Men and Feminism: Seal Studies by Shira Tarrant

Author:Shira Tarrant [Tarrant, Shira]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Published: 2009-05-12T04:00:00+00:00

Hey, What’s in That Guy’s Knapsack?

Masculine privilege lends men access to power, which has a serious impact on gender equality. Some forms of injustice, such as sexual assault or pay inequity, are obvious and concrete. Other instances of bias are damaging precisely because they’re so hard to pinpoint. Masculine privilege is buttressed by a sexism that runs so deep through our collective psyches that, as Shulamith Firestone suggests, biased sex and gender divisions are practically invisible. These invisible practices easily go unnoticed until somebody calls them out.

When little boys are encouraged to be more active or are allowed to get dirtier than girls when they play, there is subtle yet profound gender construction at hand in which boys learn to exercise a greater range of motion and physicality. Most pronouns used for God are masculine (His, Him, Father), and most visual images for God are male. The pronoun “guys” may, without question, refer to a group of both men and women, but referring to that same group as “girls” is an unacceptable alternative.

Men can walk relatively freely through the world without fear of sexual harassment and rape (unless they are young boys, are gay, are incarcerated, or visibly deviate from gender norms). Men can assume people will listen when they talk, and they don’t generally struggle to make their voices heard (although this may not necessarily be true in a mixed-race group of men). Men don’t usually have to worry that if they are aggressive or opinionated they will be condemned or called a “bitch.”

If you can show up for class in jeans and a T-shirt and feel pretty sure you won’t be criticized for not wearing makeup, chances are you are the recipient of masculine privilege. Same goes if you are expected to spend little money on beauty and hygiene products. (Just for kicks, ask your female and male friends how many products they used this morning before they left their houses. Then do the math and figure out how much money men saved. These savings are the result of gendered beauty and consumer expectations.) Because we are surrounded by examples of gender privilege and bias every day, we become used to them. If we notice it at all, masculine privilege can seem normal or natural.

Feminist and antiviolence activist Ben Atherton-Zeman comments, “Heterosexual men listen to songs all about how our gender is the victim of female manipulation and heartbreak. But in reality, my gender exists with a privilege that’s invisible. We’re safer on the streets, safer at work, safer in our homes. We make more money than women do, see our faces more on television, and are represented by leaders that look like us.”

Men can take for granted that they’re the norm, the standard bearers. Guys—especially straight, white, able-bodied guys—can be pretty sure that when they see the front page of the newspaper, flip through the sports section, or meet their tenured physics professor, the faces they see will look a lot like their own. And when those

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