Mens’ Issues
February 4, 2010Samantha Bee on The Daily Show did a segment tonight on mens’ advocacy. To represent the issue, she dragged out aged, crazy academic-provocateur Warren Farrell to make the dumb statement that mens’ situation today is akin to womens’ in the 1950′s. But Bee’s response was deeply problematic; in a nutshell, she argues that because males occupy the top positions of worldly power, all men should shut up and accept their traditional gender roles (i.e. violent, disposable, hierarchist, stoic, unreflective, etc.). To that end, she bullies some innocuous hippies: “Vagina men! Sack up! You’re turning me into a lesbian!” If that’s what passes for a comic opinion on the topic, then Farrell is right: mens’ issues are very poorly understood by the general public.
[...] written before about gender from the male perspective. In general, I am cynical of the view of gender relations promoted in [...]
[...] very homosocial rituals that Dworkin castigates are the bulwark against this outcome. People like Samantha Bee, who speak in terms of “sacking up” and beam contempt at innocuous instances of homosociality, [...]