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February
I) “Do We Need Men’s Studies...History Is
Men’s Studies, Right?”
Excerpts from Does
Feminism Discriminate Against
Men? A debate by Warren Farrell
“Feminists call it sexism to refer to God
as He; they don’t call it sexism to refer to
the Devil as He.” Warren Farrell
Women’s studies courses are the seeds from
which the forest of feminism has grown. Over 30,000
courses are offered at American universities,
including about 700 majors or minors. A study at 55
major universities found that every Ivy League
school, with the exception of Princeton, “now
offers more courses in women’s studies than
economics, even though economics majors outnumber
women’s studies majors by roughly
10-to-1.”
In contrast, there are virtually no men’s
studies courses. The few courses labeled
“men’s studies” are rarely genuine
men’s studies, but feminist men’s
studies. Feminist men’s studies’ courses
tell men how they can forfeit power, be less
abusive toward women, share the housework... In
feminist men’s studies, when men have a
disadvantage it is seen as men’s fault.
Whether that disadvantage is dying sooner;
committing suicide more; doing worse in almost
everything in school; being less likely to attend
college; paying for children they can see only as
“visitors” after divorce; being more
likely to be in prison; male-only draft
registration; dying sooner of nine of the ten
leading causes of death; suffering 94% of workplace
deaths; being more of the street homeless than
women and children combined. That is, in feminist
studies, women’s disadvantages are often seen
as men’s fault; and in feminist men’s
studies, men’s disadvantages are seen as
men’s fault.
Many women’s studies departments have
become gender studies’ departments, but also
only in theory. The male perspective is not dealt
with—only the feminist perspective on men.
Feminists teaching the men’s perspective on
men and calling it gender studies is like
Republicans teaching Democrats’ perspective on
Democrats and calling it party politics. Just as it
is true that no has less empathy for Democrats than
Republican activists (or vice versa), so it is also
true that no one has less empathy for men than
feminist activists. Feminists call it sexism to
refer to God as He; they don’t call it sexism
to refer to the Devil as He.
Women’s studies in its current form is not
women’s studies—it is feminist studies. A
genuine women’s studies would involve the
views of not just liberal women, but also of
conservative women (e.g., Independent Women’s
Forum; Eagle Forum). Every study of gender should
include four perspectives: those of both liberal
and conservative women, and those of both liberal
and conservative men. Gender studies now studies
only liberal women’s view of women’s
powerlessness, and liberal women’s perspective
on male power. It doesn’t look at liberal or
conservative men’s view of male powerlessness,
or liberal or conservative men’s view of
female power.
What, pray tell, is female power and male
powerlessness? For starters, from the male
perspective, many women have male-paralyzing beauty
power, sexual power, verbal skills and victim
power, even as he is paralyzed by his biological
instinct to protect women.
As a result of the inattention to male
powerlessness and female power, men are as ignorant
about their own powerlessness and female power as
women in the
1950’s were about their own powerlessness
and male power. And as a result, men today are
psychologically about where women were in the
1950’s. The last half century has not been
a battle of the sexes, but a war in which only one
side has shown up. Men have put their heads in the
sand and hoped the bullets would miss. The less
sense this makes now, the more you need genuine
men’s studies.
The feminist objection to genuine men’s
studies sounds convincing: “history is
men’s studies.” Wrong. History is the
opposite of men’s studies: history books
reinforce the traditional male role of
performer. The function of both women and
men’s studies is to question traditional
roles, not reinforce them. Women had to question
the assumption that they must do the child-raising
and couldn’t do the money raising. Men need to
question the assumption that they must do the money
raising and can’t do the child-raising.
Women’s studies is necessary to help women
see clear alternatives to traditional roles;
men’s studies is necessary to help men see
clear alternatives to traditional roles. Men’s
studies is currently needed more than women’s
studies exactly because men’s role has been
less-questioned.
History books, by celebrating men only when they
perform, trap men into stereotyped roles even more
than they trap women, because when we celebrate and
appreciate someone for playing a role, we are
really bribing them to keep playing that role.
Appreciation keeps the slave a slave..
Men’s studies is not for men only. It would
help both sexes understand dad: why dads are so
often afraid to express feelings; why, when dad
becomes 85, he is more than 13 times as likely to
commit suicide as mom; why he is more likely to
suffer from problems with alcoholism and gambling;
why, after divorce, he often feels the children
have been turned against him and the courts have
turned him into a wallet.
Because half of the children’s genes is
their dad’s genes, as men’s studies helps
students understand their dad, it helps them to
understand the half of themselves that is their
dad. Men’s studies, therefore, does not
merely change the student’s relationship to
her or his dad, but the student’s relationship
to her or himself. The corollary is that when
women’s studies portrays men as the dominant
oppressors, and the abusers, molesters and rapists,
it leaves women and men feeling shamed about the
half of themselves that is their dad-- and, for
men, the 100% that is male.
Men’s studies helps every future mom raise
her son more effectively, and to raise her daughter
to learn empathy toward men. Her daughter’s
empathy is eventually extended toward that
daughter’s sons. In contrast, a women’s
studies-only approach toward men leaves her
daughter with antipathy toward men that can become
antipathy toward her sons.
Men’s studies helps both sexes understand
all the problems men deal with as a result of a
heritage that made men able to be loved and
respected only if they were able to kill animals,
kill in war, or make a killing on Wall Street. It
helps both sexes understand all the problems that I
discuss throughout this book. Without men’s
studies, gender studies misunderstands not just
gender but also women, in the same way that if
party politics studied only one party, it would
misunderstand not just party politics as a whole,
but also the party it favors.
Men’s studies is not the opposite of
women’s studies. It doesn’t say women had
rights and men didn’t. It explains that none
of our grandparents had rights—they had
responsibilities. They had obligations. Making
money was about not about male power and privilege,
but about male obligations and responsibilities.
Men who fulfilled their responsibilities most
effectively received female love. Men who failed
received female contempt.
Men’s studies does not say women have the
power and women oppress men. It helps us understand
that neither sex had the right to play the role of
the other sex, and therefore, if power is control
over our lives, neither sex had power. For example,
most dads prior to the early 20th Century had to
forfeit any fantasy of becoming a writer, artist or
musician to get paid enough to feed a family of
ten. Working as a coal miner was not power. Pay was
about the power dad forfeited to get the power of
pay—the power to have his children live a
better life than his. Men’s studies helps both
sexes understand why, instead of power, both sexes
had roles. And to understand that by definition a
role cannot be power—again, because real power
is control over one’s own life. Instead, a
role implies outside forces have control of
one’s life.
Men’s studies explains why, in the past,
the dominant force was neither men nor women, but
the need to survive. And why the
“oppressor” was neither men nor women,
but the fear of starvation.
If close to a half century of women’s
studies without men’s studies had only given
us an understanding of women while neglecting men,
the problem would be easily solvable: create
balance with a half century of men’s studies
without women’s studies. But after a half
century, feminism is part of our nation’s
consciousness like syrup in a pancake: even if it
we attempted removal, the pancake is forever
reshaped. For example, who doesn’t believe
that men earn more money for the same work, or that
men batter women more than women batter men, or
that women do two jobs while men do one? These
beliefs have created a deep-seated anger toward men
and have resulted in policies like affirmative
action extended to women, and women-only
scholarships. Of course, if these beliefs were
true, anger would be warranted. In this colume,
I’ll explain why none of the above is
true.
© 2010, Warren
Farrell (with Steven Svoboda) vs. James P.
Sterba
* * *
Man is not the enemy here, but the fellow
victim. - Betty Friedan
Warren
Farrell, Ph.D., is the author of numerous
international best-sellers on men and women,
including Why
Men Are The Way They Are
and The
Myth of Male Power.
Women
Can't Hear What Men Don't
Say was a
Book-of-the-Month Club selection and
Father
and Child Reunion has
led to Dr. Farrell doing expert witness work that
has encouraged many judges to keep dads in
children’s lives. Dr. Farrell’s released
Why
Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay
Gap and What Women Can Do About
It in 2005 and
Does
Feminism Discriminate Against
Men? A debate
in 2008.
Warren is the only man in the US
ever elected three times to the Board of Directors
of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in New
York City. He has been chosen by The Financial
Times as one of the world’s top 100
thought leaders, is in Who’s Who in America
and in Who’s Who in the World. He has taught
in five disciplines, most recently at the School of
Medicine at the University of California in San
Diego, and is ranked by the International
Biographic Centre of London as one of the
world’s top 2000 scholars of the Twentieth
Century. He has appeared on over 1,000 TV shows
worldwide and lives in Mill Valley, California with
his wife and two daughters.You can visit him at
www.warrenfarrell.com
or E-Mail
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