspire to a homogenous state where there is little to distinguish. Personnaly I hope we don't.

More often when we talk about gender, it is really about power relationships as Houlley suggested.

I have worked with some great managers, both male and female. Having been exposed to politicians in various shapes and forms, there does not seem to be much to differentiate them gender-wise, in regards to the pursuit of power. Female politicians can be full of us much carp as male politicians and are just as corruptible some great show ponies but not much in the top paddock. There are some admirable female and male politicians as well.

As for a masculinist conspiracy, it assumes some sort of illuminati male order pulling the strings to ensure women are shut out of important decision making processes.

I don't think it is that organised or thought out. There has always been in some industries a 'jobs for the boys' culture but this is slowly changing as long as we don't replace it with 'jobs for the girls' mentality and continue to strive for employment or appointment on merit.

Reality dictates that there will always be some discrimination but those breeds will be extinct by 2050.

Human civilisations evolve the pattern is usually along the lines of - discrimination/exclusion, revolt, adjustment/positive discrimination, backlash and then either settlement or counter-revolution (as demonstrated on OLO). :)

I want some of what Squeers is smoking!

Of course, most of your wise assertions run directly counter to empirical evidence. Lesbian violence is not higher among butch/femme couples and women are actually more likely to initiate domestic violence than men (although women are more likely to get injured in the resulting retaliation) - I guess you didn't read the article I pointed you to. But, then again, why let facts stand in the way of a good argument.

"But regardless of all that, you're just not getting that the behaviour, and thinking, of both sexes is conditioned by a masculinised ontology. Women and men are affected at a deep psychological, and no doubt instinctual, level by testosterone-pumped behaviour. "

I'm not 'getting it' because your constructs do not match with reality.

Interestingly, many posters, including pelican in the last post, are suggesting that an alpha male/alpha female dynamic may offer a more parsimonious explanation for the power dynamics we see in society. It sucks to be a beta/omega anything :-(

Squeers, I am three weeks off 89, my wife having died four years at the age of 85.

Both in the military, while on leave we met at a military dance in 1952.

Though she had close boy-friends, I had only played the field, boozing too much to make a genuine date.

Surprisingly, we eventually grew to like one another's company, the like probably becoming genuine because after WW2 we were married for 63 years.

In our retirement from the farm, my wife developed a wonderful sense of art and photography, gardening being a natural part of it.

As a former soldier, my wife was tended by Palliative Care, I myself chosen to look after her in our home.

The night before she died with our own young family around, she whispered how much she loved me, I since ever wondering how a roughneck like me could ever be so loved by a wonderful person like Marj'?

Must say that while Marj' was the ordinary good Christian who believed in faith, I can only believe in Hope, feeling that Hope to meet some-one one loves in an AfterLife seems more genuine.

Squeers you put it so well.

From the posts so far, it seems to me that to an extent some have grasped the idea that males suffer too, but can't yet extend it to a systemic model that helps us conceptualize how people in general are enslaved by the dominant masculine discourse.

It's strange how people so vehemently defend the system/s that keeps them down yet all around us are examples of alternative ways of masculine being (which isn't just a matter of referring to homosexuality). There are many men who just go about their daily biz helping the missus wheel the kiddies around K-Mart and mowing the lawn, playing golf and so on. The small, slim, ineffectual library nerd; the all night musician; the paunchy accountant with milk-bottle glasses. How can these fellows be seen to embody the various over-valued masculine characteristics rationalized as having been essential in cromagnon survival - dominance, competitiveness, territoriality and what have you.

Yet the dominant value system explains and excuses the excesses of the greedy few who leech off the labours and consumerism of the masses while at the same time regarding them with contempt. I think it is a false consciousness that keeps people enslaved.

The type of masculinity/ies expressed by our K-Mart dad; nerd, musician and accountant demonstrate capacities for nurturing, generosity, refined cognitive activity, creativity, patience - but none of these (largely designated as feminine and therefore less valued) characteristics are championed.

So many just don't get that questioning the dominant masculine discourse as a system is not about hating men; it's about trying to see all that masculinity embodies and holding additional characteristics in high regard.

One of my disappointments as we see women gain a foothold in public institutions of some authority or power, is that too many of them tend to emulate the very behaviours that precipitated feminism as a movement in the first place. The whole idea was to change systems that devalued and excluded people rather than just perpetuate the same behaviours, motivations and characteristics. Joseph's ideas are timely.

Squeers and Pynchme

I agree with the points you have both made. I made reference in the past that men have more to fear from other men than they do from women.

Although, as Pynchme stated:

>> One of my disappointments as we see women gain a foothold in public institutions of some authority or power, is that too many of them tend to emulate the very behaviours that precipitated feminism as a movement in the first place. <<

Some of the worst bosses I ever had were female - aggressive, alienating, dismissive; emulating the worst of male leadership rather than the best. Preferring to manage by fear rather than lead by example.

The majority of men and women have much to gain from restructuring the limited image and scope of the 'masculine' and working towards something that is inclusive and human.

PS

And a big hug to Bushbred - you are always a true gentle-man - no wonder your wife loved you.

So far we’ve had people suggest my article implies “evil males”, “males are sad creatures”, “males are the scum of the earth”, males “should be castrated at birth”. We’ve had people out me as “Marxist” and even describe me as “demonic’. What next, perhaps I am a witch?

These comments argue against a position I do not advocate. Your conditioning in the conspiracy literally appears to be blinding you from reading the words written on the screen, replacing them with some strange fantasy which speaks to your own prejudices rather than my article. Such is the depth of the conditioning that your immediate response to this is no doubt to claim that *I* am the one subject to some strange fantasy.

But if you were being honest, you’ll notice that I am sticking to what is referred to in the article, not derailing into some imaginary sub-text. I am the one keeping a level head. I am attempting to open the conversation up; you are attempting to shut the conversation down. This is the way power asserts control over its domain. This is the way the Masculinity Conspiracy is perpetuated.

"how people in general are enslaved by the dominant masculine discourse"

And that assumption is central to the problem. It's not a masculine discourse, it's a human discourse which both males and females have participated in over all of history. Calling it a masculine discourse, a problem with masculinity, a masculine conspiracy etc blames one half of humanity for something that we are all part of.

It's a human discourse that works in some way's and in some situations but fails dismally in others. If we could move away from making it about masculinity and focus on the whole picture we might get somewhere.

R0bert

For those who ever had any suspicions that some of the humanities studies areas in universities are an absolute waste of money and should be cast out to find a living elsewhere, this article should remove any remaining doubts.

Got to be joking, a conspiracy theory as a gel coating to get the public to swallow other whacko conspiracy theories that have been put about for yonks and found wanting? This is the inevitable outcome of too many academics with too little worthwhile to do bouncing off one another's literature reviews.

Forget the social engineering by stealth, I'll take democracy every time. Could some of that grant money that seems to be floating around for academics to invent social conspiracies be directed into engineering or medicine to produce something of value?

Cornflower: dictating what is and what is not worthy of investigation is another strategy used to assert control. Instead of genuinely engaging with the issues in the article you instead try and shut down the legitimacy of the topic (again, plug me back into the matrix!). You say you’ll “take democracy every time”, but that involves people making their own choices about what they research, not just those subjects deemed worthy by you.

I'm not smoking anything, but I suspect Ho Hum's pinched a bit of Coleridge's opium. Or does your pleasure dome have more substantial foundations, Ho Hum?

Pelican;
for me equality is the last thing we want; the only hope of change is allowing the cultural flaws to spread.

Stev;
I've made no absolute claims. Im just trying to think outside the matrix as Gelfer suggests, and it seems to me that masculinity does indeed structure our institutional lives.

Bushbred.
My sympathies. My first wife died in a palliative care ward, but it had always a fraught relationship.

Pynchme.
Agreed. It seems to me women can either try to reform the system by becoming more masculine themselves, which hasn't happened yet and probably never will, or they can explore the full implications of their indoctrination in masculinism--knowledge is power! Having seen through it all, women could turn the whole system on its head over night, simply by confronting machismo with passive determinism, a la Gandhi, at the ballot box. Such a movement wouldn't have to capture all women's imaginations because, as you imply, it would also capture men's!

RObert.
As you say, finally we're talking ideology, or pynchme's 'false consciousness', that maintains the system.

Cornflower.
We've had 'social engineering by stealth [or rather, 'inchmeal']' for decades via Raymond Williams's 'long revolution', morphed into identity politics, and all it's done is make the system stronger.
You may get your wish with the funding too; kill off the humanities, and humanity remains enthral to its delusions. No doubt you like things just the way they are.
I also hate some of the crap that comes out of culturalism--but it's not all crap.

elfer, "dictating what is and what is not worthy of investigation is another strategy used to assert control."

Nonsense, research funding involves the weighing of possible returns from the various alternatives and that is the 'control' you are objecting to.

However, since you have raised the subject, what specifically would you see as being the outcomes from re-labelling and gel coating the tired old theories you seem to be promoting? Change the wrapper and re-market?

The public isn't as gullible as you might wish, or is it simply that you refuse to accept democratic decisions? You think that masculinity is 'broke' and is unacceptable to you, but the public do not, therefore the public is stupid and wrong?

Squeers
"for me equality is the last thing we want; the only hope of change is allowing the cultural flaws to spread."

Not sure what you mean by this. Is that what you believe or what you think I believe? If the latter re-read my last post again.

Many women do make the mistake of becoming aggressive in management style thinking they have to behave like the 'stereotypical' perception of men. For either gender, choosing an aggressive style is usually borne out of some form of insecurity or lack of confidence. Self confident and competent managers of either gender usually don't resort to aggressive techniques

Dear Vanna,

We should feel sorry for your picture of
poor males. They're not evil, just
miguided!
They, as you say are single-focus
workaholics who love the office,
are supported by a stay-at-home wife,
and they're willing to put their job before
family or a diverse life.

That doesn't sound like any sane person most
of us know. But it might be useful for you to ask
why these males are letting demands of
capital overrule the human needs of both
them and their partners?

The sort of picture you paint of men doing these
80-hour a week jobs - are men who don't have
anything else in their lives, who don't have
any caring responsibilities or other interests.
For that matter research shows that it's not even
good for business to have these highly stressed
"monocentric" workers.

No wife wants someone who's going to be working 60
or 70 hour weeks. And, no child wants their dad
working those kind of hours.

Why do they do it? So they can buy a new plasma TV?
A house with four bedrooms?

Sad!

Cornflower: “The weighing of possible returns” to which you refer is simply the current vogue in a research environment that emulates corporate culture, which I largely reject: it is not an absolute measure of research worth. Whichever way, I receive no payment for my research, so your point doesn’t apply to me: mine is an adjunct (unpaid) appointment; I make a living elsewhere.

The outcome is a genuine different ground as an alternative to the current feminism vs men’s right debate. Different ground *may* result in different outcomes. I don’t apologise for wanting different outcomes. It’s not about claiming to have found solutions: it’s about opening up avenues to possible solutions.

“The public is stupid and wrong” is a statement that has held true on many occasions. Take slavery or making black people sit at the back of the bus, for example. People once thought these things were perfectly reasonable until they were shown otherwise.

Gelfer

"The public is stupid and wrong” is a statement that has not held true on many occasions and there are plenty of examples of that, especially where totalitarian leaders are concerned.

Sorry for the typo that omitted a letter from your name in my last post.

Travel well, I sense you have a lot more fleshing out to do on the article because there is a lot left hanging that has obviously confused since you are adamant you have no dog running in the feminism vs men’s rights debate.

Gelfer, if it makes you feel any better, I actually applaud your desire to find new ground to re-frame the feminist/MRA debate, however, recasting patriarchy in the language of conspiracy is not the way forward because the language is essentially the SAME as that of patriarchy - flowing as it does from Gramscian roots. Barkun is 100% correct about it being the path to paranoia.

The real trap that a young intellectual like yourself needs to avoid is elitism. As a young man at Melbourne Uni, I was also attracted to structural explanations, a theory of everything, that explained the injustices of the world in one neat package. This, of course, was also Gramsci's starting position - the workers failed to rise up in revolution because of their false consciousness. Only intellectuals could perceive these vile invisible forces that enslaved the ordinary people but were hidden beyond the perceptions of mere mortals.

R0bert's comment is spot on - dominance is a human discourse not a masculine discourse. Pynchme also recognizes that most men are not privileged and can have non-dominant lives which are not valued by the powers that be. It is only a small step to recognize that some women might also be privileged.

There is no need to genderize every power differential as though gender is the principal cause of all dominance (when there are other candidates such as class, race, education, technology, geography, strength, biology etc).

Instead of refuting rational arguments (for instance - that 'conspiracy' is a pejorative term; or that conspiracy theories can be traced back to the work of the Marxist, Gramsci, and thus are not a unique construct of gender theory; or that lesbians have just as much intimate partner violence as any other group), we see the devastating riposte that we 'don't get it' or we are 'unable to think outside our gender defensiveness and insecurities!'. This is intellectual arrogance of the highest order.

You’re the second person on this thread who has tried to belittle me with the term “young”. That’s a gerontocratic power strategy, particularly used in the men’s movement. I write about this in my book, “Numen, Old Men: Contemporary Masculine Spiritualities and the Problem of Patriarchy”, should you ever fancy the read. Again, part of the conspiracy. For what it’s worth, I’m a 35 year-old father of three. What counts as “young” these days?

It’s not elitist or arrogant to explore things that make the world better: to suggest otherwise is anti-intellectualism of the highest order (again, part of the conspiracy). Unfortunately, everything you say seems to embed you further in the conspiracy.

Foxy,
I've never known a wife (or partner in feminist terms) that doesn't want her husband (or partner in feminist terms) out working and earning lots of money.

That has not changed in history.

Males are the majority of the inventors, builders, discovers, musicians, artists, law makers and writers of text books.

That has not changed in history.

Nothing much is ever likly to change, because of testosterone.

There is no conspiracy, its just testosterone.

Stev: <"R0bert's comment is spot on - dominance is a human discourse not a masculine discourse. Pynchme also recognizes that most men are not privileged and can have non-dominant lives which are not valued by the powers that be.">

- but Stev think of the ways in which masculine attributes are most valued in society and the ways that feminine attributes are devalued. Examples include: logic versus emotion; paid work versus caring roles and so on. My post pointed out the reality that males also exhibit feminine-ascribed attributes but it's not acknowledged or not seen as valuable. Females, seen as embodying certain characteristics, experience the disadvantage more directly although society generally is quite desensitized to it. Conservative females still have vested sense of self in gaining male approval and institutions and patterns of social interaction perpetuate that.

The disadvantages for men as well as rewards generally are much more subtle (but perhaps becoming less so as many men take up different roles or have begun to think, "Wtf why am I running on this treadmill ?") with rewards like status; authority, sexual prowess and social power and so on encouraging them to continue identifying with and striving to maintain and succeed in a social system in which they will be most unlikely to gain heights of power and wealth.

I agree with R0bert that this is a human problem, but the weighing up of rewards and disadvantages still points to a power differential that places the social value of females lower than that of the average bloke, because of feminine traits ascribed to them that are deemed as having little worth - like language skills; the impulse to nurture; expression of any emotion seen as the opposite of more valued objectivity and so on.

An analytical framework identifying the "powers that be" and how conceptualizing the ways these operate to shape our lives is a really powerful step forward for us all.

Btw: There is research on sex roles and ascribed attributes. Readings on androgyny are very illuminating.

I must congratulate the author for a thought-provoking article. It is obviously not a fully-developed idea, but it is a good point of departure for a discussion. I am a little concerned at his responses to the comments so far; they are defensive and do not further the discussion. They also rely heavily on a social-constructionist view, which I reject as facile and incomplete. In calling for a reexamination of the place of masculinity in our strongly feminised world, however, he has the right idea, even if the particular expression of it (the "conspiracy") is hardly useful.

While there have been many, many cultural practises that have changed over the years in response to environmental or technological challenges, there has been little change in the roles of the sexes within society until the late 20th century, in response to a triple-whammy of factors.

The first was the massively industrial nature of the second world war and its enormously pervasive scale. That lead to a large number of women becoming involved in doing work that men had done hitherto. It also lead to work practises being developed to suit women's needs and talents as well as support structures, like creches. "Wanda the Welder" couldn't carry her child on her hip while working. Its greatest impact, however, was in creating the right conditions for the "Baby Boom". I'll get to why in a moment.

The second, obviously, was oral contraception. I'm sure I don't need to detail the impact of the Pill, except to say that it meant the generations following the Western baby boom were below replacement level.

The baby-boom and the below-replacement birth rate have been well known for decades and economists have done huge amounts of modelling on the combination, but it's not hard to see the aging population problem and that was so even in the 70s, when second-wave feminism got going.

It was a recognition of the aging population problem by those motivated by the third factor which really got the ball rolling for feminsm though.

[cont]

Capital recognised early that if growth was to be maintained into the future, then something had to be done to mobilise the recently demonstrated industrial productive capacity of women more broadly. Feminism was a perfect fit. It's ironic that an ideology which is essentially Marxist, albeit terribly skewed, was so easily accommodated within the needs of Capital and so easily subverted by Capital.

Men and the male response en masse have been largely regarded by those econometric and sociometric modellers as constants rather than variables. As anybody who's ever done any maths or science knows, the constants are just there to help you learn about the variables. Once a constant is established, it can be just plugged in without much further thought.

Within the Feminist framework that is the dominant paradigm informing sociological thinking there was little incentive to look at men except as obstacles to the success of women and hence, to be either removed or controlled. Both strategies have been adopted and are being practised today. Lower socio-economic status men are being controlled via organisations like CSA and Centrelink, as well as the constant barrage of shaming propaganda that portrays such men as violent or "deadbeat" or somehow "unmasculine". Higher socio-economic status men are being attacked directly via calls for more women in the highest positions. As the total number of positions is approximately static, this is the same as saying we want some of those men who currently occupy the roles to be removed. Of course, the most powerful men currently don't care whether their successors are female or male as long as they keep the profits flowing.

The problem for Feminism and pro-feminists like the author, is that men are not generally docile in the face of a perceived threat. That is not a social construct, it is a bilogical imperative. We derive from a long line of men who survived to breed because they were faster than the other man or simply stronger. Either way, they responded effectively when attacked.

[cont]

This has lead to what Feminists call "the backlash", which I suspect is what the author is most interested in, apart from establishing himself as firmly pro-feminist and hence, on the "good" side.

Through most of our long and turbulent history there was no scope for this sort of navel-gazing. Most people of both genders were too busy trying to survive to be worried about trivialities like who was in charge of taking the latrine bowl to the dungheap and who got to take care of gutting the mammoth; if either one didn't do it properly they all suffered.

Far too much is made today of "overcoming" differences, as though homogeneity is somehow the only state worth the aspiration. I reject that as the Ford model T of social construction - "any colour as long as it's [pink]" and you can add your own decorative touches such as a gay lifestyle or a desire to become a socialogist. What you can't do is paint the thing a more conservative colour, such as Ford's own preference of black.

Differences are what makes the world go around. Traditional masculinity is not a "backlash", it is a normal part of the human experience. Many women are not comfortable being moulded into the Feminist/Corporate ideal either. They quite like "Neanderthals" as foxy would have it.

I suggest less talk of "conspiracy" and more about the ways in which we can accommodate the genuinely imperative needs we have as humans, rather than the overlays we choose to apply to suit our own agendas.

The author takes exception to his youth beng pointed out. While youth does not preclude wisdom, it does preclude a large amount of experience on which to base any wisdom that might exist. I'd also point out that much of the chaos of the gender wars can be laid at the feet of Feminist or "pro-Feminist" scoiologists. I hope he can rise above the suck of the academic quicksand and continue to produce thought-provoking articles that question accepted wisdom. Perhaps a more well-considered metaphor next time though?

There is no conspiracy only mindless frivolity. The situation is plain & simply like this; too many females not enough women, too many males not enough men. Yeah, I think that's about the crux of it !

Masculinity is a fine idea to discuss, but there were a few problems with the article;

The conpiracy term implied that something evil was happening. This creates a defensive reaction and once people become defensive, they stop listening.

There wasn't enough effort to distinguish between which specific behaviours are the problem and men in general.

The language that was used will alienate most people. University academics may well talk that way, but the rest of us think "what a tosser".

OLO is one of the most sceptical audiences that this author will ever have to speak before. He will need to word his message quite differently, if he is to get the changes that he wants.

"but the weighing up of rewards and disadvantages still points to a power differential that places the social value of females lower than that of the average bloke, because of feminine traits ascribed to them that are deemed as having little worth - like language skills; the impulse to nurture; expression of any emotion seen as the opposite of more valued objectivity and so on."

Pynchme that really depends on what you value. By one set of values the scales are clearly in favor of males, by another in favor of females. If you value a longer life, more opportunity to spend your day's doing things of your own choosing, time with children etc then females have generally had it better. If career, overt power and a looser set of social restrictions are the values then males can be said to have had it better. Regardless the restrictions and opportunities which are in place are not just the result of imposition of those values on society by men, they are a result of the choices and actions by all people. Labeling the issue in terms of masculinity creates a arbitrary and false point of reference. It creates and sustains a needless cycle of finger pointing when the realities are quite different.

If the author and others want to progress the debate then rather than rephrasing the same old assumptions (a bit like a christian rap singer, the same message but different packaging) they should test the underlying assumptions which they make. From where I sit those assumptions are based on a fairly narrow view of power and privilege which ignore the life experience of most humans.

R0bert

@Antiseptic. My comments here are inevitably defensive, as they are in response to comments that are offensive: demonic, elitist, arrogant; today, benk calls me a tosser. But, hey, I’ve been called worse by my children.

Certainly the article is not a fully-developed idea: it is simply a snapshot of a larger piece of writing I am developing here: http://masculinityconspiracy.com

The above site URL contains the first full chapter of a book-length treatment of the subject.

I invite all you constructive gentlefolk to leave comments on the main site, which will have greater longevity than this thread (which tomorrow will already be “last week”, even if today it has achieved the glorious front page status of both “Today's Most Popular Articles” and “This Week's Most Discussed”!)

I really do appreciate all the feedback, even though I disagree with most of it. In my mind, such debate (whatever the outcome) is preferable to the status quo in which most people appear as if in a coma.

Lets start at the beginning, in the hunter gatherer groups of the past, a structure was necessary for group survival. Many rituals were actually an instruction manual on how to survive. From a modern perspective some or many of these rituals look to be very harsh or illogical.

It is only a few hundred years, since the industrial revolution, that resulted in the huge move from an agricultural society, to an industrial one. The industrial revolution needed a labour force. If one looks at the OH&S issues of the day, work place fatalities and injuries were far above what is acceptable today.

It is easy to take specific examples to make a case for oppression etc.

http://mensnewsdaily.com/2010/04/22/misinterpreting-patriarchy/

<The gender discourse of today is ripe with words such as “patriarchy” and “structural oppression”, words that are meant to convey that men as a group hold power over women as a group. >

<So what is the patriarchy, in the true sense of the word? Patriarchy is a system where men work in the public sphere and women work in the private sphere. No more, no less>

The dialogue has become more humanistic and less feminist over the last few years. There is no doubt our culture was shaped through patriarchy which was embedded deeply in the Chuch and influenced Judeo-Christian societies. The true misogynist is becoming a dinosaur and most men just want more options as well.

In modern times the only way forward IMO is to think more broadly about freedoms and gender roles and what they mean to individuals or couples/families. Freedom is really about options and getting out of the one-size-fits-all mindset.

A future society might be one where workplace and homelife can blend either with more job sharing/part-time options or some work from home options where it is appropriate or even possible. The future should be about building healthier societies, ones that aren't restricted by man-made concepts of economies but of flexible conditions that work for both business and family wellbeing in whatever shape or form. This of course, won't always be possible or desirable for some - ideally there will be a balance of options about work, family and leisure/health.

We should all forget about masculinist or feminist conspiracies and work toward human solutions as RObert implied earlier.

<So what is the patriarchy, in the true sense of the word? Patriarchy is a system where men work in the public sphere and women work in the private sphere. No more, no less>

Within biology, it is referred to as a "division of labour" (and it is extremely common amongst species), but various feminists and university academics regard it as some type conspiracy carried out by evil male.

"Relative declines in female happiness have eroded a gender gap in happiness in which women in the 1970s typically reported higher subjective well-being than did men."

http://www.nber.org/papers/w14969

The decline in women's happiness over 30 years is also because of the conspiracy and the patriarchy and evil male.

Or perhaps its because feminists simply got it all wrong yet again, and now women don’t know who they are or what they want.

<The decline in women's happiness over 30 years is also because of the conspiracy and the patriarchy and evil male.>
vanna

Spin sisters by Myrna Blyth, makes for some interesting reading, and so does lipstick feminism.

Rebecca Gidney said "“It’s always women that judge other women."

James H
I would think the most necessary thing for anyone about to write a book on gender would be to study biology for at least 2 years, and then to equate the current human population to what nature has determined.

The war is not between men and women, but actually between nature and feminism, and nature always wins.

Always.

we don't need to change the language just because some people are resistant to changing power structures.

Pelican,
I don't 'believe' in anything and I wouldn't dream of misrepresenting you.
I'm not interested in equality because the system stinks to high heaven. Western countries like Australia squabbling over the distribution of wealth is like the court of Louis the XIV dividing up the snuff.
By achieving greater equity in the wealthy west we merely weather the whole decadent affair against criticism from within and without. This has been the hard lesson learnt by the post-Marxists.
Oh yes, just another mad lefty-greeny-feminazi according to the ideology of the last several decades--as tough and thoughtful as a pair of old boots!
Apologies to Gelfer on behalf of the mostly pitiful standard of intellectualism in this thread (myself excluded of course).
Socrates' wise dictum, "the unexamined life is not worth living", applies to whole cultures too.

Squeers, well reiterated.

Hey all,

I've found this little debate quite interesting as I've just started studying sociology. In my textbook at the end of every chapter there is the "feminist perspective" which often raises some good points, but usually can be summed up as men = dominant bastards. Now that's just a bit silly people, and we all know this is false from our own experience.

I also had the oppurtunity to talk to a feminist recently, and I must say the converation went downhill pretty quickly. Instead of talking about things in a civil way and discussing the interesting issues, it soon turned into her trying to force feed me an understanding of my own inherent evil. Now that's just not cool.

Feminism no doubt has some relevent and worthy insights, but when it turns into a justification for blatant sexism it's gone far enough.

Men = dominant bastards is far to simple an equation to hold much water in such a complex world.

"Men = dominant bastards is far to simple an equation to hold much water in such a complex world."

It would be far too simple and feminists are not saying that. It seems be only men saying that about feminists saying that.

Ok...

"I feel that 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them." -- Robin Morgan, Ms. Magazine Editor.

Now this sort of attitude is, to say the least, unproductive.

"To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he's a machine, a walking dildo."
-- Valerie Solanas, Authoress of the SCUM Manifesto

That's just plain offensive. You should read the SCUM Manifesto and get back to me...

Dear Joseph, i would like to be able to be happy about your work but there are a couple of problems with it so far.

1, radical, extreme, loony, left, fauxmanistas have been saying good things about it. Which should alert any reasonable person that it may be going in the wrong direction or is just another exercise in rebadging of communist social engineering or renaming the rhetoric or trying to paper over the treasonous, damage that fe"man"nazi, communists have inflicted on modern western democracy.

2, you state there is nothing anti male in your work, but then go on to say there is something wrong with masculinity &/or there has been a conspiracy guiding us to behave incorrectly.

There never was anything wrong with masculinity. Left wing, socio psychopaths said there was.

The work you seek to do has already been done by world renowned sociologist Dr Warren Farrell, who has already debunked every myth created by the fauxmanistas so far.

http://www.warrenfarrell.com/

The "Big Sister" NWO, conspiracy has also, already been exposed by Henry Makow PhD.

http://www.cruelhoax.ca/#top

I have to confess that the thrust of the article escaped me, in that I couldn't quite make out who were supposed to be the villains and who the heroes. (Do we still say "heroines", by the way? I notice that no-one is an "actress" any more).

Still 'n' all, there was one big take-away for me, that I am pretty sure I will be employing on other threads.

"Barkun identifies three key aspects to conspiracy theories, which are worth spelling out. First, nothing happens by accident: there is always intent behind actions; the willed nature of reality is paramount. Second, nothing is as it seems: the source of a conspiracy tends to conceal its activities through the appearance of innocence or misinformation. Third, everything is connected: patterns abound in conspiracy; exposing conspiracy is about unveiling these hidden connections. Barkun sees this type of thinking as ultimately resulting in paranoia: a closed system of ideas that 'defeat any attempt at testing' due to the assumption that all the evidence countering the conspiracy must be part of the conspiracy, and therefore rejected."

Gotta love it. The conspiracy nuts' bible, in a nutshell.

Apologies for the interruption. Please ignore me and carry on as you were.

Pericles

Perhaps part of the mythos to which to which Joseph Gelfer may be assessing is the cultural, religious, tribal or gendered habit of division into "villian" or "hero", "us" or "them" and specific roles applied with rigid definitions.

I haven't yet linked to Joseph's website. But time permitting will endeavour to do so this afternoon.

One thing I do know for sure is that I have a lot to learn - and that applies irrespective of gender.

While I think that this isn't a very good article - largely because the notion of 'conspiracy' is too pejorative to be used productively as an analytic model to examine ideologies and practices of masculinity - that's no excuse for the orgy of misogynist vitriol that it seems to have elicited from the bitter and twister male loser set. Settle down fellas, those conniving women aren't really out to get you.

However, like Pericles, I'm grateful to Joseph Gelfer for pointing us to Barkun's model of conspiracy theories, which looks like it'd be quite applicable to some of the other nonsense regularly posted at OLO.

C J Morgan,
Is there any post you have ever made that did not contain name calling and abuse of other posters. About the only person you have never abused is yourself.

The author had best read biology before considering the human species, as the human species is not that different to many others.

However, a major point is how can a university teach science in one section of the university, and social science in another.

The two are entirely the opposite.

Look I think this masculinity argument is pointless. Masculinity (whatever that actually is) is important for protecting your loved ones and being able to negotiate for their needs. While some may say we are not living in such potentially violent times anymore I would disagree. It really depends where you come from, and these academics in their cosy little universities miss the point entirely. I was in a situation just the other night where I had to make a masculine show to protect my mother and sister from some crazy people on the street. There are situations where this is necessary, and any idea of socially engineering the ability to make these stands out of boys leaves them vulnerable in a reality that does not match the imaginary world of the academics.

In any case, I'm all for equality in pay and opportunity but any attempt at social engineering should be discarded. We humans may be able to imagine ideal type arrangements, but any effort to impose these ideas on society reeks of totalitarianism.

Vanna, I read an article about how it was the pill that liberated women, not feminism.

It kind of made sense, in that as soon as a woman could control her fertility, it then provided her with spare time to embrace feminist ideals.

So the pill liberated women from their biology. Where once large families were the norm, many western countries now have an ageing population and negative natural population growth.

Good to see you've just started studying sociology, Fragmachine. I recommend you stick with it, at least until you get to the bit where you learn the difference between sex and gender.

Then you can enlighten vanna, or whatever other sockpuppet alias he's using by that time.

To Severin, thanks for the nice Hug, Sweetheart.

However, must say you'd only find me an ordinary guy, or bloke, especially when on military leave, too much out for a good time.

To Squeers, keep up the good work, mate. As you correctly imply,

Solutions with overmuch detail, certainly need cutting down, or still better, sorting out.

Cheers to you both -
from Bushbred, formerly of Buntine, a little farming town named after Dr Buntine, a well known WA surveyor.

Vanna:
<C J Morgan,
Is there any post you have ever made that did not contain name calling and abuse of other posters. About the only person you have never abused is yourself.>
I thought you might like some secondary testimony, vanna: CJ has never abused 'me'.
If he ever does, I shall say, "Squeers, bethink yourself, for CJ Morgan is shaking his wise head!"
CJ is a reliable barometer of good sense! (since he so far hasn't contradicted me) Or, at the very least, he makes a lot more sense than you do, mate!
I would hang on his curmudgeonly words if I was you, for he's no spendthrift, it's all kernel and very little pith!

Now, how about that tenner, CJ?

Formersnag; flattery will get you nowhere!

James H
The pill didn’t liberate women. In a natural state, an average woman had to be pregnant about 12-20 times in her life, to maintain the population of the tribe.

This was due to a high rate of infant mortality and miscarriage, and a relatively short life expectancy for most people.

If women in a tribe had reduced their fertility, the tribe would have become extinct within a short period of time, and an extinct tribe does not liberate women at all.

The division of labour between men and women that feminists and university academics so much despise and refer to as “patriarchy” or male “power and control”, has in fact been one of the most successful things that has occurred in nature.

The human species could have been wiped out on numerous occasions, but instead it has grown to cover most continents, and in the future there may be colonisation of a moon or colonies established on space stations.

Colonisation is a principle part of nature, but no species has been as successful at colonisation as the human species.

Much of this has been due to the division of labour between men and women that feminist and academics so much condem.

Never trust what is said by a feminist, and I think it is at the stage where someone cannot believe anything from a university academic.

Yea I agree with what you say about the division of labor vanna. Division of labor is even present in the human brain, with the left brain taking charge of different tasks than the right. It would be ridiculous to say one is superior because the simple fact is you need both sides to function. It's the same with men and women.

That's not to say everything feminism has observed is false. Feminism has identified shortcomings in the thinking of the day, and brought to the attention of academics that women are a force in society as well. Fair's fair, if the purpose is understanding, then these observations are useful.

It's got a bit out of hand though, in my opinion. Feminists don't even seem to represent the majority of women, just a really angry minority.

But all this about masculinity to me seems over the top. It's one thing to theorize, it's another to make value judgments about men as a group. That's 3 billion people. Any term that generalizes such diversity is meaningless. Saying "men" are dominant, aggressive and powerful is as meaningless as saying women are manipulative, money hungry bimbo's.

Fragmachine
I haven’t said females are inferior. They are the other half. But nearly everything that has been invented, discovered or built in this world has been invented, discovered or built by a male.

It is now reached the situation where nearly every textbook has been written by a male, and nearly every university has been built by a male, but not one feminist or academic in a university can think of one good word to say about the male gender.

I think its time to start and sake them, and put the money going to universities elsewhere.

There are plenty of other research institutions other than universities.

Hey vanna, try not to contradict yourself :)

"I haven’t said females are inferior. They are the other half. But nearly everything that has been invented, discovered or built in this world has been invented, discovered or built by a male."

What does this paragraph say? Women are not inferior, they're just useless? Lol. Joking... I understand (i think) what your trying to say, division of labour etc etc.

As for sacking academics and shutting down universities, that may be going just a tad far. Universities don't just do research, they teach skills, and contrary to what you may think, they're not a hotbed of extremist feminism. I should know, I'm going to one.

I think some academics are definitely out of touch with reality, but not all. It's not a matter of shutting down all universities just because you disagree with some ideas that come out of them. That's just ridiculous.

Fragmachine
2 out of 5 female university graduates (almost 50% of total university graduates) don’t even earn enough money to repay their HECS fees. So many go into universities to do social science courses and arts courses that teach the concept of “male power and control”, but eventually males have to pay their way.

Only about 10% of world wide research now occurs in universities, and universities are increasingly becoming a waste of space and taxpayer's money.

There are also plenty of places that teach skills other than universities.

vanna, 90% of statistics randomly quoted without a source are worthless.

LOL Fragmachine. In a similar vein, 99% of the comments that vanna posts are worthless, as were those under his previous user names "HRS", "Timkins" et al.

Stick with the sociology, at least you show the capacity for learning.

Squeers - LOL @ you too. Thanks for the compliment, but I also generally find your comments eminently well-informed sensible.

Your tenner? I'd rather shout you a beer if we ever get the chance :)

Damn it - the world needs real men & real women. It's a case of tuning the balance between the 'hardness' of testosterone and the 'softness' of oestrogen.

Fortunately in Australian Society and Culture we also have the freedom to largely be as we want to be without too many restraints.

There are 'general' basic differences between men and women other than reproductive function and why 'generally' men function better in some areas and women in others and some behaviors are more attributable to one sex than the other. However if you fall outside the rule of thumb you are free to pursue choices outside traditional gender roles. Lucky us to be Australian eh?

Therefore - get over it! Build a bridge! Embrace the difference! :-)

Fragmachine
http://economics.adelaide.edu.au/workshops/doc/hecs21oct2005.pdf

You may also find this interesting if you think there are no differences between the genders (as some feminists and social science lecturers believe)
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/45/35/37963506.pdf

I think it has yet to be established that continuous negativity towards the male gender by feminists and university academics does actually improve the productivity of universities.

I do know that if a manager or supervisor of a company had continuous negativity towards their workforce, they would be sacked (and rightly so), as the manager or supervisor would not be getting the best productivity from the workforce.

Looking at some of the results now coming from the education system, http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/group-of-eight-reviews-sum-of-all-fears-maths-is-in-serious-decline/story-e6frf7l6-1225838924327
it does appear that there is a definite need for the education system to lift its now abysmal productivity.

Perhaps a feminist or university academic could write a book titled “How To Improve the Productivity of the Education System, While Also Maintaining an Ongoing, Negative Attitude Towards the Male Gender”.

It would make an interesting read.

vanna, dear friend, it is clear that you do not read what I write. At no point did I say there is no difference between the sexes. If you actually read my posts you would see that I agree the negativity from some feminists is unproductive. What I won't do, is conclude that because I disagree with some ideas coming from academics, that all universities should be shut down. That is ridiculous

Fragmachine,
Universities could shut down by themselves, as more foreign students find out about Australian universities.

In QLD, the Mackay campus of a university was about to shut down due to lack of students. Although they were situated in a major coal producing area, they mainly offered cheap to run feminist social science courses.

They were asking for a multimillion dollar government bailout to keep them running. Finally it was decided to amalgamate the university with the local TAFE college and now there will be a TAFE/university campus, as the previous university courses were uneconomical to run and few would attend them anyway.

I hope you found the OECD report interesting. It highlights a division of labour quite well.

Female students were more attracted to health and welfare subjects
(about 75% female, 25% male).

Male students were more attracted to engineering, manufacturing and construction subjects (about 75% male, 25% female).

Within medicine this would probably play out as follows:-

Males build the hospitals, design most of the equipment, develop most of the medical procedures, make most of the medical discoveries, write most of the medical books etc.

Females provide most of the nursing staff.

Feminist would probably say this is “male patriarchy”, but most countries have improved their life expectancy with this division of labour & some countries have now increased their life expectancy 3 times in 100 years.

Perhaps this is something you could show a university lecturer next time they have nothing positive to say about the male gender, and I have never heard of a university lecturer ever saying anything positive about the male gender.

Please provide a link to one that has.

vanna, your hilarious! It seems you have something to say and your going to say it, regardless of how it is related to my comments. But that's ok, I don't mind.

So they merged a University with a Tafe, so what? If it's a solution that works for Mackay then it seems like a good idea.

So more females are attracted to care positions, and men to engineering, maths etc. That seems fine to me, where is the problem there? As long as both sexes are free to choose their field of study then all is well.

So men build the hospitals as well as do a lot of design work, great! Lol, I see no problem here.

And the majority of nurses are female; well, we both know that's a good thing.

Here we get to the nugget. Feminism, this is what is really eating you. Well sure, some feminists would see this as a patriarchal situation. They are entitled to their view, you are entitled to disagree.

All I can say is the kind of extreme feminism that you mention is not emphasised in my course. At the very end of each chapter they have the "feminist perspective" and sometimes it is quite funny. One time it said the only true feminist is a lesbian! Other times it mentions some critiques of standard theories that I agree with. One would be the over emphasis on quantative methods and the under-utilisation of qualitative methods of inquiry. I think this is a good point. Statistics can only tell you so much about the social world, and in order to really understand people's situations you need to talk to them, experience what they experience.

So that's my opinion, some good, some bad. Feminism at my university is mainly a footnote, a way of exposing flaws in the standard practice. No problem there.

The extreme feminism that you mention I also disagree with. I think that sort of feminism has had it's day and no longer has as strong a pull as it did in the 60's 70's and 80's

Fragmachine
Unfortunately the feminist perspective is now policy, particularly in education.

You can’t find any academic who has ever made a positive statement about the male gender. That is the feminist perspective.

Most women don’t like maths and science, and it is gradually being eliminated out of education. That is the feminist perspective.

It is routine for a teacher in a high school to say “boys do all right later on”, so these teachers mostly concentrate on girls education. That is the feminist perspective.

Etc,etc, etc, etc

“Patriarchy” was simply the natural order, and about the only people who were unhappy with it were feminists.

I hope the author takes this into consideration when writing about those evil males in his new book.

Maybe he can do some research, and try and find a university academic somewhere who has ever said something positive about the male gender (if he has the courage)

Attention, ladies, lefties & Howler,

"A NEW SIEGFRIED LINE IN THE BATTLE AGAINST FEMINISM"

Militant lesbians, feminists & other careerist gun molls of the FRG's ideological system have recently won, one of the last battles in a war they are going to lose. A news presenter of the broadcasting corporation, NDR who in books, had expressed old truths about the role of women, was pushed into quitting her employment. IE, something "politically correct", in order to defend the "incorrect", the wage labour of mothers & wives.

The struggle of the sexes & the struggle of the races are, auxiliary fronts of class struggle. The ideological political apparatus of the Capitalist class drives women into the labour market in order to break the labour market power of the proletarian man. The importation of foreign & racially alien labour forces serves the same purpose.

In order to understand that feminization, foreignization & enforced racial mixing are but weapons of the Capitalist class in its struggle against the proletarian class, one only needs to apply the law of supply & demand to the labour force market. The Family wage of the proletarian family provider & thus the "ETHICAL LIFE" can no longer be sustained, due to the oversupply of unmarried female & foreign labour on the domestic labour market.

Extra domestic female wage labour is at first a temporary expedient of the family & later becomes the bad habit of self debasement. The Men's honour, which forbids them from sending their wives to foreign people to work, becomes irrelevant & disappears. The matrimonial & family status is itself ousted by the unmarried status, the end is given with the status of the wretchedness of the single mothers & now the pauperisation of the German people under Capitalist foreign rule.

The childless women currently chancellorising the FRG personifies in a special way the imminent death of the German people & the failed existence of women in general, combined with a typical state/parasitical double wage of the regime's functionary couples, which puffs itself up as emancipation.

http://www.reich4.de/Begriffe/sittlichkeit/?lang=en

... Feminism committed the first & fundamental betrayal of Dutschkism (IE, the revolutionary seizure of the world in 1968). FEMINISM WAS THE MOTHER OF ALL WEST GERMAN, COUNTER-REVOLUTIONS. For a revolutionary it is not classes, or races, or women who make revolutions, but the peoples. "Revolutions are not made by a party, but by a whole people" wrote Karl Marx (MEW 34, 514).

After feminism had stabbed the ideals of the 1968 generation in the back & had severed the masculine, virile aspect of the people as the historical & revolutionary subject, the social-democratic, Communist traditionalists again dared to raise their heads in the guise of the professional revolutionaries, or cadres, of the 1970's.

The working class was again declared the revolutionary subject, even though it continued to dwindle. In the 1980's the Conservatives & Liberals took the initiative of the counter-revolutionary class struggle & surmounted themselves in the economic bubbles of the 1990's where capital began to comprehend itself as a permanent revolution & the business economist played the revolutionary in the role of the global omni-destroyer.

The emancipatory, anti-racist & anti-national politics of capital, now not only destroyed the natural ethical life of the families & the corporate ethical life of the civil societies, but also the actual ethical life of the states & nations.

But the Dutschkistic strategy has been proven right. In the late capitalism, the unemployment of the masses has become the principal social characteristic, for in addition to the "state class", over 40% of the population of the FRG are currently living off the transfer system & thus belong to the "anarchistic class". Today, civil society is no longer mainly possession-civil (factors property & capital) & no longer qualification-civil (factor labour) but post proletarian uncommanded, IE, anarchic.

The common feature of the post 1968 counter-revolutions was the division of the people -as subject of the revolution- into gender or classes. All strategies of the counter-revolution therefore always amount to a civil war, at least in the ideology & politics.

...West German feminism was the pace setter which paved the way for the infiltration of Capitalism into the families in a particularly insidious fashion with its demand for paid house work & thus hindered the procreation & natural rearing of uncountable numbers of children.

It is not without reason that the "epitome of man" in its historically, highest perfection is the human male. High cultures come into being only through the dominance of the man over woman & child, over kith & kin, clan & people.

Cultural decay always goes hand in hand with an advance of matriarchy & a recession of patriarchy. In the animal kingdom matriarchies occur predominantly in the lower classes & become increasingly rare with evolutionary progression.

The relationship of gender & family does not belong to the indirect sphere of the state & civil society, but is direct, natural ethical life -the kingdom of paternal rule- which is the foundation of all human circumstances derived from it.

Here, the women have never the less, more to say than the men, whose achievements for the "fatherland" are still appraised in the "mother-tongue".

http://www.reich4.de/Begriffe/sittlichkeit/?lang=en

Howler, you have to admit even an "evil male genius" at the black arts of sarcastic, wit could not have dreamed this stuff up? ROFL

Squeers, pynchme, I'm sorry, you were correct all along, it always was an evil plan for world domination by the capitalist/chauvinist pig/dogs. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled program...

The debate between Vanna and Fragmachine is fascinating. The old veteran versus the new generation man. Both are correct to a degree.

Believe it or not, Vanna, today's youth are far less concerned about traditional feminist issues. I recently witnessed a debate between 2nd generation and 3rd generation feminists. The younger women spoke the language of needing to have a career, support themselves, and not be dependent on a man. The older women spoke the language of victim hood entitlement, and patriarchy. So I think we ARE seeing a generational change such that FRAG sees feminist points in his textbook as fringe elements or social commentary.

However, FRAG also sees "equality of choice" as the just outcome in the gender wars. To a large degree, women DO have equality of choice in Australia (e.g. no one is stopping them entering any uni course for which they have the grades). What FRAG may not realize is that the agenda of feminism revolves more around "equality of outcomes". Thus, women earn less than men - not because they made different choices but because the patriarchy (aka the great masculine conspiracy) unconsciously forces them to make the wrong choices (this is the false consciousness bit they grabbed from Marxism). We seem the same rhetoric around the lack of women CEOs and Heads of State.

Many feminists would agree that enforcing quotas is the way to go to achieve "equality" just as Marxists would seize the resources of the wealthy and redistribute them. (Note: have you noticed feminists only want the desirable jobs - you don't hear many calls for quotas in coal mining or front line combat troops)

Stev,
To gain a full perspective about patriachy, how about feminists (including male or female feminists) build most of what is built, invent most of the inventions, grow most of the food, supply most of the music, make most of the films, write most of the text books, develop most of the software, make most of the discoveries, develop most of the sports, do most of the work, and pay most of the personal income tax.

I wonder how society will cope, (or if anyone will survive).