Male privelege Zine by Chris knestrick

Some of our best moments come when we’re not in control. Remember the flow between us and others when we’re laughing uncontrollably, crying deeply, feeling deep love. Remember orgasms. Or even a sunset, the oceans, a gorgeous day . . . We don’t make these things happen. Becoming comfortable not being in control, being patient, listening, offering care, being of service if power and dominance are essential to who we are, these will always be alien. But if we want love and connectedness, rich relationships with women, children, men, other living creatures ourselves let us open ourselves to these.

by Dick Bathrick and Gus Kaufman, Jr., Ph.D. NOTES 1 Rich Vodde, M.S.W., "Male Privilege," unpublished manuscript (Men Stopping Violence, Inc.). 2 David Adams, "The Continuum of Male Controls Over Women," (EMERGE, Cambridge, MA). Men Stopping Violence Inc, 8 2001 || 1020 DeKalb Avenue Suite 25 Atlanta, GA 30307 P: (404)688-1376 || F: (404)688-4021 || msv@menstoppingviolence.org || MenStoppingViolence.org

A selection of articles for men to work to understand Male Privilege and Sexism! 23

1. She was being provocative; she had on a see-through (too short) dress.@ 2. I didn’t want to hit her. She provoked me. She kept nagging.@ 3. Women lie.@ 4. I don’t notice the mess. You’re just being compulsive. If it bothers you, you pick it up.

THE SYSTEMIC BIRDCAGE OF SEXISM The root of the word oppression is the element press. The press of the crowd; pressed into military service; to press a pair of pants; printing press; press the button. Presses are used to mold things or flatten them or reduce them in bulk, sometimes to reduce them by squeezing out the gasses or liquids in them. Something pressed is something caught between or among forces and barriers which are so related to each other that jointly they restrain, restrict or prevent the thing's motion or mobility. Mold. Immobilize. Reduce.

Note how we describe reality in ways that justify our position. Implicit in this is another male operating principle: the rules apply to others; not to me. Think of how we handle jealousy, anger, name-calling, expectations of service. In all we apply the notorious double standard. What can a man do once he becomes aware of all this, of how things are? We propose that listening to women, systematically instituted, is an alternative to using power and control tactics to silence them. Listening is thus a path toward justice. In Men Stopping Violence we have instituted principles and practices to further this goal. We invite the reader to try these out.

The mundane experience of the oppressed provides another clue. One of the most characteristic and ubiquitous features of the world as experienced by oppressed people is the double bind situations in which options are reduced to a very few and all of them expose one to penalty, censure or deprivation. For example, it is often a requirement upon oppressed people that we smile and be cheerful. If we comply, we signal our docility and our acquiescence in our situation. We need not, then, be taken note of. We acquiesce in being made invisible, in our occupying no space. We participate in our own erasure. On the other hand, anything but the sunniest countenance exposes us to being perceived as mean, bitter, angry or dangerous. This means, at the least, that we may be found "difficult" or unpleasant to work with, which is enough to cost one one’s livelihood; at worst, being seen as mean, bitter, angry or dangerous has been known to result in rape, arrest, beating and murder. One can only choose to risk one's preferred form and rate of annihilation....

5. Listen without interrupting. This doesn’t mean Awhite knuckle@ listening, where you’re actually planning your rebuttal as she speaks. It doesn’t mean Alisten until you’ve had enough and then interrupt.@ It means give her your full attention and seriously consider her point of view. 6. Believe her and take her seriously. This means accepting her feelings, her version, her vision. It means fully recognizing her right to her opinion and acknowledging that her opinion is as valid as your own. 7. Change what is wrong. This is about giving up pornography since pornography reinforces our assumption that others are there for us. It’s about recognizing the amount of rage she feels from being constantly endangered, from being expected to serve us, and then labeled a bitch or a nag if she complains about it. It’s about pay equity, abortion rights and doing our share of the housework without being reminded.

Women are caught like this, too, by networks of forces and barriers that expose one to penalty, loss or contempt whether one works outside the home or not, is on welfare or not, bears children or not, raises children or not, marries or not, stays married or not, is heterosexual, lesbian, both or neither. Economic necessity; confinement to racial and/or sexual job ghettos; sexual harassment; sex discrimination; pressures of competing expectations and judgments about women, wives and mothers (in the society at large, in racial and ethnic subcultures and in one's own mind); dependence (full or partial) on husbands, parents or the state; commitment to political ideas; loyalties to racial or ethnic or other "minority" groups; the demands of self-respect and responsibilities to others. Each of these factors exists in complex tension with every other, penalizing or prohibiting all of the apparently available options. And nipping at one's heels, always, is the endless pack of little things. If one dresses one way, one is subject to the assumption that one is advertising one's sexual availability; if one dresses another way, one appears to "not care about oneself" or to be "unfeminine." If one uses "strong language," one invites categorization as a whore or slut; if one does not, one invites categorization as a "lady" B one too delicately constituted to cope with robust speech or the realities to which it presumably refers.

Listening to women is hard for us. If we listen, we’ll hear things that are hard to hear. Our lies, our injustices, our faults will be exposed. We’d like to think we can act to correct these without having to go through the ordeal of hearing about them. We can’t. If we listen, and don=t start acting angry ourselves to divert her, we may begin to have feelings. Somehow we must learn to feel without acting, rather than act without feeling. To do or say nothing in the face of her rage is to step into the unknown. We’re likely to feel confused and scared if we don=t emotionally withdraw, go numb or get angry. Our confusion and fear can be palpable. At this point we feel like we’re not being a man. And in fact we aren’t being the kind of man we grew up trying hard to be. We're relinquishing control over a space so that there is room for her to live. In the process we’re vulnerable, we’re passive, and we’re opening ourselves to all sorts of feelings we’ve not allowed ourselves in a long, long time. For after the guilt and shame we’ve warded off are not only terror and confusion, but tears, tenderness, sorrow and love. When we allow ourselves these feelings, the women and children in our lives may be able to feel a commonality and closeness with us, rather than feeling driven by us. Ω

The experience of oppressed people is that the living of one's life is confined and shaped by forces and barriers which are not accidental or occasional and hence avoidable, but are systematically related to each other in such a way as to catch one between and among them and restrict or penalize motion in any direction. It is the experience of being caged in: all avenues, in every direction, are blocked or booby trapped. Ω

Gradually through being confronted, from listening and reading, we came to acknowledge that the experience of oppressed peoples, those not in power, is different from ours in the dominant class. Our group so controls the definition of what is, that we need not even know there is any other view. We came to see that we shared the dominant world view, that there wasn’t as much difference between us and batterers as there was between men and women. So there wasn’t much of a we/they split (in our groups). We were all participants/beneficiaries in the Acontinuum of male controls over women.@2 Most of us can see how we benefit from sexism in terms of having easier access to higher-paying jobs. But we balk at the idea that we benefit from women being raped or battered. To understand how all men Abenefit@ from battering is to see something of the complicity we all share in the act. While many of us don=t rape or batter women, those of us in relationships with women find that our partners frequently make decisions based on how to avoid subjecting themselves to male violence: decisions like where and when to walk, whom to talk with and what to wear. These decisions are often powerfully influenced by whether or not a man (spouse, lover, friend) is available to accompany a woman on that walk. They have an unspoken agreement that she depends on a man to protect her from being raped or threatened by violent men. So men end up determining if women get to go out and where they go. And we don't mind having that control. More than once, batterers in our program have noted the irony in their partners= relying on them for protection from Athose violent men out there.@ This form of control never gets named. It’s classic male privilege, in all its invisibility, with all its power. This information came to us by listening to women=s reality. Listening, we began to get a better sense of who we are and how we operate. We came to see that a cardinal principle of male-dominated reality, of male privilege, is the assumption that others are there for me. By Aothers@ we mean whoever we can put in one-down (service) positions. Thus the principle might be called the principle of hierarchy. Each of us according to his own position in a hierarchy has access to the services of those below him. In our Western version of patriarchy, traditionally this meant a white, male god at the top, the Pope, secular leaders like the President and corporate executives next, followed by middle management, professionals and religious leaders, then workers (who might still be heads of households), then white families (women and children) and, at the bottom, people of color. As you can see, male privilege also includes the assumption that reality is what I (and my kind) say it is. Adrienne Rich has said, Objectivity is just male subjectivity made (sacrosanct). A man is defining a woman’s reality and claiming the truth when he says: At first they insisted that we audiotape the group. We resisted, claiming that some men wouldn’t tolerate that and might even drop out. At the time, that thought came more readily to our minds than the implications for the women's safety. Once we began recording, our supervisors critiqued our conduct of the group as revealed by the tapes. They pointed out the ways we didn't confront assumptions of dominance and privilege. A man who was a Astar@ in group (he was verbal and concerned for other men) turned out to be requiring his partner to stay at home and answer the telephone for his business. She had no car and wasn’t allowed to leave at any time. He drove a Cadillac. Ω

THE WHITE MALE SYSTEM In her efforts to understand and work with women clients, psychotherapist Anne Wilson Schaef offers a systems view of patriarchy. In it she identifies what she calls the White Male System. It is crucial to be able to define this system and deal with it simply because it surrounds us and permeates our lives. Its myths, beliefs, rituals, procedures, and outcomes affect everything we think, feel, and do. Schaef describes the White Male System in this way: AIt is the system in which we live, and in it, the power and influence are held by white males. It controls almost every aspect of our culture B it makes our laws, runs our economy, sets our salaries, decides when and if we go to war, decides what is knowledge and how it is to be taught.@ This system did not happen overnight; we all let it occur and participated in its development. Other systems which operate within it B black, Native American, female B are completely enveloped in and frequently overshadowed by it. Nevertheless, the White Male System is just that: a system. We all live in it, but it is not reality. It is not the way the world is. Like any other system, it has both positive and negative qualities. But, because it is only a system, it can be clarified, examined, and changed, both from within and without. The Four Great Myths of the White Male System: The White Male System has four myths that feed it, sustain it, and (theoretically at least) justify it. These myths have been around for so long that most men are not even conscious of them. To challenge or doubt them is akin to heresy: they are sacred givens. Myth #1: the White Male System is the only thing that exists. It is the only valid way to see the world. Anything different must be discounted, disparaged, or destroyed. Beliefs and perceptions of other systems (especially female) are seen as sick, bad, crazy, stupid, ugly and incompetent. This myth is damaging in two ways B it limits women who want to explore their own perceptions and abilities and it limits men who want to experience and learn from them. The White Male System is not reality. It is a reality, but it is not the reality. Myth #2: the White Male System is innately superior. (Note that the first and second myths do not follow logically. If the White Male System is the only thing that exists, then how can it be superior and to what?). Anyone who does not belong to this system is by definition inferior B all racial groups, women, and the few white men who don=t fit into it. According to the White Male System, innate superiority and innate inferiority are birthrights which cannot be earned or traded away. Some men would like to give their innate superiority away B it is a heavy burden to bear; always being Athe best@ is not good for one=s health. Myth #3: the White Male System knows and understands everything. This is one reason why women so frequently look to men for advice and direction. Both sexes genuinely believe that men should and do know it all. This myth is directly related to racial and sex-role stereotyping. A stereotype is no more than a definition of one group of persons by another who wishes to control it. Taken together, stereotypes support the myths of the White Male System. As long as the members of these groups go along with the stereotypes, they support the illusion that the White Male System knows and understands everything. If men say women are weak and women behave as if they are Ω

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Notice we have again circled back to the problem of the difficulty of expressing certain thoughts in general discourse or common parlance. The above quote includes two more terms from women=s reality: Aoppressors@ and Aoppression.@ In the battle for the power to define reality, most men reject those terms as applying to us. We label them and those who use them as Astrident,@ Ahysterical,@ Aman-hating,@ because it is in our interest to discredit them. Men of color in a white-dominated, i.e. racist, society also experience oppression, but they share some of the Aperks@ of sexism in terms of power over women, especially in relation to women of color. Gay men experience the benefits of male privilege and the oppression of homophobia. When we began to work with men who batter, we ran into this problem of conflicting definitions, conflicting realities. We entered the work with an assumption that you the reader probably share B that we were good guys (non-batterers). The guys we worked with were bad guys (batterers). This assumption was immediately confronted from two directions: first, many of the guys referred seemed quite like us. And second, the women who hired and supervised us began confronting us on our behavior.

Cages. Consider a birdcage. If you look very closely at just one wire in the cage, you cannot see the other wires. If your conception of what is before you are determined by this myopic focus, you could look at that one wire, up and down the length of it, and unable to see why a bird would not just fly around the wire any time it wanted to go somewhere. Furthermore, even if, one day at a time, you myopically inspected each wire, you still could not see why a bird would have trouble going past the wires to get anywhere. There is no physical property of any one wire, nothing that the closest scrutiny could discover, that will reveal how a bird could be inhibited or harmed by it except in the most accidental way. It is only when you step back, stop looking at the wires one by one, microscopically, and take a macroscopic view of the whole cage, that you can see why the bird does not go anywhere; and then you will see it in a moment. It will require no great subtlety of mental powers. It is perfectly obvious that the bird is surrounded by a network of systematically related barriers, no one of which would be the least hindrance to its flight, but which, by their relations to each other, are as confining as the solid walls of a dungeon.

The supervision sessions were difficult for all of us. Gus would get sinus headaches and have to go sit in the bathroom. Our supervisors had to face fears B that we would feel they didn’t have the authority to criticize us, that we would quit or at least go away mad if they were too critical (i.e. honest), that they would betray themselves and other women to avoid hurting our feelings. The answers that generally mean most to the men going through our program include the following: Men batter women because, in the short term, it works; i.e., the violence temporarily stops a woman from doing what threatens or challenges our authority. Men batter women because they can get away with it. Until recently, men could batter women without experiencing consequences such as her leaving or their arrest, prosecution, conviction and sentencing. Most men know that no matter who starts the fight, they can generally overpower a woman. And finally, men have been socialized to believe we have the right and the privilege to dominate and control women. Physical force (battering and rape) are the extremes to which we resort if necessary to maintain that control. When we say men batter because they can get away with it and it Aworks,@ we are describing some of the workings of patriarchy, a system of male control over women, a system of male privilege.

It is now possible to grasp one of the reasons why oppression can be hard to see and recognize: one can study the elements of an oppressive structure with great care and some good will without seeing the structure as a whole, and hence without seeing or being able to understand that one is looking at a cage and that there are people there who are caged, whose motion and mobility are restricted, whose lives are shaped and reduced.... As the cageness of the birdcage is a macroscopic phenomenon, the oppressiveness of the situations in which women live our various and different lives is a macroscopic phenomenon. Neither can be seen from a microscopic perspective. But when you look macroscopically you can see it a network of forces and barriers which are systematically related and which conspire to the immobilization, reduction and molding of women and the lives we live.

To talk about male privilege, we have to talk about ourselves from the perspective of the other. From within male reality the term male privilege doesn’t signify; it has no meaning B it=s invisible; it=s just the way things are. How does a fish talk about water? This famous conundrum applies to white men talking to other men about our position in the world. The name feminists have given to our position B male privilege B doesn’t exist in common parlance, which is the language of the dominant group, the culture-definers. Rich Vodde notes that

Marilyn Frye, The Poltics of Reality: essays in feminist theory Crossing Press: Freedom, California, 1983; pps 2-7; [emphasis added) Ω

It is doubtful that the term (male privilege) existed or had any meaning until women began to expose their oppression and name their oppressors. It is a phrase whose meaning was articulated by the experience of women who were its victims . . . It is a new phrase, born of broken silence . . . As it left the mouths of those women who did not need a definition to know what it meant and entered the realm of general discourse, its meaning became contested... Ω

weak, then who can argue with the myth? Blacks were the first to defy such stereotypes and start living in their own system. The other racial groups and women have done this to a certain extent as well, but at considerable personal expense and threat to their existence. Myth #4: it is possible to be totally logical, rational and objective. The problem with this myth is that one must constantly do battle with the ways in which one is not all of these things. One must continually overcome and deny any tendencies toward illogical, irrational, subjective, or intuitive thoughts or behaviors. Members of the White Male System spend a lot of time and energy telling women that females are by nature not logical, rational, or objective. Often they do so in highly emotional ways! Living according to these myths can mean living in ignorance. For example, the only way to maintain the myth of knowing and understanding everything is to ignore a whole universe of other information. When one clings to the myth of innate superiority, one must constantly overlook the virtues and abilities of others. Once we acknowledge that the White Male System is no more than the sum of its parts B and that those parts are open to question B we can begin to change it. We can begin to see other realities and viable options and learn to trust ourselves again.

MALE VIOLENCE AND MALE PRIVILEGE Male violence and male abuse of power are undeniable facts of our lives. Their effects are felt by women, children, other men with less power and the earth. We will be examining in particular male violence against women, situating it within the context of male privilege. To look at male violence against women, it may be instructive to start with rape. Male rape of women is male violence against women in one of its most devastating forms. It involves the total violation of a woman's body, mind and spirit. And when we listen to and take victims seriously, we know that its effects are debilitating long after the act itself. What is almost as horrifying as rape is how normative it is in our culture: one in 2.5 women is a victim of sexual assault in her lifetime. One in three females is sexually abused before age eighteen. In a 1988 survey of 1,700 Rhode Island junior high school students, a quarter of the boys and a sixth of the girls said that a man has the right to have sex with a woman without asking, as long as he has spent money on her. A majority of the boys and a near majority of the girls said that it's permissible for a man to force sex on a woman if the couple has dated for six months. Historically, the cultural response to rape has been to ask questions like, what was she wearing? Where was she walking?@ AWhat did she do to stop it?@ Now battered and raped women are requiring us to label victim-blaming for what it is and to see how victim-blaming relieves us from asking more disturbing questions like, who is doing this to women? And why?

Excerpts and adaptations from A Women’s Reality: An Emerging Female System in a White Male Society@ by Anne Wilson Schaef; 1981

One reason it’s difficult for men to answer these questions is because it threatens to lessen the distance between us and Athose other guys@ who brutalize women. When we first began working with men who batter women, we kept waiting for the monster to come through the door. Seven years later, we're still waiting. Most of the men we've seen, whether selfreferred or mandated by the courts or the military, seem normal to most of the people who know them. They just happen to be committing criminal offenses at home. FBI crime statistics tell us that close to 40% of all men living intimately with women have battered their partners during the course of the relationship. By Abattering@ we mean the use of and repeated threat of physical force to dominate and control a woman. From this definition and these statistics, we might conclude that battering is Anormal@ behavior in this culture. Seventy-five to ninety percent of rapes are committed by male acquaintances: family members, co-workers, classmates, dates, boyfriends, husbands. Battering and rape aren’t=t, as many of us would prefer it, being committed by pathological freaks. Women are most often victimized by men they once trusted and loved. Why? Ω

Illustration by ANGELA MARTIN 5

THE MALE PRIVILEGE CHECKLIST AN UNABASHED IMITATION OF AN ARTICLE BY PEGGY MCINTOSH

Take a moment to write down 10 ways you have benefited from Male privilege today

In 1990, Wellesley College professor Peggy McIntosh wrote an essay called White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. McIntosh observes that whites in the U.S. are Ataught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group.@ To illustrate these invisible systems, McIntosh wrote a list of 26 invisible privileges whites benefit from. As McIntosh points out, men also tend to be unaware of their own privileges as men. In the spirit of McIntosh=s essay, I thought I=d compile a list similar to McIntosh=s, focusing on the invisible privileges benefitting men. Due to my own limitations, this list is unavoidably U.S. centric. I hope that writers from other cultures will create new lists, or modify this one, to reflect their own experiences. Since I first compiled it, the list has been posted many times on internet discussion groups. Very helpfully, many people have suggested additions to the checklist. More commonly, of course, critics (usually, but not exclusively, male) have pointed out men have disadvantages too - being drafted into the army, being expected to suppress emotions, and so on. These are indeed bad things - but I never claimed that life for men is all ice cream sundaes. Obviously, there are individual exceptions to most problems discussed on the list. The existence of individual exceptions does not mean that general problems are not a concern. Pointing out that men are privileged in no way denies that bad things happen to men. Being privileged does not mean men are given everything in life for free; being privileged does not mean that men do not work hard, do not suffer. In many cases - from a boy being bullied in school, to a soldier dying in war - the sexist society that maintains male privilege also does great harm to individual boys and men. In the end, however, it is men and not women who make the most money; men and not women who dominate the government and the corporate boards; men and not women who dominate virtually all of the most powerful positions of society. And it is women and not men who suffer the most from intimate violence and rape; who are the most likely to be poor; who are, on the whole, given the short end of patriarchy=s stick. Several critics have also argued that the list somehow victimizes women. I disagree; pointing out problems is not the same as perpetuating them. It is not a Avictimizing@ position to acknowledge that injustice exists; on the contrary, without that acknowledgment it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t possible to fight injustice. An internet acquaintance of mine once wrote, AThe first big privilege which whites, males, people in upper economic classes, the able bodied, the straight (I think one or two of those will cover most of us) can work to alleviate is the privilege to be oblivious to privilege. This checklist is, I hope, a step towards helping men to give up the first big privilege.@ â&#x201E;Ś

1._______________________________________________ ________________________________________________ 2._______________________________________________ ________________________________________________ 3._______________________________________________ ________________________________________________ 4._______________________________________________ ________________________________________________ 5._______________________________________________ ________________________________________________ 6._______________________________________________ ________________________________________________ 7._______________________________________________ ________________________________________________ 8._______________________________________________ ________________________________________________ 9._______________________________________________ ________________________________________________ 10.______________________________________________ ________________________________________________ You might want to continue reading and come back when you finish the booklet!

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The Male Privilege Check List Take a moment to write down 10 ways you can be an ally to womyn.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

You might want to continue reading and come back when you finish the booklet!

26. 27. 28. 29.

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My odds of being hired for a job, when competing against female applicants, are probably skewed in my favor. The more prestigious the job, the larger the odds are skewed. I can be confident that my co-workers won=t think I got my job because of my sex - even though that might be true. If I am never promoted, it=s not because of my sex. If I fail in my job or career, I can feel sure this won't be seen as a black mark against my entire sex’s capabilities. I am far less likely to face sexual harassment at work than my female co-workers are. If I do the same task as a woman, and if the measurement is at all subjective, chances are people will think I did a better job. If I’m a teen or adult, and if I can stay out of prison, my odds of being raped are so low as to be negligible. I am not taught to fear walking alone after dark in average public spaces. If I choose not to have children, my masculinity will not be called into question. If I have children but do not provide primary care for them, my masculinity will not be called into question. If I have children and provide primary care for them, I’ll be praised for extraordinary parenting if I=m even marginally competent. If I have children and pursue a career, no one will think I’m selfish for not staying at home. If I seek political office, my relationship with my children, or who I hire to take care of them, will probably not be scrutinized by the press. Chances are my elected representatives are mostly people of my own sex. The more prestigious and powerful the elected position, the more likely this is to be true. I can be somewhat sure that if I ask to see Athe person in charge, I will face a person of my own sex. The higher-up in the organization the person is, the surer I can be. As a child, chances are I was encouraged to be more active and outgoing than my sisters. As a child, I could choose from an almost infinite variety of children’s media featuring positive, active, non-stereotyped heroes of my own sex. I never had to look for it; male protagonists were (and are) the default. As a child, chances are I got more teacher attention than girls who raised their hands just as often. If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether or not it has sexist overtones. I can turn on the television or glance at the front page of the newspaper and see people of my own sex widely represented, every day, without exception. If I’m careless with my financial affairs it won’t be attributed to my sex. If I’m careless with my driving it won’t be attributed to my sex. I can speak in public to a large group without putting my sex on trial. If I have sex with a lot of people, it won’t make me an object of contempt or derision. There are value-neutral clothing choices available to me; it is possible for me to choose clothing that doesn’t send any particular message to the world. My wardrobe and grooming are relatively cheap and consume little time. If I buy a new car, chances are I’ll be offered a better price than a woman buying the same car If I’m not conventionally attractive, the disadvantages are relatively small and easy to ignore. I can be loud with no fear of being called a shrew. I can be aggressive with no fear of being called a bitch. Ω

30. I can ask for legal protection from violence that happens mostly to men without being seen as a selfish special interest, since that kind of violence is called a crime and is a general social concern. (Violence that happens mostly to women is usually called Adomestic violence@ or Aacquaintance rape, and is seen as a special interest issue.) 31. I can be confident that the ordinary language of day-to-day existence will always include my sex. All men are created equal, mailman, chairman, freshman, he. 32. My ability to make important decisions and my capability in general will never be questioned depending on what time of the month it is. 33. I will never be expected to change my name upon marriage or questioned if I don’t change my name. 34. The decision to hire me will never be based on assumptions about whether or not I might choose to have a family sometime soon. 35. Every major religion in the world is led primarily by people of my own sex. Even God, in most major religions, is usually pictured as being male. 36. Most major religions argue that I should be the head of my household, while my wife and children should be subservient to me. 37. If I have a wife or live-in girlfriend, chances are we’ll divide up household chores so that she does most of the labor, and in particular the most repetitive and unrewarding tasks. 38. If I have children with a wife or girlfriend, chances are she’ll do most of the childrearing, and in particular the most dirty, repetitive and unrewarding parts of childrearing. 39. If I have children with a wife or girlfriend, and it turns out that one of us needs to make career sacrifices to raise the kids, chances are we’ll both assume the career sacrificed should be hers. 40. Magazines, billboards, television, movies, pornography, and virtually all of media are filled with images of scantily-clad women intended to appeal to me sexually. Such images of men exist, but are much rarer. 41. On average, I am under less pressure to be thin than my female counterparts are. If I am fat, I probably suffer fewer social and economic consequences for being fat than fat women do. 42. If I am heterosexual, it’s incredibly unlikely that I’ll ever be beaten up by a spouse or lover. 43. Complete strangers generally do not walk up to me on the street and tell me to smile.@ 44. On average, I am not interrupted by women as often as women are interrupted by men. 45. I have the privilege of being unaware of my male privilege.

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Accountability to women Account for your behavior and the impact it has on women, even, or maybe especially, when you “didn’t mean it” or “it was just a joke” Make amends for behavior that has caused negative consequences. When you engage in male bonding that harms women, go back to that man or those men and tell them you participated in this sexist interaction and it was a mistake. Something you won’t be doing again in the future. Be consistent in your support of women’s human right to equal access to resources, status, and safety. Can women count on you to be generally supportive, safe and understanding about the sexist attacks they routinely endure? Accept the fact that you are able to change. Sexism is about a choice you make. You either choose to be sexist and support the environment that leads to the rape, harassment and murder of millions of women, or you choose not to.

Compiled by Chuck Derry, Gender Violence Institute, Clearwater, MN; e-mail: gvi@frontiernet.net

We get to decide. What kind of men do we want to be?

Compiled by Barry Deutsch, aka Ampersand.@ Permission is granted to reproduce this list in any way, for any purpose, so long as the acknowledgment of Peggy McIntosh=s work is not removed. Please tell me about how you used it B email: barry@amptoons.com. Ω

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Don’t buy or use sexist, sexually objective, or sexually violent material/games. Don’t use pornography Express yourself sexually in a way that affirms others rather than objectifies and degrades them. Identify and reject the many messages relayed to you that support male dominance over women. Be aware of what you believe you are entitled to from women, simply because you’re a man. What male privileges do you expect? Under certain circumstances, what do you expect from women? Sex, attention, time, silence, answers, housework, childcare, compliance to your wishes, emotional support, sex, obedience? Talk to women about establishing and maintaining relationships, personally and professionally. Don’t hurt her because she disagrees with you. Say, “Tell me more about that” instead of “shut up”

ARE MEN OPPRESSED? Whenever I hear someone say, “After all, men are just as oppressed as women,” or more cautiously, “It is so oppressive to be a man in our society,” it strikes me as a wrong thing to say. Often, however, I say nothing because I feel that the speaker is struggling with the nature of masculinity and the role of being a man in American society, and that there is something right about such statements. There are several arguments by which men try to establish that they are an oppressed population. I will mention two of the more popular. The first is the argument from studies of male stress (i.e. suicide rate, accident rate, heart attack rate, murder rate, etc.). From the evidence for higher levels of stress in men, it is argued that masculinity or the male role is an oppressive role. The second argument is the socialization argument. It begins with the fact that boys are socialized into rigid roles and kept there as men; since this process is similar to what girls and women experience (and is oppressive for them), it must also be oppressive for boys and men. Before examining these arguments, I shall draw some distinction among these three concepts — namely, exploitation, oppression, and alienation — that have been helpful in my thinking about the nature of oppression. I begin with exploitation because I borrow that concept from Marxist social theorists. An individual is exploited to the degree that, that individual produces a surplus value and that surplus is appropriated by someone else (an owner). Thus, exploitation is an economic relationship which can be applied to workers, either individually or collectively. Oppression is the systematic dehumanization of an identifiable target population. To systematically dehuman-ize a population is to treat explicitly or implicitly the members of that population as lacking some human abilities, needs and wants that are seen as defining what it is to be a complete human being at that time in that culture. Oppressive structures are social structures that serve as mechanisms for oppression. These might be laws, social stereotypes, jokes, hiring practices or distribution of resources, to name only a few. Individuals are oppressed to the extent that they are affected members of such target populations. (Obviously, some individuals have the resources to mitigate or change the impact of oppressive structures. For example, a wealthy person may be less affected by such structures in a society that generally denies education to members of that person’s race, class, or gender. Other individuals may bear the full brunt of oppressive structures.) Both oppression and exploitation can separ-ately affect different groups. (For example, women who own businesses may be oppressed as women, that is, treated as defective human beings, but they are not exploited.) Alienation is a concept that gets used in many ways by social theorists. Generally, however, it seems to me that alienation is the opposite of autonomy. An alienated individual is someone for whom it is virtually impossible to realize their human abilities or to choose which of their special talents to develop. There are many ways to become alienated. Certainly, members of oppressed groups who are treated as defective human beings may not be able to develop those abilities in which they are seen as defective (assuming that they are affective by oppressive structures.) But individuals can be alienated be being in positions of privilege, by accidents, or by being born at inopportune times (e.g. during a war or depression). Ω

Speak  Make pro-woman/ pro-feminist statements in front of your male friends and colleagues.  Support women’s efforts to end sexism. o Do you have a sister, aunt, wife, etc. who the family describes are the “resident feminist”? Do you have a friend or colleague who is the “resident feminist”? Publicly support them. o Challenge other men and male institutions about their sexism (Harassment, pay inequities, rape, jokes, glass ceiling)  Never underestimate the power of one man challenging another man on his sexism.  Don’t wait until you are perfectly non-sexist before you act. You’ll never act.  Admit when you’re wrong ACT  Interrupt abusive or sexist male behavior.  Challenge merchandise that is harmful to women. Talk to the manager. Encourage them to remove the merchandise. Tell them you won’t be spending money in their store until it is removed.  Take women’s studies and human relations classes.  Do half the housework and child rearing, note taking in class projects. (Dishes/dinner on Thanksgiving)  Ask women’s programs, what you could do to help.  Help raise funds for a battered woman’s shelter or sexual assault center.  Support/create equitable work places. Equal pay and promotions.  Support women’s efforts publicly and privately.  Support feminist political candidates and legislation that supports women.  Find other men who will support your efforts.  Organize pro-feminist men’s organizations (with a feminist advisor/oversight group).

Further, one can be alienated and be neither oppressed nor exploited, since to be alienated is simply to be limited in certain ways. Thus, even the wealthy and powerful, who are not exploited as wage earners and are not seen as defective human beings, may be limited; social position itself can be limiting. Keeping these concepts in mind, what can we conclude about our own situation as man in American society? Are we exploited? Are we oppressed? Are we alienated? Is it all of the above? I doubt that anyone will argue that masculinity is not a limitation; it is certainly an alienating role. I would venture that practically all of the literature about men, Changing Man included, brings out some aspect of this alienation. The modern men’s movement in all its diverse forms is an attempt to create new roles and to transcend the limits that have been and are being imposed on men. There is also ample evidence that most men are exploited. Only about 10% or less of the American population constitute the owning class; while the rest work for a wage and create a surplus value (that is, make products that are worth more than that wage). But what about men’s oppression? This question is ambiguous. If we are asking whether most men are oppressed, the answer seems to be clearly in the affirmative. Most of the men in this country belong to some group that is targeted as defective human beings, namely, gay men, men of color, working men, radical men, disabled men, etc. The difficult version of the question is: Are men oppressed as men? More accurately: Are men systematically dehumanized, that is, treated as defective human beings? Here, I believe the answer must be in the negative, in spite of the two arguments mentioned above. The stress argument does not hold because stresses can be produced by many factors, including privilege, power, responsibility and other aspects of the “white man’s burden.” To argue directly from the existence of male stress to the existence of the oppression of men is like arguing that because the rich man has gout and the poor man has scurvy that their lives are the same. To argue that male stress is evidence of oppression, one would need to show that the stresses that affect men are due to oppressive structures aimed at men as men. (In fact, one definition of a white patriarchy might be: a society in which there are no oppressive structures aimed at the white men as white men but which has oppressive structures aimed at most other identifiable groups.) The evidence for men’s oppression based on male socialization fails for a different reason. It is true that boys are socialized to adhere to limiting sex roles, the same being true for girls. As adults, men and women generally maintain these rigid sex roles. Whereas boys are socialized by being told that certain roles are not worthy of them as boys and future men, girls are told that certain roles are not available to them because they do not have the required capacities, talents, or abilities. Both are limitations; both masculinity and femininity are alienating roles. However, only femininity is brought about by oppressive structures that depend on the assumed deficiency of women as human beings. Ω

WHAT MEN CAN DO TO END SEXISM AND VIOLENCE (A short list) 1.

Begin by challenging yourself and being open to being challenged about your own sexism.  We are not responsible for growing up in sexist culture and therefore becoming sexist men. But we are responsible if we continue. It is not a question of whether we are sexist or not, it’s a question of how sexist we are.  Are we willing to change and give up for the benefits of sexism.  When you are confronted about your sexist behavior. Commit to not being defensive. Listen…and say you will think about it. When appropriate, apologize and change. 2. Listen to women in general. Listen to feminist women particularly. Their bodies are on the line.  Can a woman talk in front of you?  Listen to their stories and the pain and anger about living with sexism…violence.  Are they silenced by you?  Can they make anti-male statements around you without you saying “Not all guys are bad”?  Listen to all the jokes and comments that portray women as bitches, sluts, or incompetent bimbos, and pay attention how you respond to that message. Humor defines our culture.  Listen to the voices in your head about how stupid women are.  Listen to women who are angry with you. Especially when they are challenging your sexism. It is a gift they are giving to you. 3. Be safe with women  Respect women’s inherent right to be safe Don’t rape, batter, or otherwise abuse. Don’t threaten her when you’re angry with her or when she’s says she’s leaving you.  Create safe space o If a woman is walking alone on the street at night, cross the street so she doesn’t have to worry about you. o If you’re walking behind a woman walk off to the side so you’re in her peripheral vision when she looks side to side. o Let elevators go by if she is alone on it, especially in a rather deserted building. 4. Accept no for an answer  Be crystal clear that you have her consent to be sexual with her. If you’re not sure it’s a yes, it’s a no. Ω

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the ultimate male resource, the one to resort to when all else fails. The fact that some men use violence against women as a first resource makes the use of violent tactics for the rest of us unnecessary in order to maintain control. In other words, men who rape or batter women do the dirty work for us; they are the terrorists whose acts keep the entire population of women in fear and in line. All women must make internal and external adjustments for the pervasive threat of battering, rape, and other forms of physical control. All women must constrict their lives, whether it be by not going out at night, not talking back to men, or not developing certain potentials for fear of arousing male disapproval or of disrupting the family. When we look at violence against women as a part of the system of male rule, we see that it serves many critical functions to keep this system going. Violence against women creates the physical, psychological, and economic conditions which perpetuate male privilege and men’s power over women. Since all men profit from these societal circumstances, by association we all share responsibility for them. These male privileges include greater freedom of movement as well as greater freedom economic opportunities and status. They also include entitlement to free domestic, emotional, and sexual caretaking from women, which enable us to choose both career and family. Moreover, we have the prerogative to verbally and physically “lose control” with little or no legal or social accountability, as well as to state opinions forcefully, demand attention from women, and have the last word. We have greater access to social and political institutions (such as medicine, law, psychology, art, government, religion, science, and history) which define reality, encode knowledge, set human standards, and shape our lives. We cannot be innocent about these privileges. They are our culture and we use them because they are there. If violence against women is to end, we men must be willing to identify and end our investment in this system, which supports men at the expense of women. The issue for us to look at is not whether but how we are sexist, and to what extent are we working to change ourselves and our institutions. But when the issue of rape or battering is raised, male defensiveness creates severe hearing and learning impairment in men. When masculinity is challenged, we sometimes expend great amounts of energy defending ourselves personally rather the using the opportunity to learn and grow. When we disassociate ourselves from rape or battery, we are relying on the men who commit these acts to make us look better by comparison. When we proclaim our innocence like this, we not only deny that all men are on the same continuum of controlling behavior toward women, but we deprive the men who are most violent of our contact and any positive influence we might exert. Our attempts to be seen as different deny our common complicity and collective responsibility for change. Mere silence and personal disclaimers are not enough, however. We must speak out, both publicly and privately, against the abuse of women. We most especially need to take these stands in the company of other men. We must work together to awaken ourselves and each other.

At this point I want to consider an objection that might be formulated as follows: “Why should we take seriously the conceptual distinctions noted above? [We force boys and men into limited roles and put social straightjackets on them.] So why not call it oppression?” I believe that the price one pays for ignoring such differences is enormous. If we conflate alienation through privilege and alienation through oppression, then we have to say that slave owner and the slave are both oppressed, and that Hitler and his Jewish victims were both oppressed. Such claims are an abuse of language. They ignore the very different social realities that the oppressor and the oppressed experience. To blur this distinction serves the oppressor − it minimizes the differences, it mystifies the social realities. Finally, I want to mention just a few of the political consequences of this perspective. If men are indeed alienated and exploited, we should expect that men’s organizations concerned with social change will try to lessen our alienation (by widening the acceptable ways of being masculine) and our exploitation (by bringing about a chance of economic structure or by joining the owning class). If we try to build a [separate] movement analogous to the women’s movement we will fall because such a movement is not based on our social reality. We cannot be a liberation movement in the sense of a movement that must overthrow [a structure that oppresses us]. If we persist in misidentifying aspects of our lives as “oppressive”, we will not only offend members of truly oppressed groups, but we will be trying to rid ourselves of costs without giving up the privileges and powers that they purchase, which seems doubly reactionary to me. I believe that men can be revolutionary, by focusing on the clearly identified structures that oppress racial groups, women, religious groups, groups with certain physical abilities, and sexual minorities. To serve the struggles we must choose an analysis of that oppression and act upon it, even if it means giving up the comforting position that “we too are oppressed.” Kenneth Clatterbaugh, Changing Men Winter 1986: 17-18. Distributed by the Saint Cloud Chapter

Ω

Text adapted from David Adams; distributed by the Saint Cloud Chapter of BrotherPeace.

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There are two major reasons for this “Don’t-look-at-me” attitude. The first is that because consciousness about rape, battering, and sexism in general has slowly been raised among liberal men, we have learned to be more circumspect in our public statements. Sexism has gone underground in certain quarters. We have learned to clean up our outward manifestations of sexism so as not to disrupt our relationships with women or diminish our reputations as social progress-sives. Some go as far as to proclaim a permanent cure from sexism. This type of claim is similar to the popular tendency for white progressives to deny racist attitudes, as if it were possible to be white and non-racist in our culture. Likewise, since being called “sexist” is not particularly appealing to some men, they find it convenient to assure women (and sometimes, themselves) that they are “not like the others” and can offer a safe harbor from sexist or violent men. The second reason is that many men are simply unaware, or only partially aware, of the ways in which everyone is affected by men’s violence against women; even women who are not victims are harmed, and even men who are not violent reap the benefits, regardless of how many personal changes these men have made. The belief “I am not violent,” even if true, does not imply “This isn’t relevant to me,” because violence plays a critical role in the maintenance of male power and privilege, virtually all men are implicated in it. The rape and battering of women are far too pervasive for us to continue to see them as random, isolated acts committed by deviant or particularly sexist men. When we see these men in such a way, we overlook the fact that they are wittingly or unwittingly following the rules of a male-dominated society. As with instruments in an orchestra, it is easiest to pick out those that are loudest and most out of sync. We instinctively assume that the musician is misplaying rather than that the discordant notes have been written into the music. Likewise, though men who rape or abuse women may sound loudest and most atypical, they are part of the unified male orchestra. Violence against women is but one instrument of male control over women. Coercive forms of control such as angry outbursts, intimidation, and the withholding of feelings or approval may have similar results, but their effectiveness ultimately depends on the 12 existence of physical forms of control. Violence against women is

WOMAN BATTERERS: THE SINS OF OUR BROTHER Mention of violence against women, whether it be in everyday conversation or in a public forum, arouses a wide range of responses from men, from outright support to overt condemnation, with many more subtle tones in between. The common male responses to rape and battering reflect characteristic male attitudes toward women. These attitudes create the social context in which acts of violence occur. Although overt male sanction for the rape and battering of women (which exists at both individual and institutional levels) still poses the most obvious barrier to eradication, many male responses are more subtle and consequently more difficult to challenge. This more insidious male justification of violence against women is gradually replacing the familiar sexist responses of many men. Specifically, this response is increasingly characteristic of the attitude of leftist, liberated, and professional men. In its clearest form, this general response is: “Why are you talking to me? I’m not a rapist or batterer.” In some contexts this “Don’t-look-at-me” response is most often disguised behind less direct language. The following statements are more subtle versions of this denial/avoidance, with the unstated implications in parenthesis:       

“It’s too bad some of the other (primarily more sexist) men couldn’t be here to hear this.” “I don’t understand men who do that to women.” (I would never think of it.) “Men who rape or batter must be sick!” (They are very different from me.) “It makes me sick to hear it!” (I don’t want to hear this.) “I don’t believe in violence of any kind.” (I’m different. This isn’t relevant to me.) (From the professional clinician:) “These men obviously exhibit poor impulse control and low frustration tolerance.” (They’re deviant, atypical, unaware, etc.) (Speaking and battering:) “I think we have to look at the entire family system with these types of problems.” (what did she do to provoke him?)

What’s stated or implied in all these responses is a total disassociation of oneself from the problem and a denial of individual male complicity in violence against women. In other words, rape and battering are seen as problems which exist “out there” in the world; or as isolated random acts which bear no relevance to me as a man except to confirm that I’m different. The speaker of these statements is asking: “But what does this really have to do with me?” Ω