Another Gender Thing, Or What the Heck Is Male Bonding Anyways

[debka_notion]

During learning tonight, Steve, wotyfree and I had a discussion about how we speak about the opposite sex. The starting point was the combination of looking at the curses to Eve in Genesis 3:16 and comparing with Genesis 4:7 (might be verse 6- it's the warning G-d gives to Cain), and thinking about gender, sexuality and sin. From there, things came around to my mention of being at Steve's for shabbos dinner a few weeks ago and his roommates making some comments in front of me that were quite objectifying to women, without thinking about it at all. After some discussion, he insisted that making objectifying comments about women, particularly sexual comments relating to their appearance, was a frequent and necessary piece of male bonding. I objected- there must be some way for men to bond without being derogatory to women, right?

But it has set me to thinking about how I speak about men (I'm generally pretty uncomfortable discussing men's appearance in general, although I will mention that someone is attractive, if it's relevant- I find the notion of saying more than that very uncomfortable in the vast majority of situations. I wonder if that's just me.), and how one can discuss appearance without objectifying the person about whom one is speaking.

Even more so, it is pushing me to consider how men are and are not reached by feminism, and how I'm supposed to react to that. It is becoming more and more clear that the way that feminism reaches women is different from the way that it reaches men, and how complex that relationship can be. It troubles me, but I feel clueless about how to treat the issue.

Comments

[lordameth.livejournal.com]

I tried writing up a response.. all sorts of things came to mind that I wanted to say. But I failed to really express myself properly, and I realized that - particularly in light of this being a difficult or touchy subject - it would be really easy to have my words misconstrued. So I erased it all.

Let me just say that I think you're absolutely right that, for the most part, feminism reaches women in a very different form than it reaches men.

I think that the issues at hand - both the problem that feminism seeks to address and the solution it seeks to bring about - are very difficult if not impossible to express in words. You either get it or you don't.

It operates on a level of experience, of atmosphere, and of feelings which just can't be quite explained by words.. like looking at the world through different prisms. It's like the feeling you get about a certain place - all the things it reminds you of, the emotional or deeper feeling and atmosphere of a place, which is something quite personal and which cannot be explained in words so much as it must be experienced. A place where you feel you belong may feel like a rather unwelcoming place to me, just because of who we are, our experiences, our backgrounds. Feminism is like that in some ways.

And it does come to us differently, because while you may have been given a positive image of womanhood by the encouragement and nurturing of your mother, your sisters, your girlfriends, as you slowly came to understand feminism over the course of growing up, we for the most part have only experienced feminism as a negative image of manhood, experienced by us through the criticism of sisters, friends, girlfriends...

There absolutely are things a guy can read to understand it better, and ways in which a woman can explain it better to a guy, but... yeah, it does come to us differently, we do perceive it differently, and much like the way you and I have different experiences of what Judaism means to us, or what being American means to us, so too do we have different ideas of what "feminism" means.

I should like to think I have "come around" as it were, as the result of many conversations (and reading of LJ posts, etc) with friends like you, and as the result of a particular seminar I took this past term in which I was the only guy in the room, and the professor and most of my classmates were strong feminists, but approached everything in an encouraging and non-confrontational manner... But it took that very particular and special environment to nurture a certain attitude and understanding in me about gender, and feminism.

It's something we each need to come to understand for ourselves, I think, perhaps, with the proper gentle pushes in the right direction. Men in our society for the most part don't tend to get raised with the right ideas being put into our heads vis-a-vis these matters - and we don't gain it on our own from our personal experiences as a woman, on account of not being a woman - and so it takes that much more effort and time to come around.

I hope that none of this comes across as critical of you. It's not intended as such, at all, and I hope you don't take it that way. I think you're more thoughtful about these kinds of things than a lot of people, and I thank you for gently pushing me to think about it too.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

You've put your finger right on the problem- that men so often experience feminism as a case of "you oppress us, you're bad", rather than as a way of reinvisioning both women's and men's interaction with each other. Really, I want a way of framing respect for people's people-ness regardless of their gender, their and your sexuality/attraction, and anyone's need to have a same and an other. Having self vs. other is a very powerful distinction, and I think that trying to ignore it (the "women are just like men, women can and should do Exactly the same things that men do" school of thought) is damaging for everyone- but there's a difference between perceiving other-ness and Othering and going from that to objectifying.

The problem is, as a woman, how do I talk about this stuff to men without it being more of the same preachy "you have privilege and use it to hurt me, therefore I'm angry and want to get back at you by taking your power" stuff that may or may not be true (I think it's a rather complex claim either way), but doesn't communicate well, much less gain allies.

[lordameth.livejournal.com]

This is one of the key difficulties. We can't escape who we are.. and every time we address a topic like this, we do so as a woman, or as a man, or as a representative of the colonized, or of the colonizer (I took a whole course on Orientalism this term...). It's unescapeable, and it makes things difficult, because whoever you're talking to will take it a certain way based on the fact that you're female (or male, or white or black or whatever).

There was a great quote in one of my readings a few weeks back. Ah, here it is. "Thus, to speak openly of the repressed question of gender is to confirm the dominant culture's worst suspicions that, if women are allowed to speak, all they can speak of is (their) sex." - Griselda Pollock, "Differencing the Canon (http://www.amazon.com/Differencing-Canon-Feminist-Histories-Revisions/dp/0415067006)" p25.

To be honest, I still have weird feelings about the word "feminism".. but I think of it as "gender studies". This helps break down the Self/Other barrier of the association of feminism with female superiority or male inferiority, and the various stereotypes of feminists. At least it does for me. "Gender Studies", hypothetically at least, incorporates all kinds of gender relations and gender issues, including issues of manliness and masculinity, and issues of "performing" gender (the ways in which we act 'feminine' or 'masculine' in order to maintain a normative position in society, not being seen as strange, i.e. a butch tomboy or a sissy girlyman).

I wish I could offer you suggestions for how to talk about this stuff with guys (guys who aren't already open to the ideas) without it seeming preachy, and without triggering defense mechanisms. It's something I guess I'll have to keep thinking about.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Well, the term "feminism" is too narrow for what I really want. But "Gender studies" is an academic discipline (and one that often fascinates me), not a statement of one's actual views. What I need, really, is a term that talks about having positive views of both genders, and freedom for both while still respecting the notion of gender roles. I don't know what such a term would be, though.

The guy I was talking with was willing to listen, I just wasn't finding language that opened the issue up for him in a way that made sense. However, he and I have had other discussions about gender, and it often takes us a couple of times to really hear and understand each other. I imagine that it will eventually come up again, and then perhaps I'll have better fortune.

It's stuff that takes a long time to sink in. A lot of it seemed obvious and not worthy of notice to me for a long time, and then in the last couple of years, I started really noticing how different things are for men and women, and where those differences are unfortunate and problematic rather than just different- and how often that seems to be the case.

[shirei-shibolim.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I'm extremely uncomfortable talking with male friends about the relative attractiveness of female friends. I'm pretty sure this was true before I was married. My idea of "male bonding" tends to involve building a fire together or something like that.

And also...

[wotyfree.livejournal.com]

...I think he actually had a fairly good point that we don't have the social experience of being men and that I shouldn't trivialize it based on what I imagine without actually listening to men.

I'm not sure what to make of that.

Re: And also...

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

That is some of what I'm trying to get at, in terms of trying to understand the situation. But at the same time, I feel like there can also be different standards for what's acceptable between things that are a little less than PC, and things that really objectify someone else and make them uncomfortable. Expressing appreciation for appearance is one thing (even to the point of "Gee, he/she is really hot", not that I'd say that), while expressing it only in sexual terms (what was the expression he cited- "I'd hit that"?) sounds very different, to me.

Still, I very much sympathize with his need for explicitly male forms of male bonding and male space. I recognize the importance of that. However, I still want to believe that men can find truly male space and expression without being derogatory towards women. But they have to want to, and how they find that they should want to- that I don't know. I encounter the same problem with women in regards to men, occasionally, and that bothers me too- but then I can say something without being regarded as just being a silly woman, you know?

[(Anonymous)]

long time lurker, first time commenter: It could also be that we are all post-feminists now. I grew up with the understanding that women could be equal in the work force, could make decisions about family structure, kids, roles to play, etc. I'm not a feminist. I'm an unreconstructed paleolithic male, who is totally comfortable with women in non-traditional roles (in the workplace and family space, that is, I'm also quite traditional in terms of religious roles).

So, male bonding may involve comments objectifying women (never wives or girlfriends, sisters are fair game). And why not? As long as I treat women as subjects (in the I/thou sense) in actual work/family/social interactions, why shouldn't I occasionally ogle a woman or discuss her charms with friends? Now, you may say that it's impossible to do both, but I'll disagree with that.

[debka-notion.livejournal.com]

Welcome, long time lurker (do I know you?). The thing is, to me at least, the whole post-feminist thing feels like a trap to keep me from noticing how many things are still majorly problematic- the wage gap is still substantial, men often have a hard time getting parental leave, studies have shown that in couples where both husband and wife work full time jobs, the wife still does the Vast majority of the housework, and men are culturally permitted to talk about women in ways that women are not permitted to talk about men.

Can you appreciate a woman's appearance, and even discuss it, and then interact with her without that influencing your behavior? I wouldn't doubt that you can, on occasion. But does your looking at women in that manner eventually affect the way you subconsciously view women in general? That's where I get worried. Also- seriously and thoughtfully try to reverse the situation. How would you feel if you were walking down the street, knowing that women you encounter were discussing having sex with you purely based on your appearance?