For Women to Succeed, Men and Boys Don't Need to Fail
Human Life Is Not a Zero-Sum Game
Know Thyself - Polly Young-Eisendrath on Substack
Leo Cullum, The New Yorker, 1997
When I hear about the masculinity crisis – the crisis of American men who feel adrift and anxious -- I think about my son, my step-son, and my grandsons. I have heard them all speak about not knowing how they “fit in” because they do not feel welcome in many educational, social, and on-line settings. They are anxious and confused about how to speak about their desires, wishes, and needs without being stereotyped or made fun of. From my own experience, I know that young men are not going to college or into professions in representative numbers. Undergraduate college populations are now only about 40% male. Medical and legal professions are female majority, also. I notice the absence of male leadership in the professional organizations that I belong to. With declines in demographics and dire predictions for university and graduate school enrollments, I wonder if institutions of higher education should hire Dr. Jordan Peterson as a brand consultant.
Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson frequently speaks on his podcast and in person about the masculinity crisis. My son and grandson are Canadian. Anywhere Peterson speaks, he is thronged by masses of young men who rarely appear elsewhere except at sporting events. While I don’t agree with everything Peterson says, I think he inspires young men to focus on responsibility-taking, challenges, and reality-testing. He neatly reframes “toxic masculinity” into taking pride in their own agency, responsibility, and meeting their own goals. The notion of “toxic masculinity” assumes that aggressiveness, violence, dominance and pushiness are features of male people and their behaviors. Toxic masculinity, then, is seen as a symptom of dysfunction due to suppressed femininity: being unable to feel or express dependency needs, vulnerability, or weakness. I have always objected to sorting out genders (or any other human features) in terms of opposing stereotypes. Peterson’s analysis of masculinity deftly transforms the idea of toxic masculinity into meaningful ideals that young men can embrace.
In my young adulthood, I became a feminist, and then a feminist theorist and writer, because, believe it or not, I was part of the Black Power movement in the early 1970s. I lived in Greensboro, North Carolina and worked at A&T State University (Black-majority university) and had a lot of friends who were connected to “Malcolm X University.” My husband at the time (my children’s father) taught at Bennett College, an elite Black women’s college.
Through participating in the Black Power movement, I learned the useful skill of converting “internalized inferiority” into strength and pride. Features of Black identity that had been stereotyped by racists were transformed — especially through the influence of Huey P. Newton — into strength and self-esteem. Black Power made sense to me as a liberation movement that addressed both internalized inferiority and social issues of racism. In regard to the women’s movement at that time, I didn’t believe in the burn-your-bra style of feminism that seemed to me to be a bunch of bourgeois white women complaining about having to do housework. I don’t view Betty Friedan that way anymore, but I did back then.
Don Hogan Charles, NYT Co., Getty Images
Then in 1973, I heard Shirley Chisholm campaigning to be President of the United States, addressing the students at Bennett College. She was the first Black candidate for a major-party nomination for President of the United States; she was running for the Democratic Party’s nomination. In 1968 she had become the first Black woman to be elected to the US Congress. She was thoughtful, well-informed, and very intelligent -- doing the same thing Jordan Peterson does now. She converted internalized inferiority into identity strengths and potentials for development. She did this for both Black Power and the women’s movement. She pointed to the lack of opportunities for women to enter into higher education and professions and the economic oppression of women, as well as new potentials that had opened up with family planning (contraception) as women began to imagine having both careers and children. Wow. She converted me to becoming a feminist in that speech. I began to read and study and look at the realities of women being stereotyped and overlooked.
Being an equal opportunity feminist, I never imagined or wanted men and boys to lose out on identity, opportunities, self-esteem or contributions to society through feminism. I only wanted women and girls to have equal opportunities, equal protection under the laws, and the right to speak for themselves using the pronouns of “she” and “her” to refer to their bodies, lives, and roles. Then we could join men and boys in solving the problems that human beings face. That’s why I became a feminist and it is still what I mean by the term.
Human life is not a power game in which one person’s success is another person’s loss. As humans, we can change our minds, grow in our capacity to understand and help each other, and gain in knowledge about how to respect our differences. Because we are fallible and impermanent, our problems do not end here on earth. We don’t run the place, but we live here and we need to work together. We don’t need to be like the dogs in the cartoon: men and boys do not have to lose in order for girls and women to succeed. Drop any stereotypes that guide you in that direction. Open your mind to the possibilities of succeeding by embracing our differences. Listen to Jordan Peterson and read about Shirley Chisholm. Let’s welcome our sons, grandsons, brothers, partners, fathers and friends back into leadership, higher education, and problem-solving!
